International Cinema and the Girl

From the precocious charms of Shirley Temple to the box-office behemoth Frozen and its two young female leads, Anna and Elsa, the girl has long been a figure of fascination for cinema. The symbol of (imagined) childhood innocence, the site of intrigue and nostalgia for adults, a metaphor for the precarious nature of subjectivity itself, the girl is caught between infancy and adulthood, between objectification and power. She speaks to many strands of interest for film studies: feminist questions of cinematic representation of female subjects; historical accounts of shifting images of girls and childhood in the cinema; and philosophical engagements with the possibilities for the subject in film. This collection considers the specificity of girls' experiences and their cinematic articulation through a multicultural feminist lens which cuts across the divides of popular/art-house, Western/non Western, and north/south. Drawing on examples from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, the contributors bring a new understanding of the global/local nature of girlhood and its relation to contemporary phenomena such as post-feminism, neoliberalism and queer subcultures. Containing work by established and emerging scholars, this volume explodes the narrow post-feminist canon and expands existing geographical, ethnic, and historical accounts of cinematic cultures and girlhood.

International Cinema and the Girl (2016), edited by Fiona Handyside and Kate Taylor-Jones, is a welcome and important contribution at the intersection of girls studies and feminist film theory. This is a balanced and exciting collection of essays. The editors have achieved their aim of assembling an impressive collection of essays that reassert the specificity of the girl on screen in her local and individual context, while also attending to the global issues that the films address. (Elspeth Mitchell, Girlhood Studies, Vol. 10 (1), 2017)

Auteur
Fiona Handyside is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.

Kate Taylor-Jones is Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Contenu
Introduction; Fiona Handyside and Kate Taylor-Jones
PART I: GIRLHOOD AND POSTFEMINISM GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

1. The Showgirl Effect: Adolescent Girls and (Precarious) "technologies of sexiness" in Contemporary Italian Cinema; Danielle Hipkins,
2. Girlfriends, Postfeminism, and the European Chick-Flick in France; Mary Harrod
3. Warrior of Love: Japanese Girlhood and Postfeminist Corporeality in Cutie Honey (Hideaki Anno, 2004); Joel Gwynne
   PART II: PHILOSOPHIES OF GIRLHOOD ON FILM
4. Feminine Adolescence and Transgressive Materiality in the Films of Lucrecia Martel; Deborah Martin
5. A Phenomenology of Girlhood: Being Mia in Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009); Lucy Bolton
6. Desire, Outcast: Locating Queer Adolescence; Clara Bradbury-Rance
7. Bye-Bye to Betty's Blues and "La Bonne Meuf": Temporal Drag and Queer Subversions of the Rom-com in Bye Bye Blondie (Virginie Despentes, 2011); Lara Cox
   PART III: SONIC YOUTH: GIRLHOOD, MUSIC, AND IDENTITY
8. "Chica Dificil": Music, Identity, and Agency in Real Women Have Curves (Patricia Cardoso, 2002); Tim McNelis
9. Emotion, Girlhood and Music in Naissance des pieuvres/Water Lilies (Céline Sciamma, 2007) and Un amour de jeunesse/Goodbye, First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011); Fiona Handyside
10. The Pleasures of Music Video Aesthetics in Girl Teen Film; Samantha Colling
    PART IV: EXTRA-ORDINARY GIRLHOODS
11. Where's Girlhood? The Female Child Killer in Where's Mary? (Tony Hickson, 2005); Lisa Downing
12. Performing History: Girlhood and The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf, 1998); Margherita Sprio
13. Girlhood in a Warzone: African Child Soldiers on Film; Kate Taylor-Jones
14. Daddy's Little Sidekick: The Girl Superhero in Contemporary Cinema; Marty Zeller-Jacques