Has Feminism Caused a Wrinkle on the Face of Hollywood Cinema?
A Tentative Appraisal of the 90s
The short answer to whether feminist ideas have infiltrated into mainstream Hollywood film
is -- somewhat, perhaps. The longer has to rely on recognizing the constraints of the industry, on
agreeing on some idea of what feminism is, on what would be considered a feminist representation,
and on how to assess influence. This is not an easy task considering the harsh market reality of
Hollywood, the indeterminate meanings of art, and the difficulties we as feminists have had in
defining unified goals of the movement.
One of the key problems blocking women
=
s visibility in Hollywood cinema arises from the
economic constraints particular to the movie industry since the ascendance of television
B
making
any feminist expectations more difficult to achieve in cinema than on television. TV series play in
and for the domestic scene, using their potential for close up psychological realism that thrives on
continuity and no closure (Newcomb 1984), experimenting with forms of everyday life in various
genres and gradually building up viewers
=
constituencies. Hollywood blockbusters, on the other
hand, have to drag people out of their houses, away from the everyday screen, and to sell seats round
the globe, often to viewers who would rather watch a chase or a shoot out than listen to words or,
worse, read the subtitles (McChesney, 1999). Trapped into producing grand, panoramic, larger than
life, action movies -- at the forefront of crime, war and/or science -- since television made its way
into American homes, Hollywood has eschewed traditionally female forms such as family
melodrama or simply dramatic films in favor of those which showcase film
=
s ability to create
spectacles through its ever-developing technological capacities. Partly these financial realities, and
partly the mindset of film executives that biases them against imagining the female film audience, or
recognizing women
=
s decision-making power as consumers, means that film roles for women and
Page 1 of 34 
Convention