Screening #MeToo

Book excerpt: Screening #MeToo offers an important and timely discussion of the pervasive nature of rape culture in Hollywood. Essays in the collection examine films released from the 1960s onward, a broad period that coincides with the end of the Motion Picture Production Code in Hollywood, which resulted in more frequent and increasingly graphic images of sex and violence being included in mainstream movies. Focusing on narratives in which surveillance and sexual violence feature prominently, contributors from North America and Europe examine a variety of film genres, including spy films, teen comedies, kitchen sink dramas, coming-of-age stories, rape/revenge films, and horror films. Reflecting the increasing social and academic awareness of sexual violence in Hollywood film and its transmission and cultivation of rape culture in the United States and abroad, they are concerned not only with the content of the films under scrutiny but also with the clear relationship between the stories, how they are being told, and the culture that produced them. Screening #MeToo challenges readers to look at mainstream Hollywood films differently, in light of attitudes about art and power, sexuality and consent, and the pleasures and frustrations of criticizing "entertainment" films from these perspectives.