Over
recent years both mainstream Hollywood and independent film have increasingly
politicized the transgressive body. Complex, humorous and often sympathetic
representations of otherwise deviant sexualities have become a staple of film
across a diverse range of genres. Film has engaged in ambivalent ways with
issues such as paedophilia (The Woodsman
[Kassell, 2004], Little Children
[Field, 2006], Happiness [Solondz,
1998], Sleepers [Levinson, 1996], Mysterious Skin [Araki, 2004], Notes on a Scandal [Eyre, 2006], Trust [Schwimmer, 2010]), cross-generational
love and desire among adults (The Mother
[Michell, 2003], Elegy [Coixet,
2008]), agentic teen bodies (Thirteen [Hardwicke,
2003], Pretty Persuasion [Siega,
2005], Hard Candy [Slade, 2005], The Babysitters [Ross, 2007], sex
addiction (Shame [McQueen, 2011],
BDSM (Secretary [Shainberg, 2002]),
vengeful bodies (Teeth [Lichtenstein,
2007]) and necrophilia (Child of God
[Franco, 2013]. Following on from important critical work on ‘deviant’
sexualities and the transgressive body, this book will focus on Anglo-American
film over the last 20 years and explore transgressive bodies in their socio-political
and cultural context, paying particular attention to:
The feminist/gendered implications of cross-generational desire
Sympathetic/humorous constructions of paedophilia and resistance to moral panic discourses
Excessive bodies in their cultural contexts
Porn/sex addiction and sexualization discourses
Intimacy, technology and digital sexual selves/disembodied sexualities
Representations of prostitutes, strippers and sex workers
Sex after death: necrophilia, eroticism and the supernatural
Vengeful bodies (rape revenge narratives)
Sex, disability, disfigurement and contagion
Bodies, ethics and boundaries (students/teachers, doctors/patients)
Teen bodies, agency and spectatorship
Vanity and extreme body modification