92 | Sight&Sound | May 2020BOOKS
SHE FOUND IT
AT THE MOVIESWomen Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema
Edited by Christina Newland, Red Press, 224pp,
ISBN 9781912157181
Reviewed by Nikki Baughan
Like many of the contributors
to She Found It at the Movies, the
intoxicating new collection of
essays from female and non-
binary writers about sex, desire
and cinema, I can pinpoint the
exact moment I fell head over
heels for cinema. One rainy
Sunday, aged 16, I revelled in
an accidental double-bill of Tank Girl (1995) and
Gone with the Wind (1939). I’d rented the former
after being lured by the pulpy swagger of the VHS
cover, and the latter simply popped up on BBC2.
The uncompromising punk of Rachel Talalay’s
comedy action film and the sweeping majesty
of Victor Fleming’s 1939 romance epic were
like nothing I had seen before. I was hooked.this nuanced, sensitive subject. Divided
into sections – ‘Innocence and Experience’,
‘Fantasy and Danger’, ‘Our Bodies, Our Selves’,
and ‘The Female Gaze’ – the book mines the
broad spectrum of female desire, straight and
queer, and how it is shaped by, and responds
to, cinematic notions of sex and desire.
This isn’t a simple indulging of the ‘female
gaze’, although there are brilliant pieces on
teenage crushes and the joy of the ogle. “I will
never forget how I felt about River Phoenix in
1993,” writes Pamela Hutchinson in ‘Death Cults
and Matinee Idols’, an insightful study of grieving
for a film star as an adolescent rite of passage.
“Gene Kelly was the first man I remember being
aware of,” recalls Anna Bogutskaya in ‘Dance
Boy Dance’, a luscious appreciation of the
male form in motion. “He wore short sleeves
and tight white trousers.” All the writers delveI have since come to appreciate that these films
gifted me indelible female characters at a time
when I needed them most. Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett
O’Hara and Lori Petty’s Tank Girl both displayed
an unwavering self-confidence that I, a teenager
struggling in her own skin, could only dream
of. Yet there was something else at play. Like
Scarlett, I swooned over Clark Gable’s swaggering
Southern lothario Rhett Butler; utterly
reprehensible yet totally beguiling. Tank Girl’s
fearlessness, her total disregard for traditional
notions of femininity, were also deeply seductive.
More than two decades later, I struggle to
dovetail these responses with what I know to
be true about myself. How can I, as a liberal
feminist, desire a man like Rhett, who fights
against the abolishment of slavery, fails to
respect Scarlett’s strong-headedness and seems
to care little about notions of consent. And, as a
straight woman, what exactly is my attraction to
Tank Girl? Do I want to be her, or be with her?
Reading the profound, provocative and
deeply personal She Found It at the Movies, I
made the welcome discovery that, despite the
overwhelming blunt maleness of film and film
criticism, a language does exist for exploringSleeping beauty: Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991)Books
Despite the overwhelming blunt
maleness of film and film criticism,
a language does exist for exploring
the nuances of female desire IMAGE: REX FEATURES
Reviewed by Nikkid tld b