Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema »

Working Girls investigates the thematic concerns of contemporary Hollywood cinema, and its ambivalent articulation of women as both active, and defined by sexual performance, asking whether new Hollywood cinema has responded to feminism and contemporary sexual identities.
Whether analysing the rise of films centred around female friendships, or the entrance of pop stars such as Whitney Houston and Madonna into film, Working Girls is an authoritative investigation of the presence of women both as film makers and actors in contemporary mainstream cinema.

Booknews

Tasker (film and cultural studies, U. of Sunderland) investigates contemporary cinema's complex relationship with gender and sexual identities in the wake of feminism, and explores four versions of the working woman common in Hollywood films--spunky heroines of action movies, female police and FBI agents, the singer as movie star, and sharp-shooting cowgirls of the new Westerns. She also discusses the increasing prominence of women as producers and directors. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.