SF movies, was: Delany

From: Ruth Ann Jones (jonesr@pilot.msu.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 07 1997 - 09:08:57 PDT


Thanks for getting us back on track Robin.

>My question is this, can anyone think of sf films they would consider to
>be feminist? The only two I can think of are: 1. Tank Girl, which I loved
>and very few people saw. It has a fabulous cartoon riotgrrl quality,
great
>take-no-shit action heroes for young and old girls alike, not to mention
>the lesbian undertones. 2. The film version of The Handmaid's Tale, which
>I thought was only ok, I appreciate it's a difficult book to film but
>still could have been better. Of course I can postulate some of the
>reasons we see few feministsf movies, hollywood inevitably considers
>young men the primary audience for sf movies. And hollywood sf movies
>are big budget, so particularly there no risks of "alternate" themes or
work >are likely to appear. Is it possible to make good sf on a small
budget for
>the big screen?

Oh, I saw Tank Girl, I loved it!

Other feminist sf films... that's not easy. One of my favorite sf films
from recent years was "Until the End of the World" (1991, directed by Wim
Wenders) which wasn't actively feminist, or even about gender, but at least
 the portrayal of women didn't make me cringe or want to throw things at
the screen. And the idea was extremely cool (it's about the invention of a
camera which records images so that blind people can see them.)

A few days ago someone mentioned Ursula LeGuin's collection of essays
"Dancing at the Edge of the World" which I had just checked out and read
about three pages of at that point. Now I've got a bit further and there's
an essay about her experiences working with a filmmaker to make "The Lathe
of Heaven" into a PBS film. She sounded pretty happy with the result.
Anyone seen this? --I haven't.

--Ruth Ann



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