Uninvited

Lesbian characters, stories, and images were barred from onscreen depiction in Hollywood films from the 1930s to the 1960s together with all forms of 'sex perversion.' Through close readings of gothics, ghost films, and maternal melodramas addressed to female audiences, "Uninvited" argues that viewers were 'invited' to make lesbian 'inferences.' Looking at the lure of some of the great female star personae and at the visual coding of supporting actresses, it identifies lesbian spectatorial strategies. Patricia White, Assistant Professor of English and Film Studies, teaches film and cultural studies at Swarthmore College. Her work has appeared in Screen, The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, and in numerous collections of feminist and lesbian/gay film studies. She is co-editor of a Wide Angle special issue devoted to the work of the feminist film distributor Women make Movies and a member of the editorial collective of Camera Obscura.

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<p>White (Swarthmore College) seeks traces of lesbian desire and difference in the films of the classic era. Since the Production Code forbade even the slightest hint of sexual deviancy, White must engage in a great deal of what she calls retrospectatorship, with somewhat mixed results. She begins by discussing the Code itself; moves on to a discussion of star personae (e.g., Davis, Hepburn, Dietrich, Garbo), the gothic/horror film and maternal melodrama, overt lesbian overtones among supporting players such as McDaniel, Waters, Fitter, McCambridge, and--especially--Moorehead; and closes with a chapter on retrospectatorship. She draws on all of the major figures in feminist film theory, if only to chastise them for ignoring the lesbian spectator. Since White covers much of the same ground that Mary Ann Doane does in The Desire to Desire: The Woman's Films of the 1940s (CH, Oct'87), she is particularly concerned with correcting Doane's omissions. White writes with considerable flair, and her arguments are always interesting, if not always fully convincing. A useful addition to studies of spectatorship in and of the classic era. Upper--division undergraduates through professionals.W. A./P>--W. A. Vincent, Michigan State University"Choice" (01/01/2000)

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Introduction Chapter 1: Reading the Code(s) Chapter 2: Lesbian Cinephilia Chapter 3: Female Spectator, Lesbian Spectator Chapter 4: Films for Girls - Lesbian Sentiment and the Maternal Melodrama Chapter 5: Supporting "Character" Chapter 6: On Retrospectatorship Works Cited

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