Selling Sex on Screen

Karen A. Ritzenhoff is professor in the Department of Communication at Central Connecticut State University. Ritzenhoff is the coeditor of Heroism and Gender in War Films (2014) with Jakub Kazecki; Border Visions: Diaspora and Identity in Film (2013) with Jakub Kazecki and Cynthia J. Miller; Screening the Dark Side of Love: From Euro- Horror to American Cinema (2012) with Karen Randell; and Sex and Sexuality in a Feminist World (2009) with Katherine Hermes. In 2011, she also coedited a special media journal, Augenblick: Images of the Iraq War (with Angela Krewani).Catriona McAvoy is a filmmaker based in London. She runs a digital onset and lab services company, First-Light.tv. She wrote a chapter in the book Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives (2015) and interviews with cast and crew in Studies in the Horror Film: The Shining Vol. 1 & 2 (2015), as well as an article in the forthcoming “Kubrick and Adaptation” special issue in the journal Adaptation (2015).

Elusive and beguiling, the image of the woman whose body may be bought has permeated film culture since the silent era. Selling Sex on Screen, in a rich collection of penetrating studies, demonstrates how pervasive the motif is and how diverse its manifestations within the motion picture and television industries of evolving capitalist societies.

• AcknowledgmentsPreface: Deborah JermynIntroductionKaren A. Ritzenhoff and Catriona McAvoyChapter 1: The Sexual Economy and the New Woman: Images of Prostitution in Weimar CinemaTom SaundersChapter 2: Early representations of female prostitution in Pandora’s Box (1929)Clémentine Tholas-DissetChapter 3: How the Production Code Tapped Out the Mother Lode: Women, Sex, and Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers FilmsTiel LundyChapter 4: “Birdie, don’t I get something for my dollar?” The “Tutor-Code” of Sex Trade in the Golden Age of Television WesternsGaylyn StudlarChapter 5: Economics, Empathy, and Expectation: History and Representation of Rape and Prostitution in Late 1980s Vietnam War FilmsAmanda BoczarChapter 6: She Wolves: The Monstrous Women of Nazisploitation CinemaBrian E. CrimChapter 7: Delicate Reports: Prostitution in Sergio Martino’s mondo film Wages of Sin (Mille peccati…nessuna virtù, 1969)Andreas EhrenreichChapter 8: Cha Ching!: Getting Paid in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Showtime’s GigolosJanet RobinsonChapter 9: Machines, Mirrors, Martyrs, and Money: Prostitutes and Promiscuity in Steve McQueen’s Shame (2011) and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999)Catriona McAvoy and Karen A. RitzenhoffChapter 10: “They’re Selling an Image:” “Hookers Cut to Look Like Movie Stars” in L.A. Confidential (1997)Rochelle Sara MillerChapter 11: Selling Sex, along with everything else: “Darla” as Mark(et)ed Woman in Joss Whedon’s Buffy, the Vampire SlayerWendy SterbaChapter 12: What Happens to the Money Shot? Why Zombie Porn Can’t Get the Audience to BiteJames J. WardIndexAbout the Editors and Contributors