Smart Chicks on Screen

While women have long been featured in leading roles in film and television, the intellectual depictions of female characters in these mediums are out of line with reality. Women continue to be marginalized for their choices, overshadowed by men, and judged by their bodies. In fact, women's intelligence is rarely the focus of television or film narratives, and on the rare occasion when intelligent women are showcased, their portrayals are undermined by socially awkward behavior or their intimate relationships are doomed to perpetual failure. While Hollywood claims to offer a different, more evolved look at women, these movies and shows often just repackage old character types that still downplay the intelligence and savvy of women. In Smart Chicks on Screen: Representing Women's Intellect in Film and Television, Laura Mattoon D'Amore brings together an impressive array of scholarship that interrogates the portrayal of females on TV and in movies. Among the questions that the volume seeks to answer are: in what ways are women in film and television limited, or ostracized, by their intelligence? How do female roles reinforce standards of beauty, submissiveness, and silence, over intellect, problem solving, and leadership? Are there women in film and television who are intelligent without also being objectified? The thirteen essays by international, interdisciplinary scholars offer a wide range of perspectives, examining the connections-and disconnections-between beauty and brains in film and television. Smart Chicks on Screen will be of interest not only to scholars of film and television, but women's studies, reception studies, and cultural history, as well.