CFP: Chicks with Brains (9/26-9/30; 6/1/12)

From: D'Amore, Laura M <[email protected]>

Call for Papers
Film & History 2012: Film and Myth, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (9/26-9/30/12)
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Area: Chicks with Brains: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film

Since the Second Wave Feminist Movement during the 1970s, Hollywood has
slowly begun to give prominent and leading roles to women.  However, the
intellectual representations of women are out of line with reality, in many
cases failing to reflect the successes and struggles that women have faced
in a resistant social and political environment.  This area considers the
portrayals of traditional myths about “chicks with brains” across film
history, as well as new myths and/or myth-busters that may have arisen
since the Second Wave.

In what ways does Hollywood control expectations about the brains of women
by foiling their intellect with their own bodies?  Beautiful andnaïve Elle
Woods becomes a successful lawyer based on her knowledge of haircare
products in Legally Blond; Natalie Portman is an astrophysicist whose
sarcastic charm wins over Thor, heir to the God’s Realm of Asgard in
superhero blockbuster Thor; and Easy A reminds us that smart teens—even
ones as stunningly gorgeous as Emma Stone—aren’t accepted in the brutal
high school hierarchies of popularity.  How aresmart women cast as threats
to the social order, as in Julia Roberts' portrayal of 1950s Wellesley
College co-ed Katherine Ann Watson in Mona Lisa Smile?  What do we make of
cinematic strategies that cast women as the counter-intellectual to men of
superior intellect, such as Bella Swan in the Twilight saga, and Cameron
Diaz in Bad Teacher, or don't allow them to display any characteristics of
the intellectual at all?

This area seeks to critique the myths of women’s intellect in film across
multiple genres and historic time periods, and across cultures and national
borders (films do not need to have been produced in the U.S.).  Papers
might consider film history as well as cultural, social, or political
history when formulating their analysis, in order to examine the twin
complexities of subjugation by the film industry as well as the broader
oppression of women in society.

Questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:


·      In what ways are women in film imprisoned by their intelligence?


·      In what way are women ostracized for it?


·      Are their cases in which women in film are set free, or live better,
as a result of intellectual growth?


·      How do female roles in film reinforce standards of beauty,
submissiveness, and silence, over intellect, problem solving, orleadership?


·      In what ways are smart women infantilized, or commodified, by their
intelligence in film (i.e.: chicks, babes, and honeys who are, despite
their appearance or place in society, intelligent)?


·      How does an actress’s personal standards of intellect in her real
life affect the way she is given roles, or seen on screen?


·      Are there successes (i.e. females in film who are intelligent
without also being objectified or villified)?

Please e-mail 250-500 word abstracts to the Area Chair:

Laura Mattoon D’Amore
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>

Assistant Professor of American Studies
Roger Williams University
One Old Ferry Road
Bristol, RI 02188