Description
Book SynopsisFrom the perspective of cultural conservatives, Hollywood movies are cesspools of vice, exposing viewers to pernicious sexually-permissive messages. Offering a groundbreaking study of Hollywood films produced since 2000, this title comes to a very different conclusion, finding echoes of the evangelical movement's abstinence-only rhetoric in everything from
Easy A to
Taken.
Trade Review”Smart textual analysis and informed feminist critique make
Abstinence Cinema a welcome addition to scholarship that takes popular culture seriously for its participation in the struggles of contemporary public life." -- Bonnie J. Dow * author of Watching Women’s Liberation, 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News *
"This is a groundbreaking, fearless book, one that takes on a hitherto relatively unexplored question of Hollywood cinema and makes one think anew about the social, political, and sexual politics of contemporary mainstream movies ... Highly recommended." * Choice *
"[
Abstinence Cinema] educates audiences, particularly younger readers, parents, and scholars, on the ideological turn of rewriting purity narratives into popular culture through contemporary film." * Southern Communication Journal *
"A fascinating exposé … Students and scholars of film, gender, sexuality, and cultural studies will learn much from Kelly’s well-argued text." * H-SAWH *
"Popular entertainment is an unexplored front in the ongoing culture wars over sexuality. Casey Ryan Kelly’s sophisticated and lively analysis of abstinence cinema is a timely reminder of the high stakes in these debates." -- Janice M. Irvine * University of Massachusetts *
"
Abstinence Cinema is an exceptional book and should find wide readership throughout communication and rhetorical studies as well as related fields like film studies, gender, studies, and popular culture … Kelly wisely chooses to stay attuned to the early twenty-first century and the particular issues of abstinence but in so doing provides insight into a wide range of contemporary cultural issues ranging from femininity to neoliberalism. The end result of this engaging analysis is a powerful intervention into American cinema." * Quarterly Journal of Speech *
"This book may well enlighten [readers] in terms of what price one have to pay in order to conform to a so-called 'liberated' postmodern society, revealing itself a truly relevant indicator of Hollywood’s deeply rooted yet far from obsolete evangelical moral and political values. That’s already quite an achievement." * InMedia *
"This is a groundbreaking, fearless book, one that takes on a hitherto relatively unexplored question of Hollywood cinema and makes one think anew about the social, political, and sexual politics of contemporary mainstream movies ... Highly recommended." * Choice *
”Smart textual analysis and informed feminist critique make
Abstinence Cinema a welcome addition to scholarship that takes popular culture seriously for its participation in the struggles of contemporary public life." -- Bonnie J. Dow * author of Watching Women’s Liberation, 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News *
"Popular entertainment is an unexplored front in the ongoing culture wars over sexuality. Casey Ryan Kelly’s sophisticated and lively analysis of abstinence cinema is a timely reminder of the high stakes in these debates." -- Janice M. Irvine * University of Massachusetts *
"A fascinating exposé … Students and scholars of film, gender, sexuality, and cultural studies will learn much from Kelly’s well-argued text." * H-SAWH *
"[
Abstinence Cinema] educates audiences, particularly younger readers, parents, and scholars, on the ideological turn of rewriting purity narratives into popular culture through contemporary film." * Southern Communication Journal *
"
Abstinence Cinema is an exceptional book and should find wide readership throughout communication and rhetorical studies as well as related fields like film studies, gender, studies, and popular culture … Kelly wisely chooses to stay attuned to the early twenty-first century and the particular issues of abstinence but in so doing provides insight into a wide range of contemporary cultural issues ranging from femininity to neoliberalism. The end result of this engaging analysis is a powerful intervention into American cinema." * Quarterly Journal of Speech *
"This book may well enlighten [readers] in terms of what price one have to pay in order to conform to a so-called 'liberated' postmodern society, revealing itself a truly relevant indicator of Hollywood’s deeply rooted yet far from obsolete evangelical moral and political values. That’s already quite an achievement." * InMedia *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Cinema of Abstinence1 Melodrama and Postfeminist Abstinence:
The Twilight Saga (2008–2012)2 Man/Boys and Born-Again Virgins:
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)3 The Monstrous Girls and Absentee Fathers of Horror:
The Possession (2012)4 Abstinence, the Global Sex Industry, and Racial Violence:
Taken (2008)5 Sexsploitation in Abstinence SatiresConclusion: CounternarrativesNotesFilmographyBibliographyIndex
