ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay

by Peter Alilunas (Editor), Whitney Strub (Editor)

Overview

ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay covers a variety of angles, using queer, feminist, historical, and close textual reading methods to grapple with the complicated and contradictory politics and meanings of this pioneering culture-worker. Chapters examine Findlay’s marketing strategies, the gender politics of her exploitation and hardcore films, 1980s horror productions, and several case studies of key individual films, in addition to a new interview with Findlay reflecting on her life and career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474497473
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2024
Series:	ReFocus: The American Directors Series
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Peter Alilunas is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Smutty Little Movies: The Creation and Regulation of Adult Video (2016).

Whitney Strub is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark. He is co-editor of Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: American Sexual Representation in the 1970s (2016) and author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right (2011).

Table of Contents

ForewordIntroduction: Sleazy HonestyAcknowledgements

1. Singularity and Conformity: Feminism and Roberta Findlay’s Strategic Marketing Communications - Finley Freibert

2. "Not Even a Lesbian," or Roberta Findlay’s Ambivalently Queer/Feminist Hardcore Cinema - Jennifer Moorman

3. Zero Girls and Lesbian Stylites: From Solar Sexuality to Camp in the Early Films of Roberta Findlay - Kevin John Bozelka

4. From Slaughter to Snuff: The Origins of a Cultural Myth - Giuseppe Previtali

5. "This is a Farce": Satire, Pseudonyms, and the Impact of Collaboration in Early Walter Sear/Roberta Findlay Films - Derek Gaskill

6. Fragments of a Porn Star: Hybrid Documentary and Avant-Garde Impulses in Shauna: Every Man’s Fantasy - Kier-La Janisse

7. Roberta Findlay’s Bronx Tale: Notes on Game of Survival - Neil Jackson

8. By the Numbers: Roberta Findlay, Home Video, and the Horror Genre - Johnny Walker

9. The Beginning and the End: Transitioning Careers and Roberta Findlay's Banned (1989) - Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

10. Roberta Findlay vs. Porn Studies

Editorial Reviews

A beautifully curated and engaging collection of some of the most important voices in porn studies and cult cinema. These essays reflect the continued evolution of the field and the important work of canonizing overlooked yet profoundly significant filmmakers such as Findlay.

Laura Helen Marks

A pioneering, prolific filmmaker who disdains her historical contributions to several male-dominated industries. A self-proclaimed misogynist who has been reclaimed as an unlikely "feminist" auteur. This fascinating new collection shines a much-needed spotlight on the many contradictions of Roberta Findlay, and is sure to become essential reading for scholars of adult and exploitation cinema.

David Church