1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910458974903321

Autore

Lathers Marie

Titolo

Space oddities : women and outer space in film, 1960-2000 / / by Marie Lathers

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Continuum, , 2010

ISBN

1-62892-897-2

1-283-00441-0

9786613004413

1-4411-8093-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 240 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

791.43/615

Soggetti

Outer space in motion pictures

Science fiction films - History and criticism

Women in motion pictures

Women scientists in motion pictures

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- Space for women: a problem deferred. It's about time : a brief history of women in space -- Arrows of time -- No official requirement -- Astronauts on display -- Bottled up : inner and outer space in I dream of Jeannie. Screen memories -- Alienation and the Arab body -- There is another kind of space here -- Staying home : astronaut wives and domestic engineering. Angels in the house -- The engineered century -- Mothers in space -- Chimpanzees in space and Gorillas in the mist. We are the monkey -- The colonialist imperative -- The old lady who lives in the forest without a man -- The astronaut's new clothes : naked in space in Nude on the moon, Barbarella, and Alien. Dressing for success -- Cosmic striptease -- In space no one can see you undress -- Making contact. First contact -- Contact in the 1990s -- Kissing cousins -- Conclusion : black holes and the body of the astrophysicist.

Sommario/riassunto

Space Oddities examines the representation of women in outer space films from 1960 to 2000, with an emphasis on films in which women are either denied or given the role of astronaut.  Marie Lathers traces



an evolution in this representation from women as aliens and/or "assistant" astronauts, to women as astronaut wives, to women as astronauts themselves. Many popular films from the era are considered, as are earlier films (from Aelita Queen of Mars to Devil Girl From Mars) and historical records, literary fiction, and television shows (especially I Dream of Jeannie).  Early 1960s attempts by women pilots to enter the Space Race are considered as is the media drama surrounding the death of Christa McAuliffe.  In addition to its insightful film scholarship, this is an important addition to current reassessments of the Space Race. By applying insights from contemporary gender, race, and species theories to popular imaginings of women in space, the status of the Space Race as a cultural construct that reproduces and/or warps terrestrial gender structures is revealed.