Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema, offers an overview of central issues in feminist film criticism by analyzing over twenty popular films produced in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The volume focuses primarily on issues of femininity, but also includes a section on portrayals of masculinity in the face of changing gender roles. Feminism at the Movies addresses such topics as the female director as auteur, fatherhood, consumer culture, depictions of professional women, sexuality, gendered violence, and the intersections of gender, race, and ethnic identities. The international feminist media scholars in this collection aim to show how gender is represented in a wide range of popular films, and through a wide variety of approaches, such as industry studies, queer studies, masculinity studies, psychoanalysis and poststructuralism. Each essay offers an analysis of a movie in a contemporary film genre, from chick flicks, teen pics, hommecoms, action adventure, "indie" flicks, and "women lawyer" films. Within their essays, many contributors explore not only the ways in which films portray gender identity, but also how popular films can act as a social force to influence gender politics in everyday life. Films discussed include: Casino Royale(2006), The Forty-Year Old Virgin(2005), A Single Man(2009), Transamerica(2005), Michael Clayton(2007), Marie Antoinette(2006), Bend It Like Beckham(2002), Miss Congeniality(2000), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants(2005), Sex and the City: The Movie(2008), Enchanted(2007), Friends With Money(2006), Juno(2007), Baby Mama(2008), Bride Wars(2009), 13 Going on 30(2004), The Secret Life of Bees(2008), The Brave One(2007), Hard Candy(2005), and Haute Tension(2003). Contributors are American, Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand scholars from across disciplines including film studies, gender studies, legal studies, literature, media studies, philosophy, political studies, and women#xE2;#xAC;"s studies.

Hilary Radner is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She is the author of Shopping Around: Feminine Culture and the Pursuit of Pleasure and Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks, and Consumer Culture, both published by Routledge. Rebecca Stringer is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Otago, Now Zealand. Her research on gender and victim politics has appeared in journals such as Borderlands, The Australian Feminist Law Journal, and International Journal of Drug Policy, and in edited volumes such, as Victim No More (Kenwood) and Why Nietzsche Still? (University of California Press).