Sexy Thrills: Undressing the Erotic Thriller - Hardcover

Martin, Nina

3.62

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780252031953: Sexy Thrills: Undressing the Erotic Thriller

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252031954 ISBN 13: 9780252031953

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2007

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How erotic thrillers impact contemporary ideas about feminism and femininity

Unlike the bulk of soft-core pornography, direct-to-video erotic thriller films are made specifically to appeal to women. Nina K. Martin argues that this makes them a valuable resource for investigating female sexuality, subjectivity, and gender construction, and her Sexy Thrills is the first study to use them to examine the construction of female desire.

The heroines of these productions have overtly sexual adventures, often dabbling in a variety of sex work positions--including call girl, stripper, and exotic dancer--to get in touch with their sexual desires. Martin explains, however, that the films highlight a fundamental tension between endorsing an empowered, sexually experienced female heroine ("the sexy bad girl") and reinforcing more conventional, constructed standards that limit the acceptable forms of feminine sexuality. So while the sexual explicitness of the films acknowledges the increasing appeal of pornography to female heterosexual viewers, erotic thrillers remain couched in romanticized narratives and settings that speak to very traditional understandings of femininity and desire.

By analyzing the way the specifics of this hybrid genre have been shaped by pop cultural products targeting women, including soap operas, women's magazines, and talk shows, Sexy Thrills unpacks the construction of female desire to reveal how sex is marketed to heterosexual women.

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About the Author:

Nina K. Martin teaches in the Department of Film Studies at Emory University.

Review:

"Film criticism has a long history of reevaluating critically ignored and despised genres such as pornography and teen slasher films. Sexy Thrills is the first book to fully address and explore the major genre development in cinema commonly referred to as the erotic thriller. In this extremely well-researched, -organized, and -written book, Martin makes a strong case for the importance of these films from a feminist perspective."
--Peter Lehman, editor of Pornography: Film and Culture

“Martin makes a series of impressive arguments about the themes, subtext, and stylistic innovations of the format that could send academic audiences back to their Tivo for more than simply cheap thrills.”--Sexuality & Culture

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