Chapter 3: Feminism, Law, Cinema
K. Brooks and C. Mathen (Eds.) Women, Law, and Equality: A Discussion Guide (Irwin Law, 2010) pp.119-176
58 Pages Posted: 22 Jan 2020
Date Written: June 18, 2013
Abstract
'Law and film' scholarship calls into question what one considers as legal source or text. It puts into sharp relief how law is a meaning-making institution through which we imagine and tell stories about our social world. It destabilizes the often assumed boundaries between ‘rational’ and 'irrational' ways of knowing. In this chapter, I argue that such transformative potential has been harnessed by feminist legal scholars who have recently turned their minds to cinema and the questions it can ask about how law operates in women’s lives. Rather than simply using films as an engaging way to teach specific legal concepts or legal processes, the intersection of feminist jurisprudence, law and film provides analytic space for new perspectives on subjectivity, judgement and social power.
Keywords: law and film, feminist aesthetics, women in prison movies
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