Kelly Oliver's brilliant analysis of how young girls' path to womanhood is filled with beating, battery, abuse, and sexual assault is shocking and timely. Oliver's meticulously researched volume moves back and forth between myths and fairy tales linked to rape, contemporary films, television shows and ads featuring violence to girls, along with studying rape culture, and ambiguities of 'consent,' on college campuses. It is essential reading, showing that women may not have liberated themselves after all.
E. Ann Kaplan, author of Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Fiction Corpse chic, mounted trophy, dead girl, tough girl-Kelly Oliver explores media representations of a new, empowered heroine in her compelling exploration of the dark side of the modern fairytale and its fascination with violence and rape. Oliver asks the reader to think seriously about the forces that drive rape culture and the eroticization of violence. A challenging, disturbing, and enlightening book.
Barbara Creed, author of The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis In her detailed attention to contemporary films and social media, and in linking up today's violence against women with a long line of treasured fables and cultural archetypes, Kelly Oliver makes an important contribution to a discussion of great urgency. With eloquence and perspective, she not only exposes patterns of aggression against women but also shows the sometimes problematic ways in which women try to restore the balance.
Molly Haskell, author of From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies A must read for scholars and students. Choice