Domestic Violence in Hollywood Film Gaslighting [Hardcover]

This is the first book to critically examine Hollywood films that focus on male partner violence against women. These films include Gaslight, Sleeping with the Enemy, Whats Love Got to Do with It, Dolores Claiborne, Enough, and Safe Haven. Shaped by the contexts of postfeminism, domestic abuse post-awareness, and familiar genre conventions, these films engage in ideological gaslighting that reaffirms our preconceived ideas about men as abusers, women as victims, and the racial and class politics of domestic violence. While the films purport to condemn abuse and empower abused women, this study proposes that they tacitly reinforce the very attitudes that we believe we no longer tolerate. Shoos argues that films like these limit not only popular understanding but also social and institutional interventions. 

1.0 Chapter 1Introduction: Representing Domestic Violence, Regalvanizing the Revolution.- 1.1 Domestic Violence in Hollywood Film.- 1.2 Post-awareness, Postfeminism, and Genre in Domestic Violence Films Reframing Domestic Violence Films.- 1.3 The Psychology of Domestic Violence Media Studies and Domestic Violence Preview of Chapters.- 2.0 Chapter 2Gaslight, Gaslighting, and the Gothic Romance Film.- 2.1 Gaslight and the Gothic Romance.- 2.2 Domestic Violence in Gaslight.- 2.3 Portrait of a Batterer: Gaslighting and Verbal Abuse in Gaslight.- 2.4 The Legacy of Gaslight and the Gothic Romance Film.- 3.0 Chapter 3Sleeping with the Enemy, Victim Empowerment, and the Thrill of Horror.- 3.1 The Gothic Romance and the Spectacle of Abuse in Sleeping.- 3.2&aml„