Guest Lecture Philippa Gates (Wilfrid Laurier University)

Today, we think of Classical Hollywood film as offering a sanitized Leave It to Beaver world where everyone abstained from sex until marriage and married couples never slept naked (or even together!). The history of Hollywood onscreen sex and nudity is the history of film censorship. In this talk, Professor Philippa Gates will explore the history of sex and nudity in Hollywood film—from early 1930s’ “Pre-Code” films that depicted it with comfort and frequency, to the period of censorship under the Production Code that denied its depiction, to the ratings system introduced in 1968 which heralded sex and nudity’s return to the screen.

Philippa Gates is Professor in Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Her recent publications include Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas (2011) and Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film (2011), as well as articles on gender, race, and age in Hollywood genre films various journals and edited collections. Her current book project is entitled Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans in Classical Hollywood Film.

The event is free and open to the public.

This lecture is organized by the Department of American Studies.

Department of American Studies Graz
Institut für Amerikanistik
Attemsgasse 25/II
A-8010 Graz
Tel. +43/316/380-2465
amerikanistik(at)uni-graz.at

http://amerikanistik.uni-graz.at/