Book explores women labor activists in movies

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101003/GJBUSINESS_01/710039969/-1/FOSNEWS

Sunday, October 3, 2010

DURHAM — Some of the most indelible images of women in recent American film have been of working women fighting for labor reform or to expose corporate corruption.

In her new book, Jennifer Borda, associate professor of communication at the University of New Hampshire, explores films with female labor activists as main protagonists, illuminating issues of gender and class while depicting the challenges of working class women.

"Women Labor Activists in the Movies: Nine Depictions of Workplace Organizers, 1954-2005" covers films that include Salt of the Earth, Pajama Game, Union Maids, With Babies and Banners, Norma Rae, Silkwood, and Live Nude Girls Unite.

The text examines the responses of these films to the labor and feminist movements of the last half century, and how American cinema has portrayed notions of disempowerment, ambivalence and, at times, the resistance of both women and the working class at large.

"What surprised me most about these films was the way that the Hollywood films portrayed female labor activists as outsiders who must do battle not only against the workplace, but against their workers and community as well. Consequently, these troubled women are also reliant on the guidance and authority of a well-respected male figure in order to accomplish their activist goals," Borda says.


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