Women, Film, and Law

Entertainment and profit constitute the driving forces behind most popular representations of incarcerated women. Some cinematic representations, however, and the women-in-prison genre especially, can generate complex legal meanings and leave viewers feeling unsettled about women’s incarceration. Focusing on five exemplary films and one television series, from 1933 to the present, Women, Film, and Law asks how fictional representations explore, shape, and refine beliefs about women’s incarceration. Suzanne Bouclin convincingly argues that popular depictions of women’s prisons can illuminate multiple forms of marginalization and oppression experienced by women in conflict with the law.