As the quotes above show, feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir and feminist film scholars such as Hilary Radner figure this identification as a complex process of becoming – a becoming that film director Sofia Coppola names as both a ‘wandering around’ and a ‘trying to grow up’, her phrasing capturing the lack of direction, ambivalence and difficulties for girls becoming women. In this original study, Handyside brings critical attention to a rare female auteur and in so doing contributes to important analyses of post-feminism, authorship in film, and the growing field of girlhood studies.įor feminist theory and politics, the question of how a baby comes to identify first as a girl and then as a woman is of crucial importance. These characters inhabit luminous worlds of girlish adornments, light and sparkle and yet find homes in unexpected places from hotels to swimming pools, palaces to strip clubs: resisting stereotypes and the ordinary. Chapters reveal a post-feminist aesthetic that offers sustained, intimate engagements with female characters. Fiona Handyside here considers the careful counter-balance of vulnerability with the possibilities and pleasures of being female in Coppola's films - albeit for the white and the privileged - through their recurrent themes of girlhood, fame, power, sex and celebrity. From The Virgin Suicides to The Bling Ring, her work carves out new spaces for the expression of female subjectivity that embraces rather than rejects femininity. In this original study, Handyside brings critical attention to a rare female auteur and in so doing contributes to important analyses of post-feminism, authorship in film, and the growing field of girlhood studies.She has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award and two Golden Globes, and in 2004 became the first ever American woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

She has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award and two Golden Globes, and in 2004 became the first ever American woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

Sofia Coppola by Fiona Handyside