Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film

What is 'fun' about the Hollywood version of girlhood? Through re-evaluating notions of pleasure and fun <i>The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film</i> forms a study of Hollywood girl teen films between 2000-2010. By tracing the aesthetic connections between films such as <i>Mean Girls</i> (Waters 2004) <i>Hairspray</i> (Shankman 2007) and <i>Easy A</i> (Gluck 2010) the book articulates the specific types of pleasure these films offer as a means to understand how Hollywood creates gendered ideas of fun. Rather than condemn these films as 'guilty pleasures' this book sets out to understand how they are designed to create experiences that feel as though they express desires memories or fantasies that girls supposedly share in common. Providing a practical model for a new approach to cinematic pleasures <i>The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film</i> proposes that these films offer a limited version of girlhood that feels like potential and promise but is restricted within prescribed parameters.