Impossible Bodies: Femininity and Masculinity at the Movies (review)

Holmlund, Chris. Impossible Bodies: Femininity and Masculinity at the Movies. New York: Routledge, 2002. 237 pages, $22.95, paper.

Chris Holmlund's Impossible Bodies is a collection of essays in which she explores the intersections of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in filmic representations of bodies. According to Holmlund, filmic representations highlight particular aspects of bodies at the expense of others. These emphases, she argues, work to conceal "problems" that films are unable or unwilling to resolve. In Holmlund's words, "[I]n most Hollywood films gender 'fixes' mask racial divisions and reroute sexual dilemmas" (10).

Based on the premise that "Hollywood films shape and express how we see—or don't see—our bodies, ourselves," Holmlund undertakes an investigation of "the range—and the limits—of the representations and receptions" (6) of some of Hollywood's most unlikely bodies. Holmlund defines a body as "impossible" if it "exceeds the parameters within which we think of 'ideal' or even 'normal' physiques" (4). Certainly, there are many "impossible" bodies that are missing from Holmlund's analysis, but this is simply part of the fun. Throughout my reading, I kept thinking of other bodies that Holmlund might have discussed, which made her arguments that much more salient. Clearly, Holmlund could not include all of Hollywood's "impossible bodies" in her analysis, but her ideas are applicable to many bodies other than those she discusses, and I found myself considering her arguments in relation to bodies like Madonna's.

Impossible Bodies is arranged in three parts that include three essays each. The essays in the first part examine "different tropes of impossibility" looking at specific genres. In the second part Holmlund considers the roles of "sidekicks" and argues that "how sidekicks are seen, not seen, or differently seen reveals cultural obsessions and blind spots" (6). The third part focuses on stars whose bodies are "impossible" in a variety of ways. In her analysis, Holmlund draws on diverse fields of study, including cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory, and reception studies. Holmlund's essays each address a particular film text or group of texts, but they also "plumb 'official' and 'subcultural' histories" (10). Especially interesting is Holmlund's use of an amazing array of reference materials, including "work on aging, plastic surgery, obesity, violence, fundamentalist religion, interracial relationships, regional stereotypes, immigration law, demographic profiles, foreign policy shifts, star biographies and autobiographies, studio publicity materials, mainstream and alternative reviews, industry statistics and more" (10).

In the first section, "Gesturing Toward Genres," Holmlund considers the ways in which genre conventions guide and often limit the way bodies are portrayed. The section begins with an essay entitled "Visible Difference and Sex Appeal: The Body, Sex, Sexuality and Race in the Pumping Iron Films" in which Holmlund uses the two Pumping Iron "documentaries" (Pumping Iron, George Butler and Robert Flore, 1979, and Pumping Iron II: The Women, George Butler, 1984) to explore "the relationships operating between body, desire, and power in the United States today" (17). Holmlund argues that society needs images of bodies and of visible differences and that social climate affects the types of bodies that are portrayed. But, she argues, "[t]he question for media analysts is to define what kind of . . . bodies are needed and/or tolerated by current societies and to describe how the apparatus of body and power functions in popular culture today" (18). Based on her analysis of the Pumping Iron films, Holmlund argues not only that the female body is more problematic than the male body but also that race, sex, and sexuality are frequently portrayed and contained via stereotypes. In this essay Holmlund draws out an impressive array of issues in these films and actually inspired me to watch Pumping Iron . . . again.

In the second essay in this section, "When Is a Lesbian Not a Lesbian? The Lesbian Continuum and the Mainstream Femme Film," Holmlund considers an array of films that "merge female friendship and lesbian sexuality in a...