Who gets to define women’s desire?
WHO GETS TO DEFINE WOMEN’S DESIRE?
Our new release Body Parts explores sex, gender & power in Hollywood
For most of Hollywood’s history, men have held disproportionate power over how women’s bodies, sexuality, and desire are portrayed on screen.
The result has been a century of images and stories shaped far more by dominant ideas about women’s sexuality than by women’s own experiences and perspectives.
Our bestselling documentary Body Parts brings this largely untold history into view.
A FILM MADE FOR THE CLASSROOM
Filmmakers Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Helen Hood Scheer, both university professors, bring a distinctly pedagogical approach to Body Parts, tracing the history and evolution of sex on screen from a woman’s perspective while making the forces behind these images accessible to students.
Blending film history with candid testimony from Hollywood stars, showrunners, and industry insiders, including Jane Fonda, Rosanna Arquette, Joey Soloway, Rose McGowan, Karyn Kusama, Angela Robinson, Emily Meade, and David Simon, the film reveals the pressures and power imbalances behind some of Hollywood’s most iconic scenes while spotlighting the people who have pushed the industry toward reform.
Part film-history lesson, part industry exposé, and part primer in media literacy, Body Parts gives students a clear framework for examining sex, consent, agency, the male gaze, and the relationship between power behind the camera and what ends up on screen.
It also gives educators a compelling way to challenge the familiar idea that popular culture is “just entertainment,” showing how seemingly escapist stories can shape real-world attitudes, workplace practices, and struggles over whose voices, bodies, and desires matter.
Are you an educator or librarian? Click here to learn more about how to get Body Parts for your classes or collections.
Interested in booking a screening? Filmmakers Helen Hood Scheer and Kristy Guevara-Flanagan are available for virtual Q&As. They’re also available for in-person screenings in the Southern California area. Fill out this form for more information.
Looking for a Discussion Guide? To support classroom use, the filmmakers have developed a free discussion guide packed with background context, discussion questions, and classroom activities designed to spark meaningful conversation. Click here to view the guide.
Want to learn more about MEF’s Premium Collection? Body Parts, along with most other MEF titles, is available as part of our Premium Collection, which offers flexible subscription and permanent-access licensing options. To learn more about the Premium Collection, contact Stephen Belcourt at [email protected].
PRAISE FOR BODY PARTS
“Body Parts serves as a crash course on Hollywood cinema’s often troubling representations of female bodies, desire, and agency … Though its initial draw for some audience members may be frequent appearances by women actors such as Alexandra Billings, Jane Fonda, and Rose McGowan, it also features the perspectives and expertise of a broad array of women working in film production. … A fantastic primer for those interested in a Hollywood history of sex and women’s agency on screen … It possesses great pedagogical potential.”
— Video Librarian
“Astonishing … What makes [Body Parts] so remarkable is its steadfastly non-puritanical approach.”
— The Guardian
“Insightful, comprehensive, and thought-provoking … timely, valuable work.”
— Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
“Clever and damning … [a] sweeping yet focused analysis that exposes the truth about the power of images to shape the world’s views of women.”
— Indiewire
