Women prison film

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The women prison film , also WIP film (Women in Prison), is a subgenre of the exploitation film . Typical examples of this film genre rely on the shock effects of sex and violence . They are much more influenced by fantasies than by real everyday life in a women's prison .

As with most exploitation films, the role of films is controversial in terms of film history. On the one hand, they are mostly cheaply produced films full of clichés and male heterosexual fantasies. On the other hand, they were among the first major films to convey a different image of women than that of the typical housewife . Among other things, they created roles for physically violent women who can physically assert themselves against men. This is now a standard in action cinema. They made lesbian women important carriers of the plot. The two big stars of the women's prison film were mostly lesbian in their roles.

structure

The plot of the films is mostly structured in a simple way: a large number of good-looking women are held in a prison that is as dirty and brutal as possible. Shortly before the end of the film, a banal pretext gives them the opportunity to seize power in prison and thus ensure a happy ending . Above all, however, the films aim at numerous shower scenes, catfights , suppression by lesbian guards and lesbian sex . Scenes of this kind can be easily integrated into any film plot.

The main roles are almost always characterized by clichéd stereotypes: the violent lesbian prisoner who, together with the guards, suppresses the inmates of the prison and forces them to have sex; the often very young and mostly naive victim who has been in prison for a long time, as well as the innocently convicted heroine who challenges the oppressor and prevails in a mostly violent ending.

history

Women's prison films emerged as melodramas in the 1930s, often combining an equally clichéd plot with the moral motivation for character development in later films. In it, the young heroine was brought back on the "right path" through the prison.

The film Women's Prison (1950) starring Eleanor Parker became the real classic of the genre . In the same year, So young and so spoiled , a typical story about the descent of a young person , appeared in the USA . Influenced mainly by semi-pornographic pulp novels of the 1950s, women's prison films reached their peak in B-movies . In Revolte im Frauenzuchthaus  (1955) Ida Lupino shaped the character of the wicked guard. In 1957, the Kolportage Mannstoll and dangerous with Gloria Castillo and Rife Blätter with Mamie van Doren appeared .

Few WIP films were made in the 1960s, including Girls Behind Bars (1965). In the Edgar Wallace film The Bucklige von Soho (1966), a girls' boarding school turns out to be a brothel prison. In Love Camp 7  (1969), the abuse of women in a Nazi camp was the first subject of a speculative film and established the subgenre of Nazi propaganda . In the same year, The Hot Death appeared with Maria Schell in the lead role.

The Big Doll House  (1971) by director Jack Hill marks the beginning of the WIP revival in the 1970s. Hills The Big Bird Cage followed just a year later, starring Pam Grier , who had been in front of the camera in Women Behind Prison Walls as early as 1971 . In Caged Heat  (1974) playing Barbara Steele , the sadistic prison guard.

Now a wave of WIP films flooded the global markets. With The Bamboo Camp of Tormented Women  (1973), Hong Kong cinema also made an important contribution to the genre. From Great Britain came The House of Whips  (1974), from Italy I, the Nun and the Swine Dogs  (1972) and Girls in Prison  (1973). Director Jess Franco shaped the film genre with Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974), women's prison (1975) , the simultaneous women's prison 3 and Greta - House without Men (1977) .

Even in the 1980s, the fascination for captured women remained unbroken, for example in Girls Behind Bars (1982) by specialist Tom de Simone. The women's camp by Lutz Schaarwächter and the Far East prison camp in the Philippines  by Cirio H. Santiago were published in 1983, the trash sequel Red Heat - Innocence Behind Bars in 1986, and the naked cell in 1988 .

Since the 1970s, women's prison films have lived on as a niche product in pornography . This is usually expressed as a projection of male, heterosexual fantasies onto lesbian pleasure acts and sadomasochistic elements. The main lesbian motif of the genre also entered the mainstream, such as the Oscar- winning film Chicago from 2002, the opening scenes of the film Bandits or the RTL series Behind Gates - The Woman Barber .

Protagonists

Well-known directors from the heyday of the genre were Jess Franco , Jack Hill and Bruno Mattei . Popular actresses were Pam Grier and Dyanne Thorne , the leading actress in what is perhaps the most famous film in the genre: Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS .

literature

  • Marsha Clowers: Dykes, Gangs, and Danger. Debunking Popular Myths about Maximum-Security Life. In: Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. Volume 9, No. 1, 2001, ISSN  1070-8286 , pp. 22–30, ( online (PDF; 56.08 kB) ; compares women's prison films with actual everyday prison life).
  • Birgit Hein : Women's Prison Films. In: Sex in the workplace (= women and film . No. 43). Stroemfeld / Roter Stern, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-87877-843-0 , pp. 22-26, JSTOR 24056061 .
  • Judith Mayne: Caged and framed: The women-in-prison film. In: Judith Mayne: Framed. Lesbians, feminists, and media culture. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis MN et al. 2000, ISBN 0-8166-3457-2 , pp. 115-146.
  • Lynn Rapaport: Holocaust Pornography: Profaning the Sacred in Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. In: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Volume 22, No. 1, Fall 2003, ISSN  0882-8539 , pp. 53-79, JSTOR 42944607 .
  • Suzanna Danuta Walters: Caged heat. The (R) evolution of women-in-prison films. In: Martha McCaughey, Neal King (Ed.): Reel knockouts. Violent women in the movies. University of Texas Press, Austin TX 2001, ISBN 0-292-75250-4 , pp. 106-123.
  • Gregory A. Waller: Auto-Erotica: Some Notes on Comic Softcore Films for the Drive-in Circuit. In: Journal of Popular Culture. Volume 17, No. 2, Fall 1983, pp. 135-141, doi : 10.1111 / j.0022-3840.1983.1702_135.x .
  • Benedikt Eppenberger, Daniel Stapfer: Girls, Machos and Monets. The incredible story of the Swiss cinema entrepreneur Erwin C. Dietrich. Verlag Scharfe Stiefel, ISBN 3-033-00960-3 , pp. 102-105

Web links