Fatal Attraction

Since its famed introduction of the “boiled bunny,” Fatal Attraction (1987) established itself as one of American cinema’s most controversial films. This insightful new book surveys the film's formal features and its ideological impact, paying special attention to the film’s signature mix of sexuality, fear, and family values.

• Features detailed breakdowns of the formal techniques the film employs to create suspense, such as turning ordinary household objects into agents of terror
• Considers the film’s mixed-genre status as a thriller, melodrama, horror picture, and film noir
• Offers an explanation and analysis of the cultural storm ignited by the film, especially due to its treatment of single career women
• Investigates the film’s handling of extramarital sexuality, pregnancy, birth control, and AIDS
• Discusses the film’s lasting role in shaping American gender politics

List of Illustrations.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1. “I’m Not Going to be Ignored, Dan”: Narrative Cues for Suspense and Intimidation.

2. American Genres in Fatal Attraction.

3. Career Women of the 1980s: Feminism and the Reception History of Fatal Attraction.

4. Erotic Sexuality, AIDS, and the Case for Staying Faithful.

5. Female Identities and Postfeminist Paradigms.

Notes.

Works Cited.

Index.

?The book is well written and well organized. It makes some compelling points.? (PsycCRITIQUES, 2009)

Suzanne Leonard is a Assistant Professor of English at Simmons College.

What you really want to watch.

There are certain films and shows that resonate with audiences everywhere—they generate discussion and debate about everything from gender, class, citizenship and race, to consumerism and social identity. This new ‘teachable canon’ of film and television introduces students to alternative classics that range from silent film to CSI.

• This 1987 horror/thriller sensationalizes the deadly consequences of an extra-marital affair in an era known for conspicuous consumption and the re-emergence of ‘family values’
• A box office blockbuster, Fatal Attraction sparked intense media coverage, preying upon cultural anxieties about female sexuality, career women, work, violence, and infidelity
• Teachable through formal analysis, American film history, and the emerging study of post-feminism

The perfection of Leonard's volume as a teaching text made itself manifest to me not only in its wonderfully detailed analyses, but in the many moments that I found myself seamlessly entering into a discussion with them. It's difficult to imagine a student who would not respond with enthusiasm to this cleanly and accessibly written, engaging, knowledgeable book about the film that inaugurated the genre of the "erotic thriller," and very easy to imagine it as a pleasure for interested cinephiles with a glass of wine within reach and a free evening or two. Martha P. Nochimson, author of Dying to Belong: Gangster Movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong, and The Passion of David Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood