Women in prison films are a subgenre of exploitation film. Exploitation films or trash cinema is the name given to a genre of films, extant since the earliest days of moviemaking, but popularized in the 1970s. ...

Their stories feature imprisoned women who are subjected to sexual and physical abuse, typically by sadistic female prison wardens.

Perhaps the best explanation for women in prison films notoriety is that it is a cinematized version of the "men's adventure" subgenre of pulp fiction. Nazis tormenting damsels in distress were perennial favourite subjects for the lurid, sub-pornographic covers of sensationalistic "true adventure" magazines such as Argosy in the 1950s and 1960s; the film seeks to be a more explicit version of the same sort of sexual fantasy. The March, 1963 cover of For Men Only promises, among other things, a tale of Swastika Slave Girls in Argentinas No-Escape Brothel Camp! Mens adventure is a genre of pulp magazines that had its heyday in the 1950s and early 1960s. ... Jump to: navigation, search Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as the pulps ) were inexpensive fiction magazines. ... Jump to: navigation, search A poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914). ... Argosy Magazine is an American pulp magazine. ... A sexual fantasy is a fantasy of a sexual nature. ...

The most well-known example of the women in prison film is perhaps Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS. Actress Pam Grier starred in a number of films in the genre, such as Roger Corman's The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage, and Women in Cages. Cover of the 2004 DVD release of Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS. Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS is a 1974 pornographic motion picture produced in the United States of America. ... Foxy Brown DVD cover Pamela Suzette Grier (born 26 May 1949 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) is an American actress. ... Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American producer and director of low-budget films; as such, he has apprenticed many now-famous directors, stressing the importance of budgeting and resourcefulness. ...

A number of these films remain banned by the BBFC in the United Kingdom. Among them are Love Camp 7 (rejected in 2002) and Women in Cellblock 9 (rejected in 2004), on the grounds that they contain substantial scenes of sexual violence. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is the organisation responsible for film classification (see Motion picture rating systems and History of British Film Certificates) within the United Kingdom. ... Love Camp 7 is a 1969 film directed by American director Lee Frost and written by Bob Cresse. ... Women in Cellblock 9 is a 1977 film directed by Spanish director Jesus Franco. ... For the domesticated crop plant called rape, see rapeseed. ...

History

Women in prison films developed in the 1930s as melodramas. Young heroines were shown the way to a righteous life by way of the prison. Under the influence of pulp magazines and paperbacks, they became popular B-movies in the 1950s. Since the 1970s they are a specialty product of pornography. Women in prison films have more to do with male heterosexual fantasies than real prison life. The lesbian theme in these films also influenced mainstream cinema in films as Chicago (2002). Jump to: navigation, search Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914). ... Jump to: navigation, search Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as the pulps ) were inexpensive fiction magazines. ... The term B-movie originally referred to a film designed to be distributed as the lower half of a double feature, often a genre film featuring cowboys, gangsters or vampires. ... Pornography (from Greek πορνογραφία pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of harlots) (also informally referred to as porn or porno) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but (according to some) distinct from, erotica. ... Jump to: navigation, search A lesbian is a homosexual woman. ... Chicago is a movie musical released in 2002 about celebrity and money in Jazz age 1920s Chicago. ...

Bibliography

• Clowers, Marsha: Dykes, Gangs, and Danger. Debunking Popular Myths about Maximum-Security Life. as pdf
• Mayne, Judith: Caged and framed. The women-in-prison film. In: Framed: lesbians, feminists, and media culture, ed. by Judith Mayne. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2000. (Main Stack PN1995.9.W6.M359 2000)
• Morey, Anne. "'The Judge Called Me an Accessory': Women's Prison Films, 1950-1962." Journal of Popular Film & Television. 23(2):80-87. 1995 Summer.
• Rapaport, Lynn: Holocaust Pornography. Profaning the Sacred in Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, in: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1, Fall 2003, pp. 53-79.
• Waller, Gregory A.: Auto-Erotica. Some Notes on Comic Softcore Films for the Drive-in Circuit, Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 17, Issue 2, p. 135, Fall 1983
• Walters, Suzanna Danuta: Caged heat. The (R)evolution of women-in-prison films. In: Real knockouts. Violent women in the movies, edited by Martha McCaughey and Neal King. 1st Ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. (Main Stack PN1995.9.W6.R454 2001)
• Williams, Melanie. "Women in Prison and Women in Dressing Gowns: Rediscovering the 1950s Films of J. Lee Thompson." Journal of Gender Studies. 11(1):5-15. 2002 Mar

SEE ALSO: Prison Film Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

External links

• The Best of Women in Prison Films presented by DVD in my Pants
• Bad Cinema Diary: Women in Prison films
• Theprisonfilmproject.com: Overview of developments in the U.S. and the U.K. 1922 - 2003
• Lesbians in Women-in-Prison Movies
• Stock charecters in women in prison films