Bloomsbury Academic Philosophy of Fashion Through Film, A: On the Body, Style, and Identity

The question of whether movies can deliver philosophical content is a leading topic in the cognitive and analytic debate on film. But instead of turning to the well-trodden terrain of narrative and emotional engagement, this is the first time fashion and costume choices are analyzed to demonstrate how movies can be said to be doing philosophy. Considering how fashion and costumes can deliver the epistemic content of a film and act as a guidance to the interpretation of the philosophical content of a film, Laura T. Di Summa examines fashion and costume choices in classical and contemporary films. She discusses a number of cinematic examples, and the costumes and fashion elements within them, illustrating the importance of issues such as the performative side of fashion, the alteration between novelty and repetition, the pivotal role of the body, and the relation between fashion, style, and individual as well as collective identity. Featuring close examinations of 1950s melodramas, Hollywood blockbusters and documentaries such as All That Heaven Allows,Mad Max Fury Road, and McQueen, Di Summa uses an innovative new lens to provide fresh philosophical analysis of films. The result is not only an advancement of our understanding of the aesthetic means through which film can do philosophy, but the first insights into a philosophy of fashion. Review Thought-provoking, engrossing, and filled with intriguing information that sparks illuminating insights, this richly illustrated volume is a major contribution to the emerging field of scholarship on the positions and depictions of aging females in diverse societies. Contributors examine cultures in which old women are regarded as significant sources of wisdom and power; they also explain the contexts for widespread stereotypes of old women, elsewhere, as physically repulsive, powerless, and/or simply invisible. Essays demonstrate how visual art has reinforced these varying attitudes across different centuries and societies and introduce the work of artists who have challenged negative stereotypes through a variety of means, including nude self-portraits of the aging female body. In this fascinating, important, and innovative book, the authors fearlessly tackle controversial issues, find humor in surprising places, and convincingly argue that aged women can, and should, be viewed as wise, powerful, creative, and—yes, beautiful. About the Author Laura T. Di Summa is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University, USA. She is a co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures (2019).