The High School outsider takes off her glasses, puts on a dress,
and becomes the Prom Queen; the dowdy woman has her hair done, buys
some chic new clothes and starts to attract the men. Cinderella and
Pygmalion stories still provide inspiration for the plots of
Hollywood romantic comedies, dramas, and even action films. Their
perennial use prompts a series of questions: is, for example, male
agency necessary to effect the transformation, or can the woman
change herself? Can she ever change him? Most pressingly, what do
these images of change and transformation, of improvement and
transcendence tell us, the viewers, about what we should be
doing?
Investigating these questions, this book examines a key but
frequently overlooked aspect of film style: the costume. Across all
the films discussed, costume and the body it covers becomes the
crucial element in the transformation scene, exemplifying the
"before" and "after" of the successful change. Exploring the
fantasies of transcendence and transformation sold through these
films and exemplified in the costumes, this book examines "Calamity
Jane," "Midnight Cowboy," "Clueless," "The Long Kiss Goodnight,"
"The Devil Wears Prada," and many other examples from both classic
and contemporary Hollywood.
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