Department of English, University of Louisville Phone: (502)852-6770 or (502)852-6801. Fax: (502)852-4182. I'm a little puzzled, troubled, etc. A couple of days ago I tried to make a fairly serious post about the issue of "strong women" in Hollywood, ending w/ a query as to what others have been reading in the area of Hollywood and gender lately. At first there were no responses to this. Today there seem to be two, though neither addresses my post directly. One is from "Denise," who feels "a bit sarcastic and generally displeased with [what she sees as the] hypocrisy" of the position I took on THELMA AND LOUISE--the position that it's troubling that there were huge objections to the vengeful violence in that movie while such violence produces far less objection when, as is common in the film's genre, men and not women are the "buddies." I think we can certainly take different positions on THELMA AND LOUISE, and one thing that interests me is that the gender reversal in that film DID somehow "make strange" a violence that has become "natural" to the genre on which this film plays its variations. But I'm not sure what the substantive objection is to the position that I took on the list, which is variously attributed by Denise to hypocritical academe or the "STUPID" public. The other post suggests that the discussion of women in film has been too much dominated by men. On this I'm split: on the one hand I too would like to see more responses from women. On the other, the actual construction of the debate so far seems to me pretty much utterly opposed to what an "identity politics" might lead one to expect. I don't know quite what to do with all of this; if nothing else it seems to me to show just how problematic these questions remain--particularly the question of men's relation to feminist discourses. Tom, who will try to shut up for awhile and watch this play itself out. bitnet tbbyer01@ulkyvm; internet [log in to unmask] Thomas B. Byers Department of English/University of Louisville Louisville KY 40292