Feminist Ethics in Film:: Reconfiguring Care Through Cinema

Popular films can do more than merely entertain us; they can contribute to our understanding of human nature and the ethical theory that is meant to inform it. The rounded portraits of humanity found in film narratives are even more critical to the ethics of care. Without these developed quasi-biographies care ethics is radically incomplete because it stresses concrete relationships between particular individuals and the stories that capture them. The films interpreted here disclose implications for feminist ethics that have been overlooked in less contextualized discussions. In particular, the book examines the relationship between care and: self-transformation, narrative and self-understanding, political life, autonomy, community, and family disintegration. Examining films from the perspective of the care ethics both expands and deepens our understanding of care while the philosophical theory adds depth and aesthetic richness to our appreciation of the films.

Joseph H. Kupfer is university professor of philosophy at Iowa State University.