“Counter cinema” in the mainstream

Hollywood’s women directors have received very little academic attention. The focus of much feminist scholarship is on those women filmmakers who have produced politicised films, and Hollywood histories have focused on the work of male filmmakers. This article argues for attention to be paid to Hollywood’s most financially successful directors as they have the potential to disrupt the patriarchal structures that govern the Hollywood film industry. Using writer-directors Amy Heckerling, Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers as case studies, this paper considers the industrial context within which these filmmakers have worked, and their films, in order to demonstrate the way in which women working within mainstream cinema have offered a form of counter cinema. The paper argues that Heckerling, Ephron and Meyers have capitalized on industry discourses that position them away from blockbuster cinema and that they offer a knowingness in their representation of romance and desire in order to create women’s narratives that function as a counterpoint to Hollywood’s dominant values.