Popular cinema and lesbian interpretive strategies
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Updated: Oct 9, 2026

Post-Movie Subliminal Measurement (PMSM), for Investigating Implicit Social Bias
Published on: February 29, 2020
1Association for Research on Mothering, Atkinson College, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
In its examination of the relationship between popular film and lesbian viewing practices, this study attempts to more fully elucidate current ideas around audience engagement and forms of cultural reception. Drawing on 15 in-depth interviews conducted in Western Canada in 1996, the results clearly demonstrate the existence of active lesbian viewers, whose interpretations of popular film are intimately informed by lesbian-specific life experiences and cultural competencies. Although the social conditions which create the need for resistant viewing are themselves oppressive, subversion of mainstream film holds out some possibility of empowerment for lesbian viewers.
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