Page 20 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

intended) is a feminist. As Hunter argues, these puns not only resemble a Benny Hill sketch or 'one
of the plays what Ernie Wise wrote' for the Morecambe and Wise Show on British television in the
1970s. They also point, like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and The Incredible Shrinking Woman, to a
clumsily articulated feminist 'message', with Queen Kong held up as a symbol of 'oppressed women
everywhere'. Hunter puts the seriousness of this message at the centre of his argument, showing that
Queen Kong fits into different contexts, all of which equip the film with a range of disparate meanings,
sometimes contradictory. As part of British exploitation filmmaking in the 1970s, it exemplifies a
period when sexploitation was one of the few thriving areas of indigenous cinema. As part of the 'ape
film' and giant creature sub-genres, like King Kong, Godzilla and British imitations such as Konga,
Gorgo and Digby: The Biggest Dog in the World, the focus is on the films' treatment of race, Konga and
Queen Kong being allegories, loosely speaking, of white sexual fantasies about the black presence in
Britain. The film also draws parallels between discourses of primitivism in Queen Kong and Hammer's
prehistoric fantasies of the 1960s {One Million Years BC, Slave Girls). And with its 'message' it can be
seen as British popular culture's response to feminism.
Jennifer Fay's chapter, 'The Schoolgirl Reports and the Guilty Pleasure of History', also discusses
the 1970s, and the German series of Schoolgirl Report films of Ernst Hofbauer in particular. Fay argues
that these films, arguably among the most successful produced in Germany during the 1970s, are
usually undeservedly reproached for their excessive portrayal of teenage nudity, as well as their implicit
hints of Nazi history (through scenes of torture, execution, military paraphernalia). But, although the
Schoolgirl Report films may seem to be merely exploitative at first sight, they actually fit very well in
a context of rising permissiveness and the contesting of authority occurring in Germany at this time.
A crucial issue the series tackles is that of teenage female sexuality, which Fay places at the centre of
cultural debates in Germany during the 1970s (noting that German soft-porn outnumbered even
US production). As this chapter shows, the usual dismissal of the series refuses to acknowledge both
the importance of sexuality as a site of power struggles and the significance of the vignette structure
of the films as a means of questioning Germany's past. Through close analyses of key scenes of the
most striking films in the series, and by focusing on the importance of confession and guilt in their
narrative structure, Fay discloses how the Schoolgirl Report films raise a number of issues of political
and cultural importance in post-war Germany. Here, Fay applies Michel Foucault's notion of the
'perpetual spirals of power and pleasure' to the 'family struggles' portrayed in these films, arguing
that these act as metaphors for the difficulties many youngsters had in relating to their parents' and
guardians' roles in the war. By linking the Schoolgirl Report films to Michael Geyer's work on post-
war memory politics, Fay convincingly demonstrates how guilty memories haunt these films, their
structure and their style.
Whereas Fay tackles a relatively large timeframe of analysis in her consideration of a film cycle,
Dona M. Kercher focuses on the relationship of a specific European director and his ability to tap
into particular crises in local cultures in a comic and disturbing way. In her chapter 'Violence, Timing
and the Comedy Team in Alex de le Iglesia's Muertos de Risa, Kercher outlines de la Iglesia's versatile
profile as one of Spain's most interesting directors (with a trademark of wild and surreal humour,
grotesque violence and social subtexts). This chapter then goes on to locate his place in a local/global
framework of media production. As Kercher shows through stylistic analyses of some of de la Iglesia's

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