Sometimes I Picture You Dreaming: How American Female Directors Use Women-in-Prison Films as a Pathway for Public Education and Activism in the Era of Mass Incarceration

Author

Nicolette Natale, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Date of Degree

2-2026

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Program

Liberal Studies

Advisor

Alison Griffiths

Subject Categories

American Politics | Critical and Cultural Studies | Film and Media Studies | Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication | Social Justice | Women's History

Keywords

mass incarceration, exploitation films, female directors, cultural theory, media history, feminist film theory

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of female directors in creating media that showcases how prisons perpetuate sexism or gender-based violence. As mass incarceration began to take off in the 1970s, this paper begins with an analysis of Jack Hill’s The Big Doll House (1971), which often served as the model for women-in-prison (WIP) exploitation films. While Hill perpetuated the white and male gaze in The Big Doll House, Stephanie Rothman subverts oppressive gazes in her WIP film, Terminal Island (1973), and demonstrates a concern with the historical gendered realities of prison – moving beyond representations of prison on the screen in the ‘70s that were only used for figurative or narrative device purposes – while simultaneously asking viewers to think critically about media constructions of criminality. Lastly, this paper examines Prison Stories: Women on the Inside (1991), a television-movie consisting of three episodes, primarily concerned with women’s abilities to mother while incarcerated. In this paper, I will analyze two episodes: “Esperanza” directed by Donna Deitch and “Parole Board” directed by Joan Micklin Silver. In doing so, I will highlight how Deitch and Micklin Silver show how the legal justice system criminalizes survivors of domestic abuse: either through charges like “accomplice liability,” or through self-defense. In doing so, I hope to illuminate the ways that directors who are women have been influenced by their positionalities – including their experiences navigating a predominantly male-dominated film industry – to create movies that serve as a call to action for gender-responsive legal justice reform.

Recommended Citation

Natale, Nicolette, "Sometimes I Picture You Dreaming: How American Female Directors Use Women-in-Prison Films as a Pathway for Public Education and Activism in the Era of Mass Incarceration" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6553