Stephanie Rothman Does Not Exist: Narrating a Lost History of Women in Film

Abstract

This article examines Stephanie Rothman and her career as a second-wave exploitation film director between 1966 and 1974. Marginally represented in film histories and archives, Rothman made seven films during her short career and flourished in the primarily masculinized world of second-wave exploitation filmmaking. Despite her success, she remains largely obscure to academic and popular film communities. Grounding the discussion in a series of interviews conducted with the director, the author examines Rothman's role as the rare woman director working in second-wave exploitation filmmaking—and, indeed, in Hollywood—through her professional and personal ideology, her relationship with Roger Corman, and her marginalized place in film history. In so doing, this article provides an interventional model for the reconceptualization of film histories and archives through a feminist framework.