“Tracking the figure of the girl across the fields of contemporary art and film, this book moves effortlessly between cultural criticism, art history, and feminist theory. Be forewarned, however: the girls in contemporary art are anything but docile or well-behaved. From baby butches to bad girls, from reluctant Lolitas to hysterical orphans, these girls make terrific trouble in the lavishly imagined worlds they inhabit. And the women who do that imagining? They are some of the leading artists and filmmakers of our day. And thanks to Girls! Girls! Girls!, they get their critical due.”

Richard Meyer, University of Southern California

“Girls! Girls! Girls! is the missing link in the new feminist art history/criticism. It engages with that crucial and ambiguous period where children become women. In a way, one might say that girlhood lies at the root of Freud’s question ‘what do women want?,’ and at the same time that it mystifies this originary moment in women’s history. These texts hit the crucial questions in girl representation, running the whole gamut from charm to hysteria to murder.”

Linda Nochlin, New York University