Review of Exposing Vulnerability: Self-Mediation in Scandinavian Films by Women

Sinem Yankı Özcan

doi:10.5195/cinej.2025.848

Review of Exposing Vulnerability: Self-Mediation in Scandinavian Films by Women

Authors

Sinem Yankı Özcan Başkent University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0229-3914

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2025.848

Keywords:

vulnerability, self-mediation, spectatorship, ethics, Scandinavia

Abstract

This review assesses Adriana Margareta Dancus’s Exposing Vulnerability (Intellect, 2019), which argues that first-person filmmaking by Scandinavian women mobilises vulnerability as an aesthetic, ethical, and political force, cultivating spectatorship that oscillates between intimacy and distance. Through close readings of Good Girl, The Reunion, Ida’s Diary, Sami Blood, and Fragility, Dancus links formal strategies—collage, haptic visuality, long takes—to consent, care, and circulation across public spheres. The review credits the book’s careful mapping of self-mediation as public address and its nuanced account of exposure becoming ethical encounter, while noting limits around audience heterogeneity and Scandinavian scope. Overall, it offers a teachable framework for courses on documentary ethics, feminist media, and Nordic cinema.

Author Biography

Sinem Yankı Özcan, Başkent University

Research Assistant

References

Dancus, A. M. (2016). Women, vulnerability and depression: The cruel optimism of not giving a damn in Good Girl, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 6(2), pp. 137–151. https://doi.org/10.1386/jsca.6.2.137_1

Dancus, A. M. (2019). Exposing vulnerability: Self-mediation in Scandinavian films by women. Intellect.

Dancus, A. M. (2020). Vulnerable exposures: A conversation with Norwegian filmmaker Anne Haugsgjerd. Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 10(3), 273–279. https://doi.org/10.1386/jsca_00030_7

Dancus, A. M., Hyvönen, M. and Karlsson, M. (eds) (2020) Vulnerability in Scandinavian art

and culture. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Published

2025-12-03

How to Cite

Özcan, S. Y. (2025). Review of Exposing Vulnerability: Self-Mediation in Scandinavian Films by Women. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 13(2), 907–915. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2025.848

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Issue

Vol. 13 No. 2 (2025): Fall

Section

Book Reviews

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