These women didn’t want a man; they wanted success and recognition. Their punishment was loneliness or insanity, or both. These women were driven mad by wanting too much and, pointedly, by aging. They had passed their shelf life of social and sexual relevance, so they must either fit inside their designated box or be driven mad. Interestingly, only a few decades later a new genre would rise, alternately called “hagsploitation” or “psycho biddy,” which would give a second wind to the lagging careers of some of classic Hollywood’s greatest actresses in genre films of varying quality that all had
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