Gaylyn Studlar

Gaylyn Studlar, the feminist film scholar who reshaped debates about cinematic pleasure, gender and desire, and who built Washington University in St. Louis's Film and Media Studies program into a major department, died on September 9, 2026, in St. Louis. She was 73. WashU Arts and Sciences announced her death and remembered her as one of the most influential feminist scholars of her generation.

Studlar grew up in Lubbock, Texas, playing violin and later cello. She earned a bachelor's degree in music from Texas Tech University and a master's in music from the University of Southern California, where film classes and work in the film library drew her toward cinema studies. She completed her Ph.D. at USC in 1984. While still a doctoral student she published Masochism and the Perverse Pleasures of Cinema (1984), later revised as Visual Pleasure and the Masochistic Aesthetic (1985). The essay offered an alternative to frameworks that cast the male gaze as purely sadistic and voyeuristic, arguing instead that a masochistic aesthetic shapes film form, language and the production of pleasure. The piece became a staple of film curricula alongside Laura Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.

Her first book, In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic (1988), traced those arguments through six Marlene Dietrich films. This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age (1996) examined Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, John Barrymore and Lon Chaney as sites where American masculinity negotiated changing gender norms, immigration and modern industrial life. Later monographs included Precocious Charms: Stars Performing Girlhood in Classical Hollywood Cinema (2013) and Have Gun - Will Travel (2015). She co-edited collections on John Huston, Orientalism in film, Titanic and John Ford westerns, published dozens of articles and chapters, and recorded nearly a dozen DVD and Blu-ray commentaries, including The Earrings of Madame de... for Criterion.

After teaching at the University of North Texas and Emory University, Studlar became professor of women's studies and director of film and video studies at the University of Michigan in 1995, and Rudolph Arnheim Collegiate Professor of Film Studies in 2000. In 2009 she joined WashU as David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities and director of Film and Media Studies. Under her leadership the program expanded facilities, tenure-track lines and enrollment, launched a master's degree in 2013 and a production concentration in 2019, and prepared courses in digital media, games and artificial intelligence.

She is survived by Thomas Haslett, her husband of 35 years; her brother Donley; sister-in-law Susie; and nephews Carl and Ross Studlar. A service was planned for September 25, 2026, at Weimar Masonic Cemetery in Weimar, Texas. Film and Media Studies at WashU launched an annual Gaylyn Studlar Lecture in her honor, with Samantha Noelle Sheppard of Cornell scheduled to deliver the inaugural address.