The Disappearance of Shere Hite

Nicole Newnham's 2023 documentary is about the researcher Shere Hite. The book she published in 1976 rested on the anonymous accounts of thousands of women and shook the settled assumptions about female sexuality. The question is why Hite was forgotten. Although the book sold heavily, its author was repeatedly humiliated on television; the narrative shows the method of those attacks and follows her as far as leaving the country and renouncing her citizenship. Her writing is read by Dakota Johnson. Archive material takes wide space, and the debate programmes of the period are the film's most striking passages. The narrative stands openly with Hite. Who it's for: those who follow the history of feminism and documentary of reassessment. Who it's not for: viewers expecting neutral reporting; the documentary states its case from the start.