"A Cinematic Rorschach of Social Changes Percolating through Postwar Society"

"Just as Lord claims, these films are disturbing to process. It’s incredible to think that their subversive themes survived the scrutiny of the Hays Code censors, who bowdlerized American films between 1930 and 1967. Taylor’s first big break came in 1944, at the age of 12, when she starred in 'National Velvet.' But her first important grown-up role was in a movie about unwanted pregnancy and, tacitly, abortion ('A Place in the Sun,' 1951). She confronted sexism and racial prejudice in the Texas epic 'Giant,' and her later films addressed female sexual autonomy (­'BUtterfield 8'), homosexuality ('Suddenly, Last Summer,' 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof') and female fury ('Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'). Their daring subjects aside, these films are made disconcerting by Taylor’s unrestrained physicality and unmuted emotion."

In The New York Times, Liesl Schillinger reviews M.G. Lord's The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice.