Fosse, a biography by Sam Wasson, is a very good show-business and personal biography of Fosse (the brilliant dancer, choreographer, director of stage and screen, and film editor) but the focus is too tightly on Bob Fosse, his relationships, and detailed descriptions of his role in musical theater history, to the neglect of a feminist socio-political analysis that could have made more sense of Fosse and his obsessions.
This mini-review touches on a few of these themes.
The book, importantly, repeatedly makes reference to the ambiguous combination of community, sexuality, and abuse he experienced as a young teen on the burlesque-vaudeville circuit. At his best (Cabaret, All That Jazz), Fosse mined these experiences to articulate his confusion about how liberating sexuality (and the art of show biz) can be, but how exploitative it often is. These are works of beauty and artistic genius married to the exploitation they deplore.
Fosse lacked an overt feminist analysis that might have helped him emotionally and politically make sense of both his traumatic experiences and his artistic subjects. Wasson reports that Bob Fosse's teenage daughter Nicole tried to confront him on his personal chauvinism, but then passes over this incident without enough commentary.
Liza Gennaro touches on a few of these themes in an analysis of the stage version of Sweet Charity, which I haven't yet seen. See also a scholarly analysis by Linda Mizejewski of the ambiguous roles of misogyny and homophobia in the film version of Cabaret, though it's unfortunately behind a JSTOR payroll.
I believe Bob Fosse's great subject was how misogyny ruins art, beauty, and love, including his own. Fosse's tragedy, I believe, is that he didn't understand that. Wasson provides us with great raw material to analyze, but doesn't apply feminist lenses to make sense of them. Wasson's biography is thus a fine personal and performance biography, but mirrors its subject too closely in its failings.