Interrogating postfeminism : gender and the politics of popular culture / edited by Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Tasker, Yvonne, 1964-

Negra, Diane, 1966-

Series:

Console-ing passions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feminist theory.

Popular culture.

Sex role.

Mass media and women.

Physical Description:

vi, 344 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Other Title:

Interrogating post-feminism : gender and the politics of popular culture

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2007.

Summary:

This timely collection brings feminist critique to bear on contemporary postfeminist mass media culture, analyzing phenomena ranging from action films featuring violent heroines to the "girling" of aging women in productions such as the movie Something's Gotta Give and the British television series 10 Years Younger. Broadly defined, "postfeminism" encompasses a set of assumptions that feminism has accomplished its goals and is now a thing of the past. It presumes that women are unsatisfied by their (taken for granted) legal and social equality and can find fulfillment only through practices of transformation and empowerment. Postfeminism is defined by class, age, and racial exclusions; it is youth-obsessed and white and middle-class by default. Anchored in consumption as a strategy and leisure as a site for the production of the self, postfeminist mass media assumes that the pleasures and lifestyles with which it is associated are somehow universally shared and, perhaps more significantly, universally accessible. Essays by feminist film, media, and literature scholars based in the United States and United Kingdom provide an array of perspectives on the social and political implications of postfeminism. Examining magazines, mainstream and independent cinema, popular music, and broadcast genres from primetime drama to reality television, contributors consider how postfeminism informs self-fashioning through makeovers and cosmetic surgery, the "metrosexual" male, the "black chick flick," and more. Interrogating Postfeminism demonstrates not only the viability of, but also the necessity for, a powerful feminist critique of contemporary popular culture.

Contents:

Postfeminism and popular culture : Bridget Jones and the new gender regime / Angela McRobbie

Mass magazine cover girls : some reflections on postfeminist girls and postfeminism's daughters / Sarah Projansky

Living a Charmed life : the magic of postfeminist sisterhood / Hannah E. Sanders

"I hate my job, I hate everybody here" : adultery, boredom, and the "working girl" in twenty-first-century American cinema / Suzanne Leonard

Remapping the resonances of riot grrrl : feminisms, postfeminisms and "processes" of punk / Anna Feigenbaum

Killing Bill : rethinking feminism and film violence / Lisa Coulthard

Queer eye for the straight guise : camp, postfeminism, and the fab five's makeovers of masculinity / Steven Cohan

What's your flava? race and postfeminism in media culture / Sarah Banet-Weiser

The fashion police : governing the self in What not to wear / Martin Roberts

Divas, evil black bitches, and bitter Black women : African American women in postfeminist and post-civil-rights popular culture / Kimberly Springer

Subjects of rejuvenation : aging in postfeminist culture / Sadie Wearing.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [311]-330) and index.

ISBN:

9780822340140

0822340143

9780822340324

0822340321

OCLC:

123766959