Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular CultureDiane Negra, Yvonne Tasker Duke University Press, 2007 M11 2 - 360 pages 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 with 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. Contributors. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Steven Cohan, Lisa Coulthard, Anna Feigenbaum, Suzanne Leonard, Angela McRobbie, Diane Negra, Sarah Projansky, Martin Roberts, Hannah E. Sanders, Kimberly Springer, Yvonne Tasker, Sadie Wearing |
From inside the book
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... discussion of the trend toward “ masculinist ” television programming , late 1990s and early 2000s popular culture frequently deployed ironic humor to allow “ regressive , recidi- vist masculinity to emerge unscathed from ongoing ...
... discuss specific film , television , and popular music texts . As such , the volume engages with , and may be situated within , the rich body of feminist film and television studies publications that focus on popular culture and the ...
... discuss this figure, in some instances in an attempt to reconcile politics and pleasure, which are perceived as in some ... discussion of violence, action, and feminism through Tarantino's high-profile Kill Bill movies addresses these ...
... discussion of authoritative queerness in lifestyle television in this volume establishes . Indeed , some of the most quintessentially postfeminist genres , such as the wedding film , rely on out ( yet nonconfrontational ) gay men . As ...
... discussion of the plastic surgery industry and contemporary body politics , see Blum , Flesh Wounds . 3. hooks , Feminism Is for Everybody . 4. Ibid . , 50 . 5. Ironic references to feminism as “ the F word ” are a familiar feature of ...
Contents
1 | |
27 | |
Some Reflections on Postfeminist Girls and Postfeminisms Daughters | 40 |
The Magic of Postfeminist Sisterhood | 73 |
Adultery Boredom and the Working Girl in TwentyFirstCentury American Cinema | 100 |
Feminisms Postfeminisms and Processes of Punk | 132 |
Rethinking Feminism and Film Violence | 153 |
Camp Postfeminism and the Fab Fives Makeovers of Masculinity | 176 |
8 Whats Your Flava? Race and Postfeminism in Media Culture | 201 |
Governing the Self in What Not to Wear | 227 |
African American Women in Postfeminist and PostCivilRights Popular Culture | 249 |
Aging in Postfeminist Culture | 277 |
Bibliography | 311 |
Contributors | 331 |
Index | 335 |