Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular CultureYvonne Tasker, Diane Negra Duke University Press, 2007 M11 2 - 344 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 |
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... analysis . Despite the emergence of accessible accounts such as these , postfeminism nevertheless works to in- validate systemic critique . As McRobbie writes in her influential essay , re- printed here , " The new female subject is ...
... analysis of girls , diversity , and the commercial strategies adopted by Nickelodeon , the children's cable television channel . Once again difference is commodified rather than politicized within mainstream culture ; such cultural ...
... analyses exploring postfeminism through a range of media and cultural practices . It is our contention that part of the ... analysis of current postfeminist culture is beyond the scope of one volume . It would entail , for instance , an ...
... analysis of the 2003 American cable hit Queer Eye for the Straight Guy makes clear . Some of the most male ... analyses of masculinity are a characteristic trend of the 1990s and zooos.37 In June 2004 , the cover of a supplement to the ...
... analysis of the 8:00 to 9:00 pm slot and lifestyle programming on British television demonstrates the importance of recognizing the pleasures of being addressed by mainstream culture and the necessity of understanding these processes ...