Product Description

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #398959 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780822340324
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
"Feminism may be a movement that few women today wish to identify with, yet its effect on their lives and choices remains obvious and virtually impossible to deny." -- Evelyn Hartogh, M/C Reviews

From the Back Cover
“This collection is just what I’ve been looking for: a smart feminist analysis of the curious phenomenon of postfeminism. The editors and contributors provide ample and intelligent criticism of ‘commodity feminism’ and the lies of ‘self-empowerment’ in myriad makeover shows, plastic surgery ads, and female action films, without belittling the power, appeal, and sheer gusto of the myths of empowerment, diversity, and ‘girl power’ in contemporary culture. Interrogating Postfeminism demonstrates that announcements of the ‘death’ of feminism have been premature.”—Pamela Robertson Wojcik, author of Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna

About the Author
Kimberly Springer is a lecturer in American Studies at Kings College, University of London. She is the editor of Still Lifting, Still Climbing: African American Women’s Contemporary Activism.