Sexual Politics And Popular Culture

Almost wherever we look, depictions of sexuality, both subtle and not-so-subtle, are omnipresent. Whatever the medium, popular culture representations tell us something about ourselves and about the ideologies of which they are symptomatic. These essays examine the strategies of power implicit in popular representations of sexuality. The authors--scholars in fields such as sociology, philosophy, biology, political science, history, and English literature-- eschew rigid disciplinary boundaries.

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

The all-female Takarazuka Revue is world-famous today for its rococo musical productions, including gender-bending love stories, torridly romantic liaisons in foreign settings, and fanatically devoted fans. But that is only a small part of its complicated and complicit performance history. In this sophisticated and historically grounded analysis, anthropologist Jennifer Robertson draws from over a decade of fieldwork and archival research to explore how the Revue illuminates discourses of sexual politics, nationalism, imperialism, and popular culture in twentieth-century Japan. The Revue was founded in 1913 as a novel counterpart to the all-male Kabuki theater. Tracing the contradictory meanings of Takarazuka productions over time, with special attention to the World War II period, Robertson illuminates the intricate web of relationships among managers, directors, actors, fans, and social critics, whose clashes and compromises textured the theater and the wider society in colorful and complex ways.

This book looks at popular culture, especially mass media as an area of struggle for the identity and definition of women.

This fully updated second edition of Gender and Popular Culture examines the role of popular culture in the construction of gendered identities in contemporary society. It draws on a wide range of cultural forms – including popular music, social media, television and magazines – to illustrate how femininity and masculinity are produced, represented, used and consumed. Blending primary and secondary research, Milestone and Meyer introduce key theories and concepts in gender studies and popular culture, which are made accessible and interesting through their application to topical examples such as the #MeToo campaign, intensive mothering and social media, discourses about women and binge drinking, and gender and popular music. Included in this revised edition is a new chapter on digital culture, examining the connection between digital platforms and gender identities, relations and activism, as well as a new chapter on cultural work in digital contexts. All chapters have been updated to acknowledge recent changes in gender images and relations as well as media culture. Additionally, there is new material on the Fourth Wave Women's Movement, audiences and prosumers, and the role of social media. Gender and Popular Culture is the go-to textbook for students of gender studies, media and communication, and popular culture.

While some have argued that we live in a ‘postfeminist’ era that renders feminism irrelevant to people’s contemporary lives this book takes ‘feminism’, the source of eternal debate, contestation and ambivalence, and situates the term within the popular, cultural practices of everyday life. It explores the intimate connections between the politics of feminism and the representational practices of contemporary popular culture, examining how feminism is ‘made sensible’ through visual imagery and popular culture representations. It investigates how popular culture is produced, represented and consumed to reproduce the conditions in which feminism is valued or dismissed, and asks whether antifeminism exists in commodity form and is commercially viable. Written in an accessible style and analysing a broad range of popular culture artefacts (including commercial advertising, printed and digital news-related journalism and commentary, music, film, television programming, websites and social media), this book will be of use to students, researchers and practitioners of International Relations, International Political Economy and gender, cultural and media studies.

This book is an exhilarating and important addition to the literature on sexuality and on education. An unusually international collection--with contributions on Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, the UK and the United States--it includes chapters written both by internationally known leaders in the field and by exciting newcomers. The book challenges conventional ways of thinking both about sexuality and about pedagogy, with sections on myth-making, identity, globalization and interventions in education. It will be a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of social and cultural theory, queer studies, gender and women's studies and education.