Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Feminist Politics and Postfeminist Culture / Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra 1
1. Postfeminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the New Gender Regime / Angela McRobbie 27
2. Mass Magazine Cover Girls: Some Reflections on Postfeminist Girls and Postfeminism’s Daughters / Sarah Projansky 40
3. Living a Charmed Life: The Magic of Postfeminist Sisterhood / Hannah E. Sanders 73
4. “I Hate My Job, I Hate Everybody Here”: Adultery, Boredom, and the “Working Girl” in Twenty-First Century American Cinema / Suzanne Leonard 100
5. Remapping the Resonances of Riot Grrrl: Feminisms, Postfeminisms, and “Processes” of Punk / Anna Feigenbaum 132
6. Killing Bill: Rethinking Feminism and Film Violence / Lisa Coulthard 153
7. Queer Eye for the Straight Guise: Camp, Posfeminism, and the Fab Five’s Makeovers of Masculinity / Steven Cohan 176
8. What’s Your Flava? Race and Postfeminism in Media Culture / Sarah Banet-Weiser 201
9. The Fashion Police: Governing the Self in What Not to Wear / Martin Roberts 227
10. Divas, Evil Black Bitches, and Bitter Black Women: African American Women in Postfeminist and Post-Civil-Rights Popular Culture / Kimberly Springer 249
11. Subjects of Rejuvenation: Aging in Postfeminist Culture / Sadie Wearing 277
Bibliography 311
Contributors 331
Index 355

Promotional Information

Feminist essays examining postfeminism in American and British popular culture.

About the Author

Yvonne Tasker is a professor of film and television studies at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema and Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema as well as the editor of Action and Adventure Cinema.

Diane Negra is a professor of film and television studies at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Off-White Hollywood: American Culture and Ethnic Female Stardom; the editor of The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and Popular Culture; and a coeditor of A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema, the latter two of which are both also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

"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 "This is a benchmark text: rich, authoritative, timely. Bringing together work by key authors on most of the significant phenomena and genres of 'postfeminist' culture, it will convince readers of the necessity of confronting the term."--Patricia White, author of Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability