Women in Neoliberal Postfeminist Television Drama
Representing Gendered Experiences of the Second World War
Buch in deiner Nähe kaufen
Beschreibung
“In this insightful book, Cat Mahoney offers a fascinating analysis of contemporary TV dramas such as Home Fires, Land Girls and The Bletchley Circle. Developing the idea that history is told through the preoccupations of the present, she argues compellingly that these are postfeminist dramas which work through troubling ideas about heteronormative romance, domesticity, beauty and whiteness, while reinforcing the idea that feminism as a political movement is not necessary. A bold and original contribution to television studies, gender studies and popular history.”
̶ Rosalind Gill, City, University of London, UK
By examining contemporary television drama set during and immediately after the Second World War, this book illustrates the ways in which postfeminism has shaped representations of women in contemporary culture. Mahoney offers a new perspective to debates that have previously been concerned with questions of historical accuracy. She argues that depictions of women from the past in modern television drama spawn from the neoliberal postfeminist media climate which originated in the 1990s. These depictions respond to a cultural need to naturalise and de-historicise a version of neoliberal postfeminist femininity that is compatible with the current media climate and far more reflective of the concerns of the present than any “real” or lived experience of women in the past. The result of this process of naturalisation is the assertion that postfeminist values are natural and eternal, rather than a product of the 1980s economic turn and the present political moment. By identifying and interrogating postfeminist norms within four television drama series produced since the 2008 financial crash, this book argues that postfeminism is a dominant structuring force in their depiction of female characters and of the past.
“In this insightful book, Cat Mahoney offers a fascinating analysis of contemporary TV dramas such as Home Fires, Land Girls and The Bletchley Circle. Developing the idea that history is told through the preoccupations of the present, she argues compellingly that these are postfeminist dramas which work through troubling ideas about heteronormative romance, domesticity, beauty and whiteness, while reinforcing the idea that feminism as a political movement is not necessary. A bold and original contribution to television studies, gender studies and popular history.”
̶ Rosalind Gill, City, University of London, UK
By examining contemporary television drama set during and immediately after the Second World War, this book illustrates the ways in which postfeminism has shaped representations of women in contemporary culture. Mahoney offers a new perspective to debates that have previously been concerned with questions of historical accuracy. She argues that depictions of women from the past in modern television drama spawn from the neoliberal postfeminist media climate which originated in the 1990s. These depictions respond to a cultural need to naturalise and de-historicise a version of neoliberal postfeminist femininity that is compatible with the current media climate and far more reflective of the concerns of the present than any “real” or lived experience of women in the past. The result of this process of naturalisation is the assertion that postfeminist values are natural and eternal, rather than a product of the 1980s economic turn and the present political moment. By identifying and interrogating postfeminist norms within four television drama series produced since the 2008 financial crash, this book argues that postfeminism is a dominant structuring force in their depiction of female characters and of the past.
Demonstrates that postfeminism, far from being a spent force, remains a structuring need in representations of women’s history on television Offers a new perspective to debates on representations of women’s experiences of the Second World War and moves the discussion beyond questions regarding historical accuracy Elaborates on the relationship between television and cultural memory and the importance of television as a site of memory and identity construction for groups whose stories are marginalised in mainstream histories?
Autor*in
Cat Mahoney
Themen in »Women in Neoliberal Postfeminist Television Drama«
Television Modern History Gender Postfeminism Representation Popular Culture
Stimmen zu »Women in Neoliberal Postfeminist Television Drama«
“Mahoney’s Women in Neoliberal Postfeminist Television Drama continues a fascinating vein of current feminist television scholarship … . Mahoney clearly maintains that the primary goal of her research is the demonstration of a postfeminist sensibility … . The tightness of the book’s focus is one of its most enduring strengths. … Mahoney’s work stands as a good model for those who wish to consider the intersections of history, ideology and feminist politics through the richness of the televisual text.” (Daniel Martin, Critical Studies in Television, Vol. 16 (2), 2021)
()