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Description

As portrayals of heroic women gain ground in film, television, and other media, their depictions are breaking free of females as versions of male heroes or simple stereotypes of acutely weak or overly strong women. Although heroines continue to represent the traditional roles of mothers, goddesses, warriors, whores, witches, and priestesses, these women are no longer just damsels in distress or violent warriors.

In Heroines of Film and Television: Portrayals in Popular Culture,award-winning authors from a variety of disciplines examine the changing roles of heroic women across time. In this volume, editors Norma Jones, Maja Bajac-Carter, and Bob Batchelor have assembled a collection of essays that broaden our understanding of how heroines are portrayed across media, offering readers new ways to understand, perceive, and think about women. Contributors bring fresh readings to popular films and television shows such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Kill Bill, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Weeds, Mad Men, and Star Trek.

The representations and interpretations of these heroines are important reflections of popular culture that simultaneously empower and constrain real life women. These essays help readers gain a more complete understanding of female heroes, especially as related to race, gender, power, and culture. A companion volume to Heroines of Comic Books and Literature, this collection will appeal to academics and broader audiences that are interested in women in popular culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

I. Heroines on Television

Chapter 1: The Erotic Heroine and the politics of gender at work: A feminist reading of Mad Men's Joan Harris, Suzy D'Enbeau and Patrice M. Buzzanell
Chapter 2: Burn One Down: Nancy Botwin as (Post)Feminist (Anti)Heroine, Katie Snyder
Chapter 3: Choosing Her “Fae”te: Subversive Sexuality and Lost Girl's Re/evolutionary Female Hero, Jennifer K. Stuller

II. Heroines on Film

Chapter 4: Torture, Rape, Action Heroines and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Jeffrey A. Brown
Chapter 5: The Maternal Hero in Tarantino's Kill Bill, Maura Grady
Chapter 6: We've Seen this Deadly Web Before: Repackaging Femme Fatale & Representing Superhero(in)e as Neo-noir 'Black Widow' in Sin City, Ryan Castillo and Katie Gibson
Chapter 7: Romance, Comedy, Conspiracy: The Paranoid Heroine in Contemporary Romantic Comedy, Pedro Ponce
Chapter 8: Conflicted Hybridity: Negotiating the Warrior Princess Archetype in Willow, Cassandra Bausman
Chapter 9: The Woman Who Fe

Product details

Published Apr 04 2014
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 266
ISBN 9781442231498
Imprint Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Norma Jones

Anthology Editor

Maja Bajac-Carter

Anthology Editor

Bob Batchelor

Bob Batchelor is a cultural historian and noted ex…

Contributor

Suzy D’Enbeau

Contributor

Katie Snyder

Contributor

Maura Grady

Contributor

Ryan Castillo

Contributor

Katie Gibson

Contributor

Pedro Ponce

Contributor

Rekha Sharma

Contributor

Carol A. Savery

Contributor

Lien Fan Shen

Contributor

Carolyn Cocca

ONLINE RESOURCES

Bloomsbury Collections

This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.

Related Titles

Environment: Staging