Description
Book SynopsisAs 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 Slay
Trade ReviewThe diversity of authorial voices, including men and women, creates an exciting compilation of articles that challenge and redefine the definition of heroine. . . .Overall, this is a great collection of essays that should please anyone with an interest in feminism and media. * Journal of American Culture *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 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 Fell From the Sky: Cowboys and Aliens’ Hybrid Heroine, Cynthia J. Miller III. Diversity Concerns Chapter 10: Her Story, Too: Final Fantasy X, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and the Feminist Hero's Journey, Catherine Bailey Kyle Chapter 11: Bollywood Marriages: Portrayals of Matrimony in Hindi Popular Cinema, Rekha Sharma and Carol A. Savery Chapter 12: The Enduring Woman: Race, Revenge, and Self-Determination in Chloe, Love is Calling You, Robin R. Means Coleman Chapter 13: The Dark, Twisted Magical Girls: Shōjo Heroines in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Lien Fan Shen IV: Heroines across Media Chapter 14: Women on the Quarterdeck: The Female Captain as Adventure Hero, 1994-2009, A. Bowdoin Van Riper Chapter 15: The Girl Who Lived: Reading Harry Potter as a Sacrificial and Loving Heroine, Norma Jones Chapter 16: “It’s About Power and It’s About Women”: Gender and the Political Economy of Superheroes in Wonder Woman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carolyn Cocca Index About the Contributors About the Editors
