OVERLOADED
Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism
Imelda Whelehan
Men Behaving Badly; Wonderbras; The Spice Girls; FHM; GQ; Baddiel and Skinner; Chris Evans; Fever Pitch ...
Why are they all so popular and what does this mean for women - and, for that matter, men?
Have you ever looked at a Wonderbra advert and felt uncomfortable? Heard a 'politically incorrect' joke and laughed along even though you didn't think it was funny? Wondered what on earth football has to do with politics? Are we dumbing down or just selling out?
Overloaded looks at 'laddishness' and the cult of the 'girlie' in film, TV, advertising, music, politics, literature and society. It asks what the current cultural climate means for women, men, and the way we relate to each other. Imelda Whelehan argues that we have entered an age of retrosexism where media images of men in crisis and neurotic single women abound, and where any criticism of such images is greeted with a howl of postmodern ironic laughter. But what if the joke is on feminism, and who, in the end, has the last laugh?
Imelda Whelehan
is Principal Lecturer in English and Women's Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she has taught for over ten years. In addition she is a mother and a cultural critic, who lives many of the contradictions outlined in this book. She has an insatiable thirst for good quality feminist debate and has written and edited a number of books, including Modern Feminist Thought, Pulping Fictions, Trash Aesthetics, Sisterhoods, Adaptations, Alien Identities and Classics in Film and Fiction (forthcoming).