Madonna: Bawdy and Soul (Heritage) - Softcover

Faith, Karlene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802080634 ISBN 13: 9780802080639

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1997

Synopsis

How do bad girls get away with it? How did Madonna, subject of public outcry for her controversial performances and her book Sex, become a superstar of pop culture and a role model for teenage girls? Why now, as star of Evita and a new mother, is she becoming a mainstream hero?

Karlene Faith says that Madonna signifies the times we live in. We are, in a sense, all responsible for who Madonna is. As fans, moral critics, media journalists, or university scholars, we mediate what she means to our society. And Madonna, as a shrewd career woman, has known how to exploit our attentions with her multiple talents. Her representation of sexual practices and values has not taken place in a political or social vacuum. She has counted on our readiness to witness the smashing of cultural taboos. Feminist reactions to Madonna have been divided. In her early career Madonna was a teenage role model, applauded as a liberated sex crusader. Later, she raised eyebrows by portraying cynical sex with multiple partners across identity boundaries and by capitalizing on sadomasochistic imagery.

Madonna, Bawdy & Soul is a celebration and critical analysis of Madonna from a feminist perspective. It will, like Madonna, provoke controversy among fans, critics, and scholars. The book includes a comprehensive listing of songs, videos, tours, films, stage roles, and Internet sites.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

'This book will be better at getting Much TV students to successfully learn about academic feminism that the usual dead-dry fare. In her discussion of the meaning of Madonna, Faith pulls in all the big guns of feminist theory and aims them at a living post-modern Bitch, rather than the pale and quite ghosts of writers life Woolf and Austen.'

About the Author:

Karlene Faith is a pop culture fan and associate professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University. Her previous books include Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement and Resistance, which won the VanCity Book Prize in 1994.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0802080634
• ISBN 13: 9780802080639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256