Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer (Camera Obscura Book)

Lynn Spigel; Denise Mann

ISBN 10: 0816620539 / ISBN 13: 9780816620531

Published by University Of Minnesota Press, 1992

About this Item

Not Ex-library. Unmarked copy.

Seller Inventory # 020372

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer (Camera Obscura Book)
• Publisher: University Of Minnesota Press
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816620539
• ISBN 13: 9780816620531
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Like new, very slight wear on the cover

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Various conceptions of women are set into play here, and it seems evident that the television industry, in dealing with a movie about women in non-traditional roles, is careful to invoke not only connotations regarding the "new woman" but also more traditional notions of femininity. Swit is shown as a cop with an aimed revolver but also as a conventionally beautiful woman with eye makeup, lipstick, and long blonde hair. She is also shown as a conventional object rather than subject of sexual desire. Lacey is shown in traditionally male clothing but is described in the conventionally feminine way of "caring about the people she protects." And although they are both trying to "make it" as detectives, they are also stereotypical "women in distress" who may "die trying." The emphasis on stereotyped feminine behaviors and predicaments in an ad for a movie about women in new roles fulfills the formula for exploitation advertising by suggesting sexual and dangerous content to the audience, while also reassuring the audience about women's traditional role and position in relation to social power. From: Defining Women: The Case of Cagney and Lacey