Bad Girls and Transgressive Women in Popular Television, Fiction, and Film [Paperback]

This collection of essays focuses on the representations of a variety of bad girlswomen who challenge, refuse, or transgress the patriarchal limits intended to circumscribe themin television, popular fiction, and mainstream film from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Perhaps not surprisingly, the initial introduction of women into Western cultural narrative coincides with the introduction of transgressive women. From the beginning, for good or ill, women have been depicted as insubordinate. Todays popular manifestations include such widely known figures as Lisbeth Salander (the girl with the dragon tattoo), The Walking Deads Michonne, and the queen bees of teen television series. While the existence and prominence of transgressive women has continued uninterrupted, however, attitudes towards them have varied considerably. It is those attitudes that are explored in this collection. At the same time, these essays place feminist/postfeminist analysis in a larger context, entering into ongoing debates about power, equality, sexuality, and gender.

1.Introduction - Mallory Young

Part I. Crime and Punishment

2.How do you like my darkness now?: Women, Violence, and the Good Bad Girl in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Kaley A. Kramer

3. Hollywoods Warrior Woman for the New Millennium - Kate Waites

4. Reading Kathleen Mallory: Trauma and Survival in the Detective Fiction of Carol OConnell - Kathleen A. Kennedy

Part II. Domestic Arts

5. Vera Casparys Bedelia: Murder as a Domestic Art, or Lethal Home Economics - Kirsten T. Saxton

6. The Dirty Secret: Domestic Disarray in Chick Lit - Joanne Knowles

Part III. Academic Performance

7. Good Teachers, Bad Teachers, and Comedic Performance in Popular American Cinemal£!