The Talking Cure TV Talk Shows and Women [Paperback]

The Talking Cureexamines four nationally syndicated television talk shows--Donahue, The Oprah Winfrey Show,Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael--which are primarily devoted to feminine culture and issues. Serving as one of the few public forums where working-class women and those with different sexual orientations have a voice, these talk shows represent American TV at its most radical. Shattuc examines the tension between talk's feminist politics and the television industry, who, in their need to appeal to women, trades on sensation, stereotypes and fears in order to engender product consumption. However, this genre is not a one-way form of social interaction. The female audience complies and resists in a complex give-and-take, and it is this relationship which TheTalking Cureaims to understand and reveal.Jane M. Shattucis Associate Professor of Mass Communication-Film at Emerson College, Boston. She is the author of Television, Tabloids and Tears: Fassbinder andPopular Culture.