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From Beyonce's Lemonade to The Force Awakens to the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, the entertainment industry seems to be embracing the power of women like never before. But with more feminist content comes more feminist criticism - and it feels as if there's always something to complain about. Dianna E. Anderson's incisive Problematic takes on the stereotype of the perpetually dissatisfied feminist. Too often feminist criticism has come to mean seeing only the bad elements of women-centric pop culture and never the good. Anderson suggests that our insistence on feminist ideological purity leads to shallow criticism and ultimately hurts the movement. Instead, she proposes new, more nuanced forms of feminist thought for today's culture, illustrated by examples from across the spectrum of popular music, movies, and TV, including Lena Dunham, Nicki Minaj, and even One Direction. While grounding her inquiry in pop culture media and topics, Anderson draws on concepts of feminist theory to show how we can push for continued cultural change while still acknowledging the important feminist work being done in the pop culture sphere today.
From Beyonce's Lemonade to The Force Awakens to the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, the entertainment industry seems to be embracing the power of women like never before. But with more feminist content comes more feminist criticism - and it feels as if there's always something to complain about. Dianna E. Anderson's incisive Problematic takes on the stereotype of the perpetually dissatisfied feminist. Too often feminist criticism has come to mean seeing only the bad elements of women-centric pop culture and never the good. Anderson suggests that our insistence on feminist ideological purity leads to shallow criticism and ultimately hurts the movement. Instead, she proposes new, more nuanced forms of feminist thought for today's culture, illustrated by examples from across the spectrum of popular music, movies, and TV, including Lena Dunham, Nicki Minaj, and even One Direction. While grounding her inquiry in pop culture media and topics, Anderson draws on concepts of feminist theory to show how we can push for continued cultural change while still acknowledging the important feminist work being done in the pop culture sphere today.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Lena Dunham Is Not a Pedophile: False Narratives and Scarlet
Letters
2. Harry Styles Is (Probably) Not a Creep: What Makes You Beautiful
and the Male Gaze
3. On My Money and Bitches Who Better Have It: How Modern
Anticapitalists Fail to Account for Racial Politics of Black
Artists
4. Why Does This White Australian Sound like She’s from Atlanta?:
On Cultural Appropriation, White Supremacy, and Black
Sexuality
5. Mother Monster and Q.U.E.E.N.: Context Challenging and Changing
the Problematic
6. Friendly Fire: Why Our Perfectionist Lens Makes Us Harsher on
Feminist Media
7. Actually, It’s about Ethics in Feminist Criticism: Where White
Feminism and #GamerGate Converge
8. Do You Even Lift, Bro? Toxic Masculinity, Sports Culture, and
Feminist Ignorance of the Problems
9. Dinos, Disasters, and Dives: A Feminist Defense of That
High-Heeled Chase Scene in Jurassic World
10. Selfie Game Strong: Kim Kardashian and de Beauvoir’s Thoughts
on Beauty
11. Pinterest Perfect: How Our Home Lives Reflect an Unhealthy
Obsession
12. “I Am Big Enough to Admit I Am Often Inspired by Myself”:
Leslie Knope as the Paragon of Feminist Joy
13. Teen Girls Are the Future and That Is a Good Thing: Our
Perfectionism Actively Harms Women
14. Never Say Never: Setting Your Own Borders and Understanding
Your Boundaries
Last Notes
Notes
Bibliography
Dianna E. Anderson is a freelance journalist, author, and activist in women’s issues. She is a regular contributor to Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, the Establishment, Vice, and Bitch Magazine. Anderson is the author of Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity.
"This is an in-depth, insightful, and novel contribution to
feminist debates about popular culture."—Publishers Weekly
"Activism, advocating and justice are a constant developmental
journey–you never "arrive." Everyone is always learning more about
society and cultural issues, about systems of oppression and how we
either support or dismantle those systems. And yet, fearing this
level of unrelenting and, sometimes, life-altering criticism
frequently stops people from speaking up and speaking out.
Ultimately, read this book–especially if you consider yourself a
feminist and frequently engage in pop culture!"—Bibliophile's Binge
blog
“It’s never been easier to consume popular culture or trickier to
thoughtfully engage it without messing up: you have to like (or
condemn) all the right things and for all the right reasons. But
those arguments around Beyoncé or the Oscars get so heated because
pop culture is where we affirm and, yes, perform, our public
values. Anderson illustrates precisely why those political stakes
require us to envision a post-‘callout’ world where we can stay
critically engaged in the discourse on movies and sports and
music—perhaps especially when it comes to the stuff we’re not
supposed to like.”—Gene Demby, host of NPR’s Code Switch
“Problematic is a necessary contribution to a crucial current
debate—a sustained, thoughtful argument for engaging with the
compromised, the difficult, and, yes, the problematic in
contemporary popular culture.”—Angus Johnston, historian, professor
at City University of New York, and advocate for student rights
“In a time when everyone is swinging sledgehammers, Dianna Anderson
comes at our feminist discourse with a scalpel, taking on some of
the most bitterly polarized and polarizing figures of our time with
nuance and care. Even if you think you physically can’t bear to
read another essay about Iggy Azalea or Girls, you need to read
hers.”—Sady Doyle, author of Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate,
Mock, Fear . . . and Why, and founder of Tiger Beatdown
“In Problematic Dianna Anderson takes the reader back to feminist
theory 101, walking the long-dedicated and newly recruited among us
alike through the often risky process of consuming popular culture
with a critical eye. Along the way she teaches us to hold on to the
joy of those things that can, at times, fall short of
perfection.”—Katie Klabusich, writer, reproductive justice
advocate, and host of Netroots Radio’s The Katie Speak Show
“This work is necessary right now, especially in this particular
moment (a Trump presidency and in a #MeToo world). It is hard to
read Problematic and not come away concerned that a feminist
critique of pop culture is both required in today’s society and
struggling under the weight of its own righteousness . Anderson
doesn’t want feminists to stop being critical of the world around
them; she’s just asking that they be more thoughtful about how they
do it. Problematic can serve as an example of how to do exactly
that.”—Jessica Luther, author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College
Football and the Politics of Rape
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