Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers

Alena Amato Ruggerio

doi:10.5771/9780739177099

Summary

Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers, edited by Alena Amato Ruggerio, explores how television, film, the internet, and other media variously perpetuate gender stereotypes. The contributors to this volume bring a variety of feminist rhetorical and media criticism approaches from across the communication discipline to their analyses of how television, film, news coverage, and the Internet shape our expectations of the performance of women’s identities. This collection includes studies of Bridezillas, Jon & Kate Plus 8, Sex and the City, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, The Devil Wears Prada, Practical Magic, “momtini” blogs, and Mad Men fan websites. Readers will learn to apply the insights from each chapter to their own sets of myths, stereotypes, and assumptions about gendered roles, and to recognize the possibilities for both liberation and domination when women’s practices of marrying, mating, and mothering are represented and misrepresented in the media. This collection is an essential contribution to media studies and criticism of gender stereotypes in contemporary culture.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2012
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7391-7708-2
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7391-7709-9
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 248
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 8
1. 1 Domesticating Matrimonial Monstrosity: Bridezillas and Narratives of Feminine Containment No access
2. 2 The Reality of Televised Motherhood: The Personal Quest and Feminine Test of Kate Gosselin No access
3. 3 Marriage, Friendship, and Scandal: Constructing a Typology of Media Representation of Women in Desperate Housewives No access
4. 4 Ancient Archetypes in Modern Media No access
5. 5 Christian Patriarchy Lite: TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting No access
1. 6 Punishing Unfaithful Wives and Working Mothers: Messages of Postfeminism in Contemporary Film No access
2. 7 Love and Lack: Media, Witches, and Normative Gender Roles No access
3. 8 Head Above Water: Applying Nussbaum’s “Capabilities Approach” to Deepa Mehta’s 2005 Film No access
1. 9 Feminine Style and Militant Motherhood in Antiwar Discourse: Cindy Sheehan as Grieving Mother and/or Left-Leaning Radical No access
2. 10 Grisly Mama: Carnivorous Media Coverage of Sarah Palin No access
3. 11 “Stand by Your Man” Revisited: Political Wives and Scandal No access
4. 12 “Taking Care of the Children and the Country”: Nancy Pelosi and the Trope of Motherhood in Partisan and Mainstream Media No access
5. 13 Local Media Madness: How One City’s Media Helped Perpetuate the Myth of the “Perfect” Coach’s Wife No access
6. 14 Who’s Framing Whom? Michele Bachmann and the (Primary) Politics of Motherhood No access
1. 15 Momtinis, Not Martyrs: Examining ‘Anti-Mom’ Blogs, Muted Groups, Standpoints, and the Struggle over Motherhood No access
2. 16 Love Thy Mother? Traitorous Constructions of Motherhood in “Outsmart Mother Nature with Tampax” Campaign No access
3. 17 Taking the Audience Perspective: Online Fan Commentary about the Brides of Mad Men and Their Weddings No access
Index No access Pages 237 - 242
Contributors No access Pages 243 - 246
About the Editor No access Pages 247 - 248