Gender and Seriality

Maria Sulimma

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2021

Gender and Seriality

Practices and Politics of Contemporary US Television

Maria Sulimma

In the series Screen Serialities

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474473972

Overview
Contents

About this book

Offers the first book-length study to commit to gender and television as driven by seriality

Provides an introduction to seriality in both gender studies and cultural/media studies
Identifies shortcomings of seriality studies and gender studies and suggests remedies
Traces a massive body of material, 3 different shows with a combined total of 237 episodes over 18 seasons, as well as extensive research on various paratexts and viewer practices
Develops methods and terminology to analyze gender performances as ongoing and interconnected with practices of reception and production
Allows for an understanding of serial television’s complex, ambiguous commercial cooption of cultural-political discourses, especially activism and thought
Considers serial, ongoing television authorship as unfolding alongside a television show
Examines the changed conditions and implications of television writing (journalistic and academic) for current television storytelling
Approaches second-screen/social media viewing, specifically racialized practices of online humor and politicization on Twitter

The notion of seriality and serial identity performance runs as a strong undercurrent through much of the fields of feminist theory, gender studies and queer studies. Defining gender as a serial and discursively produced entanglement of different practices and agencies, this book argues that serial storytelling can offer such complex negotiations of identity that the ‘results’ of televisual gender performances are rarely separate from the processes that produce them. As such, gender performances are not restricted to individual television programmes themselves, but are also located in official paratexts, such as making-of documentaries, interviews with writers and actors, and in cultural sites like online viewer discussions, recaps and fan fiction. With case studies of series such as Girls, How to Get Away With Murder and The Walking Dead, this book seeks to understand how gender as a practice is generated by television narratives in the overlapping of text, reception and production, and explores the viewer practices that these narratives seek to trigger and draw on in the process.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Serial Genders, Gendered Serialities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Serial TV Criticism and Girls
1 The Thinkpiece Seriality of Girls Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2 Carousel: Gendering through Controversy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
3 Navigating Discourses of Universality and Specificity: The (Feminist) Voice of a Generation? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
Part II Television Audience Engagement and How to Get Away with Murder
4 The Looped Seriality of How to Get Away with Murder Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
5 Outward Spiral: Gendering through Recognisability Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
6 Evoking Discourses of Progressivism, Social Activism, and Identity Politics: Such an Important Episode! Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
Part III Television Authorship and The Walking Dead
7 The Paratext Seriality of The Walking Dead Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
8 Palimpsest: Gendering through Accountability Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
9 Neoliberalising Discourses of Serialised Survivalism: You Make It . . . Until You Don’t Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Conclusion: Archiving Snapshots Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	244

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 264
Illustrations
- Other: 24 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Film, Media & Cultural Studies

eBook

Published: March 24, 2022
ISBN: 9781474473972