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Ally McBeal to Desperate Housewives : A Brief History of the Postfeminist Heroine

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 38; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3200/ppsc.38.2.87-98

1930-5478

Elizabeth Kaufer Busch,

Media, Gender, and Advertising

This article seeks to uncover the hidden source of the twenty-first century woman's unhappiness by analyzing television's most popular portrayals of her in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century comedies Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, and Desperate Housewives. The author argues that these series hold feminism responsible for women's unhappiness, an indictment that mirrors women's opinions in the United States, and introduces the idea of the "feminist mystique," a paradigm that has successfully replaced the "feminine mystique" and thereby created new norms that stifle women's fulfillment. In detailed character and textual analyses of each series, she demonstrates that the emergence of the postfeminist heroine signifies a transformation of the contemporary woman's relationship to the feminist movement. Specifically, this new liberated woman finds herself stifled by the very feminism that enabled her entry into the public sphere. These heroines do not credit feminism for their so-called advances; rather, they blame the movement for creating a new mystique that limits them, rather than liberates them. In response to such grim descriptions, the article suggests that women may find both equality and happiness by breaking away from all mystiques and embracing true liberty.