Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

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Chapter 7 Gender and sexuality
As a metaphor for self-transformation . . . [‘finding a voice’] . . . has been especially
relevant for groups of women who have previously never had a public voice,
women who are speaking and writing for the first time, including many women of
color. Feminist focus on finding a voice may sound clichéd at times. . . . However,
for women within oppressed groups . . . coming to voice is an act of resistance.
Speaking becomes both a way to engage in active self-transformation and a rite of
passage where one moves from being object to being subject. Only as subjects can
we speak (12).
Feminism, therefore, is not just another method of reading texts. Nevertheless, it has
proved an incredibly productive way of reading. As Showalter explains,
There is an optical illusion which can be seen as either a goblet or two profiles. The
images oscillate in their tension before us, one alternately superseding the other
and reducing it to meaningless background. In the purest feminist literary theory
we are similarly presented with a radical alteration of our vision, a demand that we
see meaning in what has previously been empty space. The orthodox plot recedes,
and another plot, hitherto submerged in the anonymity of the background, stands
out in bold relief like a thumb print (quoted in Modleski, 1982: 25).
What Showalter claims for feminist literary criticism can equally be claimed for
feminist work on popular culture. Popular culture has been the object of a great deal
of feminist analysis. As Michèle Barrett (1982) points out, ‘Cultural politics are crucially
important to feminism because they involve struggles over meaning’ (37). Lana
Rakow (2009) makes much the same point, ‘Feminists approaching popular culture
proceed from a variety of theoretical positions that carry with them a deeper social
analysis and political agenda’ (195). Moreover, as Rakow observes,
Though contemporary feminists have taken a diversity of approaches to popular
culture, they have shared two major assumptions. The first is that women have a
particular relationship to popular culture that is different from men’s. ...The second
assumption is that understanding how popular culture functions both for women
and for a patriarchal culture is important if women are to gain control over their own
identities and change both social mythologies and social relations. . . . Feminists
are saying that popular culture plays a role in patriarchal society and that theoretical
analysis of this role warrants a major position in ongoing discussions (186).
Women at the cinema
In Chapter 5 we discussed Mulvey’s (1975) extremely influential account of the female
spectator. Mulvey’s analysis is impressive and telling throughout, and despite the fact