‘I’d Rather Be Peggy than Betty’: Female Audience Responses to Mad Men

Against masculinised hypercorrection? Renegotiating the everydayness and ordinariness of postfeminism on Chinese TV

“…Chinese viewers' increasing engagement with postfeminist narratives in serial TV can be considered a consequence of the development of the postfeminist spirit in China, or an unconscious way of approaching feminist issues that, nevertheless, can become a viable tool for more critical discourses of feminism in some cases (cf. Agirre, 2015). With the under-developed scholarship on audience reception of cultural products concerning postfeminism in a non-Western context, we hope this study provides inspiration, insights and possible directions for the continued examination of Chinese postfeminist sensibility from an audience perspective, especially given that Chinese TV has become progressively more permeated by female figures and narratives in recent years.…”

“…Agirre, 2014;McClearen, 2015;Paris and Uyheng, 2021;Robinson, 2011;Swink, 2017). For example, studying female audience responses to the TV series Mad Men can reveal how women deal with feminist issues in their everyday lives (Agirre, 2015). Media representations of gender may parallel some of the postfeminist pressures and anxieties that women experience today (Agirre, 2015;Robinson, 2011).…”

“…For example, studying female audience responses to the TV series Mad Men can reveal how women deal with feminist issues in their everyday lives (Agirre, 2015). Media representations of gender may parallel some of the postfeminist pressures and anxieties that women experience today (Agirre, 2015;Robinson, 2011). Therefore, studying audience interpretations of postfeminist texts provides opportunities to understand the everydayness of postfeminist sensibilities as the audience experiences, negotiates, reinforces and challenges them.…”