The “smart” body politics of Lena Dunham’s<i>Girls</i>

Ford, Jessica

doi:10.1080/14680777.2016.1162826

Cited by 16 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…"Ideal bodies" that represent society's beauty standards and stereotypical femininity are not present in Girls (Serena Daalmans 2013; Decarvalho 2013). As Jessica Ford (2016Ford ( , 1035 stresses, "Girls presents a kind of female nudity that is aesthetically and politically different from the glossy, eroticized female nudity of other cable series like Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, and True Blood. " While the ideology of "successful ageing" is often articulated as "sexy but not sexual" Downloaded by [Ghent University Library] at 09:16 11 December 2017 (Jennings and Oró-Piqueras 2016, 78), Stephen Katz and Barbara Marshall (2003) argue that the neo-liberal discourse on ageing also includes an active sex life in old age.…”

Section: Representing Ageing and Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Invisible golden girls? Post-feminist discourses and female ageing bodies in contemporary television fiction

Bauwel

2017

Feminist Media Studies

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The popular television series The Golden Girls (1985-1992) seems to be an exception in the history of the representation of third-age women femininities and bodies in television fiction. This series about four mature women living in the same house in Miami made ageing women visible in television representations. Older women are generally invisible in popular television fiction. Despite this absence, a discourse on ageing and femininities is present in all sorts of popular media texts. We will question post-feminist discourses on ageing bodies and femininities. Are the post-feminist claims regarding ageing bodies present in popular television fiction? Moreover, are these discourses represented by the portrayal of ageing bodies? We will analyse the representations of ageing femininities in television fiction labelled as "post-feminist television fiction. " The series Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, and Girls will be studied using a textual analysis to look for discourses on ageing female bodies and their particularities in relation to post-feminism. We distinguished a limited set of three sets of discourses (losing femininity, masking of ageing, and the wisdom of ageing) on ageing femininities. Although ageing feminine bodies are absent, a discourse on ageing, "good" ageing, and acceptance of ageing is present in the narration in all three series. The discourse on the masking of ageing, however, is predominant.

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Section: Representing Ageing and Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Invisible golden girls? Post-feminist discourses and female ageing bodies in contemporary television fiction

Bauwel

2017

Feminist Media Studies

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“…Jessica Ford suggests that 'Girls aligns itself with Hannah's rejection of postfeminist femininity, while also distancing itself from Hannah's performance of sexual empowerment and privilege' (2016: 1030), pointing to some of the contradictions that the series itself tried to negotiate or to hold in tension, within a sitcom or dramedy format. Drawing on Claire Perkins' work on American independent cinema, she credits Dunham with employing the 'smart' style of those films, being a combination of 'ironic distance, blank style, and a low-key aesthetic' (Ford, 2016(Ford, : 1034, as a means of flattening these contradictions. Simply put, the show has failed to provide a straightforwardly radical riposte to Sex and the City, yet Dunham -through Hannah and her girlfriends -has provided strong points of affective identification for women audiences.…”

Section: Girls -And 'Affective Ordinariness'mentioning

confidence: 99%

A survivor just like us? Lena Dunham and the politics of transmedia authorship and celebrity feminism

Murray

2017

Feminist Theory

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Lena Dunham is a modern celebrity and television producer-writer who is important in her willingness to self-identify as a feminist, and to engage in feminist activism on social media and in her memoir writing. Her writing in her successful television series, Girls (2012-17), has already raised questions of authenticity. This article develops this analysis further by considering how Dunham's situation, as a transmedia author, complicates this authenticity, particularly through her construction of 'affective ordinariness', a key aspect of her identity as a feminist activist. Her various personas, including that of the celebrity feminist, highlight the 'contradictions' which exist within the current complex culture of postfeminism and the perception of new feminisms. Nowhere are these contradictions more apparent than in the dissonance created by Dunham's transmedia voice in the matter of rape and sexual violence.

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L ena D unham and Girls

Thelandersson

2020

The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication

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When the television show Girls premiered in 2012 it reverberated far and wide in the media landscape of the Global North. It was equally celebrated for its body positive message and critiqued for its whiteness and privileged blindspots. The show's creator and star, Lena Dunham, became an essential part of its paratext, her persona as hotly contested as the show itself. Often compared to the “ur‐postfeminist” text Sex and the City , Girls differs starkly from its predecessors in its focus on failure and disappointment rather than empowerment and choice. A precarious job market and insecure future prospects are obvious backdrops for the stories being told, which is one reason why the series seemed to resonate so well with young millennials coming of age in a socioeconomic climate heavily affected by the financial crash of 2008. Girls received plenty of attention for its portrayals of sex, which were often uncomfortable and sometimes disturbing. Dunham was often at the center of controversy because of her willingness to put her own “nonconventional” body unclothed in front of the camera. The show also received a significant amount of critique for its lack of racial and ethnic diversity, which Dunham and her collaborators countered in flustered and sometimes offensive ways. This, coupled with Dunham's presence as creator and as a “new” kind of millennial feminist, contributed to consistent media attention being given to the show throughout its six season run.

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The “smart” body politics of Lena Dunham’sGirls

Cited by 16 publications

References 13 publications

Invisible golden girls? Post-feminist discourses and female ageing bodies in contemporary television fiction

Invisible golden girls? Post-feminist discourses and female ageing bodies in contemporary television fiction

A survivor just like us? Lena Dunham and the politics of transmedia authorship and celebrity feminism

L ena D unham and Girls

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