Feminism, postfeminism, Martha, Martha, and Nigella

Cinema Journal

Volumn 44, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 110-116

  Brunsdon, Charlotte ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33748670102     PISSN: 00097101     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/cj.2005.0005     Document Type: Review

References (19)

1. While Martha Stewart clearly inspired envy and emulation among her many fans (for an analysis of what fans say about her, see Ann Mason and Marian Meyers, "Living with Martha Stewart Media: Chosen Domesticity in the Experience of Fans," Journal of Communication 51 [December 2001]: 801-23), she also provoked ambivalent feelings and outright hostility
2. See, for example, Margaret Talbot, "Les Très Riches Heures de Martha Stewart," New Republic 214, no. 20, 30-33
3. and Zoe Newman and Kyla Wazana's call for papers for the 1998 MLA Conference for a session on Martha, Stewart Living, which describes Martha as "über-WASP and Chief Executive Housewife, archetype of white femininity and immigrant dream," www.english.upenn.edu/ CFP/archive/1998-02. The schadenfreude expressed at her disgrace has been notable. See, for example, Nick Charles, "Public's Response Is Perfectly Tepid," Los Angeles Times, February 14, 2004, E6
4. The magazine was first published in 1991 by Time Warner, Inc. The TV show began in 1993. These were preceded by a significant deal with KMart. Christopher M. Byron, Martha Inc. (New York: John Wiley, 2002)
5. Andy Medhurst, "Day for Night," Sight and Sound 9, no. 6 (June 1999): 26-27
6. Rachel Moseley, "Makeover Takeover on British Television," Screen 41, no. 3 (autumn 2000): 299-314
7. Charlotte Brunsdon, Catherine Johnson, Rachel Moseley, and Helen Wheatley, "Factual Entertainment on British Television," European Journal of Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (February 2001): 29-62
8. Much of Rosler's work has been concerned with the iconography of the American Dream, initially in the context of the Vietnam War, and with the spaces in which we live and travel. See the catalog for the 1998 retrospective of Rosler's work: Catherine de Zegher, ed., Martha Rosler: Positions in the Life World (London: MIT Press, 1998). Rosler has engaged with food and the place of food in several other pieces, including The Art of Cooking: A Mock Dialogue between Julia Child and Craig Claiborne (1974) and Global Taste: A Meal in Three Courses (1985)
9. Lynn Spigel, "From the Dark Ages to the Golden Age: Women's Memories and Television Reruns," Screen 36, 1 (spring 1995): 16-33
10. Angela McRobbie, "Postfeminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the 'New Gender Regime,'" paper delivered at the Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture conference, University of East Anglia, April 3-5, 2004
11. Production studies tend to have a different emphasis. See, for example, Julie D'Acci, Defining Women: Television and the Case of Cagney and Lacey (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)
12. and Amanda Lotz, Telling Women's Stories/Finding Female Audiences (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005)
13. Charlotte Brunsdon, "A Subject for the Seventies," Screen 23, nos. 3-4 (September-October 1982): 20-30
14. and Brunsdon, Screen Tastes: Soap Opera to Satellite Dishes (London: Routledge, 1997), 81-102
15. Marian Keyes, author of a series of successful (and serious) books such as Rachel's Holiday, which are marketed as "chick lit," while espousing the continuing relevance of feminist ideas for her readers, referred to herself in a recent radio interview as being part of "a postfeminist generation" that grew up in fear of being "told off" by feminists and "having everything pink taken out of my house." Keyes, Start the Week, BBC Radio 4, June 7, 2004
16. A germane discussion of the significance of violence in the representation of feminism can be found in Hilary Hinds and Jackie Stacey, "Imagining Feminism, Imagining Femininity: The Bra-burner, Diana, and the Woman Who Kills," Feminist Media Studies 1, no. 2 (July 2001): 153-77
17. For a definitive analysis of Nigella, see Joanne Hollows, "Feeling like a Domestic Goddess: Postfeminism and Cooking," European Journal of Cultural Studies 6, no. 2 (May 2003): 179-202
18. Lawson was married to the journalist John Diamond, who died after the first series. This fact was well known because Diamond wrote a weekly cancer journal in a national newspaper during his illness
19. Space forbids full acknowledgment of the long genealogy here, which includes, most notably, Julia Childs, Fanny Craddock, and Marguerite Patten