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Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi Cinema: Looking through their Gaze
by Aysha Iqbal ViswamohanThis book is a comprehensive anthology comprising essays on women film directors, producers and screenwriters from Bollywood, or the popular Hindi film industry. It derives from the major theories of modernity, postmodern feminism, semiotics, cultural production, and gender performativity in globalized times. The collection transcends the traditional approaches of looking at films made by women filmmakers as ‘feminist’ cinema, and focuses on an extraordinary group of women filmmakers like Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, Bhavani Iyer, Farah Khan, Mira Nair Vijaya Mehta, and Zoya Akthar. The volume will be of interest to academics and theorists of gender and Hindi cinema, as well as anybody interested in contemporary Hindi films in their various manifestations.
Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood (Studies in Industry and Society)
by Karen Ward MaharWomen Filmmakers in Early Hollywood explores when, how, and why women were accepted as filmmakers in the 1910s and why, by the 1920s, those opportunities had disappeared. In looking at the early film industry as an industry—a place of work—Mahar not only unravels the mystery of the disappearing female filmmaker but untangles the complicated relationship among gender, work culture, and business within modern industrial organizations.In the early 1910s, the film industry followed a theatrical model, fostering an egalitarian work culture in which everyone—male and female—helped behind the scenes in a variety of jobs. In this culture women thrived in powerful, creative roles, especially as writers, directors, and producers. By the end of that decade, however, mushrooming star salaries and skyrocketing movie budgets prompted the creation of the studio system. As the movie industry remade itself in the image of a modern American business, the masculinization of filmmaking took root.Mahar's study integrates feminist methodologies of examining the gendering of work with thorough historical scholarship of American industry and business culture. Tracing the transformation of the film industry into a legitimate "big business" of the 1920s, and explaining the fate of the female filmmaker during the silent era, Mahar demonstrates how industrial growth and change can unexpectedly open—and close—opportunities for women.
Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood (Studies in Industry and Society)
by Karen Ward MaharA study of how and why women in early twentieth-century Hollywood went from having plenty of filmmaking opportunities to very few.Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood explores when, how, and why women were accepted as filmmakers in the 1910s and why, by the 1920s, those opportunities had disappeared. In looking at the early film industry as an industry—a place of work—Mahar not only unravels the mystery of the disappearing female filmmaker but untangles the complicated relationship among gender, work culture, and business within modern industrial organizations. In the early 1910s, the film industry followed a theatrical model, fostering an egalitarian work culture in which everyone—male and female—helped behind the scenes in a variety of jobs. In this culture women thrived in powerful, creative roles, especially as writers, directors, and producers. By the end of that decade, however, mushrooming star salaries and skyrocketing movie budgets prompted the creation of the studio system. As the movie industry remade itself in the image of a modern American business, the masculinization of filmmaking took root. Mahar&’s study integrates feminist methodologies of examining the gendering of work with thorough historical scholarship of American industry and business culture. Tracing the transformation of the film industry into a legitimate &“big business&” of the 1920s, and explaining the fate of the female filmmaker during the silent era, Mahar demonstrates how industrial growth and change can unexpectedly open—and close—opportunities for women.&“With meticulous scholarship and fluid writing, Mahar tells the story of this golden era of female filmmaking . . . Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood is not to be missed.&” —Samantha Barbas, Women&’s Review of Books&“Mahar views the business of making movies from the inside-out, focusing on questions about changing industrial models and work conventions. At her best, she shows how the industry&’s shifting business history impacted women&’s opportunities, recasting current understanding about the American film industry's development.&” —Hilary Hallett, Reviews in American History&“A scrupulously researched and argued analysis of how and why women made great professional and artistic gains in the U.S. film industry from 1906 to the mid-1920s and why they lost most of that ground until the late twentieth century.&” —Kathleen Feeley, Journal of American History&“Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood offers convincing evidence of how economic forces shaped women&’s access to film production and presents a complex and engaging story of the women who took advantage of those opportunities.&” —Pennee Bender, Business History Review
Women Filmmakers in Mexico: The Country of Which We Dream
by Elissa J. RashkinWomen filmmakers in Mexico were rare until the 1980s and 1990s, when women began to direct feature films in unprecedented numbers. Their films have won acclaim at home and abroad, and the filmmakers have become key figures in contemporary Mexican cinema. In this book, Elissa Rashkin documents how and why women filmmakers have achieved these successes, as she explores how the women's movement, film studies programs, governmental film policy, and the transformation of the intellectual sector since the 1960s have all affected women's filmmaking in Mexico. <P><P> After a historical overview of Mexican women's filmmaking from the 1930s onward, Rashkin focuses on the work of five contemporary directors--Marisa Sistach, Busi Cortés, Guita Schyfter, María Novaro, and Dana Rotberg. Portraying the filmmakers as intellectuals participating in the public life of the nation, Rashkin examines how these directors have addressed questions of national identity through their films, replacing the patriarchal images and stereotypes of the classic Mexican cinema with feminist visions of a democratic and tolerant society.
Women Filmmakers: Refocusing
by Jacqueline Levitin Judith Plessis Valerie RaoulThis wide-ranging volume of new work brings together women filmmakers and critics who speak about what has changed over the past twenty years. Including such filmmakers as Margarethe von Trotta, Deepa Mehta, and Pratibha Parmar, and such critics as E. Ann Kaplan, this comprehensive volume addresses political, artistic, and economic questions vital
Women I Have Dressed (and Undressed!)
by Arnold ScaasiA premier American fashion designer shares his experiences with famous women from the past half century, describing how their personalities, preferences, and belief systems impacted his designs and the larger fashion arena.
Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre
by Dahlia Schweitzer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Martha Shearer Alison Peirse Katarzyna Paszkiewicz Tamar Jeffers McDonald Erin Harrington Janice Loreck Laura Mee Alicia Kozma Katia Houde Tosha R. Taylor Maddison McGillvray Molly Kim Donna McRae Lindsey Decker Valeria Villegas Lindvall Amy C. Chambers Sonia Lupher“But women were never out there making horror films, that’s why they are not written about – you can’t include what doesn’t exist.” “There are really, very few women horror filmmakers working today, that’s why so few are coming up.” “Women are just not that interested in making horror films.” “How can you be a woman and be a fan of horror?” This is what you get when you are a woman working in horror, whether as a writer, academic, festival programmer or filmmaker. These assumptions are based on decades of flawed scholarly, critical and industrial thinking about the genre. Women Make Horror sets right these misconceptions. Women have always been making horror, they have always been an audience for the genre, and today, as this book reveals, women academics, critics and filmmakers alike remain committed to a film genre that offers almost unlimited opportunities for exploring and deconstructing social and cultural constructions of gender, femininity, sexuality and the body. Women Make Horror is the first book-length study of women filmmakers in horror film, the first all-women edited book on horror film, and the first book to call out the male-bias in written histories of horror and then to illuminate precisely how, and where, these histories are lacking. It re-evaluates existing literature on the history of horror film, on women practitioners in the film industry and approaches to undertaking film industries research. It establishes new approaches for studying women practitioners and illuminates their unexamined contribution to the formation and evolution of the horror genre. The book focuses on women directors and screenwriters but also acknowledges the importance of women producers, editors and cinematographers. It explores narrative and experimental cinema, short, anthology and feature-filmmaking, and offers case studies of North American, Latin American, European, East Asian and Australian filmmakers, films and festivals. Women Make Horror is designed to not only engage and inspire dialogue between the academy, filmmakers, industry gatekeepers, festival programmers and horror film fans. With this book we can transform how we think about women filmmakers and genre.
Women Scientists in American Television Comedy: Beakers, Big Bangs and Broken Hearts (Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture)
by Anna-Sophie Jürgens Karina Judd Bridget GaulThis book explores how women scientists are portrayed in hit American TV comedies The Big Bang Theory, Never Have I Ever, and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist using a science communication lens. The authors illuminate how comedy, especially irony and satire, communicate complex ideas about gender and science - both reflecting and challenging stereotypes about women in science. Perfect for fans of science, humor, media, and feminism, Women Scientists in American Television Comedy: Beakers, Big Bangs and Broken Hearts highlights the roles science communication, humor and pop culture play in shaping our understanding of women in STEM.
Women Screenwriters: An International Guide
by Jill Nelmes Jule SelboWomen Screenwriters is a study of more than 300 female writers from 60 nations, from the first film scenarios produced in 1986 to the present day. Divided into six sections by continent, the entries give an overview of the history of women screenwriters in each country, as well as individual biographies of its most influential.
Women Warriors in Romantic Drama
by Wendy C. NielsenWomen Warriors in Romantic Drama examines a recurring figure that appears in French, British, and German drama between 1789 and 1830: the woman warrior. The term itself, “woman warrior,” refers to quasi-historical female soldiers or assassins. Women have long contributed to military campaigns as canteen women. Camp followers ranged from local citizenry to spouses and prostitutes, and on occasion, women assisted men in combat. However, the woman warrior is a romantic figure, meaning a fanciful ideal, despite the reality of women’s participation in select scenes of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The central claim of this book is the woman warrior is a way for some women writers (Olympe de Gouges, Christine Westphalen, Karoline von Günderrode, and Mary Robinson) to explore the case for extending citizenship to women. This project focuses primarily on theater for the reason that the stage simulates the public world that female dramatists and their warriors seek to inhabit. Novels and poetry clearly belong to the realm of fiction, but when audiences see women fighting onstage, they confront concrete visions of impossible women. I examine dramas in the context of their performance and production histories in order to answer why so many serious dramas featuring women warriors fail to find applause, or fail to be staged at all. Dramas about women warriors seem to sometimes contribute to the argument for female citizenship when they take the form of tragedy, because the deaths of female protagonists in such plays often provoke consideration about women’s place in society. Consequently, where we find women playing soldiers in various entertainment venues, farce and satire often seem to dominate, although this book points to some exceptions. Censorship and audience demand for comedies made producing tragedies difficult for female playwrights, who battled additional obstacles to fashioning their careers. I compare male (Edmund Eyre, Heinrich von Kleist) and female writers’ dramatizations of the woman warrior. This analysis shows that the difficult project of getting audiences to take women warriors seriously resembles women writers’ struggles to enter the ostensibly male domains of tragedy and the public sphere. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Women Who Dared: To Break All the Rules
by Jeremy ScottVictoria Woodhull, Mary Wollstonecraft, Aimee Semple McPherson, Edwina Mountbatten, Margaret Argyll and Chanel were all women who dared. They had no time for what society said they could and couldn&’t do and would see the world bend before they did. In 1872 a mesmerising psychic named Victoria Woodhull shattered tradition by running for the White House. Had she won the ensuing spectacle would surely have rivalled that of our own era. Abhorring such flamboyance, Mary Wollstonecraft inspired a revolution of thought with her pen as she issued women&’s first manifesto – still to be fulfilled. From Aimee Semple McPherson, the first female preacher in America, to Coco Chanel, designer of an empire, these women became the change they wanted to see in society. In Women Who Dared, Jeremy Scott pays tribute to them all with wit, verve and reverence.
Women and Film Animation: A Feminist Corpus at the National Film Board of Canada 1939-1989
by Marie-Josée Saint-PierreThe creations of female animation filmmakers are recognized all over the world while being, paradoxically, unknown to the general public. Women and Film Animation: A Feminist Corpus at the National Film Board of Canada 1939-1989 brings out of the shadows the work of true pioneers by presenting and analyzing, from a resolutely feminist perspective, the works they have conceived within the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).This institution has played an essential role in the emergence of animated cinema in Canada, but it is forgotten or ignored that a good part of this vast corpus is the work of women who have worked there not only as assistants but also as directors. These artists have contributed to changing the traditional representations of women in a unique way in both commercial and avant-garde animated cinema. The author accounts for their concerns, their creativity, and their many bright achievements. To do this, she relies on a wide range of critical works in social and cultural history of Canada, in feminist art history, and on multiple studies on animated cinema.Key Features: Provides an interdisciplinary approach that combines concepts from feminist studies, film theory and visual arts for a nuanced analysis of the role of women in animated cinema Discusses historical and sociological background that sheds light on the condition of women Includes a profound analysis of the changes and continuities in the role of women in this industry over time, focusing on the National Film Board of Canada Features previously unreleased archival material and selected excerpts from reviews by the NFB’s programming committee, highlighting the impact of production circumstances of the works of specific women animators
Women and Home in Cinema: Form, Feeling, Practice (Palgrave Close Readings in Film and Television)
by Louise Radinger FieldThis book explores visions of home in cinema and the ways in which women inhabit the onscreen realm. Looking closely at a range of films made between 1936 and 2013, it examines how filmmakers reconfigure studio sets and real locations through the filmmaking process into mutable onscreen domains imbued with depth, metaphor, and expressivity.The book studies the films through the lens of four filmmaking processes in particular: découpage, mise-en-scène, sound and editing. Close analysis reveals how filmmakers use these cinematic ‘building blocks’ to shape onscreen worlds charged with emotion and animated by the warp and weft of psychic life.Images of home abound in the cinema, and women frequently find themselves at the core of both structures. Drawing on recent spatial and feminist enquiry, the book reviews the idea of home as a fixed and stable location and illustrates how the art of cinema is well equipped to explore home as an imaginary as well as a material realm.With its emphasis on film practice as a route into critical reflection, this book will be of interest to filmmakers, film theorists and those who simply want to understand more about how films work.
Women and New Hollywood: Gender, Creative Labor, and 1970s American Cinema
by James Morrison Amelie Hastie Karen Pearlman Oliver Gruner Nicholas Godfrey Anna Backman Rogers Maria Pramaggiore Maya Montañez Smukler Alicia Kozma Nicholas Forster Abigail Cheever Virginia Bonner Adrian GarveyThe 1970s has often been hailed as a great moment for American film, as a generation of “New Hollywood” directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Altman offered idiosyncratic visions of what movies could be. Yet the auteurist discourse hailing these directors as the sole authors of their films has obscured the important creative roles women played in the 1970s American film industry. Women and New Hollywood revises our understanding of this important era in American film by examining the contributions that women made not only as directors, but also as screenwriters, editors, actors, producers, and critics. Including essays on film history, film texts, and the decade’s film theory and criticism, this collection showcases the rich and varied cinematic products of women’s creative labor, as well as the considerable barriers they faced. It considers both women working within and beyond the Hollywood film industry, reconceptualizing New Hollywood by bringing it into dialogue with other American cinemas of the 1970s. By valuing the many forms of creative labor involved in film production, this collection offers exciting alternatives to the auteurist model and new ways of appreciating the themes and aesthetics of 1970s American film.
Women and Puppetry: Critical and Historical Investigations
by Alissa Mello Claudia Orenstein Cariad AstlesWomen and Puppetry is the first publication dedicated to the study of women in the field of puppetry arts. It includes critical articles and personal accounts that interrogate specific historical moments, cultural contexts, and notions of "woman" on and off stage. Part I, "Critical Perspective," includes historical and contemporary analyses of women’s roles in society, gender anxiety revealed through the unmarked puppet body, and sexual expression within oppressive social contexts. Part II, "Local Contexts: Challenges and Transformations," investigates work of female practitioners within specific cultural contexts to illuminate how women are intervening in traditionally male spaces. Each chapter in Part II offers brief accounts of specific social histories, barriers, and gender biases that women have faced, and the opportunities afforded female creative leaders to appropriate, revive, and transform performance traditions. And in Part III, "Women Practitioners Speak," contemporary artists reflect on their experiences as female practitioners within the art of puppet theatre. Representing female writers and practitioners from across the globe, Women and Puppetry offers students and scholars a comprehensive interrogation of the challenges and opportunities that women face in this unique art form.
Women and Radio: Airing Differences
by Caroline MitchellCombining classic work on radio with innovative research, journalism and biography, Women and Radio offers a variety of approaches to understanding the position of women as producers, presenters and consumers as well as offering guidelines, advice and helpful information for women wanting to work in radio.Women and Radio examines the relationship between radio audiences, technologies and programming and reveals and explains the inequalities experienced by women working in the industry.
Women and Resistance in Contemporary Bengali Cinema: A Freedom Incomplete (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series)
by Srimati MukherjeeHistorically, Indian cinema has positioned women at the intersection of tradition and a more evolving culture, portraying contradictory attitudes which affect women’s roles in public and private spheres. Examining the work of three directors from West Bengal, this book addresses the juxtaposition of tradition and culture regarding women in Bengali cinema. It argues the antithesis of women’s roles, particularly in terms of ideas of resistance, revolution, change, and autonomy, by suggesting they convey resistance to hegemonic structures, encouraging a re-envisioning of women’s positions within the familial-social matrix. Along with presenting a perception of culture as dynamic and evolving, the book discusses how some directors show that with this rupturing of the traditionally prohibitive, and a notion of unmaking and making in women, a traditional inclination is exposed to align women with ideas of absence, substitution, and disposability. The author goes on to show how selected auteurs in contemporary Bengali cinema break with certain traditional representations of women, gesturing towards a culture that is more liberating for women. Presenting the first full-length study of women’s changing roles over the last twenty years of Bengali cinema, this book will be a useful contribution for students and scholars of South Asian Culture, Film Studies and Gender Studies.
Women and Resistance in the Maghreb: Remembering Kahina (UCLA Center for Middle East Development (CMED))
by Nabil BoudraaThis book studies women’s resistance in the three countries of the Maghreb, concentrating on two questions: First, what has been the role of women artists since the 1960s in unlocking traditions and emancipating women on their own terms? Second, why have Maghrebi women rarely been given the right to be heard since Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia gained national independence? Honouring the artistic voices of women that have been largely eclipsed from both popular culture and political discourse in the Maghreb, the work specifically examines resistance by women since 1960s in the Maghreb through cinema, politics, and the arts. In an ancillary way, the volume addresses a wide range of questions that are specific to Maghrebi women related to upbringing, sexuality, marriage, education, representation, exclusion, and historical memory. These issues, in their broadest dimensions, opened the gates to responses in different fields in both the humanities and the social sciences. The research presents scholarship by not only leading scholars in Francophone studies, cultural history, and specialists in women studies, but also some of the most important film critics and practicing feminist advocates. The variety of periods and disciplines in this collection allow for a coherent and general understanding of Maghrebi societies since decolonization. The volume is a key resource to students and scholars interested in women’s studies, the Maghreb, and Middle East studies.
Women and Turkish Cinema: Gender Politics, Cultural Identity and Representation (Routledge Studies in Middle East Film and Media)
by Eylem AtakavSince 2000, there has been a considerable effort in Turkish cinema to come to terms with the military’s intervention in politics and subsequent national trauma. It has resulted in an outpouring of cinematic texts. This book focuses on women and Turkish cinema in the context of gender politics, cultural identity and representation. The central proposition of this book is that enforced depolticisation introduced after the coup is responsible for uniting feminism and film in 1980s Turkey. The feminist movement was able to flourish precisely because it was not perceived as political or politically significant. In a parallel move in the films of the 1980s there was an increased tendency to focus on the individual, on women’s issues and lives, in order to avoid the overtly political. Women and Turkish Cinema provides a comprehensive view of cinema’s approach to women in a country which straddles European and Middle Eastern cultural conceptions, identities and religious values and will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Film Studies, Gender Studies and Middle East Studies, amongst others.
Women at Work in Twenty-First-Century European Cinema
by Barbara MennelFrom hairdressers and caregivers to reproductive workers and power-suited executives, images of women's labor have powered a fascinating new movement within twenty-first century European cinema. Social realist dramas capture precarious working conditions. Comedies exaggerate the habits of the global managerial class. Stories from countries battered by the global financial crisis emphasize the patriarchal family, debt, and unemployment. Barbara Mennel delves into the ways these films about female labor capture the tension between feminist advances and their appropriation by capitalism in a time of ongoing transformation. Looking at independent and genre films from a cross-section of European nations, Mennel sees a focus on economics and work adapted to the continent's varied kinds of capitalism and influenced by concepts in second-wave feminism. More than ever, narratives of work put female characters front and center--and female directors behind the camera. Yet her analysis shows that each film remains a complex mix of progressive and retrogressive dynamics as it addresses the changing nature of work in Europe.
Women in African Cinema: Beyond the Body Politic
by Lizelle Bisschoff Stefanie Van de PeerWomen in African Cinema: Beyond the Body Politic showcases the very prolific but often marginalised presence of women in African cinema, both on the screen and behind the camera. This study provides the first in-depth and sustained study of women in African cinema. Films by women from different geographical regions are discussed in case studies that are framed by feminist theoretical and historical themes, and seen through an anti-colonial, philosophical, political and socio-cultural cinematic lens. A historical and theoretical introduction provides the context for thematic chapters exploring topics ranging from female identities, female friendships, women in revolutionary cinema, motherhood and daughterhood, women’s bodies, sexuality, and spirituality. Each chapter serves up a theoretical-historical discussion of the chosen theme, followed by two in-depth case studies that provide contextual and transnational readings of the films as well as outlining production, distribution and exhibition contexts. This book contributes to the feminist anti-racist revision of the canon by placing African women filmmakers squarely at the centre of African film culture. Demonstrating the depth and diversity of the feminine or female aesthetic in African cinema, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of African cinema, media studies and African studies.
Women in Asian Performance: Aesthetics and politics
by Arya MadhavanWomen in Asian Performance offers a vital re-assessment of women's contributions to Asian performance traditions, focusing for the first time on their specific historical, cultural and performative contexts. Arya Madhavan brings together leading scholars from across the globe to make an exciting intervention into current debates around femininity and female representation on stage. This collection looks afresh at the often centuries-old aesthetic theories and acting conventions that have informed ideas of gender in Asian performance. It is divided into three parts: erasure – the history of the presence and absence of female bodies on Asian stages; intervention – the politics of female intervention into patriarchal performance genres; reconstruction – the strategies and methods adopted by women in redefining their performance practice. Establishing a radical, culturally specific approach to addressing female performance-making, Women in Asian Performance is a must-read for scholars and students across Asian Studies and Performance Studies.
Women in Dramatic Place and Time: Contemporary Female Characters on Stage
by Geraldine CousinFirst published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Women in Love: And Other Dramatic Writings (Books That Changed the World)
by Larry KramerScreenplays and scripts from the playwright of The Normal Heart.&“A valuable showcase of an important writer&’s early career.&”—The Bay Area Reporter Larry Kramer has been described by Susan Sontag as &“one of America&’s most valuable troublemakers.&” As Frank Rich writes in his Foreword to this collection of writings for the screen and stage, &“his plays are almost journalistic in their observation of the fine-grained documentary details of life . . . that may well prove timeless.&” The title work, the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Women in Love, is a movie &“as sensuous as anything you&’ve probably ever seen on film&” (The New York Times). The screenplay is accompanied by Kramer&’s reflections on the history of the production, sure to be of interest to any student of film. This volume also includes several early plays, Sissies&’ Scrapbook, A Minor Dark Age, and the political farce Just Say No, illuminating the development of one of our most important literary figures. &“Since his screenplay for Women in Love, Kramer has been a prophet of psychic health and catastrophe among us.&” (from The American Academy of Arts and Letters citation). Women in Love &“A visual stunner and very likely the most sensual film ever made.&”—New York Daily News &“Throughout Larry Kramer&’s literate scenario, the Lawrentian themes blaze and gutter. The sooty mind-crushing coal mines that Lawrence knew like the back of his hand are re-created in all their malignance. The annealing quality of sex is exhibited in the most erotic—and tasteful—lust scenes anywhere in contemporary film.&”—Time
Women in Neoliberal Postfeminist Television Drama: Representing Gendered Experiences of the Second World War
by Cat Mahoney“In this insightful book, Cat Mahoney offers a fascinating analysis of contemporary TV dramas such as Home Fires, Land Girls and The Bletchley Circle. Developing the idea that history is told through the preoccupations of the present, she argues compellingly that these are postfeminist dramas which work through troubling ideas about heteronormative romance, domesticity, beauty and whiteness, while reinforcing the idea that feminism as a political movement is not necessary. A bold and original contribution to television studies, gender studies and popular history.” ̶ Rosalind Gill, City, University of London, UK By examining contemporary television drama set during and immediately after the Second World War, this book illustrates the ways in which postfeminism has shaped representations of women in contemporary culture. Mahoney offers a new perspective to debates that have previously been concerned with questions of historical accuracy. She argues that depictions of women from the past in modern television drama spawn from the neoliberal postfeminist media climate which originated in the 1990s. These depictions respond to a cultural need to naturalise and de-historicise a version of neoliberal postfeminist femininity that is compatible with the current media climate and far more reflective of the concerns of the present than any “real” or lived experience of women in the past. The result of this process of naturalisation is the assertion that postfeminist values are natural and eternal, rather than a product of the 1980s economic turn and the present political moment. By identifying and interrogating postfeminist norms within four television drama series produced since the 2008 financial crash, this book argues that postfeminism is a dominant structuring force in their depiction of female characters and of the past.