39 research outputs found
Sheila, Take a Bow
Professor Sheila Whiteley passed away on 6th of June, 2015. Sheilaâs ground-breaking achievements in popular culture and gender studies, alongside her bright personal triumphs are celebrated by numerous obituaries from national and international media. Here, we present the tributes of Sheilaâs students, colleagues and friends.Sheila Whiteley nous a quittĂ©s le 6 juin 2015. Ses recherches pionniĂšres sur la culture populaire et le genre, en plus de ses grands succĂšs personnels, furent cĂ©lĂ©brĂ©s dans de nombreux mĂ©dias internationaux. Nous vous prĂ©sentons ici une sĂ©rie dâhommages de ses Ă©tudiants, collĂšgues et amis
Essex girlsâ in the comedy club : stand-up, ridicule and âvalue strugglesâ
This article presents findings from a qualitative study carried out on how audiences of stand-up comedy are entangled in âvalue strugglesâ. It focuses on a group who through classed and gendered ridicule are often drawn as valueless â women from Essex or âEssex girlsâ. The article explores how a group of women from Essex negotiate their value in the face of Essex girlâbased ridicule, experienced while part of a live comedy audience in a London comedy club. The analysis reveals an ambivalence in how the group utilise and view their âEssex girlâ status, which challenges the view that this is a valueless identification. They oscillate between the joy of revelling in the Essex girl role and disidentification from the shame of this disreputable status. It concludes by highlighting how ridicule does not necessarily perform a disciplinary function and considers if the joy of âbeing Essexâ has any hope of escaping into everyday life
Dynamics of social class contempt in contemporary British television comedy
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Taylor & Francis.British television comedy has often ridiculed the complexities and characteristics of social class structures and identities. In recent years, poor white socially marginalised groups, now popularly referred to as âchavsâ, have become a prevalent comedy target. One of the most popular and controversial television âcomedy chavsâ is Little Britain's fictional teenage single mother, Vicky Pollard. This article examines the representation of Vicky Pollard in light of contemporary widespread abuse of the white working class. Highlighting the polysemic and ambivalent nature of Vicky Pollard's representation, the article argues that whilst Little Britain's characterisation of Vicky Pollard largely contributes to contemporary widespread demonisation of the working class, there are moments within Little Britain when a more sympathetic tone towards the poor working class may be read, and where chav identities are used to ridicule the pretensions, superficiality, and falsity of middle-class identities. The article concludes that television comedy has been, and continues to be, a significant vehicle through which serious concerns, anxieties, and questions about social class and class identities are discursively constructed and contested
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Empowerment/sexism: Figuring female sexual agency in contemporary advertising
This paper argues that there has been a significant shift in advertising representations of women in recent years, such that rather than being presented as passive objects of the male gaze, young women in adverts are now frequently depicted as active, independent and sexually powerful. This analysis examines contemporary constructions of female sexual agency in advertisements examining three recognizable âfiguresâ: the young, heterosexually desiring âmidriffâ, the vengeful woman set on punishing her partner or ex partner for his transgressions, and the âhot lesbianâ, almost always entwined with her beautiful Other or double. Using recent examples of adverts the paper asks how this apparent âagencyâ and âempowermentâ should be understood.
Drawing on accounts of the incorporation or recuperation of feminist ideas in advertising the paper takes a critical approach to these representations, examining their exclusions, their constructions of gender relations and heteronormativity, and the way power is figured within them. A feminist poststructuralist approach is used to interrogate the way in which âsexual agencyâ becomes a form of regulation in these adverts, that requires the re-moulding of feminine subjectivity to fit the current postfeminist, neoliberal moment in which young women should not only be beautiful but sexy, sexually knowledgeable/practised and always âup for itâ.
The paper makes an original contribution to debates about representations of gender in advertising, to poststructuralist analyses about the contemporary operation of power, and to writing about female âsexual agencyâ by suggesting that âvoiceâ or âagencyâ may not be the solution to the âmissing discourse of female desire' but may in fact be a technology of discipline and regulation
âWe secured the tussacâ: Accounts of ecological discovery, exploitation and renewal in the Falkland Islands
Sheep farms dominate the Falkland Islands landscape and have for over a century. The introduction of sheep, and several other species, has significantly transformed the ecology of this archipelagoâthe near elimination of tussac grass being one of the most notable changes.
Tracing back to early accounts of tussac grass in the âFalklandsâ, this paper captures its discovery, exploitation and current stage of renewal, including a closer look at the connections between tussac and livestock farming, as well as parallel trends in other countries.
We narrate changing relations between people and tussac grass using a combination of interview data, historical accounts and scientific literature.
Tussac is presented as a historical bellwether of shifting trends in local farm and environmental management in this isolated archipelago. Shifts in land ownership, grazing management methods and conservation efforts are bringing momentum to a period of renewal across the Falklands