Bad Girls and Transgressive Women in Popular Television, Fiction, and Film

From the Back CoverThis collection of essays focuses on the representations of a variety of “bad girls”women who challenge, refuse, or transgress the patriarchal limits intended to circumscribe themin television, popular fiction, and mainstream film from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Perhaps not surprisingly, the initial introduction of women into Western cultural narrative coincides with the introduction of transgressive women. It is those attitudes that are explored in this collection. While the existence and prominence of transgressive women has continued uninterrupted, however, attitudes towards them have varied considerably. Today’s popular manifestations include such widely known figures as Lisbeth Salander (the “girl with the dragon tattoo”), The Walking Dead’s Michonne, and the queen bees of teen television series. At the same time, these essays place feminist/postfeminist analysis

At the same time, these essays place feminist/postfeminist analysis in a larger context, entering into ongoing debates about power, equality, sexuality, and gender.. From the beginning, for good or ill, women have been depicted as insubordinate. This collection of essays focuses on the representations of a variety of “bad girls”women who challenge, refuse, or transgress the patriarchal limits intended to circumscribe themin television, popular fiction, and mainstream film from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Perhaps not surprisingly, the initial introduction of women into Western cultural narrative coincides with the introduction of transgressive women. It is those attitudes that are explored in this collection. Today’s popular manifestations include such widely known figures as Lisbeth Salander (the “girl with the dragon tattoo”), The Walking Dead’s Michonne, and the queen bees of

She is co-editor of Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction and Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies. Chappell is Professor of English at Tarleton State University, USA. Julie A. Her writing has focused primarily on women’s lives and texts from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. . She is author