The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soap

The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soap Opera traces the history of the feminist engagement with soap opera using a wide range of sources from programme publicity to interviews with key soap opera scholars. The book reveals that feminist scholarship on soap opera was a significant site ofwhich the identity 'feminist intellectual' was produced in dialogue with her imagined other, the soap opera watching housewife. The book integrates personal autobiographical accounts within a broader history which traces both the move from 'women's liberation' to 'Feminism', and the acceptance ofsoap opera as a serious object of study.

Charlotte Brunsdon teaches in the Department of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick.

List of Figures

xii

Introduction

1

(16)

Part I: Mapping the Fields

17

(20)

Women's Genres and Female Agency

19

(18)

Part II: Early Work on Soap Opera: `Worrying Responsibly'

37

(46)

Introduction to Part II

39

(4)

The Housewife in 1940s Mass Communication Research: Arnheim, Kaufman, and Herzog

43

(9)

Feminists Taking Soap Opera Seriously: The Work of Carol Lopate, Michele Mattelart, and Tania Modleski

52

(14)

Fantasies of the Housewife: The Case of Crossroads

66

(17)

Part III: Talking Soap Opera

83

(136)

Autobiography and Ethnography

85

(14)

`I Don't Think We Thought about It as Studying Soap Operas': Christine Geraghty

99

(13)

`What about the Rest of the Audience?': Dorothy Hobson

112

(19)

`Slightly Guilty Pleasures': Terry Lovell

131

(16)

`The Pleasure of a Programme Like This Is Not Something Simple': len Ang

147

(18)

`A Sense of Trying to Valorize Soap Opera as Women's TV': Ellen Seiter

165

(18)

Commonalities: Writing Across the Interviews

183

(28)

The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soap Opera

211

(8)

Appendix: Example of Interview Transcription

219

(6)

Bibliography

225

(22)

Index

247

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The Feminist, the Housewife, and the Soap Opera

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials