enemieseverywhere's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
5.0
An insightful and articulate (and at times very funny) book similar to "Reading the Romance" by Janice Radway, but this one expands its scope to include gothic novels and soap operas, and reaches some interestingly different conclusions.
First published in '82, which was actually slightly before "Reading the Romance," but I think reading Radway first and Modleski second is the way to go so the arguments build upon each other. Radway's book is deep and narrow; Modleski's book is broader and more web-weaving as it hunts for patterns and resonances across the gendered media landscape. She has some amazingly funny and scathing commentary about popular & "high" art forms created by and for men.
I really liked the psychological unpacking she got into when talking about the differences between the readers and the heroines they project onto, and the way that reading a romance replicates the double bind that women are placed into in life (be sexy, but not slutty; be beautiful, but not vain; find a rich powerful husband, but don't be a gold digger; be charming and socially skillful, but not flirty or—god forbid— manipulative). The heroine has to be innocent and naive and virginal. The reader, then, assumes the guilt and burden of sexual knowledge that the heroine sheds like water off a swan's neck.
Similarly: The heroine cannot see herself and does not know how spectacularly beautiful and alluring she is; the reader sees her through the man's / the omniscient narrator's gaze. But because of the reader-heroine projection, this too adds to the guilt; it feels like narcissism— a cardinal sin for women, who are never, ever allowed to know that they are pretty.
Anyway. Fascinating stuff. Recommending it to everyone interested in mass market pop culture, in the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy, and in heterosexuality, whether compulsory or otherwise; mass media aimed at women is a site of simultaneous indoctrination and resistance, and this book unpacks those contradictions beautifully.
First published in '82, which was actually slightly before "Reading the Romance," but I think reading Radway first and Modleski second is the way to go so the arguments build upon each other. Radway's book is deep and narrow; Modleski's book is broader and more web-weaving as it hunts for patterns and resonances across the gendered media landscape. She has some amazingly funny and scathing commentary about popular & "high" art forms created by and for men.
I really liked the psychological unpacking she got into when talking about the differences between the readers and the heroines they project onto, and the way that reading a romance replicates the double bind that women are placed into in life (be sexy, but not slutty; be beautiful, but not vain; find a rich powerful husband, but don't be a gold digger; be charming and socially skillful, but not flirty or—god forbid— manipulative). The heroine has to be innocent and naive and virginal. The reader, then, assumes the guilt and burden of sexual knowledge that the heroine sheds like water off a swan's neck.
Similarly: The heroine cannot see herself and does not know how spectacularly beautiful and alluring she is; the reader sees her through the man's / the omniscient narrator's gaze. But because of the reader-heroine projection, this too adds to the guilt; it feels like narcissism— a cardinal sin for women, who are never, ever allowed to know that they are pretty.
Anyway. Fascinating stuff. Recommending it to everyone interested in mass market pop culture, in the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy, and in heterosexuality, whether compulsory or otherwise; mass media aimed at women is a site of simultaneous indoctrination and resistance, and this book unpacks those contradictions beautifully.
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