Love and Ideology in the Afternoon by Laura Stempel Mumford

Love and Ideology in the Afternoon by Laura Stempel Mumford

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Summary

A critical study of how soap operas reinforce dominant ideas of gender and sexuality and why soaps seem so pleasurable that women viewers, including feminists, keep coming back to watch.

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Love and Ideology in the Afternoon by Laura Stempel Mumford

'Why do I like soap operas?' Laura Stempel Mumford asks, and her answer emerges in a feminist analysis of soap opera that participates in current debates about popular culture, television, and ideology. She argues that the conventional daytime soap has an implicit and at times explicit political agenda that cooperates in the 'teaching' of male dominance and the related oppressions of racism, classism, and heterosexismNso that they seem inevitable. Unlike other critics of the genre, Mumford situates her argument within her own history as a soap opera viewer and her struggle to reconcile her pleasure in the genre with a recognition of the form's repressive tendencies.Mumford blends theory, criticism, and personal practice into a detailed analysis of the genre and its viewers: the different levels of viewer competence crucial to understanding soap opera narratives; how soaps blur the boundaries between public and private spheres to construct a particular kind of community; the functions of clusure in programs' narratives and viewer expectations about particular storylines; the paternity mystery, a fictional restatement of the power of the father; and, various elements surrounding soap operas, such as fan magazines, network programming strategies. "All My Children", "General Hospital", "Another World", "One Life to Live", "Days of Our Lives", "The Young and the Restless": a close reading of their texts will also answer some larger questions about television and its place in the broad landscape of popular culture.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780253209658
ISBN 10 025320965X
Title Love and Ideology in the Afternoon
Author Laura Stempel Mumford
Series Arts And Politics Of The Everyday
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Indiana University Press
Year published 1995-08-22
Number of pages 176
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.