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You play the girl : on Playboy bunnies, Stepford wives, train wrecks, and other mixed messages / Carina Chocano.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017Description: xxvi, 275 pages : illustration ; 21 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780544648944
  • 0544648943
Uniform titles:
  • Essays. Selections
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
part 1. Down the rabbit hole: Bunnies ; Can this marriage be saved? ; The bronze statue of the virgin slut ice queen bitch goddess ; What a feeling ; The eternal allure of the basket case -- part 2. The pool of tears: The ingenue chooses marriage or death ; Thoroughly modern Lily ; Bad girlfriend ; The kick-ass -- part 3. You wouldn't have come here: Surreal housewives ; Real girls ; Celebrity Gothic ; Big mouth strikes again ; The redemptive journey ; A modest proposal for more backstabbing in preschool -- part 4. A mad tea party: Let it go ; All the bad guys are girls ; Girls love math ; Train wreck ; Look at yourself ; Phantombusters, or, I want a feminist dance number.
Summary: "Who is "the girl"? Look to movies, TV shows, magazines, and ads and the message is both clear and not: she is a sexed-up sidekick, a princess waiting to be saved, a morally infallible angel with no opinions of her own. She's whatever the hero needs her to be in order to become himself. She's an abstraction, an ideal, a standard, a mercurial phantom. In You Play the Girl, Chocano blends formative personal stories with insightful and emotionally powerful analysis. Moving from Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, Flashdance to Frozen, the progressive '70s through the backlash '80s, the glib '90s, and the pornified aughts--and at stops in between--she explains how growing up in the shadow of "the girl" taught her to think about herself and the world and what it means to raise a daughter in the face of these contorted reflections. In the tradition of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Chocano brilliantly shows that our identities are more fluid than we think, and certainly more complex than anything we see on any kind of screen."--Page 4 of cover.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 305.42 C545 Available 33111008803542
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM.



In this smart, funny, impassioned call to arms, a pop culture critic merges memoir and commentary to explore how our culture shapes ideas about who women are, what they are meant to be, and where they belong.



As a kid in the 1970s and '80s, Carina Chocano was confused by the mixed messages all around her: messages that told her who she could be--and who she couldn't. She grappled with sexed-up sidekicks, princesses waiting to be saved, and morally infallible angels who seemed to have no opinions of their own.



Chocano learned that "the girl" is not a person, but a man's idea of what a woman should be--she's whatever the hero needs her to be in order to become himself. Drawing from her years as a movie critic, Chocano unveils how stories in popular culture too often limits girls' lives and shapes their destinies. She resolved to rewrite her own story.



In You Play the Girl, Chocano blends formative personal stories with insightful and emotionally powerful analysis. Moving from Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, from Flashdance to Frozen, from the progressive '70s through the backlash '80s, the glib '90s, and the pornified aughts--and at stops in between--she explains how growing up in the shadow of "the girl" taught her to think about herself and the world and what it means to raise a daughter in the face of these contorted reflections.



In the tradition of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Chocano brilliantly shows that our identities are more fluid than we think, and certainly more complex than anything we see on any kind of screen.



"If Hollywood's treatment of women leaves you wanting, you'll find good, heady company in You Play the Girl."--Elle

Essays.

"A Mariner original"--Title page.

"Who is "the girl"? Look to movies, TV shows, magazines, and ads and the message is both clear and not: she is a sexed-up sidekick, a princess waiting to be saved, a morally infallible angel with no opinions of her own. She's whatever the hero needs her to be in order to become himself. She's an abstraction, an ideal, a standard, a mercurial phantom. In You Play the Girl, Chocano blends formative personal stories with insightful and emotionally powerful analysis. Moving from Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, Flashdance to Frozen, the progressive '70s through the backlash '80s, the glib '90s, and the pornified aughts--and at stops in between--she explains how growing up in the shadow of "the girl" taught her to think about herself and the world and what it means to raise a daughter in the face of these contorted reflections. In the tradition of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Chocano brilliantly shows that our identities are more fluid than we think, and certainly more complex than anything we see on any kind of screen."--Page 4 of cover.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 264-275).

part 1. Down the rabbit hole: Bunnies ; Can this marriage be saved? ; The bronze statue of the virgin slut ice queen bitch goddess ; What a feeling ; The eternal allure of the basket case -- part 2. The pool of tears: The ingenue chooses marriage or death ; Thoroughly modern Lily ; Bad girlfriend ; The kick-ass -- part 3. You wouldn't have come here: Surreal housewives ; Real girls ; Celebrity Gothic ; Big mouth strikes again ; The redemptive journey ; A modest proposal for more backstabbing in preschool -- part 4. A mad tea party: Let it go ; All the bad guys are girls ; Girls love math ; Train wreck ; Look at yourself ; Phantombusters, or, I want a feminist dance number.

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