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About
With a foreword by Diane Negra and Jorie Lagerway
As television has finally started to create more leading roles for women, the female antiheroine has emerged as a compelling and dynamic character type. Television Antiheroines looks closely at this recent development, exploring the emergence of women characters in roles typically reserved for men, particularly in the male-dominated genre of the crime and prison drama.
The essays collected in Television Antiheroines are divided into four sections or types of characters: mafia women, drug dealers and aberrant mothers, women in prison, and villainesses. Looking specifically at shows such as Gomorrah, Mafiosa, The Wire, The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Orange is the New Black, and Antimafia Squad, the contributors explore the role of race and sexuality and focus on how many of the characters transgress traditional ideas about femininity and female identity, such as motherhood. They examine the ways in which bad women are portrayed and how these characters undermine gender expectations and reveal the current challenges by women to social and economic norms. Television Antiheroines will be essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in crime and prison drama and the rising prominence of women in nontraditional roles.
As television has finally started to create more leading roles for women, the female antiheroine has emerged as a compelling and dynamic character type. Television Antiheroines looks closely at this recent development, exploring the emergence of women characters in roles typically reserved for men, particularly in the male-dominated genre of the crime and prison drama.
The essays collected in Television Antiheroines are divided into four sections or types of characters: mafia women, drug dealers and aberrant mothers, women in prison, and villainesses. Looking specifically at shows such as Gomorrah, Mafiosa, The Wire, The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Orange is the New Black, and Antimafia Squad, the contributors explore the role of race and sexuality and focus on how many of the characters transgress traditional ideas about femininity and female identity, such as motherhood. They examine the ways in which bad women are portrayed and how these characters undermine gender expectations and reveal the current challenges by women to social and economic norms. Television Antiheroines will be essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in crime and prison drama and the rising prominence of women in nontraditional roles.
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Reviews
"'This vital collection profitably meditates on the intersections of crime studies, feminist and postfeminist studies and television studies, and shines a light on the expanding representational possibilities for women that are taking place in global television production. [...] I suspect that Television Antiheroines will enjoy widespread adoption as a text in a number of university courses for di
Ellen Nerenberg, Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies
"'Thanks to its cultural approach, Television Antiheroines depicts in an original way the possibilities opened up by 'bad' behaviours in mainstream images of femininity. Each chapter analyses characters' everyday lives, underlining how micropolitics questions conventional gender roles. Such a subversive process is also sustained by the idea that the representation of moral and behavioural contradi
Ilaria De Pascalis, European Journal of Women's Studies
"'I began this review by querying whether the antiheroine exists; after spending time with Television Antiheroines, and becoming well acquainted with Rosy Abate, Imma Savastano, Sandra Paoli, Carmela Soprano, Carmen van Walraven, Nancy Botwin, Gemma Teller, Mags Bennett, Teresa Mendoza, Big Boo, Nicky Nichols, Livia Marine, Kate Leigh, Tillly Devine, and others, I have no doubt of the socio-cultur
Tanya Horeck, Feminist Media Studies