No End to Her - Soap Opera & the Female Subject (Paper)

1. Auflage 1993
ISBN: 978-0-520-07771-3
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 237 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 390 g

In this incisive defense of a much-maligned genre, Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective, and responds to complex issues of women's desire and power.

Even though soap opera commands a vast and loyal audience, it has been trivialized by the mainstream media and even libeled as a form of pornography designed to keep women in their place. In this incisive defense of a much-maligned genre, Martha Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective and responds to complex issues of women's desires and power by creating strong, active female characters. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and feminist film criticism, Nochimson explores the ways in which soap opera has inverted the typical male-centered narrative characterized by a domineering, Oedipal father-son relationship that serves to control female energy. Instead, women in soap operas resist their stabilizing role in male hierarchies. In breaking with traditional narrative, soaps create a distinctly feminine, open-ended format capable of tolerating ambiguity and lack of resolution. Soap operas emerge as vessels of a subterranean female power and defy women's "assigned" place in male-designed social structures.

It is time, Nochimson argues, to take a fresh look at one of America's few original art forms. Anyone interested in television, American culture, and gender roles will find No End to Her a startling and compelling read.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nochimson, Martha

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften Fernsehen & Rundfunk

Inhaltsverzeichnis

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Prologue: An Invitation to Recovery

1
No End to Her: The Place of Soap Opera as Screen Fiction

Soap Opera, Femininity, and Desire

Soap Opera, Mainstream Critical Discourse, and Desire

Freudian Film Criticism, the Screen Subject, and Desire

Narrative Syntax and Desire

A Differently Gendered Screen, a Different Narrative Myth

Conclusion: The Female Subject of Soap Opera

2
Persephone, Not Oedipus: Soap Opera and the Fantasy Female Subject before 1978

Releasing the Screen Heroine from Bond-age

The Radio Heroine

The Early Television Heroine

The Importance of Being Victoria Lord

Conclusion

3
The Fantasy Female Subject after 1978

General Hospital: Crooks in the Crannies

Days of Our Lives: Energizing the Narrative of the Couple

Santa Barbara: Julia's New Frontier

Conclusion

4
Persephone's Labyrinth: The Aesthetics of an Involuntary Feminine Discourse

Suspense

Multi plots

Melodrama

Actor Chemistry and Soap Opera Melodrama

Conclusion

5
Persephone's "Wild Zone": Difference, Interiority, and Linear
Historicity in Soap Opera

Historical Difference: Culture and Religion

Historical Difference: Race

Historical Difference: Homosexuality

Interiority: A Different History

Conclusion

Epilogue: What Is Normal?

NOTES

REFERENCES

INDEX OF SOAP OPERA CHARACTERS

INDEX

Über Autor(innen)

Martha Nochimson teaches at New York University and at Mercy College. Not content with a purely academic approach to her subject, she spent several years as a writer for Ryan's Hope, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light, Loving, and Santa Barbara.