Consumerism on TV

Alison Hulme lectures in the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is also a regular guest lecturer in Chinese Politics and Development at Goldsmiths College, University of London and University College Dublin. She was the 2014 Ron Lister fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand and is the author of On the Commodity Trail: The Journey of a Bargain Store Product from East to West.

• AcknowledgementsPreface by Alison Hulme 1. Blurring Fiction with Reality: American Television andConsumerism in the 1950s Susan Nacey2. From ‘Make do and Mend’ to ‘Your Country Needs You toSpend’: Constructing the Consumer in Late-Modernity Alison Hulme3. Birds of a Feather Shop Together: Conspicuous Consumptionand the Imaging of the 1980’s Essex Girl Rachel Rye4. Absolutely Ethical?: Irony, Subversion and Prescience inAbsolutely Fabulous Susie Khamis5. The ‘Good Life’ on the Small Screen: Ethical Consumption,Food Television and Green Makeovers Tania Lewis6. Consuming the Lesbian Body: Post-Feminist HeteroflexibleSubjectivities in Sex and the City and The L Word Ella Fegitz7. Effeminacy and Expertise, Excess and Equality: Gay BestFriends as Consumers and Commodities in ContemporaryTelevision Susie Khamis and Anthony Lambert8. ‘A Thousand Diamonds’: Gypsies, Romanies and Travellers and‘Transgressive Consumerism’ in Reality Television Emma Bell9. Shopping for Identity: Post-Feminist Flâneuses in Sex and the Cityand In the Cut Lisa FrenchIndex

’This is an innovative collection, based on original research and drawing on different countries and different times, that maps the social meaning of consumerism. It goes beyond the "false consciousness vs. authentic self-expression" debate to say new things about a central feature of contemporary society.' James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK ’Surveying the field from Essex girls to haute couture fashionistas, and from post-war austerity to postmodern extravagance, this collection opens up an impressive range of perceptive debates on how popular television genres (comedies, dramas, lifestyle shows and beyond) have represented the attractions, contradictions, pleasures and pitfalls of consumer society. This is a volume full of astute insights, thoughtful perspectives and constructive provocations.’ Andy Medhurst, University of Sussex, UK