Dangerous Dames

Heather L. Hundley (PhD, University of Utah) is Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication Studies at Middle Tennessee State University. She received the College Outstanding Research Award from her former institution. She has co-authored two books, coedited two books, and published in journals including New Media & Society, Communication Quarterly, and Communication Reports.Roberta Chevrette (PhD, Arizona State University) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Middle Tennessee State University. She has published in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication Theory, Feminist Formations, and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies.Hillary A. Jones (PhD, The Pennsylvania State University) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at California State University, Fresno. She has co-edited a book and has published in journals including Critical Studies in Media Communication, Southern Communication Journal, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Communication, Culture, and Critique.

• Acknowledgements – Introduction: Paradoxes of Gendered Power Relations and Representations – Superficial Postfeminist and Postmodern Portrayals: Hegemonic and Hypermasculine Ideologies in Kill Bill, Volumes 1 & 2 – Appropriating Feminism: The Naturalization of Patriarchal Power Structures in The Hunger Games – Ass-Kicking Women and the Fight for Justice: Constructing a (White) Feminine/ist Icon in Wonder Woman – Visualizing Violent Femininity: Race, Sex and Femmes Fatales in Atomic Blonde and Proud Mary – Hybridizing and Networking Beyond Boundaries: Cyborgs and Cognispheres in the Bionic Woman and Dark Matter – Transcending Boundaries: Posthumanism and Transhumanism in Caprica and Deus Ex – Conclusion: Envisioning Feminist Futures – Index.

“Dangerous Dames is a thoughtful and richly descriptive continuation of the critical conversation begun in Bad Girls. As definitions and understandings of feminism continue to evolve, we remain tasked with attending to the interaction between media representations and both new and older generations of cultural audiences. The book identifies the material conditions which necessitate critique, explains the significance of popular representations of women’s lives, and offers a clearly articulated justification for selection of the films and other media examined in the book. Dangerous Dames demonstrates that cultural ambivalence is still in play with representations of women; the female characters can resist—but not dismantle—the structural inequalities in contemporary American culture. The authors’ selection of films demonstrates the hunger that exists for narrative empowerment of women in popular culture while carefully walking with the reader through the possibilities for change arising from those depictions. The book convincingly argues that while popular imagination has evolved progressively since Bad Girls was published, it still does not fully encompass the burden of inequality on the lives of women and girls.”—A. Susan Owen (University of Puget Sound) and Sarah Stein (North Carolina State University), co-authors of Bad Girls: Cultural Politics and Media Representations of Transgressive Women