From domestic goddess to desperate housewife, What a Girl Wants explores the importance and centrality of postfeminism in contemporary popular culture.Focusing on a diverse range of media forms, including film, TV, advertising and journalism, Diane Negra holds up a mirror to the contemporary female subject who finds herself centralized in commodity culture to a largely unprecedented degree at a time when Hollywood romantic comedies, chick-lit, and female-centred primetime TV dramas all compete for her attention and spending power.The models and anti-role models analysed in the book include the chick flick heroines of princess films, makeover movies and time travel dramas, celebrity brides and bravura mothers, ''‚¬~Runaway Bride' sensation Jennifer Wilbanks, the sex workers, flight attendants and nannies who maintain such a high profile in postfeminist popular culture, the authors of postfeminist panic literature on dating, marriage and motherhood and the domestic gurus who propound luxury lifestyling as a showcase for the ''‚¬~achieved' female self.
What a Girl Wants? : Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism