BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine [Paperback]

Lisa Jervis (Editor), Andi Zeisler (Editor), Margaret Cho (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0374113432 | ISBN-13: 978-0374113438 | Publication Date: August 8, 2006 | Edition: First Edition

In the wake of Sassy and as an alternative to the more staid reporting of Ms., Bitch was launched in the mid-nineties as a Xerox-and-staple zine covering the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. Both unabashed in its love for the guilty pleasures of consumer culture and deeply thoughtful about the way the pop landscape reflects and impacts women's lives, Bitch grew to be a popular, full-scale magazine with a readership that stretched worldwide. Today it stands as a touchstone of hip, young feminist thought, looking with both wit and irreverence at the way pop culture informs feminism--and vice versa--and encouraging readers to think critically about the messages lurking behind our favorite television shows, movies, music, books, blogs, and the like. BITCHFest offers an assortment of the most provocative essays, reporting, rants, and raves from the magazine's first ten years, along with new pieces written especially for the collection. Smart, nuanced, cranky, outrageous, and clear-eyed, the anthology covers everything from a 1996 celebration of pre-scandal Martha Stewart to a more recent critical look at the "gayby boom"; from a time line of black women on sitcoms to an analysis of fat suits as the new blackface; from an attempt to fashion a feminist vulgarity to a reclamation of female virginity. It's a recent history of feminist pop-culture critique and an arrow toward feminism's future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This often mind-stretching, occasionally predictable and generally entertaining collection of articles from Bitch magazine has something for every feminist, postfeminist and reactionary. Bitch was founded in 1996 in response to "post-feminism" by "freshly minted liberal arts graduates with crappy day jobs and a serious media jones." With refreshing depth, literacy and humor, these essays explore questions surrounding puberty, gender identity, sex, "domestic arrangements," beauty, pop culture and mainstream media, and media literacy/activism. Tammy Oler examines menarche and female puberty in horror films; Gaby Moss analyzes the media's obsession with "mean girls"; and Lisa Jervis gives a rundown of sex scenes and pride in YA lesbian novels. Leigh Shoemaker puts down Camille Paglia's contention that males are superior due to their urinary "arc of transcendence" by evoking the Virgin Mary's breasts squirting milk through the air into Jesus' mouth. Audry Bilger protests the use of "guys" as gender neutral. Conspicuously absent is any discussion of women and aging. Maybe we'll just have to wait for Bitch's 20th anniversary, when its editors will be pushing 50. (Aug. 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

"Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment," writes comedian Margaret Cho in the foreword to this anthology from the self-proclaimed Queen Bee of Grrrl Zines. Positioned as an antidote to the patronizing pages of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, Bitch revels in its power to provoke as it ponders the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. In honor of the magazine's tenth anniversary, founding editors Jervis and Zeisler have amassed essays (including some specifically commissioned for the collection) on a bounty of brazen topics, from the ramifications of sexual abuse and rape to the lesbian tendencies of Japanese macaques. Its writers are no wallflowers: Leigh Shoemaker's "stand-up" discussion of female urination, for example, adds new meaning to the expression, "Looking out for #1." From transsexuality to body image to gender-bending "slash fiction" that amorously pairs the likes of Captain Kirk and Spock, there's plenty here to amuse and enlighten the target audience--and plenty to rattle the cages of card-carrying macho men and women who might find the racy rants a bit over the top. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374113432
• ISBN-13: 978-0374113438
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Feminist Theory

More About the Author

I'm a writer, editor, and Washington, DC native currently based in San Francisco, California. I'm the creator & editor of Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop (Soft Skull Press, March 2012). I've also contributed to the books BitchFest: 10 Years of Cultural Criticism From the Pages of Bitch Magazine and Somebody's Child: Stories About Adoption (both of which are available on Amazon).

As a freelance journalist I've written about pop culture, feminism, arts, and lifestyles for more than 40 publications, including Salon.com, the Village Voice, ELLEGirl, Nylon, Time Out New York, BUST, CNN.com, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

For more about my work, please visit LauraBarcella.com and MadonnaAndMeBook.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for young feminists, August 23, 2006

By 

Amazonian - See all my reviews

This review is from: BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (Paperback)

What a remarkably smart and satisfying collection of cultural criticism! Whether you're into gender theory, feminist historicism, questions of identity, or simply the deeper consequences of pop cultural phenomena, this book has it all. I studied gender and sexuality in college, and while I love reading more serious philosophers such as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and even Freud, sometimes I wish there were something appropriate for beach reading that is as intellectually gratifying. Each article in this anthology runs approximately 5 or 6 pages, and touches upon so many key themes in gender/sexuality studies that it leaves me feeling buzzed! The scope and breadth of the articles truly offer a representative vista of contemporary feminism. If you're looking for something lighter than Lacan but heavier than the NOW (National Organization for Women) newsletter, this is the answer. I would strongly recommend it to men too, since any critical view of women inevitably touches upon the tensions between genders and various sexualities. There are more than a few articles that discuss masculinity and identity, including a few that I got my boyfriend to read, simply because they were *that* good, and he enjoyed them too.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Viva la revolucion!, August 8, 2006

By 

Edward Aycock (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (Paperback)

Presenting...

"Bitch" magazine - insightful, educational, hilarious - has been exploring "feminist response to pop culture" for the past decade and, at long last, several essays from the magazine have been collected into a book. The advent of "Bitchfest" is a blessing: the earliest issues of "Bitch" are nigh impossible to find anywhere due to the magazine's non-glamorous beginnings at a copy shop in the Bay Area (no glossy, Midtown Manhattan celebrity-laden launch for Bitch -- and we're all the better for it). I'm glad to finally have the opportunity to read some of the earliest essays.

Plus, you also get ...

How cool is it that some of my favorite essays are together at last? From Lori Tharp's well thought out rant on the absence of black characters from contemporary sitcoms to the snarky and oh-so-funny "Ten Things to Hate About JANE" (a dead-on critique of JANE magazine), each essay proves how all-pervasive pop culture has become, and why feminist thought can not afford to ignore it.

Buy now and we'll send you ...

"Bitchfest" also succeeds as a critical history of the feminist movement - one of the most incisive pieces in the book discusses the disconnect that occured when the feminist movement (at various times in its history) refused to single any one person out to be the "spokesperson" (for lack of a better word) for the movement. The result? The media anointed their own person, leading to infighting and yes, even pettiness that showcases the frustrations that can arise while trying to promote an egalitarian movement in a sensationalistic, media-controlled world.

But wait - there's more!

As an added bonus, there are a handful of articles that appear in this book for the very first time, in addition to introductory essays at the beginning of each section. It's nice to know that the editors cared enough to actually give the readers something extra rather than just throwing a handful of pre-published essays into a book and sending it to the printers.

Sure I don't always agree with "Bitchfest" but nobody ever said I had to. This book is wonderful and truly proves how unique and necessary "Bitch" magazine is (and will hopefully continue to be) during these crazy times.

Order yours today, it'll make a great present!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book, December 28, 2006

By 

J. Aragon "Feminist Educator" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (Paperback)

Disclaimer-I subscribe to Bitch Magazine and have for a number of years. I love it! When I saw this book at the university bookstore, I bought it and savored reading through the book.

What I really like about Bitch Magazine, more so than Bust, is that the articles are more theoretical and erudite. I don't consider them dry, but I am WS educator and view BM as more a cutting edge zine that demonstrates the various feminist strands that exist today in the 3rd Wave, No Wave era of the feminist movement.

Buy this book! Subscribe to the zine for thoughtful, well-written articles about all sorts of issues.

After that plug, let me just say that I don't always agree with the essays. Some will definitely leave you with that sense that you want to grab a coffee with a friend and hammer out some of your thoughts.