Gender Politics And MTV: Voicing the Difference [Paperback]

Lisa Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 1991

By examining the videos and careers of female musicians Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, and Madonna, and their appeal to female audiences, Lisa A. Lewis challenges the idea that MTV presents only negative and sexist images of women. She shows that these artists have appropriated music video as a vehicle of feminist expression and have reinterpreted the signs of a gender-typed culture clothing, dance, the use of the street as public space, and even musical instruments. By appropriating these symbols of female empowerment, female rock and pop stars have created a new and significant audience for MTV among teenage girls.Lewis explores this subculture of fandom and its effects on the music business. The videos of Benatar, Lauper, Turner, and Madonna, argues Lewis, foreground female experiences of gender inequality and celebrate the cultural distinctiveness of girls and women. By focusing attention on forms of gender discrimination in popular music, and in society generally, these four musicians have become figures of emulation for millions of female fans. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," by Cyndi Lauper, became something of an anthem for women and particularly for female adolescents, a very regulated and marginalized group. Devotees of Lauper and of Madonna especially imitate their idols in appearance and speech. The fans are examined in the context of their everyday lives as teenage girls in various sites of fan activity-concerts, shopping malls, movies, television news, and MTV itself. Author note: Lisa A. Lewis, Ph.D., is a writer based in Tucson, Arizona.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] significant moment in the history of feminist research in the field of communication.... [It] should be seen as a guidepost tot he directions feminist work needs to take."
—Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media

"Provocative and important, ...[Lewis's] theoretically ambitions study of women rock musicians and their fans...makes a strong case...that popular culture is contested terrain and that women, as artists and as spectators and fans, can and have made astonishing inroads into a commercial, male-defined turf.... The book is full of substantive theoretical gold. It's audacious, original and...very much engaged in its subject.... Her profiles of four performers—Madonna, Tina Turner, Pat Benatar and Cyndi Lauper—are eye-openers.... Lewis understands fully that most commercial and pop culture is far from liberating.... Still, there's something exhilarating about her unfashionable cultural radicalism."
—The Nation

"[Lewis] explores her fascinating topic with a frank feminism and with the recognition that female viewers play an active role in their experience of MTV. Readers will be rewarded not only by her insights, but by the fact that her prose is relatively free of the jargon that usually riddles these studies."
—The Women's Review of Books

From the Publisher

Challenging the idea that MTV presents only negative and sexist images of women

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (December 18, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877229422
• ISBN-13: 978-0877229421
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,227,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is an insightful, well-written analysis of women in rock, June 10, 2006

By 

Uptown Girl (Baltimore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gender Politics And MTV: Voicing the Difference (Paperback)

It's a few years old but Lisa Lewis' book is still a really useful analysis of rock music and MTV, and the role gender plays. She makes good arguments about the masculinity of rock and how women artists (namely Lauper, Benatar, Tina Turner, and Madonna) were able to make inroads, in spite of that. It's theoretically sophisticated but accessible, because she directly applies complex theory to the work of these women artists. Read it if you want to understand rock music a lot better than you do now; the ideas still work today.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Save your money, March 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Gender Politics And MTV: Voicing the Difference (Paperback)

I was very disappointed in this book. It seems to me that the author of this book has no experience in writing whatsoever. She couldn't keep to the point and kept rambling on and on about things that were irrelevant to the main idea. I find her writing narcissistic and boring. I only gave this review 1 star because I was forced to. Otherwise I would've given this book 0 stars. Don't buy this book. You'll be very disappointed.