Customer Reviews

Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture (Feminist Cultural Studies, the Media, and Political Culture)

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While this was originally written as a doctoral thesis, it is by no means a dry, academic work. It is well-written, engaging and entertaining, as Landay looks at the existence and role of the female trickster. Like more traditional tricksters of folklore (Brer Rabbit, Anansi) and pop culture (Bugs Bunny), the female trickster in American culture plays with convention, uses disguise to cross boundaries and walks the line between accepted values and subversive behavior. Lucille Ball was such a woman; so were "It" girl Clara Bow, Mae West and Marlene Dietrich, and their existence enriched and to some extent changed society. Well-researched and highly illuminating, this is a great book for anyone looking for a different take on the "women-in-pop-culture" issue.

This lavishly illustrated study of the female trickster in US culture links Mae West to Catwoman, Lorelei Lee to Lucy, and Rosie the Riveter to Rosanne. The balance between literature and popular culture is perfectly negotiated throughout this chronologically arranged study of how female tricksters "perform [...] the cultural work of transforming the feminine into the human." Highly readable and thoroughly entertaining, Madcaps is a wonderful introduction to and overview of a heretofore neglected subject.