Abstract
McDermott situates Girls within an emerging genre negotiating the contradictions, complexities, and impasses that coming of age during a postfeminist media era entails. Read through Lauren Berlant’s framework of cruel optimism, Girls provides crucial understanding of the devastating impact of postfeminist cultural discourses on feminine subjectivity. Presenting a vital analysis of the ‘rom-com run’ trope, McDermott explores how Girls constructs subjectivities primed and oriented toward ways of living marked by the generic conventions of postfeminism. Highlighting genre as key to Girls’ meticulous enactment and unravelling of conventional postfeminist fantasies, the chapter considers the series as an acute example of how maintaining optimist faith in a postfeminist promise of fulfilment develops into a relation of cruelty.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ahmed, S. (2010). The promise of happiness. Durham: Duke University Press.
Andersen, J.A. (2015, December 24). Toward a new fantastic: Stop calling it science fiction. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved from https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/toward-a-new-fantastic-stop-calling-it-science-fiction.
Arthurs, J. (2003). Sex and the city and consumer culture: Remediating postfeminist drama. Feminist Media Studies, 3(1), 83–98.
Berlant, L. (2008). The female complaint: The unfinished business of sentimentality in American politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2012). On her book Cruel Optimism. Rorotoko. Retrieved from http://rorotoko.com/interview/20120605_berlant_lauren_on_cruel_optimism.
Berlant, L. (2013, March 22). Interview with Lauren Berlant. Society and Space. Retrieved from https://societyandspace.com/2013/03/22/interview-with-lauren-berlant.
Chafe, W.H. (2012). The American narrative: Is there one and what is it? Daedalus, 141(1), 11–17.
Chen, E.Y. (2010). Neoliberal self-governance and popular postfeminism in contemporary Anglo-American chick lit. Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 36(1), 243–275.
Cronin, A.M. (2000). Consumerism and compulsory individuality: Women, will and potential. In S. Ahmed, J. Kilby, C. Lury, M. McNail, & B. Skeggs (Eds.), Transformations: Thinking through feminism (pp. 273–287). London: Routledge.
Dejmanee, T. (2016). Consumption in the city: The turn to interiority in contemporary postfeminist television. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(2), 119–133.
Duschinsky, R., & Wilson, E. (2015). Flat affect, joyful politics and enthralled attachments: Engaging with the work of Lauren Berlant. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 28(3), 179–281.
Fradley, M. (2013). Hell is a teenage girl? Postfeminism and contemporary teen horror. In J. Gwynne, & N. Müller (Eds.), Postfeminism and contemporary Hollywood cinema (pp. 204–221). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Genz, S., & Brabon, B.A. (Eds.) (2009). Postfeminism: Cultural texts and theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Gerhard, J. (2005). Sex and the City: Carrie Bradshaw’s queer postfeminism. Feminist Media Studies, 5(1), 37–49.
Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147–166.
Gill, R. (2008). Culture and subjectivity in neoliberal and postfeminist times. Subjectivity, 25, 432–445.
Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (Eds.) (2011). New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gwynne, J. (2013). Erotic memoirs and postfeminism: The politics of pleasure. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hess, A. (2013, March 11). Was that a rape scene in Girls? Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/03/11/girls_adam_and_natalia_sexual_assault_and_verbal_consent_on_hbo_s_girls.html.
Lewis, D.L. (2012). Exceptionalism’s exceptions: The changing American narrative. Daedalus, 141(1), 101–117.
Lyons, M. (2013). On Girls, Adam, rape, and consent. Vulture. Retrieved from http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/on-girls-adam-rape-and-consent.html.
McRobbie, A. (2008). The aftermath of feminism. London: Sage.
Modleski, T. (1999). Old wives’ tales: Feminist re-visions of film and other fiction. London: I.B. Tauris.
Negra, D., & Tasker, Y. (2013). Neoliberal frames and genres of inequality: Recession-era chick flicks and male-centred corporate melodrama. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(3), 344–361.
Reiner, R. (1989). When Harry met Sally. Beverly Hills: MGM.
Retallack, H., Ringrose, J., & Lawrence, E. (2016). Fuck your body image: Teen girls’ Twitter and Instagram feminism in and around school. In J. Coffey, S. Budgeon, & H. Cahill, (Eds.), Learning bodies: The body in youth and childhood studies (pp. 85–104). New York: Springer.
Rowles, D. (2012). HBO’s Girls and our resentment toward privileged, white America. Pajiba. Retrieved from http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/hbos-girls-and-our-resentment-toward-privileged-white-america.php.
Sandywell, B. (1999). Specular grammar: The visual rhetoric of modernity. In I. Heywood & B. Sandywell (Eds.), Interpreting visual culture: Explorations in the hermeneutics of the visual (pp. 30–56). London: Routledge.
Stacey, J. (2015). Crossing over with Tilda Swinton—the mistress of flat affect. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 28(3), 243–271.
Thumim, N. (2012). Self-representation and digital culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice and poststructural theory. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McDermott, C. (2017). Genres of Impasse: Postfeminism as a Relation of Cruel Optimism in Girls . In: Nash, M., Whelehan, I. (eds) Reading Lena Dunham’s Girls. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52971-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52971-4_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52970-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52971-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)