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Naomi Wolf: Twitter and the Transformation of a ‘Third wave’ Celebrity

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Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster

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Abstract

This chapter examines the most well-known ‘third wave’ feminist, Naomi Wolf. However, rather than focusing solely on her earlier blockbusters, The Beauty Myth and Fire with Fire, and their role in Wolf’s celebrification, Taylor also engages with Wolf’s most recent popular book, Vagina, to consider how her celebrity has transformed. Given that this book was widely criticized for its biological essentialism and new age rhetoric, Wolf turned to social media to effectively rewrite its reception, as well as to buttress her own contested celebrity. Through an examination of Wolf’s Twitter practice, Taylor illustrates how new media function as a key means through which contemporary blockbuster celebrity feminists can work to intervene in the public meanings of their own persona, work, and feminism—especially when their authority is being put under strain in other discursive spaces.

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  1. Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Anthea Taylor

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Taylor, A. (2016). Naomi Wolf: Twitter and the Transformation of a ‘Third wave’ Celebrity. In: Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37334-2_6

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