Description
Nathalie Weidhase conceptualises the female dandy as a figure that simultaneously embodies and disrupts postfeminist notions of femininity, including maintaining a physique conforming to contemporary beauty standards, constant self-surveillance and self-improvement, and the naturalisation of gender difference and heterosexuality.
She examines how music videos function as spaces in popular culture where the politics of the feminine can be articulated. These spaces allow female pop stars to be valued as artists with distinct contributions to popular music. Focusing on Amy Winehouse, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Lana Del Rey, Weidhase illuminates different characteristics of the postfeminist dandy in popular music. Amy Winehouse's work makes visible the commodification of the female spectacle in popular culture, highlighting how her image and persona were marketed and consumed. Rihanna performs black femininity as postfeminism's abject Other. Lady Gaga queers monstrous motherhood and celebrates female musical lineage. Lana Del Rey's work demonstrates how whiteness operates as a canvas for postfeminist and post-racial fantasies, offering a platform for their deconstruction and critique.
In doing so, Weidhase provides a comprehensive understanding of how these pop stars navigate and challenge the intricate landscape of postfeminism, offering a nuanced perspective on contemporary femininity and its representations in popular culture.
The first book to conceptualise the female dandy, which is presented as a figure that simultaneously embodies and ruptures postfeminist notions of femininity.
About the Author
Nathalie Weidhase is Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Surrey, UK. She has published on women in popular music and celebrity feminism in the journal Celebrity Studies, as well as in the collection Women, Celebrity and Cultures of Ageing: Freeze Frame (2015).
Reviews
The female dandy is a fascinating figure, especially when located in the context of the ongoing demands of postfeminism. But until now, studies on female dandyism have been limited. Weidhase addresses this gap, presenting the first in-depth theorisation of the female dandy in popular music. The result is a valuable, timely, and compelling contribution to the fields of feminist studies and cultural studies. -- Samantha Lindop * Teaching Associate, University of Queensland, Australia *
This book theorizes the female pop dandy both rigorously and productively, showing how the figure operates variously in compliance with and as a subversion of postfeminist protocols. In so doing, it makes a most valuable intervention into ongoing debates about the status of postfeminism, its recent modulation by heteropessimism and the complexities of abjection in relation to marginalization. -- Diane Negra * Professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture, University College Dublin, Ireland *
Book Information
ISBN 9781350515895
Author Nathalie Weidhase
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Series Library of Gender and Popular Culture
