Screen Tastes - Soap Opera to Satellite Dishes (Hardcover)

In this volume, Charlotte Brunsdon analyzes a wide range of contemporary film and television programmes, from British soap operas and crime series such as "Crossroads" and "Widows" to Hollywood movies such as "Working Girl" and "Pretty Woman".;As well as interpreting the pleasures and meanings that these programmes offer - particularly for women viewers - the book is concerned with the nature of media criticism, particularly feminist criticism, and the problematic aesthetics of popular culture. Why have feminist media critics been so interested in the soap opera viewer? What are the "race" politics of the TV crime series? What is meant by "quality" in television? And was the fuss about the erection of satellite dishes on British homes really about architectural values?;The book brings together Charlotte Brunsdon's key writings on film and television and its criticism, with new introductions which contextualise and update the arguments, and recent work on the "post-feminist girly" in recent Hollywood cinema. Brunsdon's focus is on the tastes and pleasures of the female consumer as she is produced by popular film an television - and by feminist criticism.