Review by Choice Review
Zeisler cofounded Bitch Media, a venue for developing and airing feminist critiques of popular culture and promoting gender equality and other global social transformations. For 20 years, she has publicly observed, questioned, and talked back to mainstream media and what she calls the commodification of feminism. Here, Zeisler both updates and extends her 2008 book Feminism and Pop Culture (CH, Nov'09, 47-1740). She starts most chapters with a compelling contemporary specimen of what she calls "marketplace feminism"--a decontextualized, depoliticized, "glossy, feel-good," celebrity media phenomenon. She then runs down the earliest media or marketing example of related ideological concepts ("empowerment," "branding," and "choice" foremost among them) at the core of the century-long effort to discover, exploit, and sell "what women want" without rocking the inequality boat. As with the blog posts and talks that were the first drafts of much of the material, the book crackles with snappy one-liners. But wait--there's more! Many of Zeisler's ideas have been marinating for two decades, so there is considerable substance and an overarching argument to organize the massive pile of depressing, pungent, and sometimes hilarious examples into an accessible critique. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries. --Lisa D. Brush, University of Pittsburgh
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
THE KING AND QUEEN OF MALIBU: The True Story of the Battle Tor Paradise, by David K. Randall. (Norton, $15.95.) In the late 19 th century, Frederick Rindge headed West with his wife, May, and bought an enormous secluded ranch, which they thought would guarantee them eternal privacy. When nearby homesteaders began clamoring for rights along their private beach, the conflict devolved into an acrimonious battle whose legacy is still felt. THE NORTH WATER, by Ian McGuire. (Picador, $16.) An opium-addicted Irish surgeon, his reputation ruined during the siege of Delhi in 1857, joins the crew of a whaling ship, where he encounters a psychopathic harpooner motivated by violence. McGuire's novel, one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2016, is "propelled by a vision that is savage, brutal and relentless," our reviewer, Colm Toibin, said. WE WERE FEMINISTS ONCE: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, by Andi Zeisler. (PublicAffairs, $16.99.) Zeisler, a founding editor of Bitch magazine, chronicles the movement's relation to mainstream culture, from when the "f-word" was largely taboo to now, when brands co-opt the term. Today's "glossy, feel-good feminism," she says, threatens to divert attention from the real issue: systemic inequality. TRAVELERS REST, by Keith Lee Morris. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $15.99.) When a snowstorm derails their travel plans, to bring home an uncle from rehab, the Addisons seek refuge at a hotel in Good Night, Idaho, an eerie town where little is as it appears to be. The family are soon separated in the town and must try to find their way back to each other. Morris "has an adroit hand for characterization and atmosphere; the people feel real even when they actually are stand-ins for the uncanny," our reviewer, N. K. Jemisin, said. DEATH'S SUMMER COAT: What the History of Death and Dying Can Tell Us About Life and Living, by Brandy Schillace. (Pegasus, $16.95.) The reluctance to discuss death in modern Western societies is a relatively new development, Schillace notes. She investigates other cultures' mortality rituals, from "death cafes" to mourning practices in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge's mass killings, as a way to lend new perspectives about grief. VINEGAR GIRL: William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" Retold, by Anne Tyler. (Hogarth Shakespeare, $15.) In Tyler's reimagining, Kate - a preschool teacher loved by her students but unpopular with their parents - is roped into a green card marriage plot: Her father, a biologist working on a project his colleagues have all but dismissed, is desperate to keep his research assistant in the country.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 9, 2017]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Zeisler, cofounder and creative director of Bitch Media, explores the history of feminism in the media over decades of resurgence and backlash, with a critical eye toward its commercialization and sanitization. She explores the ways advertisers have marketed products to women, from second-wave-era Virginia Slims cigarettes and Secret antiperspirant to contemporary "empowertising" that pays lip service to body positivity and posits that "any choice is a feminist choice." Zeisler deems the 1970s "the golden era" of feminist television and celebrates the Norman Lear-produced programs that paved the way for Roseanne and Murphy Brown in the 1990s. She then eviscerates The Bachelor's "interchangeable beauties... pledging instantaneous love for an equally vague mass of square jaws and biceps." Zeisler also artfully blasts "postfeminists," such as theorist Camille Paglia, who treat feminism like "an outdated personal accessory"; the current culture of elite women's conferences poisoned by corporate sponsorship; and the 1990s devolution of Riot Grrrl's punk spirit into the fangless Spice Girls ethos. Other topics include the dearth of opportunities for women in the film industry, the Bechdel test, and Spanx. Zeisler also takes on hollow celebrity feminist culture, in a chapter amusingly titled "Our Beyoncés, Ourselves." Zeisler's analysis of what she calls "marketplace feminism" is acute and endlessly relevant, highlighting the insidiousness of the coopting powers that be, and calling on feminists to direct their resources toward legitimate political action and reclaim feminism as an identity, not something commodifiable. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Zeisler (cofounder & creative director, Bitch Media) explores feminism's current surge in pop culture popularity while questioning whether the increased visibility truly advances women's rights. The author first focuses on "marketplace feminism," a form of feminism that has been repackaged and rebranded so as to be easy to digest and nonthreatening to the status quo. With delightfully dry wit, Zeisler carries the discussion of the portrayal of women in advertising, movies, television, and fashion both in the present day and recent history. Additionally, she looks at current events and issues, highlighting areas in which marketplace feminism has glossed over women's rights issues thereby neutering the resulting conversation. Other topics analyzed include girls' education, the gendering of toys, the role of body image, and feminism as a political movement as well as the concepts of choice and empowerment. Ziegler argues that this type of feminism is detrimental to the movement, since it doesn't force society to confront the underlying structural topics that cause gender inequality. VERDICT This thought-provoking yet sobering consideration of the current state of feminism emphasizes the need to continue to fight for full equality. Highly recommended for readers with an interest in women's studies, pop culture, and the media. [See -"Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/16, p. 28.]-Rebekah Kati, Durham, NC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Bitch Media co-founder and creative director Zeisler (Feminism and Pop Culture, 2008) ruminates about how the current wave of feminism does not "challenge beliefsso much as it offers nips and tucks." Fifteen years into the new century, feminism has come to occupy a complex, highly visible place in American popular culture. But according to the author, though the celebrity and consumer "embrace of feminismpositions it as a cool, fun, accessibleidentity," the inequities that gave rise to the movement are alive and well. Celebrities like Beyonc and Katy Perry transform feminist sentiments about independence and self-respect into hit songs that make them millions while doing little to promote real change. And while women seem to be appearing more prominently in big-budget Hollywood films, in 2014, only 12 percent of all leading roles in the top 100 grossing movies were for females. Clothing brands like Spanx attempt to make a connection to female professional success with slogans like "Re-shape the way you get dressed so you can reshape the world!" Though apparently positive, advertisements such as these subtly play on women's insecurities by suggesting that the only thing standing between them and success is a properly controlled physical appearance. As Zeisler astutely argues, choice is really for women with the socioeconomic status that can support it rather than "the vast majority" stuck outside the halls of privilege. The author makes clear that no great strides have been made in changing the prevailing capitalist structures that suggest women's liberationfor those who can afford itcan come through consumerism. Despite her critiques, however, Zeisler makes it clear that however much it has been co-opted by capitalism, popular culture can still be a tool to promote feminist ideas to a mass audience. But until marketplace feminism can disentangle itself from surface marketplace glamour, it is still a work in process. Spirited, witty, and ferociously incisive. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
