Post-feminism in media culture

The last few years have been characterized by a new resurgence of attention in feminism across the media. While some critics welcome enthusiastically this phenomenon, others like R. Gill and A. McRobbie see contemporary media culture as still animated by a post-feminist sensibility. In particular, celebrity culture depoliticizes feminist issues such as choice, freedom and autonomy by expressing neoliberal discourses of personal empowerment and success without considering the socio-political context one operates in. While little audience research has been done in order to evaluate how media consumers negotiate those representations of gender, fan studies produced a body of work focused on people’s media practices. Thus my research aims at filling this gap in previous feminist and celebrity research by shifting the attention to the opinions of media consumers. In particular I will evaluate what role post-feminism plays in Beyoncé fandom, given the fact that she is one of the most famous celebrities worldwide who recently “came out” as a feminist. In my research I made use of 10 semi-structured interviews of men and women aged between 18 and 26 years old with diverse nationalities. Through discourse analysis of participants’ answers I could evaluate how they confront wider forms of discourses related to gender. In particular, I explored how they perceive Beyoncé as a female celebrity, how they respond to the feminism brought forward by her and what are their opinions on feminism more generally. My analysis shows how the main notions of post-feminism as theorized by Gill and McRobbie inform the understanding of the interviewees with respect to women and women issues, although interviewees did not adhere fully to the post-feminist sensibility and in some case they were able to produce resistant readings. Post-feminist discourses of individual empowerment, choice and freedom were much present in interviewees’ answers: women are seen as autonomous agents who can achieve what they want if they work hard on themselves. Socio-political issues related to women were under-discussed. They generally endorse the concept of female sexual freedom which is not considered critically in relation to the sexualized way celebrities present themselves. Moreover, the way they perceive Beyoncé- as someone in control of her persona- points to discourses of self-discipline and surveillance. However, many of the interviewees were able to articulate socio-political concerns in relation to race discrimination. Ultimately, interviewees walk a thin line between expressing a post-feminist viewpoint (feminism as no longer much useful) and positions related to the more politically engaged third wave of feminism which takes into account discrimination related to race and sexuality along with gender. My research contributed also to the field of audience research since it showed how fans can act in accordance with dominant ideologies of post-feminism and neoliberalism, but they can also produce alternative readings.