No End to Her: Soap Opera and the Female SubjectIn this incisive defense of a much-maligned genre, Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective, and responds to complex issues of women's desire and power. Even though soap opera commands a vast and loyal audience, it has been trivialized by the mainstream media and even libeled as a form of pornography designed to keep women in their place. In this incisive defense of a much-maligned genre, Martha Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective and responds to complex issues of women's desires and power by creating strong, active female characters. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and feminist film criticism, Nochimson explores the ways in which soap opera has inverted the typical male-centered narrative characterized by a domineering, Oedipal father-son relationship that serves to control female energy. Instead, women in soap operas resist their stabilizing role in male hierarchies. In breaking with traditional narrative, soaps create a distinctly feminine, open-ended format capable of tolerating ambiguity and lack of resolution. Soap operas emerge as vessels of a subterranean female power and defy women's "assigned" place in male-designed social structures. It is time, Nochimson argues, to take a fresh look at one of America's few original art forms. Anyone interested in television, American culture, and gender roles will find No End to Her a startling and compelling read. |
From inside the book
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Contents
Soap Opera Femininity and Desire | 13 |
Narrative Syntax and Desire | 31 |
The Radio Heroine | 46 |
The Importance of Being Victoria Lord | 64 |
The Fantasy Female Subject after 1978 | 75 |
Energizing the Narrative of the Couple | 85 |
Julias New Frontier | 105 |
Conclusion | 118 |
Multiplots | 143 |
Actor Chemistry and Soap Opera Melodrama | 153 |
Conclusion | 159 |
What Is Normal? | 193 |
Other editions - View all
No End to Her: Soap Opera and the Female Subject Martha Nochimson,Professor Martha Nochimson No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Agnes Nixon audience blind space bonding character Charles Shaughnessy cinema closure conventional created Cruz cultural daytime serial defined discourse domination Douglas Marland Eden's emotional episode erotic fantasy father female subject feminist figs film gender Gina Gina's Greg Greg's Hank hero heroine heroine's hierarchy historical Hollywood intimacy Irna Phillips Jill Farren Phelps Julieight Kayla Kimberly Kimberly's Kiriakis labyrinth Lane Davies language Laura linear history Live logic Luke mainstream male Marcus Marcus's marriage Mary Mason and Julia Mason/Sonny melodrama Modleski mother myth Niki Oedipal Oedipal dyad ordinary patriarchal Patrick Mulcahey pattern Persephone perspective plot reality relationship repression resistance Robin role Santa Barbara scene screen fiction sexual Shane soap opera form soap opera heroine soap opera narrative social Sonny spectator starship Stenbeck Steve story line suggests suspense Terry Lester text of muteness threat tion uncanny Victor Kiriakis Victor Lord Viki Viki's visual woman women World Turns