neo-liberalism

So I was watching Glee the other night, waiting desperately to see if Brittany and Santana would show some sign that they were still together. As I tried to peer into the minds of Glee’s creators and discover their subversive intent in having the lesbian character Santana dance to a song with romantic lyrics about boy/girl love with the gay-in-real-life Ricky Martin, it hit me: TV is not activism. I mean, critiquing TV can be activism, but TV programming itself exists, by and large, in the service of profit, not activism. In recognition of TV’s persuasive powers over “impressionable youth,” there is a long history of the “after school special” and the “very special episode” of family sitcoms. But the structural inequalities and relations of rule responsible for the most urgent cultural problems of our time run way deeper than the politics of media representation.

Elizabeth Kissling is Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies and of Communication at Eastern Washington University, and the current president of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. She is the author of Capitalizing On The Curse: The Business Of Menstruation. Here she talks about postfeminism and advertising.