"Slut Narratives in Popular Culture explores representations of slut shaming and the term "slut" in U.S. popular media, 2000-2020. It argues that cultural narratives of intersectional gender identities are gradually but unevenly shifting to become more progressive and sex positive. Moving beyond prior research on slut shaming, which exposes problematic conflations between women's morality and a sexual purity associated with White economic privilege, this book examines how narratives that perpetuate slut shaming are both contested and reinscribed through stories we circulate. It emphasizes effects of twenty-first century developments in digital communication and entertainment. The rapid evolution of genres combined with increased access to the consumptionand production of texts stimulates more diverse storytelling. The book's analyses demonstrate twenty-first changes in how slut shaming is depicted and understood, while encouraging consumers and producers of pop culture to attend to cultural narratives as they reify or challenge the subordination of vulnerable populations. Aimed primarily at an academic audience, this book will also engage general readers interested in intersectional feminism, pop culture, new media, digital technologies, and socio-linguistic change. Readers will become more adept at deconstructing assumptions embedded in popular media, especially narratives informing slut shaming"--
Slut Narratives in Popular Culture explores representations of slut shaming and the term “slut” in U.S. popular media, 2000-2020. It argues that cultural narratives of intersectional gender identities are gradually but unevenly shifting to become more progressive and sex positive.
Slut Narratives in Popular Culture explores representations of slut shaming and the term “slut” in U.S. popular media, 2000-2020. It argues that cultural narratives of intersectional gender identities are gradually but unevenly shifting to become more progressive and sex positive.
Moving beyond prior research on slut shaming, which exposes problematic conflations between women’s morality and a sexual purity associated with White economic privilege, this book examines how narratives that perpetuate slut shaming are both contested and reinscribed through stories we circulate. It emphasizes effects of twenty-first century developments in digital communication and entertainment. The rapid evolution of genres combined with increased access to the consumption and production of texts stimulates more diverse storytelling. The book’s analyses demonstrate twenty-first changes in how slut shaming is depicted and understood, while encouraging consumers and producers of pop culture to attend to cultural narratives as they reify or challenge the subordination of vulnerable populations.
Aimed primarily at an academic audience, this book will also engage general readers interested in intersectional feminism, pop culture, new media, digital technologies, and socio-linguistic change. Readers will become more adept at deconstructing assumptions embedded in popular media, especially narratives informing slut shaming.
Introduction: Slut Narratives, Popular Culture, and Social Change
Section I: Foundations for Thinking about Slut Shaming
Chapter 1: Defining Slut from the OED to the Urban Dictionary
Chapter 2: Reclaiming and Prohibiting Slut: Riot Grrrls, SlutWalk, Social
Media, and Slutty Food
Section II: Critiques of Slut Shaming for Teens
Chapter 3: Limited Critiques of Slut Shaming in Teen Movie Comedies: Mean
Girls, Easy A, and To All the Boys Ive Loved Before
Chapter 4: Slut Shaming Critiques in Streamed Dramatic Teen Series: Stranger
Things, Euphoria, and 13 Reasons Why
Chapter 5: Talking about Slut Shaming on YouTube: Jenna Marbles and Laci
Green
Section III: Complicating Slut Shaming for Adults
Chapter 6: Slut Shaming and Polyamory: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Trilogy and Silver Linings Playbook
Chapter 7: Slut Shaming, Respectability, and Metanarrative in a Latine
Dramedy Series: Jane the Virgin
Chapter 8: Comedic Challenges to Slut Shaming: Stand-Up Comedy Specials and
Guys We F*cked: The Anti-Slut Shaming Podcast
Chapter 9: (Challenging) Slut Shaming in Traditional Media, New Media, and
Viral Politics: Sandra Fluke and Monica Lewinsky
Laurie McMillan, Ph.D., serves as dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, where she works to apply the equity frameworks she studies to higher education leadership. She has published journal articles and book chapters on feminist rhetoric and on writing pedagogy, as well as a first-year composition rhetoric-reader Focus on Writing: What College Students Want to Know.