| This dissertation examines women's popular culture from a feminist perspective. Recent feminist work in psychoanalysis, non-verbal communication, the social and economic significance of women's work in the home and the critique of the modern nuclear family is combined with critical methods such as semiotics and narratology in the analysis of film and television melodramas aimed at the women's audience. The goal of this study is to understand women's films and soap operas in terms of what they offer women as an audience and their potential for feminist readings.;Chapter one provides an historical perspective on melodrama as a genre and examines its persistent association with women. Chapter two describes the approach which will be taken to popular culture and the relationships between audience, industry and cultural product, suggesting a model for feminist criticism of popular culture. In chapter three, marketing strategies aimed at women, daytime television advertising, and the promotion and critical reception of recent women's films are discussed. A close analysis of General Hospital, the top-rated ABC soap opera, is provided in chapter four, with attention to the feminist implications of soap opera convention. Chapter five describes three recent women's films, Ice Castles (1978), You Light Up My Life (1977) and The Promise (1978), in terms of their use of melodrama and situation of the female protagonist in the family and in the romantic couple. Chapter six offers some conclusions about the possibilities and limitations of melodrama as a feminist narrative form. |
