Feminism in Today's Tv

Sex and the City can be compared to previous examples of post feminist, woman-centered drama produced for prime-time network television in the US. These are dramas that in the wake of second-wave feminism selectively deploy feminist discourses as a response to cultural changes in the lives of their potential audience; an audience that is addressed as white, heterosexual, and relatively youthful and affluent. They emerged out of a hybridization of genres driven by a desire to maximize audiences by creating drama that appealed to both men and women. The feminization of crime genres such as cop shows (Cagney and Lacey) and legal dramas (LA Law, Ally McBeal) allowed for an exploitation of the generic pleasures associated with the masculine, public world of work and the feminized, private world of personal relationships. Their responsiveness to changes in the socio-political context had also allowed for an engagement with liberal feminist issues arising from women’s relation to the law and to work. A focus on women as protagonists, whose actions drive the narrative, replaced the marginal and narrow range of roles available previously to women characters in these genres. Although it shares their incorporation of feminist themes and their focus on the liberal, heterosexual, white, metropolitan, career- oriented woman, Sex and the City is very different from most dramas. It gives insight on how women are perceived in today’s society. They have, or want it all, are independent, and the show, Sex and the City, is used as a tool to correct most views about women.

One of the consequences of the multiplication of channels has been a diversification in television’s address to audiences. Specialist channels catering to particular social groups or taste cultures have proliferated. It moves the television industry much closer to the magazine industry, which addresses niche markets and where there is very little overlap between men and women’s titles. This has a number of...