Girl Power's last chance? Tavi Gevinson, feminism, and popular media culture

Keller, Jessalynn (2015) Girl Power's last chance? Tavi Gevinson, feminism, and popular media culture. Continuum-Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 29 (2). pp. 274-285. ISSN 1030-4312

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Abstract

This paper focuses on Tavi Gevinson, the teenage fashion blogger-turned-editor in chief of the online magazine Rookie, as a case study with which to interrogate the production and circulation of feminist politics within a ‘post-girl power’ era. Drawing on theories of performativity, I employ a discursive and ideological textual analysis of Gevinson’s self-produced media and media coverage to map how she uses the opportunities afforded by digital media to rearticulate narratives of ‘girl power’ and perform a feminist girlhood subjectivity that makes feminism accessible to her many readers. While I argue that Gevinson’s ability to do so is positive and demonstrates the porous nature of postfeminist media culture, I also suggest that we must be critical of the ways in which her feminism functions as part of her self brand that reproduces feminism as white, middle-class, and ‘hip’. Thus, I conclude by questioning a larger cultural trend towards the branding of feminism and advocating the need for an intersectional approach to understanding the resurgence of feminism within contemporary popular media culture.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	girl power,blogging,feminism,tavi gevinson,sdg 5 - gender equality ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/gender_equality
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024)
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	08 Mar 2016 16:00
Last Modified:	24 Sep 2024 11:34
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57385
DOI:	10.1080/10304312.2015.1022947

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