Women Representations in Postfeminist Fiction: Ally McBeal, Sex and the City y Desperate Housewives

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between post-feminist ideology and popular culture, which is exemplified in three internationally-distributed television fiction products for mass consumption. It starts from the assumption that television is an ideological artefact reflecting cultural dynamics as well as a socialization agent that is able to reproduce and legitimate feminine models. This research examines Ally McBeal, Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives as texts in which the process of revisiting, criticizing and adapting feminist philosophy can be read. The analysis of these three formats, especially their semantics, allows identifying the women’s models presented in the series as well as their contradictions with feminine and/or feminist images that were hegemonic in the past.