Ce travail s’attache à étudier les éventuels féminismes de Desperate Housewives. La peinture que la série propose de femmes et mères au foyer américaines désespérées est a priori le lieu d’une dénonciation de leur vie et de leur condition qui n’est pas sans rappeler celle de Betty Friedan dans The Feminine Mystique au début des années soixante. De plus, de nombreuses contradictions du féminisme américain (en fait constitué de nombreuses sous-catégories et sensibilités) y trouvent un écho. Cette multiplicité des interprétations possibles de Desperate Housewives, ainsi que sa composante postmoderne et camp, en font le lieu privilégié d’un féminisme queer propre à la série. / This study investigates the feminist messages conveyed by Desperate Housewives. The depiction of desperate American housewives and stay-at-home mothers seems at first to be a scathing indictment of their plight, not unlike that of Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique.Furthermore many inner dissensions of American feminism (a term far more pluralistic than one might think) are voiced in the television series. The different ways Desperate Housewives can be interpreted, along with its postmodern and camp components, make it possible for an idiosyncratic brand of queer feminism to emerge.

Submitted by Pós-Com Pós-Com (pos-com@ufba.br) on 2011-04-20T13:18:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ThaianeMachado.pdf: 3334980 bytes, checksum: 5bc9b52f3ef3156ffa82aceeb6480f5d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2011-04-20T13:18:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ThaianeMachado.pdf: 3334980 bytes, checksum: 5bc9b52f3ef3156ffa82aceeb6480f5d (MD5) / Este presente trabalho apresenta resultados de pesquisa sobre o fenômeno de serialização cada vez mais comum nas narrativas seriadas televisivas, especialmente as produzidas nos Estados Unidos. A partir da construção de um repertório de produtos audiovisuais, percebeu-se uma tendência dos seriados norte-americanos em utilizar certas estratégias e elementos de organização narrativa que estendiam o período de exibição das séries e, também, fragmentavam a narrativa de modo a criar maior dependência entre os episódios e, muitas vezes, entre as temporadas. Tais estratégias de serialização foram investigadas na série Desperate Housewives (EUA/ABC, 2004), considerada, por críticos e estudiosos, dentro do universo das séries contemporâneas, como um produto que retomou a ideia de continuidade, utilizando recursos e modos narrativos antes encontrados em produtos ficcionais como soap opera e telenovelas. Esta dissertação não pretende apontar o fenômeno de serialização como algo próprio das narrativas oferecidas na atualidade, mas verificar a sua recorrência e modo de organização dentro da composição narrativa da série em questão.

Certaines séries télévisées américaines proposent un traitement riche et problématique des voix féminines. Ainsi, Ally McBeal (Fox, 1997-2002), Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004), Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004-2012) et Gossip Girl (The CW, 2007-2012) utilisent une voix-off féminine, mettent en scène des discussions entre femmes et ont pour personnages principaux des femmes qui prennent la parole dans la sphère publique. L’analyse de ces voix multiples démontre comment les dispositifs centrés sur la voix et le discours participent de la représentation des femmes, de la féminité et des rapports de genre à la télévision américaine. Cette recherche s’inscrit dans les études télévisuelles féministes en proposant une synthèse des courants qui constituent cette approche. L’analyse des contenus est associée à une prise en compte du contexte de production tout en ébauchant une étude des processus de réception. Ces trois dimensions permettent d’envisager les séries comme des « actes-en-société ». Les études filmiques et télévisuelles, l’histoire et les sciences de l’information et de la communication notamment sont convoquées pour étudier les représentations du genre dans un corpus d’épisodes de séries, d’entretiens avec des professionnels et de réactions de téléspectatrices et téléspectateurs.Si les voix des femmes n’ont pas toujours eu droit de cité dans les médias américains, elles émergent massivement dans les séries depuis les années 1990 notamment grâce à l’héritage du soap opera, genre audiovisuel féminin mettant au premier plan des relations interpersonnelles et des dilemmes moraux. La pratique du commérage apparaît comme un modèle pour de nombreux récits sériels mettant en scène l’intimité. Les séries inscrivent ainsi les voix des femmes dans une économie médiatique en réseaux proposant une réactualisation des représentations du genre. / Several recent American TV series offer an original treatment of women’s voices. Ally McBeal (Fox, 1997-2002), Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004), Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004-2012) and Gossip Girl (The CW, 2007-2012) use female voiceovers, emphasize women’s talk and center on female characters who have a public voice. Analyzing these voices shows how audiovisual apparatuses centered on voice and speech convey specific representations of women, femininity and gender on American television.This research mobilizes feminist televisual studies in focusing not only on contents, but also on production and reception. Thus TV series can be understood as « social acts », that have a direct impact on society. Borrowing tools from film and television studies, history and media studies is necessary to analyze the series’ episodes, several interviews conducted with TV writers and online reactions from viewers.American media contained women’s voices for a long time. They started to appear in TV series in the 1990s, in part through the influence of the soap opera genre, which focuses on interpersonal relations and moral dilemmas. Gossip is a gendered practice linked to the soap opera, it is a model for many contemporary serial narratives that foreground intimacy. The series set women’s voices in a networked economy and thus re-actualize gendered representations.

AFRIKAANS: Die teenwoordigheid van vroue in die massamedia, en spesifiek in televisie, is vroeg in die een-en-twintigste eeu groter as ooit vantevore. Reekse waarin uitbeeldings van vroue beperk was tot dié van meestal onderontwikkelde, periferale of sekondêre karakters, is iets van die verlede. Die wyse waarop vroue in televisie uitgebeeld word is dus uiters belangrik aangesien so ’n groot hoeveelheid televisiereekse spesifiek die vrouegehoor teiken wat, hetsy aktief of passief, met wat hulle in hierdie reekse sien omgaan. Boodskappe wat deur televisiereekse versprei word, sal waarskynlik onbewustelik ’n uitwerking hê op hoe vroue hulleself beskou, hoe hulle ander vroue beskou, sowel as op hulle houding jeens kwessies soos feminisme en vroulikheid. Die doel van hierdie studie is om dominante diskoerse oor feminisme en vroulikheid wat deur hedendaagse televisiereekse aan die samelewing voorgehou word, te ondersoek. Die studie konsentreer spesifiek op drie gewilde en veelbekroonde Amerikaanse televisiereekse van 1997 tot 2012, naamlik Ally McBeal (Kelley 1997- 2002), Sex and the City (Starr 1998-2004) en Desperate Housewives (Cherry 2004- 2012) – reekse wat al drie as sogenaamde zeitgeist-televisie beskryf kan word. Die artikulering van feministiese doelstellings, hetsy dié afkomstig uit die tweede generasie of uit meer onlangse bewegings in feminisme, val onder die soeklig en die wyse waarop hierdie doelstellings aangespreek word, word bespreek. Deur aspekte wat teoreties nóύ verband hou met feminisme (aspekte soos melodrama as ’n vroulik-geïdentifiseerde genre en verbruikerswese) te identifiseer, word daar aangvoer dat die drie reekse beslis in ’n feministiese sfeer geposisioneer is. Die teenwoordigheid van hierdie aspekte in die drie reekse het dan ook dieperliggende narratiewe oor feminisme blootgelê – narratiewe waarvan die alledaagse kyker waarskynlik nie bewus sal wees nie, maar wat onderbewustelik moontlik ’n invloed kan hê op kykers se denke oor en begrip van feminisme. Die belangrikste gevolgtrekking van hierdie studie is dat die drie gekose televisiereekse op verskillende en uiteenlopende wyses met feminisme en vroulikheid omgaan. Verder ondersteun die studie die uitgangspunt dat daar ’n behoefte is aan kritiese debat rakende die uitbeeldings van feminisme en vroulikheid in hedendaagse voorbeelde van populêre massamedia. ENGLISH: The presence of women in mass media, specifically in television, in the twenty-first century is larger than ever and the days of series featuring women that are generally underdeveloped, peripheral or secondary characters is a thing of the past. The way in which females are portrayed in television is thus of the utmost importance since such a large number of television series cater to an extensive female audience, who engage (whether actively or passively) with that which they see. Messages received from popular television series are likely to inadvertently have an effect on how women view themselves, how they view other women, as well as their attitudes towards issues like feminism and femininity. The purpose of this study is to examine dominant discourses on feminism and feminity that are being propagated by contemporary television series. The specific focus of the study falls on three highly successful and critically acclaimed television series running from 1997 until 2012, namely Ally McBeal (Kelley 1997-2002), Sex and the City (Starr 1998-2004) and Desperate Housewives (Cherry 2004-2012) – series that have all been described as so-called Zeitgeist television. The articulation of feminist goals, whether from the second wave or more recent feminist movements, is examined and the ways in which these goals are addressed are discussed. By identifying aspects that are theoretically related to feminism (aspects like melodrama as a female identified genre and consumerism), it is argued that these three series are definitely positioned in a feminist sphere. The presence of these aspects also uncovered deep-seated feminist narratives – narratives that the everyday audience member will most likely not be aware of, but which could unconsciously influence viewers’ thoughts on and understanding of feminism. The main conclusion of this study entails that the three chosen television series deal with feminism and femininity in very different and diverse ways. Furthermore, the study supports the view that there is a need for critical debates on the representation of feminism and femininity in contemporary examples of popular mass media / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

This thesis investigates the motivation, engagement and experiences of men as they interact with the selected television shows, which are presented or conceived as shows for women. The purpose of this thesis is to examine, identify and evaluate the motivation of men as a perceived non-target audience for watching the shows. Using gender theories and the audience in media theories as the background of this thesis, it then presents full- scale research on the TV shows "Sex and the City", "Desperate Housewives", "2 Broke Girls" through fifteen in-depth interviews, discovering narrators' viewing experience and reactions. The empirical analysis of this thesis is conducted in light of perceived and reported demographic groups, keeping in mind the sociocultural context of each series. This thesis examines both socio-economic and gender topics, which are represented in the shows by product placement on the first hand, and emancipatory themes on the other.

This critical study unveils the ideological underpinning of contemporary network series narratives through a thematic approach combined with the analysis of the strategies of representation that support the ideological inclination of the series/Cette analyse critique dévoile l'idéologie sous-jacente des séries télévisées contemporaines des networks américains par une approche thématique combinée à une analyse des stratégies de représentations qui appuient la tendance idéologique de ces séries / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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