Mass produced narratives that have been designed and targeted for predominantly female audiences have been marginalized by dominant culture. Throughout the history of art and English literature, women have been both objectified and misrepresented. All that has been deemed domestic, emotional and of the personal sphere has been declared valueless by patriarchy. The soap opera genre reverses this negative valorization. It is one that perpetuates the feminine tradition of creating communities through words---talk, gossip, testimony. In this work, the American soap opera is discussed as a venue for the exploration of issues that concern women's lives, as a site for the generation of female pleasure, and as the mother of subcultural networks that inform a female community. While the narratives address women's concerns, the soap opera fan magazines and fan clubs celebrate a form that highlights orality, emotion and empathy in a culture that often depreciates them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.21264 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Schachter, Tammy. |
| Contributors | Kaite, Berkeley (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Graduate Communications Program.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001657182, proquestno: MQ50571, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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