Gender and quality television

Abstract

American television programs have long been perceived as instruments of media imperialism and a threat to local cultures. This essay argues that the global proliferation of so-called “quality” shows in the last few decades also presents a challenge and opportunity for a transnational understanding of feminism and postfeminism. Television scholars have argued that the turn towards “quality” in both television studies and the television industry requires “remasculinizing” the medium by disavowing its “feminine,” melodramatic aesthetic and feminism's fundamental contribution to television studies. When these series travel outside the Anglo-American context of television studies, however, their gendered dimension is rearticulated and incorporated in local cultures in often radically different ways. After comparing definitions of televisual quality in the United States and (Western) Europe, the argument tracks the reception of the Fox series House M.D. and HBO's Sex in the City in postsocialist Eastern European cultures. While several American “quality” shows have recently broken through the local high cultural disdain for television by virtue of their cinematic aesthetic and unprecedented popularity, House's masculine aesthetic and ideological appeal has mobilized localization strategies on a national scale. Conversely, Sex in the City, similar to other postfeminist dramas, tends to be processed in fan communities isolated from both the national public sphere and local feminist discussions. Its limited, consumerist incorporation problematizes western definitions of postfeminist media culture, which take for granted the achievements of feminism and a serious attention to popular culture.