There is a new wave of pornographic entertainment in contemporary American culture. Liberated from X-rated bookstores and strip clubs, porn is everywhere, and Pop-Porn seeks to examine this phenomenon in some of its most striking manifestations. Written from a variety of perspectives and on a variety of topics representing the widespread increase of soft-core porn in our culture, Pop-Porn offers a detailed and complex approach to the porn industry in America. Rather than focusing on the current polarity of basic pro and con views on this topic--a polarity that ultimately...

The question of the representation of women in the media has been an important one for feminists over the past three decades. This diverse collection of essays represents three major trends in feminist media studies: the liberal feminist perspective, which focuses on the media's tendency to misrepresent and oppress women; the postmodern perspective, which illustrates the ways in which women can participate in, enjoy, and sometimes subvert the dominant media; and the more recent attempts to identify and challenge the subtle backlash that threatens to obliterate feminist gains. The...

How has the popularity of "Gilmore Girls" influenced perspectives on teenage pregnancies? How did the mother-in-law assume such monstrous proportions? Did the Republicans' view of motherhood and their continual hectoring of Hillary Clinton for putting ambition ahead of family cost them the 2008 election? "Mommy Angst: Motherhood in American Popular Culture" considers questions like these as it probes our country's views on mothers, and how those views shape and are shaped by the habitually oversimplified portrayals of mothers in pop culture, politics, and the media.

"Mommy Angst" gets...