Measuring Up How Advertising Affects Self-Image Vickie Rutledge Shields. With Dawn Heinecken The mute gestures of advertising images are frozen for posterity by photographers and illustrators, gestures that, for better or worse, perpetuate a certain aesthetic and eventually become emblematic of a period. The images of today display the values of a society that has more interest in the body than the mind. They are technoenhanced labyrinths of unattainable appearances that leave women and men feeling horrified, estranged, and restricted by unrealistic, silent mandates. Measuring Up looks...

The Warrior Women of Television examines contemporary representations of the female action hero in three series: La Femme Nikita, Aeon Flux, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Detailed readings focus on the ways the structure and content of each series work to create specific understandings of the body that are in contrast to those of male-centered action texts. Arguing that television texts mediate larger cultural concerns, this book considers the feminist implications of the series and uses insights from critical writings on contemporary culture and the body to...