By reconsidering assumptions about mainstream popular culture and its revolutionary possibilities, author Dana Heller reveals that John Waters' popular 1988 film Hairspray is the director's most subversive movie.

• Represents the first scholarly work on any of film director John Waters' films
• Incorporates original interview material with the director
• Reveals meanings embedded in the film's narrative treatment of racial and sexual politics

The complete and groundbreaking The L Word is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. Loving The L Word picks up where Reading The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, Loving The L Word explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evolution of queer television.

Whether you loved The L Word, hated it, or loved to hate it, this book...

With the explosion of reality television onto screens and schedules worldwide, this timely and original book explores makeover tv, the ubiquitous reality format that has received little critical attention to date. Top writers and scholars take discussion of reality tv to the next level with lively examination of a wide range of contemporary makeover shows, such as Extreme Makeover, The Swan, Faking It, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and The Apprentice, that ultimately speak to television's own enduring ability to reinvent itself. The book is organized...