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Blockbuster
ANTHEA TAYLOR
Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster
Anthea Taylor
Celebrity and the
Feminist Blockbuster
Anthea Taylor
Department of Gender and Cultural Studies
University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
ISBN 978-1-137-37333-5 ISBN 978-1-137-37334-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-37334-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956393
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
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For Amelie Sara Taylor
A
cknowledgements
Much primary material for this book was found in archives, especially
in the US. The Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe’s Institute for Advanced
Study, Harvard University and the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith
College were invaluable resources and I thank the staff at both institutions
for their support. The School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at
the University of Sydney provided funding for that research trip. At the
University of Melbourne, archivist Katrina Dean and her team helped me
to navigate the relatively newly acquired Germaine Greer archive.
Material upon which some of these chapters are based has been previ-
ously published, including in Feminist Media Studies and Celebrity Studies:
‘“Blockbuster” celebrity feminism’, Celebrity Studies, (2014) 5:1–2,
75–78, Hamad, H., Taylor, A. (2015); ‘Feminism and contemporary
celebrity culture’, Celebrity Studies, 6(1), 124–127; ‘Germaine Greer’s
adaptable celebrity: Feminism, unruliness, and humour on the British
small screen’ (2014) Feminist Media Studies, 14.5: 759–774. I also drew
upon material from Single Women in Popular Culture (2012, also pub-
lished by Palgrave Macmillan) for the chapter on Helen Gurley Brown. I
thank the editors of these journals, as well as Palgrave Macmillan, for their
permission to draw upon that material here.
I also wish to thank all those involved in the ‘Intervening Media’ work-
shop at RMIT in Barcelona in 2015 for their thoughtful feedback in the
final stages of this project: Mark Andrejevic, Jack Bratich, Nick Couldry,
Olivier Driessens, Tania Lewis, Graeme Turner, and Zala Volcic. Big
thanks also to Alifa Bandali and Kate O’Halloran, who both generously
offered to read chapter drafts and provided valuable comments; I look
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
forward to returning the favour. I am also grateful to Marg Henderson for
her astute feedback in the final stages of drafting.
Thanks must go to Felicity Plester, Commissioning Editor at Palgrave
Macmillan, who has been an enthusiastic supporter of my work not just
for this book but for my previous one too. Thanks also to Sophie Auld for
her assistance during the production phase.
This book was contracted while I was a Postdoctoral Research
Fellow in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University
of Queensland. Accordingly, I wish to offer thanks to my former col-
leagues for their encouragement, friendship, and the community we all
formed not just in the Forgan Smith Tower but beyond. And especially to
Graeme Turner for always being such a generous mentor and friend. For
his unwavering support, intellectual engagement and guidance over many
years, and specifically for providing insightful feedback on drafts of each of
the following chapters, I am truly grateful.
My heartfelt thanks go to my extraordinarily supportive partner, Eoin
O’Sullivan, for all the love and laughter. And to my family, Owen, Kirsty,
Isabella, Olivia, and Amelie, and especially to my parents, Rose and
Maurice, who have always unconditionally supported and believed in me
and this book has been no exception. My youngest niece had not entered
this world when I dedicated an earlier book to her sisters so this one is for
you, Millie.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 ‘Blockbuster’ Feminism and Celebrification 25
Part I The 1960s/1970s Blockbuster and
Ongoing Feminist Stardom 59
3 Helen Gurley Brown: Prototypical Celebrity Feminism,
Cultural Intermediaries, and Agency 63
4 B etty Friedan: The ‘Mother’ of Feminism, Self-fashioning,
and the Celebrity Mystique 93
5 G ermaine Greer: ‘The Star Feminism Had to Have’,
Unruliness, and Adaptable Celebrity 127
ix
x CONTENTS
Part II The New Bestsellers, Online Media, and Branding
Feminism in the Twenty-first Century 161
6 Naomi Wolf: Twitter and the Transformation of a
‘Third wave’ Celebrity 165
7 Sheryl Sandberg and Roxane Gay: The Limits and
Possibilities of Contemporary Blockbuster Feminism 197
8 Amy Poehler and Lena Dunham: Celebrity Memoirs,
Comedy, and Digital Activism 235
9 Conclusion: The Future of Celebrity Feminism—
Contemporary Celebrity Culture, the Blockbuster,
and Feminist Star Studies 271
Index 301
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Feminism has always had its celebrities, a situation that has historically
caused much anxiety. Within the women’s liberation movement, the mak-
ing, and marketing, of ‘media stars’ was, as Martha Shelley’s comments
suggest, believed to be thoroughly inconsistent with the goals and anti-
hierarchical principles of second wave feminism: ‘These media stars, care-
fully coiffed and lathered with foundation makeup, claim to represent all
women. In actuality, they are ripping all women off … If large numbers
of women are going to passively depend on a few stars to liberate them,
instead of getting themselves together to do it, the movement will surely
fail’ (cited in Gever 2003, p. 84). Such women, in their commodifica-
tion of feminism, were routinely dismissed as ‘selling out’ the movement,
selfishly privileging the individual over the collective, and, as Shelley
argued, potentially jeopardizing the success of the women’s movement
itself. During feminism’s second wave, such charges were most commonly
levelled against the author of bestselling feminist non-fiction, who was
implicated in mainstream commercial publishing ventures (as opposed to
ostensibly more politically sound feminist presses).1
In 1971, Germaine Greer, long known for her own work in artfully
cultivating a star feminist persona, made clear the role of the ‘feminist
blockbuster’ in the celebrification of certain women over others:
Now that Women’s Liberation has become a subject upon which each
publishing house must bring forth its book … the struggle for the libera-
tion of women is being mistaken for yet another battle of the books. Each
© The Author(s) 2016 1
A. Taylor, Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-37334-2_1
