ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the current state of feminist cultural and media studies as it has moved beyond the founding insights and debates about the male gaze, gendered spectatorship, gender and genre, and so forth. In reviewing the heady and groundbreaking history of feminist cultural studies, I acknowledge the gains made but I ponder what gets lost with the turn toward ever more micro readings of mass cultural texts. Do we lose a deep attention to masculinist power as we see gender-bending in every text and find against-the-grain meanings in even the most putatively regressive motifs? This chapter pushes practitioners toward a renewed investment in synthetic and “big picture” analysis, where something like a feminist social history of culture is enacted within and against hegemonic mass forms.
