ABSTRACT
The introductory chapter details the rise of difficult women and female antiheroes in television dramas from the late nineties to the present. In anticipation of the discussion of more recent programs, it analyzes the trajectory of this programming trend and the industrial factors that made it possible. It argues that the figure of the difficult woman evolves in cable serials from the stigmatized female anti¬hero to the centralized female antihero – first with, then without a male antihero partner. The chapter locates this emergent programming trend in the changing landscape of channel proliferation, growing importance of niche marketing to smaller but economically desirable audience segments, spurt in online international distribution, escalating demand for content, and the increase in female television critics who draw attention to gender issues. Initially women who are as troublesome as their male counterparts are side-lined or censured for mental instability. I situate this within the larger cultural moment of postfeminism and identify how the pattern is consistent with the harsh social stigmatization of deviant women in society, their symbolic punishment on television, and harsher sentences in the criminal justice system. This chapter lays the groundwork for subsequent case studies of series that engage with unresolved feminist issues.
