Defining women : television and the case of Cagney and Lacey

Defining Women explores the social and cultural construction of gender and the meanings of woman , women , and femininity as they were negotiated in the pioneering television series Cagney and Lacey , starring two women as New York City police detectives. Julie D'Acci illuminates the tensions between the television industry, the series production team, the mainstream and feminist press, various interest groups, and television viewers over competing notions of what women could or could not be--not only on television but in society at large. Cagney and Lacey , which aired from 1981 to 1988, was widely recognized as an innovative treatment of working women and developed a large and loyal following. While researching this book, D'Acci had unprecedented access to the set, to production meetings, and to the complete production files, including correspondence from network executives, publicity firms, and thousands of viewers. She traces the often heated debates surrounding the development of women characters and the representation of feminism on prime-time television, shows how the series was reconfigured as a 'woman's program,' and investigates questions of female spectatorship and feminist readings. Although she focuses on Cagney and Lacey , D'Acci discusses many other examples from the history of American television. Annotation This book deals with the cultural constructions of gender, the many troubles that underlie them, and U.S. television's place in the overall process. It investigates the 'struggle over meanings'--specifically the meanings of woman, women, and femininity; the role of television networks, production companies, production teams, and publicity firms in generating and circulating these meanings; the ways in which TV viewers, the press, and numerous interest groups produce meanings and countermeanings of their own; and how all of these meanings clash and compete for social and semiotic space and power __Defining Women____woman____women____femininity____Cagney and Lacey____Cagney and Lacey____Cagney and Lacey__