Popular Culture and Gender (original) (raw)

2016, The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Gender and popular culture are deeply intertwined in multiple ways and their interrelation produces considerable and farreaching effects in society. Popular culture is one of the major agents of socialization through which people learn norms and values. Therefore, it also plays an important role in the production and reproduction of gender norms and gendered subjects, as the socially constructed ideas of gender are reinforced by the dominant narratives in popular culture. Images, texts and sounds conveyed by a wide array of media and across cultural phenomena -such as television, film, music, performances, magazines, comics, novels, games, fashion, and advertising -all produce and represent the set of beliefs and values about masculinity and femininity dominant in a given culture at a given time. The pervasiveness of popular media and the shared understanding of the notions therein transmitted make it so that these ideas come to appear as the norm, as self-evident, and are taken for granted. However, a critical account of how gender is engaged in and by popular culture reveals a complexity of values and narratives, which have serious effects on society at large; namely, they contribute to the shaping of identities, behaviors and subjectivities, and also to the creation or strengthening of social, economic, and political power relations. Hence, reading popular culture in terms of how it affects and is affected by gender norms and behaviors means paying attention to how it is the product of, and