The sexual politics of television culture is the territory covered by this ground-breaking book - the first to demonstrate the ways in which third wave feminist television studies approaches and illuminates mainstream TV. Leading voices in third wave feminism focus on innovative US television shows, including "The Sopranos", "Oz", "Six Feet Under", "The L Word" and the reality-TV show "The Bachelor" to take a closer look at the contradictions and reciprocities between feminism and television, engaging as they go in theoretical and critical conversations about media culture, third wave feminism, feminist spectatorship, the sex wars, and the politics of visual pleasure. The book offers an exuberant and accessible discussion of what television has to offer today's feminist fan. It also sets a new tone for future debate, turning away from a sober, near-pessimistic trend in much feminist media studies to reconnect with the roots of third wave feminism in riot grrrl culture, sexradical feminism, and black feminism, tracing too the narratives provided by queer theory in which pleasure has a less contested place.

Merri Lisa Johnson has published widely on representations of female sexuality in literature and popular culture. She is Editor of 'Jane Sexes It Up' (2001) and of two collections on'line: a special issue of 'Women Writers' on "Autobiographical Literary Criticism" and a special issue of 'The Scholar and Feminist' on "Feminist Television Studies: The Case of HBO". She is Director of the Center for Women's Studies at the University of Carolina-Upstate