Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women by Lisa Whittington-Hill
CBC Books | Posted: August 21, 2023 3:19 AM | Last Updated: October 12, 2023
A look into how mainstream media keeps failing women and what we can do to fix it.
The past decade has seen a rise in documentaries, memoirs and podcasts that revisit the legacies of women wronged by pop culture. With movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp challenging long-standing narratives around female celebrities, it's no surprise so many believe the representation of women in the media has improved. In her scathingly witty collection of essays, Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women, Lisa Whittington-Hill argues otherwise. Pop culture's treatment of women, writes Whittington-Hill, is still marked by misogyny and misunderstanding. From the gender bias in celebrity memoir coverage to problematic portrayals of middle-aged women and the sexist pressure on female pop stars to constantly reinvent themselves, Girls, Interrupted critically examines how mainstream media keeps failing women and explores what we can do to fix it. A work of searing relevance, this candid and often cathartic debut marks Whittington-Hill as a cultural critic of the first rank. (From Véhicule Press)
Lisa Whittington-Hill is a Toronto based writer. She is the publisher of This Magazine and a teacher at Centennial College.