Triple Threats: Young Female Detectives and the Crimes of Postfeminism Andrea Braithwaite Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University January 2010 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of PhD. © Andrea Braithwaite 2010 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l’édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-66429-2 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-66429-2 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L’auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l’Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L’auteur conserve la propriété du droit d’auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author’s permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n’y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. A girl, a teenager, and a private detective – I’m a triple threat! -Veronica Mars Acknowledgements Heaps of thanks to Carrie Rentschler for her unwavering enthusiasm and provocative questions. With her supervision and assistance, working on this dissertation was both challenging and really, really enjoyable. Much love to Richard Hink for more late nights, early phone calls, and delicious meals than I can remember. I am lucky to have such a colleague and best friend. Robert duToit has been a source of more than just technical support. He is also a thoughtful sounding board, personal cheerleader, flower-bringer, and coffee- refresher. For that, and so much more, love and thanks. Thanks as well to animal companions past and present – Isis, Tibi, and Alice – for making sprawling on the couch look so appealing. This project was made possible in part by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant. Its completion was facilitated by a Beaverbrook Dissertation Completion grant awarded through Media@McGill. Most importantly, a profound debt of gratitude for Don and Karen Braithwaite, for their years (and years and years) of encouragement and support. Abstract Triple Threats: Young Female Detectives and the Crimes of Postfeminism examines the increasingly visible character of the amateur female sleuth in popular culture. I argue that, while a postfeminist media and political environment conditions this “chick dick’s” existence, the chick dick also “talks back” to postfeminism, specifically to the postfeminist insistence that feminism has been successful and is no longer relevant or necessary. The chick dick thus “speaks feminism” in an environment that makes such a voice difficult to hear. I focus primarily on the aspects of these popular narratives that engage with the postfeminist notion that women and men are social equals. I demonstrate how the rhetoric of “choice” is used to depoliticize the conditions in which young women live, work, and study, individualizing their problems into matters of personal choice rather than political consequence. I examine how both social space and investigative technologies are gendered through concepts of risk and authority, and how such gendering works to uphold a patriarchal power dynamic that makes women vulnerable to a spectrum of sexualized violence. I deconstruct the concept of a “crisis in masculinity” to show how this trope legitimizes the exercise of an aggressive and violent masculinity on the bodies of female and feminized “others.” These popular narratives also illustrate the labour involved in embodying a postfeminist or “chick” femininity, affectively recounting how these female characters feel about the regimes of self-care and self-management they undertake daily, and how they respond to a “new traditionalist” model of womanhood that requires monogamy, marriage, and motherhood for female worth. I contextualize these stories within the cultural and industrial productive contexts to argue that the chick dick’s feminist and proto-feminist undertones make her an unsuitable subject for mainstream, blockbuster filmmaking. Résumé « La triple menace : jeunes inspectrices et les crimes de le postféminisme » examine la caractère plus en plus visible de l’inspectrice amateur dans la culture populaire. Considérant que le milieu du média et la politique dans le postféminisme conditionne l’existence de la « chick dick », elle réplique au postféminisme, plus particulièrement à l’insistance postféministe que le féminisme est un succès et qu’il n’est pas encore pertinent ou nécessaire. La « chick dick » parle ainsi le féminisme dans un milieu qui fait une telle voix difficile à entendre. Je focalise sur les aspects de ces récits populaires que s’engagent avec la notion postféministe que les femmes et les hommes sont égales. Je démontre comment la rhétorique du « choix » est utilisée pour dépolitiser la condition de la vie, du travail et d’étude pour les femmes. Ces conditions individualisent leurs problèmes comme des affaires du choix personnel au lieu des conséquences politiques. J’examine comment l’espace sociale et aussi les technologies d’investigation sont basées sur le genre par les concepts du risque et l’autorité. Ça soutient une dynamique patriarcale du pouvoir qui fait les femmes vulnérables à plusieurs formes de la violence sexuelle. Je déconstruis l’idée d’une « crise de la masculinité » pour montrer comment ce trope justifier l’exercice d’une masculinité agressif et violent sur les corps des « autres »--femmes et féminisés. Ces récits populaires illustrent aussi le travail d’incarner une féminité « chick » ou postféministe. Ils racontent affectivement comment ces femmes se sentent des régimes quotidiens de soin et d’administration de soi-même. En plus, les récits nous disent comment ces femmes répondent à un modèle de la vie de femme « nouveau traditionaliste » qui requise la monogamie, la mariage et la maternité pour valoriser les femmes. Je situe cette histoire dans le contexte de leur production culturelle et industrielle et je conclus que les currents féministes et proto-féministes de la « chick dick » la faisant un sujet inapte pour la cinétographie blockbuster. Table of Contents Chapter One Just a Girl? Detecting Feminism and Investigating Choice 1 Defining Postfeminism 5 Chicks and Chick Dicks 9 Ancestry 15 Founding Moments 21 Choosing Femininities 28 Scenes of the Crimes 46 Chapter Two Chick Dicks in the City: Geographies and Technologies of Investigation 50 Mapping Gendered Spaces 54 Armed and Accessorized 69 Mean Streets 77 Fighting Crime in Four-Inch Heels 84 Chapter Three Boys Will Be Boys: Male Violence, Victimization, and the Crisis in Masculinity 96 Being a Man 104 Wounds and Wounding 116 “The Beast Thing” 120 Male Insecurities 129 Absent Traumas and the Mystery of Men 133 Chapter Four The Feminine Good Life: Self-Labour and Life Scripts 139 Working the Third Shift 144 Making Sex Shameful 156 Rich Fantasies 162 Monogamy and Mis-Wanting 169 Chapter Five The Case of the Missing Chick Dick: Media Forms and Future Research 186 Industrial Conditions of (Im)possibility 189 To Be Continued… 201 Works Cited 206 Chapter One Just a Girl? Detecting Feminism and Investigating Choice I don’t do that patronizing, sexist chick shit. -Lula Emerging from the seedy bar into the night, the detective surveys the empty and silent street. The informant was a bust, the guy knew nothing. Another useless lead. The detective sighs, stops abruptly to stare into the car at the curb. The windows are dark, tinted, and the detective leans in closely, one hand rummaging quietly in a jacket pocket. Studying her reflection, she fluffs up her hair and pulls out a tube of lipstick. She flashes a dazzling smile at the empty interior, smoothes down the front of her miniskirt, and strides on three-inch heels into the night, toward the bright lights of the 24-hour convenience store and its ample selection of chocolate bars. Meet the most recent figure to tackle this “unsuitable job for a woman”: the chick dick. She is not a nosy spinster like Jessica Fletcher, a curious teen like Nancy Drew, or even a trained professional like V.I. Warshawski. The chick dick is a hybrid character, as spunky and shopping-obsessed as her chick lit counterparts, yet pursuing clues and criminals instead of a committed relationship. The “chick” text - 1 - – a cheeky, self-aware romance narrative aimed at affluent twenty- and thirty- something women – is proving to be one of the most adaptable and marketable forms of the past two decades. Its largely neurotic take on work, sex, and self- improvement has been lauded for capturing women’s struggles to negotiate contemporary battles of the sexes from boardrooms to bedrooms (see Marsh 2002; Donadio 2006). Women detectives are similarly visible and valuable popular culture commodities, appearing as cops, FBI agents, coroners, and forensic scientists across media.