University of Alberta The Empowered Woman and Encounters with Breast Cancer, the Year’s Chick Disease: Sick Lit and the Work of Memoir in the Postfeminist Decade by Lucinda Marie Rasmussen A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English English and Film Studies ©Lucinda Marie Rasmussen Spring 2014 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. 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DEDICATION For Darrell ABSTRACT This dissertation examines a postfeminist subgenre of women’s autobiography referred to as “sick lit.” The primary texts, all published between 2004 and 2009 are: Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto, Breastless in the City: A Young Woman’s Story of Love, Loss, and Breast Cancer by Cathy Bueti, Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy by Geralyn Lucas, Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer is Really Distracting by Meredith Norton, My One Night Stand with Cancer by Tania Katan, and Nordie’s at Noon: The Personal Stories of Four Women “Too Young” for Breast Cancer by Patti Balwanz, Jana Peters, Kim Carlos, and Jennifer Johnson. I show that sick lit is a postfeminist manifestation of a genre of life writing more broadly known as the breast cancer narrative. While the breast cancer narrative was initially clearly a product of second-wave feminism in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s, sick lit’s contents and paratexts reflect the presence of postfeminism as an oppressive and pervasive ideology, one which now discourages its authors from making explicit “feminist” demands for gender equity despite the fact that they write of encountering oppressive circumstances. Sick lit is written by women who have been aggressively targeted by a heteronormative consumer culture which conveys the message that consumption is an antidote to breast cancer. These authors frequently use irreverent humour and self deprecation in the form of confession to talk about the struggles they experience as a part of this social order. Thus, sick lit resembles the contemporary women’s fiction known as chick lit, as well as the chick flick. While I argue that sick lit is an aesthetic strategy which some writers use to reclaim their identities after cancer and, even at times, to unsettle the normative social order, ultimately, sick-lit writers—particularly those tied to breast cancer’s cause-related marketing campaigns—are yoked to commodity culture in ways which jeopardizes the legacy they might otherwise earn through life writing. For these reasons, sick lit helps to reveal postfeminism’s harms and potentials at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In many ways, the writing of a PhD dissertation is a solitary project. Despite this factor, I doubt any candidate finishes without a good deal of support and encouragement from others, and this project is no exception. In the first place, I want to thank my supervisor Dr. Julie Rak for all that she has done to support my education over the past six years. Julie, you have been a wonderful advisor. I cannot say enough how much I appreciate the theoretical and practical advice which you gave tirelessly throughout the process. The thing I would like to thank you most for is for helping me to read and appreciate texts in ways I had not previously considered. I so admire the passion, ethics, and commitment you bring to the reading of auto/biography and it has been a privilege to have worked with you. Thank you so much. I am also very grateful to my committee members at the University of Alberta, Professors Daphne Read and Jo-Ann Wallace. Daphne, I thank you for all the times you offered your encouragement over the last few years. I’d also like to thank you for the wonderful experience I had in your classroom, and for your commitment to women’s texts and to feminism. The coursework I did with you on Oprah Winfrey remains a highlight as I reflect back on my time as a student. It was in your class that I first began to appreciate popular culture as stimulating subject of study. Jo-Ann, thank you also, not only for your advice and insight into this project, but for your inspirational graduate seminar on feminism which has influenced this work. Next I want to thank the University of Alberta and the Department of English and Film Studies for its support, in particular Dr. Corrinne Harol. Others from English and Film Studies who I must acknowledge as both friends and colleagues are Kris Calhoun, Mary Marshall Durrell and Kim Brown. A thank you is also owed to Dr. Amy Kaler from the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta and Dr. Hilary Clark from the University of Saskatchewan, both of whom made my defense memorable with many stimulating questions and helpful insights. On a very personal note, I want to acknowledge my dear friend Medha Samarasinghe who gave freely of her enthusiasm and encouragement as I worked to earn this degree. Thank you Medha, for listening to me go on endlessly about chicks and the social concerns raised by breast cancer, and thank you for your critical insights into popular culture. You are a wonderful friend and I’m so grateful for our time together. Thank you to my dog Baxter for taking me for a walk every day while the writing of this project was underway. Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my husband Darrell Manning for his tireless support. Darrell, as I have worked on this project, you’ve been left to do more than your fair share for far too long. This situation has been far from ideal, but you’ve never once complained. Thank you for your unfailing encouragement as I worked to accomplish this goal. Being able to get this education has meant so much to me, and I could not have finished this undertaking without you. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................................1 Chapter One Situating Sick Lit: Feminist Forerunners and the Commoditization of Breast Cancer Activism in American Popular Culture ..................................................29 Chapter Two Feminism’s Echoes in Contemporary Postfeminist Media: Hailing the Sick Chick with Breast Cancer ………....................................................................................78 Chapter Three Sick lit and Its Material Practices: Author Agency in the Context of Postfeminism and the Chick Culture Craze ……………….......................................................127 Chapter Four Irreverent Chicks with Cancer Critique the Breast Cancer Normate ................179 Conclusion Sick Lit + Beyond .............................................................................................231 Figures Images................................................................................................................255 References Works Cited...................................................................................................... 273 LIST OF FIGURES Pages 255-272 Fig. 1 Cover of Breastless in the City published by Cleveland Press. Fig. 2 Cover of Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell Fig. 3 Cover of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress published by St. Martin’s Press. Fig. 4: Front and Back Covers of Nordie’s at Noon: The Personal Stories of Four Women ‘Too Young’ for Breast Cancer” Fig. 5: Front and Back Cover, The Cancer Journals published by Spinsters Ink. Fig. 6: Front and Back Cover to the special edition of The Cancer Journals published by Aunt Lute. Fig. 7: Cover of the August 15, 1993 edition of the New York Times magazine; “Beauty out of Damage” by Matuschka. Fig. 8: Cover of the December 22, 1996 edition of the New York Times magazine; Linda Evangelista. Fig. 9: Wonderbra Advertisement with Eva Herzigova. Fig. 10: Front and Back Covers of My Breast by Joyce Wadler; published by Pocket Books. Fig. 11: Front Cover of the hardback first edition of Cancer Vixen; published by Knopf. Fig. 12: Front Cover of the paperback edition of Cancer Vixen; published by Pantheon. Fig. 13: Avon Flyer (c. 2008). Fig. 14: Still from “Catch-38” (2004). Season 6, Sex and the City. Fig. 15: Still from “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux” (2004). Season 6, Sex and the City. Fig. 16: Still from “Late Comer” (2006). Season 3, The L Word. Fig. 17: Still from “Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way” (2006). Season 3, The L Word. Fig. 18: Still from “Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way” (2006). Season 3, The L Word. Fig. 19: Still from Oprah Winfrey’s Interview with Elizabeth Edwards (2009). Fig. 20: Still from the What Not To Wear episode entitled “Sara” (2010). Fig. 21: Cover of the first edition of The Department of Lost and Found; published by William Morrow. Fig. 22: Cover of I Don’t Know How She Does It (2002); published by Chatto and Windus. Fig. 23: Cover of the revised edition of Breastless in the City (2009); published by Kaplan Press. Fig. 24: Cover of I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011); published by Anchor, a division of Random House. Fig. 25: Cathy Bueti at book launch. Fig. 26: Still from Lifetime Television’s Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy (2006). Fig. 27: Still from Lifetime Television’s Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy (2006).