Carina Chocano

Reading this book was a very interesting experience. I don’t disagree with anything she says in this book, in fact I agree with most of it, and yet I found I had a hard time relating to her experiences and examples, mine were just so radically different at times even though I believe we are the same age.
One example I can give is how the movie Flashdance affected her, I can’t relate to what she described because I never saw that movie and never wanted to, but the description of her show more experiences felt valid from what I remember of the 80’s. It was this way throughout most of the book. And I actually feel this made this book even more relevant and valuable to me, I feel it is very important to recognize that no one experiences culture in the same was as anyone else and yet we are all shaped by it for both good or ill.
Overall this was a very quick read, very accessible and engaging and it made me think and reevaluate the culture and times I grew up in be seeing someone else’s experiences. show less

Carina Chocano is the essay writer I wish I was. She examines how pop culture treats women and girls- and how it affects us. From Katherine Hepburn and how her image had to be toned down for people to accept her movies; ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ and ‘Bewitched’ (how two insanely powerful women constantly deferred to men); to the huge Disney princess phenomena wherein a princess is someone to be saved by a man or presented to a man. ‘Desperate Housewives’, ‘Real Housewives’, show more ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’, ‘Flashdance’, the misogyny in ‘Can This Marriage Be Saved’- in a women’s magazine, no less, ‘Thelma and Louise’, ‘Pretty Woman’, Disney, ‘Mad Men’ and a lot more all come under her feminist microscope. And while you can tell she’s very frustrated by the way the media presents women, she is always entertaining and easy to read. I’d love to read what she thinks about ‘Wonder Woman’ and the new Dr. Who! Five stars out of five. show less

This was a case of picking a book based on its title. What I didn't realize is that it's a collection of essays (yup...didn't read all the way to the bottom of the cover) or that these essays focus primarily on film/television criticism.

Criticism is not my jam. Literary Criticism was the one required course in my English degree that I was afraid I was going to fail. (I got a D on my first paper and panicked, because I didn't get Ds.) But I eventually learned to "talk the talk" and dissect a show more poor hapless e.e. cummings poem through a multitude of lenses. I think I may have even pulled a B out of the class, but I never learned to love critical theory. It has a tendency to ruin a reading (or viewing) experience for me. (For example, after reading this book, watching early seasons of Big Bang Theory with my sons has become less enjoyable, although the introduction of more female characters has improved things.)

Ms. Chocano's essays are very personal, tying in experiences from her childhood, career, and personal life with analysis of various movies and television shows, charting trends in the messages that Hollywood sends about what it means to be a woman. I haven't seen all of the works she references, but she includes enough detail to familiarize readers. Overall, her pieces are interesting and perceptive. I just prefer my non-fiction (and my fiction -- not a big fan of short story collections) to have one over-arching idea. In this genre, I preferred [b:Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture|8565083|Cinderella Ate My Daughter Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture|Peggy Orenstein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1279214118l/8565083._SY75_.jpg|13433613] and [b:Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why|29358401|Trainwreck The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why|Sady Doyle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1462722825l/29358401._SY75_.jpg|49602049], both of which Ms. Chocano references.

Book #2 for Nonfiction November 2020 show less

Update: I think the things that were bothering me about this book are it is:

1) slightly out of touch with the millennial generation and beyond, in terms of what pop references are most relevant and how people feel about them now. I didn't recognize every single film or tv show she talks about which felt telling.
2) Like others have mentioned in their reviews, there was not a lot of analysis from the perspective of race. Most (all?) the characters and personalities she discusses are white show more and that doesn't feel like it should be left alone. An essay on how women of color are presented or excluded from media would have been the bare minimum.
2) I am tired of hearing about how Disney princesses are bullshit. We already know that but we also know that shaming girls for liking princesses is the opposite of feminism and like, just enjoy or hate princesses on your own at this point.
3) the author frames this all through a reading of Alice In Wonderland that somehow ignores that the real-life Alice was a child being groomed and preyed upon by a pedophile and that just doesn't feel like it is doing the female empowering move that it should be doing...

I think ultimately I was not the audience for this (despite being interested in all the topics it covers) and through no fault of its own, it misses the tone because it was published a mere two months before the #metoo movement reached its height and gave us a whole new perspective on all these topics. (It was bothering me why Harvey Weinstein came up without any commentary on him and publication dates don't tell lies)


I didn't actually finish but the tone was bumming me out so I am going to save this to finish later. The essays are interesting (some more than others, but that's always the case) and worth reading just not...during a government coup/pandemic combo show less