Television Antiheroines
Women Behaving Badly in Crime and Prison Drama
Distributed for Intellect Ltd
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Foreword
Diane Negra and Jorie Lagerwey
Editor’s Introduction
Milly Buonanno
Part I: Mafia Women
Chapter 1: Godmothers in Italian Mafia Story: Or ‘Something Else Besides a Mother’
Milly Buonanno
Chapter 2: Mafiosa, Monstruous Beauty: Power and Loneliness of a Female Mob Lover
Barbara Villez
Chapter 3: Adieu Carmela Soprano! Lessons from the HBO Mobster Wife on TV Female Agency and Neo-liberal (Narrative) Power
Kim Akass and Janet McCabe
Part II: Drug Dealers and Aberrant Mothers
Chapter 4: Paying the Price: Penoza – Combining Motherhood and a Career (in Crime)
Joke Hermes
Chapter 5: ‘Really Good At It’: The Viral Charge of Nancy Botwin in Weeds (and Popular Culture’s Anticorps)
Elisa Giomi
Chapter 6: Really Bad Mothers: Manipulative Matriarchs in Sons of Anarchy and Justified
Amanda D. Lotz
Chapter 7: La reina del sur: Teresa Mendoza, a New Telenovela Protagonist
Yeidy M. Rivero
Part III: Women in Prison
Chapter 8: Blurred Lines: the Queer World of Bad Girls
Vicky Ball
Chapter 9: Top Dogs and Other Freaks: Wentworth and the Re-imaging of Prisoner Cell Block H
Sue Turnbull
Chapter 10: Lesbian Request Approved: Sex, Power and Desire in Orange is the New Black
Suzanna Danuta Walters
Part IV: Villainesses and Anti-antiheroines
Chapter 11: Women and Criminality in Brazilian Telenovelas: Salve Jorge and Human Trafficking
Samantha Joyce and Antonio La Pastina
Chapter 12: ‘Your Turn, Girl’: The (Im)Possibility of African American Antiheroines in The Wire
Bruce A. Williams and Andrea L. Press
Chapter 13: Taming Pussytown: How Post-feminism Domesticated Underbelly: Razor
Leigh Redhead
Contributors
Index
"As someone who rooted for Alexis and Sue Ellen as a girl of the 1980s, I am thrilled that Milly Buonanno is helping me relocate my transnational sisterhood in support of antiheroines. This volume embraces the not-so-guilty pleasures of watching women characters who are complicated, multi-layered, transgressive, and kick-ass. Brava!’"
"At last, the antiheroine, in all her flawed ambiguity, takes the limelight in this impressive collection and challenges the male dominance of contemporary television drama. Driven by feminist curiosity, respected television scholar Milly Buonanno has put together a genuinely inter national team to explore the global phenomenon of female characters heading up crime TV genres with roles as criminal bosses and prison top dogs. Essential and enjoy able reading."
"Television Antiheroines is a landmark text. It covers a long but rarely highlighted story to be told of female characters who counter the norms of conventional femininity. This generously international volume provides both geographical and historical contours that will enrich the study of television."
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