Browsing by Author "Asardag, Dilara"

This case study investigates how Angelina Jolie’s overall mediated persona is constructed as ideal in the media. Following this, there is an attempt to display what are the ideological implications, impact and consequences of this construction for the women in different strata of society by bringing an ideological discussion and critique to the analysis material. In addition to the concept of double entanglement provided by Angela McRobbie, where feminism to some degree transforms into a Gramscian common sense, as a theoretical framework, the concept of the neo-liberal entrepreneurial female subjectivity correlates well to the mediated persona of Angelina Jolie. Before moving onto the current conjecture of feminism in order to elaborate this concept of double entanglement and the post-feminist female figure’s relation with neo-liberalism, the different phases of second wave feminism will be presented. As its methodology, this case study adopts critical discourse analysis, which is a discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context (Van Dijk, 2001: 352). The selected media data for analysis stretches across a timeline of Angelina Jolie’s public presence, beginning from her journey to Cambodia as a self-transforming experience until the media coverage regarding the removal of her ovaries. Online magazine and newspaper interviews and articles are main sources of data for this case study. Results of the research show that there are different dimensions which most of the time integrate together in very prudent ways and construct Angelina Jolie’s subjectivity as ideal through the discourse of post-feminism. While this form of feminism is inclusive towards women belonging to middle and upper classes, it has the tendency to undermine women coming from underprivileged backgrounds.