Goddesses and Monsters ─ Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture

Caputi (women's studies and communication, Florida Atlantic U.) describes popular culture as a repository of ancient myth and folklore that constitute a "dreamtime" into which we over-organized moderns can escape but which actually constitutes a powerful language construct that can transform for both good and evil. Pop culture contains this power but has the ability to also contain things that are usually unspoken, such as the ritualized murder of women. Very little about what pop culture has to say about women goes unsaid in this collection of essays, as Caputi explains a wide array of pop media to support her contention that the mythical construct of women as suitable mainly for slaughter, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual, has survived and even grown in the extended period between the toga and the stiletto heel. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jane Caputi is professor of women’s studies and communication at Florida Atlantic University and author of The Age of the Sex Crime and Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. She also collaborated with Mary Daly on Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language.