{"title":"Mediating Maggie: Margaret Thatcher, leadership, and gender in The Iron Lady and The Crown","authors":"Leland G. Spencer, Timothy S. Forest","doi":"10.1080/15295036.2023.2229898","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Political women who lead with firmness get castigated as heartless. Margaret Thatcher represents that stereotype, most concisely captured in the sobriquet “Iron Lady.” We argue that the film The Iron Lady and the Netflix series The Crown offer versions of Thatcher that critique Thatcher’s supposed failures of femininity. Rather than centering their framing of Thatcher on the harms of her policies, these texts excoriate her for her parenting and her inappropriately masculine style. We conclude by asking how we might remember public figures in ways that offer critical analyses of policies without resorting to sexist tropes.","PeriodicalId":47123,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","volume":"30 1","pages":"108 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2023.2229898","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Political women who lead with firmness get castigated as heartless. Margaret Thatcher represents that stereotype, most concisely captured in the sobriquet “Iron Lady.” We argue that the film The Iron Lady and the Netflix series The Crown offer versions of Thatcher that critique Thatcher’s supposed failures of femininity. Rather than centering their framing of Thatcher on the harms of her policies, these texts excoriate her for her parenting and her inappropriately masculine style. We conclude by asking how we might remember public figures in ways that offer critical analyses of policies without resorting to sexist tropes.
期刊介绍:
Critical Studies in Media Communication (CSMC) is a peer-reviewed publication of the National Communication Association. CSMC publishes original scholarship in mediated and mass communication from a cultural studies and/or critical perspective. It particularly welcomes submissions that enrich debates among various critical traditions, methodological and analytical approaches, and theoretical standpoints. CSMC takes an inclusive view of media and welcomes scholarship on topics such as • media audiences • representations • institutions • digital technologies • social media • gaming • professional practices and ethics • production studies • media history • political economy. CSMC publishes scholarship about media audiences, representations, institutions, technologies, and professional practices. It includes work in history, political economy, critical philosophy, race and feminist theorizing, rhetorical and media criticism, and literary theory. It takes an inclusive view of media, including newspapers, magazines and other forms of print, cable, radio, television, film, and new media technologies such as the Internet.