Inness,
Sherrie A.,
ed. Action Chicks: New
Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 293pp. ISBN 1403964033 (cloth),
1403963967 (paper).
- Acknowledgments ... ix
- Introduction: "Boxing Gloves and Bustiers": New Images of Tough Women, by Sherry A. Inness ... 1
Part I: Changing Images of the Female Action Hero
- Lara's Lethal and Loaded Mission: Transposing reproduction and Destruction, by Claudia Herbst ... 21
- Gender, Sexuality, and Toughness: The Bad Girls of Action Films and Comic Books, by Jeffrey A. Brown ... 47
- "It's a Girl Thing": Tough Female Action Figures in the Toy Store, by Sherry A. Inness ... 75
- Embodying an Image: Gender, race, and Sexuality in La Femme Nikita, by Charlene Tung ... 95
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Defiant Women, Decadent Men, Objects of Power, and Witchblade, by David Greven ... 123
- The Cruelest Season: Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines, by Sara Crosby ... 153
Part II: New Images of Toughness
- No Cage Can Hold Her Rage? Gender, Transgression, and the World Wrestling Federation's Chyna, by Dawn Heinecken ... 181
- Tough Love: Mamas, Molls, and Mob Wives, by Marilyn Yaquinto ... 207
- Tough Love: Female Firendship and Heroism in Xena and Buffy, by Sharon Ross ... 231
- Little Miss Tough Chick of the Universe: Farscape's Inverted Sexual Dynamics, by Renny Christopher ... 257
- Notes on Contributors ... 283
- Index ... 287