From 'Sex And The City' to discussions of sexuality and the self, Barbara Creed explores the effect of today's global media on contemporary ideas and experiences of sex, screen, identity and representation.
Since the inception of the moving picture, sex and screen have been inextricably linked. Today's media - from film and TV to virtual reality and interactive online communication - create an elaborate matrix where new ideas and forms of sexuality, identity and the self are formed and performed.
In her characteristically thoughtful, thoroughly immediate style, Barbara Creed examines popular culture, film and old and new media. She explores the changes brought about by new forms of representation and reality, and questions the media's ambiguous relationship to radical change in the way sexuality appears on screen.
Has reality TV affected the way viewers think about sex and relationships? Now that pornography has entered the mainstream, can we still say porn offers an alternative view of sex? Does 'Sex And The City' really challenge every taboo known to society? Why do women enjoy writing slash fiction?
From Breillat's film 'Romance' to Harlequin romances, crisis TV to cyberporn, celebrity to censorship, queer media to Clinton and Lewinsky, 'Media Matrix' explores the breakdown between public and private and asks us to consider the representation of sexuality and the self in the new global public domain.
'Media Matrix' is essential reading for anyone interested in the dramatic changes in our perceptions of sex, self and the new global media.
