Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Jenners:

An Analysis of the Postfeminist and Neoliberal Tendencies

and Biopolitics in Contemporary Social Media Practices

Through a Consideration of the Popular Culture Exemplar:

The Kardashian-Jenner Family

Vanessa Chen

Supervised by Dr. Conor O’Kelly

Submission Date: March 2018

This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for a degree of

Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies

School of Creative Arts

Trinity College Dublin


This dissertation received a 76 (first class honors) from Trinity College Dublin in

June 2018. It is currently under revision and will be posted shortly.

Vanessa recently graduated with a first class honors in English Literature and

Film/Media Studies (B.A.) at Trinity College Dublin, and will be pursuing a MSc in

Digital Marketing at Trinity Business School in September 2018. Her research

interests include post-cinematic media, gender, postfeminism, neoliberalism,

remix, social media practices, and influencer marketing.

 Bibliography: Works Cited and Referenced

Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as

Mass Deception.” In Dialectics of Enlightenment, 94-136. London: Verso, 1986.

Baer, Hester. “Redoing Feminism: Digital Activism, Body Politics, and Neoliberalism.”

Feminist Media Studies 16, no. 1 (October 2015): 17-34. Http://dx.doi.org/

10.1080/14680777.2015.1093070.

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. AuthenticTM: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture.

New York: New York University Press, 2012.

Banet Weiser, Sarah, and Inna Arzumanova. “Creative Authorship: Self-Actualizing

Individuals and the Creative Self-Brand.” In Media Authorship, edited by Cynthia

Chris and David A. Gerstner, 163-179. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Chen, Vanessa. “Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Jenners: Reality TV, Media

Empire, and Family.” Trinity College Dublin. March 2017.

Cochrane, Kira. “The Fourth Wave of Feminism: Meet the Rebel Women.” The
Guardian. December 2013. Https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/

fourth-wave-feminism-rebel-women.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Sumi Cho, and Leslie McCall. “Toward a Field of Intersectionality

Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture

and Society 38, no. 4 (Summer 2013): 785-810. Https://doi.org/10.1086/669608.

Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October 59 (Winter 1992): 3-7.

Http://www.jstor.org/stable/778828.

——. Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews 1975-1995. Cambridge:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2007.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. New

York: Penguin Random House, 2009.

——. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 1987.

Dobson, Amy Shields. Postfeminist Digital Cultures: Femininity, Social Media, and Self-
Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Dubrofsky, Rachel E. The Surveillance of Women on Reality Television. Lanham, MD:

Lexington Books, 2011.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage

Books, 1977.

——. History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. Vol. 1. New

York: Random House, 1978.

Genz, Stéphanie. “My Job Is Me: Postfeminist Celebrity Culture and the Gendering of

Authenticity.” Feminist Media Studies 15, no. 4 (2015): 545-561. Http://

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2014.952758.

Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin Brabon. Postfeminism and Cultural Texts and Theories.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

George, Kat. “Kim Kardashian’s Paper Magazine Shoot Has an Insanely Troubling

Racial Problem That You Probably Have No Idea About.” Bustle. November

2014. https://www.bustle.com/articles/49066-kim-kardashians-paper-

magazine-shoot-has-an-insanely-troubling-racial-problem-that-you-probably-

have-no.

Gill, Rosalind. “Culture and Subjectivity in Neoliberal and Postfeminist Times.”

Subjectivity 25, no. 1 (December 2008): 432-445. Http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/sub.

2008.28.

——. Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.

——. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility.” European Journal of

Cultural Studies 10, no. 2 (May 2007): 147-166. Http://dx.doi.org/

10.1177/1367549407075898.

——. “Post-Postfeminism? New Feminist Visibilities in Postfeminist Times.” Feminist

Media Studies 16, no. 4 (June 2016): 610-630. Http://dx.doi.org/

10.1080/14680777.2016.1193293.

——. “The Affective, Cultural, and Psychic Life of Postfeminism: A Postfeminist

Sensibility 10 Years On.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 20, no. 6 (2017):

606-626. DOI: 10.1177/1367549417733003.

Gill, Rosalind, and Christina Scharff, Eds. New Feminities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism,
and Subject. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Gold, Matthew. “The Digital Humanities Moment.” In Debates in Digital Humanities,

edited by Matthew Gold. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Guarisco, Maria. “Keeping Up with Postfeminism: The Branding of the Kardashian

Sisterhood.” May 2016, 1-42. Https://dspace.fandm.edu/bitstream/handle/

11016/24153/Guariso%20Thesis.pdf?sequence=1.

Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York:

Routledge, 1991.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York:

New York University Press, 2006.

Khamis, Lawrence Ang, and Raymond Welling. “Self-Branding, ‘Micro-Celebrity,’ and

the Rise of Social Media Influencers.” Celebrity Studies 8, no. 2 (2017): 191-208.

Https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2016.1218292.

Klaszas, Erin B. “Selfhood, Citizenship… and All Things Kardashian: Neoliberal and

Postfeminist Ideals in Reality Television.” Media and Communications Studies

(July 2015): 1-25. Https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

referer=https://

www.google.ie&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=media_com_sum.

Krolokke, Charlotte, and Anne Scott Sorensen. Gender Communication Theories and
Analyses: From Silence to Performance. London: Sage Publications, 2006.

Le Vine, Lauren. “Some of You Asked Us To Stop Writing About the Kardashians—This

Is Our Response.” Refinery29. July 2015. https://www.refinery29.com/

2015/07/91473/kardashian-family-pop-culture-relevance.

Lotz, Amanda D. “Postfeminist Television Criticism: Rehabilitating Critical Terms and

Identifying Postfeminist Attributes.” Feminist Media Studies 1, no. 1 (2001):

105-121. Https://doi.org/10.1080/14680770120042891.

Manovich, Lev. Instagram and Contemporary Image. Creative Commons License. 2017.

http://manovich.net/content/04-projects/147-instagram-and-contemporary-

image/instagram_book_manovich.pdf.

Marwick, Alice E. “Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the Attention Economy.” Public Culture
27, no. 1 (2015): 137-160. Http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2798379.

——. Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.

McClain, Amanda Scheiner. Keeping Up the Kardashian Brand: Celebrity, Materialism,

and Sexuality. Lanham, MD and Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2014.

McRobbie, Angela. “Notes on the Perfect: Competitive Femininity in Neoliberal Times.”

Australian Feminist Studies 30, no. 83 (2015): 3-20. Https://doi.org/

10.1080/08164649.2015.1011485.

——. “Post-Feminism and Popular Culture.” Feminist Media Studies 4,

no. 3 (2004): 255-264. https://doi.org/10.1080/1468077042000309937.

——. “Top Girls? Young Women and the Post-Feminist Sexual Contract.” The Journal
of Cultural Studies 21, no. 1 (2007): 718-737. Https://doi.org/

10.1080/09502380701279044.

——. “Young Women and Consumer Culture: An Intervention.” Journal of Cultural

Studies 22, no. 5 (2008): 531-550. Https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380802245803.

Monteverde, Giuliana. “Kardashian Komplicity: Performing Post-Feminist Beauty.”

Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty 7, no. 2 (2016): 153-172. Https://doi.org/

10.1386/csfb.7.2.153_1.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Film Theory and Criticism:
Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen, and Leo Braudy,

746-757. 4th Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992

Negra, Diane. “Lecture Panel on Inequality Matters: Austerity Policies, Gender, and

Race.” Talk. London: London School of Economics, May 2015. YouTube.

Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plXuPVbquvQ.

——. What a Girl Wants?: Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism. London:

Taylor & Francis, 2008.

Negra, Diane, and Maria Pramaggiore. “Keeping Up with the Aspirations: Commercial

Family Values and the Kardashian Brand.” In Reality Gendervision: Sexuality and
Gender on Transatlantic Reality Television, edited by Brenda Weber, 76-96.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015.

Negra, Diane, and Yvonne Tasker, Eds. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the
Politics of Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Orgad, Shani, and Sara De Benedicts. “The ‘Stay-At-Home’ Mother, Postfeminism, and

Neoliberalism: Content Analysis of UK News Coverage.” European Journal of

Communications 30, no. 4 (2015): 418-436. DOI: 10.1177/0267323115586724.

Rafael, Chad. “The Political Economic Origins of Reali-TV.” In Reality TV, edited by

Laure Oullette and Susan Murray, 123-140. New York: New York University

Press, 2009.

Reed, Lori, and Paula Saukko, Eds. Governing the Female Body: Gender, Health, and
Networks of Power. New York: State University of New York, 2010.

Repo, Jemima. The Biopolitics of Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Rottenberg, Catherine. “The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism.” The Journal of Cultural

Studies 28, no. 3 (2014): 418-437. https://doi.org/

10.1080/09502386.2013.857361.

Ruggerio, Alena Amato, Ed. Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers. Lanham,

MD: Lexington Books, 2012.

Senft, Theresa M. “Microcelebrity and the Branded Self.” In A Companion to New

Media Dynamics, edited by John Hartley, Jean Burgess, and Axel Bruns. West

Sussex: John Wiley & Sons: 2013.

Telusma, Blue. “Kim Kardashian: The Butt of an Old Racial Joke.” The Grio. November

2014. Https://thegrio.com/2014/11/12/kim-kardashian-butt.

Weber, Brenda R., Ed. Reality Gendervision: Sexuality and Gender on Transatlantic

Reality Television. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015.

Wissinger, Elizabeth. “#NoFilter: Models, Glamour Labor, and the Age of the Blink.”

Theorizing the Web 1, no. 1 (August 2015): 1-20. Http://dx.doi.org/

10.7710/2373-4914.1010.

——. This Year’s Model: Fashion, Media, and the Making of Glamour. New York: New

York University Press, 2015.

Woodward, Ellie, and Rebecca Hendin. “How the Kardashians Manipulated the Media

to Become the Most Famous Family in the World.” Buzzfeed. September 2015.

Https://www.buzzfeed.com/elliewoodward/how-the-kardashians-manipulated-

the-media-to-become-the-most?utm_term=.gdA95Anww#.uqM2ONrvv.

Zakos, Katharine P. Post-Feminism, Shaming, and Wedding-Themed Reality Television.

Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2015. Atlanta, GA: ScholarWorks @ GSU,

1-262.

Zwick, Detlev, and Alan Bradshaw. “Biopolitical Marketing and the Ideology of Social

Media Brand Communities.” Theory, Culture and Society 33, no. 5 (January

2016): 91-115, Https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276415625333.

Žižek, Slavoj, Ed. Mapping Ideology. London and New York: Verso, 1994.