Television Antiheroines

As television has finally started to create more

leading roles for women, the female antiheroine has

emerged as a compelling and dynamic character

type. Television Antiheroines looks closely at this

recent development, exploring the emergence of

women characters in roles typically reserved for

men, particularly in the male-dominated genre of

the crime and prison drama.

The essays collected in Television Antiheroines are

divided into four sections or types of characters:

mafia women, drug dealers and aberrant mothers,

women in prison, and villainesses. Looking

specifically at shows such as Gomorrah, Mafiosa,

The Wire, The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy,

Orange is the New Black and Antimafia Squad,

the contributors explore the role of race and

sexuality and focus on how many of the characters

transgress traditional ideas about femininity

and female identity. They examine the ways in

which bad women are portrayed and how these

characters undermine gender expectations and

reveal the current challenges by women to social

and economic norms.