New Feminist Studies in Audiovisual Industries | The Fourth Wave in Audiovisual Content: A True Achievement of Feminism?

Abstract

Audiovisual content transmits feminist messages and the identities of women and girls. There has been a revitalization of feminism, but are we facing a true achievement of critical and intersectional feminism? Or are we witnessing a form of fake feminism, multiplied by social media platforms, market forces, and entertainment? How are women’s identities communicated through fictional audiovisual content today? To address these questions, this article examines the image of women projected by Game of Thrones (Season 8) and Stranger Things (Season 3) using the postulates of fourth-wave feminism. The principal conclusions of our study indicate that although the development of female characters in these series contains elements that suggest an approach to the demands of fourth-wave feminism, these prove to be meager and coexist with patriarchal features, and what predominates is the commercialization of messages that contribute to the banalization of feminism.