Softcore as Serialized (and Feminized) Featurette

Abstract

The softcore serial (or “softcore featurette”) is a prolific sexploitation subgenre spawned by the early-nineties popularity of Red Shoe Diaries, Zalman King's late-night Showtime program. Like Red Shoe Diaries, the softcore serial is an elaborately feminized and aspirational form with a pointedly “postfeminist” sensibility. Though this subgenre is also a self-consciously apolitical form structured by double standards and essentialist stereotypes, contemporary feminists have nevertheless been increasingly inclined to condone it, a trend that may dovetail with a larger postfeminist receptiveness to traditional ideas of femininity. This article proposes that the softcore serial and its (post)feminist reception are most usefully framed as the product of three overlapping cultural contexts: the histories of postfeminist cultural production, of American sexploitation cinema, and of premium cable programming.