The Talking Cure

The Talking Cure examines four nationally syndicated television talk shows: Donahue, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael; which are primarily devoted to feminine culture and issues. These programs have recently surpassed soap operas as the most popular daytime programming (Oprah garnering 19 million viewers per show). They serve as one of the few public forums where women from the working class and with different sexual orientations have a voice. In many ways, these talk shows represent American TV at its most radical as they popularize feminist identity politics. Without adopting an overly naive view of the benevolence of corporate captialism, Jane Shattuc examines the tension between talk's feminist politics and the television industry.