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Selling Sunset… and My Postfeminist Sexual Capital: New Sexual Subjectivities in Reality TV

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Working Women on Screen

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender ((PSRG))

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Abstract

Selling Sunset is a Netflix-produced real estate drama that revolves around a high-end LA brokerage firm. The reality show offers a hyperfeminised and hypersexualised vision of the all-female group of elite agents. In the show, female power is located on the women’s bodies and the success of their private/professional lives. It is this interweaving of the public and intimate spheres that I focus on in this chapter, introducing the idea of “postfeminist sexual capital”. Illouz and Kaplan (2021) define sexual capital within the context of late modernity as the capacity of some subjects to increase their socio-economic and personal status through the commodification of their sexual subjectivities. In this work, I explore the idea of sexual capital as infused with postfeminist discourses that configure female empowerment through, among other elements, a compulsory sexual agency (Gill 2008; Burkett and Hamilton in Sexualities 15:815–33, 2012). I argue the representation of these female agents centres their use of postfeminist sexual capital, which works to bring success, or failure, to them. In this regard, the postfeminist sexual capital emerges as a double-edged sword which can accentuate neoliberal competition, and consequently, contribute to the further hierarchisation of acceptable feminine sexual subjectivities (Liu 2018) and social inequalities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I use the prefix “hyper” here to describe a form of “excessive” sexuality or femininity that has been linked with postfeminist femininity characterised by, among other things, high heels, long hair and long and smooth legs. See Christine Griffin, Isabelle Szmigin, Andrew Bengry-Howell, Chris Hackley, and Willm Mistral, “Inhabiting the Contradictions: Hypersexual Femininity and the Culture of Intoxication Among Young Women in the UK,” Feminism & Psychology 23, no. 2 (2013): 184–206.

  2. 2.

    Adrienne Evans and Sarah Riley, Technologies of Sexiness: Sex, Identity, and Consumer Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015), 280; Rosalind Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 10, no. 2 (2007): 147–66; Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff, New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Dana Kaplan, and Eva Illouz, What Is Sexual Capital? (Polity Press, 2022), 140.

  3. 3.

    Rosalind Gill, “The Sexualisation of Culture?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6, no. 7 (2012): 483–98.

  4. 4.

    Gill and Scharff, “New Femininities”; Melissa Burkett and Karine Hamilton, “Postfeminist Sexual Agency: Young Women’s Negotiations of Sexual Consent,” Sexualities 15, no. 7 (2012): 815–33; Jessica Ringrose, “Slut-Shaming, Girl Power and ‘Sexualisation’: Thinking Through the Politics of the International SlutWalks with Teen Girls,” Gender and Education 24, no. 3 (2012): 333–43.

  5. 5.

    Feona Attwood, “Intimate Adventures: Sex Blogs, Sex ‘Blooks’ and Women’s Sexual Narration,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 12, no. 1 (2009): 5–20.

  6. 6.

    Kaplan and Illouz, “What Is Sexual Capital?” 107.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., 33.

  8. 8.

    Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad, “The Confidence Cult(ure),” Australian Feminist Studies 30, no. 86 (2018): 324–44.

  9. 9.

    Susanna Paasonen et al., Objectification on the Difference Between Sex and Sexism (New York: Routledge, 2021), 99.

  10. 10.

    Feona Attwood, “Sexed Up: Theorizing the Sexualization of Culture,” Sexualities 9, no. 1 (2006): 77–94.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 80.

  12. 12.

    Zigmunt Bauman, “On Postmodern Uses of Sex,” in Love and Eroticism, ed. Mike Featherstone (London: Sage, 1999), 22.

  13. 13.

    Rosemary Hennessy, Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism. 2nd edn. (London: Routledge, 2018).

  14. 14.

    Brian McNair, Mediated Sex: Pornography and Postmodern Culture (London and New York: Arnold, 1996), 35; Linda Duits and Liesbet van Zoonen “Headscarves and Porno-Chic: Disciplining Girls’ Bodies in the European Multicultural Society,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 13, no. 2 (2016): 103–17.

  15. 15.

    Angela McRobbie, Feminism and the Politics of Resilience: Essays on Gender, Media and the End of Welfare (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020), 48.

  16. 16.

    Adrienne Evans and Sarah Riley, “Immaculate Consumption: Negotiating the Sex Symbol in Postfeminist Celebrity Culture,” Journal of Gender Studies 22, no. 3 (2013): 268–81.

  17. 17.

    Rosalind Gill and Ngaire Donaghue “As If Postfeminism Had Come True: The Turn to Agency in Cultural Studies of ‘Sexualisation’,” in Gender, Agency, and Coercion. Thinking Gender in Transnational Times, ed. Sumi Madhok, Anne Phillips, and Kalpana Wilson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 240–58.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 244.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 243.

  20. 20.

    Kaplan and Illouz, “What Is Sexual Capital?” 4.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 15.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 26.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 17.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., 57.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 97.

  26. 26.

    Ibid,. 39.

  27. 27.

    Gill and Scharff, “New Femininities”; Sue Jackson and Tiina Vares, “‘Too Many Bad Role Models for Us Girls’: Girls, Female Pop Celebrities and ‘Sexualization,’” Sexualities 18, no. 4 (2015): 480–98.

  28. 28.

    It is relevant to note that as I have not included season 5 in my analysis, I am not commenting on Chrishell’s queer relationship with Australian musician G Flip.

  29. 29.

    Beverley Skeggs, Formations of Class and Gender (California: Sage Publications, 1997), 57.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 62.

  31. 31.

    Valerie Walkerdine, “Reclassifying Upward Mobility: Femininity and the Neo-Liberal Subject,” Gender and Education 15, no. 3 (2003): 237–48.

  32. 32.

    Chrishell is of mixed-race background as her father is half-Japanese and half-Spanish.

  33. 33.

    Patricia Hill Collins, “Gender, Black Feminism, and Black Political Economy,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 568, no. 1 (2000): 41–53; Iron Ware, Beyond the Pale White Women, Racism, and History (London: Verso, 1992).

  34. 34.

    Jess Butler, “For White Girls Only? Postfeminism and the Politics of Inclusion,” Feminist Formations 25, no. 1 (2013): 35–58.

  35. 35.

    Martina Cvajner, “Hyper-Femininity as Decency: Beauty, Womanhood and Respect in Emigration,” Ethnography 12, no. 3 (2011): 356–74.

  36. 36.

    Kaplan and Illouz, “What Is Sexual Capital?” 93.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 106.

  38. 38.

    Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin, “Sex Object and Sexy Subjects: A Feminist Reclamation of Sexiness,” in Body Aesthetics, ed. Sherri Irvin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 310.

  39. 39.

    Sarah Riley, Adrienne Evans, and Martine Robson, Postfeminism and Health Critical Psychology and Media Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2019).

  40. 40.

    Laura Favaro and Rosalind Gill, “‘Pump Up the Positivity’ Neoliberalism, Affective Entrepreneurship and the Victimhood/Agency Debate,” in Re-Writing Women as Victims: From Theory to Practice, ed. María José Gámez Fuentes, Sonia Núñez Puente, and Emma Gómez Nicolau (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020), 153–66.

  41. 41.

    Ringrose, “Slut-Shaming,” 335.

  42. 42.

    Mahalia Ayana Little, “Why Don’t We Love These Hoes? Black Women, Popular Culture, and the Contemporary Hoe Archetype,” in Black Female Sexualities, ed. T. Melancon and J. T. Braxton (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015), 89–99.

  43. 43.

    Kathy Deliovsky, “Normative White Femininity: Race, Gender and the Politics of Beauty,” Atlantis. Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice 33, no. 1 (2008): 49–59.

  44. 44.

    Gill, “Postfeminist Media,” 152.

  45. 45.

    Beverly Skeggs, Class, Self, Culture (London: Routledge, 2004).

  46. 46.

    Michelle M. Lazar, “‘Seriously Girly Fun!’: Recontextualising Aesthetic Labour as Fun and Play in Cosmetics Advertising,” in Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism, ed. Ana Sofia Elias, Rosalind Gill, and Christina Scharff (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 51–66.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 59.

  48. 48.

    ‘The Cat Lady’ is in reference to the American socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, known for her extensive cosmetic surgery that has resulted in her catlike appearance. It is notable that in S5, Christine also states to having had a liposuction procedure as part of her c-section.

  49. 49.

    Gill, “Postfeminist Media,” 155.

  50. 50.

    Susie Orbach, “Foreword: The Making of the Body,” in New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity, ed. Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), vii–x.

  51. 51.

    Eileen Otis, “Hourly Beauty: Aesthetic Labor in China,” in The Routledge Companion to Beauty Politics, ed. Maxine Leeds Craig (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), 336–46.

  52. 52.

    Abigail Brooks, “‘Under the Knife and Proud of It’: An Analysis of the Normalization of Cosmetic Surgery,” Critical Sociology 30, no. 2 (2004): 207–39.

  53. 53.

    Lin Bailey Christine Griffin, and Avi Shankar, “‘Not a Good Look’: Impossible Dilemmas for Young Women Negotiating the Culture of Intoxication in the United Kingdom,” Substance Use Misuse 50, no. 6 (2015): 747–58. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2015.978643.

  54. 54.

    Herminia Ibarra and Jennifer L. Petriglieri, “Impossible Selves: Image Strategies and Identity Threat in Professional Women’s Career Transitions,” INSEAD Working Paper 12 (2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2742061.

  55. 55.

    Marie Carrier-Moisan, “‘Putting Femininity to Work’: Negotiating Hypersexuality and Respectability in Sex Tourism, Brazil,” Sexualities 18, no. 4 (2015): 499–518.

  56. 56.

    It is pertinent to note several jokes Christine has made throughout the show about marrying for money and being able to do so because of her looks (see S2E4).

  57. 57.

    Kaplan and Illouz, “What Is Sexual Capital?” 57.

  58. 58.

    Paasonen et al., “Objectification,” 106.

  59. 59.

    Kaplan and Illouz, “What Is Sexual Capital?” 106–7.

  60. 60.

    Karen Wilkes, “Colluding with Neo-Liberalism: Post-Feminist Subjectivities, Whiteness and Expressions of Entitlement,” Feminist Review 110, no. 1 (2014): 18–33.

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  1. Department of Political and Administration Science, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Silvia Díaz Fernández

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Correspondence to Silvia Díaz Fernández .

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  1. College of English and Media, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

    Ellie Tomsett

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

    Nathalie Weidhase

  3. College of English and Media, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

    Poppy Wilde

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Díaz Fernández, S. (2024). Selling Sunset… and My Postfeminist Sexual Capital: New Sexual Subjectivities in Reality TV. In: Tomsett, E., Weidhase, N., Wilde, P. (eds) Working Women on Screen. Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49576-2_3

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