"Popular culture" is a complex social system and this course concentrates on its visual manifestations in various media. We focus on women as signs or emblems, as producers, and as consumers, of "popular culture", but attention is also given to the representation of masculinity and of race/ethnicity. Mainstream and marginal, appropriated and subverting, reflective and formative, "popular culture" is both a multivalent signifying system and a powerful industry. After a brief thematic introduction to gender, and to analysis, we focus on contemporary American culture, examining such examples as advertising and consumption; Barbie dolls; parental roles in film and advertising; romance in fiction and films like the classics, Pretty Woman and Titanic; and the male "buddy" system in action movies alongside the female friend in other films. Estimated Material Cost: $50 or more, but lessthan $100. IV. 4