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Book review: Urban Hacking: Culture Jamming Strategies in the Risky Spaces of Modernity edited by Gunther Friesinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner and Thomas Ballhausen

discussion of the patriarchal and racist systems that support and celebrate such cultural expressions. She challenges our complacency with Hollywood films, such as The Help, that offer ‘revisionist stories of this country’s complex and painful racial history,’ yet are celebrated as progressive and diverse representations (p. 208). The problem is not our pleasure in these texts, as she champions the escape and joy that comes with popular culture. The problem is our willingness to simply accept these narrow and regressive stories as ‘progressive’ rather than using them as a space to discuss issues of identity, history, and politics. She also challenges the idea that popular culture is ‘just entertainment’ that does not really matter to political discourse. Instead, she connects these seemingly ‘lesser’ topics of popular culture to the larger political war against women, suggesting that issues like the fight over reproductive rights, violence against women, lack of equal pay and maternity leave are nourished by our uncritical view of popular culture. She says, ‘a culture that treats women as objects, that gleefully supports entertainment that is more often demeaning of a woman’s autonomy and personal space, is the same culture that elects state law makers who work tirelessly to enact restrictive abortion legislation’ (p. 190). At the same time, she also clearly argues that denying one’s own pleasure in these popular cultural forms does not make them go away or solve the problem of patriarchy. Rather, Gay’s essays reveal that dealing with the messy and complex culture in which these forms, and our pleasure in them, exist is paramount to the feminist project. While not strictly a scholarly text, Gay draws from critical cultural studies, feminist theory, literary theory, and media studies in her examination of everything from The Hunger Games and stand-up comedy to reproductive rights debates and police brutality. The accessible and timely nature of her discussions make this book ideal for undergraduates in courses dealing with identity and culture, and indeed, since its publication, it has been assigned as required reading for incoming freshman across American universities. While some of the references will undoubtedly become dated – a hazard of writing on popular culture – the broader connections between the personal and the political and her call to engage with the contradictions of culture will continue to resonate.