Review
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Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
A Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art
of the Essay
One of 's "Best Books of 2017: Nonfiction"
One of iBook's "Best Books of August"
One of Publishers Weekly's "Books of the Week"
"Carina Chocano's You Play the Girl reads like a war cry. With
dazzling clarity, her commentary exposes the subliminal sexism on
our pages and screens."
—O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
"If Hollywood's of women leaves you wanting, you'll
find good, heady company in Carina Chocano's essay collection,
You Play the Girl. Why, Chocano asks, does the ingenue have to
choose between marriage and death?"
—ELLE
"In Carina Chocano’s whip-smart new book You Play The Girl: On
Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed
Messages, she analyzes the 'girls' of pop culture across the
decades, from Bewitched to contestants on The Bachelor (and its
fictional counterpart, UnREAL) to the princesses of
Frozen. Through cultural commentary mixed with personal
reflections, Chocano explores the ways on-screen women have
influenced her life and the way she sees the world. A-."
—ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, "Best New Books"
"Brilliant and inful...You Play the Girl stands apart from
others in the genre [...] by dissecting pop culture through the
lens of a mother watching her young girl try to make sense of the
world. The result is a heartfelt look at the complicated messages
women receive, and argues that gut feelings about these messages
should be carefully examined. Chocano persuades the reader that
the media we absorb around us does matter, and shapes how we feel
about ourselves. And she deftly shows how books, TV, and film
that have been labeled “empowering” for women [...] often have
hidden agendas."
—PLAYBOY
“The cultural formulas that Chocano identifies are frustrating,
but her readings don’t deny them their fun…In the tradition of a
long line of women writers, Chocano wants to make sense of this
sort of enchantment and understand what kind of education it is
offering up, and to whom.”
—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"Three sentences into You Play the Girl I already felt like
cheering. Carina Chocano is a first-rate cultural critic whose
specialty is constructing dead-on feminist analyses of such
sinister artifacts as the relentless 'Frozen' and the various
horrifying iterations of Barbie. Chocano is unusually skilled at
dismantling the toxic underpinnings of such pop-culture
mainstays, motivated in part by her desire to help her young
daughter confront 'a world that literally never stops yelling at
her that her primary value is sexual.' And Chocano demolishes the
dismal shibboleth that feminists can’t be funny, wielding
abundant wit with a devastating sardonic edge."
—WASHINGTON POST
"Reading Carina Chocano is like listening to a smart friend
think out loud [...] [You Play the Girl is] a ruefully funny
collection."
—FILM QUARTERLY
"Chocano's book is funny and exasperating and full of
revelations and epiphanies...If being a woman means being
obligated to play a game you can't win because the rules keep
changing (and not arbitrarily), Chocano's book is something you'd
be behooved to read while you catch your breath between rounds of
disorienting blows to the head."
—LA WEEKLY
"Pop-culture critic Carina Chocano’s smart, colorful, and
compelling collection of essays, You Play the Girl, unpacks the
ways movies, TV, and advertising sculpt perceptions of who and
what women can and cannot be. Chocano achieves the right mix
between personal essay and clear-eyed criticism, between high
culture and low (discussion of Virginia Woolf leads into the
'Ghostbusters' reboot and the attendant trolls). We get a sense
of her formative pop-culture experiences ('The Philadelphia
Story'; 'Bewitched'; 'Flashdance') as well as dips into feminist
history and the tension between being yourself and being a person
people are comfortable with. 'You could choose to be a person or
you could choose to be loved,' Chocano writes. It is not a
pessimistic collection, but it shows that the myths and
narratives of female identity are still in place and largely
shaped by men."
—THE BOSTON GLOBE
"[A] memoir/pop culture takedown of the way women are
characterized by the media...The author is both a brilliant,
funny analyst, and a terrific yarn-spinner...razor-sharp."
—LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
"If you're ever at a party with author and former BUST columnist
Carina Chocano, sit down next to her. In her first book of
essays, the pop-culture critic tells her story of girlhood
through the lens of the films and TV shows that made her realize
she never actually wanted to play 'the girl'...Chocano's life
advice doubles as a recommendations list....What makes Chocano so
enjoyable to read is that, for better or worse, she revels in
what she watched as a kid, and she'd like other women to do the
same."
—BUST
"Pop culture critic Carina Chocano understands that how women
are represented in movies, TV shows, books, memes, and music is
reflective of how they’re treated in real life. That’s the
driving force of her witty essay collection...In You Play the
Girl, Chocano examines everything from Pretty
Woman to Frozen to I Dream of Jeannie, and makes it clear that
although women are bombarded with imagery that may be warped, we
have the fortitude to dictate who we are outside of who we’re
told to be."
—BITCH MAGAZINE, "10 Books You Must Read in August"
“A look at how popular culture depicts women through the eyes of
a critic looking out for her daughter. You’ll never see Alice in
Wonderland, My Best Friend’s Wedding or Frozen the same way.”
—JAKE TAPPER, for PARADE, "JAKE TAPPER PICKS 3 BOOKS HE LOVES"
"One of the smartest collections of essays in a year where smart
essays were queen of writing, Chocano examines the mixed messages
that are a part of every American woman’s upbringing. Whether
analyzing the appellation 'train wreck' to a number of female
celebrities who have been through public mental issues, to
the constant presence of the madonna/whore complex adapted for
new times, Chocano provides much to chew on in this thoughtful
series of essays on gender."
—SIGNATURE READS, "24 Best Books to Gift to the Strong Feminist
in Your Life"
"Chocano brings to bear her experience as a widely published
journalist and critic (of books and film) in this collection of
essays examining what it has meant to be the 'girl' through
decades of pop culture, from Playboy magazine to Thelma and
Louise to Frozen. It's not exactly news that women are most often
relegated to secondary character status - reactors rather than
actors - but Chocano's mix of memoir, humor, and in
nevertheless strikes chords."
—OMNIVORACIOUS (The Book Review), "The Best Nonfiction of August"
"'The girl' is not something that Chocano will abide without a
fight, which is exactly why she's written the book on why it's
time for the trope to retire. You Play The Girl rattles the cage
of how female characters have long been typecast within
inherently sexist plot lines. Over the pages of Chocano's essay
collection, she digs into the stories we’re used to seeing
Hollywood produce, year after ear, and applies a critical lens to
the subject matter that will make you, dear reader, see it in a
way that you never have before."
—REFINERY 29
"In You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train
Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages, Carina Chocano expertly dissects
the identity of 'the girl.' Chocano shows us how from the second
we’re born, we’re told what girls are and aren’t — and how those
messages shape our identity whether we want them to or not. Come
for the pop culture references, stay for the deep discussion
about how complex women actually are IRL vs. on the screen."
—HELLO GIGGLES, "8 new memoirs that you need on your nightstand"
"Longtime arts critic Carina Chocano's incisive, hilarious, and
timely take on the depiction of women and girls in pop culture
manages to be both deeply personal and universally relevant. With
keen in and biting humor, Chocano assesses the relative
impact of various female archetypes—and delivers an explosive
critique of sexism and the power of mass media. You Play the
Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks & Other
Mixed Messages is like a long talk with your smartest, most
impassioned friend."
—iBOOKS, Best Books of August
"Chocano draws out brilliant ins from across the
decades...witty and sharp...[Chocano] weaves her observations
into a fascinating history of women’s economic and social
progress."
—THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK)
"Whip-smart...Remarkably comprehensive and enjoyably
associative, the essays move quickly from the haunting
performances of French actress Isabelle Adjani to The Real
Housewives of Beverly Hills, Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie as
allegories for the potential of powerful women to 'wreck
civilization'...Incisive and witty...these essays will appeal to
anyone interested in how women’s stories are told."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review
"[Chocano] interweaves relevant personal stories from her
childhood and adult experiences with and entertaining and
inful review of female characters from the last 50 years of
pop culture, including television, film and literature. Chocano
not only looks back at her own experiences, she also writes
emotionally about the realities of the world that her young
daughter faces today. Each piece combines numerous,
well-connected examples from the author’s extensive knowledge of
pop culture, with an analysis of a theme related to the various
aspects of women’s lives: work, relationships, marriage,
sexuality, motherhood, and even math. As a result, the essays
have a sound research foundation and are well documented.
VERDICT: This entertaining, engaging, enlightening tour of the
portrayal of women in pop culture will appeal to general readers
and researchers in a variety of cross-disciplinary fields."
—LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review
"A sharply perceptive look at the myths that constrain women."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
"You Play the Girl by Carina Chocano blew my mind. Like a
goldfish realizing that water existed, I instantly came alive to
the air and the atmosphere of how my Otherness informed my
girlhood. Each and every message of being asked to stand still so
that I could be seen by the cultural product of male-made
entertainment made me scream with re. In particular, the
Flashdance chapter time-travelled me back to my youth, but
holding hands with a clear-eyed, brilliant, hilarious friend.
Re-looking at Stepford Wives, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and
all of the other hypnotic suggestions about my supposed
woman-hood made me feel alive and energized and ready to topple
the patriarchy. The world is changing for women and girls and
here is one of the first steps—going back to do archaeology about
what the heck happened to us, how we got colonized. If
information is power, You Play the Girl is a superpower."
—JILL SOLOWAY, writer, director, and creator of "Transparent"
"Carina Chocano is a brilliant thinker, a dazzling stylist and
an intellectual in the truest sense of the word. An important
critical work as well as an entertaining personal story, You Play
the Girl looks at old archetypes in new and often astonishingly
inful ways and establishes Chocano as a unique talent and
crucial voice in the cultural conversation."
—MEGHAN DAUM, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of
Discussion
"Carina Chocano unearths the little horrors of our culture's
pervasive, insidious sexism in essays so brilliant and witty
you'll wish her book would never end. Chocano is one of our
sharpest, most original cultural observers, and You Play the
Girl is as engrossing as it is unforgettable."
—HEATHER HAVRILESKY, author of How to Be a Person in the World
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About the Author
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CARINA CHOCANO is a contributing writer to the New York Times
Magazine. Her writing has also appeared in Vogue, Elle, Rolling
Stone, and many other publications. A former staff film and TV
critic at the Los Angeles Times, she has been a TV and book
critic at Entertainment Weekly and a staff writer at Salon. She
lives in Los Angeles.
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