The Recappables: Exploring a Feminist Approach to Criticism

Abstract

This article argues that television recaps are a unique critical genre that provide uncommon attention to women-targeted content. As an episodic form of critical engagement, recaps provide new opportunities for emerging female writers and writers of color to comment upon television’s representational challenges and successes. As women-targeted media gains new traction in the marketplace, recaps can not only be an important vehicle for needed commentary about undervalued content, but they also may serve as a marker of the value of these programs for a historically underserved audience. Featuring interviews with five recappers and two editors from major entertainment-focused publications including The AV Club, Vulture, Vox, Hello Beautiful, Go Fug Yourself and Buzzfeed, this article explores the recap as a distinct genre with feminist potential to elevate new voices, to disrupt traditional taste hierarchies, and to embrace pleasure as a measure of quality.