‘All-action hero’ or ‘Slap in the face for womankind’? Discursive representations of Angelina Jolie following her prophylactic bilateral mastectomy

Abstract

When Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie underwent a prophylactic mastectomy, public demands for human tumour suppressor gene BRCA1 testing almost doubled (Evans & Howell, 2015). This paper explores the discursive positioning of Jolie following her procedure in 20 UK newspaper articles using Foucauldian discourse analysis. Jolie was positioned within the discourse in two different ways: the ‘she-ro’ (an agentic decision maker who saved countless lives), and a ‘selfish attention seeker’ (a needy and melodramatic woman who unnecessarily invokes public paranoia and panic). A third (implied) subject position that was identified in the data is the ‘silent and dignified’ post-mastectomy woman who doesn’t need to ‘shout it from the rooftops’. I argue that these subject positions may serve to silence the lived experience of many prophylactic mastectomy patients and render invisible the suffering that some women can experience post-surgery. This implies that counselling and educational services for women who are considering (or who have undergone) prophylactic mastectomy are essential. To conclude, avenues for future research are suggested.