coms4606

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“With strong women characters still a minority in contemporary mainstream cinema, popular dance films provide viewers with female lead characters with which some women can actively identify. These movies provide a “fantasy of achievement” (McRobbie 1997) in a culture where it is very difficult to succeed not only as a dancer, but also as a woman.” (Boyd, p 80)

The reading by Boyd focussed on representations of race and gender in teen dance movies. She argued that women in films are often featured as sidekicks, with the plot revolving around a male lead character instead of a female, or they are included merely for their looks or to have sex with the male lead character. Women of colour face even worse treatment, as they are usually just treated like sex objects rather than actual people. This is a real problem for young girls today, as ever growing media consumption means that media is more and more important for how people are socialized and learn behaviours, attitudes, and values. By limiting the roles that women can play in movies and television shows, girls do not see themselves represented accurately in the media, and they may come to believe that their lives and experiences take a backseat to those of men. I chose this quote from the article as I had never heard of the “fantasy of achievement” before and I think it’s an interesting idea. Movies with strong female leads give girls and women role models to look up to and identify with. Even though we know movies are not based in reality, seeing a woman succeed in any context is a really rewarding feeling and can have powerful impacts on the audience. By showing audiences women who achieve their goals and perhaps break away from stereotypical gender roles, we are taught that maybe we can be like the women we look up to. I think this is a powerful idea and we need more strong female characters in all types of media. For my example, I thought back to some of the books and movies and television shows I liked when I was growing up and tried to think of a strong female character who was able to succeed. Hermione from the Harry Potter series came to mind instantly, and I think she has been a role model for many young girls all over the world. Throughout the books/movies she proved to be smart, strong, brave, and always stuck by her morals and beliefs even when it was hard to do so. She was often more knowledgeable than her male peers and always just as brave and adventurous. She was never sexualized or trivialized because of her gender, and she always succeeded when she set her mind to something. Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione, has also proven to be an incredible woman through her activism. She promotes women’s rights and works with the UN to promote gender equality. I think the fact that such a strong actress played such a strong character makes her a doubly amazing role model for women and men alike. She has provided a “fantasy of achievement” through her role as Hermione and her real life activism that shows women it is possible to succeed in a male dominated world.

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“The bourgeoisie also found a new function for images: the political and civic education of the people. They took advantage of celebrations and the anniversaries of battles and patriotic dates to make drawings and engravings that played on emotional content and the power of suggestive political symbolism that went beyond the actual portrayal.” (Martin-Barbero, p 110)

The reading that this quote is from discussed how iconography started to be used differently in the 16th and 17th centuries. New technologies meant that disseminating engravings and images was easier than ever, and the Church was beginning to allow the dissemination of secular images. Images about everyday life and mythology began to be sold to the masses instead of just religious imagery. This constituted an important change, as images could be used to educate people about areas of life other than religion, and this quote mentions how images were used to teach the masses about politics. I chose this quote as images still play such an important role in politics today. Between newspaper comics, political talk shows, and debates between candidates, imagery and media are used to give people information about political candidates and their platforms. While I agree with the quote about the importance of images in the political realm, I disagree that people are being educated by these images. The 2016 American presidential election was something of a joke and refutes the idea that people are being educated by political imagery. The debates between Clinton and Trump in the fall of 2016 were particularly disappointing. The idea behind political debates is for voters to see the candidates have an intellectual and educational discussion about their policies and beliefs so that they can make an informed decision about who to vote for, but the 2016 presidential debates were spectacles designed to get large audiences. Lots of people I know tuned in just so that they could make ridiculous drinking games based on what Clinton and Trump were saying, or so that they could understand the memes that flooded social media in the following days. Images are important to politics in that they draw large crowds and get people to pay attention to the candidates, but they no longer serve as an educational tool. Imagery is useful in eliciting emotional responses in people and I think that emotion has largely replaced information in the political world today. Trump successfully used social media and news outlets to make outrageously racist and sexist claims, and he was able to win over working class Americans by playing on xenophobic fears about jobs and terrorism. I chose to use memes for this example as so many memes were made during the election, and particularly following the debates. A lot of the memes made fun of Clinton and Trump and portrayed them as incompetent and disliked. I think it’s interesting how many Americans seemed to funnel their fears about the outcome of the election into memes and other forms of mockery which did nothing to change the outcome of the election. I believe that the focus on imagery in politics today means that people do not know how to become engaged in the political process. Because of this, when faced with candidates they did not like, Americans took to the internet to make fun of them rather than do anything productive about it.

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“Respectability was at its core a gendered concept. Middle-class women, particularly as wives and mothers, carried designations of respectability.” (Butsch, p 375)

This quote comes from Butsch’s reading about how the theatre changed from a male dominated space to a female dominated space throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Theatres in the early 1800s were not the elegant spaces that we see them as today. The men in the audience threw things on the stage, brought prostitutes, drank, and were loud and rowdy. This gradually changed as rules were introduced which prohibited these behaviours, and the theatre was rebranded as a feminine and child-friendly space. By making the theatre a place meant for middle and upper class women, they became spaces of respectability. I chose this quote because I find it really interesting how being respectable was something that had to do with gender. When I first read this I found it a strange idea: how can being a respectable (e.g. appropriate, proper, conforming, dignified) person be associated with gender? Isn’t it something that anyone can strive for? But the more I thought about it, the more I could see this idea still present in our society. There is a huge double standard that exists between how men are “supposed” to act versus how women are “supposed” to act. This is especially obvious when looking at norms surrounding sexuality. Men are often congratulated and seen as successful when they have sex with lots of different women, but when women have sex with lots of different men they are considered sluts and are treated badly by both men and other women. The fact that men and women are treated so differently for doing the exact same thing plays into the idea of respectability as a gendered concept, as it is obvious that women have a stricter set of rules governing what they are allowed to do while still being seen as people worthy of respect. The example I have chosen highlights this unfair double standard regulating women’s sexuality. My example is J Lo’s music video for her song “I Luh Ya Papi”, which pokes fun at norms surrounding men’s and women’s roles in music videos. The video begins with J Lo and some friends discussing what they should do for the music video. A man from the record company gives ideas, such as shooting the video at a waterpark or a carnival. The woman are not pleased with the ideas, and comment on the fact that if J Lo was a male artist the music video would just be full of naked women and alcohol. One of the women comments that women are constantly being objectified, so they should reverse roles and objectify men instead. The music video is full of men doing things that women traditionally do in music videos, such as showering, washing cars, sleeping in a big pile on a bed, dancing and drinking on a boat, and they are scantily clad while doing so. While making a music video that switches around traditional gender roles does not fix the problem, I think it is interesting and important that a very popular and well known woman has addressed the issue and made a music video that parodies this problem. 

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“Clearly, just as Ebony pointed out a decade earlier, the supposed childlike desire to indulge beyond one’s means was said to be an indicator of an inherent weakness of African Americans. It allowed for a blame-the-victim logic in which economic lack was the outcome not of institutionalized racism, but of personal mismanagement of finances.” (Packer, p 207)

This reading by Packer was a super interesting look at black versus white Cadillac ownership and how the meaning of this car differed depending on the race of the driver. White Cadillac ownership meant that the driver was successful; they had money, a good job, and they solidified their reputation by owning a nice car. Black Cadillac ownership was viewed much differently, though; black Cadillac drivers were believed to be criminals, to have acquired their cars by illegal means, and they were seen as using their car to show off an unnecessarily flashy and excessive lifestyle. This dichotomy between black and white owners was fuelled by racist beliefs surrounding who should get to be seen as successful versus who does not deserve to be successful, as well as by the idea that white consumption is good and black consumption is bad. I chose this quote specifically because I like the fact that it mentions the “blame-the-victim logic”, in which people who are victims of racism are told that their hardships are their own fault, instead of the fault of the country/government that has worked to keep them impoverished and second class. The example I chose to go along with this quote has to do with instances of young men stealing, and sometimes murdering for, expensive sneakers (e.g. Nikes and Jordans). While this problem isn’t as prevalent today as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, it is still something that we hear about in the news from time to time and it’s still being written about by people interested in examining some of the issues underlying this phenomenon. While both white and black kids are involved in the theft of sneakers and other sportswear, the media focusses largely on black kids. In doing so, though, they do not look at issues of institutionalized racism, or poverty, or a lack of social programs available for inner city kids. They instead focus on demonizing black youth and the basketball and hip hop culture surrounding the sneakers. I specifically chose this article because the author tried to look at some of the underlying issues, such as “class, race, capitalism, and media constituencies” (Tang, 2015) rather than the typical “blame-the-victim logic”. Just as with the example of Cadillac ownership, black consumption is seen as negative. Instead of seeing sneaker theft as a symptom of a society in which black youth often “feel they have no options, no opportunities” (Tang, 2015), people blame the victim and do not bother to investigate the underlying issues. 

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“Susan Douglas suggests that celebrity culture’s “ideal women” are independent- they have their own professions, money, and sources of success- and yet are completely reliant on the love and approval of men.” (Leppert, p 22)

This quote comes from Leppert’s discussion about the Kardashian women and how they are successful businesswomen, yet still seem obsessed with traditional gender roles. Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney especially embody these gender roles, as they are obsessed with marriage and pregnancy and childrearing in the television show. I think that this quote applies to all women, not just celebrities, as women in all stages of life are expected to embody contradicting roles. Men do not want women that are going to rely on them financially and be burdensome, but they still want women that they can control. The postfeminist ideal that is promoted in today’s society encourages women to seek individual empowerment while choosing to be hypersexualized objects. This creates problems, as individual empowerment means that women are not banding together to further women’s place in society, and sexualizing women reinforces the idea that women are valuable only for their bodies. In addition to shows like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”, many other shows and movies reinforce this problematic view of “ideal women”. The example I chose to go with this quote is one of the most important scenes from the 1999 movie “10 Things I Hate About You” (directed by Gil Junger). While this is not a super current movie, I know a lot of girls my age and a little older grew up watching this movie, and I know it is one of my favourites. While I do love this movie, it unfortunately demonstrates how the quote from Leppert’s reading can be applied to women from all different walks of life. While Leppert was focussing on celebrities in her article, the idea of the ideal woman, who is outwardly independent while still seeking the validation and approval of men, can be seen in this teen film. The main character, Kat, is a tough and mean high school girl who has no interest in boys or dating at the beginning of the film. The boys in her high school are actually scared of her. This changes throughout the movie because of a ploy to get Kat to date so that her younger sister can also have a boyfriend. By the end of the movie she is head over heels in love with Patrick and this culminates in the scene where she reads her poem about him aloud in class and breaks down in tears, revealing that her tough girl attitude is just a façade, and deep down she really is just a girl looking for love. While Kat’s independence doesn’t stem from money or success as Leppert speaks about in her article, she did have her own kind of independence, one that was very outwardly visible and important to her in the film. Patrick liked her independent nature, yet worked to get her to fall in love with him and therefore lose some of her independence. The scene from the movie that I’ve shown here is so important because by breaking down in tears in front of her classmates, Kat admits that she is in love and essentially trades her all-important reputation as a tough girl for the love and attention of Patrick. This movie seems to speak to the importance of women’s empowerment and independence, but this ideal falls apart at the end of the movie when Kat trades her reputation for a boy.