Gender and Popular Culture Seminar

Last week in Snuggie News

2009-04-30T13:51:00.001-05:00

There was a Snuggie pub crawl in Seattle.

neoliberalism

2009-04-30T06:30:00.001-05:00

1. Neoliberalism and the family – Ron Becker (2006) stated that “…neoliberalism overburdens the heterosexual nuclear family both ideologically and materially”, which in turn translates into primetime television with shows such as Supernanny that promote the ideology of the nuclear family consisting of a biological male father, a biological female mother and their child(ren) all because society believes that the heterosexual family is “in crisis” (p. 183). Are same-sex families the sole cause of this alleged “threat?”
To place the blame solely on same-sex families as being the reason why heterosexual families are in jeopardy is laughable. Laughable because “…gays and lesbians are certainly convenient scapegoats,” which diverts people’s attention from the facts (Becker, p. 183). Let us take a brief journey through American history to figure out why the heterosexual family is really losing its once highly regarded societal value. During the colonial era, European-American families were dependent on there being a mother, father and multiple children in order to work the land so as to survive, thus it made sense for the majority of the families to be headed by heterosexual couples because reproduction was vital to their survival and lesbian and gay couples have no way to reproduce between themselves. Even with the institution of slavery, heterosexual families were still “necessary” because the land was passed down from generation to generation and their children, girls especially, were married off into equally wealthy if not wealthier families to preserve and increase their familial wealth. Fast forward a bit to the twentieth century and we find that suddenly the divorce rates increase drastically. Why is this? For one, there was World War I and World War II, which meant that millions of men were drafted in order to “protect and serve” their country. Logically, the same number of men that left for these wars was not the same number of men who returned home. During this time, the men that served in the First World War and were lucky enough to return home suffered from post-traumatic stress, leaving their wives feeling as if a complete stranger had returned home. The same can be said for the husbands returning home after the Second World War except that more women were asked to fill the jobs vacated by men because they were needed to fight in the war. Women gained a new sense-of-self and realized that they could do more than just keep a house and raise their children; they could be productive members of society within the workforce. So, in addition to not being able to reconnect with their husbands because of their post-traumatic stress disorder, another contributing factor to the rise in divorce rates was that people were living a lot longer than their colonial predecessors. A longer lifespan meant that that increased the amount of time people could get on each other nerves, hence higher divorce rates! Since the social stigma that once came with getting a divorce is virtually non-existent, it has become that much easier and acceptable for married couples to get a divorce as people see it as being “no big deal.” Finally, the newer generations (generations ‘Y’ and ‘Z’) no longer see the appeal to get married because there is no longer a need to do so in order to survive and the celebrities they idolize, who serve as role models, are continuously heard saying that a couple can be just as committed, if not more, than those couples who are legally married and recognized by their state of residency. In the end then, the alleged “danger” same-sex couples present to the institution of marriage takes a back seat to the issues stated above.

2. Self Responsibility – In Laurie Ouellette’s (2008) research, she chose the television show Judge Judy because it was an example of “a neoliberal technology of everyday citizenship, and shows how it attempts to shape and guide the conduct and choices of lower-income women in particular” (p. 140). In her analysis, Ouellette states that while there are other shows that pass judgment on women for poor life decisions, they are not as highly regarded as Judge Judy because the “carnivalesque” nature commonly associated with Jerry Springer is absent. The main difference between Jude Judy and lower-class talk shows is that at the end of each case, one person is found guilty while the other is vindicated of any wrong doing. How is that really all that different if one takes place in a courtroom and the other on a stage?
To say that Judge Judy is above stooping to the same tactics that Jerry Springer or The Maury Show uses is incorrect. Yes she may be an actual judge and has the authority to find someone legally right or wrong, that does not mean that her show is better than any other daytime show whose ratings rely on using people’s problems for their own self promotion. The reason that Judge Sheindlin was offered the job of hosting the show was because of her “no-nonsense attitude” and outspokenness, are those not gimmicks corporations use to exploit and profit off of? Yes. So again, does throwing a robe on someone make her show more socially valuable than Jerry Springer or The Maury Show? Not really. One could make the argument that compared to Oprah, Judge Judy becomes the show that tosses and airs guests’ dirty laundry just for the sake of public condemnation. Which brings me to my other point, whereas the previously mentioned shows are in the business of airing those stories that are more scandalous, the hosts are trying to help all parties involved make amends and avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Judge Judy scolds those who need the help of the court to solve their problems, but without those social degenerates her show and profession would not be needed. So, do you condemn the very people who are providing you with a paycheck or do you realize that while there are some people who make mistakes that others would know better than to make, that not everyone is perfect, including Judge Judy herself.
3. ‘Metrosexual’ in review – Katherine Sender’s (2006) article states that the original meaning for the term ‘metrosexual’ meant any male narcissistic consumer but today has taken on a new “more positive description of a sensitive, girl- and gay-friendly straight man…” (p. 144). Is this new definition really accurate though?
I argue that it is not. I believe that the original definition still applies to today’s metrosexual as the main principle of being a metrosexual is any man who not only takes more time in preparing his daily appearance, but in order to do so must participate as a consumer on a higher level than those men who are not metrosexuals. To say that today’s metrosexual is more “girl- and gay-friendly” is a bit presumptuous since a metrosexual can still be homophobic and a womanizer. Then again, I am thinking about the men that I know who fit this category but are African-American. Which then leads me to ask are there different conceptualizations for men of different ethnicities? I just automatically assume that whenever the subject of metrosexuality comes up, that they are talking about a white male. This is probably because whenever discussing some social aspect, we always talk about it within or in comparison to mainstream society, which is white culture. How does thinking about metrosexuality with regards to African-American men change anything, if at all? Again, I think that the original definition applies more so than the new one. Some could argue that because of slavery and the lasting affects it has had on African Americans, we are more likely to be concerned with our physical appearance, hence we are more likely to spend money on name brand clothing. So, with relation to African American men and metrosexuality, it could be said that African American men are metrosexuals because they are narcissistic consumers who are more concerned with what label is on their clothing, what type of car they drive and what type of hairstyle they are “rocking” at any given time. The newer definition cannot be applied so easily to them because African American men are presented as being extremely homophobic so they would not go out of their way to be nice to a gay male or polite when coming into contact with a gale male unintentionally (restaurant, cashier, etc.).
　
　

American Chopper update

2009-04-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

Sarah Palin gets American Chopper!

With Great Neoliberalism Comes Great Responsibility.

2009-04-29T19:54:00.011-05:00

Supernanny: "I'm living clip-art"

Becker makes it clear that the 20th century saw the placement of increasing responsibility on the nuclear family to be self-sufficient while governmental services were cut. However, Becker also mentions "out-of-control children and exasperated parents" indicating the stress such responsibility likely causes. Is it possible that the marked decline in married households from 1950-2000 is a conscious backlash against the burdens of atomized parenting? Or is it more likely a symptom of an unrealistic familial ideal? For all the development of the dominance of the heteronormative, neoliberal family, does it seem so unlikely that either nanny show could incorporate a single parent family or *gasp* a two dad/two mom family into the show? What would this say about the desires of commercial culture and the flexibility of neoliberal capitalism?

Ouellette quoted Rose who wrote that people working together for a common national interest has been replaced by the "ideal of citizens seeking to fulfill and protect themselves within a variety of micro-moral domains." (141) Does this view coincide with the "I don't care what you do as long as its in your home and not in public" sentiment that is sometimes used by heteronormative folks to convey a tolerant/progressive stance toward non-heteronormative expression? If so, does this sentiment seem to be more or less prominant than the trend of legislating universal morality as in anti-gay marraige laws? What are the limitations of both of these trends?

It is peculiar that despite all the emphasis on personal responsibility, Ouellette seems to find evidence for dependence on the state by Judy's scolding of un-married cohabitants. Doesn't the emphasis on personal responsibility also seem to contradict the continued support for keeping drugs and prostitution illegal? Doesn't it seem to contradict the fairly widespread support for the proliferation of a surveillance state? (sorry, I can't find the original article) How is it that expectations for personal responsibility seem to be growing at pace with state control over private life?

In Roberts' article in the Postfeminism book, he argues that government is increasingly subject to the interests of capital. Roberts writes, "governmentality [a subset of biopower?] is driven primarily by the agendas and interests of neoliberal capitalism as much as of the state, that indeed, the state and its institutions are increasingly subject to these interests and have taken on an instrumental role in securing them." (lower on 231) my emphasis added. I think it is hard to underestimate the significance of this statement. What does democratic participation/democracy mean when government has "taken an instrumental role in securing" the interests of neoliberal capitalism? The saying "if you don't vote, you can't complain" seems saturated in the personal responsibility exhorted by neoliberalism which, at the same time, substantially restricts the range of choices offered by the democratic system. Such "blame the victim" mentality, emphasis of personal responsibility for the situation in spite of no control over the range of choices/candidates, and denial of any alternative to the situation (contemporary US democracy) all mimic some of the stages in the cycle of abuse.

Everything will be all right. You are in my hands. I am here to protect you. You have nowhere to go. You cannot survive outside the city shell. We only want to help you. This is your last chance. THX 1138

Project presentations for Thurs., 5/7

2009-04-29T10:58:00.002-05:00

As requested, here are some guidelines for the presentation of your research projects in class on Thursday, 5/7. We have approximately 12 minutes per student. That means that you should keep the "presentation" portion to about 5 minutes. During this time, please tell us about the general topic and focus of your paper. If you have an argument worked out by this point (please try to do so!), share it, as well as some of the ways you are supporting that argument with evidence and analysis. If you would like to show us a clip or example from the material you are studying, that is fine, but please keep it very brief, no more than 1 1/2 minutes, so that you have enough time to discuss your ideas. Also please try to make sure your clip or example is loaded onto the computer or otherwise set up before class begins so that we don't have to spend a lot of time waiting for these. The balance of the 12-ish minutes will be spent on q&a and discussion. I'm sure everyone will have questions and comments on all of your great ideas. The whole thing should be relatively informal, and may even prove helpful to you as you finish up your papers. Let me know if you have other questions.

tough love!

2009-04-28T14:42:00.002-05:00

hey everyone,

i remember mara talking about the "tough love" show on vh1 some time ago in class, and i just saw this awesome commentary on it by sarah haskins. check it out!

http://current.com/items/89993567_sarah-haskins-in-target-women-tough-love.htm

my all-time favorite target women is the one called your garden. you can click the following link, and then select your garden from the list of possibilities if you want to watch it.

http://current.com/target-women/new/

ttyls,
susie

Neoliberalism and Post-Feminism

2009-04-26T16:37:00.002-05:00

The Sender article suggested that Queer Eye was potentially subversive in its treatment of white heterosexual masculinity. On page 146, she says that critics of the show failed to see how Queer Eye turned the tables on heterosexual men by forcing them to “work harder, in the ways women and gay men have had to work, in order to get and keep their mate, their job, their class position.” While I take much pleasure whenever the tables can be turned on hegemonic white heterosexual men, I am continually skeptical of situations that use devalued and hence feminized situations, to poke fun at masculinity. Can forcing men to “work harder” in this way really undo what patriarchy has done to instill these ideals in women? Obviously, if you follow the money, the companies that are providing products for this type of consumption are winning, and doesn’t that mean that patriarchy is still in the winning?

It is hard to divorce the ideologies of neoliberalism and post-feminism, especially after reading the Ouellette article. She says that neoliberalism should be understood as the idea that the free market is the best mechanism to organize every detail of social interaction, and the locus of free market power lies in the individual (140). In what ways is this directly related to post-feminist ideology? Did post-feminism and neoliberalism emerge together? Both of these ideologies seem to be of particular advantage to hegemonic masculinity (what a surprise!), because both of them place responsibility for social failures squarely on the shoulders of the individual. I feel like I don’t really need to say how convenient it is for heterosexual white masculinity to have a dominant ideology that blames the downtrodden and marginalized for their plight in life.

A very tricky idea is present in the Roberts article. He says that the goal of the makeover shows, in his case What Not to Wear, is to reveal the more “authentic” self hidden underneath the poorly dressed and inadequately made-up exterior of the participants (237). This idea is problematic for so many reasons. One is because it reinforces the idea that femininity is inherently inferior, and requires constant attention and upkeep. But also because I loathe the word authentic. It’s so subjective and pretentious, and it is so often dispatched by marketers that the word has lost all meaning, if it ever had any. I’m left with the rather hollow feeling that authenticity is inseparable from consumption, at least in the eyes of the mainstream media. We know that authenticity is a mechanism of bourgeoisie class distinction, but what does it say about gender? Is this the fundamental problem of post-feminism? Or, to put it another way, has post-feminist logic managed to solidify consumptionism, sexual objectification, and heteronormativity as “authentically” feminine?

It's Raining Men and the WWF

2009-04-23T11:09:00.007-05:00

At first, I really couldn't get into this weeks reading since I can't relate to the content as I never watched WWF (or now known as WWEF) or to sports. But then I remembered soemthing from y days of working with the resident hall student government. When I was an officer for SHAC, my adviser at the time during meetings would give the WWF belt to an officer on the board that did something special or extraordinary that previous week. We would proudly display the belt at our desk if we were awarded that week. I had no context for WWF as I never watched it, but I did understand from this context that it is something special to be awarded for a special task I accomplished that week.

Now to this weeks readings, I saw a general theme in all the articles is how heterosexual white working men in the United States have entertainment that is directed toward them in the form of meladrama.

The idea of the "crisis of masculinity" is intriguing as it introduces the idea of the response that "masculine" power has when its power is threatened due to forces within culture. Carroll discusses the point that "white injury--phantasmagratphic through it may be--is a phenomenon that attempts to recoup political, economic, and cultural authority" (264). I wonder if the show American Chopper reflects a new type of working man that has not existed in American culture before and what type of men is emerging from the political, economic and cultural forces shaping the discourse surrounding shows such as American Chopper?

The theme of money and economic power is seen in the Carroll article about American Chopper and the Friedman article about sports television and both articles about the WWF. How does economic power for the working men work out in all four of these articles and what are the implications for "white male power" in the United States? Is this similar to what we've discussed with post-feminism and how it is closely tied to consumer and mass culture in the United States? Is sport and popular culture meladrama creating a sense of buying power for men in relation to the topics the articles discuss?

Coming from a blue-collar family and my father as a plumber, I thought many of the points about males finding the place in order to engage in mass culture in acceptable space relevant. I wonder what other contexts can we find this "crisis of masculinity" in current shows and popular culture? Is this shifting with men and women roles changing rapidly in our current economic situation in the United States?

Here are some videos to add some context to the material (at least it helped me as I haven't viewed some of the shows.

Seems Appropriate

2009-04-23T11:03:00.002-05:00

Coming off our discussion of videogames last week, I couldn't help but think of the game MadWorld when reading this week's articles. The clip below seems to encompass themes across all the authors' work. There are commentators, a stereotypic black pimp, and hyper-masculine, muscled white guy, and women as little more than sexual commodities, regardless of the small amount of agency the prostitute shows near the end of the clip. While representationally troubling, I think this reveals how this troubling form of hegemonic masculinity, protected by the guise of post-feminist irony, is systemic in gaming as a medium, in addition to other cultural entertainment forms.

MEN ...

2009-04-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

I agree with Carroll’s general argument that American Chopper presents a version of masculinity that harkens back to before the postindustrial service economy. His article made me think about how quickly culture has transformed for male representation in the media, and the lack of valorization of traditional male roles and masculinity in programming. I have this image of my dad, when I was little, surrounded in our front driveway, with a group of other men, all gathered to look under the hood of my dad’s station wagon. Although Carroll doesn’t mention this specifically, this program also relates to nostalgia for the days when men were valued by society (and also, by women) for their ability to “work with their hands” and “fix things.” From what I recall about the era when my dad had a bunch of cars and car parts laying around our back yard for “weekend projects,” his M-F job as a Math Professor was secondary to this “real work” he did on the weekends, much to my mom’s dismay. In reading about American Chopper, this program taps into this “loss” that white, working-class men have “suffered,” by showing men who are not following prescribed notions of male attributes in the new economy, e.g. no coiffed hair, clean-cut suits or very little attempt to play into new values of the postindustrial consumer culture. The garage itself plays an important part as a cultural signpost whose era has dwindled. The show puts great value on displaying this outmoded type of masculinity, demonstrating exaggerated male attributes (guys throwing stuff and arguing). Is this show successfully creating a temporary and imaginary “home” for contemporary working-class white males to negotiate their identities within a new consumer economy?

In Rose and Friedmans’ article, they make the point that TV sports shows for men serve to embrace the male collective and provide a “vehicle for the utopic imaging” (8), reinforcing masculine ideals, all while showing the tension that masculinity undergoes within a capitalist framework. The authors argue that sports “expose the ideological contradictions of masculine identity,” (11) yet I’m most interested in their brief discussion on the “metadiscourse of sports.” The TV show is just one element of participation, whereas the experience of sports involves immersion and “the fabric” of men’s lives. In this sense, I think sports offers more to men than soaps do to women. First, soap operas present fictional characters – sports offer “real games” played by “real guys,” and men are often viewing in “real time.” For men, “chasing the dream” by vicariously involving oneself in the player’s life, salary, extracurricular activities, and stats, they are able to be more involved with the discourse with other men in the “universe.” (3) In this sense, doesn’t this discursive world offer a sense of power that can build among men, with at least a cultural solidarity that soaps don’t provide for women? Robert Allen argues that the community created is as masculine as the games themselves.

Back to the Carroll article on American Chopper, I found the description of differences in work habits between Senior and Paulie to be particularly interesting. Senior’s “old school” labor habits, e.g. “getting to work and getting the job done on time” vs. Paulie’s pondering, artistic and seemingly lazy approach to work – display a contradiction that mirrors masculine roles in flux. The “older version” of masculinity at the workplace was all about hard work and manual labor, where men worked up a sweat and got dirty, and popped open a beer at the end of the day. The new role of men has increasingly transitioned into valuing a white-collar worker, with clean hands, where labor is often “virtual” -- a few taps a Blackberry, and he’s off having a martini in a posh bar after work. In other words, physical labor is passé, and the contradictions played out between Senior and Paulie bring this tension to the forefront. Is the dominant viewing of this show to one or the other value (father/son) or it is simply reinacting the tension? --- Molly

2009-04-22T11:31:00.000-05:00

1.) Carroll discusses the way ‘Old School’ manual labor is associated with the superiority of masculinity and mental labor is associated with the inferiority of femininity (274). Now, that dichotomy seems to have changed so we culturally associate the mind with masculinity and the body with femininity. How does this switch function hegemonically? When did this reversal take place? How was the association with masculinity and the body different from our current associations with the body and femininity? On another note, can you be masculine and inauthentic? Carroll discusses the biker community’s sentiment that the way the Teutuls assemble from fabricated parts instead of building a bike’s basic components makes their choppers signify leisure, feminized domesticity, and consumption (275). Do you agree that this “authentic masculinity” has been diluted by culture, leisure, and consumption?

2.) Why can men only ever achieve an emotional release, develop trust between with other men, and have intimacy with other men by displaying “homophobic disgust, and patriarchal outrage against any and all incursions beyond heterosexual dominance” (64)? Does wrestling specifically allow for the joining of melodrama and masculinity, or can this example be more generalized to other ‘masculine’ activities? Also, do you think the incorporation of romance plots within WWF narratives help balance the “homosocial desire” and reduce the risk of displaying male intimacy and dependence? Obviously, if wresters are depicted as defending/loving/marrying women- they aren’t actually homosexual. Is this the same as men’s magazines depicting scantily clad women to prove their straightness?

3.) What exactly do Battema and Sewell mean by us living in a neoconservative era?...In response to second-wave feminism and challenges to traditional patriarchy the WWF enacts depictions of hypermasculinity, and legitimizes reasons for physical violence against women. Battema and Sewell give the example of how a female manager “interferes with a match by dealing her wrestler’s opponent a blow to the crotch” (270). So women have ‘agency’ to do this, but men now have warrant for retaliation? Do you think the abandonment of “civilized masculine behavior” and “man as protector” is a response to feminism? Later, the authors talk about how power and authority are “freely and naturally available” and those who are unable/unwilling to exercise it are “deficient, deviant, and weak” and those who “exercise power should be celebrated” (281). Do you think women are included as having the ability to obtain power in the World Wrestling Federation? If power in WWF is either shown through money or strength/physicality—then it seems like the female manager’s blow to another’s crotch should be celebrated as powerful not retaliated against!! Well, maybe not.

The Empire Strikes Back

2009-04-16T10:13:00.002-05:00

In “To the White Extreme: Conquering Athletic Space, White Manhood, and Racing Virtual Reality,” Leonard argues that extreme sports games, specifically Tony Hawk Underground (skating), Amped and SSX Tricky (snowboarding) systematically erase, trivialize or caricature people of color while at the same time reducing the presence of women to mere erotic objects and sexual rewards to solidify and carve out a new space for the (mistakenly perceived) threatened white masculinity. As these games are all from the early part of the 21st century, based on the article, how do they fuel or oppose a post-racial and post-feminist popular culture? Additionally, how are civil rights and the feminist movement taken into account, if at all? Do these games fall into the categories of a post-racial/post-feminist society or are they more regressive, conjuring representations of a post 1960s/1970s era? Finally, while the other texts this week dealing with The Man Show, Talk Radio, and Lad Mags tend to “lash out at women, minorities, gays, lesbians, and the poor,” as Douglas points out in her article, the position taken in these videogames seems much more systemic and internalized. Are these representations intended to be malicious or are they merely the result of the internalization of a culture in the midst of feminist and racial negotiations?

In far less subtle ways, Johnson argues that The Man Show also emerges out of a (I would argue white) masculinity that feels under threat by the forces of feminism and political correctness. Here she explains that The Man Show successfully created a “straw woman,” of sorts, out of the modern woman who enjoys the small successes so far gleaned from the feminist movement. Utilizing protest rhetoric, The Man Show is able to position women as the tyrannical dominators, granted as they were with an excess of power after the women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s, and symbolically reverse the perceived power hierarchy in society through a lens of “victimization.” Can The Man Show then be described as a hybridization of feminist backlash and post-feminist recognition that feminism has done its job? What implications does thinking women have, in fact, gained too much power in a post-feminist society? In the conclusion, Johnson makes connections between The Man Show and Playboy as both exhibit signs of masculine rebellion. While Playboy might be argued to be a text that demanded for men an escape from the domestic sphere into a fantasy bachelor pad, is The Man Show asking not so much for an escape from but for a coup of the domestic space? How is this protest different?

All of these texts, to some extent, exercise the annihilation of the feminine and in some cases, the presence of women altogether. If women do appear, they are reduced to the sexual components of their body and positioned as pleasure objects for the male gaze. In “Sex, booze, and fags,” Edwards points out that this male gaze, amongst lad magazines in England, anyway, is increasingly being refocused not on woman-as-sex-object but on male-as-ideal-masculinity, a homoerotic gaze where heterosexual, and indeed violently homophobic, men end up staring at bare-chested males in advertisements for clothing and cologne. How are these ads “read” by these New Lads? Are the objectified images of women peppered through the mags enough to make up for this apparent contradiction? How can homosexuality be so violently oppressed while these New Lads hang posters of David Beckham and other male sports stars up in their houses? Finally, what fuels this defensive sexuality? Is it just a response to the sexually ambiguous New Man or is it part of another modern crisis in masculinity?

In Thornham’s article, “’It’s a Boy Thing,’” the girls she interviews admit to playing dumb when it comes to videogames for their male audience. Sara commented, “I’d clown about and mess about and pretend I couldn’t work out what to do.” However, some of these girls were quite good at the games outside of certain social contexts; they just understood they weren’t supposed to admit to this or indeed that they weren’t supposed to have those skills even in private. If as Thornham suggests, social context and gender expectations are key in understanding performance and pleasures in videogames, might these same principals apply to other activities in life? Do girls and women purposely “play dumb” or underperform in other contexts because of the gendered-nature of the activity? Conversely, do men do the same for traditionally feminine activities? What are the major implications of this finding? For instance, if one gender or the other is culturally thought to be less skilled in a given professional field, will that result in an underperformance by that gender in that field? What is the danger, then, in gendering even casual leisure activities, like videogames?

All about the men

2009-04-15T20:46:00.003-05:00

A link to The Man Show's page at the G4 cable channel. We'll check out some of the videos in class.

hegemonic masculinity

2009-04-13T11:47:00.019-05:00

As someone who grew up with skateboarding and video games, I have to take issue with Leonard's work. While much of his analysis is good, Leonard skews or ignores issues that should make us all closely examine his work. Leonard's introduction, using EA Sports' multi-million unit sales as justification for extreme sports games' importance, is disingenuous because EA doesn't produce any of the titles focused on later in the article nor any extreme sports games of note. Further, Leonard's dismissal of Tony Hawks' series as exclusively white male or tokenized flies in the face of the fact that the Tony Hawk games prior to the introduction of customizable characters included pro skateboarder Elissa Steamer, (non tokenized) Thai skater Eric Koston or Brazilian Bob Burnquist, and the 45 year old Steve Caballero who was born with scoliosis. Perhaps it was their very non-tokenization that caused Leonard to completely overlook them.

Caballero

Koston

Steamer

That said, Leonard's main argument is that these games "construct a white masculinity through erasing people of color, commodifying inner city spaces, offering opportunities to dominate nature, [and] render females as sexual objects." (112) My question is this, can we think of any sports video games that don't do the same thing? Whether it's the pitch, court, mountain, or track, I think that the underlying premise of all sports games is to dominate the environment where the game takes place. I would also argue that the degree of the sexualization of female bodied characters in sports games occurs at pace with the hyper-masculinization of male bodied characters. If we can't think of other games that don't follow this pattern, it should be assumed that the totality of hegemonic masculinity present in sports games is a response to what sells to video game consumers. As Brian Ott wrote, "The culture of the television inudstry is patriarchal, thus the ideological critic who begins and ends with a television show (video game) as their object of study will find only the...dominant ideology." (Johnson, 168) With all our critique of capitalism and awareness that perceived profitability is the gatekeeper of production, should we really expect non-dominant depictions of masculinity in sports games? If not, how could we make our critique more systemic and materially oppositional to hegemonic masculinity in pop culture and its perceived effects?
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Letting the Boys Be Boys - Susan J. Douglas
While many people like them, many others see Limbaugh, Imus, and others as "male hysterics" and don't take them seriously. Still, Limbaugh has mobilized conservative voters and has perhaps influenced policy as well. This seems to indicate that emotion, sensationalism, and outrageousness, while not taken seriously by the mainstream, can influence the limits of debate and open space for negotiation. Could being "radical" and outrageous work for non-dominant purposes? Or, is the success of Limbaugh and others directly tied to their irrationality for the sake of hegemonic masculinity? It seems that if people went on air talking about sex as a social construction and video games as reproducing traditional masculinity that they would be labeled wackos and render the limits of debate unchanged. Also, is there a reciprocal, oppositional cohesiveniess that is a byproduct of "shock jocks" polarizing rhetoric? For example, the perceived threat of Limbaugh motivating people to take up the cause with Planned Parenthood or the N.O.W. Personally, it seems as though Limbaugh et al. have a monopoly on acceptable hysterics indicating that it isn't so much the delivery (the hysterics) as the content (hegemonic masculinity, conservative values) that is the measure of inclusion or exclusion in mainstream political discourse.
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In "The Sublteties of Blatant Sexism," Ann Johnson begins by drawing a distinction between blatant sexism and subtle sexism "such as popular representations of liberated but unhappy women and the overstatement of the success of women's movements" (167). While she cites many other studies on subtle sexism, I was wondering what other examples we could think of and what potential cumulative effects may be. Psychological research by reserachers who I can't remember have found that repeated viewing of idealized female body types such as in advertisements lowers the self-esteem and self-image of women who view them. Subtle, almost passive-aggressive sexism likely has such a cumulative toll on people and may be related to the prevalence of post-feminism sentiments in pop culture.

At close to twice the circulation of Rolling Stone magazine, Maxim was the 22nd highest circulating magazine in 2007. However, Maxim only sold a little over 2.5 million magazines that same year, roughly the equivalent of the number of people in US prisons in 2008. Neither Stuff, FHM, nor Loaded made the top 100. Despite the small readership relative to the US population, "Lad mags," in ways similar to Limbaugh, seem to be opening up space for the acceptance of obnoxiously heteronormative male consumers. It seems as though the saying "boys will be boys" is quite flexible and can be stretched to include the arrogant masculine hedonism portrayed by the lad mags. As feminist and queer scholars, is it our role to challenge this trend? What suggestions could we make to help steer lad mag behavior into the unacceptable range within mainstream discourse? How could feminist and queer scholars more directly shape mainstream discourse by intervening in the production and content of contemporary pop culture? (without, of course, being completely co-opted).

Postfeminism and the sexualization of women's bodies

2009-04-09T12:51:00.007-05:00

A few media examples for us to consider re: this particular dimension of postfeminist culture:

Wresling with Postfeminism

2009-04-09T11:28:00.002-05:00

Sarah Projanski’s offers several reasons the word “girl” has replaced “woman” in much of contemporary media. The most compelling is that girlhood “is always in process,” reaching for adult power, but never achieving it. (45) Not to get too second-wave, but what about internalized misogyny? ? It seems that some canonical postfeminist texts like What Not to Wear exhort their subjects to put away girlhood and act (or purchase) age appropriately. What does “age appropriate” mean? What marks the end of girlhood? To whom is this transformation made available? Why do I only answer to texts that interpolate me as a girl? Where are texts that address women? Where are the texts that address women as neither girls nor cougars? What anxieties does the word “women” provoke?

I'm still confused by the differences between 3rd Wave Feminism and Postfeminism. Does anyone identify as “postfeminist?” One author seems to think that young women reject the label “feminist” based on their knowledge of the shortcomings of second-wave feminism. Yet, in my experience listen to students disidentify with feminism, most do not have a reference for feminism outside of popular media. How do we account for their disidentification?

Projansky calls for scholars to move beyond either/or and both/and thinking about the pleasures and pitfalls provided by postfeminist texts. How does the postfeminist call to individual uniqueness and consumer identity make life more livable? For whom does it make life more livable?

Reading Questions: April 9 Tasker/Negra

2009-04-09T10:12:00.007-05:00

1.In McRobbie’s article, she makes the claim that postfeminism has undermined gains of feminism, and that feminism is now regarded as unnecessary. Have feminist gains been fully dismantled, and if so, what are the root causes of this happening? If not, what traces of feminism have lasted, and why? Granted, women have earned greater freedoms, but according to Projanksy’s findings, consumption is the new remedy for providing women with empowerment. One can see signs of this everywhere, with changing roles of women balancing it “all,” and in many cases, spending is the savior. For example, women can have gym memberships to look fit, spa treatments to feel young, nannies and dog walkers to take the load off when they’re at the office. However, have the underlying restraints on female identity been lifted? Have women’s struggles, while not identical to the original struggles of early feminists, really disappeared? If not, what are the new struggles within postfeminist culture? Is feminism “embarrassing” to younger women because it threatens their new identity and powers gained through consumption? Does this mean that class differences will take precedent for women in postfeminism?

2. Projanksy’s study of the rhetoric of “girl power” illuminates the discourses that surround media’s portrayal of the “new” realms of femininity. It seems that girls’ achievements are modeled within a heterosexual, capitalist framework that defines them with values that would originally have been placed on boys. However, the ultimate message coming through is that girls will never be as strong as boys, and although it’s okay to be a girl and enjoy these freedoms while you can – as girl becomes woman, such "freedoms" once again become limited. In other words, the essence of freedom trails away over time. Girls have “the life”; as women experience the”new empowerment” of postfeminism, they also suffer the backlash when they hit 40, and are still expected to find a husband, AND work, AND have children, AND look ten years under their age. Is this progress?

3. Banet-Weiser makes some depressingly accurate points, when she describes how the media, realizing that they have to pay attention to diversity, do so because it’s smart business. The sliding scale of color, in what she describes as “ambiguous” ethnicities, is similar to the gender issue regarding girl/woman as presented in the media. One could also argue that gays are often presented in a non-threatening manner, commoditized for palatable consumption. It's like some of these deep lines that have divided society, are being effectively rubbed off as if they were soft pencil lead . If differences of race,culture and gender can now be marketed within safe parameters, effectively whitewashing deeper issues or cultural differences, does this mean racial and gender differences will become increasingly passe, like the supposed disappearance of feminism? In other words, by consuming, does this mean we can all live together happily in “one world,” defined by the global corporations? Will those deeper issues disappear through our new roles as global consumers, as a result of globalization and the New Economy? Are these attempts at erasing differences to create a “global consumer” that can be more easily targeted? Would this be a good thing, and how would it manifest itself in terms of gender? -Molly

Interrogating Post-Feminism

2009-04-07T21:31:00.001-05:00

1.) “Postfeminist culture’s centralization of an affluent elite certainly entails an emphatic individualism, but this information tends to confuse self-interest with individuality and elevates consumption as a strategy for healing those dissatisfactions that might alternately be understood in terms of social ills and discontents” (2). How is this solution different than how women have been viewed as consumers in the past? Tasker and Negra also discuss how post-feminist women must remain silent about feminism and uncritical of ‘hegemony’ and ‘patriarchy’ to maintain their freedoms (3). This silence combined with post-feminism’s emphasis on the “self as a project,” individual choice, etc. isolates women from the previous mass movement goals of feminism. Does post-feminism deprive us of a collective voice in exchange for new rationales for guilt-free consumerism? Is the right to be enthusiastic about the ability to perform patriarchal stereotypes sexually worth being denounced for articulating feminist discourse?

2.) The term post-feminism itself is troubling because it implies that feminism is both taken into account, and simultaneously irrelevant. Feminism has been transformed into a form of “Gramscian” common sense by society, and is simultaneously hated not only by men, but also ironically by women. Was the mainstream co-option of feminism only a hegemonic tool to support patriarchy under a guise of empowerment and choice? What triggered this denunciation of feminism, particularly by younger women? Is individualization replacing feminism—is the allegedly declining support for a political/social movement being replaced by the capacity for individual agency?

3.) Sarah Banet-Weiser says that gender and race identities, like Flavas, can be tried on. Does post-feminist culture make race and gender differences and identities into commodities for consumption? Weiser talks about how “race as flavor” and “girl power” are identity categories that are ambiguous instead of specific, would you categorize post-feminist identity construction that way? It seems counter to the individualization and promises of uniqueness created through materialism and consumption that post-feminism is known for. Why are Flavas different? Also, does the term post-racial have the same implications as post-feminism?

2009-04-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

Every time I examine articles about postfeminism, a question always comes to my mind: “What would be the ‘perfect’ place (e.g., utopia) for women in feminism?” Of course, the ultimate goal of feminism is achieving sexual equality, yet it is hard to imagine what women would be like and how they would be understood in the “perfect” society where sexual discriminations do not exist. In other words, what would be a “liberated woman” like? Within the accelerated capitalism, women became empowered (yes, it is a problematic term) through consumptions and postfeminism reinforces such understanding of women. However, as Tasker and Negra claim, liberation through consumption and aspiration might not empower women as women still remain unequally treated in various economic and social circumstances. (12) What would eventually liberate and empower women? Is an “empowered woman” an abstractive concept? How would you describe an “empowered woman”?

Reading a number of articles discussing postfeminim and media, especially the ones by Banet-Weiser and Springers at this time, I understood the nature of feminism: there are multiple kinds of feminist interests. As Banet-Weister writes, “the politics of feminism is quite obviously different for different generations.” (210) Similarly, feminist interests and the politics of them might be different amongst people depending on their identity categories, such as races, ethnicities, and nations. As are produced in the younger and later generations, the discourses of postfeminism are centered on youth. Acknowledging this very nature of feminism, I wonder if we can draw a common voice from these different kinds of feminist interests and situations. Is diversifying feminism possible? Could the same critiques of postfeminism or postfeminist representational culture in Western media be made in other countries? How does “context” come into play in feminism?

Angela McRobbie, one of the most influential scholars studying postfeminism and media, argues that in postfeminism “for feminism to be ‘taken into account’ it has to be understood as having already passed away.” (28) Yet, I am wondering if there is any popular media text that sees feminism to be necessarily addressed and puts forward some room for a feminist development in its text. Since postfeminism by nature is flexible, ambiguous, and ambivalent, sometimes a postfeminist media text can be understood as a feminist text. Understanding that feminism is understood, projected, and rejected in different ways among different groups of people because of their unique social and individual contexts, I question how a media text would be differently interpreted amongst various social groups. For example, how differently or similarly would “The Cosby Show” be decoded between well-educated, (upper) middle-class white and less-educated, working-class non-whites? What about the shows like “The ‘L’ Word”?

For a refreshing interlude...

2009-04-01T23:53:00.001-05:00

Week Nine

2009-04-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

1.) In The Etiquette of Masculinity and Femininity, the author details how “traditional” sex roles are constructed in opposition to one another. Masculine men are powerful, dominant, aggressive, and ambitious. Feminine women are dependent, submissive, and nurturing. When gender boundaries became more fluid, these character traits were interchangeable. One way to remove uncertainty was to conform to etiquette rules; the other was for men to retreat into separate spaces. It is weird how threatened men are by “aggressive women” because after all, “women” are still “women.” The author talks repeatedly about how men retreated into separate masculine worlds and how women regained their femininity to rescue men from emasculation. How can presumed inherent characteristics exist when aggressive women “so easily” cause men to retreat? How can men find solace in their threatened gender role if it is felt solely from women acting less aggressive than they naturally are? Are our gender traits only constructed oppositionally? Can women only assume power, aggressiveness, and other socially categorized masculine traits if men concede theirs?

2.) The traditional sex role dichotomy is that men are producers and women are consumers (Breazeale 226). I have always focused on the way that women are positioned as consumers within society and generally have bought into that sentiment. However, regardless of gender, it seems like we are hailed as consumers as much as other aspects of our identity (gender, age, citizen) or that through our consumptions we are able to fully embody masculinity or femininity. Do you think that male consumption is framed as a source of power similar to the way that is framed for women? Why was consumption initially synonymous with femininity? I assume this based on the notion that men’s magazines took such care in differentiating men’s consumptions from women’s “frivolous…gullible vulnerability to consumer’s trashy faddishness” (228). Just as an extra example, in a recent issue of Details, an article advised men about what types of vases and flowers to purchases as home accents that still maintain a sense of masculinity.

3.) Why is female sexuality so inherently threatening? Elvis Presley and Beatlemania were reminders of the emerging sexuality of young girls (Ehrenreich , etc. 92). Girls were admitting sexual attraction to these figures in an era when they were ostracized for failing to remain “pure” and “good,” during the early 60s (85). How has that changed today in an era that some refer to as post-feminism? Does a double standard still exist concerning sexuality and sexual activity? Just yesterday, I read in my roommates Cosmopolitan an article called, “Revenge of the Sluts,” detailing the way that women have become empowered through their sexuality by overcoming the negative repercussions from being sexually active or promiscuous as teenagers—is this just another example of sexuality existing under a guise of post-feminist empowerment? If Beatlemania era changed the sexual possibilities open to women and girls, does our current era qualify as a similar revolution?

Week Nine Reading Questions

2009-04-01T18:37:00.000-05:00

Beth Bailey’s “The Etiquette of Masculinity and Femininity” referred to courtship as an acknowledged charade. It implied an almost rebellious quality in conforming wholly during courtship: “One way women could employ gender etiquette to challenge men was by conforming to the etiquette absolutely. Women could become so feminine and submissive that men felt inadequate because they could not possibly be masculine enough to meet all the demands created by absolute submission” (116). Is the impossibility of fulfilling these demands the only thing that makes complete submission threatening? Does submitting completely to etiquette rules, on either person’s part, make the behavior seem natural or completely affected to the partner? The passage goes on to say that “Impeccable manners without dominance were not masculine” (117). If someone perceived the behavior of who they were courting or who they were being courted by to be completely natural or a complete charade, how could control be asserted or identity differentiated? How is the courtship affected if there is no sense that something is being controlled or a desire is being repressed?

Barbara Ehrenreich’s article “Playboy Joins the Battle of the Sexes” suggests that “through its articles, its graphics and its advertisements, Playboy presented, by the beginning of the sixties, something approaching a coherent program for the male rebellion: a critique of marriage, a strategy for liberation (reclaiming the indoors as a realm for masculine pleasure) and a utopian vision (defined by its unique commodity ensemble)” (50). How is reclaiming the indoors as a realm of masculine power a strategy for liberation –if Hefner’s thought doesn’t see it as a space that has been claimed by women, would reclaiming it be a strategy for liberation? If the “indoors” or domestic hadn’t been claimed by either gender, would a rebellion of domesticity be successful by reclaiming the indoors? Ehrenreich claims that the magazine’s message was not eroticism, but escape –“literal escape from the bondage of breadwinning” (51). She also notes that while the magazine resisted the “conventional male role,” it didn’t resist work or consumerist values, but encouraged them. How has and how do consumerist values play a part in shaping restrictive gender norms and expectations? Can a magazine, or any source of dialogue, resist any conventions without resisting consumerist and capitalist values?

I found several of this week’s readings depressing, particularly the ones on Playboy, Beatlemania, and etiquette. They all seem to suggest that committed or monogamous adult relationships can only be a source of pleasure for the one in the relationship who has the most power at a given time. The article on Beatlemania suggests that female fans found acts like Elvis and the Beatles appealing either because of their rebellious sleaziness or unthreatening androgyny –appealing to fans by carrying personas that were the opposite of what was considered at the time “appropriate” men to marry. The article on Playboy presented quotes from Hefner who believed domesticity to be a “slow death,” and a “gray miasma of conformity.” To suggest that resisting domesticity is an act of rebellion is to assume that there is no pleasure in marriage or that the pleasure is seemingly false either because it’s based on power negotiations between the couple or found in the act of conforming to a conventional expectation. What does this suggest about desire? Is all desire in a relationship self-serving or can it take more subtle forms?

Welcome to the 1950s

2009-03-31T20:31:00.001-05:00

1950 educational film, A Date with Your Family

Black vs. White: Mis/representation of boy bands

2009-03-12T23:40:00.001-05:00

here's a link to a video from the r&b group 112 that can be compared to the backstreet boys' video, "I want it that way"

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:7813

media and challenges to normative gender and sexuality

2009-03-12T05:34:00.001-05:00

1. In a book written by Katherine Frank (2007) entitled, “Primetime Harem Fantasies…,” she analyzes the ways in which viewers of the hit television show, The Bachelor, read the show. Frank chose to depart from the more common ways of reading such shows and texts (gender mis/representations and the intricacies of how gendered roles are performed on the show or within a text) by looking at how women view and then internalize their thoughts on heterosexual relationships via their thought process and actions (p. 94-95). One specific passage in Frank’s article was where she said
Yet although many people recognize the difficulty of following these prior sexual experiences with lifelong monogamous relationships, serial monogamy has been the primary (though not the only) means of reconciling these challenges. When on e relationship fails, another takes its place – and when passion flees, so too do many bored spouses. People tend to mistake these trends as personal anomalies, however, rather than seeing them as significant cultural patterns in the evolving form of sexual and emotional intimacy (p. 100).

The above quote made me ask, are human beings “programmed” to be monogamous naturally? Just like the on-going debate on whether people are born homosexual or choose to be homosexual, the discussion on human behavior, specifically human attraction, has also had a hard time reaching a conclusive conclusion. It has been shown that in other mammals, birds for instance, that it is normal for them to select a partner and remain with that some partner until death. There are other studies however, that show that selecting a mate does not mean that they are life partners. What about human beings though?
This question delves deeper than asking if human beings can be attracted to more than one person at the same time, as this is a mutually agreed upon fact. What then stops the majority of us from pursuing multiple relationships at the same time? In some cultures, Hmong for example, this is an accepted practice where a man can have more than one wife. The arrangement of those types of situations are usually the result of a man being able to financially support more than one wife, which then also takes on a status symbol. Why is it that this is practiced and accepted in some cultures and not all? Where did this notion of “loving one person and one person only” come from? Is it because being in a relationship with just one person is enough work (mentally, financially and physically) and thus adding another person would further complicate things as evidenced on shows such as “The Bachelor?”
Looking at the stereotypical gendered behavior of human beings, women are thought to be more emotionally available than men. If this is true, would it not make sense for women then to be involved in multiple relationships at the same time based off of that rationale alone? Or does it have nothing to do with emotions at all? Can it be just about physicality? If it is, that is looked down on more in our society than being in at least two relationships at the same time because the latter is assumed to have its “wrongs” corrected by the fact that actual feelings are involved. Whereas the former type of relationships are viewed as being wrong because of their “animalistic nature.”
2. In chapter 26 of Constance Penley’s (1992) book, she looks at how the role of feminism and psychoanalysis can be applied to studying popular culture, specifically “slash fandom” (p. 479). Popular texts and television shows are revamped by the fans of those texts and televisions shows, which often include the increased presence of erotica. One such popular slash fandom is Star Trek and often times involve a blatantly or subtly homoerotic relationship between Captain Kirk and Spock. One specific question Penley (1992) raised after her first encounter with this type of media was “…is K/S romance or pornography” (p. 484)? That question led me to ask myself, what makes any text or media pornographic?
When performing my own research for my thesis project, I found myself asking that very same question over and over. What makes a movie that contains sexual encounters pornographic? Is it the type of sex depicted or the frequency with which the sexual encounters occur? Or does it have nothing to do with either of those two factors and more to do with what is shown as far as body parts? Asking these questions however lead me back to the constantly asked question, who/what defines porn?
In America, that which was considered pornographic was anything that was deemed “obscene and offensive” to adults, but especially children. The problem with that definition was that it was too simplistic. That could effect any and everything in existence, as it did as evidenced by the confiscation of biology text books in the early twentieth century because they showed the human body in the naked form. Overtime, those sorts of images were allowed to be put back into biology text books but on a more “G-rated” scale (bodies without hair). Another problem with that definition was that what offends one person may not offend the person next to them, as evidenced with the pornographic debates starting in the 1960s. For example, Michelangelo’s statue David is viewed as being artistic whereas a man striking the same pose in Playgirl Magazine is considered pornographic. If those two images were placed side by side without any sort of caption explaining where each one was from, would people still find the Playgirl photograph pornographic?
Theodore Gracyk (1987) took issue with how pornography has been attacked by anti-pornography feminists and the U.S. government because of their preference for focusing on the conceptualization of pornography rather than on “the pornographic attitude,” which he states “is the real locus of the defamation argument against pornography. I do not assume that all material that is commonly classified as pornographic manifests the pornographic attitude” (p. 104). Focusing on the definition of pornography rather than the pornographic attitude has caused more things to be considered sexually explicit and graphic when they may in all actuality not be. Gracyk stresses the importance of looking at things contextually in order to see if they are indeed pornographic. The trick then is to place sexuality into context, which is hard to do because different people have different views when it comes to sexuality. As have been evidenced already, it is not sufficient enough for one person or a group of people to determine something to be bad for society because they take personal offense to it. “Doing so makes no more sense than following an engineering blueprint by majority vote when most of those voting are not very good at reading blueprints” (Gracyk, 1987, p. 116).
3. Chapter four of T.L. Taylor’s book examines how and why women are attracted to the online game culture. Taylor (2006) notes that “the issue of how virtual-world experiences ‘filter back’ is particularly striking, though, when women report that playing the game helped them become more confident or assertive” (p. 97). The women reported that one of the things that attracts them to online gaming is that they have the option of not only picking a female character to represent them, but they are choosing assertive female characters that are unafraid to “stomp with the big dogs” and slay a few bad guys. Taylor (2006) goes on to say that “while gender swapping is also certainly something that occurs in EQ, one of the more interesting aspects to consider is the way the game may allow access to gender identities that often are socially prohibited or delegitimized offline…” (p. 97). My question however is does this new found sense of female assertiveness long-term or short-term? Meaning, do these women carry the attributes of the characters into the non-gaming (real) world?
I did not get the sense that this was the case for these women. Rather, it seemed as if this was only a temporary space in which girls and women were able to step outside of their socially expected gender roles and that once they were done playing the game, they resumed their non-gaming persona. Speaking from personal experience, I like to play role-playing games (rpg), which usually consists of male lead characters so I am unable to speak on the attraction or thought process for choosing a character to represent you in a game. I am however able to speak on the attraction and thought process for choosing a female character in video games that are based on combative fighting skills, my favorite being Tekken.
I will admit that I when I do pick one of the Tekken characters that I choose them based off of their physical appearance. For instance, I first base my selection off of female characters that I either find to be pretty and/or whose outfit is not too “slutty” as that just does not make any sense whatsoever in a game that requires the characters to fight one another. Next, I look for any weapons or special moves that they might have or be able to perform because after all, this is a game and I do want to win. After selecting my character, I use my “secret” technique which consists of pushing all of the buttons at one time to make my character beat up my opponent. Unlike the women Taylor talks about, I do not put myself in the place of those female characters as being an extension of me or an “upgraded” version of me but then again, I am and have been told that I am not your “typical” girl as I have a “male mentality” having grown up and hung around guys most of my life. For the times that I choose a male character, I also base it off of their looks and outfit but am not worried about if their outfit makes sense with the type of game that I am playing. I believe that those are the moments when I want to put myself into that “male space” and feel tough enough to take on the biggest and “baddest” bad guys the game chooses to throw at me.

Media and challenges to normative gender and sexuality clips

2009-03-11T11:14:00.008-05:00

From Wald, the Backstreet Boys, "I Want it That Way"

Blink-182, "All the Small Things"

Backstreet Boys, "Larger than Life"

From Taylor, instructional video on creating Everquest characters

From Cohan, selection of clips from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

From Frank, the first segment of the "After the Final Rose" special for the recently completed Bachelor 13. Here, bachelor Jason tells Melissa, the woman he had chosen in the final episode, that he does not want to be with her and instead wants to be with the runner-up Molly. If you must watch more (can't blame you if you do--this thing has already sucked up way too much of my day), the first part is available here and you can get to the other segments from it.

Check out John's post below for a couple of more contemporary slash examples to help illustrate the Penley article.

Reading Qs for this week

2009-03-10T17:17:00.001-05:00

In “Primetime Harem Fantasies,” Frank argues that The Bachelor “problematizes normative expectations of erotic relationship behavior” (95). Yet, I didn’t really understand how the show presents normative expectations of erotic relationship behavior to be problems in the article. Does The Bachelor regard monogamy as a problem? If so, how and why? The author implies that nonmonogamy opens up a space for feminist discourses since “sexual nonexclusivity is a crucial piece of sex radical feminist history” (98). This is understandable in that monogamy is more often understood as a patriarchal institute. If it is a problematic concept, is there any safe alternative to this sexual relation? What resulted in the cultural pattern of sexually intimate relationship from monogamy to nonmonogamy in contemporary dating culture as the author says? Also, in the show, is the relationship between the bachelor and the women participants to seek a true love as they say? Do the women look for a real love or do they compete each other for what the bachelor could provide to her when she wins (e.g., money and upgrade of her social status)? I somewhat agree with the author’s argument that “the harem fantasy contains a kernel of feminist potential” (102); yet, containing feminist debates in the show do not mean that the show serves feminist interests. Then, how can we understand The Bachelor in relation to feminism?

My personal observation of today’s media in terms of sexual representation is that there seems to be more feminized masculinity than masculinized femininity? Masculinezed femininity is often represented to be powerful in association of masculinity; yet, it is more depicted to be sexually provocative (e.g., Janet Jackson in the “Rhythm Nation” music video). In her article, Wald examines how “girlish” masculinity acts out to attract girl fans, but she leaves out the question of how “boyish” femininity acts out to attract a certain group of viewers/listeners/audiences? Is “boyish” femininity more attractive to girls than boys? If it more attracts girls, why is it like that? Also, is the girlish masculinity of the Backstreet Boys a result of market play or how is the sexual identity of the group as girlish masculinity constructed at first in terms of production?

In relation to this, Wald also talks about the role of consumption for identity construction for girl fans. She implies that consumption is an important arena that needs to be discussed in feminist politics and in fact many scholars who studies postfeminism often talks about the conflict of feminism and consumption. I, personally, see that consumption is significant in constructing one’s identity because “style” as a site of expression of one’s identity (not limited to sexuality) is the core of consumption. For example, an indie band geek would be more likely to wear what others in his/her community wear. In many cases, style becomes an indicator of one’s identity. The relationship between style, identity, and consumption is also discussed in Cohen’s article, which discusses Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Yet, Cohen critically points out that “Queer Eye defines the queerness of the Fab Five through their expertise as consumers, not through their sexual orientation” (179). How does one express one’s sexual identity without products that are obtained through consumption? To what extent, does consumption formulate one’s sexual orientation? Are the criticisms on the Fab Fives generated from homophobia or from the patriarchal fear of femininity? How does this question apply to the discussion of the Backstreet Boys?

Penley’s examination of the women’s slash fictions is especially interesting to me. She argues that the fantasy of the women slash fiction writers about the relationship between Kirk and Spock comes from their desire of equality in a romantic relationship that dominance and submission do not constitute the relationship (490). I think this is a fascinating point about the fan fiction culture, especially for women. But, how does this fantasy of the romantic relationship between Kirk and Spock in the slash fictions explain the women’s fantasy in romance novels? In Reading Romance, Radway talks about how the narrative structure with certain characteristics generates a romance and how and why it works for the women readers. Yet, the romance novels are strictly based on heterosexuality. In those kinds of novels, do we see any power relationship between the hero and the heroin to be dominant and submissive? How dose the power relation in romance novels attract the women readers and how is it different from or similar to the slash fictions? Last semester, I have read Steven Duncombe’s book called Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture for the Indie Culture seminar. During the discussion, I remember we talked about how class functions in zine culture. Mara and some other students pointed out that zines are many times made by white middle-class. However, Penley observes differently. She says that most of the fans that write k/s slash fictions are working-class and they perceive feminists to be middle-class professionals. How does class function in zine culture, especially for the zines like k/s?

Modern Slash

2009-03-10T10:48:00.001-05:00

Back to the Future

Lord of the Rings

Reminder: Stephen Duncombe talk Fri., 3/6

2009-03-06T14:27:00.001-06:00

Here's the info for Stephen Duncombe's talk tonight. Probably not much/any of a gender focus, but we don't get media scholars coming to campus for talks too often, so might be worth checking out.

Bartky Trouble

2009-03-05T11:22:00.004-06:00

I found Bartky to be contradicting Bulter, through she doesn't directly do that in her article. I was often frustrated with her writing and thoughts and found many of her points to be obvious. Maybe this was because I read the Butler selections first and then read Bartky but many of her examples did not feel strong enough to back up her main argument. I found most troubling is her use of the concepts male, female, masculine and feminine. She wants to "probe the effects of the imposition of such discipline on female identity and subjectivity" (64) yet still maintains that we are "born male and female".

My question from this reading is what is feminine according to Bartky? How does her examples and argument further support what entitles a female or a woman being to be in society?

I found intriguing her question, "Who then are the disciplinarians?" which makes me think how in popular culture is this question addressed? (I'm thinking along the lines of the show Heros for example).

Also, troubling is her points relating to her question, "Why aren't all women feminists?" (76). She references to this to other societies globally, which is problematic since she seems to have only a western point of view of feminism. What I mean by this, is her examples and her points do not factor in feminism in non-western contexts and she could have made this point stronger by addressing other factors which causes womens opposition. So, how can she make her argument stronger and what other factors go into how women are perceived as feminism globally? What factors may make feminism differ in other contexts?

Judy!

2009-03-05T11:11:00.001-06:00

Throughout the selections we read fro class today, Butler stresses the inseparability (and simultaneously the disconnection) between gendered identities and gendered bodies. Sex is always already gendered and cannot be seen as a prediscursive ground onto which gender is written. I am interested in her disavowal of phenomenology (Gender Trouble, 43) in terms of her project. She is careful to validate “being a gender” as not “illusory” or “artificial,” yet her analysis is not concerned “being” as much as “doing.” How can we use her insights to understand the feeling of being gendered? Where (or when) can I place my sense/feeling of being in a gendered body?

In Bodies that Matter, Butler introduces Spivak’s concept of “enabling violation” to help wrestle with the contradictory experience of using terms which are implicated in a system of power to subvert that same system. Does this concept excuse the parade of feminists in the first chapter of Gender Trouble who uncritically took up totalizing concepts “woman” and “sex” in order to defend an experience of oppression? How does one weigh what enables and what violates? Thinking pedagogically, how does one teach gender and sex without resorting to these violations of the past?

Butler’s treatment of Venus Xtravaganza’s death seems odd. After Butler’s discussion of the ability for drag performance to reify and subvert systems of power simultaneously, she seems to put aside the subversive aspect and construct Venus’s life/performance as a naïve mime of class and gender positions that are out of her reach. Lines like “her death thus testifies to a tragic misreading of the social map of power” and “a promise which, taken too seriously, can culminate only in disappointment and disidentification” (131) make me wonder if Butler is blaming Venus for her own murder. Is she? What crime did Venus commit to deserve such punishment? Is there another way to read this passage? How does the slippage between drag and transgender identity (both theoretically and in lived experience) contribute to Butler’s (tragic) misreading of Venus?

All the World's a Stage (or why my head is burning from Butler)

2009-03-05T10:34:00.000-06:00

Bartky writes that at least in 1988, “the current body of fashion is taut, small-breasted, narrow-hipped, and of a slimness bordering on emaciation” (64). This is a stark contrast from what I understand to be the more full-bodied look glamorized in the 1950s and 1960s with sex icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Tailor and an incredible departure from classic conceptions of beauty depicted in paintings as evidenced here. What cultural and historical factors shift conceptions of beauty, and how has the feminine ideal changed throughout history (in the West), and for what purpose? In addition, why is, as Bartky argues, “femininity a ‘set up’ [which] requires such radical and extensive measures of bodily transformation that virtually every woman who gives herself to it is destined in some degree to fail?” (71). In other words, what function does creating an impossible ideal serve, knowing in fact that both genders have such an unattainable ideal that they are encouraged to pursue? Is there a connection then between ideal femininity/masculinity and the divine? If so, in what ways do our insatiable imaginations and desires for perfection and categories or perfect categories help in the construction and performance of gender?

Butler writes in “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire,” that “the juridical structures of language and politics constitute the contemporary field of power” (8). Also, she borrows from Lacan who seems to argue that language itself, or the symbolic, which constitutes autonomy and adulthood, is a communication dominated by the Phallus, a male-dominated set of symbols and signs. How do we (everybody, but perhaps specifically feminist and/or LGBT activists, etc.) escape the prison of language then, assuming that the language is at best a co-opted one we have to constantly struggle to evolve and shift, and at worst, a constraining method of binary thoughts and delimiting categories that hinder our ability to discuss these issues? In other words, how do we co-opt a language that is arguably constructed to regulate modes of thought regarding sex, gender, sexuality, etc. without running the risk of being co-opted by it? For instance, Butler writes, “for Irigaray, the possibility of another language or signifying economy is the only chance at escaping the ‘mark’ of gender which, for the feminine, is nothing but the phallogocentric erasure of the female sex” (35).

In Subversive Bodily Acts, Butler writes, “that the gendered body is performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality” (173). Moreover, she argues, “that various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis; the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions” (178). So, can one escape gender, as it were, or rather, can one escape the performance, can one stop the “act,” or is the “act” all we have to work with, to “be?” What would a genderless world look like and can we even conceive of it with our available lexicon? Finally, since gender is only a “tacit collective agreement” and since it is so dependent on a continued performance, since it is, essentially, fluid or clay in our hands waiting to be shaped, aren’t we in the advantageous position to reshape the conceptions of gender as we see fit? Provided we are, is this only a futile victory considering it does not so much do away with the chains of gender as rattle them a little?

Continuing on this ominous, if not tenuous, platform of optimism, Butler argues in “Gender is Burning” that the drag queen performances in Paris is Burning are “not an appropriation of dominant culture in order to remain subordinated by its terms, but an appropriation that seeks to make over the terms of domination, a making over which is itself a kind of agency, a power in and as discourse, in and as performance, which repeats in order to remake – and sometimes succeeds” (137). Here Butler reiterates the agency and resistant power present in the act of performance, an act of being that simultaneously offers support and friction to hegemonic conceptions of gender. With such a powerful tool at hand, then, the tool of performance, can we assume that every performance has the same potential for subversion, or does the performer matter? Of course, if there is no gender without the performance, what is the performer without the performance? How do the men in Paris is Burning (sometimes) succeed, as Butler suggests, in remaking the “terms of domination” and what prevents that hideous modifier – sometimes ¬– from being always, or at the very least, regularly?

NY Times on the Snuggie

2009-02-27T08:49:00.003-06:00

Snuggie Rode Silly Ads to Stardom Over Rivals

I kid you not.

Update: Leo's grandparents bought him a Snuggie last weekend, so there is now one ensconced in my home. It's the kid's, but he lets me use it.

Foucault and Ang/Hermes questions

2009-02-26T06:11:00.000-06:00

1. With regards to the repressive hypothesis discussed on page 10, Foucault disagrees with the arguments because he sees society as being more tolerant than repressive, which is true with regards to French society. Can the same be said about American culture though? No. How then has American censorship changed from the 17th/18th century compared to today?

For one, the role the church plays has taken on a secondary or even tertiary position as we have become a society governed by the state rather than by the church. Despite the role religion has played recently in the discourse, it has not been forgotten as people still use the teachings of their religion as a way to keep others “pure” until marriage. Secondly, the presence of censoring sex through public discourses has changed in that coitus is not seen as something should only be done based on biological (it being a woman’s “duty” to bear children) or economical (having as many children possible to work the land) rationale. Today, not only are women prolonging the age at which they have children, they are also choosing not to have any at all. As the cost of living has risen tremendously since the 18th century, people have chosen not to have a big family, or any children, because of the economic drain it would impose on the family.
The discourse of sexuality pertaining to children has in my eyes changed on a smaller scale compared to the change in the church and adults. There is a great unease with people when it comes to thinking and or talking about infantile/pre-adolescent/adolescent/young adult sexuality, especially when it comes to the infantile/pre-adolescent age groups. Despite known knowledge about sexuality beginning in the womb, people choose to turn a blind eye to this issue. Perhaps because it removes the “innocence” people have when thinking about children or maybe they just don’t know how to broach the subject. When it comes to the adolescent/young adult cohorts, more discussion is being had publicly because of the rising pre/teen sti/pregnancy/abortion rates. Thus, sexuality among pre/teens is still talked about in a preventative manner rather than an honest, informational manner. So, while sex, according to Foucault (1976) was “driven out of hiding and constrained to lead a discursive existence,” the discourse still talks about sex as something that is ignored in infants/small children, shunned and viewed negatively amongst pre/teens and preferred to be engaged in only by those adults who are in a committed relationship, preferably married (p. 33).

2. What sort of devices of surveillance and corrective discourses were used to combat the assumed guilt non/adults were seen as having with regards to their sexuality?

In the colonial era, it was perfectly acceptable for neighbors to literally peek into their neighbors’ windows to see what was going on in the house. Thus, the concept of “policing you neighborhood” became a literal translation especially when it came to sexual practices. It was every person’s duty to make sure that no transgressions against God were being committed in the bedroom. This meant those married couples engaging in any “non-vanilla sexual activity” and for those who were, they were brought forth in front of their community and made to repent against their sin(s) with the promise never to commit that same “crime” again. Unlike in today’s society, people in the 18th and 19th century did not carry their crime’s stigma with them for the rest of their lives, as long as they were sorry and never caught doing the same criminal act again, the notion of forgive and forget was very true.
When it came to sexuality and all non-adults, the approach to safeguard them from sexual temptation was combated in numerous ways, two of which I will discuss now. The first was a device designed specifically for adolescent boys whose bodies were maturing. This specific device can be thought of as an anti-erection invention in that the boy would put it on sort of like a pair of underwear and the phallus was positioned in a way within the device so that if he should become erect while sleeping, a spiked metal ball would come in contact with the tip of his phallus. The purpose of this device then was to get a boy’s body to associate pain with his erection so that his phallus will not want to become erect. Another method used for adolescents was if an arrangement had been made between a girl’s family and a boy’s family with regards to marriage, the soon-to-be husband was allowed to spend the night at the girl’s family’s home, but could not be trusted to control his sexual urges during the night while everyone else was sleeping. To prevent any sort of hanky-panky that could go on when no one was watching, the covers of the bed the boy was sleeping in would be sewn to the mattress so that he could not get out of the bed at night.
There was this obsessive compulsion with sexuality then during these times, and while discussions were being had about sexuality, the nature of those conversations were not to education people on sexuality but rather to keep people from resisting to give in to the devil’s temptations. For both adults and their children, they were led to believe that since they must always be on the lookout for any moment of weakness they might encounter with their body or someone else’s, they were denied the right to eat certain foods. It was once believed that spicy foods had a direct correlation to a person’s sexual appetite. As a result, spicy foods were banned from the diet of everyone. In addition, it was thought that whole grains kept people’s sexuality in check, which led to the General-Mills company to capitalize on this need for healthy foods.

3. Looking back on the history of sexuality in America and how it has changed since the first colonists arrived, was Foucault right in saying that we do not live in a sexually repressed society?
The answer to this question is not as clear-cut as one might expect it to be for there are multiple levels that come into play when trying to answer this question. For instance, I could argue that society is still repressed sexually, if not more than before with regard to the “nervous” woman. During the 20th and 21st centuries, woman who were diagnosed with certain medical afflictions pertaining to their physiological and mental state were treated with masturbatory therapy. Two specific types of therapy were to either have a doctor or nurse use a dildo on a woman to get her to climax, as it was reported afterward that the woman’s physical and mental state appeared to have gotten much better, or to prescribe that a woman sit in a hot spring to get the woman to climax from the jets of water hitting certain parts of a woman’s body. This practice was so common during those times that advertisements could be found in any regular household magazine opposite the page for clothing or household items. No longer are these practices in use medically because of the idea that women are asexual and because of the increase in knowledge about the human body that has allowed for physicians to better recognize what is ailing a person’s mind or body.
Interestingly though, sex education films produced in the early 20th century were made for teenage males to warn them about the “dangers” of sex. While the act of coitus was never fully explained, the focus of those films was to scare them into holding off on having sex until marriage. The roles of women in those films were always the giver of a sti rather than a recipient of one which presents a contradictory image of women. On the one hand, women were not to be trusted sexually because they would give an unsuspecting guy a sti, but on the other hand, women were socialized to be pure and innocent when it came to their sexuality. Another interesting point to make about these early sex education films is that the if a reason was given for how a woman became infected with a sti, it was usually because she felt lonely and or neglected by her husband and sought refuge in the arms/bed of another man who consequently had an infectious disease. Even though the woman in this scenario was infected by another man, you are not made to feel sympathetic for her, but rather for her “innocent” husband who now has to go to the doctor to see if he too has been infected. Thus, that was just one more way to represent the “fallen woman” and Madonna/whore persona within cinematic media. So, even though sexuality was discussed and sexual medical practices were used, it was done more so in a repressive or medicinal manner rather than an expressive approach.

4. In the Ang and Hermes piece, their focus was to examine the role gender plays in media consumption as opposed to only looking at how gender is represented in various media outlets. While the difference between the two approaches might seem subtle, they are very different in the type of questions that can be asked. For instance, the authors raise a question of interest to me pertaining to couples who like to watch porn together. What unspoken messages are being sent by women who watch pornography?
To quote Wendy McElroy (1995), “…I am a woman so who is so psychologically damaged by patriarchy that I have fallen in love with my own oppression” (p. vi). Are women who watch pornographic media or make pornographic media reinforcing their own subordination in a patriarchic society? Does the type of pornographic media a woman watches or makes effect how she is resisting or accepting her subordinate status in society? For instance, if a woman engages in watching or making mainstream pornography, that which is made by white men and aimed at heterosexual white men, as opposed to watching or making non-mainstream porn, specifically, that which is made by white women for heterosexual white female viewers, make one genre better or worse than the other? Mainstream porn has been under attack in the U.S. for centuries because of the assumed lack of morals, violent themes and treatment/presentation of women and after centuries of trying to censor and eradicate porn from American society; women’s response was to make porn geared towards women. Now, what sets the two types of porn apart from one another are often believed to have to do with the presentation of sex in each category. Mainstream porn has also been accused of lacking loving/affectionate themes, so to fill that void women began producing porn that involved loving and or affectionate themes for their female viewers. By making those types of films, does that not also oppress women because those types of films imply that women by nature are only interested in those media that involve loving and/or affectionate themes. Like the romance novels, that type of pornography is used as an outlet to tap into another world with which to escape to. Do women really like that sort of porn though? Granted there are some women who do, can it be said that the majority of women find that type of porn entertaining?

2/26

2009-02-26T02:39:00.002-06:00

Fellow readers,

By the end of part two, on pages 48-9, Foucault seems to be arguing that when power increases, variations in sexuality and pleasure multiply. However, If this is true, then we should be at a point of unprecedented conformity of sexuality because this society has systematically disempowered people by making possible decisions for individuals. We are left with little but the ability to choose between predetermined options. So, is Foucault ‘s notion of power that of the individual, or is he talking about the empowerment of institutions that develop at the cost of individual liberty and power? [his explanation of power on p. 92 seems to fall outside of either category] Does it not seem too convenient for Foucault begin his grand “History” of sexuality a mere four hundred years ago?

"Politics is war pursued by other means."

"Sex, the explanation for everything."
[An effort to make this blog more "bloggy"]

Foucault cont'd:

On 140, Michel describes biopower as "the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations." He seems to be speaking specifically about humans and, more broadly, "social bodies." What is the usefulness of biopower as a concept applied to non-human life as in an agricultural or genetically-modified organism sense? What does the scope of a feminist critique of biopower contain? Beyond gender equality, perhaps it would go on to question anthropocentrism and humans' entitlement to the earth's "resources." As a more amorphous and insidious method of control, what does resisting the biopolitical look like to individuals? to populations?

Re: Ang and Hermes:
Ang and Hermes do a good job complicating previous research by challenging the conception of a female audience having a homogenous feminine gender. They also question the validity and genearalizability of previous research that isolated peoples’ experience of a text from its relation to other texts within the bricolage of our post-modern mediascape. Importantly, Ang and Hermes also cite the fact that media use is a “social process” with a multitude of forces that mediate the effects of media on people with ever-changing subject positions. Each of these complications are welcome in a field that seems to continue trying to establish apparent direct media effects despite widespread abandonment of the belief that media messages cause predictable behavior via the hypodermic needle theory. Much psychological research seeks to understand human behavior as a social phenomenon that is affected by the perceived expectations of others. Why do Ang and Hermes and other researchers seem to avoid acknowledging this in their research? Why hasn’t the research we’ve focused on so far considered third person effects? Perhaps women continue to absorb gender roles and expectations through the expectation that everyone else is affected by such media stereotypes. This, at least, partially explains the lack of evidence for direct media effects in the face of an overwhelming conformity amid conceptions of sex and gender.

Questions 2-26

2009-02-25T17:08:00.000-06:00

At the end of the Foucault book, he poses a mental exercise to ponder. “We are often reminded of the countless procedures which Christianity once employed to make us detest the body; but let us ponder all the ruses that were employed for centuries to make us love sex, to make the knowledge of it desirable and everything said about it precious” (159). The function of discourse is ultimately to exercise control over, and presumably arrive at a masterful understanding of a subject. Foucault contends that it is ultimately us that are enslaved by the discourse as we become unable to conceptualize ourselves outside of it. How does this concept relate to hegemony? I’m left with the feeling that I’ve been duped my desire to better understand things, when it ultimately serves to keep me in check, which is a hegemonic function. The proliferation of discourse on sex forces us to understand sex only through the lens of the discourse, so how can we try to better understand the nature of texts like romance novels if we are unable to think outside of the established discourse.

Ang and Hermes do a terrific job of articulating the problems and contradictions we all run into when discussing gender and/in the media. One of those contradictions I frequently encounter is the assertion that all viewers and consumers of media interact with the text and create their own meanings from it. We accept as fact that there is no uniform, predictable, homogeneous audience response. How then can we discuss cultivation theory, which suggests that prolonged exposure to a media text will ultimately lead to the adoption of certain ideals that are unrealistic, untrue, exaggerated, etc. Many scholars assert that females (and possibly males) come to accept unhealthily thin body images as the norm because of their constant exposure to them in the media. Wouldn’t this conflict with the idea that we are constantly managing and negotiating the meanings within these texts?

I found the Ang and Hermes discussion of audience studies to be incredibly compelling. But is it really possible for scholars to ignore the role that certain factors may play in predicting an ethnographic result. Gender may be more of a slippery slope, for obvious reasons, but I find it difficult to believe that class doesn’t play a giant role in determining how people are likely to receive a text (If for no other reason than Distinction). We live in a pseudo-fractured society. Indeed, we share experiences across gender, race, and class lines, and they may not be rigid in determining what we watch and like. But the habitus of an upper class individual will not reflect that of a poor person. What are the advantages of separating a group by class in order to study their response to a media text? What are its limitations?

reading questions for 2/26/09

2009-02-23T19:51:00.001-06:00

Both of these readings are incredibly concerned with discourse. Foucault pretty much slams his audience over the head with it (I’ve never read the word so much in one setting, ever), but Ang and Hermes also heavily deal with discourse. To choose the word discourse over theory, or some other derivative, has a lot of implications. Or at least I feel like it does. Am I totally wrong about this? I feel like discourse is more directly connected to power than theory is, as discourse implies a universal institutionalization. Discourse is also concerned with a lot more than what is said and the implications of that, but also with who said it and when and in what context, etc. Why is it important to these authors to focus on discourse, as opposed to theory? Is there a difference? What difference does it make, especially in regard to power?

On page 10, Foucault asks if power is ultimately repressive, if it serves no purpose other than to repress. He uses much of the rest of the book to prove that this is not the case. He sees power as coming from everywhere, present in all relations, and even grants acts that are usually deemed passive (like silence) with attributes of power. He’s essentially telling us that power is everywhere, that we can’t resist it because it’s a part of everything. But he concludes the book by saying that, in order to free ourselves from the repressive hypothesis, we must resist the discourse of sexuality. Is this contradictory? If we can’t resist power, how can we resist this discourse?

I loved Foucault’s analysis about sexuality as a construct, specifically the part about how sexuality is used to try to come to an understanding of personality, or a person’s fundamental character. Basically, I love that he’s saying that sexuality doesn’t exist in the terms in which we think of it. Gay people are only gay because the discourse on sexuality needs to differentiate from what it has established as normal. There is nothing constitutive about a person’s identity based on how that person partakes in sexual pleasure. But for many queer people, a queer identity is really important. Entire communities are based around these identities. Are they false identities? In trying to deconstruct the discourse of sexuality, has Foucault invalidated communities?

and they all lived happily ever after

2009-02-19T10:46:00.000-06:00

Radway mentions that the Smithton women’s “need to see the story and the emotions aroused by it resolved is so intense . . . [that] the women dislike having to leave a story before it is concluded” (59). I understand this in the context of Radway’s findings, because the women seek an emotional reaffirmation and the feelings that go along with finding the ideal partner to both protect and nurture them, but I find this contradicts the narrative structure of the soap opera which essentially delays such endings or resolutions indefinitely. Assuming there is a proportion of women who consume both media products, how do we reconcile this? On one hand, the gratification comes with the conclusion, but on the other, the gratification is in the continual process.

One way the Smithton women justify their reading is by claiming to learn facts and knowledge while reading, thus proving that “the novels are not merely frothy, purposeless entertainment but possess a certain intrinsic value that can be transferred to the reader” (107). I want to suggest that the negative view of romance novels as unproductive, simple-minded distractions translates over to many, if not all, forms of popular culture. Much like the Smithton women, we often have to justify our enjoyment of television shows (I know it’s bad, but . . .) or certain music played on the radio (I know it sucks, but . . .) or, for me personally, my enjoyment of video games, which still maintain, regardless of statistical data, their infantilized and marginalized societal position. In what ways are these justifications a product of patriarchy, and in what ways to we reinforce conceptions of usefulness when we acquiesce to providing them?

Radway argues that the female foil character in a good romance novel “views men as little more than tools for her own aggrandizement . . . [and] is perfectly willing to man-ipulate [my edit] them by flaunting her sexual availability” (131). I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought of the villainess character from soap operas. Like my previous question related to soaps, though, I find a contradiction in the way this character is viewed by the Smithton women compared to how the villainess is supposedly viewed by her audience. I did not get the indication that the Smithton women “loved to hate” the female foil nor did Radway position her as a symbol of feminine power; rather, she is what her name implies, a foil to the true and ideal female lead, an intelligent, innocent, and ignorant girl who, unlike her counterpart, is capable of true love and selfless compassion and caring. Again, how do we reconcile the two polarized readings of these two very similar characters, the female foil and the villainess?

Writing in 1984, Radway argues that “whether such [feminist] developments [in the romance genre] will be widespread and general in the future is impossible to say since we have no way of knowing how many women will give up their safe, limited, and barely conscious contestation of patriarchy for the uncertainty of feminism’s conscious assault on both its categorization of the world and its institutional structure” (220). I think it is clear to say that Radway includes, if not specifically, then at least generally, the Smithton women when she writes that sentence. Over twenty years later, have romances changed? How have they evolved to more directly challenge and incite women against a male-dominated society, if at all? If the core readership has remained similar to the Smithton women, is this model of the romance novel even possible if women reject all but one specific kind of romance narrative, one that alleviates, but does not directly oppose, the pressures and subordination patriarchy imposes?

The future of romance novels?

2009-02-19T10:03:00.002-06:00

As I read Radway, I found her observations of romance reading in a particular historical moment interesting and her observations on how the women used the romance genre to "escape". Also historically how she follows how the political women's movement of the time period influenced readership and the type of novels that the women may be attracted to.

Also her first chapters about the history of books was fascinating to me as a library professional as I did not realize how genres were started as a publishing industry here in the United States. As her study was conducted in the late 1970-80's, I wonder how much the publishing industry has changed in regards to the romance genre? Has readership gone down or up? What are the current demographics of romance readers today?

Also I wonder what genres might also provide the same "escape" and pleasure as for the women readers Radway interviews. Has the emergence of "chick lit" replaced or given another type of genre women can relate to? What are they relating to in regards to chick lit?

Also, there is a growing number of lesbian and gay romance novels as well. I personally enjoy Jane Fletcher, who writes fantasy romance novels involving two lesbians. It's been a while since I have read one of her novels, but I wonder if those books also follow some of the same themes, plots, and character developments that the romance novel contains from Radway observations.

Radway discusses how reading romance gives the women a chance to relax, gives them time of their own, allows them to indulge in fantasy, and escape (p. 60). Many of these same ideas are seen in Reader Response Theory, which is a reading theory that educators are taught in regards to school-age children. What I have not seen (at least in my limited experience with educational theory) is this being applied to adult readers. Yet, many of their experiences seem to fit within how theorists have observed younger readers who "escape" into literature and make meaningful experiences.

Here's a definition of Reader Response Theory:

reader‐response theory, a body of literary investigations, chiefly German and American, into the nature of the reader's activity in the process of understanding literary texts. A major contribution to debates on this topic was made by Wolfgang Iser ( 1926 – ), whose books The Implied Reader ( 1974 ) and The Act of Reading ( 1979 ) argue that a literary work is incomplete until the reader has ‘actualized’ those elements that are left to her imagination. The more controversial arguments of Stanley Fish ( 1938 – ), in his essays collected as Is There a Text in This Class? ( 1980 ), include the claim that literary texts are produced by the strategies of interpretation that guide us to seek certain meanings in them; and that the way we read poems is determined by the ‘interpretive community’ in which we are trained

reader‐response theory" The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. Ed. Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer. Oxford university Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Marquette University. 19 February 2009

For my last thoughts, I'm going to end on page 211. Radway brings up an interesting observation when she says "the act of reading as combative and compensatory. It is combative in the sense that it enables them to refuse the other-directed social role prescribed for them by their position within the institution of marriage....Their activity is compensatory, then, in that it permits them to focus on themselves and to carve out a solitary space within an arena where their self-interest is usually identified with the interests of others and where they are defined as a public resource to be mined as will by the family."

This duel role that these women play in their communities, as mothers who take care of their family and household and then the independent women they are as they allow space and time for their wants and needs is something I think Radway shows through her observations throughout the book. Again, I wonder is this type of reading only held to the romance genre or has that changed? Is this unique to popular culture as a whole, this appeal only to a very specific type of woman in a particular society or is it possible to see in other cultures or genres?

Radway Readings

2009-02-19T09:42:00.000-06:00

Last semester in a class on film genres, the authors we read grappled with the contradictions of doing post-stucturalist genre theory. Repeatedly, authors called for an attention to history in order to unsettle monolithic claims about genre creation and use. Radway’s book, as an example of genre criticism, is an impressive example of historical research. She generally avoids universalism by reminding us that readers and texts operate within larger systems material and discursive production. However, her research is so well situated within a historical moment, that I wonder how to relate her research to a different time and place? I’m not asking how her theories apply to contemporary romantic form (though that is an interesting question), but what kind of theoretical work do we need to do in order to ask that question.

Romance reading is serious business for both Radway and her readers. The readers’ emphasis on the seriousness of reading is one strategy used to defend a devalued cultural act. Romance texts employ “literary” techniques in order to inject seriousness into the textual level. The readers report different kinds of pleasure that they get from the act of reading. However, the over the top register of the romance was not one of them. Do romance texts foreclose camp readings? What is at stake for the readers to disclose finding pleasure in exaggeration of the form? Is there a Harlequin equivalent to the fan fiction genre of “crack!fic,” where the success of the story rests on its ability to consciously manipulate and expose the conventions of more “serious” fan production?

Reflecting on my enthusiastic reception of Reading the Romance, I think that one of the reasons I like the book as much as I do is my affection for Dot and the Smithton readers. By the end of the book, I felt close to these women. Is it possible to view Dot and the other women, not as informants, but as fictional characters? How is Dot’s character constructed? What strategies does Radway use to foster emotional investment with these characters? Does this process parallel the techniques used by realistic novels to ensure identification and “affective reaction?” (196)

Rape and romance

2009-02-18T13:50:00.003-06:00

Thought I'd post a few clips from the 1979-1980 story of Luke's rape of Laura from the daytime soap opera, General Hospital. The story drew on romance novel conventions, such as those Radway discusses. This story is particularly well known because Luke and Laura go on to fall in love and, about 2 years after the rape, get married in the highest rated daytime soap episode ever. They were a massively popular couple. Once they officially got together, the rape was sort of hushed up, and never discussed until the mid-'90s, when their teenage son finds out. The original rape story, however, was more complex than the aftermath leads one to think. I can fill in the story gaps and details in class, but here is the general scenario. Laura is married to a guy named Scotty. She goes to work as a waitress in a disco run by Luke Spencer. Luke falls in love with Laura and they become friends. One night, convinced he is going to be killed for his involvement with the mafia, this happens:

Laura admits she has been raped to Scotty and her family but says she doesn't know who raped her. Luke and Laura talk about the rape--endlessly!--for about 9 months, debating whether it was really rape or not. Here's a scene in which he admits he raped her to his sister, Bobbie:

Throughout this period, Luke is tortured by his memories of what he did to Laura. Meanwhile, Laura continues to protect Luke (for multiple, convoluted reasons related back to the mob)and in conversations between them and between each of them and others they discuss what rape really is. Ultimately, Scotty finds out that Luke was the rapist, as this scene shows (note: there is another scene in the middle that you need not watch if you don't want):

We can talk more about this in class if we have time, but thought it might be useful to see a moving image version of a story somewhat like those Radway discusses.

Mr. T is really a sensitive girly-man

2009-02-11T19:08:00.003-06:00

1. In Chapter 11 of Television Culture, on masculinity in gendered television, Fiske discusses how masculinity is a paradox of power and discipline (208), and a “cultural bribe” due to a man’s loss of independence when work becomes his central identity. The cultural bribe seems to come from built-in structures of capitalism, keeping the male role focused on duty to family, nation, and country. In representations of masculinity on television, Fiske provides examples as to how male roles are gendered in order to maintain the status quo in a patriarchal and capitalist society. However, as in his chapter on femininity, Fiske mentions that in some TV shows, spaces are created where the narrative can “open up,” allowing for male audiences to subvert dominant roles, and, in essence, become resistant to dominant definitions of male gender roles. Other than the example he provides illustrating how Miami Vice “softens ” traditional male roles (221), what other examples of more recent television shows might support this argument? And,
do you believe this type of “softer style” actually serves as a point of possible resistance?

2. In Gledhill’s article “Pleasurable Negotiations,” she states that changes over time in our cultural history make older “dominant” readings of texts outmoded, and that alternative readings often end up becoming the preferred readings. She goes further to talk about how TV & film critics' interpretations create “new cycles of meaning production and negotiation” (175) and includes all sorts of non-professional criticism (classroom lectures, letters to the editor, etc.) as offering additional ways to break through dominant patriarchal discourse and shape new meanings from texts, as society changes. Can critical evaluation of texts actually inform audiences and spark resistance to dominant structures by offering newer, more “alternative” readings? Are audiences becoming more sophisticated and aware of dominant/gendered structures, and more able to resist them to create their own meanings? Are they becoming more adept at bypassing the roles provided and interpreting them in new ways? Do you think the mainstream accessibility of media criticism and analysis affects how TV shows are gendered? Is the future looking rosy or dark?

3. In Fiske’s Chapter 10, he points to the slow movement of plots in soap operas, and how it allows women to savor “reactions and feelings.” (184) Also, in many soaps, there are those moments happen frequently, usually at the end of one plot scene, where the camera not only does a close-up on the woman or man’s face, but it lingers uncomfortably long, as we see the expression in real time, changing with an exaggerated emotional reaction. In contrast, in his chapter on masculinity, he offers a similar “savoring” that happens with men as they view slow-motion shots that focus on physical ability (e.g. the sweaty muscles of an athlete in motion) or excessive action (e.g. a car flying over an embankment and going up in flames). (Chap. 11, 219) These examples of narrative structures or editing tools seem to clearly re-create within the text, the theory that women want to process emotions and people’s feelings, and that men, on the other hand, not only focus on the event, but slow it down to savor in the glory of the exciting action. Can you think of any examples where this is turned around? Or, for example, when a woman watches one of these “slow-motion” male-oriented action scenes, is there an alternative reading women might have that would give a feeling of power and release? And visa versa?

Reading Questions

2009-02-11T14:56:00.000-06:00

1. Bobo's article on audience response to The Color Purple takes an audience centered approach to discussing the ways in which a subject or audience imprints their meaning on a text and uses that meaning to form a group collective of shared experience and histories. In discussing myths, specifically the “exotic primitive” myth, Bobo cites Mark Schorer and says that the truth of a myth doesn't matter as much as the function of the myth to validate a group's history in a manner that's satisfactory to a culture, and also that traditions aren't born when someone creates them, but when a collective reads/interprets them (100). Both these ideas give agency to the audience and their use of a narrative or a text; by Bobo's interpretation of a myth, how many myths are involved in the writing, directing, and receiving of The Color Purple or similar works? What groups or cultures are these myths serving? What values are they serving? Does one myth or narrative hold more power than another- why or why not?

2. Bobo goes on to mention Hall's principle of “articulation,” the moment when an underrepresented group wrestles control from dominant ideology and makes their own meaning and that the strength is maintained only when the group goes on to put the altered discourse to use and goes on to act in a political manner (105). What does she mean by putting this discourse to use? What actions can a group take to either proliferate, maintain, or strengthen that altered discourse? Is this altered discourse maintained more on a private or public level, or both? How possible or what is necessary for the underrepresented group to make their “voice” more embedded into the dominant ideology?

3. Gledhill states in her article that receptive negotiating is the “most radical moment of negotiation- the most variable and predictable” (172). She goes on to discuss that mainstream production commodifies marginalized groups or beliefs to simultaneously give them attention while getting them, or the pressure to represent them, under their control. She also discusses the instability of identity- that it is never fixed and, likewise, an audience's interpretation of a text will vary depending on shifting personal and historical factors and viewing situations (174). Considering all these unstable factors, what does a scholar access by analyzing audience response to a text? What is the “best” way, given such shifting variables, to understand how a subject reacts to a text; what, if any, generalizations can be drawn? What are the practical outcomes/benefits to such an analysis? How does making a subject more aware of her response to a text in relation to her personal history benefit her and others? Kuhn states that “the distinction between social audience and spectator/subject, and attempts to explore the relationship between the two, are part of a broader theoretical endeavor: to deal in tandem with texts and contexts” (348). This dualism seems to support that texts reinforce already situated norms and ideology; so what is gained practically by understanding how audiences interact with texts- what are the advantages of a media-focused discipline?

4. In “Gendered Television: Femininity,” Fiske talks about deferment in soap operas and how, by having no definitive climax, the audience finds pleasure in the desire for/process towards pleasure rather than the attainment of it (183). He suggests that “endless deferment need not be seen as a textual transformation of women's powerlessness in patriarchy. It can be seen more positively as an articulation of a specific feminine definition of desire and pleasure that is contrasted with the masculine pleasure of the final success” (183). Furthermore, this deferment or emphasis on process rather than product is constitutive of a feminine subjectivity as it opposes masculine pleasures, and soaps therefore validate this “deferment principle” as a source of legitimate pleasure against the patriarchy (183). How/why is this deferment to pleasure feminized, and if so, is it truly a pleasure within and against the patriarchy? More so within than against? Does this “deferment principle” glorify putting what is desirable out of reach to avoid disappointment of the process ending? Practically speaking, is finding more pleasure in the process healthier than finding pleasure in the product?

reading questions for 2/12/09

2009-02-11T12:39:00.001-06:00

In the first whole paragraph on the top of page 96, Bobo extends her ideas about black female viewers of The Color Purple to the experiences of all marginalized viewers. She talks about how these viewers automatically come at a text from an oppositional standpoint, because of continual misrepresentation. In essence, this is coming down to an argument of authenticity. Can a person who is not (or furthermore, could never be) a member of a community faithfully and authentically present a picture of this community? What does it mean for viewers of The Color Purple that Steven Spielberg was responsible for the film? What are the ramifications of a white male constructing meaning for black women?

In this same paragraph, Bobo continues on to say that “Out of habit, as readers of mainstream texts, we [marginalized viewers] have learned to ferret out the beneficial and put up blinders against the rest.” (96) I enjoyed this reading because so far, it’s one of the only times we’ve dealt with “the other” within “the other” – the experience of marginalized peoples outside of the standard male/female dichotomy. In many of our readings (and specifically in both of the Fiske chapters), I’ve gotten the sense that the assertions made are in regards to homogeneous groups of straight, white men or women. For instance, Fiske does little to deal with Mr. T’s blackness. There is an amazing quote in the bottom right corner of figure 11.2 on page 207. Mr. T says that the gold chains he wears “are a symbol of my great African ancestors, who were brought here as slaves in iron chains. I turned my chains into gold, so my statement is this: I wear gold chains instead of iron because I’m still a slave, but my price tag is higher.” This is a profound statement from a black actor, and one that Fiske doesn’t deal with. Also, very little attention is given to queer readings of these texts, or the experiences of queer (or, god forbid, trans) readers in general. Is it possible to dissolve this homogeneity, or are some of the theories we’ve been reading really only applicable to this standardized straight, white male or female?

In reading Brunsdon’s article, I started thinking about soap operas as a Marxist narrative. While I realize this is a stretch, stick with me for a minute. On page 78, Brunsdon talks about the narrative structure of the British soap Crossroads. She says that “The fictional community…is kept interacting through a series of interlocking economic relationships, but this business interaction is only of diegetic importance as the site of personal relationships.” It’s interesting that the series moves forward and gets its plot structure from economy, and that these economic relationships determine the personal relationships of the characters. This sounds like an incredible example of the base/superstructure model in which the economic base determines the culture and ideas (superstructure) of the community. But the interesting thing about this community is that women are the ones in power, and furthermore, that this narrative affords “a potential moral equality of all individuals”. (80) Granted, the storylines feed into all kinds of hegemony, but it still puts an interesting spin on the traditional workings of community. Could soap operas be read as a Marxist narrative (although not a super-revolutionary one)? Or am I bonkers? Furthermore, if the standard conventions of society are left in place, but women now control them instead of men, is this revolutionary?

"The A Team closes the gap between the penis and the phallus."

2009-02-11T10:33:00.004-06:00

So says John Fiske in the "Gendered Television: Masculinity" chapter of Television Culture we are reading for this week. See what you think. First, here's the A-Team credit sequence:

And the credit sequence for the Mr. T cartoon:

Search Mr. T on YouTube and you will be there for a very long time.

Here is one of the MANY A-Team homages using the characters and settings of the Grand Theft Auto video game. This one uses GTA: San Andreas. Carl Johnson is game's main character:

Field trips?

2009-02-05T17:27:00.002-06:00

Here's the info on the two films we discussed in class and here's the full Union film schedule.

If people are interested, maybe we can organize some outings, perhaps even with a pitcher of beer or two afterwards, courtesy of me.

Women Without Borders Film Series and Experimental Tuesdays

Tuesday, March 3 – 7pm – Free Screening

Deliver * Milwaukee premiere!

(Jennifer Montgomery, USA, 100 min., video, 2008)

Director Jennifer Montgomery in person!

The Milwaukee premiere of Deliver, Jennifer Montgomery’s all-female, video remake of Deliverance (1975). Shooting in the Catskills rather than Appalachian Georgia, a cast of experimental filmmakers/academics (Peggy Ahwesh, Jacqueline Goss, Meredith Root, Su Friedrich and Montgomery) play mirages of themselves—urban artists looking to unplug in the unspoiled wilderness. Montgomery follows John Boorman’s original movie and James Dickey’s original book closely, as the gender inversion complicates hegemonic notions of nature, power, and sexual violence, all on a stretch of river called, yes, the Beaverkill.

Experimental Tuesdays and Cinema Classics

Tuesday, March 10 – 7pm– Free Screening

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles * new 35mm print!

(Chantal Akerman, France/Belgium, in French w/ English st., 201 min., 35mm, 1976)

A classic of both feminist and experimental filmmaking, Chantal Akerman's portrayal of Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig), a Belgian single mother who prostitutes herself to support herself and her son, unfolds as if it were a real-life, real-time documentary. While depicting Jeanne’s daily life over three days, through comprehensive observation of the rhythm and surface details of her domestic routines, a slow, almost imperceptible revelation of things going wrong has a shocking resonance.

Co-presented by Experimental Tuesdays at the Union Theatre and the UWM Women’s Resource Center

Week One Reading Questions

2009-02-04T16:13:00.000-06:00

1.Both the Mulvey and Flitterman-Lewis article explain how the spectator of narrative film is situated to adopt a male-perspective gaze or reading of the film; Mulvey states that “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (62) and goes on to discuss how female heroines function as both the erotic object for characters within the film and for audience members outside the film (63) and how the male spectator, through identifying with the male protagonist, partakes in the objectification of the lead female role (64). To illustrate her point, Mulvey mentions several films- films in which the male gaze is most apparent (Vertigo, Rear Window), at which point her analysis seems more directed at the films' narratives rather than an application of psychoanalysis to film. Mulvey convincingly argues that these films' narratives reinforce oppressive patriarchal structures- a narrative analysis of these films seems to look at the conscious articulations of the patriarchy rather than the unconscious; I guess I'm missing the link in practically applying psychoanalysis to film, rather than using it as a theoretical foundation for a structuralist or narrative analysis. Doesn't addressing the more conscious aspect of film (the narratives) suggest that, while there may be an unconscious male gaze, this oppressive spectatorship is reinforced by learned narratives and roles and can therefore be undermined? What might a cinematic text absent of the male gaze, both from the author and the fictional characters, look like? Mulvey seems to suggest that avant-garde film may provide a space for film without a male gaze, but is there something inherently “male” in watching or voyeurism- regardless of what the subject is? Is “visual consumption” gendered regardless of the object?
2.When discussing Freud's “infantile sexuality” Flitterman-Lewis explains how an infant's future yearnings “will be marked by a need to recover that totality of sensations” which includes physical pleasure (205). The article goes on to discuss how the ambiance and physical layout of the cinema (and the viewer) are reminiscent of a dream state or a reproduction of the “structure and logic of a dream” (211) and that “the simple acts of film going or watching TV are shaped by unconscious desires” (207). To what extent do these desires interact with the actual narrative and visual content of the film? Do we find TV watching, and more so film watching (at the theaters) pleasurable because of its mere visual stimulation or does what we're actually seeing (Julia Robert's legs or Mickey Rourke's face) determine how desirable we find the experience? Is it as pleasurable sexually (as psychoanalysis might imply) or merely physically, or both? Is the pleasure derived from viewing/”getting lost” in a representation of reality or does it matter what we're seeing and the narrative we're interpreting? How conscious or unconscious is our pleasure when watching film if we're saying “no” to reality and “yes” to a dream?
3.Both articles suggest that a viewer consciously identifies with either the oppressive masculine role or the watched feminine role in a film. Mulvey analyzed movies in which much of the screen time was given to either the female or male lead- most of who were relatively young white people. If psychoanalysis film theory is more focused on the spectatorship of film-TV watching rather than the structural aspects of the film itself, can the way in which the viewer identifies with the text's characters be more complex than just identifying with their like gender? A non-infant audience identifying with an other (the film's actors) seems more conscious than the analogy with the infant in the mirror; are there other factors/demographics/contexts besides gender that may influence the way an audience identifies with the characters?

Poetry Corner

2009-02-03T18:48:00.002-06:00

While reading Modleski, I kept thinking about Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy." Specifically, this excerpt:

Every woman adores a fascist,
the boot in the face,
the brute, brute heart
of a brute like you."

This ties into the phenomenon brought up when Modleski cites Greer who argued that women seem to cherish "the chains of their bondage" (30). Perhaps we can discuss this more in class.

Finally, while reading the Plath poem, I was reminded of another poem I encountered in an undergrad course. If you're interested, I'll post it below. It's about a woman who loves a man that relishes beating other women - its complex emotions stick with me to this day.

What Was There to Bring Me to Delight But to Love and Be Loved?
-Paisley Rekdal

I declared, and immediately rejected this. For instance:
a man I loved onced liked to hurt women and would tell me
what he did to his lovers. The sight of a woman's slight hips
as she was knocked over a television might give delight. Or the way
bones sounded in skin that bumped or scraped against a wall.
He used to claim he could hear things like this, not
the scratch of a woman's back on a wall, but actual
bone rubbing muscle, skin, joint, the sound
as if sticks rattled in cloth. It frightened him, he said, he found himself
pushing other women to prove he couldn't really hear the sound.
And I loved him. I loved forgiving him. I must admit this
though he never laid a hand on me,
I knew enough about this kind of loss.
There were more significant things
to demand from the world. Such as how
a word could call up more than violence, idea, person, become
reality with only the finest limitations
of meaning. Such as monster, perhaps,
or grave, or delicious. I could say, for instance, that this man
was a delicious monster with his strap-colored hair and soft mouth
though where does that place me
in the universe of word? Perhaps you could say I
was the monster, searching not for where rivers ran but to the source
of rivers, the frozen nugget of an idea of river: so cold
it almost burns the rock around it. I was the one willing to sacrifice
so many others of my kind; I could listen for hours
to his stories of women whose bones itched within them
and all I could think was hand, eye, mouth as if to say the words
was to take his fingers into my mouth, to suck
the warm pink nails between my teeth, or lick the egg taste
from his eye with my tongue. These were more real to me
than the fact he would cry out on the phone or in my bedroom
where we would talk. He would cry and all I could think was
More, let my thighs be another casing for you
if this is the kind of grave you want. I almost thought grace. I almost
gave in once but, and this is the truth, he was afraid of me. I
was the coldness of rivers, he said, I was the source
and when he looked down at me lying on the sheets rumpled
like a ruined skin, he called me his destroyer.

Perhaps the real question in the world is not
what to love, but how to forgive.
What does it take for the monstrous
to be delightful in the eye of God? As if beauty itself
wasn't also obscene - and really fleshed claw, a peony
a flowering of blood. Or perhaps a word is really all it signifies, all
we can trust in fact; to name a thing
is to make it so. When I called this man a man, you must believe
he became one for me. The source of the river,
not its oceangrasp. What happened to the man I loved
is that eventually he choked a woman almost to death.
We weren't speaking then. Even I, it seems, have my limits.
But I can imagine how he would have told me he could hear her spine
crying out to him, an accusation of the flesh. What more is there
but to love like this and to be loved? he asked me once.
You are my source of delight,
an eternal search for grace, I answered. I almost said the grave.

Reading Questions

2009-02-02T18:24:00.002-06:00

Modleski attempts to create a connection between the stages of growth for a heterosexual female and a collection of media texts that she believes correspond to those stages. She suggests that the Harlequin romance novels help women better understand heterosexual courtship, Gothic novels help women come to understand marriage, and ultimately soap operas help women deal with their life as a wife and mother (53). If Modleski is correct and these texts serve as means to understand women’s place in a heterosexual patriarchy, then what role can they play in ultimately undermining the ideology that has led to their existence? I found her analysis at times to be incredibly depressing. She makes it clear that women who interact with these texts have the potential to learn how patriarchy affects their lives, but there is no indication that it is a conscious understanding, and so there is little chance that it will yield positive changes to the structure. Speaking of soaps, Modleski says that they “help to reconcile her (wife, mother) to the meaningless, repetitive nature of much of her life and work within the home” (90). Why is there not a soap opera that teaches them to reject the aforementioned drugdery of domestic life? If these texts offer only unconscious and passive understanding of the problems women face, which only leads to acceptance of them as inevitable, then aren’t they part of a larger problem? While Harlequins may succeed in helping women understand the courting process, the goal is only identification of the role they have traditionally played within that process. This leads me to wonder if they are only serving a hegemonic function?

Mulvey believes that cinema spectatorship is gendered, suggesting that movies are, perhaps inadvertently, structured in a way that encourages identification with the male protagonist as he erotically gazes on the female characters. While this point is well argued, isn’t this true for all texts of a patriarchal society? It’s no surprise that women are often the object of the male gaze in cinema, since that is their typical role in everything from advertising to video games, sitcoms to pop music. In fact, I have a difficult time trying to identify a single popular media text that doesn’t situate the viewer/listener/reader as such. Even the Harlequins, Gothics, and soap operas so dutifully examined by Modleski are guilty of positioning women in relation to how men see them. They reinforce the idea that “men watch women, and women watch themselves being watched by men” (Modleski, 44). Modleski agrees with European Marxists who dismissed the idea of an in-group and an out-group within ideology, whereby the in-group is subjected to ideological illusions perpetuated by an out-group that is ideologically impervious (Modleski, 19). Are there examples of media texts that do not position women as the object of male gaze? Is it possible to create a popular media text that does not position women as the object of the male gaze? Are media texts doing harm by teaching women how to come to terms with the way men view them in a patriarchal society, especially if they fail to simultaneously encourage women to challenge their status?

A reoccurring theme in the readings this week seems to suggest that parts of our ideology are an uncontrollable byproduct of Freudian self-consciousness development. All of the readings identify the Oedipal complex as a significant component in our understanding of the relationship between gender and pop culture. Moreover, it is integral in understanding gender as a whole since the Oedipal moment signifies our adoption of the social characteristics of the same sex parent. Aside from identifying a strong conduit for passing along gender ideology, psychoanalysis has also identified what it is about cinema viewing that humans find so pleasurable. Flitterman-Lewis claims that “when we watch a film it is as if we were somehow dreaming it as well; our unconscious desires work in tandem with those that generated the film-dream” (211). And accordingly, our dreams represent the unconscious and suppressed desires of the human psyche. I’m left with a chicken vs. egg paradox. Are films made to exploit the womb-like characteristics and invoke repressed desires through dreamy cinematic sequences? While I do find many things about cinema viewing pleasurable, perhaps even for the reasons expressed by Flitterman-Lewis, their evolution is unclear. Do we go to the cinema because of the inherently pleasurable characteristics identified through psychoanalysis, or did we create a cinema experience over time that reflects our subconscious desires? If the cinema experience is supposed to reflect our repressed subconscious desires, wouldn’t this conflict with the Mulvey article that suggests that films position women for the erotic gaze of men? (I doubt that it is the subconscious fantasy of ALL women to be the subject of the erotic gaze of men.)

reading questions

2009-01-30T19:26:00.000-06:00

As a rule, Harlequins are written in the third person. Modleski stresses the difference between “personal” and “apersonal” third person narration. In doing so, she utilizes Barthes analysis of narrative to make the point that these novels encourage the reader to see herself as the main character. (55, 1984 edition) This changes rather suddenly, however, when the appearance of that character is described. The female reader is then required to view the character, and consequently herself, through the male gaze. Modleski describes this as a sort of schizophrenic readership, one in which the reader is both herself and another simultaneously. Both Mulvey and Flitterman-Lewis address this same issue of gendered spectatorship. Must feminine forms of narration conform to this standard? Could this schizophrenia offer any benefits to the reader? How does Flitterman-Lewis’s analysis that the act of watching is an inherent part of identity formation play into the development of this schizophrenia?

Where Mulvey states that all narrative pleasure is male pleasure, Modleski disagrees. She heralds soap operas as a distinctly feminine narrative form. What I found most interesting about her analysis of soap operas was the concept of “decentering”. (100-101) She parallels the woman’s experience in the home with the non-linear, never conclusive soap opera, which essentially helps the woman come to an appreciation of her own life and its scattered duties. This is one of the ways in which Modleski claims that soap operas can be very beneficial to the viewer. Others include utilizing soap operas as an outlet for feminine anger (97), and also that soaps help women meet a real need for community in their lives, even if that community is an imagined one (108). How can one reconcile the gap between Modleski’s perceived benefits of soap opera consumption and hegemony? Finally, do Modleski’s claims effectively counter those of Mulvey?

The back cover of the 1984 version of Loving with a Vengeance makes it clear that this is the first study that takes feminine narrative forms seriously. Throughout this work, Modleski references feminist theorists who have argued against these forms, repeatedly pointing out how they have been too hasty in their analyses. In effect, she seems to be saying that these viewpoints are anti-feminist. Is this statement merited? Can feminist critique be used to effectively debase feminine forms of narration? Should it, and what are the ramifications of doing so?

barker's beauties!

2009-01-30T19:19:00.001-06:00

Youtube Video about RSS Feeds

2009-01-30T12:02:00.001-06:00

A video that clearly explains what a RSS feed is and what a reader is used for. Not great audio, but love the visuals :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

~Carolyn

Snacks days

2009-01-29T20:01:00.002-06:00

2/5/09: Youngchi

2/12/09: Matt

2/19/09: Kristi

2/26/09: Susie

3/5/09: John

3/12/09: Molly

3/26/09: Savanna

4/2/09: Carolyn

4/9/09: Mara

4/16/09: Melissa

4/23/09: Shiquise

4/30/09: DeAnna

5/7/09: Eric

Dates for Reading Questions

2009-01-29T19:58:00.002-06:00

Here's the sign-up days for everyone's reading questions:

2/5/09: Youngchi, DeAnna, Susie, Eric

2/12/09: DeAnna, Molly, Susie

2/19/09: John, Mara, Carolyn

2/26/09: Shiquise, Matt, Savanna, Eric

3/5/09: Susie, Mara, John, Carolyn

3/12/09: Shiquise, Youngchi, Savanna

4/2/09: DeAnna, Kristi, Melissa

4/9/09: Youngchi, Mara, Molly, Melissa

4/16/09: Matt, Kristi, John, Savanna

4/23/09: Molly, Kristi, Carolyn, Melissa

4/30/09: Shiquise, Matt, Eric

Syllabus

2009-01-22T10:35:00.002-06:00

Journalism and Media Communication 860
Gender and Popular Culture
Spring 2009
Thursday, 2:00 PM – 4:40 PM, MER 347

Professor: Elana Levine
Office: 131 Johnston, 229-4718
E-Mail: ehlevine@uwm.edu
Office hours: Tuesday & Thursday, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM & by appointment

Course Description
This course is a graduate-level examination of the relationship between gender and popular culture, focusing largely on the U.S./western context and the present day, although we will touch on non-western and historical questions. While we will consider representations of gender in popular cultural texts, the course more heavily examines how and why various popular cultural forms are gendered and how and why the audiences and users of such forms do or do not identify along gendered lines in their practices of cultural consumption. Because the focus is on gender as a category of identity we will consider both feminized and masculinized cultural forms and practices, and will seek to understand how these identities get distinguished from one another, as well as what the social and cultural impact of such processes of differentiation might be. To grapple with such questions, the course introduces students to feminist theory, particularly feminist media theory and post-structuralist theories of gender and sexuality, as well as examining a number of different instances of popular culture, helping us to apply theoretical concepts to concrete cases. Students are expected to conduct original research as well as to engage actively with course readings and discussions.

Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you will:
1) understand key theories of gender and sexuality;
2) comprehend the theories and methods of feminist media studies;
3) develop your knowledge about a number of popular cultural forms;
4) improve your research, writing, and analysis skills through class discussions and course assignments; and
5) deepen your understanding of media as a cultural force and as an object of scholarly inquiry

Readings:
Available at the UWM Bookstore:
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, An Introduction: Volume 1 (New York:
Vintage Books, 1990).
Modleski, Tania, Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-produced Fantasies for Women (New
York: Routledge, 2007).
Radway, Janice. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
Tasker, Yvonne and Diane Negra, eds.. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the
Politics of Popular Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007)/
Books are also on reserve at the Golda Meir Library

Available on e-reserve through the UWM Library Homepage
Ang, Ien and Joke Hermes. “Gender and/in Media Consumption.” In Living Room Wars:
Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World (London: Routledge, 1996):
109-129.
Bailey, Beth L. “The Etiquette of Masculinity and Femininity.” In From Front Porch to Back
Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1989): 97-118.
Bartky, Sandra Lee. “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.” In
Feminism & Foucault: Reflections on Resistance, editd by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988): 61-86.
Battema, Douglas and Sewell, Philip. “Trading in Masculinity: Muscles, Money, and Market
Discourse in the WWF.” In Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling, edited by Nicholas Sammond. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): 260-294.
Becker, Ron. “‘Help is on the Way!’: Supernanny, Nanny 911, and the Neoliberal Politics of the
Family.” In The Great American Makeover: Television, History, Nation,” edited by Dana Heller. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006): 175-191.
Breazeale, Kenon. “In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male
Consumer.” In The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader, edited by Jennifer Scanlon. (New York: New York University Press, 2000): 226-244.
Brunsdon, Charlotte. “Crossroads: Notes on Soap Opera.” In Regarding Television, edited by
E. Ann Kaplan. (Los Angeles: American Film Institute, 1983): 76-83.
Bobo, Jacqueline. “The Color Purple: Black Women as Cultural Readers.” In Female
Spectators: Looking at Film and Television, ed. By E. Deidre Pribram. (London: Verso, 1988): 90-109.
Butler, Judith. Selection from “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion,”
in Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. (New York: Routledge, 1993): 121-137.
Butler, Judith. “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire,” and “Bodily Inscriptions, Performative
Subversions.” In Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. (New York: Routledge, 1990): 1-34, 128-141.
Carroll, Hamilton. “Men’s Soaps: Automotive Television Programming and Contemporary
Working-Class Masculinities.” Television & New Media 9:4 (July 2008), 263-283.
Douglas, Susan J. “Letting the Boys be Boys: Talk Radio, Male Hysteria, and Political Discourse
in the 1980s.” In Radio Reader, edited by Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio (New York: Routledge, 2002):
Douglas, Susan J. “Throwing Out Our Bras.” In Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with
Mass Media. (New York: Times Books, 1995): 139-161.
Edwards, Tim. “Sex, Booze and Fags: Masculinity, Style and Men’s Magazines.” In
Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, edited by Bethan Benwell (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003): 132-146.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. “Playboy Joins the Battle of the Sexes.” In The Hearts of Men: American
Dreams and the Flight from Commitment. (New York: Anchor Books, 1983): 42-51.
Ehrenreich, Barbara, Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs. “Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have
Fun.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa A. Lewis. (New York: Routledge, 1992): 84-106.
Fiske, John. “Gendered Television: Femininity” and “Gendered Television: Masculinity.” In
Television Culture (London: Routledge, 1991): 179-223.
Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. Selection from “Psychoanalysis, Film, & Television.” In Channels of
Discourse, edited by Robert C. Allen. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992): 204-216.
Frank, Katherine. “Primetime Harem Fantasies: Marriage, Monogamy, and a Bit of Feminist
Fanfiction on ABC’s The Bachelor.” In Third Wave Feminism and Television, edited by Merri Lisa Johnson. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007): 91-118.
Gledhill, Christine. “Pleasurable Negotiations.” In Feminist Film Theory: A Reader, edited by Sue Thornham, (New York: NYU Press, 1998): 166-179.
Huyssen, Andreas. Selection from “Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism’s Other.” In Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, edited by Tania Modleski. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986): 188-196.
Jenkins III, Henry. “‘Never Trust a Snake’: WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama.” In Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling, edited by Nicholas Sammond. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): 33-66.
Jenkins, Henry, McPherson, Tara, and Shattuc, Jane. “Defining Popular Culture.” In Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, edited by Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson, and Jane Shattuc. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002): 26-42.
Johnson, Ann. “The Subtleties of Blatant Sexism.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4:2 (June 2007), 166-183.
Kuhn, Annette. “Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera, and Theory.” In Feminist Television Criticism, 2nd ed., edited by Charlotte Brunsdon and Lynn Spigel. (New York: Oxford University Pres, 2008): 225-234.
Leonard, David J. “To the White Extreme: Conquering Athletic Space, White Manhood, and Racing Virtual Reality.” In Digital Gameplay: Essays on the Nexus of Game and Gamer, edited by Nate Garrelts. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2005): 110-129,
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” (Orig. published 1975) In Feminist Film Theory: A Reader, edited by Sue Thornham,. (New York: NYU Press, 1998): 58-69.
Ouellette, Laurie. “‘Take Responsibility for Yourself’: Judge Judy and the Neoliberal Citizen.” In Feminist Television Criticism, 2nd ed., edited by Charlotte Brunsdon and Lynn Spigel. (New York: Oxford University Pres, 2008): 139-153.
Penley, Constance. “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture.” In Cultural
Studies, edited by Lawrence Grosssberg, Cary Nelson and Paula Treichler. (New York: Routlege, 1992): 479-500.
Rose, Ava and James Friedman. “Television Sports as Mas(s)culine Cult of Distraction.”
In Out of Bounds: Sports, Media, and the Politics of Identity, edited by Aaron Baker and Todd Boyd. (Bloomingon & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997): 1-15.
Sender, Katherine. “Queens for a Day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the Neoliberal Project.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 23:2 (June 2006), 131-151.
Taylor, T.L. “Where the Women Are.” In Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006): 93-124.
Thornham, Helen. “‘It’s a Boy Thing’: Gaming, Gender, and Geeks.” Feminist Media Studies 8:2 (2008), 127-142.

Available on the web:
Wald, Gayle. “‘I Want It That Way’: Teenybopper Music and the Girling of Boy Bands.” Genders 35 (2002).

Evaluation:

Reading Questions -- 10%
Each student is responsible for writing questions in response to the week’s readings three times during the semester. These questions will be posted to the class blog by 11 AM the day of each seminar and may serve as a basis for discussion in that week’s class. You are expected to write multiple questions (3-5 in total) that either focus on a specific reading or that raise issues occurring across readings. In weeks with multiple reading assignments, you will be expected to address at least 3 of the assigned articles in your questions. Questions should be substantial and involve some explication (rather than being single, short sentences). A given week’s questions should run between 300 and 500 words total.

Class Participation – 15%
All students are expected to attend every class session and to participate in class discussions. This requires that you come prepared to every class session, which means that you have carefully read the week’s assignments, as well as the reading questions posted to the class blog.

Analysis of popular text – 25%
This short writing assignment asks you to read, watch, or otherwise engage with a popular cultural text similar to those we have read about and discussed in class. In this 4-6 page paper, you will describe and analyze the text, highlighting some gendered dimension of it. This dimension could relate to the representations within the text, to the ways it addresses its readers/users as gendered, or to how it connects to an aspect of gendered experience. Options are open, but some possibilities are magazines targeted to men or to women, romance novels, daytime soap operas, reality TV shows, or a particular video game, website, or discussion forum.

Research paper – 50% total
Each student will write a 15-20 page original research paper on a topic of his or her choice. The only restriction is that it grapple in some way with the subject matter of the course. There are three parts to this assignment:
Proposal – 10% -- Students will submit 1-2 page proposals for their research
papers, which will include a preliminary bibliography. Proposals should pose
research questions and preliminary arguments, as well as describing the
general area of research. You are encouraged to talk with me about your
ideas before you submit this assignment.

Final paper – 40% -- Draws on research from a humanistic/qualitative
perspective to set forth and support an argument about a particular case within
the general area of gender and popular culture. Students are expected to draw
on key theories to inform their analyses.

In-class presentation -- Required but not graded. All students will present
their projects to the rest of the class, either on the final class day or during a
special finals week meeting (to be announced depending upon enrollment).
These will be relatively short presentations (10-20 minutes total, again
depending upon enrollment) in which you will tell us about your topic, your
argument, and your analysis/evidence in support of that argument, as well as
taking questions and engaging in discussion with the class about your project.

In order to pass the course, all work must be completed. Late assignments will be penalized 1/3 grade per day (e.g., A to A-, A- to B+).

Academic misconduct/Plagiarism
Students are responsible for the honest completion and representation of their work, for the appropriate citation of sources, and for respect of others’ academic endeavors. Any instances of academic misconduct, including plagiarism, will receive the full penalties, per the policies and practices of the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, the College of Letters & Science, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Special accommodations
If you need special accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course, please contact me as soon as possible.

Students will be allowed to complete examinations or other requirements that are missed because of a religious observance.

For university policies on these and other matters, please see here.

Weekly Schedule
Week One -- Introduction
1/29/09
E-reserve: Jenkins, McPherson & Shattuc, Huyssen

Week Two – Gendered spectatorship/Mass culture
2/5/09
E-reserve: Flitterman-Lewis, Mulvey
Modleski

Week Three – The Social Audience and Gendered Genres
2/12/09
E-reserve: Gledhill, Brunsdon, Kuhn, Fiske, Bobo

Week Four – Case study: Reading the Romance
2/19/09
Radway

Week Five – Poststructuralist theory: Foucault
2/26/09
Foucault
E-reserve: Ang & Hermes

Week Six -- Queer theory and gender performativity
3/5/09
E-reserve: Bartky, Butler, selections from Gender Trouble, Butler, “Gender is Burning”

Week Seven – Media and challenges to normative gender and sexuality
3/12/09
E-reserve: Frank, Penley, Taylor
On-line: Wald
Tasker and Negra: Cohan

Spring Break

Monday, March 23, 5PM – Pop culture analysis due

Week Eight – Screening
3/26/09

Week Nine – Historicizing gender and popular culture: The Mid-20th Century
4/2/09
E-reserve: Breazeale, Bailey, Ehrenreich, Ehrenreich, Hess & Jacobs, Douglas, “Throwing Out Our Bras”

Week Ten – The postfeminist cultural context
4/9/09
Tasker & Negra: Introduction, McRobbie, Projansky, Banet-Weiser, Springer
Paper Proposal Due

Week Eleven – Hegemonic masculinity and/in contemporary culture
4/16/09
E-reserve: Leonard, Thornham, Douglas, “Letting the Boys be Boys,” Johnson, Edwards

Week Twelve – Masculinized pleasures and/in contemporary culture
4/23/09
E-reserve: Jenkins, Battema & Sewell, Rose & Friedman, Carroll

Week Thirteen – Neo-liberalism, reality TV, and gender
4/30/09
Tasker and Negra: Roberts
E-reserve: Ouellette, Sender, Becker

Week Fourteen -- Presentations
5/7/09

Final Papers due Tuesday, May 12, 5PM

Gender and Popular Culture Seminar

Last week in Snuggie News

neoliberalism

American Chopper update

With Great Neoliberalism Comes Great Responsibility.

Project presentations for Thurs., 5/7

tough love!

Neoliberalism and Post-Feminism

It's Raining Men and the WWF

Seems Appropriate

MEN ...

The Empire Strikes Back

All about the men

hegemonic masculinity

Postfeminism and the sexualization of women's bodies

Wresling with Postfeminism

Reading Questions: April 9 Tasker/Negra

Interrogating Post-Feminism

For a refreshing interlude...

Week Nine

Week Nine Reading Questions

Welcome to the 1950s

Black vs. White: Mis/representation of boy bands

media and challenges to normative gender and sexuality

Media and challenges to normative gender and sexuality clips

Reading Qs for this week

Modern Slash

Reminder: Stephen Duncombe talk Fri., 3/6

Bartky Trouble

Judy!

All the World's a Stage (or why my head is burning from Butler)

NY Times on the Snuggie

Foucault and Ang/Hermes questions

2/26

Questions 2-26

reading questions for 2/26/09

and they all lived happily ever after

The future of romance novels?

Radway Readings

Rape and romance

Mr. T is really a sensitive girly-man

Reading Questions

reading questions for 2/12/09

"The A Team closes the gap between the penis and the phallus."

More on readings for 2/12

Field trips?

More reading questions

Week One Reading Questions

Poetry Corner

Reading Questions

reading questions

barker's beauties!

Youtube Video about RSS Feeds

Snacks days

Dates for Reading Questions

Syllabus