This blog is a course blog for GWSS 3307: Feminist Film/Media Studies, in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, Fall 2007.

The course has ended.

Please feel free to browse the site, and remember blogs happen in reverse chronology, so if you want to start at the beginning, click HERE and scroll to the bottom, or browse the links on the right-hand sidebar.

If you'd like to start at the beginning of this page (which is the end of our course), you will be reading/viewing summaries of our final papers and media projects like this collage project:

Read on and enjoy!

Posted by Rae at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For my final project my partner and I created a large collage piece examining how the media uses products and the demand for products to make women’s bodies marketable for the benefit of capitalist patriarchy. We looked at how all of this is connected to normativity, fragmentation of the body, the issue of agency, performativity of gender, objectification, and use of a male gaze. We used theory about the implications of these forms of representation to argue that the media creates and reifies normative femininity as a product we unconsciously internalize and consume.

In order to do this, we tried to arrange the images in a certain way that created a progression through the piece. In the beginning, there are fragments of a woman's body arranged in a grotesque manner to create a "full" body. For us, this was representative of the ways the media attempts to reduce women's bodies to fragments before they try to piece it back together in a "proper" way. In conjunction with this beginning are the images of women's heads that go along the bottom. We were exploring ways the media relies on decapitation to silence women. The next section explored images that indicate the ways the media (specificially advertising) tries to sell women products in order to make them fulfill the requirements of normative femininity. The message is literally that femininity can be bought. The following section looked at images of women's bodies being objectified and sexualized in order to sell products. Only the bodies that have consumed the proper femininity are included in these images, because they are the only bodies that are visible. The final section explored what it means for a woman to become a literal product. In the images she is being held, consumed, gazed upon. The body is an object that is no longer connected to the individual.

Continue reading "Final Project/Paper" »

Posted by R.S. at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“I had to leave the house of fashion,
Go forth naked from its doors
Because women should be allies
And not competitors.
I had to leave the house of television
To start noticing the clouds
Its amazing the stuff you see
When you finally shed that shroud.”
-ani difranco

In my final paper/project I argue that in a media culture that perpetuates representations of the female body that reduce it to an exchangeable commodity, the female cannot find self-actualization or experience self-love.

Continue reading "Do you buy it?" »

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote a paper exploring the philosophy of behind the construction Boys Don't Cry – with regards to representation versus simulation. Baurdillard's theories of simulation destroying the representational subject came screaming to my mind after we watched the movie in class, and I wanted to use this paper as a chance to connect some of my thoughts.

Continue reading "Essay 4" »

Posted by Christopher Kehoe at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On the perspective of women in the fashion world, designer Donna Karan once said, “Today, fashion is really about sensuality—how a woman feels on the inside. In the '80s women used suits with exaggerated shoulders and waists to make a strong impression. Women are now more comfortable with themselves and their bodies—they no longer feel the need to hide behind their clothes.” What Karan states is a true point concerning the fashion world today. Is it about women being more comfortable with their bodies, or are they rather simply being exploited?

Continue reading "Fashion Advertising: Exploitation of the Female Body" »

Posted by Mr. Hilton at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Continue reading "Constructing Realities" »

Posted by Timac at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My partner and I created a documentary-ish short film which strives to prove that feminist studies are still needed today. We had discussions, played games, debated, and enlightened two high school English classes. We wanted to record attitudes towards feminism coming from the youth of America. Also, we talked to several teachers, parents, a coach and a barista – all with intriguing responses to our questions.

We attempted to highlight all of the misconceptions that exist regarding the women’s movement, feminist theory, and gender equality. Throughout our film you can witness an abundance of misinformed responses regarding these issues. Some of the students thought a feminist was someone who dressed girly, another thought it meant she looked like a boy, she hates men, she’s an attention-seeker, and on and on and on. To be fair, there were of course several high school students who had a more legitimate grasp on feminism and recognized its role in gender equality. We also found that the students had extensive knowledge about actresses, models, and other celebrities, but couldn't name Roe v. Wade, female politicians, when women got the right to vote, and other questions regarding women in power and women's rights. It was blatantly obvious that our culture values and emphasizes a certain type of woman over the other.

Continue reading "Our Media Project" »

Posted by Luna Lovegood at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I also wrote under Prompt #4. I tried to tie in the idea of “emotional reality,” which I think is very important, sort of the idea that you can have an emotional reaction that makes the cause seem real, even if it may not be. An example would be in Boys Don’t Cry, when Pierce keeps cutting down the rape scene, because the emotional reaction of the audience was more necessary than the fact that the scene was supposed to be longer. Also, in Watermelon Woman, how Fae was not a reality at all, but still helped Cheryl find herself as a woman and as a filmmaker. I consider these aspects of media just as important as to the factual evidence. Well… I suppose it depends on how truthful the media-maker is claiming to be. So I used this outlook, plus the idea of authorship, ethics, the gaze, spectatorship, and filmic construction to look at the differences between narrative films ‘based on true stories’, mockumentaries, documentaries, and reality TV. I think I should have started a lot earlier.

Posted by Magyar at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote the final paper on feminist praxis in media.

Thesis: In this paper, I intend to explore the ways in which stereotypical representations can be challenged through feminist praxis activities and to discuss some areas where feminist praxis may be useful to challenge stereotypical representations.

My basic argument is that forms of media with feminist theory as an influence are more socially progressive and less stereotypical than other forms of media. For this reason, I determined that feminist praxis should be part of media studies. My paper focused on the concept of voice and especially on the concept of representation. I used The Watermelon Woman and NO!: The Rape Documentary as examples of 'positive' representations. These specific films construct identity in a new and interesting way, and their subject matter is very feminist. Additionally, the independent spirit of these productions, and Simmons' creation of a female production team are also feminist in nature.

I contrasted these representations with the representations presented in surgical reality TV shows. While this is an odd choice to make, given the obvious differences between the mediums, I thought it was a useful one. Many of the surgical reality TV episodes center on conception of self and how surgery will help make people "complete." Additionally, this is a different way of presenting reality in comparison to documentaries, or mockumentaries that seek to illuminate a social truth. I thought that feminist praxis could be useful in these kinds of shows, to highlight the racial and gender bias that drives many people to have cosmetic operations -- and to present a more honest, holistic picture of the recovery process.

My last example was FIRE (Feminist International Radio Endeavor. I thought it was interesting to use this form of media, because it is online and thus very widely available in Western contexts. Additionally, I thought that it was telling that a source dedicated to expressing the voices of Third World women, who are so often bearing the brunt of world conflict, features these women in such a disembodied form. So while it is certainly a problematic representation, I thought that FIRE was a really interesting counter-production in comparison to "ordinary news."

My conclusion was that given the differences in representation between feminist praxis projects and projects with no interest in feminism, we can hardly afford to not have feminist praxis in media.

Continue reading "The need for feminist praxis in media" »

Posted by Heather Larson at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote my final paper on the three works of Baz Luhrmann: Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet, and Moulin Rouge, otherwise known as the Red Curtain Trilogy. I analyzed how the three films place female characters into stereotypical roles, such as the lover or the prostitute, follow the female bodies with a male gaze, especially in scantily clad dance scenes, and objectify the women for male gain. I also compared the three films to each other artistically, watching the patterns in filmic choices, including dramatic use of text, color, and frames of time. I really enjoy Baz Luhrmann's bold theatrical style, and it was very interesting to analyze him in through a feminist lens.

Posted by Katherine Schmieg at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For my final paper I focused on the differences between real stories and media representations. I argue that the relationship between the viewer and the filmmaker is one of trust in which the viewer trusts that they are being given a true story and the filmmaker trusts that the viewer understands that the film is based on a true story. Therefore in my understanding of films inspired by life, it is the viewer’s responsibility to take that phrase to heart and see that the filmmaker may have employed artistic license in order to create a more coherent film. Therefore, an interested audience member should invest time into researching the events that the film was based on if they are really want to help bring light to the cause. The filmmakers main goal is to see that the issues that the true story represents and the struggle that person underwent are acknowledged by the general public. However, they are creating an artistic film at the same time and artistic license cannot be taken away. So, it is in the viewer’s hands to embrace the subject they are presented and look into the true events that inspired the filmmaker. I based my arguments on Kimberly Pierce's Boys Don't Cry and Lourdes Portillo's Senorita Extraviada. I also made small connections to films not screen in class also based on true stories such as North Country by Niki Caro, Erin Brockovich by Steven Soderbergh, and Iron Jawed Angels by Katja von Garnier.

Continue reading ""Based on a True Story"" »

Posted by Katie at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I discussed the questions posed in Essay #4 for my final paper. I chose to focus on the interpretation levels by both filmmakers and theorists and the audiences that are viewing the text. I reviewed the process of representation and what the advantages and disadvantages of a real story vs. a cinematic representation are. I find that within cinematic representations, we as an audience cannot directly connect what issues and ideas are being conveyed without knowing the motives of the author of the work. This leaves many issues and topics to the audience discretion through interpretation. We must know enough about ourselves to choose what is being represented correctly and what is just propaganda within a story. And finally, nothing is ever as real as the real thing; cinematically, theoretically, or otherwise.

Posted by Nicole Berg at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For this project, my partner and I were trying to prove whether or not it is still important to have feminist studies. To prove this we went to a high school and talked with two eleventh grade English classes. We had the students engage in a wide variety of activities including: choosing which person was a feminist based on physical appearance when shown two pictures, react to a clip from “I Was a Teenage Feminist”, and asked them questions about women in popular culture and current news. We also went around to different teachers asking them their thoughts on feminism.

Initially, we believed that the students would be very uninformed about issues outside the walls of high school. However, after talking with the students we learned that we had undermined their intelligence. The students were aware of the inequalities that exist but they were also very uninformed about women that have been or are in power. For example, some did not know the current secretary of state, speaker of the house, or when women got the right to vote. They did know characters from Grey’s Anatomy and Friends, who played Michelle Tanner on Full House, at least one of the Victoria’s Secret models, and at least three of the names of the Spice Girls. Therefore, this shows that it is necessary for feminist studies.

Continue reading "The Battle of the Valiant Vajayjays" »

Posted by Tapex002 at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I also wrote on writing prompt #4. My writing was informed by the idea that all texts (films included) are a (re)presentation or (re)telling of a story (whether fictional or real). All films and media can do is reconstruct the real world on film, and we as viewers are responsible to judge the degree to which it is an authentic (re)presentation. I tried to explore the question of: do films and media need to be "real stories" to reveal truths or realities? I used the films The Watermelon Woman, Boys Don't Cry, and Live Nude Girls UNITE! as well as the television genres of news and reality television to illustrate different ways reality can be constructed on screen. I found that directors/producers/writers have a lot of power as intermediaries between real stories and any cinematic representation. (If one were to draw a picture it might look like this: REAL WORLD–>writers/directors/producers->MEDIA) In retrospect, I wish I had realized how ambitious this paper was and started it much earlier.

Posted by Eben Kowler at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My paper focused upon the relationship between the film's of Alfred Hitchcock and feminist theory. Both Laura Mulvey in her article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema as well as Kaja Silverman in her chapter Suture use the films of Hitchcock as their primary source of example to exmaine issues of symbolic patriarchy and subjectivity. The film's in which I focused on were Psycho, for its brutal treatment of the viewer in its repositionment of subject relationships, Vertigo, for its sadistic handling of the its female character, and Rear Window for its treatment of voyeurism. I also explore the issue of sexual representations, specifically in how it relates to the Hays Code in its limitation of sexual content and the ways in which this leads to fetishization within the cinema.

Posted by Robin Youngman at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)