Feminist or Not?
Within the context of multiple feminisms, I am not sure that any piece of media can really be wholly ‘feminist,’ regardless of the intention of the filmmaker. It is very unclear who owns ‘feminism’ as a concept, and after taking this course, it is obvious that there are a number of ways in which a piece of media can be approached from a feminist perspective. The kind of feminism that people see within a movie like The Piano is probably not exactly the same feminism that people see within a movie like Boys Don’t Cry or The Watermelon Woman.
The nature of feminism is really problematic. For example, as we were discussing The Piano, there were many problematic facets of the movie mentioned during class. The depiction of persons “of color” was one point of contention. Different people are able to read the same representation from their own perspective.
Still, because the politics of representation are so important within feminist theory and activism, I think that if my definition of a feminist media source, would have to include something about an attempt to render representations of gender, sexuality, race, and class as weapons of fighting hegemonic views that dominate ‘mass’ media. I would add that the subject matter should be of interest to women, but that is redundant—there is no issue that comes to mind that isn’t a women’s issue in one way or another. Also, I think that media that encourages feminist, intersectional dialogue, whether the media itself promotes feminist ideology or not, is part of the feminist media project in that it opens up the floor for analytic discourse.
I think that even pieces of work without an overall feminist tone and/or framework can contain moments that challenge hegemony. So sometimes a piece of media can be rendered feminist in a moment, while not really being feminist overall. Furthermore, I think that a non-explicitly feminist identified filmmaker could make a feminist film. Media created by non-feminist sources can certainly push the boundaries of the representation of gender, sexuality, race, and class.
Directors that have produced works that I believe are feminist include Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry, Jamie Babbit (But I’m a Cheerleader), Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman), Gina Prince Bythewood (Love & Basketball), and Aishah Shahidah Simmons (NO! The Rape Documentary). The fact that the list is so heavily reliant on resources we have viewed as a class this semester speaks to how difficult it is to find feminist media works outside of an environment that is explicitly trying to promote / discuss / analyze them.