MY FINAL PAPER (option #1)
My paper is focuses on why it is still important to study media with a feminist perspective. Media is where everyone turns to for entertainment and information therefore holding an immense impact on society and shaping social norms. For these reasons, it is paramount to study feminist theory in relation to media making. My paper studies the messages and images that the media portrays of women, race, and sexuality. It outlins why feminist theory still needs to be studied in media making by examining what problems exist and need to be addressed in media according to feminist theory.
The major themes in this paper will focus on four distinct areas of the representation of women in the media: woman as object, stereotypes, patriarchal images, and intersectionality; and explain why these images/ideas are negative and need to be addressed.
I basically mentioned different forms of media (ie.films, TV shows, music videos, commercials, advertisments, news) that fit into each theme of writing.
1.Woman as object: women being objectified, highly sexualized: advertisements, music videos- Byron Hurt's documentary Beyond Beats and Rhymes
2. Steoreotypes surrounding women: woman as dumb, domestic, highly materialistic & how this affects society: films like Mean Girls and reality shows like Newlyweds with Jessica Simpson, and advertisements/advertisements/TV shows with Paris Hilton. Also the TV show Desparate Housewives and many disneychannel original movies, and Miss Congeniality.
3. Patriarchy: how men are represented as being dominant/superior to women in media: violence against women in advertisement photos/ television/ pornography. Movies like Overboard and TV shows like Beauty and the Geek.
4. Intersectionality: how "women of color" are represented differently in media: Asian= exotic, domestic; African American= highly sexual, welfare queen: movies like Goldeneye, Karate Kid II, American Pimp, Idiocracy, TV shows like I love New York, and music stars like Beyonce.
Sources:
Joanne Hollow's Feminism, Femininity, and Popular Culture
Paul Martin Lester, Susan Dente Ross: Images That Injure: Pictoral Stereotypes in the Media
Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes
Comments
What first caught my eye about your post was the juxtaposition between the two photos of the women; one is being subjected to a sexualized type of violence and the other, quite literally, IS the product. Then I read the format of your paper and the way in which you tied in the aspects of patriarchal society in terms of the current need to study feminist film and media. My paper is more of a timeline of history of the feminist movement; the different types of groups that have joined, and with this the political aspects that continue to make the topic relevant. I had wanted, however, to incorporate two sources in more detail that deal more with the thesis of your paper: Byron Hurt's "Beyond Beats and Rhymes," (in conjunction with "Tough Guise") as well as Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema." In combining these two sources, I think the comparisons that you speak of in terms of female placement, the origins of this relegation, and the dichotomy of sexuality and violence that engender actions deemed societally appropriate/ inappropriate. When men are taught to fantasize about a rap video world that Hurt depicts, (as does your top picture) and women are to be treated as slaves/ victims, like in the movie Overboard that you expemplify, where and how do these two converge in a society that preaches against them at least on the surface level?
The point I wish I had room to make in my paper is where your paper and mine collide in terms of why feminist film and media need to be studied. Mulvey says: "psychoanalytic theory as it now stands can at least advance our understanding of the status quo, of the patriarchal order in which we are caught."
Posted by: Julia Krieger | December 17, 2007 09:30 AM