Pop Culture

The Girls’ History and Culture Reader: The Twentieth Century

mandy — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Miriam Forman-Brunell, Leslie Paris

The Girls’ History and Culture Reader: The Twentieth Century is an anthology of influential essays written by top scholars that have defined the field of American girls’ history and culture over the last thirty years. Girl-centered research is considered a relatively new and dynamic field of investigation that is believed to be critical for gaining a deeper understanding of women and gender, and a fuller appreciation of how generation influences American culture and society. Edited by Miriam Forman-Brunell and Leslie Paris, The Girls’ History and Culture Reader addresses twentieth century forces such as fashion, consumerism, immigration, civil rights, music, leisure and labor and how these factors impacted the lives of girls.

The twentieth century was marked by increased choice and freedom for women, which translated into change, albeit not identical, for their younger counterparts. With more opportunities in society, girls took part in sports, went to camp, pursued higher learning in greater numbers, became consumers and members of the labor force, and participated in pop culture like never before. However, their greater independence also meant increased scrutiny by older generations. Girls were still seen as innocents requiring protection in an increasingly predatory world, while their sexual curiosity and independence induced considerable anxiety.

For those of you who thought you had a good handle on the events that influenced women’s history in the twentieth century, you might glean some interesting new information from this book. I certainly did. For instance, menstruation was taught to girls in the 1900s devoid of any instruction on fertility. Instead, teachings were from a purely hygienic point of view, and unsurprisingly, had strong backing from companies manufacturing disposable sanitary napkins. Equally surprising was the fact that single mothers in the Los Angeles area were known to initiate juvenile court proceedings to bring their wayward daughters and their much-needed incomes home. However, the most astounding in this collection was the essay on mid-century psychoanalysis, which posited that a healthy Oedipal relationship between daughter and father was the pre-eminent path to sexual maturity. At its limits, it appeared to condone incest as an expression of a girl’s own desires.

My personal favourite in the collection was an essay by Susan J. Douglas on the acceptance of Black music in the 1960s, and how girls groups gave a voice to the struggles of young women and showed them the potential for strength in numbers. For all those fans of Nancy Drew, there is also a great essay on our favourite sleuth. Ilana Nash convincingly shows that while our heroine was a model of intelligence, independence and empowerment, her stories also reinforced patriarchal privilege and conservative gender ideology.

Although there is a focus on White middle glass girls, which the editors acknowledge, The Girls’ History and Culture Reader also contains compelling essays on the double bind of Mexican, Chinese, and Italian-American girls, who had to deal not only with the cultural constraints of their own homes but also with those of American society at large. While there is an essay on Black girls and the institutionalization of double dutch, the book falls short in providing an idea of how Black girls’ lives changed throughout the twentieth century.

This book is a great resource for anyone wanting to research the lives of girls in a specific decade of the twentieth century, as each essay ends with an extensive bibliography. This is also a great reference for fledgling authors wanting to create an accurate depiction of the lives of girls in the twentieth century. After reading this book, I came away thinking that twentieth century history should be revised to reflect the changes experienced by girls, an area thus far ignored.

Written by: Heather Leighton, March 27th 2011

Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness

mandy — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Nitasha Tamar Sharma

Duke University Press

If the Asian American contribution to hip-hop has been largely invisible, South Asian American rap artists, here including those whose families came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Fiji, have received a surprising amount of critical attention focused on re-conceptualizing race and the increasingly universal appeal of contemporary Black popular culture. On the heels of Ajay Nair and Murali Balaji’s 2009 study Desi Rap: Hip Hop and South Asian America comes Hip Hop Desis , an ethnographic analysis of a group of South Asian American rappers and the shared experience of those living in “racially marked bodies.”

The artists Nitasha Tamar Sharma studies “craft new ways of being desi, or alternative desiness, by drawing upon the concept of Blackness.” She follows David Palumbo-Liu and others in pointing out the dangers of the “model minority myth,” in this case the stereotypical “Asian traits” of respect for authority, cultural assimilation, and advocating education as a means to achieving the “American dream.” The stereotypical young South Asian American presumably is apolitical, white-identified, and non-agitating. Obviously, this conception denies the heterogeneity of desi experience, and these artists have rebelled against the expectations placed upon them and from which they were supposed to negotiate an identity.

Often lacking an ethnic network, many of these young people found a surrogate in African American communities and their artistic expression. Applying a rap technique known as sampling, the artists draw on the cultural currency of hip-hop to construct new, self-chosen identities. “Desiness,” here, signifies political activism, racial consciousness, and a diasporic sense of identity that appropriates the aesthetics and rebelliousness of African American hip-hop. In contrast to cultural expectation, desi emcees openly articulate their experiences with racism, exclusion, and their unique experience of otherness. While those in Sharma’s study typically are surprised to find themselves racially marked in school, the process of claiming a racial identity is deliberate: “as people of color undergoing discrimination, they identify with Blacks and form lifelong relationships with Black people.”

The introduction Sharma provides to these artists and groups offers a sophisticated glimpse at the complex processes involved in the formation of ethnic identities within a hip-hop framework. Unfortunately, for the initiate, examples of the music and performance are relatively difficult to locate online. Two of the featured groups, Himalayan Project and Karmacy, have several appealing and illustrative songs available on YouTube and MySpace. Perhaps the most intriguing artist, D’Lo, has posted three videos on his/her Facebook page, all of which illustrate the artist’s inclusion of the politics and semiotics of gender as a part of performance, and the theme of homophobia connected to racism in his/her music.

Sharma’s broader project, which she refers to as comparative racial studies, offers new insight into the nature of inter-ethnic sampling and influences. She warns that the “increasing gaps and conflicts among communities of color in the United States,” as well as the persistence of racism and inequality, make it urgent that we listen to voices such as those of the hip-hop desis.

Written by: Rick Taylor, January 25th 2011

Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks, and Consumer Culture

mandy — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Hilary Radner

Routledge

In the past decade, America cinema has shown a change towards producing more women-centered movies, depicting independent unmarried women who seek out their own empowerment and gradually changing society’s view of single women. The women of Sex and the City, for instance, celebrate their singledom, showing it not to be the pitiable state it was once thought to be. While these women possess many feminist qualities, they also have attributes that separate them from the traditional ideals of feminism, a perspective which media studies scholar Hilary Radner labels neo-feminist in her current work, Neo-Feminist Cinema.

Radner compellingly opens her book with a discussion of how neo-feminism differs from second wave feminism. Radner traces the start of neo-feminism to Helen Gurley Brown, who wrote the infamous Sex and the Single Girl. Groundbreaking for its time, the book idealized for women a lifestyle in which they maintained their own independent identities and lives from men, encouraging them to seek out both fulfilling careers and sexual experiences. Through her focus on being fashionable, attractive, and forever youthful in appearance, the former Cosmopolitan editor showed an extreme diversion in her views from that of feminists of the same era, including groundbreaker Gloria Steinem.

In Neo-Feminist Cinema, Radner connects Gurley Brown's views to the neo-feminist views expressed in contemporary works in which feminist-seeming ideologies are undercut by a focus on extreme consumerism (Manolo Blahniks, anyone?) and male sexual attention. Radner then dissects such other modern day films as Something’s Gotta Give, Legally Blonde, Maid in Manhattan, and Pretty Woman. Each films' focus on the girlishness of the characters, regardless of their age (even at forty- and fifty-years-old the cast of Sex and the City possess girlish qualities), as well as women's supposed fixation with fashion and extreme consumerism. Radner posits that neo-feminism replaces consumerism, instead of maternalism, as the primary feminine attribute. Radner’s analysis of each film is both compelling and convincing, though her method of devoting a chapter to each film results in redundancies, as many films possess the same characteristics.

Radner's work is most compelling in her definition of neo-feminism and her historical tracing back to show the roots of the term. Radner gives needed attention to how feminism has slowly filtered into popular culture, mutating the movement into a new form, one that furthers consumerism and maintains a woman’s focus on being sexually desirable to men.

Radner seems overly critical of popular culture in her work. While the neo-feminism expressed in popular works today may be a watered down, shallower version of the feminism second wavers expressed, it nonetheless is a positive step forward for the depiction of women in the media. The depictions of these images encourage women to pursue more self-actualized societal roles and encourages both genders to be accepting of women within such roles. Television shows and films have positively depicted empowered single women for over a decade, albeit ones who may not be quite what our feminist fore-mothers idealized as the future for modern women.

In the end, Radner’s work is both compelling and thought provoking, and she successfully pinpoints the media’s version of contemporary society’s ideal woman. Women who can lead successful and challenging lives absent of husbands and children are positive images to influence women, even if they encourage women to also spend undue amounts of time on their appearance.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, January 14th 2011

Women's History Has Many Points of View

mandy — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Interview with RE/VISIONIST

With the question "who gets to write history?" at its center, RE/VISIONIST is an online publication started by a handful of graduate students at Sarah Lawrence College who study women's history. Many historians push to catalog the discipline of history as a pure science, but this group is instead interested in critiquing the supposed objectivity of their discipline, and giving credence to subjective perspectives. Even more, the editors aim to analyze history through the lens of multiple feminisms. I opened a dialogue with one of the editors of RE/VISIONIST, and in true feminist style, she responded to my questions by conducting a roundtable discussion amongst the staff.

How did RE/VISIONIST come about?

Thea Michailides: Sarah Lawrence has a creative, vocal, and lively undergraduate community but—outside of the writing program—there really wasn't a space for graduate students to exchange ideas and feature our work. Roz's idea of establishing a blog or online journal gave us the opportunity to put what we were learning in the classroom to practical use.

Roz Hunter: As students, RE/VISIONIST offers us the opportunity to use an historical lens to examine contemporary issues and serves as an outlet to discuss how gender plays out today. We come from a multitude of educational backgrounds—including Women's Studies, Anthropology, English Literature, Political Science, and Fine Arts—and we aim for an interdisciplinary approach to current events.

Kate Wadkins: I find myself surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurial women who are pursuing their dreams of creative and scholarly work. For a long time, I wished I had access to some kind of publication to pull all this work together. RE/VISIONIST provides a resource for feminist voices.

What pnline spaces embody aspects of what you are trying to achieve?

Nydia Swaby: Racialicious is definitely an example of the kind of work we want to be doing. I also like Paradigm Shift; their tag line—"Use the 'F' word. Discuss. Evolve. Grow with Us. Change NYC. Change the World."—made me feel powerful, and I really enjoy their blog. Equal Writes, which was started by a group of students at Princeton, aims to do something similar to the work we do in saying that Feminism is not a dirty word.

Your publication features issues you see as absent from the larger discourse on women or feminism. How are you attempting to revise, revisit, or re-imagine the historical and contemporary issues you write about?

Nydia: We are reclaiming the notion of revising history not because we want to erase the things that happened in the past, but because we want to build on them. The name was inspired, in part, by a course that all first-year Women’s History Graduate students are required to take at Sarah Lawrence called "Visions/Revisions: Issues in US Women's History.”

Victoria Sollecito: Right, it was an historiography course, and it really pushed us to think about how history gets written and why and by whom and how it changes over time. So revisionist is a dirty word and feminist is a dirty word and we are both! How awesome is that? And we are using feminism as a framework for this re-visioning of history and culture and the media and politics and everything else.

Roz: The discipline of women's history aims to create a re/vision of the past and tell the stories of groups who have been written out of history books. Women's history can serve as a tool to uncover the lost social histories of remarkable individuals and groups who have been previously ignored. We believe that you cannot study history without critically analyzing the roles race, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, age, and class have played, and still play, in it. We strive to make sense of the social hierarchies that have and do exist, and how complex systems of domination (whether it be male domination, racial domination, or class domination) all work together to continue to oppress and marginalize. We aim to uncover lost histories.

Nydia: I became interested in writing about Amy Ashwood Garvey because it really shocked me that she was such an integral part of the Pan-African movement (many have suggested that she was the co-founder of the United Negro Improvement Association), yet you hardly ever find references to her in history books. Writing about her work seemed fitting for RE/VISIONIST because we aim to uncover these kinds of lost histories.

Kate: An exciting discovery I had was reading an excerpt from bell hooks' Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center where she describes challenging the notion of gender-as-the-ultimate-oppression by radical women of color and their White allies as "the basis of revisionist feminist theory." Reading this crucial starting point for intersectional feminist theory as revisionist was both inspiring and solidifying for our mission.

What you think about the term feminism? Is it an important term to use, to interrogate, to dismantle, to celebrate?

Roz: Many of our staff writers and contributors are wary of the term. We do celebrate the word, but we purposely pluralize it in our mission statement. It is very common to hear (White) women criticize the younger generation for not embracing the term, but we have many reasons to reject it. Feminism has had a history of exclusion and many feminist writings, speakers, and activists have used feminism to reinforce the status quo of race and class oppression. Feminism has often meant the promotion of the rights of White women at the expense of the rights of people of color, immigrants, queers, and the poor. We recently posted a quote from Barbara Smith that articulates some of our thoughts on feminism:

Feminism is the political theory and practice that struggles to free all women: women of color, working class women, poor women, disabled women, lesbians, old women—as well as white economically privileged, heterosexual women. Anything less than this vision of total freedom is not feminism but merely female self-aggrandizement.

Thea: The word feminism is important to preserve even though it has the power to be both divisive and galvanizing depending on the characteristics of the audience. I see feminism as a tool for unifying women in an era that encourages individuals to focus on relationships with those who share their unique experiences of oppression along—for example—racial, ethnic, and generational lines. This tactic may aid in revealing spaces where history has been negligent, but it also undermines the potential for unity. Women need to seek appreciation for their shared experiences while learning about those that are specific to their contexts. Feminism, as a word and an idea, offers a means for describing this coalition of sorts.

How do you overcome the exclusionary aspects of academic discourse?

Victoria: We want to move away from a definition of history that restricts the writing of history to senior tenured faculty members in history departments and restricts the subjects of history to dates of battles and the lives of the presidents. It isn't that those things aren't important; it's just that we feel like a twenty-first century visual artist's reflections on gender norms and expectations about sexuality are as important as any textbook.

Kate: Pop culture has its claws on the emerging minds of youth, as well as our psychic selves, and if we don't recognize its importance, we're just limiting our critique. This is a problem that exists in history, in pop culture, and in our lived experience—hence our aim to discuss all of those arenas and not privilege one.

Thea: We cannot avoid that we are engaged in the academic world and are, therefore, privileged no matter how vigilantly we may examine our work and the work of others in RE/VISIONIST. I feel our aim should be to recognize that, even as we try to illuminate the people and experiences traditional history has overlooked, we too are a part of an elite and, as such, may perpetrate similar acts of negligence.

Photo credit: Nydia Swaby

Written by: Lizzy Shramko, November 27th 2010

Video Slut: How I Shoved Madonna Off an Olympic High Dive, Got Prince into a Pair of Tiny Purple Woolen Underpants, Ran Away ...

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Sharon Oreck

Faber & Faber

Sharon Oreck has the career that any child of the ‘80s would envy. She has produced over 600 music videos, many of which defined the monolithic “MTV generation.” She has been nominated for Oscars, Grammys, Women in Film awards, and of course, MTV Music Awards (twenty total!). From 1984 to 2000, Oreck’s work was a model for the visual repertoire that shaped the collective imagination of teens around the globe. Her role in popular culture is so far-reaching that she has been included in a film alongside such figures as Hillary Rodham Clinton (14 Women).

The majority of Oreck’s memoir relates events that occurred while shooting Sheila E.’s "The Glamorous Life," Aha’s "Take on Me," Madonna’s "Like a Prayer," and my personal favorite, Chris Isaak’s "Wicked Game." Upon viewing the videos, Oreck’s talent is immediately obvious. But what was she thinking when she was shooting? Apparently, she was thinking about a lot.

Reproductive rights, feminism, beauty—these are just a few of the topics that Oreck contemplates in Video Slut. Her most empowering moments as a writer occur during the introspective climax, which pairs her decision as a pregnant teen to keep her baby with the demise of her first production company, NO Pictures.

Oreck’s book is written in a tips-from-your-cool-older-sister style. Oreck spares no details and even offers pointers for making it in the scantily clad rock video world—most importantly, don’t make fun of executives until after they’ve left the room. More notably, this narrative updates the classic format for celebrity memoirs by exchanging the contexts of alternating chapters between a video career and an early pregnancy at sixteen. Video Slut puts the spotlight on the largely undocumented moments during video’s heyday—overqualified assistants, moonlighting pot dealers, egotistical bigwigs, and pop stars are the mediums through which Oreck relates her professional and personal milestones.

This is one of the most likable new books that I have read, and I look forward to more of Oreck’s outstanding work; her experiences combine elements of after-hours stand-up comedy, frank confessionals, and visionary strategies for survival when the odds don’t look so good. After all, that’s what petty cash is for, right?

Written by: Maria Guzman, August 24th 2010

The Carrie Diaries

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Candace Bushnell

Balzer and Bray

Sex and the City the television series ended six years ago. One might find this hard to believe, considering the characters and the lavish lifestyles they live have been far from gone in the mainstream media. The latest installment in the SATC enterprise is The Carrie Diaries, author Candace Bushnell’s young-adult novel that introduces audiences to Carrie Bradshaw as they’ve never seen her before—seventeen, virginal, and unsure of how to fulfill her dream becoming a writer. The young Bradshaw struggles through adolescence the same way her adult self struggled through her thirties, and with just as much, if not more, wit and insight. It’s easy to see how Carrie became Carrie as Bushnell chronicles a very real, and entertaining, teenage experience using the skills we’ve come to know her for: realistic dialogue, relatable, yet flawed, friendships; and capturing the excitement and emotion the first moments of love.

As a feminist scholar and critic, and an advocate for girl-friendly media, I was plagued by very familiar annoyances in the reading. Although adult Carrie admits in SATC (season four, episode seventeen) that her father left when she was a toddler, Bushnell posits high-school Carrie as the eldest of three girls being raised by their father since their mother died a few years earlier. Although a single dad raising three young women is certainly an alternative to the status-quo, it is not more or less feminist than a mother working full time and raising three daughters. And in the case of the latter, it provides something very important missing in both fiction and film—positive female role models.

The debate over Bushnell’s characters and their choices has been raging since the debut of the original series. In The Carrie Diaries, the author offers her own feminist commentary that is neither subtle, nor convincing. In a chapter dedicated to Carrie’s discovery of feminism, the twelve-year-old visits her local library to see her mother's favorite (fictional) feminist Mary Gordon Clark speak. The young Bradshaw is chagrined by the woman’s gruff and judgmental manner, leaving her to ponder “How can you be a feminist when you treat other women like dirt?” An excellent question, though I’d be interested in asking Bushnell “Why all feminists must be represented as angry, elite meanies?”

Unlike her adult counterpart, whose friendships offered support, honesty and resilience in the face of obstacles, the high school Carrie is surrounded by a group of friends that are competitive, highly emotional, or just plain bitchy. Her most passionate moments include falling for a narcissistic but gorgeous guy who eventually cheats on her with her best friend, developing her voice as a writer with the support of the Brown-attending George, and eventually being published in the school paper, with the help and support of the paper’s editor—her friend’s boyfriend.

As lover of pop-culture and an advocate for media literacy among the youth, especially girls, I was encouraged to find the positive elements of a story that will surely resonate with a large audience. Although Carrie’s mother is absent in reality, she is ever present in the lives of her daughters, all of which are struggling to maintain her legacy while evolving into who they will be as individuals. The biting yet quirky humor that endeared me to Carrie on SATC punctuates the tensest moments in the novel as Carrie offers teen-appropriate insights like, “Funny always makes the bad things go away.”

Unfortunately, comparing the young Carrie to the character she became on the series leaves me no less than disappointed. The Carrie created here comes out an evolved and matured being, moving forward into the next phase of her life, something that was remiss of her character when the SATC series ended, and further exacerbated in the following two films. In fact, I’d favor a film version of The Carrie Diaries over both SATC films.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, July 18th 2010

Sex and the City 2

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Michael Patrick King

New Line Cinema

Allow me to save you $8. Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, and on occasion, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.

SATC was always only about a certain type of woman, despite attempts to make Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte into everywoman. But the friendships between the protagonists felt universal. And as cartoonish as the individual characters could be, I saw pieces of them in the women around me, if not in myself.

Then I got older. So have the characters in SATC, but the franchise’s male creators aren’t quite sure what to do with women over forty. And so they have taken four flawed but generally likable women and made them repugnant.

Charlotte’s chirpy childishness—always a little icky—seems gross coming from a twice-married woman with two children. Carrie’s self-centered flakiness and drama-whoring is exhausting. Samantha and Miranda are unrecognizable—Sam having gone from an independent woman in charge of her sexuality to a desperate caricature fighting to hold on to her youth (Note: Chris Noth, who plays Mr. Big, is two years older than Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha. Interesting that Samantha is portrayed as fading, while Big still gets to be…well…Mr. Big) while Miranda quits her job because the new partner at the firm is a sexist jerk. No fight. She simply gives up, which seems completely out of character.

SATC was never as feminist as it was made out to be, but now it seems as un-empowering and pandering as a those pink “girl” computers by Dell. And when the fearsome foursome arrive in the Middle East, privilege, racism, and ignorance meet in an unholy trifecta. Here is what we learn:

All you need to know about Arab countries, you have already learned in Aladdin. If you have a Jewish married name, do not use it on a trip to Abu Dhabi. In an Arab country, be sure to wear expensive clothing reminiscent of the aforementioned cartoon. (Two words: gold harem pants.) Arab men are either frightening crazy-eyed religious fundamentalists or hot menservants. (By the way, it is not at all creepy to accept the services of said hot, brown menservants, and if one such manservant is gay... jackpot! Two new accessories for the price of one! Refer to him as Paula Abdul.)

No woman ever follows the tenets of Islam by choice; all women who wear abaya or niqab are oppressed and secretly want to be white, wealthy, American women who wear revealing couture. Arab women who are not oppressed may be bellydancers in Western-style nightclubs. It is feminist to travel to Muslim countries and expose yourself, simulate fellatio on a hookah, grab a man’s penis in a restaurant, and possibly have sex on a public beach. If you are trying to communicate in an Arab country and cannot find the right words, saying “lalalalalala” will get your point across.

Now, I am sure there are those who will say that I am thinking too deeply about a movie that is meant to be a bit of fluff. For you, I will share that SATC 2’s problems are not all about the portrayal of women, privilege, race or religion. Before any of those things pricked my nerves, I was already sighing at the films stilted dialogue, awkward group dynamic, hackneyed situations, and corny jokes that beg for a sitcom laugh track. And then there was the spectacle of seeing Liza Minelli performing “Single Ladies.” Yes, Liza with a “z” sings Beyonce with a “B.”

Excerpted from What Tami Said

Written by: Tamara Winfrey Harris, June 4th 2010

Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (10th Anniversary Edition)

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Jennifer Baumgardner, Amy Richards

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Ten years ago, my concept of feminism consisted of white lesbians with unshaven legs and armpits who hated men. Fast forward ten years later–past many existential crises, a couple of college degrees, and a hard drop from blissful ignorance–and my feminist tendencies have even leaked into my chivalrous desire to open the door for men. In no way am I trivializing a movement based on the social, political, and economic equality of those with and without a Y chromosome, but I have come to the realization that I've always been a feminist, right down to the minutiae of my life.

Manifesta serves as a comprehensive guide with which to weave through a world land-mined with sexism. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards wittily point out how our responses to, and habits accumulated from, sexism have become so ingrained into the psyche of many women that what often lies beyond recognition are these habits and responses themselves. This makes it difficult to correct what we don’t realize is wrong.

The issues covered in this book are so vast and diverse, but are not in the least bit overwhelming to comprehend; from a historical time line of feminism, to the basic distinctions between the first, second, and third waves, to the influence of feminism on and by the media, Manifesta reveals generational perceptions of feminism and the disagreements and realisms about how to implement feminist ideas, even about what feminism is or isn't. Without a bias toward one view or another, Baumgardner and Richards state facts and opinions of feminists from all walks of life, including those who do not identify with the label but may live similarly to a feminist. Most importantly, they take the mystery out of feminism by helping to put its very definition into the hands and lives of those who choose to be affected by it.

Baumgardner and Richards are not such smart alecks that they lose the reader in self-serving sarcasm, but they use just enough humor to make people wonder what you’re laughing so intensely at should they be sitting next to you while you’re reading Manifesta. Feminists are not just white, not just lesbians, and not just women. Feminists wear lipstick and frilly whatnot, as well as combat boots, hairy armpits, and burqas–perhaps all five simultaneously. What is feminist to some may not be feminist to others, but realizing a need for equality across social, political, and economic spectra of gender is beyond the need for a label.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, May 19th 2010

The Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in Pop Culture

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Directed by Sut Jhally

Media Education Foundation

The main theme of The Codes of Gender is “commercial realism.” As explained by the narrator of this film, Sut Jhally, Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, a code of gender has to be understood as a shorthand language, a set of rules and behaviors. This is how Jhally analyzes the ways in which both women and men are portrayed in advertisements and on the covers of glossy magazines.

The film is based on the works of the Canadian social anthropologist Erving Goffman, who was born in Alberta in 1922. His greatest contribution to social theory and to gender representation was the analysis of visual communication between spectators, the subjects of their attention and how attitudes about gender are shaped by culture and society.

The film starts with an explanation of the difference between biological sex identity and constructed gender identity, which leads to the process of contrasting these identities in magazine advertising for commercial films. Gender expressions on magazine covers are skillfully manipulated to reflect the identity of women and men– not as they are, but how they should be, according to a societal norm. The women in the advertisements are posed in awkward positions. They lie down with their heads tilted off balance, stand on one leg, or kneel to suggest powerlessness, submission and dependence. Women become sexualized and accepting of their helplessness, embodying both men’s desire and subordination to them. In contrast, men are portrayed as active. Their poses suggest power, strength, and control.

As an example, Professor Jhally uses a clip from the Seinfield TV series that shows the lead character dating an attractive woman with hands that are big, rough, and strong, like the ‘normal’ hands of a man. Jerry Seinfield is put off by the image and loses interest in the woman.

A second example is Danica Patrick, an American auto racing driver, who is also an athlete and therefore does not fit with the stereotypical image of ‘natural’ femininity. But Patrick is portrayed on the magazine covers in the same way as other women. She lies down, ready to be gazed at–weak and submissive. Paul Marciano, founder of Guess, is portrayed as selecting images of passive women for Guess advertisements, as if he was making a statement that ‘women should know their place.’

Another striking feature of the visual images is the association of women with childhood. As though they never left this part of their lives behind, in commercials women are frequently portrayed as childlike, with fingers in their mouths. Women's posture with men is that of father and daughter: constantly hiding behind men, snuggling with men for protection, or resting their heads on men’s arms in sweet and helpless positions. Men, on the contrary, are shown in straight posture, muscular and strong, and project a hyper-masculine image of ‘accepted normality’.

The Codes of Gender will be of interest to all who question the visual images of what is deemed natural and normal. The film is well-made and presented, and it serves as a fitting tribute to Goffman (who died in Philadelphia in 1982). His work was underestimated when he was alive, but his contributions to ‘the codes of gender’ are as equally valid today as they were thirty years ago.

Written by: Anna Hamling, May 16th 2010

Creating Ourselves: African Americans and Hispanic Americans in Popular Culture and Religious Expression

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Anthony B. Pinn, Benjamin Valentin

Duke University Press

The topic of cross-cultural communication has fascinated me for a number of years, partly because of my own experiences in Latin America, and partly from observing the interaction between the Latino/a and African American communities. Watching these two groups interact has taught me a great deal about differences in the ways of communication, how what may be "appropriate" in one culture may not be in the other, and the need for discussion to avoid potential misunderstandings.

Therefore, it was with great interest that I read Creating Ourselves, a study on cross-cultural communication and collaboration between religious scholars of the two largest minority groups in the United States. The timing of the publication of this book is of great importance, as both groups have, to a certain extent, been viewed as "foreign elements" that might threaten the national identity of Americans, especially in the current economic climate. Scholars from both communities engage in a dialogue, an exchange of opinions, perspectives, and hopes, as their history and identity is linked through the cultural production via representations in popular culture.

I found the structure of the work innovative and very much needed in scholarly circles. The book consists of seven sections with two essays in each of them, one from each group. Every article is followed by a response written by a corresponding essayist from the opposite group, each contributor using their own personal experiences to further engage readers.

Teresa Delgado analyses the novel América’s Dream by Esmeralda Santiago, which delves into the life of América González, a single mother who takes a job as a maid in a hotel in New York after suffering abuse by her daughter's father in Puerto Rico. Although América finds freedom in New York, she remains isolated and silent, as she has not broken the dependency of oppression. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, in response, reflects on the "womanist theory" that calls for revolution in the ways of seeing, living, and being. The term "womanist," coined by Alice Walker, refers to women who are in charge, who champion freedom and who transform the oppressive forms affected by race, gender, and class domination. Kirk-Duggan uses hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill as an example of just one of these extraordinary women.

In "Television and Religion," Jonathan Walton analyses the dramatised faith in megachurch movements; the colossal buildings that house sanctuaries, gyms, daycare, bookstores, and more are especially attractive to African American communities, with their charismatic pastors who even hold worship through an electronic church. Another form of melodrama is found in the Latin telenovelas (soap operas) that have become extremely popular for millions around the world; Kassandra, a Venezuelan soap opera attracts people as far away as Serbia, while The Rich Also Cry is popular even in Moscow.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Creating Ourselves as the subject of creativity in all different forms, styles, colours, and shadows is part of our daily life.

Written by: Anna Hamling, April 30th 2010

Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Melinda Tankard Reist

Spinifex Press

Getting Real is a collection of essays that are charges against the worldwide phenomena of the pornification of childhood through advertising, marketing, and pop culture. This was a great book to read, particularly as the authors are Australian and I sometimes wonder how much of our collective reaction to porn and adult images going mainstream is a reflection of our country's Puritanical leanings. For the contributors to Getting Real, the problem is embedded not just in faux-feminism but also a twisting of feminism by marketers and others to make women believe that if they are "in charge" of their sexuality, then there isn't anything wrong with stripping, making out with other women to turn men on, and so forth.

About half way through the book I came across a few statements that made me think, "Wait a minute...This isn't a feminist book!" There's just a tinge of anti-sex sentiment in some essays. So I did some investigating and found that editor Melinda Tankard Reist is part of a women's think tank. Upon further digging, I came to the conclusion that the Women's Forum Australia seems to be what one might get if the National Organization for Women and the Independent Women's Forum had a lefty baby. (If anyone has more information about them, I'd love for you to leave it in the comments.)

While some essays wade into slut-shaming and defaming strippers and sex workers, on the whole Getting Real is a pretty good book. One eye-opening essay on street billboards makes the point that even though it is illegal for people to have porn in the workplace, we have to walk through porn-infested streets on a daily basis. Another essay brought up how many of us are using Flickr and YouTube to share our children's lives, which teaches them to perform publicly. There is also a discussion about the medicalization of girls' bodies. From HPV vaccines to plastic surgery, it's all there to ponder.

The best part of Getting Real was learning a new term: corporate pedophilia. "Sexualizing products being sold specifically for children, and children themselves being presented in images or directed to act in advertisements in ways modeled on adult sexual behavior." This goes far beyond the dress-up of our youth to performance on a daily basis. "The task for today's teenagers is to win back their freedom from the adults who run the advertising agencies and girls magazines and the 'sex-positive' media academics who insist that 'bad girls' are powerful girls."

The essays are well cited, but avoid a lot of academic jargon, making Getting Real a quick read. The book is feminist, but with a dash of moderate conservatism thrown in. The topic brings together some typically opposing forces, and that's always good for the discussion.

Cross-posted from Viva La Feminista

Written by: Veronica I. Arreola, April 27th 2010

American Catfight: Political Wisdom for Women and Other Thoughts Towards Feminine Statecraft in the 21st Century

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Maryann Breschard

52 Women

The biggest obstacle to women, according to Maryann Breschard, is other women. In American Catfight, Breschard posits that even the best-intentioned feminists have, along the way, exploited and undermined other women in their mad dash to power.

Breschard identifies several types of women who prevent other women from succeeding: haters (those who disempower and disenfranchise women they believe are “wrong” or “bad”), perfectionists (women who write off anyone who does not fit their narrowly-defined model of the “right” woman), and femamentalists (women who believe feminism is a “big tent” theory that should advocate for a wide range of issues, including LGBT rights, the environment, and more). Breschard primarily uses anecdotal evidence to support her definitions and observations, bouncing from a rant about Martha Stewart on one page to a critique of the Human Rights Campaign the next.

She then pivots to another modern-day catfight among women in her critique of the wedding-industrial complex. Commenting that, “many women today are similarly fraught about their identity and their dreams when entering marriage,” she suggests that women put away issues of identity and concern for feminist politics upon getting married. This change in priorities—which she dubs femipause—creates divisions and downright hostility between married women and single women. This is a point where in-depth research or quantitative data would have helped flesh out Breschard’s writing and lend a sense of credibility to her work. Instead, Breschard’s anecdotal stories of friends who have gotten married and become disengaged from her social circle do little to build out the concept of femipause or position herself as an authority in her writing.

The book concludes by stating that women are “poised to govern” in the twenty-first century, and Breschard provides several recommendations for feminists looking to do so. Some—like her recommendation that feminists simplify and focus upon certain core elements of feminism—are littered throughout her book and should come as no surprise to the reader. Others—such as putting more women in governorships across the country—are legitimately insightful, but come out of left field.

Ultimately, American Catfight is marred by its inability to synthesize the various political theories, pop culture musings, and personal ramblings of the author into a piece of writing that informs and engages the reader.

Written by: Gwen Emmons, March 17th 2010

Fig Trees

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Directed by John Greyson

V Tape

It’s hard to explain Fig Trees. It’s an opera yet it's also a documentary. There’s an albino squirrel and a nun. It scrutinizes the critical circumstances of the AIDS epidemic, from the 1980s to the present day, and points out, with sharp observations, the irony of consumer-driven AIDS campaigns. The main issues addressed are the ineffectiveness of governments and the greediness of pharmaceutical companies, but popular culture is not completely innocent either.

In Fig Trees, director John Greyson documents the story of South African AIDS activist, Zackie Achmat. Greyson portrays Achman as thoughtful, creative, and most of all, brave. He went on a treatment strike and refused to take his medication because he didn’t believe it was right that he could buy life while other, less affluent people couldn’t. This is where the opera, squirrel and nun come into play; they are a fragment of the visual puzzle Greyson creates.

The way in which all of the ingredients are put together to create such poignant commentary about HIV is interesting. Fig Trees is theatrical and complex—a bit too complex for my taste. For the most part, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Fig Trees is subtitled, but instead of making things easier to understand, it made them even more nonsensical. This was especially true when the screen was split into two, each side giving different sets of subtitles.

This doesn't mean that the film wasn't enjoyable. On the contrary, there were some “Aha!” moments that gave me great pleasure and other moments that made me think more deeply about the issues. This prompting of contemplation is always a good thing.

Written by: Jessica Sánchez, March 11th 2010

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Gail Collins

Little Brown and Company

Oh, Gail Collins, you had me at New York Times columnist. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived away from New York for so long now and have to read it online most of the year, but holding printed and bound words from a witty Times writer in a book that I can dip into for a few minutes, or a hour, whenever I like is brainy self-indulgence that I can say yes to.

My mother grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and I’ve always had a thing for vintage and retro pop culture. If this is you, too, you’ll quickly find yourself on board as well, Times fetish or no. The ‘New Yorkness’ of Collins’ writing style is so readable that the broad range of subjects covered in its 405 pages are cohesive and coherent. As for the title of the book, it had me thinking immediately—I had a mini-epiphany before even cracking the cover—of course, then it all changed.

When Everything Changed contains facts I should have known, such as the shock-value of women wearing trousers, archaic divorce laws with state-by-state variations that virtually trapped women in marriage, and the ‘speed-dating’ approach many women took to college in the '60s, using higher learning as a way to find a husband. The chronicles pivotal moments in our recent feminist history—from things that seem simple, like adhesive maxi pads, to nation-altering events, like the Equal Rights Amendment.

Readers of all ages will enjoy finding their decade in the chronology. The conclusions Collins draws about each era are deft, trustworthy and cogent. It is interesting to see Collins assert that that we are a part of living history, and that these changes, while feeling slow, have been swift in the grand scheme of things. This book is hard to stop reading even if you meant to leave some for later. It flows so well and is written in such a conversational style that I found it easy to carry on for a few more chapters.

The picture section seemed unnecessary to me. I wanted big, iconic illustrations throughout, or none at all, but that’s a small criticism for a largely excellent read. This book is a primer, of sorts, but I felt that the way the images were presented was more cursory than inspiring. The words alone are enough to encourage readers to find out more. Should gender studies, or women’s history be offered as a high school module or elective, I’d recommend this book, or extracts from it as an introductory text.

Based on my enjoyment of When Everything Changed, I’m also interested in tracking down Collins’ precursor to this book: America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. This is a more mainstream feminist text than I’ve read in a while, and I was almost put off by the schmaltzy tone of the book jacket, which I interpreted as lauding Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign as a symbol for the be all and end all of women’s equality. This tone continues in the final chapter itself, which I found to be a dissatisfying gloss over of the achievements of all American women, rather than just the privileged few in mainstream politics. Moreover, the stylistically vague 'gloss' of American women can be interpreted as a very real slight, considering the minimal representation of women not from the U.S.

Most interesting to me is the epilogue section. While some of it is depressing, the fates of some of the figures mentioned in the book are quite uplifting. There’s even a witty bit about Barbie dolls. Overall, the book is enjoyable and informative. It serves as an inspiring reminder of not only when it all changed, but how it all changed.

Written by: Chella Quint, February 17th 2010

Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:25:00 +0000

By Mary C. Beltrán

University of Illinois Press

Beltrán’s study about Latina/o actors’ contributions to U.S. film, TV, and popular culture is illuminating and very well organized, researched, and written. The writer has explored and conveyed to us an abbreviated overview of the historical evolution of Latina/o representation and stardom in Hollywood films and U.S. television; major components of what she terms “Hollywood Latinidad.”

The growing role and influence in complex cultural productions in the United States stems also from the steadily growing Latino populations in the United States. In the 1960s Latino population was 4.5% of all the citizens of the States; in 2008 it has increased to fifteen percent or more than one in seven in the population of United States.

Latinos are becoming increasingly visible and influential in popular culture yet there has always been a hint of marginalization. Most carry labels of “the Latin lover,” “bandito” and “spitfire” amongst others. Yet Latin actresses and actors portray richly textured characters and consequently Latina/o opportunities for stardom (stardom meaning the object of public fascination) are slowly increasing. Stars are viewed as role models especially for young people, they are supposed to help establish social attitudes amongst U.S. citizens. The study is divided into seven chapters: the first chapter with its spicy title “Latin Lovers and American Accents: Dolores Del Río and Hollywood’s Transition to Sound,” Beltrán explores the rare opportunities that benefited a handful of Latina/o actors in the 1920s.

Next three chapters, namely “The Good Neighbour and Prime Time: Desi Arnaz and I Love Lucy,” “A Fight for ‘Dignity and Integrity’: Rita Moreno in Hollywood’s Postwar Era” and “The Burden of Playing Chico: Freddie Prinze and Latino Stardom in Television’s Era of ‘Relevance’” explore Latina/o opportunities and star promotion during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Chapter five “The Face of the ‘Decade’: Edward James Olmos and Latino Films of the 1980s” focuses on shifts in Hollywood’s structure of Latinidad as Latina/o filmmakers began to have an impact on a national level.

The remaining two chapters “Crossing Over the Latina Body: Jennifer Lopez and the 1990s ‘Latin Wave’” and “Ethnic Ambiguity in the Era of Dark Angels: Jessica Alba and Mixed Latina/o Trends” analyze star promotion in relation to the career and development from Latin star image during their rise to mainstream stardom. Without doubt, this study is a successful attempt to reach students from film and media studies, students of Spanish and Latin American studies and all others interested in the notion of culture. Equally, it is an indispensable tool in the classroom for any instructor passionate about delivering interactive seminars about the evolution of Latina/o national identity since the silent film era.

Written by: Anna Hamling, October 21st 2009