Course Description

At the core of the course is the question how feminism has become a demonized and ridiculed “F-word” in an age when issues of gender and sexuality are at the center of constant, often explosive political debates. These debates often connect media representation and political representation but tend to do so in simplistic ways that bypass or distort decades of sophisticated feminist theory and practice. We will trace back such representations through the decades around case studies that encompass film, video, television and new media practices. The case studies come from the United States and beyond, taking into full account the global interconnectedness of media production and consumption as well as the transnational travel of feminist ideas. The main goal of the course is to evaluate how useful feminist thinking is to understanding the relays between media and political representation; and to develop a lasting critical apparatus to analyzing the politics of gender and sexuality in the media.


Monday, October 21, 2013

Teaching Project: Ageism

Hi guys! If anyone's interested, I was thinking about looking into ageism towards women for the teaching project. I think it's pretty apparent how important youth is for women on screen, both on TV and in movies, while male actors have a far easier time keeping their careers afloat as they get older. It seems as though the physical attractiveness of younger people in general is limiting primarily to women when it comes to the media, which I find is really fascinating. I think that research on this project could go a bunch of different ways, maybe with each person looking into a film or show that they find relevant and interesting. As an example, I was thinking about Sunset Boulevard, which focuses on a middle-aged woman who is essentially represented as a kind of Frankenstein, while the younger female in the film is her antithesis. There's one scene in particular where the older woman is getting a make-over and the scene is meant to be extremely disturbing, where in another scene, the younger woman explains that she's had a nose job and it's expressed in an innocent and almost cute way. Just something to think about- let me know if you're interested!
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1 comment:

  1. ChelseaOctober 24, 2013 at 9:37 PM

    The double standard for men and women in the media definitely goes a lot of ways, ageism being a huge issue. I'd be interested in exploring parts of this.

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