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.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

Visibility

Sasha Stock

   As a twenty one year old who watches Modern Family, Sex And The City, The New Normal and Orange Is The New Black, I take for granted the visibility of these gay and lesbian characters. While reading Suzanna Walters' article “The Story of Gay Visibility in America” it was intriguing to learn about the drama Heartbeat. This eighties medical show featured a lesbian nurse as the main character. Heartbeat was canceled after one season. This reminded me of The New Normal, a show featuring two gay main characters, one doctor and one film producer. The New Normal, like Heartbeat, was canceled after one season. It is interesting to see that even though America has started to include more gay and lesbian characters, they do not seem ready to have gay and lesbian main characters.

   Walters brings up various issues with gay and lesbian representation. She speaks about how gays in the past were generally “generally depicted on TV as either victims or villains” (61). It was engaging to think about how even in 2013, this is still somewhat evident. In HBO's Girls, Hannah's ex boyfriend Elijah isn't malicious, but his actions are somewhat “villainesque”. Elijah, recently out of the closet, tests his sexuality when he instigates sex with Hannah's best friend Marnie. This betryal deeply wounds Hannah, as she believed she would be the last woman Elijah would sleep with. Furthermore, Walters also brings up the stereotypical representation of queens as hairdressers (61). This stereotype is still evident in the recent series Orange Is The New Black which includes a transgender hairdresser inmate character.


 It is interesting to look at Suzanna Walters' 2001 article and see how the problems still apply to 2013.
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