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.


Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Feminism's Branding Problem: When Mansplaining Goes Horribly Wrong

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Joss Whedon. He's the man responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, The Cabin in the Woods, and The Avengers film. He also said some really stupid things last month at Equality Now about the etymology of the word Feminist. You see he doesn't have so much of a problem with the "feminine" root of the word (an issue for many otherwise purehearted humanists). It's actually the "ist" that bothers him. The "ist," he says, presumes that equality among the sexes, Feminism's chief goal, is not natural; that, not its demonized history, is why so many people are reluctant to take on the term. He even namedrops Kate Perry to prove his point. While his assertions are troubling on many fronts, it's perhaps most appalling in its negation of the work done by many Feminists to work towards equality. If Feminism and, more generally, equality don't seem natural, it's because people not unlike Whedon have made it that way.

Here's a link to an article about his speech. It also includes footage from it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/what-joss-whedon-gets-wrong-about-the-word-feminist/281305/
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