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, December 2, 2013

Halloween: Scary for the wrong reasons

I know this post is belated, though I would like to vent for a second about how much I hate halloween.
Halloween is scary, but for the completely wrong reasons. It isn't scary because people dress as ghosts and zombies, but because people - especially young girls - lose sight of their independent womanhood to dress as provocatively as possible just for this night. Go into any halloween store and try to find a costume for girls that was made to scare people, rather than to impress male audiences. You can't. Halloween has historically not been like this, so why now - in a soceity with much more progressive feminist ideals than in the past - do girls think it is okay to dress in ways that say "my body is an object and I am using this night as an excuse to impress you with my assets". The media certianly doesnt help; many movies make fun of those who dress scarily on Halloween. This image, from Mean Girls, is exactly what I am talking about. Why is it okay for the media to represent halloween as a time for girls to dress like bunnies and sexy policewomen, totally destroying the advancements in feminism that we have made, whilst simultaneously criticizing those who dress as they are supposed to on this scary holiday?

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2 comments:

  1. ChelseaDecember 2, 2013 at 9:19 PM

    I definitely agree that women's costumes these days are getting out-of-hand. But I was wondering - especially given our discussion of Tina Fey today - whether you think the take in Mean Girls is satirical/critical? That's how it came off to me, and I wasn't sure if you were using it as a negative example.

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  2. Anya McGantyDecember 5, 2013 at 12:20 PM

    Thanks for the comment - Mean girls certainly is satirical, though it is very clear that the 2 skimpy outfits in this scene look much better than the zombie bride - reinforcing the idea in viewers that they should not dress in a scary outfit. This scene is very much a contradiction - producers have tried to make fun of the "mean girls", though in doing so have made the zombie bride look hideous.

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