Women and the Media: Point Proven

source: http://www.nyfa.edu/film-school-blog/gender-inequality-in-film/

Story for Change: Feminism

Story for Change: Feminism

I had conflicting ideas for the outcome of my project. First and foremost, my ideal of successful feminism is to valorize women, not necessarily equalize, which is why after all the negativity, I include the positive reinforcement given by the maid character in the The Help. Second, there is the idea that people don’t know what feminism is so the project kind of became an informative, didactic piece.

The elements of research included in these outcomes include Lorber’s exposition on feminism. She describes the waves of feminism, and to simplify I chose defining moments of the first (suffrage) and second (abortion/rights to body) wave. The third wave is tricky because it encompasses too many things. I’d like to further my research and learn more so I can better represent it, instead of just having an explosion. Because the third wave encompasses people who think that feminism is no longer necessary; the causes have been won, and there are other things to do. It involves rebellion feminism and reformist feminism. (Lorber)

I learned a lot about post-feminism from the article we read in class and how women now objectify themselves because they can. Post-feminism also claims that girls have power, which makes the Spice Girls a perfect example because they talk about how there is “strength and courage in a wonder bra,” and their feminist fore-mothers are completely disregarded. Although, Janice from Mean Girls is not necessarily a feminist she provides a stereotype of what people think feminists are—man-hating lesbians who dress poorly. This clip also supports the ideas present in Sibielski’s article “Nothing hurts the ‘cause more than that,” where this negative stereotype of feminists encourages women to not identify with feminist ideals. Media has introduced the feelings Douglas summarizes as “I’m not a feminist, but…” when, in fact, most people should be saying “I’m a feminist, but…” because what has been done by feminists and what some hope to still accomplish is reasonable and respectable.

I decided to have Claire from Clueless present the topic because it’s ironic. She’s what Johnson would call the “honourable skank,” much like Olive from Easy A, and one of those that could be considered to hurt the cause of feminism because of how she portrays herself, but here she is standing up for it and paying tribute.

Krasnow’s panel discussion on whether or not the media has killed feminism describes how the media sensationalizes and pits women against each other, which is the point Tina Fey makes in the clip from Mean Girls. Media comes from men, but it makes it seem like women are against other women. We must become aware in order to stop.

I feel hypocritical because the movies I included come from films I loved to watch growing up, and because of the research I’ve done, I’ve learned the messages they share  perpetuate sexism. I use them in hopes of helping others turn their opinions around: of feminism, of themselves, and of other women. If we use media to demand respect and quash the “oppressive patriarchal values of our society” as so beautifully stated by Julia styles, then it will spill over to real life and change can happen.

"Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?"

See October 22 for related annotated bibliography.

Feminism is complicated. There are varying opinions on what it is and what it does as well as contrasting representations. Even feminists disagree on definitions. The third wave is described as pluralistic. What does this mean for feminism? What efforts are helping the women’s movement forward and which ones are holding it back?

One of the reasons holding a proper representation of strong women and feminist women is the fact that media production is dominated by the opposite sex. 97% of media comes from men, a statistic presented in Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines and Miss Representation.  For example, the review on Easy A describes the role of the honorable slut—a new archetype created by male directors, based on their examples. (Johnson) “It still is really difficult for women filmmakers. This is true in documentary, in fiction film, in independent film, and in the industry. Most of the people who are greenlighting films in Hollywood are still men. We did an analysis six years ago of the funding patterns. We compared the gender of the producer/directors as well as the subjects of the films they were making in the context of the funding they were receiving from national and regional funders. At the very top were films by men about men, and at the very bottom were films by women about women. Most interesting to me is that women who are making films about men get more money than men who are making films about women. Although this was six years ago, if you look at the films getting made in Hollywood or even shown in the major film festivals, things have not changed very much.” (Krasnow) Another  tactic used of backlash is the media’s attempts to undermine the movement by simplifying it, when it fact, it’s multifaceted. (Sibielski)

Another hindrance to feminism is other women. Some women refuse to identify with this equality seeking movement because of negative, caricatured depictions of feminists in the media. (Douglas) Others take the post feminine approach and objectify themselves. (Winch)

Both Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines and Miss Representation offer solutions. The former is an example of what can be done to valorize women. Unlike Veronica Mars who is made more “butch,” (Sibielski) or masculine to merit female empowerment, Wonder Woman is celebrated for her femininity and it contributes not detracts from her cause. She “[made] bad men good and weak women strong” (Guevara-Flanagan) with her lasso that forces people to tell the truth and teaching men the merits of peace and love rather than trying to be manly to show empowerment. She has become a symbol of power and has inspired good and been the cause of good not only for little girls out casted at school, but for the benefit of domestic violence shelters. Miss Representation with its more didactic tone asks us to be more literate through media courses, to support media that shares the messages we want, and to make media of our own that voices our perspective.

There’s even an organization to change the game of a male dominated media: WMM. As distributors they said, “What we are looking for are films from a woman’s perspective. Well, not just a woman’s perspective but a feminist perspective. But then once the word feminism is brought into it, one must define feminism. And there’s where it gets fun and philosophical and complicated. We believe, or at least I believe, that there are many, many kinds of feminisms. And ultimately our role as an organization is to reflect that multiplicity.” (Krasnow)

So there is no one way to define it, and there's not one way to improve it.