media essay 5-6 pages due 12 hours
fanbing910724
Lecture82283F_17.pptxAgenda 10.31.17
Announcements
Final Exam?
SATC and Girls
Mindy Project
Awkward
Final Exam?
NO FINAL EXAM
Post-feminism
Post-feminism
“…post-feminist sensibility in media texts involves an intersection of individualism, choice, feminine self-surveillance, and body management, the ‘makeover paradigm,’ and a shift from sexual objectification to ‘subjectification.’” (Nash and Grant 981)
Post-feminist subject: “…white, economically successful, young, attractive (hetero)sexual female subject.” (Nash and Grant 981)
Sex and the City
SATC
1998-2004 (6 seasons)
4 white upper-middle class women in NYC
Created by gay man; director and writer most associated with show is a gay man
Seen as popular and ground-breaking show
Spawned two feature films
Sex and the City and Girls
How does SATC represent post-feminist rhetoric? How does it not represent post-feminist rhetoric?
How does SATC demonstrate women’s empowerment? How do they not demonstrate women’s empowerment
How is male desire and sexuality depicted? What does this depiction say about how the creators think of male sexuality?
How are women’s and men’s bodies filmed in the pilot?
How are SATC and Girls similar and/or different?
Sex and the City
Themes
Friendship
Communication
Marriage?
Pleasure
Selfishness?
Girls
2012- (six seasons)
Created, written, and directed by
twenty-something Lena Dunham
Depicts the experiences of four friends (white upper-middle class women) in NYC
“In focussing on four distinct female character types in New York and embedding itself almost immediately in the US cultural landscape, Girls has endured obvious comparisons to SATC (e.g., Rory Carroll 2012; Emily Nussbaum 2012).” (Nash and Grant 978)
“Post? Feminism” and Girls
“The show is a kind of millennial consciousness-raising tool in which Dunham engages with the social processes that were instigated by second wave feminism and that were aimed at developing experiential knowledge, giving women a “voice” and unifying their experiences (although this is clearly contested in terms of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality), and “empowering” women in their relationships to their bodies.” (Nash and Grant 988)
“Post? Feminism”
“We propose that the term “post? feminism” may be used to describe a revised post-feminist sensibility for a millennial generation. Rather than rejecting post-feminism, we include a question mark to create a platform for new debate and engagement with post-feminism, while acknowledging its coexistence with predecessor feminisms, and the continuing popular and academic usage of post-feminism. The question mark importantly provides a focal point for questioning and re-articulating the meaning, usage, and constituencies of post-feminism today.” (Nash and Grant 988)
The Mindy Project
2012- (5 seasons)
Created, produced, and starring Mindy Kaling (1st WOC to do so)
About the work and romantic travails of a pop culture obsessed, narcissistic, and “quirky” OB/GYN in NYC
The Mindy Project
Representations of South Asian femininity
Repressed
Serious
Work-oriented
Less focus on personal and sexual lives
Otherized through foreignness, immigration status, and accents
Representations and fatness and womanhood
Connected to race
Connected to success
The Mindy Project
Is The Mindy Project a “post? feminist” show?
How is Mindy’s race a factor (or non-factor) in the show?
How are Mindy’s sexual and romantic desires represented?
How is Mindy’s body represented and discussed?
What are the similarities and differences between SATC, Girls, and The Mindy Project?
The Mindy Project
“In this way, women like Dunham and Kaling, through their deployment of diverse female bodies and femininities, can disrupt the normative iteration of gender and race. Their production of femininity in bodies that are attractive (just not normatively so) has more than just an impact on how we look at fat. They bring to us women that are flawed, assertive, insecure, confident, contradictory, talented, creative, that make difficult choices in love and work, and that don’t make an obsession with weight or even race their markers of self worth.” (Nijhawan)
The Mindy Project
Mindy as South Asian “everywoman”
“Her production of her femininity is inextricably bound up with race. However, Mindy avoids marking herself as a racial minority by making her quest for love and her confusions about body image something all women can identify with.., I am not suggesting that this reflects the reality of experience for many women in the USA who belong to ethnic minorities. I am suggesting that Mindy is creating a possible or potential reality, in which neither size nor being a racial minority are causes for shame.” (Nijhawan)
The Mindy Project
Racial identity:
“OK, I know that my ID says that I’m 5’10” with blond hair, 110 pounds with crystal blue eyes. My philosophy is that an ID should be aspirational.” (Mindy Lahiri, S2e14, The Mindy Project)
Mindy Kaling on protagonist’s white boyfriends
“Do people really wonder on other shows if female leads are dating multicultural people?...“Like I owe it to every race and minority and beleaguered person. I have to become the United Nations of shows?” (Interview with EW August 1, 2013)
“I think it's too bad that a small minority of people are fixated on the men who are in bed with me…I think that's a bit specific and weird.” (Interview with LA Times March 29, 2014)
Insecure
2016- (1 season, renewed for 2nd)
Based on webseries The Misadventures of
Awkward Black Girl
Created and written by Issa Rae
“This unstyled character gained a fervent following among African American women, rather in the wayLena Dunham warmed the hearts of white women by waddling down a posh New England sidewalk in a bikini in her hit show Girls (2012-).” (Gould)
Insecure
From The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl to Insecure
“Would the move from the margins to the centre prompt Rae to tone down the honest comic instincts that made her breakthrough such a refreshing joy? Maybe the clue was in the title change. Men are rarely labelled ‘insecure’. It is one of those nebulous feminized terms, like ‘hysterical’.” (Gould)
Insecure
“I think just an authenticity and for lack of a better word, a, like regular voice, you know? I think black people aren't really used to seeing themselves be the norm, and the default and have these regular human emotions that white people are afforded on every single type of show. So, to just to have relationships and friendships exist in a normalized way is something that hasn't been done in like 20 years.” (Issa Rae, E! Interview December 12 2016)
Insecure
Themes
Blackness (colorism, expectations, and beauty)
Femininity
Masculinity
Class
Work
Romance
Friendship
PWIs
Negotiations
Insecurity
Insecure
What is the relationship between desire and expectations in the pilot?
How are racial stereotypes and/or ideals about blackness and femininity represented in the pilot?
Is an “oppositional gaze” represented in the pilot?
What are the similarities and differences between SATC, Girls, The Mindy Project, and Insecure?
Women’s desires and television
Representations and characteristics of women’s sexuality and desire
Pleasure-seeking
Liberatory (or individualistic)
Varied and limited
Conflictions and contentions
Racialized, classed, and heteronormative (typically)
