Identities and the Media: Feminism

Identities and the Media: Feminism

Are we living in a post-feminist state? Do you agree there is still a need for feminism? To what extent does the media contribute to the identity created for women in popular culture? These are some of the questions we need to consider in this next section of our Identities and the Media unit.

Complete the following tasks on your blog:

Media Magazine reading

1) Read Playing With The Past: Post-feminism and the Media (MM40, page 64 - our Media Magazine archive is here).

2) What are the two texts the article focuses on?

HBO’s Pan Am and Beyoncé’s music video for ‘Why Don’t You Love Me’,

3) What examples are provided from the two texts of the 'male gaze' (Mulvey)?

• This first image of the Pan Am stewardesses is one which is highly constructed and mediated, an image whose purpose is to be admired and aspired to by women, and visually enjoyed by men.
• A constructed version of femininity, self-consciously acknowledging that this is simply a ‘glossy’ image, a fantasy not based on reality.
• series the women use their appearance to empower themselves, frequently donning their uniforms to gain access to places they want to be, using their looks to their own advantage, and allowing us, the audience, to enjoy appreciating their bodies.
• In her music video for the song ‘Why Don’t you Love Me’ Beyoncé parodies the stereotype of the 1950s housewife, clearly inter textually referencing the iconic 1950s pin up girl Betty Paige.
• The dresscodes are highly sexualised; the costumes include tight high-waisted knickers, a vintage style bra, Fifties pedal pushers with cats-eye-shaped glasses, suspenders and stockings which all allow the audiences to not only appreciate Beyoncé’s ‘credentials’ but also the vintage fashion on offer.

4) Do texts such as these show there is no longer a need for feminism or are they simply sexism in a different form?

I believe that these texts show a new form of sexism as in more and more new media texts females are shown to be sex objects and are heavily sexualised.
5) Choose three words/phrases from the glossary of the article and write their definitions on your blog.

Feminism – A movement aimed at defining, establishing, and defending women’s rights and equality to men.

Post-feminism – An ideology in culture and society that society is somehow past needing feminism and that the attitudes and arguments of feminism are no longer needed.

Male Gaze – The gaze referring to Laura Mulvey’s seminal article ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ which argues that main stream Hollywood films subject female characters to the ‘male gaze’ of the camera, fragmenting and objectifying their bodies.

No More Page 3

1) Research the No More Page 3 campaign. Who started it and why?
Lucy Anne Holmes, August 2012.

2) What are the six reasons the campaign gives for why Page 3 has to go?

3) Read this debate in the Guardian regarding whether the campaign should be dropped. What are Barbara Ellen and Susan Boniface's contrasting opinions in the debate?
Susan belives that page 3 isnt much of a big issue to be worried at as there are a lot of more larger issues wrong with news, also she believes that this campaign started too late and the entertainment that page 3 offers can easily be found online with hardly any issues, so why is it different to have it in page 3.

Barbara is the opposite, she believes that Susan is wrong and it doesn't matter whether there are nigger issues, the sexualisation of a women is wrong and shouldn't be accounted for in public newspapers.

4) How can the No More Page 3 campaign be linked to the idea of post-feminism?
As females have been listened to and have caused the removal of page 3, removing sexualisation of women within newspapers.

5) What are your OWN views on the No More Page 3 campaign. Do you agree with the campaign's aims? Should the campaign continue?
I believe that the campaign makes sense and should've happened, this is because newspapers should only be for news and news only. Having a feature of naked women doesn't make any sense and is purely there just for male gaze and in order to gain more sales by men. It enforces the theory of sex sells and this is a discrimination of females as it dehumanises them as sex objects.

6) Do you agree that we are in a post-feminist state or is there still a need for feminism?
I believe that there is still a need for feminism as they're is still a lot of sexualisation and inequality of females in the world and media at the moment. A big issue would be the video game industry as females are shown to be no key element to the story lines and are also sexualised.