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Even if you don't watch reality television, or television at all for that matter, you'd be hard-pressed to avoid the recent controversy over Kate and Jon Gosselin, and their eight children. The stars of the beloved reality spectacle, Jon and Kate, Plus Eight, are divorcing. Despite salacious rumors about infidelity, they claim that it is just a gradual growing apart and, they add, the media spotlight certainly did help matters. It's hard to feel much empathy for a couple complaining of overexposure when they signed the contract that would expose their entire family, eight little children included, to 24 hour cameras.
But perhaps it's not just the media, or Jon and Kate, that are to blame. Kiri Blakeley, of Forbes.com, argues that female consumers are also culprits in this family dissolution. We're the ones hungrily scavenging for every last juicy morsel about the couple's demise, particularly the stories about what Kate did wrong, Blakeley argues. We're feeding the sexist media beast. She writes:
It's obvious who is devouring the Monster Mom headlines: Women. Research firm Mediamark estimates 73% of US Weekly's, 83% of In Touch's, and 77% of Star magazine's audience are female.
It's complicated. One of the most powerful ways in which we can practice our feminism is in our consumption choices. This can mean everything from where we buy our food to what kind of tampons we use to, yes, what magazines we read. The editors of feministing aren't afraid to admit that we've got some of our own guilty pleasures (All My Children, horror movies, reggaeton etc.), but they induce guilt for a reason--we know that our consumption of these things contradicts our values on some level.
No one's perfect. At the same time, I get incredibly sick of hearing everyone complain about the quality (or lack thereof) in the magazines marketed at women, and then turn around and support these same magazines by buying them at the airport kiosk. If we really want television programming or print media that speaks to our issues, then we need to tune into shows that reflect our desires, write letters to the magazines that don't.
It takes some self-discipline to avoid some of the more salacious crap on television and in print, that's for sure. But if we really want the media world to change, then we're going to have to start taking responsibility for our consumption choices. A guilty pleasure here or there makes us human. Blindly consuming "monster mom" stories about Kate Gosselin, celebrity weight loss exposes, or the latest Real Housewives series threatens to keep the sexist status quo very much in place.
I'm wondering how the feministing community draws the lines when it comes to television and media consumption. Do you allow yourself People magazine at the airport? Do you watch reality television that degrades women? Have you ever written a letter to the editor when a magazine did something you either loved or hated? Why or why not?
See community blogger crazyface8d on the topic.
First up, Tammy Johnson of Colorlines (via Isak):
You could say he was just another celebrity, another pop star, the King of Pop, but Michael Jackson did have an impact on our society. For his time, he made it ok for white girls to scream at a black man, to say that they wanted him. He made it ok for white boys to do the moonwalk. But you know, it wasn't ok for Michael Jackson to be Michael Jackson. It was written all over his face -- or the face that he changed into. And that's a shame.
Adrienne Maree Brown on the responsibility of his fans:
When it became clear that the boy's face we had loved had become the face of a man who didn't love himself; we judged him. We tore at him and he fell apart. He was living proof of the impact of our rabid pop culture, an early sacrifice to the new mechanisms of fame which allow no privacy, no time to learn, no mistakes.
Still, he kept producing for us.
When the rumors and the truth were all too prevalent (the children, both his and others), and he wasn't getting the psychological support and accountability he needed, we turned from him and derided him. We made the distinction of loving the child, but ridiculing the man.
Toure at the Daily Beast on how Jackson broke the color barrier with his music:
I like Off the Wall and Dangerous better, but I can't help but think about Thriller's massive socio-cultural impact. Rev. Al Sharpton referred to Michael as a pre-Obama Obama-esque figure in that he's a black man who knows how to make millions of blacks and whites fall in love with him. He's an integrationist, a racial unifier. He made two pop songs as overtly about race as anyone's ever made: Ebony and Ivory with Paul McCartney and Black or White. He was a Motown guy, after all. But he left Berry Gordy's house and went to CBS/Epic, a big-time label, to forge an adult solo career. CBS pushed his record as hard as they did their huge white stars and Off the Wall was a huge crossover success: young Michael was established as not an artist for black fans but an artist for everyone at a time when that was rare. Four years later, when Thriller came out it broke the radio color barrier: black and white stations played its singles until MTV, which had not previously played videos by black artists, had to play Michael. For a while they played Thriller every hour at the top of the hour. Back then he was MTV's Jackie Robinson.
Remember the Chris Brown/Rihanna drama? Well, Brown reached a plea deal admitting that he assaulted girlfriend Rihanna with the intent to do "great bodily harm."
Under terms of the agreement, Brown will serve five years of probation and must serve 180 days in jail or the equivalent -- about 1,400 hours -- in "labor-oriented service," said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office. He must also undergo a year-long domestic-violence counseling class, she said.Brown's sentence is comparable to other felony sentences when the defendant has no previous record, she said.
I think it is good that he at least plead guilty to one charge of assault but I am still conflicted on the long-term effectiveness of the sentence.
Thoughts?
Latoya Peterson (pictured right), our girl from Racialicious.com, is up first.
Pop culture conversations are vital because it reaches so many people across the world. "The U.S.'s biggest export is pop culture; it's about all we export."
Dr. Laura Plybon, a self-identified Apache Indian and Girls Inc., speaks VERY briefly about her desire to see people from her culture represented in the media accurately and complexly.
Glennda Testone, from the Women's Media Center, is up next. I heart her so much. She talks about the Women's Media Center's work:
The Women's Media Center makes women visible and powerful in the media. Led by our president, the Emmy-winning journalist, writer, and producer Carol Jenkins, the WMC works with the media to ensure that women's stories are told and women's voices are heard. We do this in three ways: through our media advocacy campaigns; by creating our own media; and by training women to participate directly in media. We are directly engaged with the media at all levels to ensure that a diverse group of women is present in newsrooms, on air, in print and online, as sources and subjects.
She also mentions Rhianna and the most recent Disney princess as potential flash points to look at during the conversation.
This is amazing. Each panelist is basically passing the mic. How refreshing.
Anne Zill of the Women's Center for Ethics in Action says she's probably going to be a "little heretical" on this panel today because she wants to talk about ways in which pop culture right now is actually positive in certain ways.
She advocates for throwing away the superwoman archetype and embracing a more communitarian approach to raising families and finding fulfilling work. She also talks about the critical need to foster empathy while raising all children.
Glennda (pictured left) talks about how women are the majority of the population and the majority of consumers are women. Women only hold 3% of clout positions in the media. She talks about an initial meeting with all the bookers and producers from mainstream media that the WMC initially had. They were so excited that there were tons of women with decision making power in the room, but when they went around the room, it turned out that every single one of them reported to a male boss. Management positions in media are 15-24% women.
She proposes the idea of a hiring quota of some kind of people of color and women in leadership positions in the media.
Latoya shows a really interesting graph of Huffington Post's traffic vs. Feministing's traffic and reminds us that, though it's great that we're "making our own media," we still don't have nearly the same bandwith as the mainstream media outlets.
Latoya: "what permeates the social consciousness is at the CNN level."
She refers to Women & Hollywood's recent commentary on the ways in which Hollywood just refuses to believe that women go to the movies and want to see more than chick flicks. Melissa Silverstein advocates, from the audience, that women really need to go to women-oriented films on opening weekend. Buying a ticket, she explains, is like voting. You can sign up for her e-newsletter if you want to get weekly information about what films are opening.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see this headline: "Sex, drink and fashion. Is this the new face of American feminism?"*
After all, if there's anything the mainstream media loves, it's painting feminists - specifically young feminists - as vapid and sex-crazed. (See here, here, here, here and here.)
While I'm tempted to weigh in on this particular article and the many ways in which it got things wrong - especially since it touches on something I blogged about recently - I think there's a larger issue that's more important to get at. (Though damn it's hard not to say anything about the piece - especially the 6 bullet points at the end. Wow.)
There's a reason that the mainstream media continually covers young feminists in this way. Backlash is part of it, of course: framing feminism as a perpetual catfight or a watered down movement based on drinking and fucking is a great way to dismiss it. But it's also indicative of a media that has no interest in nuance or truthfulness when it comes to covering women.
When I read this latest article, I was reminded of something I wrote in The Purity Myth about the moral panic wackiness surrounding young women's sexuality:
The fact is, focusing on hyped-up problems that sell newspapers and titillate the imagination make it that much easier to ignore actual problems young women are facing, issues that take a lot more than a moral scolding to fix. For a young woman living in poverty, spring break isn't even an option, let alone a concern. For a young woman who has no health insurance, the "moral" debate over STIs won't do anything for her the next time she needs to see a doctor. And for a young single mother, hearing about herself as an unfortunate statistic isn't going to make her life any better or easier.
The same could be said about the media's feminism problem. Salacious headlines about feminists-gone-wild not only sell newspapers - they also make it that much easier for people to ignore actual feminist work that's being done. When was the last time you saw an article about youth organizations like the Pro-Choice Education Project, or feminist media like Shameless? Have you ever seen a mainstream media profile on any of the women here? Of course not. Because focusing on the truth of what feminists activists and media makers are up to would mean portraying women as thoughtful, socially engaged citizens. (Wouldn't that be ridiculous!) It just doesn't jibe with how America wants to see women, especially young women; they'd prefer to think we're all nekkid, drunk and stupid.
Now, I don't fool myself into thinking that this media narrative about feminists (or women) is going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn't mean we can't do anything about it. When you see an article that relies on bullshit stereotypes about feminism, inundate the reporter with links to profiles of young feminists and youth-led organizations. Show them what feminism really is.
*Full disclosure: The reporter who wrote this piece contacted me via email for an interview, I didn't have the time to respond. (And now I'm really glad that I didn't!)
I do not like Miss California Carrie Prejean. I think she's a bigot, and I don't particularly dig the way she's making the understandable negative reaction to her comments about same sex marriage about people "persecuting" her.
But no matter how I, or anyone else, feels about Prejean - this shit is simply wrong. It wasn't enough that folks were mocking the woman for getting breast implants, now they have to slut shame her into oblivion for some "nude" pictures. (And seriously, the pics are hardly scandalous considering the bathing suit competition and all.)
The directors of the Miss California USA pageant are looking into whether title holder Carrie Prejean violated her contract by working with a national group opposed to gay marriage and by posing semi-clad when she was a teenage model.Pageant spokesman Roger Neal said Tuesday it appears the 21-year-old Prejean has run afoul of several sections of the 12-page contract that prospective contestants were required to sign before competing in the state contest.
The contract contains a clause asking participants whether they have conducted themselves "in accordance with the highest ethical and moral standards" and if they've ever been photographed nude or partially nude.
Apparently it's only okay for women to be objectified when it's the pageant that's doing it.
It also irks me to no end that sites like the one that released these "scandalous" pictures (and no, I won't link to them) justify themselves by claiming that they've caught Prejean being a hypocrite.
The text posted along with the photo on [redacted] does describe Prejean as a "self-proclaimed bible thumper," and concludes: "So much for being a good role model for the state of California Carrie. Looks like your Dirty photo shoot makes you a sinner too."
You know, there are plenty of ways to fight back against discrimination and hypocrisy - sexually shaming women isn't one of them. Not only is it intellectually lazy (really, there's no other way to show that Prejean's comments were terrible?), but fighting homophobia with misogyny pretty much reeks of hypocrisy itself, no?
Kim Kardashian posted a pre-photoshopped picture of herself from her Complex Magazine photoshoot to her blog saying she is aware she has cellulite and "which curvy girl doesn't?" Complex had "mistakenly" run the pre-photoshopped picture showing her *gasp* cellulite. Soon after they took the picture down replacing it with one that trims down her thighs and lightens her skin.
Kim's response,
"I'm proud of my body and my curves and this picture coming out is probably helpful for everyone to see that just because I am on the cover of a magazine doesn't mean I'm perfect."
Kudos to her for saying that. Frankly, I see very little actual difference between the two pictures, but the subtle changes make a huge difference and I think it speaks to the extent popular culture will go to produce unnatural and unattainable images of women.
The latest Rolling Stone cover seems like a ridiculously apt illustration of what I was reading in Jessica's new book, The Purity Myth, just last night:
Touting girls and girlhood as ideal forms of sexuality is simply another way of advancing the notion that to be desirable, women need to be un-adults--young, naive, and impressionable. Being independent, assured, and grown up has no place in this disconcerting model.
Jess' goes on to make the argument that it's not just pop culture outlets like Rolling Stone that are pushing this highly sexualized and infantile image, but the virginity movement as well:
...the 'perfect virgin' is at the center of the movement's rhetoric, and its goals revolve largely around convincing girls that the only way to be pure is to abstain from sex. This means there's an awful lot of talk about young girls' sexuality in the movement, from T-shirts to abstinence classes to purity balls. By focusing on the virginity of young women and girls, the movement is doing exactly what it purports to abhor--objectifying women and reducing them to their sexuality.
Oh, and the totally unsubtle ploy to titillate dudes with girl-on-girl fantasies is duly noted. Really original Rolling Stone.
Thanks to platoformboots for the heads up.
In honor of their 70th Anniversary, Glamour has an American Icons photo shoot with current female entertainers posing as important female icons.
I'm not usually a fan of magazines like Glamour but I thought this spread was pretty cool.
In the spread they've got Lindsay Lohan as Madonna, America Ferrera as Dolores Huerta, Hayden Panettiere as Amelia Earhart and Alicia Keys as First Lady Michelle Obama plus 9 more. I thought it was an interesting way to honor these icons and they did a good job of picking women from different types of fame--athletes, activists, political figures, etc. I particularly liked the picture above of America Ferrera.
Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine has a great interview up with Elizabeth Mendez Berry, who wrote a 2005 Vibe magazine article about domestic violence and the hip hop community, Love Hurts. Watch it. Seriously.
