When Media Completely Misses the Point...
Sometimes it feels like we can’t just celebrate women for their accomplishments. It’s always “So and so did this, BUT OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT SHE WAS WEARING?!” Like the above post by Daily Mail on Twitter (now X). Maisie Williams (who played Arya Stark on Game of Thrones), attended a charity ball in a sheer dress. Instead of reporting on the fact that she was there for charitable, selfless reasons, the media decided to focus on her attire and completely missed the whole point of the outing. They could have even said, “Maisie Williams, attending a charity masquerade ball, wears a flashy dress to celebrate the occasion.” And that would have been fine! But no, they had to focus on the outfit and probably upset her. She ended up retweeting their post and clapping back, and I totally agree with her. This isn’t even the only thing I can bring up that this kind of thing happens with.
Can you even imagine being an OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST and being called “Bears Lineman’s Wife” in the media? I knew that there was a disconnect between women and men in the athletics world, but she’s a freaking gold medalist and is still just being spoken about like her husband is the most important thing. Like, great, she’s married to a football player, but how about mentioning her name in your post and using her marriage as an afterthought, at least. Though, why they even mentioned that at all is beyond me. Her marriage has zero to do with her being a gold medalist in the Olympics.
Are there other areas that you can think of where things like this happen? Does it happen to men or is it mostly women that this happens to most often? I can’t think of a time where I have seen a man reduced to what he is wearing, or asked really uncomfortable questions in an interview. The one thing I can think of is when Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake were promoting a movie in Russia (or somewhere close to it) and the reporter asked him “Why are you an actor?” poking fun at his shift from a music career into acting. And Mila shot back with “Why are you a journalist?” in perfect Russian, defending her co-star.
While I know things like this do happen to men, it feels like it is more prevalent in women in today’s culture.
I like the 'Why are you a journalist?' counter-reaction made by Mila Kunis to the humorous but biased question to Justin Timberlake! I believe the cultural feminist perspective would jump in here and provide some insight into your questions, especially regarding whether male actors are also reduced to attire as often happens to women. My answer is yes, it happens to men as well, but on a different level due to reasons explained by the cultural feminist perspective. Women's perspectives and experiences are naturally valuable and should be celebrated, with traditionally feminist qualities such as caring, receptivity, and creativity as our reading material explained. This perspective explains that gender differences are inherently rooted in biology and not in social constructs only.
ReplyDeleteSome really great observations in your post! Especially, “Sometimes it feels like we can’t just celebrate women for their accomplishments”. I agree. You also asked, ‘Are there other areas that you can think of where things like this happen?’ Definitely.
ReplyDeleteRecently I was reading an article about Drew Barrymore, wherein the author starts it by saying, “Drew Barrymore has an impressive résumé under her belt, but perhaps her most important role to date is being a mom to her two daughters” (Kershaw, 2024, para. 1).
…now don’t get me wrong. I understand the statement is intended as a compliment, and I have the utmost respect for the demands of motherhood. But I can’t help but think when I hear statements like this, that there’s a connotation in there that clings to a traditional viewpoint that women should prioritize having children over careers. And that it somehow shores up an imbalance caused by having a career but not having children. Am I being dramatic in this perspective? Maybe. But given the culture I grew up in, I’d say not overly so.
So, considering your observation and question, I want to add to it and ask, “Can we not celebrate women’s accomplishments, all of them, without diminishing one or the other?” Can we not say about Barrymore, “In addition to her impressive resume as an actor, author, and talk show host, she is also a mother”. How we say things matters.
Kershaw’s article on Drew Barrymore: https://people.com/parents/all-about-drew-barrymore-children/#:~:text=Drew%20Barrymore%20has%20an%20impressive,with%20ex%2Dhusband%20Will%20Kopelman.
When Media Misses the Point (Module 4 Response)
ReplyDelete***Please know that several references can make you uncomfortable if you do not want to view the videos attached to these posts you are not required to.
INTRODUCTION
You are right, the media misses the point. Although I can think of several examples of men being sexualized it is more common with women. I believe this is due to societal norms that have been ingrained within us from the media but it also boils down to sex sells. Most media providers do not care about celebrities or their accomplishments; they just want to produce content that people will buy or click on.
POST EXAMPLES
In one of your examples, you reference “Game of Thrones” and the media emphasis of “Maisie Williams going Braless” Instead of acknowledging Massie’s dress and her accomplishments. The media sexualizes Massie. This sexualization of Massie is unfortunate because we see this so often in the media as stated in your other examples such as Pop Artist Taylor Swift and Olympic Medalist Corey Cogdell. This hegemonic culture of sexualizing women not only belittles women's accomplishments but causes women to feel degraded as if beauty is the only thing that matters.
What is upsetting about society is even after acknowledging these issues of the sexualization of women in the media and the negative effects these “clickbait” articles are still made. When viewing these sexist forms of media from a Marxist perspective we can blame the elites for manipulating us and instilling hegemonic views. However, as a society, we still have to take accountability for we are the ones who continue to consume this media helping major corporations make a profit.
NEGATIVE EXAMPLES
The sexualization of women in the media has several negative effects on both men and women. One example of the negative effects of media can be seen in Dr. James Briscoe's Pop Culture Communication 6140 Course in Module 4 video post.
Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video
In the video above 100’s people sexually assault females by ripping off their clothes and spraying champagne over them as they saw in pop culture music videos. Although this can be seen as an extreme example, we would be foolish as a society to say there is no correlation between the media we consume and ideologies. I believe this example shows how sexist hegemony beliefs in society cause men to objectify women.
Another example of women being objectified that I believe is caused by the media is the 19-year-old influencer “IShowSpeed”. The video below shows speed barking at females. This joke is seen throughout social media to show that beautiful women bring out “the dog” in men. In other words, attractive women make men revert to their prehistoric animal-like instincts of “taking what they want.” As ironic as it is, “barking” at women is the new generation of what some would call “catcalling” or “whistling” at women. IShowSpeed often does this for comedic purposes but some people might take it as offensive or degrading for both men and women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu7lLUL3fHk
POSITIVE EXAMPLES
DeleteIn this post, we heavily discussed the negative consequences of sexist media but not all the consequences are negative. For example, you mentioned people stating “Taylor Swift is ruining football!” But if we look at Taylor Swift’s sales and the minimum purchase of Super Bowl tickets being over $10,000 it is obvious Taylor’s relationship and invasion of her personal life has caused more positive publicity within her career and the NFL than negative.
MILEY CYRUS IN THE MEDIA
Media has continued to change over the years and hopefully for the better. In this post, we have discussed several female celebrities being sexualized. A great example that I think can demonstrate the change of direction of the media can be seen in this 2015 Holly Wood Reporter Post compared to Cosmopolitan's 2024 post about Miley Cyrus.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/mtv-airs-miley-cyrus-nipple-818896/
This post of Miley Cyrus at the MTV show in 2015 went viral and 100 journalists posted about Miley’s “nip slip”. This celebrity and media accident caused some good publicity for Miley. However, she was endlessly sexualized for years and this was all everyone talked about after the MTV Show Awards ignoring everyone else's accomplishments or how Miley did as a host.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a46670552/miley-cyrus-workout-routine/
This post was posted recently as of February 2024. If you are not on social media you are missing out because everyone has been talking about Miley Cyrus first Grammy and new muscular figure. You may be asking yourself, I thought this example was supposed to be about how the media has stepped away from hegemonic ideologies of sexualizing women and it is. Most hegemonic views see women as weak and beautiful but Miley has shown the world that women can be strong and beautiful. On social media and as seen in this post. Society has congratulated Miley on her accomplishments. They are impressed with her health and fitness accomplishments as well as motivating both men and women to continue to work on themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually.
SEXUALIZATION OF MEN
DeleteNow that we talked about the sexualization of women in the media, let's discuss some examples of men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHmCH7iB_IM
Micheal B Jordan in Creed and most of his movies are heavily sexualized. The sexualization of Micheal may not be as explicit as seen in the media in regards to females but if you look at the finer details you can see what I am referencing. Creed is a boxing movie so Micheal is going to have his shirt off but in scenes where he does have clothes they are extra tight. If you think I am exaggerating.
Another example of the sexualization of men in the media can be seen in Tyler Perry’s productions. Growing up I was lower middle class and did not have cable so my mom had all of Tyler Perry’s DVDs from screenplays, and movies to TV shows, my mom had it. An observation that I had made as a kid was that Tyler Perry always had good-looking men in his films and for some odd reason their shirts would come off somehow.
This happened so frequently that Boondocks, an iconic pop culture TV show made an entire episode of this Tyler Perry trope. Unfortunately, the episode was banned because Tyler Perry was offended about how it made him appear going against hegemonic views and possibly being seen as a bi-sexual cross-dresser. I have to admit that I thought it was hilarious watching. If you want to watch clips of it you can view this link below of someone watching the episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls6 aPDl euw
Another male who is sexualized is Chis Hemsworth. In this scene “Thor Love and Thunder” Chris is stripped naked by the Greek god Zeus. Several people claim that this scene was to add humility to the character since he was talking up to a god with more power than his own. I think the scene was comedic. However, I believe that Chris was heavily sexualized in this scene. This can be seen not only with how the media reacted upon its release but even the characters inside the film for they reference his “package” and muscular build.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls6 aPDl euw
Another example of sexualization in males is in the “Magic Mike” movie series. This one is a more explicit version of the sexualization of men for it is about male strippers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FoM9JHXCWQ
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
ReplyDeleteAs in the section above “sexualization of males' ' I provided several examples of how men are sexualized. I did not necessarily discuss the negative and positive impacts of the media and will leave that up to you to determine. However, I would like to talk about pushing hegemonic boundaries. One example I want to use to show this is celebrity and musician Lil Nas X.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTHLKHL_whs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duCreUx kLo
In both these music videos Lil Nas X goes against hegemonic views by sexualizing men and switching societal roles from females to males. For example in music videos we see several beautiful women dancing but in Lil Nas X’s music videos, he uses good-looking men instead. Lil Nas X also references popular culture views such as Christianity and is known to be controversial. Do you think that Lil Nas X's going against these hegemonic views is positive or negative?
QUESTIONS
Do you think that sexist media has decreased over the years or got worse, why provide examples? Are there any positive or negative biases that you have and believe to be influenced by the media? What are measurable goals that we can do as individuals to better ourselves ensuring we do not contribute to the negative effects of media?
https://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/media-issues/gender-representation/men-and-masculinity/common-stereotypes-men-media
If you are interested in other stereotypes that the media tends to imply about men please review the link above. All other sources that were used to assist me in completing this post that are not above can be seen in the “referenced example” section below. I hope this post allowed you to think of new thought-provoking ideas and gave you a new perspective on hegemony, patriarchy, and feminist ideologies. Please reply to my post below
I look forward to your feedback.
REFERENCED EXAMPLES
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/mtv-airs-miley-cyrus-nipple-818896/
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a46670552/miley-cyrus-workout-routine/
https://suupopculture.blogspot.com/2024/02/when-media-completely-misses-point.html