Miss Representation: Taking on Objectification of Women in Media

The film Miss Representation (currently being screened at Sundance) addresses the sexualization and objectification of women in media and how this relates to the oppression of women in general.

I am personally really excited about seeing the film but Jezebel commentator Irin is wary of the trailer as it

paints a rather broad brush (and yes, trailers are wont to do this — we'll reserve final judgment til we see the actual movie), seemingly uncritically describing all public displays of sexuality as inherently demeaning. It's not that Britney Spears has nothing to do with how female politicians are treated on cable news, but conflating voluntary displays of sexiness in entertainment with demeaning sexualization of public figures, played over ominous music no less, is unnuanced. So are the vague references to the "media" and "Hollywood" as faceless, catchall entities.

Thoughts?

CNN: Still a crappy news source

On CNN this morning: Johansson embarassed by Obama e-mail drama

Scarlett Johansson can laugh about it now, but the actress says she was embarrassed by the media coverage of her so-called "e-mail relationship" with Barack Obama.

"It seemed to me to be like a product of extreme sexism, and I kept thinking to myself, 'God, if this was just, like, Kal Penn or George Clooney or any of the other (Obama) surrogates or supporters ... there wouldn't be (any) question about it. Nobody would even talk about it," she said.

Johansson, a vocal supporter of Obama, told the Web site Politico.com in June that she and the Democratic presidential hopeful had been trading e-mails. Obama later told reporters that Johansson doesn't have his personal e-mail address, and that his assistant forwarded one message from Johansson to which he replied.

"I was merely trying to express my delight at Obama's commitment to his campaign in every aspect and his interest and his support (in) his surrogates and his staff and his fellows, and how wonderful and refreshing that is. And it was manipulated into such an unfortunate media frenzy of kind of a nonstory," the 23-year-old actress said Tuesday in an interview from Los Angeles, where she was promoting her new Woody Allen film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

What? The media treats young women differently than young men? No way.

Wanted: Snuff porn and women-hatin' in a two hour package

Note: this post contains plot spoilers. Entirely predictable spoilers, but nonetheless be warned.

You know, I really regret not walking out of Wanted and asking for my money back. I also really regret not expressing how much I hated this movie to the male friends I saw it with.

Wanted was about as close as you can get to snuff porn without actually watching something illegal. The movie's only redeemable quality is that the script decided to throw in some existential fate plot themes at the end, just to break up the monotony of violent garbage.

The camera angles made me nauseous. Fight scenes, which were the entirety of the movie, were shot in such a shaky manner that I felt like I had eaten twenty pounds of nachos and then rode state fair rides for three hours straight. Then they were slowed down, randomly, so that the audience could get a good look at the blood and bruises. Know what is the only thing more exciting than two hours of violence? Two hours of slow-motion violence. Oh yeah!

Not only did the movie glorify violence, the protagonist's goal of using such violence is to "be the man". Several times in the story, the protagonist fervently wishes for someone to utter the exact words, "you are the man!" When someone does, it is only in recognition of his violent ways and hot love interest. In case you did not catch that, violence is exciting! Killing people on command, emotionlessly, is the definition of manhood! Where's the moral of the story? When I could find one, it was that the purpose of life is to be as much of a badass violent jerk as possible. Because that's exciting, whereas being a normal citizen is pathetic.

So besides the glorification of violence, what else did Wanted have to offer? The million dollar question, my dear readers, is the hatred of women.

Although there are a slew of men in the film (duh, it's an action film), there are only three women. Let's go over their roles.

1. Janice the fat boss - Janice was the bitchy boss that everyone in the audience should love to hate. Her shrill relentless tone and overly made-up face is supposed to be as comical as her girth. Women in power are fat and annoying, or so the writers of Wanted think. Our protagonist gets his comeuppance by telling her to stop being a bitch (seriously, that's the exact word he uses) and expresses some sort of vague pity for her grotesque fatness, which is apparently the reason why she could be such a horrible person to him.

2. Cathy the ex-girlfriend - Cathy is skinny, but she's also a whore. She sleeps with his best-friend, because that's what women do, you know. Them women always take advantage of teh menz. The only interaction she seems to have with the protagonist is to nag and complain. Then the movie switches to a completely unnecessary sex scene where the audience gets their fill. Because Cathy is skinny, she gets to be fucked. But she's still portrayed as a bitch, and a whore.

3. Fox the assassin - Jolie could have potentially played an empowered female role. Little to my surprise, nothing is further than the truth. I should have known as soon as her code name was revealed as "Fox". Jolie's only purpose in this film is to teach Wesley how to be bad ass, inspire him to magically curve a bullet with his awesome chauvinist powers to avoid hitting her, be the victim of a violent crime as a child to inspire her to kill people, show her bare ass for no apparent reason, make out with him in front of his ex to show that bitch how manly Wesley is, and then kill herself in the process of saving him.

What have I learned from Wanted? Well, I learned that if you're fat and a woman, you're a horrible bitch. I learned that if you are skinny and a woman, you're a horrible nag and a whore. I learned that if you are skinny, powerful, and a woman, you're a pornorific plot device who gets to play second fiddle to someone with less experience than you, have the honor of having sex (or at least appearing to) with the male protagonist, and then kill yourself for him.

I also learned that gratuitous violence is really really awesome if it is accompanied by horrible camera techniques, pointless slow-motion, and a complete void of morality.

Wanted looks and feels like a teenage porn addict and gun enthusiast's wet dream. If I did not know better, I would have thought that it was satire. Of course, the only thing more pathetic than someone thought that this could possibly be a good movie is that seemingly everyone thinks it was a good movie.

(Cross-posted)

Grand Theft Auto 4 wants you to kill hookers to get your money back

I play video games obsessively. I was probably one of the first people in my area to own a Play Station 3. I have played Rock Band with friends until three in the morning many times. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you should get the game.

However, despite its popularity, I have never really liked the Grand Theft Auto series. I thought it was pretty boring, simply because I wasn't very good at the missions and shooting up cops and jumping off buildings eventually got old, although it was funny the first several times. My male gamer friends love the series, however. They like to claim that I am just being overly sensitive because all the main characters in Grand Theft Auto are male. Although, I loved Assassin's Creed, which was extremely violent and dominated by male characters. If I held my breath waiting for video games that feature women as something other than eye candy or damsels in distress I would have to throw out most of my game collection. At the end of the day, I just got to suck it up and ignore the sexism if I want to have any fun playing video games.

Nevertheless, I simply cannot condone the sexualized violence in Grand Theft Auto 4. One of my friends went to a preview party hosted by Rockstar Games. As is typical for the gaming world, the entire party was a big sausage fest with no women in sight other than the models hired to promote the game. He reported back to say that the highlight of GTA4 was the strip clubs and buying sex. Kind of gross, but that wouldn't make me outright dislike the game. What really stuck out was that you can kill the prostitutes to get your money back. According to that friend, he said what most guys that got to play the preview set up found most enthralling was paying for demeaning sex and then shooting the prostitutes and running them over with their car. "Because it's funny," he said, "and you can also get your money back."

Very classy. I especially like how the game tries to be political by developing these elaborate back stories for fast food workers and victims of the drug war to highlight those issues. However, no word on sexualized violence and the huge problem of violence against sex workers. You can just run them over afterwards to get your money back, it's not like they have a name or purpose other than sex and then dying. From the previews I have seen around the internet, it seems like Rockstar's newest contribution has no other purpose for the women in "Liberty City" other than sex and death. I really like that underlying message.

I'll go on the record saying that I like violent videogames. When most people moan and groan about how video games are corrupting the youth, I think they sound a bit dull. However, I really have to go with the fundies on this one. Sexualized violence and killing hookers is not cool. Thanks for enabling the elaborate joke socialization thinks violence against women is, Rockstar. I just don't think it's at all funny.

Props to Feministing and Samhita for pointing this out.

Child Commodity

Miley Cyrus is a commodity, a brand name, a Barbie doll, and a fifteen year old girl.

She is a fifteen year old girl lastly because she will be worth 1 billion dollars by the time she is eighteen, because she has broken movie and music records, and because she has been idolized into something more than human by millions of little girls.

So, there was something very sad about the Vanity Fair pictures mostly because a fifteen year old girl should be beginning to discover her sexuality. She should understand how her body works and why. She should appreciate her body's feelings and responses, but she should not be doing it in front of the world. To sell magazine covers.

Shame on Vanity Fair, her father and mother, the buyers of the magazines, and us for allowing this perversion.

Jessica Rabbit 2.0

Remember Jessica Rabbit, the unrealistic cartoon woman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Yeah, well someone is "untooning" her, aka taking her cartoon picture and making it as realistic as possible.

Because what this world needs is another picture of an unrealistic "living" woman, touched up by computers. As if the first Jessica Rabbit didn't make it hard enough.

Pictures at the link.

Rock of Misogyny

Cross-posted from XXBlaze

The greatest way to observe how not to be a feminist is to watch reality television. No show my roommates watched this year fit that horrible stereotype more perfectly than "Rock of Love 2" in which Brett Michaels, the former lead singer of Poison, simultaneously dates/fucks 25 women.

Tonight was the Reunion show, where Brett and his Rock of Love, Ambre, met again while a studio full of slobbering apes, including him and his male co-host, leer at his female cast-mates.

I was roped into watching the show by a product of my weak will and the constraints of living in a patio home with two other people. I suppose I stayed in front of the television simply because it was too bad to believe.

Regardless, the highlight of the night was not the objectification of the French stripper, Angelique. What was perhaps the saddest thing I heard was the irony of a man who simultaneously dated over twenty women and made no secret of his "rock star lifestyle" (read: right to sleep around in a farce of a committed relationship) questioning the character of two women. In particular, runner-up Daisy DeLaHoya, who lived with her ex-boyfriend-turned-friend, and Kristy Joe Muller, who first went on the show while she was separated from her husband, and now claims that she has committed to six months of relationship counseling with him before she makes a final decision.

Oh the horror. You "fake" sluts; how dare you play with the emotions of a man who is sleeping with and dating many women at once while you are close friends with your ex or separated from your husband.

The cherry on top of the shit sundae was when Daisy angrily asked why Brett took advantage of her feelings for him the final night of the show to get some nookie. Admist snickers from the audience (how dare that woman question a man!) Brett replied, "well, I am a man".

Yes, of course you are. Brett Michaels would like you to know that men have no free will outside of the rushing of blood to their penis. The satisfaction of his manly libido is much more important than your feelings. Honestly Daisy, did you think you could possibly be equal to a man?

All the naked ladies

I think that the human body is beautiful in its many shapes and forms, and I think that it should be respected. I think it's great that people can love their bodies enough to want to take photos. Even nude photos. But I wonder if Hollywood feels the same.

The ABC website featured this slide show of women who have taken off their clothes for magazine covers, and it really makes me wonder: In Hollywood, do women really have a choice about whether or not to keep their clothes on?

I sort of touched on this issue in my post about Miley Cyrus, but I will admit, I don't know Hollywood that well. But all these pictures of young, nude, female stars make it seem to me that it might not be so much of a choice after all.

I know that there are women who love their bodies and would be excited to do a nude cover shoot. I also know that taking one's clothes off in front of other people could possibly be a liberating experience. But when we look at all these magazine covers in context, do we really see these nude women as being empowered?

In American society, I would say, it is rather common to see famous young women dressed provocatively, and covers like the ones I linked to are not uncommon at all. The reason that these covers are so commonplace is that they help sell magazines. It's true. So if a a naked young female star's body on a magazine means that a magazine will sell more copies, doesn't it also mean that if a female star wants the most exposure to the most people, she should take off her clothes?

Women in Hollywood are not dumb. Many of them know what will sell easily, and that happens to be, very often, at least near-nudity. And when things sell with their bodies associated with them, it means that they will make more money. So is it really a choice, then, for women to take their clothes off? Perhaps. But it seems to me like it may be one of only a few choices that Hollywood allows these women to make if they want to make money.

As a side note: It bothers me that women's bodies are what people focus on in Hollywood, because it means that a lot of times we only see perfection, not reality, and that does not send healthy messages to girls who look real (click on the porfolio link at the top - thanks to Shakesville).

Hollywood Sexualizing Young People: Miley Cyrus Edition

I was at the MSN website yesterday, browsing the headlines on the front page, and I came across one that caught my eye. “Is Miley Cyrus the Next Britney Spears?” When I read Martha Brockenbrough's opinion on this teen star, I was rather shocked.

“…Miley Cyrus herself is perfectly adequate… But fascinating? Only insofar as she is the next most likely teen star to go Britney Spears on us. The 15-year-old has even ripped a page from Britney's handbook, publicly proclaiming her virginity while dressing for a hooker convention. At Sunday's Grammy Awards, she wore so much makeup that even the uber-trashy gossip site of Perez Hilton said she looked like a porn star. You don't have to be a church lady to find this a little yucky.”

I had to search for these pictures because I did not watch the Grammys. Although Miley does look much older than her actual 15 years, I think it’s wrong to say that she looks like a “porn star.”

Brockenbrough then went on to say this.

“…The virginity shtick, which is overrated, is also pretty insincere. Either that or it's as confused as a hot dog with frosting. There is one point to dressing sexy: to attract sex partners. Anyone who says otherwise is in a losing argument with Mother Nature."

I would challenge the author on this point. Is “dressing sexy” in Hollywood really only done to attract sex partners? Or could the fact that a 15-year-old star looks more like a sexual 20-something woman have something to do with the fact that the entertainment industry gives more attention to women who come off as sexually mature?

It’s true. The media gives almost undue attention to women who dress scantily or engage in controversy. So a young star like Miley Cyrus would be sure to get her name out there if she sexed up her look a little…or a lot.

There is the possibility that Cyrus simply likes dressing the way she does, and she makes her choices (assuming that she makes her own choices) according to her personal taste. But then the question is, would she make those same choices if neither her father nor she were famous? I think that the entertainment industry, in many ways, shapes the choices that otherwise well-grounded females make, especially after reading this about the In Style and The Recording Academy first ever Grammy 'Salute to Fashion' event on February 7, that proclaimed that Cyrus was “fast getting into the act of becoming [a style icon].” With that kind of encouragement, why would this girl want to look her age?

It makes me sad when a quick internet search of “Miley Cyrus,” a young female with a lot of potential, brings up sexualized pictures that look much too old to be her. Makes me wonder what a less-sexualized entertainment industry would look like.