The facebook page will be a fun place to like and share content that has to do with Feminism and gender issues. This would be the first step towards getting involved in social media to raise awareness. Click the link below and like our page!
A female director and/or screenwriter that passes the
Bechdel test and whose work I consider feminist would be Shonda Rhimes. As a
male who dismissed the Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder assuming that
her work would be marketed towards a female audience only, I was pleasantly
surprised when I got a chance to watch an episode of Scandal. What intrigues me
about Scandal the most is that Shonda took the time to fully develop a female
lead role, and to add more dynamics to the script, made the character a woman
of color. This totally changed the variety of racial representation on
primetime television, and proves that not every story or script needs to be
male dominated. Olivia’s character, although highly assisted with sexual
innuendos, is not solely dependent on sexual objectification. Olivia is
showcased being in charge of her own business, delegating tasks, and even shows
authority to highly respected male figures in the community. She is an example
of a relatable, regular human with difficult tasks to overcome, and validates
that there is more to a woman on screen than being a male sidekick. With the
works of Shonda Rhimes, ratings continue to prove that our male dominating
roles, and female exploiting characters may very well be a thing of the past.
For my final project I have made a song called ‘Bad Bitch.’
I really wanted to make pop record that focuses on giving confidence and a
positive attitude to women. With the title mostly being using in songs that may
come off as degrading or misogynistic, I wanted to be able to use the term in a
way that makes women feel empowered.
Below is an excerpt from an article expressing frustration
with misogyny in music:
“So let's start the next year with some lyrics sans the
misogynistic tone, please. Perhaps something more introspective than how you
treat women as sex objects. As romantic as the words "And girl, I fuck who
I want, and fuck who I don't" are, they're a wee bit demeaning and again,
slightly rapey. So let's back away from the rape lyrics and come to our senses.
And stop blaming the good kush and alcohol. It's getting a bad rap.”
The next quote sheds light on not only hip-hop, but rock as
well:
“The casual nihilism of a small-town Saturday
night. The misogyny here is almost tangential to the general air of alienation,
but it’s still very much present: “Turn around, bitch, I got a use for you/
Besides, you ain’t got nothing better to do/ And I’m bored.”
Fans of rhythm and blues, pop, and hip-hop will be able to
appreciate the work of art including all definitions of gender. The motive
behind the title is to incorporate listeners together with all types of intentions.
Men will also enjoy the tune as a ‘Bad Bitch’ has many definitions, but most
importantly describes a woman with likable qualities or put simply, a female
that is captivating. It’s important to isolate the term ‘Bad Bitch,’ from any
sort of labeling or chauvinistic meaning as it is a term of endearment. Because
I have received such positive humbling feedback from you guys, I have decided
to give you guys an exclusive direct download link that you will be able to
share with friends and family. I will have updates regarding new music soon, so
keep posted. . It has been a pleasure being apart of your company, and I would
like everyone to feel free to add my contact information below and keep in
touch!
My final project is an audio piece. More specifically, I created what I call a "mashup podcast". Essentially, the piece combines all the interviews I have conducted to form a story or narrative of sorts. The topic I chose for the first episode was the idea of femininity and masculinity, and what those concepts mean in the media. I found that talking about the two were great because often times it led to a deeper discussion on other issues regarding media representation. While this first mash-up podcast only scratches the surface of everything we have been looking at in class, it is a great opening for a potentially continuous series of "mashup podcasts". My series is called "Mashupyourthoughts", and the name is derived from the idea that you have multiple stories coming together to form thoughts and stories.
MY VIDEO IS ON YOUTUBE! Mashupyourthoughts has a YouTube page and—pending production—will soon be accessible through Vimeo and Soundcloud as well!!
In creating this piece, I wanted to reach the audiences out there who have not yet thought about these topics beyond noticing, and possibly acknowledging it (much like myself prior to taking this class). I hope that listening to the comments they, too, begin to reflect a little more deeply —in the same manner that I challenged my interviewees to. Some questions that I asked were:
What does it mean to be feminine/masculine? Have you ever felt that you can personally identify, on some level, with a character that you have encountered in the media? What changes do you want to see in the media, and why?
Ultimately, how do these preconceived thoughts of men and women translate into media, and then into the minds of people?
There were more questions, but feel free to listen to the entire mash-up to hypothesize what they are! (In total, it is 11 minutes long)
SOURCES THAT HAVE INFORMED MY PROJECT: 1.) Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Britain: British Broadcasting Company and Penguin Books, 1972. 2.) Newsom, Jennifer S, Regina K. Scully, Geralyn W. Dreyfous, Sarah J.
Redlich, Jessica Congdon, Eric Holland, Svetlana Cvetko, Caroline
Heldman, Condoleezza Rice, Dianne Feinstein, Dolores Huerta, Geena
Davis, Gloria Steinem, Jackson Katz, Jane Fonda, Jean Kilbourne,
Jennifer L. Pozner, Katie Couric, Lisa Ling, Meenakshi G. Durham,
Margaret Cho, Martha M. Lauzen, Nancy Pelosi, Pat Mitchell, Rachel
Maddow, and Rosario Dawson. Miss Representation. Sausalito, Calif.: Ro*co Films Educational, 2011. 3.) Butler, Judith. “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire.” Gender Trouble. Routledge, 2006. 1-46. Print.
For my Final Project I wanted to focus on art specifically graffiti/ street art. The reason is because I've felt a lot of women get discouraged to be part of this culture and style of art because of the risk that is involved in getting your art up. Graffiti has always been a male dominated art style. The reason is because Graffiti at times requires at time to break that law by putting up illegal art all over the city. This would have to require a lot of graffiti artists to have to go out late at night and climb things. A lot of the time girl graffiti writers would get discouraged because they are always getting told that they can't do something or don't have the balls to do something. Of course this all began to change when female artists despite getting told they can't do something went even harder to get their name and art known that they paved the way for other female artists.
One permanent figure of female graffiti artists was Lady Pink. Here is a short video explaining her experience
Lady Pink is now known as a graffiti legend she has been painting since the hayday and golden age of graffiti when it was on the trains. From Lady Pink there has been other prominent graffiti female artists such as Claw and Miss 17. Claw has reached mainstream success and has began her own clothing line and is still one of the best graffiti artists to date and to this day she still paints walls.
Even though there are famous female graffiti writers who now get the fame and respect they deserve there are still many who still get mistreated or are still not good enough to do graffiti.
As we can see from this video girls still get criticized more than male writers for the fact that they are females and nothing other than that. I believe that girls shouldn't get criticized more than male writers just for being girls. They should be criticized and known for their skill and art. There should be more equality in the field and as explained in this video here there are several reasons why girls don't get the same equal treatment because as soon as a writer is known to be a girl many guys would try to get at her not for her art but for the fact that she is a girl and they want some which I feel is really messed up and they shouldn't be treated that way.
In the end I did this project to shine more light on female graffiti / street artists so they can better get to know one another and make collaborations and not feel discouraged for their art and for any other reasons that comes with being a female in this art form. I wanted a way for them to get together and create a mural on a wall and I also got a chance to sit down with them and ask them for their personal experience of any discrimnation they face for being females in graffiti / street art. I interviewed Imamaker, Miishab, Jcorp, and Hiss. And I also created a zine documented their work and the interviews I did with them.
I've been wanting to do a project like this for a while now and this class was a perfect opportunity to, as it fits the kind of content I want to create in the future--informative and maybe even funny. I want people to enjoy watching my videos while I spread awareness.
I interviewed two polyamorous people first and it originally started as a serious project exploring what polyamory is and why it's so unheard of in the media. I then realized a lot of people hadn't heard of it so I decided to make the doc more light-hearted to shed light on the fact many people don't know. Along the way of production, I discovered the sections on sexuality in bookstores are tiny--the biggest store having seven books, and the section is labeled "LGBT", not inclusive of "QQI" (queer, questioning, intersex). It feels outdated and forgotten so I included that in the film. Also, the books in these sections were mainly books written by men for women on how to get men, featuring blatant misogyny in the books’ titles. There needs to be more media literacy on sexualities, especially romantic identities that is not just men preaching at women about their bodies and sexuality. I show my disappointment with that in the film.
I think my role was to act like I completely don't know and I enter all this blindly, but I try and make sense of it as if I'm the viewer. But being so reflexive, it's not voyeuristic. Being at the forefront of the film was something I have never done before but felt comfortable doing. It gives the audience a buffer between the exposure to the new idea because it is as if I am being exposed to it as well, on screen. If I do not express discomfort, it could ease conservative or traditional viewers’ minds and maybe viewers would be more open to different sexualities as well.
People I interviewed on the street made a lot of generalizations about women throughout the interview. I heard a lot of sexist comments that I decided to leave out because they sometimes even strayed from the point of the film. The man in Union Square who said misogynistic things about the girls he had dated in his polyamorous relationship felt like bashing because he had gotten dumped and I would have rather left him in a positive light for the sake of the identity. That also brings up more questions about jealousy that I would have rather asked the two subjects I interview towards the end of the film and that I do ask them. I had to leave in another man because his whole interview was very much about his ignorance. Another guy asked to be interviewed so I said sure and he said he didn’t know anything but asked for my number. I left him in because we were at the weed parade, he was “smacked”, as he put it, so it was probably inevitable to get an interview like him.
What I noticed about interviewing strangers is when you ask them to be interviewed, they will talk to you before the interview about the topic and ask for prep, but their raw answers were actually the best. They then tend to censor themselves when the camera turns on. I only had three people who knew what polyamory was and along the way, people asked me to define it. So then I decided to check a textbook. The first half of this documentary was shot in order and based on the feedback I got from New Yorkers. Of course there are things I know I want to improve and work on with this film, as some questions are left unanswered.
This project made me realize that I want to do more fun things like this while enlightening people. I want to use my feminist perspectives to serve the people and help them be more accepting of “new” things. If I do a series, it would be called “Culture Lettuce” because topics will be on culture we know and “lettuce” because it’s the most popular and staple ingredient in a salad, which is a healthy thing and I want this project to be a healthy thing for society and to be popular. Works Cited:
Veaux, Franklin. "Polyamory FAQ - More Than Two." More Than Two. Thorntree Press. Web. <http://www.morethantwo.com/polyamory.html>
Khazan, Olga. "Multiple Lovers, Without Jealousy." The Atlantic 21 July 2014. The Atlantic Monthly Group. Web. <http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/07/multiple-lovers-no-jealousy/374697/>
