For Feisty Feminists

Book 30 in Cannonball Read 2

In 1995’s Where the Girls Are, Susan Douglas looked at the mixed messages that come from the media and influence young women as they grow up in a media-saturated society. In Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done, which came out earlier this year, Douglas looks at the messages about gender portrayed in our supposedly post-feminist society. Douglas compares current images of women in pop culture to those found even 10-15 years ago, and finds them sorely lacking; her conclusion is that the general feeling that our culture is past sexism has led to regressive images in tv shows - after all, it won’t undermine women in society to portray them as shallow, incompetent bimbos if everyone knows that it’s not true.

Enlightened Sexism looks at images of women in everything from popular tv shows like Ally McBeal, Xena, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to the way that the news portrayed the unfeminine Janet Reno, to the media circus that surrounded Amy Fisher and Lorena Bobbit. She finds a lot to critique in reality tv, and while one could argue that reality tv portrays all of its participants as shallow and stupid, Douglas makes a convincing argument that its portrayal of women is particularly regressive. Douglas even finds some positive, complex images of women in soapy shows like Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210, and finds little to no corresponding images in today’s media.

One of the bigger flaws of Enlightened Sexism is the chapter on images of women of color. Douglas uses Wanda Sykes as an example of a black woman who uses her position to speak truth to power, and finds a great deal to admire in Sykes’ attitude, words, and style of speech. This position fails to acknowledge the precarious position of women of color in a patriarchal and racist society, and puts them in the position of being the cool version of white women, with the quick wit to put down and call out men without any consequence.

Enlightened Sexism is a good, if simple, study of pop culture and gender stereotypes. It’s interesting, and avoids the slut-shaming and reductive reasoning that feminist analysis of media often trades in. Although it is not particularly advanced feminism, it is still worth reading if you have an interest in feminist media analysis, or if you are looking for a beginning-to-intermediate feminist text.

As I was browsing in a store earlier today, I came across the newest issue of Bust magazine, that fun-feminist load of crap that may work for women who are just getting acquainted with feminism, but offends the senses of a radical feminist blamer like me.

Although the magazine is usually interesting, but ultimately posits ideas with which I do not agree, this issue was different. It’s a yearly issue entitled “Men We Love,” in which the magazine puts some attractive man on the cover and devotes the entire magazine to various men in pop culture, literature, and the like who are inspiring. Although some of the choices are men I admire (David Sedaris, Errol Morris, and Ira Glass) the whole concept is just off.

These are men that one would find in a mainstream (read: malestream) magazine, who I’m sure get lots of coverage in friendly liberal media sources. Errol Morris has won a fucking Oscar, for the love. Why does a supposedly feminist magazine devote one of their six issues a year to men (and the cover subjects seem to be chosen just for being good-looking, i.e. last year’s pick, Justin Theroux, and this year’s picks, the men from Flight of the Conchords and Elijah Wood) when 90% of the media out there is already devoted to men - and if they are not devoted to men, they’re devoted to telling women how to act properly subservient to men?

There’s also the fact that I really don’t like those guys from Flight of the Conchords. The musical parody numbers are funny enough, but anytime female characters are featured it’s in some plot about how these poor bumbling Nice Guys ™ can’t manage to get laid, with said female characters having the personality of a cardboard box - because, you know, they can’t be portrayed as actual people.

What about featuring Paul Campos, the author of The Obesity Myth, Gavin de Becker, who wrote The Gift of Fear and is dedicated to making women and others aware of what abuse and abusers look like, or Michael Kimmel, or just any man who publicly identifies as a feminist? Maybe the “Men We Love” issue is the one that brings in the most money, and they have to do it as some sort of awful compromise in order to print their usual radical feminist, hard-hitting, scathing exposes of the Patriarchy. Oh, wait. They don’t do that anyway. Instead, Bust magazine seems to want to constantly remind us that “Feminists love men! We really do! We think they’re swell!” and come off as not one of those feminist publications/blogs/people that are not warm and fuzzy and easy to digest.

Here’s the deal. Radical feminism means questioning the things that are at the very root of our society. It means everything from criticizing the role of the family in perpetuating sexism and misogyny, in the style of Firestone, to at least noting the misogyny of having no female characters in a popular TV show (Flight of the Conchords) that are viewed as anything other than possible nameless receptacles for some man’s dudely bodily fluids. It’s not fuzzy, warm, or capitulating. It’s not vibrators, stripper poles, and spangly tassles attached to nipples. It’s harsh, uncompromising, and makes you - including myself, a white, educated, straight, able-bodied, affluent women - uncomfortable.

That discomfort is not because radical feminism is wrong, it’s because you have unearned, unexamined privilege.

This past Saturday night, a good friend and I went to the drive-in to see a movie. A triple feature was scheduled, with Ratatouille starting out the evening, followed by The Simpsons Movie and The Bourne Ultimatum (the last of which we had both already seen).

Before the movie, we ate the leftovers that my friend gets from working a few shifts a week at a second job for a catering company - steak, salmon, a tasty orzo salad with asparagus, and marinated green beans - while watching ‘The Thick of It,’ which is very, very, funny in a very British way (which is a way that I greatly appreciate). This was finished off by leftover apple crisp with ice cream. So, the evening was off to a good start before we even arrived at the drive-in.

For some reason, the drive-in represents, to me at least, the pinnacle of awesomeness. I tend to like to go to movies anyway, but you could pick a movie that I would not want to pay to see and I will leap at the chance to see it at the drive-in. You get to watch movies - in your car! People, this is sweet. One of the strongest recommendations against going to see regular movies is the high price of concessions; at the drive-in, you can bring a whole picnic in and nobody cares! You can do whatever you want to! It’s like Christmas, Hannakuh, and that one Monday holiday in February when classes are canceled all rolled into one. It’s fucking amazing.

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