Pop Goes Feminism

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It would seem our much ballyhooed entrance into a “post-feminist” reality would translate into more positive and widespread depictions of females in popular culture. Though mainstream representations of women have improved quite a bit, one type of character is still disproportionately evil, missing, and/or killed off – the mother. The mother has been particularly ill-treated and under-represented in animated films, especially in those of the Disney variety.

The mother’s absence or death is often attributed to the fact many animated films are adaptations of fairy tales. Various studies of such tales argue that the lack of mother figures is based in historical reality, as childbirth was a major cause of death before the nineteenth century (see, for example, Sheldon Casdan’s The Witch Must Die or Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment). However, even contemporary films with little to no basis in older tales are still inordinately fond of leaving (or forcing) the mother out of the picture.

With the rate of release of children’s and family movies, one would assume that mom characters might finally be able to get a fair shake. Alas, as in the bad ‘ole Disney days, most moms are either silent, dead, or wicked. Most don’t even have names (as with Andy’s mom in Toy Story – maybe in film three she will finally get a moniker…). A few mothers get to hover in the background, occasionally saying something useful, as in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. But, for the most part, modern kids’ movies, the fairy tales of today, still present us with usually absent mothers and all-too-present fathers. While mom is gone, dad is here to stay – doling out advice, jokes, aid, and adventure.

In the recent How to Train Your Dragon, mom is dead, but she kindly left behind one of her breast plates to serve as helmet for the (male!) protagonist, Hiccup. Yup, mom might be under the ground, but at least we can still joke about the size of her mammary glands. How sweet. In a comment thread about this film at Two Peas in a Bucket, someone queried “I really wonder what the makers of kid movies have against moms.” Yeah, me too.

The post entitled, “Mommy, why is the mommy dead?” offers a long list of dead mothers. Similarly, the post Motherhood in Disney Films argues that animation is a patricentric world noting that “Since The Little Mermaid, single fatherhood has risen dramatically in Disney films, as has the death of mothers. More mothers have died in the fourteen years since The Little Mermaid than in the fifty-one years before.” Well, there goes the historical reality theory – at a time when we have far more single mothers and far fewer deaths from childbirth, we have more single dads and dead moms in animated films. Go figure.

When mothers are present, they are treated far differently than fathers. Fathers are the center of a child’s life – not only way back when in Lion King days, but also in recent films such as Nim’s Island, Kicking and Screaming, Elf, even Twilight. Meanwhile, dead or bad moms abound –  Finding Nemo, Nanny McPhee, Coraline, Ice Age, Over the Hedge. Even when the mom is part of the storyline, as in The Princess and the Frog, she rarely remains front and center.
Danae Cassandra, author of Brilliance, a blog dedicated to analyzing gender in animation, offers the following rational:

“The only conjecture I can offer to this depiction of motherhood in American animation is backlash. With the decline of two-parent families and the rise of single motherhood, perhaps Disney and other studios are feeding a conservative, patriarchal reaction to the decline of the role of fathers in the lives of their children. …With the exodus of women from the home, perhaps the backlash in popular entertainment is to exalt the status of a single father, eliminating the mother from the picture as someone who would normally have the custodial rights by killing her off. There is no messy divorce, no custodial battles, and the father comes out as the good guy.”

Sounds plausible to me. Though I don’t feel there is necessarily a “decline in the role of fathers” nor a new mass “exodus of women from the home” – rather, there continues to be a decidedly unequal approach to parenting specifically and gender more generally. Or, in other words, we are nowhere near the neighborhood of “post-feminism.” However, our steps towards gender equality do seem to be engendering a conservative backlash (one recently and brilliantly explored in Susan Douglas’ new book, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work is Done).

Whatever rational one uses, the father certainly continues to be the good guy in most children’s films, especially in those stories with a girl child at the helm. These narratives always seem to involve kindly males ushering girls through a strange and dangerous world filled with monstrous females. Think Wizard of Oz. Coraline. Alice in Wonderland. The Golden Compass.

One of my mom’s favorite quotes is “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Ah, would this were true. Seems more like the hand that pens, produces, and animates the films rules children’s imaginations – teaching them that mothers disappoint but dads deliver.

This mother’s day, why not rock your child’s world – find a film to watch together that portrays a strong, intelligent, wise, funny, courageous, and ALIVE mother. Good luck.

Ads for menstrual products have been notoriously evasive, avoiding the dreaded ‘v word’ (vagina) and using blue liquid as a stand-in for the blood that is markedly absent in both linguistic and visual representation. Words conveying the reality of menstruation – blood, clots, cramping, etc – are absent, as are visual depictions of what actually happens during a period – or the fact that females bleed, often copiously, from that most dreaded “down there” (a euphemism that, as Feministing points out, “two out of three network censors still feel icky” about).

Yet, a more realistic (and humorous) representation of periods seems to be slowly seeping into popular culture. An example is the recent U by Kotex ad, the transcript of which is as follows:

How do I feel about my period? We’re like this [crosses fingers]. I love it. I want to hold really soft things, like my cat. It makes me feel really pure. Sometimes I just want to run on the beach. I like to twirl, maybe in slow motion. And I do it in my white Spandex. And usually, by the third day, I really just want to dance. The ads on TV are really helpful, because they use that blue liquid, and I’m like, Oh! That’s what’s supposed to happen!

(To see the video clip of the ad, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRf35wCmzWw)

Though this ad avoids the v word as well any specific reference to the product itself or why one should use Kotex (as pointed out here), it’s self-mocking tone pleasantly parodies the way menstruation has been characterized in the majority of ads. Periods, it reveals, are not a time one tends to want to dance joyously in a tight-fitting sheer dress or frolic along the beach in a white bikini. While the ad does play on the idea of menstruation as “the curse,” and thus perpetuates a negative rather than a positive (or neutral) view of this female biological process, it at least admits that periods often involve pain and inconvenience (not to mention no blue liquid whatsoever).

Though the NYTimes documents that three networks rejected the original ad, which did use the v word, even this de-vaginized version uses humor to mock our cultural shock and horror surrounding menstruation, moving away from ridiculous suggestions that bleeding, bloating, cramping, and/or menstrual headaches really make women want to dance, shop, or exercise (what else, after all, do women ever want to do?). And, though we have no specific references to female genitalia, at least there is an acknowledgment that periods for many (most?) are not all that fun.

Moreover, as reported in the NYTimes, “Visitors to the Web site, UbyKotex.com, designed by the New York office of Organic, part of the Omnicom Group, are urged to sign a ‘Declaration of Real Talk,’ vowing to defy societal pressures that discourage women from speaking out about their bodies and health. …For every signer, Kotex will donate $1 to Girls for a Change, a national nonprofit based in San Jose, Calif., that pairs urban middle school and high school girls with professional women to encourage social change.”

And, while the ad had to be “sanitized” for television (or, in other words no real mention of what a sanitary napkin or tampon is for, let alone a mention of where they go, was approved), the accompanying website is far more explicit in its anatomical and functional details, including a section entitled “challenging the norm” that aims to “start a new, healthier conversation about periods and vaginal care.” Thus, not only is Kotex partnering with a organization aimed at empowering girls and women, it is actually offering REAL information about menstruation and menstrual products – what a concept!

While the tv ad’s self mockery is certainly a fun and refreshing approach to a bloody subject, I wonder when/if the mainstream media will allow ads that admit – horror of horrors – that females have vaginas and this bodily reality is not disgusting, not a curse, not even a reason to boogey-down in celebration but rather nothing more or less than a bodily reality.

I am not saying that having a vagina is not cause for celebration (I personally rather like mine), but I feel whenever the body (or part of it) is showcased as something to uncritically celebrate, the flipside – where the body is denigrated and denied – is not far behind. Instead, I would like to see wider recognition and acceptance of the fact that menstruation happens, and does so often (for too often for my taste, in fact), that the body is not all pleasure and desire but also pain, inconvenience, and monotony.

As I am currently attending the National Popular Culture Association conference where I am presenting on a panel with three other women who are also menstruating, such concerns have been foremost in my mind. After seeing each other face to face for the first time after months of email organization and discovering are bloody synchronization, one of us joked “I know women are often in sync, but are we now so technologically advanced that we can sync via email?”

Our running joke was that we would announce our panel, a feminist analysis of Twilight, via sharing “You are about to hear an analysis of male, heteronormative, white privilege from four menstruating feminists.” In our banter, Robert Pattinson’s now rather infamous claim that he is “allergic to vagina” was a recurring point of reference as well. Though I feel Pattinson meant this as a joke and is likely not the misogynist some have suggested, I feel in contrast that US culture more broadly is allergic to vagina – to the word vagina – let alone to the fleshy, bloody, and yes, toothless, bodily reality.

Alas, as Gloria Steinem wrote in her 1978 piece, if males menstruated it would likely be a sort of bragging right, a competition over who could bleed the most. Yet, as it is female’s bodies that require the use of pads, tampons, and diva cups no such celebratory bragging rituals occur. Rather, even within the self-aware mockery of the way menstruation is rendered invisible and monstrous (such as in the above Kotex tv ad) it is still something that cannot be named, let alone visually represented. This, indeed, makes me blue.

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My daughter turned eleven this week. Though I agree with Allison Kimmich’s earlier post, which argued that it’s great to be a girl here in 2010, I can’t help but worry that growing up female in our culture still results in growing down.

Some examples to ponder:

When my daughter and I went to the mall to have her ears pierced last Saturday, we were deluged with anorexic size mannequins in thongs and barely-there bras.

Later, at the movies, we watched yet another film with a male protagonist (which included a male sidekick who ogled females throughout the entire movie).

For school, she worked on yet another dead white male report.

On television, she is still inundated by stories that focus on a girls looks and emphasize romance and/or beauty as the most important pursuits for a girl.

In music, there are undoubtedly many power-house female musicians, but this seems dampened by all the singing of ‘ho’s’ and ‘get-lows.’

Yet, there are positive aspects to each of these observations. At the mall, my daughter noticed the sexualization of the mannequins and complained about it, showing her awareness that our culture objectifies women in damaging ways (and revealing what I like to think is more feminist awareness in the culture generally). As for the film we watched, it did include one rockin’ strong girl character – only one, but one is better than none. As for books, we are able to find many feminist-friendly reads to fill her endless reading desires (and she subscribes to New Moon, a great feminist magazine for girls). Television may be the area most difficult to put a positive spin on, but at least there are more girl-driven shows. As for school, in general I think there is more emphasis on a diversified curriculum, one that offers more than the hetero white male view of the world.

However, I wish we had come further since I turned eleven back in 1982. The Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass that year, and has yet to be ratified. Laura Ingalls was still rocking the prairie feminism in “”Little House on the Prairie,” and my mom watched a show driven by the super-heroines “Cagney and Lacey.” Sure, Daisy wasn’t wearing much in “Dukes of Hazzard” and Suzanne Sommers was the stereotypical blonde ditz “Three’s Company,” but at least we had the strong mom and daughter trio of “One Day at a Time.” In music, female power abounded via the likes of the GoGos, Joan Jett, and Stevie Nicks. And ET, the top grossing film of the year, gave us one of my longtime favorite female actresses, Drew Barrymore. It was the year Women’s History Week was officially recognized, which has happily expanded to an entire month. (Ah, would that we could have inclusive history year round!)

In my hazy recollections of being eleven in 1982, I recall feeling I could be or do anything I set my sites on. I think here, in 2010, my daughter feels the same despite the fact popular culture still inundates her with the message she is only a sex object, only good for how she can please men, only important so long as she “plays by the rules” and shrinks to fit the mold of the “ideal female.”

As her world expands to include more ideas and experiences, her body is still expected to shrink to fit ever smaller and tighter fashions. As she grows up, the “queen be” culture at school seems to become ever meaner and more judgmental. As she is able to watch “more grown up” television and films, she is introduced incessant sexualization, dehumanization, and silencing of females. And, as her body starts to show the markers of womanhood, she will undoubtedly become more battered by the male gaze of a culture that is more pornified than ever.

Alas, growing up for girls in our culture in many ways still means growing down – but with feminist moms like ourselves guiding our daughters as they grow, I take heart in the fact that many girls are given the opportunity to expand their thinking, their horizons (and yes, even their bodies) without exhortations to “be quiet and diet.”

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With the 6^th and final season upon us, will Lost finally zoom towards a feminist future? With the number of female characters dwindling and the simultaneous deification of hetero white males, can feminist Lost fans hope for a satisfying island conclusion?

Previous seasons have been a mixed bag on this count.

Lost has many strong female characters, many of whom I could easily see wearing a “This is what a feminist look like” t-shirt. As noted by Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, an admitted Lost junkie, “Generally, the female characters are more well-rounded than just about any other female characters on television, especially in ensemble casts.”

Lost has often presented ‘gender outside the box’ characters, suggesting being human is more important than being a masculine man or a feminine woman. After all, when you are fighting for your life, ‘doing gender right’ is hardly at the top of you priority list.

While Jack and Sawyer try to out-macho each other in their love triangle with Kate, neither hold entirely to the Rambo-man-in-jungle motif. As for the women, they just might be the strongest, bravest, wisest female characters to grace a major network screen since Cagney and Lacey.

Though the island is certainly patriarchal, one could make a strong case that male-rule is not such a good thing for (island) society. Kate or Juliet would be far better leaders than any of the island patriarchs (and as some episodes suggest, would make great co-leaders – what a feminist concept!)

McEwan, in her discussion with fellow Lost fanatic, Brad Reed of Sadly, No!, agrees, stating “the show looks increasingly to be making an oblique but advanced commentary about the patriarchy.” As she argues:

“The Lost fathers (Benry, Widmore, Paik, Shephard the Elder) are archetypical patriarchs-rich, powerful, well-educated, well-connected, straight, and white, with the exception of Mr. Paik, who’s in the ethnic majority of his country of residence. It is within the battle among these patriarchs that everyone else is caught; it is to their whims, and their arbitrary rules and preferences, that everyone else is subjected. That’s clearly framed as Not a Good Thing, which rather suggests a feminist critique of the patriarchy.”

However, as the two hour season premiere revealed, one of the strongest female leads, Juliet, is dead. Kate is still rocking the strong-woman action, yet the fact remains that “We’re just about out of female characters to root for” (as Cara of Feministe points out).

This slow decrease in female characters means that a show that had more males to begin with has become decidedly testosterone weighted. Moreover, the (white) males left are being deified with Jabob/Lock/Richard/Ben all seemingly having godlike powers. This turn is all the more frustrating given that supposedly Kate was initially conceived as the island leader. Alas, as reported by Jill at Feministe, “execs thought that people wouldn’t watch the show if a chick was in charge, so they gave that role to Jack and turned Kate into one corner of a love triangle.” Grrrr.

The 30-minute season recap that aired last week kept implying women viewers are wooed by the romantic motifs that dominate many of the narrative arcs. Apparently ABC is unaware that women are interested in more things than romance (and shirtless hotties).

Sometimes the writers seem oblivious to the fact that women are more than man-seeking baby-making machines, too. Season five was particularly dire in this vein. Drawing on the Freudian ‘baby as penis replacement’ motif, Kate was depicted as trying to repair the loss of Sawyer with baby Aaron. (For more on this line of argument, go here.)

Yet, overall, Kate is arguably one of the smartest, most daring female characters to lead a contemporary mega-hit television series. Her back-story ain’t bad either – she was on that doomed flight as a result of fighting back against her mother’s abusive partner. And, though Juliet sometimes seems more focused on her various Romeos than on other matters, she heroically detonated the bomb that launched us into season six. Who knows, maybe this final season will launch us into some sort of feminist utopia led by Eloise Hawking or Rousseau. At the very least, let’s hope it doesn’t culminate with Kate all happily married and duly domesticated!