GENDER AND POP CULTURE

POP CULTURE VS. HIGH CULTURE

High CultureMatthew Arnold, 1869, Culture and

AnarchyDefined culture as "the disinterested

endeavor after man's perfection”For moral and political good

Much of the definition of culture is debated

HIGH AND LOW CULTUREHigh Culture Low Culture

EliteCulturedRefined“Real” Art

MassEntertainmentNot refinedNot cultured

LiteratureClassical MusicSculpture, Paintings

TelevisionPop musicBut…

Cultural Critic, Walter Benjamin:High culture demands concentration

Walter Benjamin:Offers distraction

POP CULTURE VS. HIGH CULTURE

High culture includes:Literature

Not popular best sellers as much as classics

PhilosophyPaintings

But not decorative artsPerforming Arts

Now would include cinema, at least some types

GENDER AND HIGH CULTURE Your projects have focused on pop culture, but

high culture also conveys messages about gender: Philosophy/ Literature/ Art: “Woman’s place” Images also: http://www.youtube.com/user/eggman913#p/u/16/

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PROBLEMS WITH DEFINITIONS Economic

High culture costs $$ Low culture is affordable

Really? Compare costs for some classical music concerts and big pop stars.

History Shakespeare was pop culture once…but now? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ii5PLxnNpk Geography

In many places, Western Cultural values considered higher than traditional values (contested terrain)

:Definitions of Popular Culture:

1. Popular culture is well-liked or widely favored

2. Popular culture is not HIGH CULTURE 3. Popular culture is MASS CULTURE 4. Popular culture emerges from the

people

5. Popular culture is a site of struggle between dominant and subordinate groups in society

6. Postmodern culture is the collapse of high/low culture distinctions

CULTURAL STUDIESCultural studies refers to the

interdisciplinary analysis of a phenomenon or phenomena in the context of its social value, influence and ideology.

Uses sociology, literary theory, visual studies, art history, gender, race, and area studies, political science, anthropology, etc.

LIMITS BETWEEN HIGH AND POP

While the boundaries between high and popular cultures have never been completely delineated, cultural studies has blurred them even more.

INTERTEXTUALITY

The shaping of texts’ meanings by other texts, building on and re-writing

other’s texts.

POP/POP CULTURE

POP/HIGH CULTURE

What other examples can you think of?

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO

WITH WOMEN’S STUDIES?To begin with we examine how

women are represented in the mediaHistoricallyIntertextually (similarities and

differences)Both as producers and consumers

of the media

AND MORE:How do these representations

affect real people’s livesHow money is spentWhat image should be followed

Eating DisordersFashion, modesty, behaviors

THE GAZE The gaze: “How an audience

views the people presented”, who is doing the looking, for whose pleasure the images are presented

THE MALE GAZEThe male gaze is a concept from film

theory, but it has been used to analyze many types of visual media, including photography and advertising.

The basic idea is that images are framed specifically for a heterosexual male viewer.

Postulated by Laura Mulvey in 1975 in the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”

IN OTHER WORDS…Throughout the history of

cinema, male directors have historically objectified women by dint of their 'controlling male gaze,' presenting Woman as 'image' or 'spectacle' and Man as 'beholder' or 'bearer of the look.' Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at.

More true in 1975 then now

But it still applies

Began with film, but can be applied to TV, Ads, etc.

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The woman in the advertisement becomes what’s being bought and sold: buy the product, get the girl; or buy the product to get to be like the girl so you can get your man” in other words, “‘Buy’ the image, ‘get’ the woman” In this way, the male gaze enables women to be a commodity that helps the products to get sold (the “sex sells” adage).

The object of the male gaze is sold to men and women!

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The previous image, which is a panel taken from the comic All Star Batman And Robin, the Boy Wonder juxtaposed with the script written by author Frank Miller (released in the director’s edition of the comic), illustrates the way that the male gaze works in a concrete way. When Miller says, “We can’t take our eyes off her” he is speaking directly of his presumably male audience, and the follow up (”Especially since she’s got one fine ass.”) says loud and clear that her sexualized portrayal is for the pleasure of the envisioned heterosexual male viewer. In essence, Viki Vale’s character is there to reassure the readership of their hetero-masculinity while simultaneously denying Vicki any agency of her own outside of that framework. She is the quintessential watched by male watchers: the writer/director (Frank), his artist, and the presumed male audience that buys the book.

DINOSAURS AND THE MALE GAZE

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=859

Humorous discussion of the gaze

OTHER GAZES DO EXISTFemale GazeQueer Gaze

Sometimes unsettling images

GAZE AND EARLY FILM Early film not officially censured, but debated.

May Irwin Kiss (1896)

Tame compared to some other early film!

EARLY FILM CONTINUED First public screening of a film in Dec 1895 Sex sells: pioneering French film-maker Georges

Melies directed the very short 'adult' film Après Le Bal (1897, Fr.) (After the Ball, Bath) with one of the earliest nude scenes in film history.

Le Coucher de la Marie (1896, Fr.) in which Louise Willy performed the first strip tease onscreen

Hypocrites (1914) featured full female nudity A Free Ride (1915) was reportedly the earliest-

known silent stag ('men only') or pornographic film - with explicit sex scenes

SCANDALS IN HOLLYWOOD "America's Sweetheart" star Mary Pickford

married Douglas Fairbanks on March 28, 1920, after they both divorced spouses to marry each other.

A symbol of the erosion of values in Hollywood. Contrary to the scandalous affair, Pickford had

always played innocent young women in her films, such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917) (the 25 year-old star portrayed a teenager), and in the year of the divorce-remarriage (when she was 28) portrayed a 12 year-old orphan in Pollyanna (1920).

FATTY ARBUCKLE

HAYS CODE (1934-1968) Censorship bills were introduced in many states

and localities. In 1922, the Motion Picture Producers and

Distributors of America (MPPDA) was formed by the studios. Conservative former Postmaster General William H. Hays was appointed to head the organization.

Efforts to clean up the motion picture industry before the public's anger at declining morality depicted in films hurt the movie business.

BEFORE GEORGE CARLIN….

The eleven "Don'ts" included prohibition of profanity, suggestive nudity, use of illegal drugs, sexual perversion, white slavery, miscegenation, sex hygiene and venereal diseases, childbirth, children's sex organs, ridicule of the clergy, and willful offense to any nation, race, or creed. The twenty-six "Be Carefuls" were only cautionary, such as the elimination of the depiction of criminality, excessive brutality, murder and rape, excessive (over 3 seconds) and lustful kissing, and the depiction of men and women sleeping together in the same bed.

BACK TO GEORGE CARLIN…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFmRypAYz_E

EFFECT ON WOMEN IN FILM Pre-Hays, women were racier but more realistic. Had powerful jobs. Affairs with married men. Seduced other women. Had babies out of wedlock. Got divorced.

Mae West: "Come up and see me sometime"

WHILE POST-HAYS Women less brazen, less powerful, less sexual. Many times, “female in peril” who needed to be

rescued. Moralistic films. Motherly love and sacrifice. Suffering. “Soft-core emotional porn for the frustrated

housewife”.

FILM NOIR Women represented all that they were not

supposed to be: vamps, liars, criminals.

Fit in with Hays Code because they “got their comeuppance” .

Sexual but brainy. Not equal though: lost of mistrust and fear

between male and female characters.

FILM RATINGS TODAY

Motion Picture Association of America's 1968 ratings were adopted because the Hays Code was considered out of date.

First G, PG, R, and X Now G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 (NR and X not

official) Some want a Heavy R to replace NC-17 due to

economic reasons. Has culture become more pornographic?

High/low/pop Culture Cultural Studies Intertextuality Male Gaze (other gazes) Early film and scandals Hay’s Code (and women’s roles) Film Noir Film rating today