Pop Culture, Media And Female Identity[1]

POP CULTURE, MEDIA AND FEMALE IDENTITY

I said it m ust be ya ass cause it aint yo face i need a t ip drill i need a t ip drill I said it m ust be ya ass cause it aint yo face i need a t ip drill i need a t ip drill Nelly

LOl never thought she was hot anyways now she looks like a monster, I’m pretty sure no one would have known if it wasn’t someone else who called the police. she would have kept it a secret” – Sora

well done son, gave her a propoer ass whoopin, silly girl deserved it…..i love chris brown forever!! blup blup blup !” – woman basher 4 life “i think that this pic looks far worse than it realli was. i mean whose 2 sey that chris brown actually did all this 2 her. females lie jus like niggaz. & if she’s as grimy as i heard, then this isnt probably all chris’s work! & yess im standin up 4 chris becuz im a loyal fan & neither one of us know the real story. so everyone needs 2 chill cuz we dont know FACTSS!!” – quiauna

3 percent of college women experienced a completed and/or attempted rape during the current college year

Misogyny



Hatred of Women

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=X8nJKa13sBo

What is Pop Culture? Culture that speaks to a large audience  Culture viewed as oppositional to “high culture”  Culture that speaks to the people's experiences  Circulated by mass media 

Assumptions of Feminism a

set of political practices founded in analyses of the social/historical position of women as subordinated, oppressed or exploited either within dominant modes of production (such as capitalism) and/or by social relations of patriarchy or male domination (A. Kuhn, 1994)

Assumptions of Feminism  Power

relations  Patriarchy and female subjectivity  Female representation  Commodification/objectification of female body  Phallocenric language  women as castrating Medusas, or unfathomable continents Freud (1950) 

Pop Culture and the Construction of Female Identity – The message  Media

produce people’s sense of who they are and who other are  Media play important role in creating and maintaining social inequalities  Media influence social behaviour  Media create social identities

Pop Culture and the Construction of Female Identity – The message  Music  TV

and Film  Magazines

Pop Culture and the Construction of Female Identity – The message

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKEcV-

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtuU0g

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnqlHFt

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Zhym 

Pop Culture and the Construction of Female Identity – The message

What’s the Big Deal? S. Hall  All

messages are constructed with an agenda  Messages are encoded must be decoded Preferred/dominant - intentional Negotiated- rationalized Oppositional

What’s the Big Deal? S. Hall  Messages

suggest codes of conduct



 How

messages are constructed affect how they are read

What’s the Big Deal? S. Hall  How

are messages about women constructed/ what symbols are used?



 How

should they be interpreted?



 Leave

much room outside dominant reading?

What’s the Big Deal? S. Hall  Dumb

blonde  Housewife  Bitchy/ aggressive boss  Sexless/ manless intellectual

What’s the Big Deal? S. Hall  Visuals

powerful and significantly influence perceptions  But most likely to be misread/ taking representation for reality  Representations of misogyny in pop culture are about the issue itself in society. What is permissible 

Questions  How

do we begin to correct the problems? First, do you believe there is a problem 

 

Power of the wallet!

Be critical consumers of media messages

Questions  Who?

Created this message  Why? For what purpose/ intent/agenda  What? Is it conveying and to whom  How? Is it being circulated and with what effect

Questions  Why

would mass media be interested in correcting the problems when they are only interested in making money?

They wont! Power of the wallet! Power of legislation! 

Questions  What

is the international perspective on the topic?  Do other countries have the same problems as the U.S.?

 

Yes!

Questions  What

is the relationship between cultural relativism and mass media’s content?  How far can a culture go in portraying images?

