Peripheral Post #4 - Sebastian

    I found all of the readings this week to be fascinating, and, for whatever reason, they immediately made me think about Twin Peaks. Admittedly, that might just be because Twin Peaks is a) one of less than a half dozen shows that I’ve seen beginning to end, and b) probably the first television show with which I was – for a brief period, at least – truly obsessed. But my relationship with the show aside, I still think Twin Peaks is interesting for the way it problematizes some of the ideas about genre and classification established in this week’s readings. I don’t really have a unified conclusion about this, though. So, instead, I want to look at how each of the readings might inform an attempt to understand Twin Peaks both as a show and as a cultural artifact. 

    1) In “Television Genres as Cultural Categories,” Jason Mittell emphasizes the importance of moving beyond a purely textual approach to studying genre. He contends, “Genres are not intrinsic to texts – they are constituted by the processes that some scholars have labeled ‘external’ elements, such as industrial and audience practices” (Mittell 9-10). But if one were to apply Mittell’s approach to Twin Peaks, one would undoubtedly get contradictory or incomplete results. The show seems to largely be remembered for its mystery and supernatural horror characteristics. Wikipedia describes it as an “American mystery/horror/drama television series” (“Twin Peaks”). Likewise, the packaging for pretty much every DVD and boxset I can find on Amazon leans into the eerie iconography of the woods that surround the town of Twin Peaks as well as the zig-zag floor and red curtains of the extradimensional Black Lodge. But these elements play a surprisingly minor role in the overall show. Instead, the majority of the show is preoccupied with absurd slapstick, convoluted small town drama, and what can only be described as the television equivalent of non sequiturs. While focusing on industrial and audience practices around Twin Peaks is still useful, it also seems to be somewhat limiting. If for nothing else, it seems to necessitate ignoring surprisingly large swaths of the text. Yet, as I will discuss later on, this is a somewhat common theme when it comes to the show – ignoring some parts and emphasizing others for the sake of constructing your own interpretation out of material that practically mocks coherence.

    2) In her essay, “Melodrama, Serial Form and Television Today,” Jane Feuer argues that, even if people are unwilling to admit it, much of serial television is heavily influenced by the narrative structure and style of melodramas, especially soap operas. She further explains that melodramas have been of great interest to feminist scholars because they are defined by excesses that often cannot be contained by the text’s dominant ideology. And, in many ways, this all applies perfectly to Twin Peaks, a show full of excesses. Just as one example, the show often lingers on moments for a little too long, to the point that they become awkward and uncomfortable. I recall watching the pilot episode with an acquaintance and being surprised when she laughed during the scene where a mother and a father learn about the death of their daughter. While that laughter seemed cruel, I also suspect it derived from a place of uncertainty and confusion. When the parents learn about their daughter’s death, the show doesn’t cut away. Instead, the camera lingers and watches as they break down into tears and shrieks of agony. This certainly seems like an example of melodramatic excess, but it leads me to a question: Is the excess in this moment subversive? In other words, is Twin Peaks mocking the overly maudlin nature of television melodramas in this scene? Or is it being so overly sincere that it simply makes spectators – like my acquaintance – uncomfortable? Given how often the show lingers on these sorts of moments, I suspect the latter answer might be truer. 

    Which leads me to another characteristic that Twin Peaks would seem to have in common with the serial dramas described by Feuer. She notes that there is “nothing inherently subversive” about excess (9). Instead, she suggests that what gives melodramas (and, by extension, serial dramas) their subversive potential is their continual open-ended-ness. Feuer writes, “[S]erial form and multiple plot structure appear to give TV melodrama a greater potential for multiple and aberrant readings than do other forms of popular narrative. Since no action is irreversible, every ideological position may be countered by its opposite” (15). In many ways, Twin Peaks exemplifies this mode of storytelling. Season Two concludes with one of the most infamous cliffhangers in television history because ABC refused to renew the show. But despite continued fan interest and engagement, their hopes for a proper resolution have repeatedly been thwarted. A year after the show was initially canceled, co-creator David Lynch released a feature film continuation, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Rather than resolve the Season Two finale, though, it serves as a prequel and raises even more questions. Meanwhile, the eventual third season, which was released 25-years-later, does tie up some loose ends from Season Two, only to feature an even more bewildering cliffhanger finale. And this time, any form of resolution seems increasingly unlikely. But, once again, Twin Peaks seems to subtly differ from more conventional melodramas and serial dramas in this regard. As Feuer’s essay indicates, a show like Dallas or Dynasty can never truly affirm the sanctity of marriage via a marriage subplot because the marriage is just as liable to end in divorce a few seasons later. The melodrama form ensures that any “resolution” will simply be a future site of conflict and contradiction. And to be certain, Twin Peaks has plenty of contradictions of its own. Nevertheless, its ambiguous cliffhanger endings do seem to serve a thematic function. The “endings” aren’t sites for future conflict. Instead, they are devastating reminders that there is no escape from the cycles of abuse and trauma at the core of show's narrative. 

    3) In “Quality Television, Melodrama and Cultural Complexity,” Michael Kackman contends that the term “quality television” can be understood as a subtle attempt to distance “narratively complex” television shows from the “feminine” form of melodrama. At first glance, Twin Peaks would appear yet again to fit perfectly into this paradigm. Similar to so many other “quality television” shows, Twin Peaks was initially lauded for its cinematic aesthetics and the auteurist influence of its co-creator, David Lynch. It’s “narrative complexity” is also a huge part of what initially hooked audience in the early 1990s. They wanted to see how all of the different plot threads and mysteries would come together and get resolved into a unified whole. As Kackman writes, “[O]ur pleasure in the operational aesthetics doesn’t come simply from observing the workings of a finely crafted watch, but from a sense that the product of its machinery will be something more broadly meaningful – it tells us what time it is.” In other words, audiences appreciate narrative complexity when they believe that it is all adding up to something worthwhile. As I’ve already indicated, I think Twin Peaks does “tell us what time it is”; it is at least trying to express something meaningful about the aforementioned cycles of abuse and trauma. But Kackman’s watch metaphor falls short here because so many of the “cogs” and “gears” seem utterly superfluous or inessential. But which elements are superfluous and which elements are essential is largely open to individual interpretation. In this sense, Twin Peaks functions like a puzzle with an infinite number of right answers. You can combine only the pieces that you care about and discard the rest to make something that is meaningful to you, just as other viewers will combine different pieces to make something that is meaningful to them. If for nothing else, this helps me better understand why the show spoke so deeply to me even when I thought that many of the episodes were disposable or incomprehensible. 

Works Cited

"Twin Peaks." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks. Accessed 26 March 2021.

Core Post 4 - Sabrina Sonner

 

I was interested in the discussion of acting styles in soap opera in the Feuer article from this week, particularly with its comparison to 19^th century style melodramatic acting. Feuer writes:

In fact it is the acting conventions of soap opera which are most often ridiculed for their excess, their seeming to transgress the norms for a. ‘realistic’ television acting style. Compared to Peter Brooks’ description of melodramatic acting in the nineteenth century French theatre with its eye-rolling and teeth-gnashing, acting on TV serials approaches minimalism; nevertheless it appears excessive in comparison to the more naturalistic mode currently employed in other forms of television in the cinema… [yet] forms of melodramatic acting are keeping with related conventions for distilling and intensifying emotion. (10)

In undergrad, I took a course that covered the history of different approaches actors have taken when it comes to acting and different styles of “good” acting (THTR 404 with Dr. Sharon Carnicke, at USC’s theatre school, though I don’t know if it’s still offered or not). Within it, some of the main ideas were that the styles of acting seen as good or bad are subjective based on time period and context, and the ways that different acting methods were reflective of different methods for understanding people. We discussed a shift that occurred around the turn of the twentieth century from an Enlightenment mode of understanding human behavior as scientifically observable through long study of specific actions and behaviors, to trying to understand people’s underlying motivations and inner lives. Correspondingly, there was a shift between acting that represents emotions/ideas, to acting that more directly depicts them (i.e. it would be irrelevant to spend time trying to get an actor of this older style to feel the emotions of their characters, where 1920s onwards there’s an immense focus on that in some schools).

 

With this in mind, I thought what the article was saying about the focus on this style of acting on emotionality made sense, but I also was interested in considering it further in terms of how this might evoke a different sense of how people meant to be thought of on the show and how the shows are meant to suggest a different form of spectatorship. It definitely evokes a sense of an older, less fashionable style of acting, but also suggests people could be understood through this idea of observation and that representation of an emotion/idea is a valid form over identifying that an actor themself is going through it. It suggests that these people, and that people in general, can be understood through the act of spectatorship. As the article itself discusses, soap opera viewing is a different sort of spectatorship, around knowing that these aren’t the literal emotions or situations, but representations of them to be understood as such. Which to me honestly makes a whole lot more sense than the acting game of realism that is “what could have motivated that subtle eyebrow twitch?”, and might lead to more understandable if not more realistic depictions of situations. Based on my schedule, I’m having to submit this before we have screenings for the week, but I’m curious to see how this might or might not track through them.

Peripheral Post #3 - After the Final Rose

 I love my roommate and my mother, but the fact that they force me to watch The Bachelor every Tuesday night when I am trying to get work done (aka watch The Sopranos) really causes what little serotonin I have to take a nosedive. 

Ok. I might be exaggerating with the use of the word ~force~, but there is definitely some emotional manipulation involved, especially when they say things like, "We love you and just want to spend time with you". Gross. 

Anyways, while I normally complain about how much I hate this show (I actually enjoyed The Bachelorette with Tayshia, but The Bachelor genuinely got under my skin in a bad way), I actually sat down and intently watched the "After the Final Rose Ceremony". I had discussed The Bachelor in my last core post, yet I never felt quite satisfied with how I ended it. What was missing was a reconciliation, or rather a reckoning, between bachelor Matt James and Rachel Kirkconnell, who was the woman Matt proposed to during the final rose ceremony. She is also, if you recall, the woman at the center of the antebellum south-themed party controversy. 

I was very interested in watching this because a) I strongly dislike Chris Harrison and he has currently "stepped down" from The Bachelor for defending Kirkconnell and b) it was the most honest I felt this reality show every gets. One of the best parts was when Matt was having a mediated "one-on-one" with Michelle, the Black contestant he overlooked for the white Southern Belle. At the end of their conversation, Michelle's final words to Matt were "I hope you come up with more phrases than 'Thanks for sharing'". Matt claimed that this show was allowing him to confront his personal feelings more and be able to open up, yet it did not always seem that he was extending that same empathy/energy to the women vying for his affections.

The moment of the show that had my eyes glued to the screen was the confrontation between Matt and Rachel. Since the Antebellum revelation, Matt and Rachel had split up. Rachel spoke with host Emmanuel Acho about how she is "not going to make up excuses for herself" while simultaneously avoiding taking ANY responsibility. No surprise there. What really surprised me was when Matt was asked about how these revelations affected him and his decision to end his relationship with Rachel. What followed was one of the most genuine moments I have seen on the show: silence. With every question lobbied at Matt by Emmanuel and every comforting pat by Rachel, Matt just sat in silence. It was apparent that it had affected him in more complicated ways than ABC and gossip websites would like to believe. It was difficult to watch, yet far more difficult for Matt in ways I cannot ever imagine, nor will I ever experience.

While I am being really gossip-y about this show right now, I do want to point out that I am jumping over a ton of the nuances about this episode, show, and controversy simply because this would be an incredibly long post. Race has been such a huge factor in this show, ESPECIALLY this season since Matt is the first Black Bachelor after 24 previous white Bachelors. There was one extremely exploitative episode where Matt was having an extremely difficult "one-on-one" talk with his father, who was absent for most of his life. It was extremely uncomfortable and painful to watch, especially considering the nature and history of The Bachelor. Red rose or not, there are no winners in The Bachelor. That is, unless you're white.

Supplemental Post # 2 (?) Kimberly

     Sarah Banet-Weiser’s discussion of the tension within post-feminist politics of representation has given me a bit more context/tools to think about a completely niche conflict that I care far too much about, so it seemed like an excellent supplemental post. Content warning, I’m about to go off about roller derby/roller skating.

              Quarantine had a massive impact of the world of roller skating in two different directions. On the one hand, social distancing measures shut down roller derby leagues and indoor skate parks. On the other hand, roller skating became one of the most popular activities of the pandemic clearing out inventories of most major skate sellers, in large part due to its popularity on tiktok/Instagram. The specific type of skating that’s become so popular is dance skating, aka jam skating. This skating style has a long history within black communities, though of course the majority influencers profiting off of jam skating in the beginning of the pandemic were white. A couple viral videos and high profile articles, however, brought black and brown skaters to the fore, and now skater/influencers of color are getting their due. So why am I conflicted?

              As Banet-Weiser discusses, post-feminist/post-racial political economies incorporate representation/diversity as marketing, mining their cultural capital and “hip, cool” character while stripping their potentially subversive elements. Roller derby and park skating came into existence as subcultures (or at least derby’s resurgence in the 90s), that actively celebrate their participants’ other-ness. Roller derby especially provides a space for AFAB folks to explore queer expressions of gender and sexuality, blending those expressions typically associated with binary conceptions of femininity and masculinity, exemplified in derby names like “Bust E. Bruiser.” Derby remains to a large extent an under-represented, under-funded sport/subculture, with league members operating as players, coaches, promoters, managers, and fundraisers. This DIY character, however, is central to maintaining derby’s rebellious, anti-capitalist, queer radical potential. It is also a very white sport.

              With the close of parks and derby leagues, I’ve tried to find a new skate community in LA where the quarantine scene is largely dominated by young jam skaters. But while LA jam skating provides much needed representation that derby typically lacks, the commodified, social influencer elements strips it of the subversive joy that brought me to skating in the first place. To learn where the next meet-up will be, one must scroll through (admittedly adorable) stylized (sponsored) skate videos posted by the model/dancer/influencers who dominate the scene. Anyways. Wasn’t sure how to articulate why this bothered me so much til last week’s readings. So thanks Tara/Banet-Weiser.

Supplemental Post #1 – Max Berwald

For this one I’m thinking back to my very, very late revelation, while reading the Gray for this class, that even the most craven, exploitative corporations are cultural formations. I’ve been reading Kimberly Chong’s Best Practice: Management Consulting and the Ethics of Financialization in China for another project. The book is the result of Chong’s year and a half embedded in a multinational management consultancy. In it, she describes the many ways the consultancy quantifies the results of its services and improving internal “performance.” Each time she is able to get to the bottom of a dataset, almost without fail the initial layer of data is completely “soft” (human capital strategic implementation exceeded target improvements by 22% = an employee reported giving 10 powerpoint presentations on organization to his coworkers over the course of a year, when the target was 8). This makes me wonder how the leading streaming services are using data to plan their series cancellations, pilots and acquisitions, especially given the dawning realization we seem to be having that Netflix’s corporate culture is toxic. How does this toxicity interface with the constant imperative to dress highly subjective content decisions in the finery of rationality (data)? 

Core Post #2 - Brian

 In Sara Banet-Weisers What’s Your Flava: Race and Postfeminism in Media Culture she highlights what I understand to be a sort of cultural cognitive dissonance in how television maps out cultures of particular racial and ethnic groups, mostly Black American, onto other racial and ethnic groups. She writes, “The representation of the ‘urban,’ like the representation of girl power, is associated with the ideological notion that contemporary American society is a multicultural, postfeminist one in which racial difference and gender discrimination are no longer salient. Race, like gender, comes to us in the contemporary context as a commodity, and as such the ideologies shaping these representational politics are necessarily rethought and recast” (204). 

These postracial and postfeminist notions sever culture from the social and political implications which they are formed under and in relation to. “Urbanness” is Black American culture distanced from Black people and mapped out onto white and non-Black people in television and media. This visible invisibility is much like that of how networks like Nickelodeon approach their girl-led tv series. In its color and gender blindness, it ends up perpetuating the same racial and gendered restraints. For instance, iCarly, Zoey 101, and Victorious are all series led by young girls. In their postfeminist ideological production, it is at first glance forward-thinking, progressive. There seems to be no justification or reasoning behind why these series are led by teenage girls at times when similar sitcoms on the television landscape are led by mostly (young) adult men. What lies underneath however is the covert sexualization of these young girls (see: Dan Schneider). The roles become incredibly restrictive and disturbing as the underlying implications of their roles are situated in voyeurism and render them as sexual objects in the pedophilic fantasies of a man.

Core Response #5 - Andrea

I had too many thoughts inspired by the readings this week (rip to my Wonder Woman, Bridget Jones, and Hannah Montana drafts that came before this post), so I’ll try to wrangle some of my most significant conclusions on this week’s readings. For one, I appreciated Angela McRobbie’s breakdown of postfeminism, and I find her idea that postfeminism does not simply indicate the death of feminism but an afterlife in which “feminism [is] at some level transformed into a form of Gramscian common sense, while also fiercely repudiated,” really helpful in bringing these texts to our contemporary moment (256). This idea that feminism is taken as common sense really resonated with me and the media texts that interest me, and I think it makes clear the ways that contemporary media is able to give a wink and nudge to “outdated feminism,” to use McRobbie’s terminology, while also reinforcing the idea that individualism and “freedom of choice” require a move beyond feminism. I’m also fascinated by this idea of this postfeminist hatred for feminism according to McRobbie, and how vague notions of empowerment versus disempowerment fuel this strong animosity towards “outdated” feminism. 

In particular, this repudiation of feminism and the ironic engagement with outdated feminism reminded me of the old Carl’s Jr. commercials featuring supermodels eating burgers in the most sexually explicit ways possible (video). I had completely forgotten about these commercials from my childhood, and McRobbie’s text brought back the memories of bikini-clad models dripping sauce on their breasts and orgasming over burgers as she explored the concept of “self-consciously” or ironically “sexist ads” (259). I feel that this sort of ironic objectification reached a peak in the early 2000’s, and the proliferation of “commercial sexuality” coupled with narratives of “empowerment” lead to what Jess Butler defines as “the (imagined) success of the women’s movement, a sex-positive (and racially exclusive) feminist legacy, and the ever-expanding neoliberal celebrations of autonomy, individualism, and consumer choice” (41). I think these ideas of sexual liberation have manifested in similar yet different ways in contemporary media, for example, Bimbotok (the bimbo/himbo/thembo side of Tiktok) engages with this idea of sexual liberation and the freedom of choice over how one represents themself in the world (very heavily tied to consumer habits and clothes/makeup). I think Bimbotok is a pretty clear example of the ways postfeminism logic “conflates feminism and femininity, individualism and liberation, and consumption and activism,” according to Butler, however, I believe it more actively engages with feminist thought than outright repudiating or rejecting outdated feminism. Bimbotok definitely represents this sort of postfeminism tension the authors highlight this week, and it’s interesting to see the ways contemporary creators are speaking to these pervasive narratives of empowerment and sexual liberation. 

I’d like to think that we’ve moved beyond this sort of “ironic sexism,” however, I’m left questioning what place we’re at in this postfeminist environment. Despite the ways the authors this week clearly define intimate relationships between post-feminism, post-racism, and neoliberalism with white heteropatriarchy, I’m left wondering how postfeminism is represented in our contemporary moment in TV and film. I believe we’re at a strange moment in which feminism is taken as a sort of common-sense idea, yet there’s a new wave of “popular feminism” that many shows, particularly shows aimed at women and teens, embrace what Sara Banet-Weiser might refer to as “ambiguous diversity” in terms of gender and race. In shows today, (yes, I’m definitely thinking of Riverdale here), there are active attempts to explore what we might refer to as “outdated feminism,” yet almost everything is packaged in girl boss tropes. Is this just an extension of the postfeminism these authors explore or are we seeing something different? Is there still a sense of repudiation or hatred towards feminism, or are we just seeing fully coopted neoliberal politics now?

3/25 Core Response #4_Ann

The three readings this week on postfeminism are not only constantly in conversation with each other but also present postfeminism in relation to the proliferation of neoliberal thoughts and consumerism. All three authors see danger in labeling feminism (or any other “ism”) using the word “post-“, and as Sarah Banet-Weiser puts it: “this prefix implies that whatever it modifies is somehow over—postfeminism, for instance, suggests (and at times insists) not only that feminism is passe but also, more obliquely, that whatever goals feminism sought have been accomplished” (214). While the readings agree with each other on the definition of postfeminism, they took different ways to analyze this social phenomenon—Banet-Weiser’s piece discusses “diverse” children’s television; McRobbie’s speaks from a UK perspective and Butler’s talks about race and ruptures in postfeminism. These diverse approaches to the same topic of postfeminism in turn prove the ambivalence of this concept and its permeative nature. 

What I find most fascinating and most relevant today is Jess Butler’s theorization of the relationship between postfeminism and neoliberalism as well as the role race plays in rupturing postfeminism. Butler writes on the similarity between neoliberalism and postfeminism saying “both are structured by a ‘current of individualism’ that undermines notions of the social or political; both demand an autonomous, self-regulating, active subject” (45). This emphasis on “self-regulating, active subject” reminds me of the McCarthy article we read a while ago on governmentality where she invokes the “pastoral responsibilities of the state” in the discussion of reality television under neoliberalism (25). This connection is not hard to see since both authors recognize the increasing emphasis on individualism in today’s media climate, but this emphasis is definitely more devastating when Butler connects it with postfeminism. While the first and second waves of feminism were collective and political movements that brought women together, postfeminism (and part of third-wave feminism) seems to disintegrate the structure and connection made in the first two feminist movements. Although much of the Western society today is moving towards neoliberal individualism, I think women are especially vulnerable to neoliberal ideas precisely because the neoliberal influence is largely masked by postfeminism, where it claims buying certain products and having certain “flava” mark the success of feminism and confirm their individual identities. 

Another interesting point Butler made is the fact that race could be the incision point into disturbing the idea of postfeminism. Butler calls for “a complex, dynamic, and multilayered analysis” to unpack the multifaceted environment of postfeminism today (54). She identifies Nicki Minaj as one of the examples to disrupt the postfeminism that only includes middle-class white women and heterosexuality while excluding or assimilating any racial differences. While I think this is a great starting point to further the discussion on race and postfeminism, I also wonder if this example is enough. What exactly could be categorized as non-postfeminism in today’s media climate? All three readings today talk about the definition and even specific ways to identify postfeminism in popular culture, but rarely do they (except Butler) mention ways to combat this harmful concept. Does anti-postfeminism exist, if so what does it look like? Butler theorizes Nicki Minaj as someone who cannot be labeled by dominant ideologies thus rupturing postfeminism, but not-labeling also brings up questions and problems. Does “not-labeling” equal liberation or is it just another kind of label? How can we, as media scholars, separate feminism from postfeminism? These are questions I’m still pondering myself. What’s more, I think the readings slightly glossed over a very important discussion of postfeminism in relation to neoliberalism—class. While all of the authors recognize class as a factor in the conversation of postfeminism, none of them really goes into talking about how class factors into the formation of postfeminism; especially how class difference may render certain demographics more susceptible to the images of postfeminism. 

Lastly, on a bit of a digressive journey, I would like to think briefly about the idea of postfeminism outside the Western world. All three authors today emphasize the generational difference between each wave of feminisms, but this generational difference is specific to the US or to the Western world. What would postfeminism look like when it is manifested in a country that did not experience the same waves of feminism, but, rather, just entered its first grass-roots feminist movement while it is also under a market economy? In this particular case, I’m thinking about China and the “me too” movement on Weibo that started alongside its Western counterpart in 2017. This movement opened some possibilities for Chinese women to discuss the inequality they experience in their everyday lives, and it also snowballed into a widespread discussion of feminism that has never happened before. Speaking from someone who still pays great attention to this movement (which is still going and has progressed quite a bit), I think this movement has raised great awareness on gender equality but it has also intertwined with the market economy and commercialism in China. Many brands and studios, after recognizing the size of this movement, have made efforts to change their slogans, to produce “female celebration” ads, and so on. These efforts, seemingly harmless, positive, and extremely well-received, do remind me of the idea of postfeminism where “feminism” becomes a commodified concept to be used in selling products. How can we reconcile this wonderful grass-roots feminist movement with the postfeminism ideals embedded in them? Can feminism exist outside commercialism in the Chinese context? These are questions I kept asking myself when reading this week’s readings. One last thing I wanted to mention before I stop rambling is the recent court case of Xianzi VS. Zhujun. This is one of the first sexual harassment cases where the defendant is a celebrity that went to court. While this case is still in progress and there is only a glimpse of hope in Xianzi winning, it has sparked small but resonant support nationwide. It is political actions like this that give me hope in combating postfeminism in today’s China. 

Colton Elzey Core Post #1 "[F]or male viewers tradition is restored"

Angela McRobbie's piece analyzing post-feminism presents several interesting concepts regarding the term and social movement generally as it is reflected in everyday life as well as within popular media. McRobbie described the ideology behind the post-feminist movement as existing through a form of "double entanglement", in which one must call back to the Big Brother roots of 1984 to apply double think, and accept both "the co-existence of neo-conservative values in relation to gender, sexuality and family life" as well as "liberalisation in regard to choice and diversity in domestic, sexual and kinship relations" (255-6).  In short, her essay suggests that post-feminism allows a space for feminist theory--which modern culture has radicalized in a negative connotation--to exist because it is recognized as an element of the past, outdated and historicized, or one that has been "taken into account", and such is required due to social pressures that have created a culture of repudiation of the term, rather than ambivalence. 

McRobbie's analysis drew from an array of advertisements as well as popular media narratives such as Bridget Jones and Sex in the City. Her discussion of TV advertisements--both involving glamorized female figures--as backing to an argument that supports a new view of feminism by undoing it. The concept of sexualized, objectification that feminism would originally oppose, is not done here because McRobbie explains that the modern generation understands irony and accepts freedom of expression, sexuality, and such as displays of freedom not control. However, what I would posit that her essay lacks, is a candid look at both of these ads for what they are: advertisements, aimed at garnering viewers, influencing commerce, and selling products. As she explains, for the hetero men in the car "tradition is restored", they are back to a space where they can gaze upon a female body without shame. McRobbie explains that this objectification is a positive form, and an element of post-feminism (displaying that freedom and status were achieved) because of the objectification, and the irony behind the display of skin, and that both adverts display this as the woman's choice to do so, thus presenting positive movement in the gender battle. However, again, these are ads, designed not as forms of self expression, but for the purpose of capitalism--and that showing a nationally recognized super model slowly removing clothing items as she slips into a beautiful sports car signals to the audience the benefits of owning that car.

In summary, I don't think analyzing the ads as displays of positive representations, or even elements of post-feminism where "the fight is over, and status has been achieved," is accurate, considering there is not narrative arc behind the objectification, simply the goal of marketing a product.    

*I should leave a note here that my background in feminist and post-feminist theory is very limited, so there's that. 

    

Core Post #4 Alexandria

 In the Sarah Banet-Weiser piece, I think I was kind of confused about the connections between “hip,” “urban” and “post racial.” I guess part of the reason why this threw me off was because I study popular music and in the context of many major music institutions, “urban” is a racially coded way to identify and separate black artists and their music from the pop mainstream. It’s something that has finally been receiving pushback in recent years. But I guess within Banet-Weiser’s context that the urban is used in a different way and that in many of the postfeminist tv examples she’s looking at, an urban setting connotes coolness and flavor, a kind of diversity that is geared towards consumerism as opposed to engagement with race. I wonder how Dora the Explorer would fare if it were introduced into today’s consumer context because she was “pan-Latina,” not rooted in any particular Latin American country or context. Raya and the Last Dragon is currently facing backlash because while it was set in a Southeast Asian context, they cast East Asian voice actors in the main roles. At the same time, it’s getting criticized for flattening the Southeast Asian diversity and vaguely representing it through the five tribes in the film. I wish we had more readings about Latinidad within TV representation, because I know that Latinx audiences have differing relationships to media representations as well.

It’s interesting to consider this piece in relation to Banet-Weiser’s later work on popular feminism in which she argues that pop culture has begun to co-opt feminism, making it a highly circulable, capitalist product, hollowed out of its original meaning. These three essays were helpful in terms of helping me to understand the context of postfeminism that led up to it, and some of the arguments over the overt sexuality of female pop stars that were happening during the time Butler wrote her piece (2013) are still very much in play today. Consider the YouTube comment section beneath Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s recent performance of “WAP” at the Grammys. These arguments and contentions are still being played out in real time.

Supplemental Post #3- Rojeen

This week’s readings feel tangential to the theme from a few weeks ago on representation in television. In Butler’s piece, she offers a genealogy of feminism, going through the first, second, and third waves to elucidate the innerworkings of postfeminism. Butler writes, “And, just as it does for white women, postfeminism requires its nonwhite participants to reject political activism in favor of capitalist consumption and cultural visibility.” This sentence resonated with how I feel about inclusive representation in TV and on the big screen because representation is often limited for certain people or women of color who capitalize off hegemonic narratives that are exploitative (or even groundbreaking by disrupting certain tropes), yet ultimately contribute to neoliberalism. Is it really progressive if people or women of color are represented on TV if they push the cultural and capitalist commodity of feminism? I too fall for commodity feminism, purchasing garb that symbolizes my political stance while also understanding I contribute to capitalism by doing so. And while feminism/postfeminism often feels progressive in its dispelling of gender norms, Butler writes, “the women of color featured in the above representations clearly embody and enact postfeminism: they embrace femininity and the consumption of feminine goods; they espouse a vocabulary of independence, choice, empowerment, and sexual freedom; and they construct themselves (or are constructed by others) as heterosexual subjects.” The requirements of postfeminist discourse and manifestations on TV are to maintain the status quo by selling the feminist ideal without actually challenging the entangled systems of oppression. 

Core Post 3 - Sabina

This week’s theme on post-feminism really resonated with me as someone who studies various forms of queerness and race on television, similar to the discussions we’ve had in this class on “representation”. I’ve recently begun watching Sex and the City (whenever it is on tv) and something about it felt off to me. Then, Kim Catrall’s character Samantha said “For a sex columnist you have a limited view of sexuality” and something clicked. This show is NOT “sex positive” or “feminist” at all, in fact every episode reinforces white, heterosexual, “normative” behaviors despite claiming to be about women’s sexual freedom and the “power of being a woman in the city”. Most obvious, almost too obvious, is Carrie Bradshaw’s character. On the one hand, she is supposed to be emulated. She has her own column in a newspaper/magazine and has enough money to spend it on an apartment and various other material items (shoes). She is in control of her sexuality and she emulates this neoliberal “girl boss/climbing the ladder” idea. On the other hand, her desire for Mr. Big to notice her, to be with her, and to support her financially reinforces gender stereotypes and mainstream ideas of heteronormative femininity/womanhood. Carrie’s lack of support for her friends, as seen through her selfish behaviors, self-centered actions, and actions like interrupting Charlotte’s engagement news with her break up news shows her ultimate placement of a man above her “friends”, further pushing the idea that happiness can only be found in men. It reminds me of McRobbie’s quote, “Feminism is “taken into account,” but only to be shown to be no longer necessary.” The show considers feminism by talking about women’s sexual pleasures and women’s success in their careers/in a capitalist society, but ultimately tosses that all aside and centers men, platforming a neoliberal vision of feminism.

Core Post #4 - Lilla

 

In What’s Your Flava? Sarah Banet-Weiser describes Nickelodeon’s “carefully crafted industry identity as the ‘diversity channel’” (203). Banet-Weiser argues that championing girls and racial diversity is a lucrative business strategy for the channel, which has capitalized on the “historical invisibility and exclusion of diverse characters” (203). She later argues that, due to the pedagogical function of children’s TV, these shows in general tend to be more diverse than primetime television.

Yet I want to argue that showing female empowerment and racial diversity is much easier to do in children’s television, where women are desexualized and reduced to ‘girls.’ ‘Girls rule’ carries much fewer political connotation than ‘women rule,’ it is a simple and playful message that appears feminist on the surface level but truly just an empty phrase used as advertisement or to sell merchandise. Similarly, “strong, smart girls and multicultural casts” are simpler to depict on children’s shows that rarely depict racial inequality and present a postracial, postfeminist utopic world where all people — children — are treated equally (218). Sure, these depictions are healthy in that they teach children to treat people the same, but they are simplistic and should not be treated as progressive.

To me, the very idea of “empowering” children is somewhat problematic, as how often do children recognize they are oppressed? They might recognize being treated differently, but are oblivious to the systems upholding their oppression. It is very rare that shows even acknowledge racism or sexism — Disney’s That’s So Raven was a rare and early example — but even when they do, it tends to be teen, and not children’s shows. Of course, that is not to say that Nickelodeon should stop its diversity initiative. Sure, it’s a sly business practice that is “good business,” but any diversity is better than no diversity. The only issue is its self-congratulatory nature, in that diversity in children’s programming is not as radical as it seems.

Core Post #4-- Michael Feinstein

  Angela McRobbie’s argument that postfeminism— and the pop culture that was created during 1990s and early 2000s— took feminism “into account” while simultaneously repudiating and denouncing it as a relic from the past (“spent force”), of course, made me consider whether the television we consume today would still qualify as postfeminist. Shows like Ally McBeal and Sex and the City, according to McRobbie, used “tropes of freedom and choice” (255) to give the impression that those things that first and second wave feminist were fighting for had already been successfully achieved and are thus were no longer a concern. The  individual sexual and professional empowerment of Ally McBeal and Carrie Bradshaw were smoke-screens covering the actual political and structural obstacles faced by women that it chose to ignore. As Sarah Banet-Weiser states, “the normalization of feminism has prevented it from existing as a discrete politics; rather it emerges as a kind of slogan or generalized “brand” (208). These ideas certainly still ring true for most of the television shows featuring strong, capable female leads that have come out in the years since Sex and the City went off the air. Shows like Girls, Euphoria, Fleabag, New Girl, and many others, center their stories around women with an unprecedented amount of freedom, choice, and access. They can say what they want and they can do what they want and—for the most part— these are freedoms that they just simply have, as opposed to ones they (or the generations of women before them) have had to earn. Additionally, historical dramas that do deal with systemic sexism and cultural misogyny, like Mad Men and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, ultimately do the same work of presenting these struggles as antiquated and passe’. Even if these shows often do attempt to make parallels between the past and the present and viewers could read these political and structural critiques as somewhat relevant the hurdles that the women on the show have to overcome are still relegated to and obscured by the past. 

However, I think there are certain shows from the last 10 years that don’t neatly fall into this postfeminist bin as described by McRobbie. 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation both dealt with the structural and political forces that prevented the two shows’ leads from accomplishing their jobs. 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon, a show runner for a network late night sketch show, has to deal with the sexism and misogyny of both her boss and the mostly-male writing staff that she is in charge of. Additionally, Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope, a civil servant, is constantly depicted contending with the all-boys club of local politics and the show makes clear how she is held back in the political arena because she is a woman. However, these shows still both largely focus  on the “individual empowerment” of its’ characters and, one could argue, that the fact that these women are in these places of power in the first place negates certain feminist critiques. Still though, these shows and others like HBO’s Blackish, I May Destroy You, and Veep not only take feminism into account but also seem to engage with the idea that gender equality has not been fully achieved and there is still some ways to go. 

Supplemental Post #2-Tiana Williams

This week after rewatching the pilot episode for Insecure, I started looking into various assessments/opinions of the show as feminist as well as Issa Rae’s perspective on feminism. In an interview with Bust magazine, when discussing feminism, the article reads/quotes Rae saying-- 

 “My female friends are everything. They’re my support system. My rocks. We keep each other grounded and lift each other up. We definitely have a group chat going.” Leaning on and supporting other women is also connected to her identity as a feminist, though she wasn’t always at ease with the word. “I probably first became aware of the term ‘feminism’ in high school. I didn’t really identify with it because it just felt very white. I didn’t take the time to really explore it. In college, I discovered Alice Walker’s version of feminism—womanism. The word feminism still has a tinge of whiteness to it, but I understand the definition of the word now. I identify as a feminist because that’s what I believe in.”

Although Issa Rae doesn’t go deeper into her understanding of being a feminist (or perhaps the interviewer just didn’t probe) and how her own definition is directly influenced by Alice Walker’s definition of a womanist, it seems as though Rae understands feminism to be a source of empowerment and community, while also identifying feminism as “very white,” insinuating the exclusive nature of the term. In any case, it seems that Rae might not have fully articulated exactly how she specifically employs the term, especially in a political sense. Going back to the show’s pilot episode in which Issa Dee is shown at one point singing to her best friend Molly, “Nobody wants you cus you got a broken pussy,” I kept thinking back to Shoniqua Roach’s work on black pussy power and actress Pam Grier’s use of black pussy power in her films that enables her to “resist racialized gendered sexual subjection and tap into modes of erotic agency otherwise denied to her”(Roach, 10). Roach theorizes this by placing importance on “moving away from delimited understandings of pussy as female genitalia or an objectified entity of female sexuality” and in mobilizing black queer feminist thought in relation to black sex and gender. In watching the pilot episode of Insecure with Roach’s and Jess Butler’s texts in mind, I found the different abstractions of “pussy” and “power” within this particular moment in Insecure (compared with Roach’s text) really interesting. The episode in many ways “takes feminism into account” (McRobbie) in “normalizing post-feminist gender anxieties” (McRobbie, 262) by representing one of the main characters, Molly, as a successful, outspoken attorney who despite all of her career successes, is apparently unable to secure a man due to her “broken pussy.” Roach on the other hand discusses “black pussy’s discursive connection to black feminine sexuality” that  “animates the insurgent potential of black pussy power to secure nominal black freedoms in the face of state-sanctioned infringements on black erotic life.” Roach's explication of the pussy and its power appears more political than Insecure's joke within the pilot, but the question that still remains about this particular aspect of the episode, for me at least, is what does having a broken pussy imply and what does its fixing allow for? Is the type of power the emerges within its reconstruction similar to the insurgent erotic potential that Roach discusses in her work or is it simply to cater to the needs of men by presenting oneself as worthy of marriage within a heteronormative framework?

Georgina Gonsalves- Core post #3 (Post Feminism)

 Referring to McRobbie-

As time has gone by since the feminism movement gained movement in 1990, the argument has shifted from Sexism to Self Choice. Over the last few generations, opinions have shifted greatly, specifically in the use of female bodies in advertising and media. For example, McRobbie mentions an ad with a supermodel in lingerie in a car commercial. This is in my opinion very relevant to the current generation. During the feminist movement, this was seen as sexist and objectifying, but some opinions in the younger generation would consider this empowering, as a form of female success, because this model CHOSE to present herself this way, this represents an entire generation of women who emphasize and support women's rights to chose in every aspect of their lives without judgement. Especially in a time that is "post-Me Too Movement", this has strengthened the emphasis on women's right to chose, as well as bringing the importance of consent forward. The Me Too Movement shed light on the despicable acts of sexual harassment, assault, and manipulation of women in the entertainment industry. This created a wave of female empowerment in a different way that feminism did, women are now more empowered by flaunting their bodies and support body positivity; choosing for themselves how to live, what to wear, and not to feel shame or give any means of consent by what they choose to wear. A point made by McRobbie in relevance to this, a striptease can be seen as female exploitation in the eyes of a feminist, while post-feminists would see this an an act of choice. 

In my opinion, I don't believe feminism has become undone because the feminism movement was much more than sexuality. Efforts are still being made for equal pay (though unequal pay still happens often), women are fighting for reproductive rights more than ever, and women are achieving high levels of success continuously. Though it may be frowned upon by more traditional feminists, I believe that the women's right to choose is empowering. Women have always had such strong expectations and double standards, and are frowned upon anytime those expectations are broken or not met, while men are not faced with nearly as many expectations, or at least not shamed the same way women are in terms of sexuality. Women being able to choose for themselves is empowering because it breaks traditional standards that women are expected to follow, it makes society more equal that women can embrace our sexuality if we so choose, like men have done all through history, and reject feelings of shame that women have been taught for generations since childhood and systemically reinforced in the outside adult world. Self choice is a new branch of freedom for women that began with the feminist movement. This new movement gives women more power as they are normalizing self choice and self expression in all aspects of their lives, and the freedom to live life outside of societal expectations and restrictions. 

Core Post 3 - Sabrina

 

One of the reasons I identify as non-binary is feeling alienated from feminine spaces. So these readings about the construction of femininity through a post-feminist lens were a fun time for me to think about in terms of what notions of the feminine are being created there. I absolutely want to acknowledge that I don’t think conversations around feminism and women have to include discussions of non-binary genders, and I don’t want to hijack a feminine space, but a lot of the discussions around post-feminism and different feminism in these essays felt intertwined with non-binary gender identification in the discussion of new forms of feminism or gender springing from a negative reaction to previous thoughts on femininity.

 

Speaking solely from my perspective, the process of discovering my gender identity began with being in female spaces, feeling too queer or too other for these spaces, and then seek genderqueer spaces that allow for different forms of inclusion and expression. In looking at these readings, I’m curious if looking at these spaces of heteronormative femininity that baffle me can generally be understood through these readings on post-feminism.

 

I most easily understood post-feminism as explained in Jess Butler’s essay. She talks about postfeminism as being rooted in the body and sexual difference, and outlines feminism as a commodity:

“As liberated consumers, contemporary young women self-consciously participate in a highly stylized “postfeminist masquerade” as a statement of personal choice (McRobbie 2009, 64). These women buy skinny jeans as a marker of their “progressive” gender ideals; they get pedicures and bikini waxes because they have the freedom to “choose” to engage in conven- tional femininity. The consumer-based logic of postfeminism conflates feminism and femininity, individualism and liberation, and consumption and activism to the extent that “women apparently choose to be seen as sexual objects because it suits their liberated interests” (Goldman, Heath, and Smith 1991, 338). Unchained from political activ- ism, postfeminism constructs gender as a consumer product that women can try on—and take off—as they choose.” (13)

Looking at that idea of taking it off and on, I just always want it off. And it’s not the entirety of femininity that I feel foreign from, though to have people acknowledge my non-binary identity I often push back against the feminine more than I actually feel matches the amount I wish to engage with the feminine in my self-identificaiton.

 

There was also some hints at this oppositional reaction to expectations of femininity in the McRobbie:

“Why do young women recoil in horror at the very idea of the feminist? To count as a girl today appears to require this kind of ritualistic denunciation, which in turn suggests that one strategy in the disempowering of feminism includes it being histori- cised and generationalised and thus easily rendered out of date.” (5)

“Thus the new female subject is, despite her freedom, called upon to be silent, to withhold critique, to count as a modern sophisticated girl, or indeed this withholding of critique is a condition of her freedom. There is quietude and complicity in the manners of generationally specific notions of cool, and more precisely an uncritical relation to dominant commercially produced sexual represen- tations which actively invoke hostility to assumed feminist positions from the past in order to endorse a new regime of sexual meanings based on female consent, equality, participation and pleasure, free of politics.” (7)

I’m overemphasizing the bits that explain why people don’t want to or don’t like to identify as a girl, but it seems like what this reading suggests makes people move away from feminism towards post-feminism is what makes me begin identifying as non-binary rather than as woman.

 

Basically, I feel like within these readings on different forms of feminism and different (negative) responses from one branch of feminism to another, I feel like there’s this reaction of femininity is confusing and I don’t understand it and don’t see the value in learning to engage with it when presented with the option to just not unpack all that. Then occupying this outside perspective it’s easier to see the ways in which gender gets tied up into, well, everything, and from there feel even more comfortable not wanting to engage there, or wanting to engage with a third option.

Jensen Supplemental Post #1

For this supplemental post, I wanted to talk about a couple of television miniseries that are among my favorites: Band of Brothers (2001), The Pacific (2010), and the upcoming Masters of the Air. Yes, for those of you who know me better, I am talking about WWII stuff again. Apologies that I have been re-watching these instead of the Twilight film series...

Regarding these series, I wished to discuss the theme of historical memory. The two which have been released so far, BoB and Pacific, depict the war from an American perspective, following the events of the global conflict from the points-of-view of an American paratrooper company and various individual Marines respectively. Both series utilize first hand descriptions of the battles and subsequent events, either through interviews with veterans (which were also included in the episodes) or nonfiction memoirs such as With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (1981). These elements lend a certain rhetorical ethos to the series, as horrors are made more real for the audience coming from those who experienced them and seeing how those experiences affected them in later life. This blend of fiction and nonfiction elements allows the viewer to experience the conflict from the perspective of an American fighter on the ground, and the decisions which had to be made by them seem rectified by the intense depictions of combat. 

That being said, there has been some critical disagreements surrounding these sorts of depictions of warfare. Perhaps the most controversial is that the limited perspective granted by these portrayals do not offer a holistic look at the overall complications and historical/political backgrounds which went into the conflict, offering in turn a biased perspective of the war. While certainly these series showcase a primarily American point of view, I would argue that the point of the series was to emphasize the emotional and physical toll which the events of the war had upon those who fought it, and it is assumed by the filmmaker that the viewer has a basic understanding of the events leading up to and during WWII. If the creators wanted to offer a more objective point of view, they would not have drawn from the personal/individual sources which they had. That being said, it is important to note that these series could have taken a deeper look into the trials which the civilian populations during the war suffered, as they are among the most negatively affected populations of such conflicts and are too often overlooked in the war film genre. 

I am super excited to see what Masters of the Air has to offer, and how the change in production companies (the first two being released by HBO, but with this being released through AppleTV) effects the content produced. 

Core Post #2 Kimberly Henry

In her paper, “For White Girls Only?” Jess Butler goes out of her way to delineate between post-feminism and third wave feminism, while still drawing connections between them; while she defines post-feminism through McRobbie as displacement, she characterizes third wave as an at least partially self-aware critique and expansion of second wave feminism, although it remains expressly neo-liberal (). It’s Butler’s view of the third wave as neoliberal that makes me wonder at the blurred lines between post and third wave feminism today. McRobbie describes some of the main tenets of post-feminism as the valorization of individual choice, of femininity as a commodity for purchase, making the ideal female subject/citizen of post feminism an active participant in consumer economy. This description is neoliberal in essence, focusing heavily on individual regulation and consumer democracy. But it makes me question is question is how then do 1990s conceptions of post feminism differ from post-2016 (let’s say) embodiments of third (or does #MeToo count as fourth?) wave feminism?

 

Although current feminist ideology far from assumes guaranteed gender equality, the rest of the traits listed by Butler as characteristic of post-feminist rhetoric are front and center in contemporary feminism: Emphasis on “sexual subjectification,” self-surveillance repackaged as self-care, and activism as a purchasable commodity. Beyond these similarities, the figures of color which Butler listed as icons of post-feminism—or those who still maintain relevance—have transformed into “feminist icons.”

 

This point for me to the most intriguing—and in some ways troubling—development since the readings’ publications. The relative disappearance of post-feminism, least as a ubiquitous alternative to/displacement of feminism.  To claim gender equality has been achieved in a post-2016 America will likely mark you as naïve or one of the few women permitted on Fox News/OANN—ie. Conservatice. Instead of post-feminism, intersection, politically active (or rather performative) feminism is the presumed baseline, the new ideal of female subject-citizenship. This feminism, however, maintains the consumerist, representational focus of post-feminism, however, now it has absorbed the the radical/alternative practices of marginalized groups, such as magical thinking/ritual. Sage and crystals are all for sale on Instagram as self-care practice paraphernalia, along with shirts reading “Empowered Women Empower Women.” In some ways I find it necessary to counter my own point here, and mention that the products of these profits often purport to support some feminist political cause (as did my purchase of a Nasty Woman t-shirt in January 2017). However this consumer-feminist-activism only furthers the neoliberal trend of moving social/feminist welfare toward the private sector.

Core Response #5 - Laura

 “Thus, the contemporary young woman, self-reflexive and gender-aware, finds herself ‘confined to the topographies of an unsustainable self-hood, deprived of the possibilities of feminist sociality, and deeply invested in achieving an illusory identity defined according to a rigidly enforced scale of feminine attributes’” (Butler, quoting McRobbie, 46).

Hoo boy do I feel called out. Reading these texts has forced me to do the thing I like least in the world: look back on my early adolescence, a painful era during which I was solidly in the postfeminist camp. When I was growing up, it was very important to my parents (who came of age during second-wave feminism) that I not wear makeup or heels or revealing clothing, both because those are classic things for parents to get upset over and because they are tools of capitalist patriarchy. But “liberated women don’t wear makeup” was a deeply, deeply unhelpful sentiment for insecure tween Laura who was surrounded by girls who did wear makeup and seemed confident and happy and drew the attention of boys. What I viewed as my mom’s feminism simply did not seem to describe my experience in the world.

I fully understand how twisted this mindset is: I was made to feel out of place because I didn’t meet mainstream beauty standards, an obviously feminist issue, and then I resented feminism for it. But I was in middle school, and the only thing I was thinking about was acceptance. Who cared about social justice? I was just trying to get through the goddam day. Thankfully, I grew out of it during high school, but I continue to feel that in discussions like this we sometimes fail to account for what it means to actually be on the receiving end of all of this shit, from both the feminist and post/non-feminist sides (and, for that matter, from all the other areas of discourse we’ve looked at in this class).

Butler says that “contemporary young women self-consciously participate in a highly stylized ‘postfeminist masquerade’ as a statement of personal choice,” that they buy skinny jeans or get pedicures “as a marker of their ‘progressive’ gender ideals…  because they have the freedom to ‘choose’ to engage in conventional femininity” (46). (Again, I just feel so called out.) This is an awful lot of generalization, isn’t it? These contemporary young women, have they truly bought into the idea that they don’t need feminism anymore? Or are they buying skinny jeans and getting pedicures because they have been made to feel deeply insecure about the way they look, and they know that taking these steps can help alleviate that insecurity even if it is ultimately reinforcing patriarchal norms? Besides, shopping is a fun and easy bonding activity with friends, especially female friends, and often the female friends I’ve gone shopping with are people with whom I’ve also had long and deep discussions about race and gender (there’s that feminist sociality for you, I guess). We do both.

I don’t fully disagree with Butler on any of this, to be clear; overall she’s clearly assigning more blame to the culture industry than to individual women. And I do really appreciate that she ends her piece by discussing Nicki Minaj as a potentially subversive figure. Part of my angst at these types of discussions is that very rarely do they offer a positive alternative to the problems they identify. If you’re going to tell me that every piece of film/television I consume is a neoliberal opiate, that’s fine, but I’m not going to just sit on my floor reading The Second Sex over and over until I die. You need to give me something to keep me going. I feel like it would be useful to identify more ways in which women, especially women of color, may be able to use mass media subversively instead of deterministically writing everything off as postfeminist.