Wow. I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with some
examples, but I keep coming up short. Luckily, I know a nineteen year old
feminist who watches a lot of TV. In
particular, she brought up Orange is the
New Black and Game of Thrones as
examples of shows that portray strong women and shed light on gender inequity.
By virtue of the all-female cast on OITNB, issues of gender inequity are
inevitably raised. The inclusion of
women of color and varying sexuality does much to promote feminist
viewpoints. My daughter sees the
treatment of the prisoners by the guards as a metaphor for how the women are
treated in real life, also exposing oppression in society.
I found her inclusion of Game of Thrones to be interesting.
While I haven’t seen the show (I know…I need to watch it!), I have read
about the controversies concerning the rapes and otherwise poor treatment of
the female characters. Do such plot
points in some way elevate the oppression of women? Perhaps. But at the same
time, many of the women characters are portrayed as strong, daunting characters
not to be messed with.
The two shows that came to mind for me are The Americans and House of Cards. In the first, Elizabeth is the female of the
Russian spy duo whose mission it is to fight the Cold War by infiltrating the
U.S. government in Washington, D.C. Time
and again Elizabeth proves to be a kick-ass strong woman, oftentimes proving
herself stronger mentally and emotionally than her husband. In HOC Claire
Underwood’s cold, but logical, intelligent personality keeps moving her one step
closer to the Oval Office. The problem with both Elizabeth and Claire, it can
be argued, is that they both seem to exhibit stereotypical male characteristics
to find success.
On another note, while I was reading the book and
listening to last week’s discussion, I kept thinking about not just the media’s
portrayal of women, but how women themselves are portraying themselves to the media. When does celebrating one’s body and good
looks cross over from feminism to enlightened sexism? Specifically, Ariel
Winter comes to mind. Is it because we’ve
reached gender equality that she and others feel so comfortable showing off
their bodies to anyone with a social media account, or is it actually a false
sense of equality, as Susan Douglas argues?
My fear is it’s the latter. Any
thoughts?
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