Hey, I found this really awesome zine on Kickstarter about reconciling our feminism and love of art that may not be in agreement with those beliefs. Food for thought. Hope y'all have an awesome summer!

It's complicated: A Feminist Zine on Loving Mysogynist Art

Amazing semester!!

It has been an honor and a pleasure to spend my Saturdays with all of you. Your projects were inspiring and exciting in so many ways. Many of you created things you had never tried before: editing video, creating petitions, websites, blogs and zines. I am proud to be sharing many of these with friends and colleagues and encourage all of you to do so as well. Share these projects on twitter, facebook, etc - especially your own! Keep me posted on updates to your projects. Keep working on them! These ideas deserve it and you are all amazing advocates with important stories to tell. Your voices are crucial. Continue to be curious, compassionate and YOU WILL MAKE CHANGE!!

I will miss you! Stay in touch.

All the best,
Prof. Cacoilo

Discover the World of EyeCandy

Every day, we are constantly consumed with media images from digital pictures, music videos and advertisements.  But have you ever actually stopped and considered the reality of those images? As we have progressed in this class, we are challenged to critically analyze media and its relationship towards women.  My project will explore music videos and its relationship to us.  Music videos are instantly available through music video channels, WSHH, YouTube and the like.  The women in the music videos matter.  The women in the eyecandy magazines such as Smooth, Straight Stunnin and the like matter as well.  Why do they matter? Because for most of us, our sisters, daughters and friends want to be those women.  Those women are in place to create an illusion.  Those women are a fantasy.  As a former eyecandy model, myself,  I hope to shatter the illusions you have about this fantasy world and give you a real depiction of the eyecandy world.

 

This is just an amateur video on my way from a video shoot. All laughs. Enjoy.

Link to Project Discover the World of EyeCandy

Representation of Women in Literature 

    As an English Major true to my heart, I thought I would offer a critical analysis (as I've been drilled to do for most of my life) of the role of women in some of our most contemporary popular literature. So I chose Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hunger Games as vehicles through which I would examine exactly what messages our young readers in particular are walking away with, specifically in regards to women. Because just like the rest of the media, whether we realize it or not, books too affect us and change us and often mold the way we think. Here is what I came up with:

                          
                                                       Direct link to this video on YouTube

Disclaimer! This is my first time creating any time of video and by the time I realized that I don't sound the same on video as I do in my head, I was already in too deep. So I sincerely apologize for my boring, monotonous tone (I didn't realize these things needed more than one take and after the fourth, I was beat). I tried to liven it up with images as much as possible and I did borrow images from the movie adaptations of the novels, as once we have a face for a name, it usually sticks.

For my image, this is what I looked like at 5am last night. My own doing, I know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxX9OtpYVYM

Women & Media in Japan

For my project, I focus on women and media in Japan. After taking this class, I found several similar circumstances that women in Japan are surrounded. Mainly I focus on patriarchy, male gaze and social ideas of women. I created a web site which shows some articles I wrote. There are three articles so far; "Who Are Winners and Losers?", "Who Rule The World?" and "Japan is the Great Nation of Sexual Molesters". There are some relevant links and videos attached to the articles. 

http://womenandmedia.web.fc2.com/womenandmedia/WOMEN_and_MEDIA_IN_JAPAN.html

Force, Strength, and Power: Project about Comic Books and Such

My project is a video essay exploring the relationship between women as consumers and the comic book industry. I seek to answer the question of why female readers make up a remarkably small percentage of comic book audiences, and explore ways that this might be changed. Likewise, I examine why the comic book, and the genre of storytelling associated with it, can be a positive influence for women, if handled responsibly. My goal in this project is to not only identify existing problems within the representation of female characters that might isolate female audiences, but also to identify reasons that the medium and genre are worth building on and improving rather than dismissing.

https://vimeo.com/42041168

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

Depiction of Violence in Hip Hop

We are living in a world full of huge media consumptions, children, women and minorities are often targeted in the mainstream media. In my final project, I explored how hip hop music involves explicit languages and images that dehumanized women and violences against women. I liked to listen to rap music a lot, and never realized how explicit the lyrics and music videos get, until I researched heavily on this topic. I don't know how much effect will this have on our next generations, since they are bombarded with much more media informations than we did in our childhoood.

Therefore, in my final project, I would focus on how violence depicted in Hip Hop might be against women, and whether Hip Hop music would affect people's mind, especially children. My concern is that since children do not have the knowledge about what the media really depicts on, they can be easily affected by the music videos and lyrics from their favorite artists. According to psychological researches, psychologists stated that rap music with misogynistic themes appear to create misogynistic attitudes and greater acceptance of violence against women. At the end of the project, I want to find out solutions to tackle these problems, or at least let children and their parents to be aware of what is going on right now, to let children understand the true messages behind those lyrics and music videos of their favorite pop stars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uLq8M6RgYw&feature=youtu.be

The Chance for Willingness

In my project paper I write  about the randomness vs chance.  I write about not many chances for choices we have around us but the chance to hear ourselves and find the will in ourselves. No body can take away from us the choice to step out from the way that society created for us. We are all different we have to know that everybody's life is a maze but also we have to know that every maze have its positive exit.

Work cited:

Hooks,Bell. The Will to Change, Understanding Patriarchy ,Gloria Watkins,2004,print

John Berger,Ways of Seeing,1973

http://youtu.be/DPyBSVmudOk

Sofija Belobrkovic                                                                                               

Prof. Cocoilo

 Woman and Media

05/12/12

        

          

      The Chance for Life

          It is a privilege to be carefully listened and understood by people you are talking to. In fact, I was listened and I was able to hear my self. I realized there are many learned thoughts that I speak and only one, the base-truly me. I recognize the real impulse of my life .My life is not just a chain to history and future, but actually a potential presence .I am not just born to be a wife and mother, and if possible educated –confident, but I am also my ideas, my thoughts, my inspiration, my own motivation, game and realization.

            There is nowhere on earth two persons with the same fingerprints. So, we all have a chance to be authentic, which means alive. Beautiful! But do we have choices? Do we have the tools to learn those choices? Can we immerse our selves in diversity so we can find our own purity?

  It seems hard! We don’t have a choice of family! We don’t have a choice of country where we are going to be born! We don’t have a choice of our certain experiences caused by someone’s evilness .We don’t have an obvious choice of happiness or sadness  but to be good or bad! Do we have a choice to look?Do we have a choice to critically look?

           In today’s society instead of Sun’s arrays we have projector’s-camera’s way and not ways! We are surrounded with magazines of beauty, we are attacked with TV shows, movies which portrays the glory of a man and a woman as their great followers. With huge colors of media we don’t see and feel our own. We are alienating ourselves from others because of the disappointing with our failing to keep up with images of the media. We can easily make our surrounding with people according to the look of things and live randomness. Being sure that we know the nature of appearances we live deadly comfort  and ideals. We don’t like to be labeled, or the worst is we don’t know we are, but we do the same. We don’t grow but allow the dictators of the world to play with their own visions. Indeed, on that way we kill a chance.

   However, the neutral zone of our growth is education. With this most important tool we can learn and see the different aspects of our position and the world in overall. There we can strip away the layers of society’s imaginary lives, and be in peace with others as well.

            Unfortunately ,As Bell Hooks said :”Education has become subcultural discourse  available only to well educated elite”(Patriarchy). The most essential tool ,the education  is a matter sacrifice. If we really want the education we have to strive and barely live outside of college. Not many can overcome that tension or not many have learned the priorities of life. There the gender roles appear as well .The males will be more supported than woman to get to college. Because the man is the one who act and woman appear( Berger).But again ,we are all different.Nobody wants to play a role .It is against the nature. No man’s or woman’s role  is a matter but a person as a  whole.  So what is left to us ,which tool?It is a sense of will!

    In order to fight for the natural course we have to use our natural weapons. The strongest one is willingness of people. It is our choice if we want to live a chance. We have to decide if we want to live monotony life, with expected roles. No body can decide for us if we want to be a lake, passive water or a river that beats all the obstacles of life and understands the different creations of nature.We have to know that everything we see has its other side. Every life is maze and full of obstacles.We have to understand  and know that, because every maze has its exit to the idea we have,to our personality.We are much bigger than any problem.

Final Project: A Day.

For my final project I made a short film. Since I only just finished it, I'm still at that point where I don't even know what I think of it yet. I do know this ... 


Every story spoken in the film is true for someone. For each story there is a woman that walks around with it daily -- maybe not at the top of her consciousness but somewhere in the way that she walks through the world.


Link to Short Film 


In case the link for some reason does not work, here is the URL to copy and paste:  

http://youtu.be/6q5s2-0Zpf0

Along with the movie, I am creating a blog. It will start off as a place for me to write about the process of making the movie, post extras and allow people to comment and discuss. New content will be posted by next class and I will add a link to our Women and Media blog as soon as it's ready.


As Professor Cacoilo might put it, this is very much "Version #1". I will be revisiting the material and trying to find new and interesting ways to approach the idea.

I would also like the blog to be a place where women can anonymously talk about the stories that inform their day. I truly believe that sharing our experiences -- both men and women -- is the only way to start closing the divide.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy.

Tess Michelitch/ Gilly Tom

Final Project: "Past Patriarchy"

For my final project I wanted to further explore the teachings of Bell Hooks, specifically her theories on patriarchy. I was fascinated by her book The Will To Change and took inspiration from her writing to create a story weaving similar patriarchal encounters. 

This video project documents my life from early childhood to today as a young adult. It is meant to aid others in becoming aware on how patriarchy does indeed affect a number of male children and as a way to learn from the previous mistakes of many families. This story is through the eyes of a child who did not adopt patriarchal values successfully enough and as a result experienced many hardships in order to break free. 

Hope you enjoy.

Running time about 15 minutes. 

-Alex

LINK TO VIDEO:

https://vimeo.com/42038924

Past Patriarchy from Alex Greif on Vimeo.

Final Project

Day by day, mass media continues to shape the way people think, feel, and behave in society. With the right tools it can be viewed as a dangerous influential motivator to, dare I say it, criminal behavior? With widely popularized social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr increasing in the number of users how hard can it be for someone to log on and view a particularly disturbing image, hear a demeaning song, or watch a very visual gut wrenching video? The answer to that would be: it wouldn’t be very difficult at all. What we see on the World Wide Web or watch on our television screens makes no difference because they all seem to depict one thing; violence against women in advertisements is okay because it’s only there to sell a product. There are no evil hidden motives towards these ads and people shouldn’t take it personally or be so offended by them. While I don’t find these so called “hidden motives” in every ad I come across, there’s a vast majority out there that will have me turning my head away in disgust. The makers of those advertisements can “glamorize” it all they want to but I find looking at a woman’s black eye after her significant other used her as a human punching bag anything but glamorizing. Seeing an image of a woman almost half naked with a man on top of her while his male friends surround him is something that will be carved into my mind forever. Yes, gang rape is a great way to sell a product (hint: sarcasm).

I am someone who has been deeply and personally affected by domestic abuse because there are women in my life - I care for and admire – that are going through the hardships of being in an abusive relationship. I want advertisers and the media to know that this is not something that should be taken lightly for any reason. We as women need to stand up against this kind of misrepresentation and say NO.  Just say no to these men who think they have any control over us, no to these men who think it’s right to touch us when we don’t want to be touched, no to these advertisers who think we’re anything but human, and no to the mass media who continue to believe that we don’t have the courage to say no. Miss No Media is my outlet to say NO. I hope that what I post here can be beneficial and contribute, even slightly, to stopping violence against women, particularly in advertising.

My goal for this site is to not only reach out to advertisers but also give other women who have gone through the same experiences an outlet to stand up and say “NO. We are not inferior. We are not superior. We are equal.”

Miss No Media - my personal website in hopes that as I continue to share my own painful experiences about violence against women it will give others strength to do the same and take a stand against the advertising industry. 

finalPP

Final Project: The Call

The War on Women---is it real?

How many women watched that video and heard some variation of those sentences in the voice of a favored (or decidedly un-favored) pundit, politician, or reporter ? If you didn't, don't feel bad---you may just be better at filtering out things that can't serve you.  Now that I've turned your antenna a degree or two, however, it won't be long before the monotony of those statements register and (hopefully) make you mad. Women are everywhere in the news these days---if not as objects of a nefarious, faux-paternal legislative impulse, than as a prize to be won, token votes for a party ideology to disprove their antipathy. 2012 is supposed to be known as the “year of the woman”, 20 years after the last “year of the woman” yielded little to no results.

That is one cynical intro, isn't it? Sorry to sound smug. I wrote it just to name some of my frustration right off the bat, because I am too angry to ignore it and I unfortunately can't move on without it. And I---we---all need to move on, past the outrage and past the incredulity.  I've learned the hard way that snark is only going to get you so far. It’s pretty easy to shake your head at national politics when the legislative and executive branches abdicate their duties and relinquish their ideals in order to placate an increasingly demanding cacophony of well funded cooks in the kitchen, but we shouldn't make the mistake of sitting back and assuming that New York is somehow immune to regressive policy, or that The Crazy can't somehow germinate in our neck of the woods like...well, like an unwanted pregnancy.

The truth is that New York can be a very divided state, not just along party lines but on upstate/downstate ones, and no matter where your own ideologies lie, debates are shifting further away from policy as lawmakers are expected to serve their parties above their constituents, and that's never a good thing . New York City is seen as heavily subsidized by Wall Street, obviously, and the city has given birth to influential conservative donors like the Koch Brothers. Finally, a threat (or perceived threat) to women's access to health care is so palpably immediate on the National level that some groups in New York are working to further codify women's access to family planning services, simply as a preventative measure against larger ideological trends. About two weeks ago, Hunter sponsored a day of “basic training” for fighting the war against women. The idea was kitschy and I'm personally not at all happy to see a soundbite get traction, but there was some worthwhile information presented. Most alarming, of course, was the general call to action--- the idea that women in New York City are not surrounded by some sort of omnipotent liberal forcefield that will protect us from errant vaginal probes and allow us to get on the pill without assuring our bosses that we will still find time to show up for work in between all the wanton sex we'll be having (and apparently filming).

Liz Krueger at Hunter

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, a founding co-chair of the New York State Bipartisan Legislative Pro-Choice Caucus said the co-founders of the caucus "came together saying 'Oh my God, look what's going on in the rest of the country. The crazies are going to try to storm Albany.'"

According to Krueger, "when they get here, they're going to discover there is a very strong coalition of advocates and legislators saying 'no way, walk on by, you are not passing your god-awful, anti-reproductive health, anti-women legislation."1

I'm passing out a tear sheet with some cursory information about three bills in the NY State legislature that affect women and that could use your voice. I tried very hard to be respectful when I picked these, but the truth of the matter is that bills of consequence tend to be bills that can alienate. Please know that I am not advocating a position when I give you these, but instead asking you to join me in a spirit of political consciousness and collective support and bring your unique and precious voice to the table, no matter where your ideology comes from. If women are going to be courted and exploited and drawn and redrawn to fit party agendas this year, let us make sure we function as something more than a passive muse. For my part, after this class is over, I will be hosting a group of female activists to come together as a voting, mobilizing, editorializing force of nature, and I invite you all to particpate, check in, or just chuck virtual eggs at my blog, stygian pigeon.

I came up with the idea for this project while trying to reform New York City's draconian, demoralizing animal shelter, the Center for Animal Care and Control. Even though the cause is worthwhile and the abuses and deficiencies of the agency are well documented and even corroborated to some extent, there hasn't been much movement in response to activist action. In fact, there hasn't been a noticeable spurt of progressive policies in animal sheltering in New York City for over ten years. I started to wonder why, and I started to look critically at the way animal issues are marginalized in media as niche causes, to be championed sparingly in order to avoid being seen as sentimental, extreme to the point of instability, or---and this invocation never fails to make a vein appear on the side of my forehead---anti-human. The term “animal activist” has been successfully co-opted to conjure up a limited number of lamentable and reductive archetypes, and yet despite our continually negative characterization, I saw local politicians around me soliciting the endorsement of humane voting groups and publicizing animal friendly actions along a wide spectrum of consequence as if they had just demonstrated the most demanding moral courage. I felt as if one of the passions of my life was being used selectively to feed someone else’s feel good election narrative, and I didn’t like it. I set out to find ways I could participate in discussions I cared about, instead of falling back on the limits of self hatred, misplaced deference, laziness, or despair and leaving it to some mythic priestly caste to deliver the world of Doggie Domination (okay, cats too) I wanted.

The whole idea of a caste of insiders is a myth, anyway—at least it is a myth once you see the magician’s hands. The truth of the matter is that legislators are no more intelligent or morally committed than any one of us, and even if they were, there is no possible way they could read the thousands of bills that get introduced each session, so they are never working at full capacity:

Health Care Bill? We don't need to read no health care bill.

It is also a myth to believe that legislators are the only ones who create laws. In many cases, legislation is written by various aides in concert with lawyers . In some cases, legislation is drafted with the “help” of a group with a vested interest in its passage. These are people just like you, many who came to politics with just a Bachelors degree, a credit line at J Crew, and a whole lot of connections. They worklong and arduous hours, without a doubt, but many of them are sustained by the love of service. If you have an issue that resonates and keeps you awake at night, why can't you be replenished by that same well?

Our final project for this class was supposed to bring together what we learned after pausing to look critically at the pervasive onslaught of images and messages we accept and internalize each and every day. It is supposed to reflect a new consciousness that rejects the normativity of an orchestrated reality designed to promote predictable consumer habits. I wish I had the talent to write you all a song, make a film that would burrow in and come back to you in flashes, create a photo that would make your throat tighten up in exquisite understanding. But that's not in my bag of tricks right now, and frankly, I don't know that I'll ever have much to contribute in the way of original content. But I did want to do something that showed a stretch, to honor the fact that there is something worthwhile in examining all the twigs in the coffin, all the stabbing little indignities , all the blunted omissions and incorrect assumptions and liberties taken in the name of privilege. Emancipation does not automatically follow from consciousness, but it’s a lighthouse in the distance.

*In Case You Need Extra Inspiration!

“Many histories of our nation's founding focus on a small group, “a band of brothers” or “the founding fathers”---the handful of illustrious men whose names we all know. This tight focus tends to reinforce the idea that we are the lucky recipients of the American gift of liberty and of the republic, not ourselves its stewards, crafters, and defenders. It prepares us to think of ourselves as the led, not the leaders..The great Americans defined America as a chance for us not to flatter but rather to confront ourselves. They did not define patriotism as a smug legacy of entitlement, but as a universal challenge that always included the demand for self correction. (Naomi Wolf, Let Freedom Ring: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, 8-26)

SCRIBD link for the takeaway sheet that you should download NOW before the end of the legislative session makes it obsolete (though I have a feeling a lot of this will come back next year):
Get Active for NY Women!

Career and Self-Confidence

My final project is an interview based profile article in a feature format for magazines. The interview is with two talented and resourceful women working in the entertainment industry in New York City. I wanted the article to be approachable and accessible so I let the interviews carry me a bit to the story.

The article centers around New York City actress and plus size model Rachel McPhee and also incorporates her partner at On The Square Productions, Jackie LaVanway's experiences. I focused particularly on their experiences of being females in a tough industry and how they have maintained their strong personalities and self-image.

Rachel McPhee

Rachel McPhee in Over Here

Jackie LaVanway and Rachel McPhee

Rachel's work with Barely Political/The Key of Awesome/
Rachel's work with Barely Political/The Key of Awesome
On The Square Productions
Rachel McPhee Website
Article 

Finale

Found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/93337410/The-Patriarchal-Paradigm

Patriarchy! Most people hate it, some don't know what it is. I was inspired to write a paper for a number of reasons, and this class provided the appropriate venue to do so. When Transformers 2 came out in theaters, I was convinced to watch it with my friends. After it was over, I was perplexed at how sexist and racist it was, which went unnoticed by my peers. When I asked about what they thought about how women were portrayed, I was met with the response of "that's not what the movie was about though." And then I thought about the children that watched it, the women, and people who didn't pick up on any of the subtle and subliminal imagery shown on screen and my mind was blown wide open. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen currently sits at the #11 slot of the top grossing movies of all time. The connections should be apparent. This is just one event that caused me to keep an open eye.

Thus, my paper aims to be a mini guide to patriarchy; to show what it is, what it does, how it works, and why it is detrimental to society on a grand scale.

-Pablo Dominguez

webmail.hunter.cuny.edu

Media 384 Final Project

For my final project I compiled a variety of images, video and narration to show how women are portrayed in advertising. After recording a variety of videos around Manhattan I noticed that not only are women protrayed in a sexualized waythey are rarely, if at all, presented as having a career or any profession other than a bathing suit model, underwear model, or under dressed actress. After helping others with their project I learned that many women on a daily basis are cat called or spoken to by a variety of men that used profane or offensive language to comment on a woman's appearance. It's something I don't see or witness very often and it was hard for me to understand until I heard from these women what things are said to them and how they have to deal with these comments all the time.

Fruit Punch!

It's amazing that this is the last post already, but here goes...

I'm not...my body is not...PRODUCE, alright?

I've seen a lot of advice over the years (and it keeps getting re-hashed) about how to make your body look more like the "ideal" hourglass shape. The advice is all about hiding the shape of your body and "transforming" it. Abject bodies are often categorized like different fruits to represent weight distribution and proportions. 

Objectifying women and reinforcing their commodification is the most obvious problem here, but even if you do want to look your best and enjoy fashion, a message of conformity is being strongly pushed. This alienates and produces a lot of anxiety over body image, when really a definition of attractiveness could be broadened to allow room for "interesting" instead of just "perfect."


I began to wonder what it would be like to live in a world where the fashion industry encouraged us to “emphasize” our differences from one another, instead of trying to make us all look the same. If you were "pear-shaped", for example, the advice would be all about highlighting that awesome booty and tiny waist and shoulders. Work that pear-shape!

 So, for example, and I mention more/different points in the Fruit Punch zine:

• If you were broad-shouldered and thin-hipped, the advice could all be aimed at broadening your shoulders (shoulder pads and fancy necklines) and thinning your hips (dark colors and no pockets)! Work that triangle-shape!

• If you were apple-shaped, advice would be aimed at looking rounder with even skinner arms and legs. Work that apple-shape!

• If you were petite, advice could be aimed at looking smaller; if you were tall, advice could be aimed at looking larger.

• If you had short legs, advice would tell you how to elongate your torso; if you had long legs, advice would tell you how to shorten it.

I think this would be a super fun world to live in!

 Aimee Mullins has 12 pairs of legs, redefines "disabled", transcends normative conceptions of beauty. beauty

New Study Suggests Fashion Doesn't Need to Make Women Feel Bad About Themselves to Buy Shit

Final Project

Everywhere we go, everywhere we look, anywhere that our eyes can reach, we find more and more advertisements. Whether we know it or not but ads play a big part of our lives. They are not just selling products, they are selling values, sexuality, and normalcy. These ad not only affect the self- esteem of women and young girls, but also there are no real representation of "real" women in the society.

So for my final project, I decided to interview a few people and asked them to not only look at these different advertisements but to really critique them. I wanted to hear what their thoughts on how women are portrayed in these ads. Before taking this class, I loved looking at the beautiful ads in women’s magazines because the photos were flawless, almost too beautiful to be true; they were surreal. Consciously, we as the inspector, are well aware of the amount of work and money that goes toward creating the perfect ad, but at the same time we can’t help but to wish to reach that perfection. Media is a big part of my life and I have been exposed to the media for a little while now. However, I did not think that so many ads would have such negative impact on young children, especially girls, as well as women. I want to raise their awareness and actually critic these ads, to really look beyond what’s the obvious perfect image in these ads.

You Are Not Alone

In schools today, there really isn't a forum where young teenage girls can feel comfortable asking private questions they may have or thoughts they may think are weird in a non threatening environment. I decided to create a space online where girls can see that they are not alone.

I conducted a series of interviews regarding my potential idea. I would like to use the internet and create an online web series, where once a week a group of girls(of all ages) discuss topics that we all have questions about(regardless of our age). This is for everyone, especially the shy girls, who wouldn't attend a local after school space where these things are free to be discussed. This is a space where questions are not to be questioned. Even for the girls that do attend a comfortable place where they can discuss everything freely. Maybe they still have some questions that they think are too weird to even be discussed.    

By having it online, these girls can send emails and ask certain questions they would like to see discussed. Hopefully, they will understand that we all have questions, nothing is ever weird and that they are definitely NOT alone.

Something that I would want people to take away from this project proposal, would be more so that these private things that we keep silent, should be brought more into the conversations we have, especially with the people who we care about and who care for us.

This whole semester, I have been absorbing a lot of information about women and media. I think that because of the dialogue and class dissucssions, I felt that I could have more of these conversations outside of the classroom. Because that is the whole issue. Everyone keeps quiet. I know it may sound silly but, I would like to Create awareness that it is okay to speak up what you think, or are curious about and to feel that it is most certainly the opposite of strange, would be my ideal goal overall.

Below is the video feedback from people I interviewed about the project. 

Reality B*#tches

Women in reality television shows ,to me, are the worst representation of  women I have seen so far. Please do not get me wrong, there are shows that help women build of self-esteem, confidence, or whatever else positive. But there is only a few. In my final  presentation , I have focus on the most popular shows, such as the Housewives Series and The Bad Girls Club. These women have been portrayed as catty, stuck-up, selfish, and deviant individuals. I have created a video, somewhat like a mash up, using interviews, text, music, clips from shows to brig my point across. I believe that in order to get other with my message, a short video is the way to go. I want people to be left with a message of not only to change the media but the reality that these women shows that represent other women. Let's be individuals here!

Final Project

Illegal Buttock Augmentation 

It's no surprise that women are constantly being judged on there appearance, For my final presentation, I decided to research the topic of illegal butt injections that are being preformed on innocent women. It's quite fascinating that there is a black market for this type of procedure that is usually done in a hotel room under unsanitary conditions and being performed by an untrained and unlicensed individual.   

These guests went all the way to the black market, and are still paying the price. Meet a guest whose impatience for breast implants ended in dire results. Also, a woman who wanted to permanently change her eye color, and may now face vision problems for the rest of her life. Several other guests share their stories of pain, embarrassment, job loss and more, all in the name of beauty.

Butt Augmentation

It's Never Easy.

Everyone already has the idea that female reporters were hired because they are attractive and young. However, do they have the knowledge of the sports they are reporting or writing for? Some may think they do not know anything because they never felt the emotion of playing any sport for that matter. For those reporters, they want to prove those doubters wrong. Although we flip through the channels and see female sportscasters reporting on the "field" or "court", there is actually another opportunity for them to end the discussion of their lack of knowledge within sports. Furthermore, I would like to address what these female sportscasters have to go through in their careers and also another opening where they not only they can become good, but potentially very successful.

Final Presentation

Plastic Surgery is becoming a trend in our society. My final project is going to focus on the reason of why people have plastic surgery done and what kind of environmental issue encourage them to do plastic surgery. I did interview some of my friends and classmates in class about their opinions, I also combined them with the CNN plastic surgery news. This is an unfinished piece and please do excuse my editing skills. Hope you enjoy it. Please kindly advise after you watch it.

http://vimeo.com/42021992

New Generation New Hope

In the case of renewing the present fallacious situation of women’s status in society; by providing ourselves a better future, to ensure our children, we are able to pass on the knowledge, so our children can accommodate the new and refined awareness.  

Petition to the Board of Education of New York
to provide Gender and Women’s Studies in the Middle Schools of New York. 
_____________________________________

TO THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION:

The following petitioners ask the Commissioner to provide Gender and Women’s Studies in the Middle Schools of New York. A women's studies program encourages its students to creatively examine their surroundings and learn to identify both the empowering and disempowering properties of words and deeds. Gender and Women’s Studies considers the relationship of race, gender, class and ethnicity. It also addresses the manifestation and effects of gender bias in society. Gender and Women's Studies provides students with a critical and interdisciplinary perspective on the social construction of gender and will be an excellent complement to general education.

This image represents women in our present society, it displays a young black lady trying to converse with a bigger, and more solidified “Iron Man”, who happens to have an ascendency over rules and is an apparent symbol of power and domination. A fragile woman, trying to converse about her sensitive life with a hard, frigid metal piece in a man’s body; with the conversation preceding scant promise to spectacle any difference to accommodate the same repeated dialogue over centuries.

 

Housewife, Sex Object or In Between?

The fact that women have been portrayed as either a housewife or sex object is an uncomfortable topic.  There is more to a woman than this.  Here is a video where a young girl and a guy agree with an interview done by the Daily News to Hugh Hefner where he says that women are sex objects:

And here is the link from the Huffington Post where they speak about his interview Hugh Hefner: Women Are Sex Objects.

PowerPoint Presentation

Louis Crespo

....
REGGEATON, LA PERREA & THE CULT OF SILENCE 
Louis Crespo Ilarraza

The genre of Reggeaton, also known as Puerto Rican "Hip Hop," encompasses a variety of  Puerto Rican artistic signatures.  The most obvious is the depiction of male sexuality and macho-prowess.  It is a language that frames the sexes into rigid gender roles, with males depicted as dominant and the center of all "movement," while women are subjugated to this dominance and stationed on the fringes, where they move around and behind the "male movement."  

There are several Reggeaton female artists, particularly Ivy Queen, who have found a voice that arguably stands alone.  But, they too, replicate the male Boricua signature of machismo.  Are female artists in this genre simply repeating unconsciously or otherwise the lessons they've learned as children and, hence, frame how they see men, women, children and themselves?  How far afield are their visions from the visions of our mothers and sisters, fathers and brothers, who have gone through similar Boricua cultural "rearing"?


Ivy Queen

The video "Reggeaton, La Perrea and the Cult of Silence," seeks to explore in a narrative by way of first-person conversation with the viewer, who may be a mother,  father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle or friend,  what I call the "mirage" of romanticism in contemporary Boricua-machismo culture.  The dialogue encompasses visions of Puerto Rican culture both past and present, and the relevance of Boricua machismo in the present.  This theme is explored through the music media of Reggeaton.

The narrative also raises the issue of the Boricua male "cult of silence," where the male figure leaves rearing to the female and rarely, if ever, expresses or exhibits emotion because a "macho" sees that as a sign of weakness.  Is this "cult of silence" passed on to the younger generation?  The  video also amplifies the absence of the Boricua "caballero" in today's youth and its comparison to machismo.    

Finally, as the "denouement," the video presses the idea that parents can be the best teachers who influence the best students - their children - to embrace gender neutral ideals and values. 

Patricia Riggen

          Early in her essay, “Making Movie Magic,” Bell Hooks writes, “Most of us go to movies to enter a world that is different from the one we know and are comfortable with.” Though on the surface a simple, undisputable statement, I think that Hooks is giving the audience too much credit here. I believe that she is talking about the ideal audience, one that goes to the movies to learn something new, to have a fresh perspective and original experience. But a lot of the time, the movies are used in a much simpler form as simply a form of entertainment, and something to do on a Friday night. Yet, the importance in what Hooks is saying is not diminished, as once the audience enters the theatre and is presented with a movie, regardless of their reason for being there, they will be exposed to a new world for 120 minutes. The choice of what that world will present and how it will affect its audience lies in large part in the hand of the movie directors.

           Patricia Riggen, born and raised in Mexico, is one of these movie directors. She moved to New York City in her early twenties and received a masters degree in directing and screenwriting at Columbia University. When asked about her opportunities in Mexico, Patricia replied, ““When I was growing up in Mexico there weren't any women directors around for me to see that it was something I could do… There were four, [woman directors] and I interviewed them feeling like being a director was equivalent to being an astronaut -- the hardest most strange thing to be. Completely unaccessible, and it shouldn't be like that” (1).  The opportunities for women in the film industry in countries like Mexico are much more limited than they are here in the United States.

Patricia is known for the 2007 film La Misma Luna which tells the story of an immigrant woman working in the United States in hopes of a better life, having left her son back home in Mexico, and the struggle she faces because of that decision. I know many women who are in the same situation so the story is especially evocative for me. Bell Hooks writes, “Movies remain the perfect vehicle for… everyone who wants to take a look at difference and the different without having to experientially engage ‘the other’” This movie is a perfect example of how movies could potentially present to the viewer a way of life they are completely unfamiliar and would otherwise probably never experience. Patricia had to raise the money to produce the movie herself, as she saw that as the only way to truly create the kind of film she envisioned, without constant limitations set by a large studio. About her distributor, she says, “Fox Searchlight has been wonderful and I'll tell you why- they're all women. There's one guy at the top and then it's all women” (1). Nothing new there.

Patricia has a new film Girl in Progress starring Eva Mendez, coming out in theatres later this month about a single mom raising her teenage daughter.

1.http://womenandhollywood.blogspot.com/2008/03/interview-with-patricia-riggen-director.html

2. http://www.directorslive.com/acting/girl-progress-patricia-riggen-2012

Post #4 Mira Nair

"Gynocriticism is a way of assessing works of art specifically in relation to the interests and desires of women...it involves a separate female way of thinking and a recognition that women's experience has been effectively silenced by a masculine culture." (Author/Auteur)

Accomplished writer, director and produced Mira Nair is Indian born, Delhi University and Harvard educated. Unlike the film maker Marleen Gorris and many of the female directors examined in class material, Nair claims that she "fell into" directing. Having studied acting, she realized that she wanted autonomy and creative control in her artistic process. Throughout her career working on films such as Vanity Fair, The Namesake and the Amelia Earhart biopic, Amelia, Nair has always insisted on putting women at the centre of her films - despite working with big Hollywood studios.(Kahleeli) She is most notable for her award-winnning films Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Monsoon Wedding (2001, for which she was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Lion at the Venice Film Festival). With the exception of the Amelia (critical failure) her films have been well received.

"But if I have an obsession at all, it is with hands. I love hands and I love lips. I never cast lipless actors. So Kenneth Branagh, no thank you. It's a weird thing but I do have these two obsessions."

"I like to be unabashed, which is an Indian trait, both emotionally and visually. It's important to have a circus to play with." (from her IMDB page)

In reading some of her personal quotes about her work and filmmaking process, I was  struck by how closely they parallel the consolidations of authorship chosen by feminist literary/film critics, as described in Author/Auteur: a double voice, marked intensity of camera identification, a lending of herself, the 'anxiety of authorship', and of recurring signatures/repetitive use of particular elements.
Nair said in an interview with the Guardian, that "Cinema, something I am afflicted by, is something that lends its beautiful voice to this phenomenon of being in many places at once. I have chosen a form, or a form has chosen me, that can represent that. It's something I understand very well. I always try to make films about things that get under my skin. "

As an auteur, Nair films from the perspective of the "other", often using the supporting characters in her films to manifest cultural and social traditions. As discussed in Movie Magic, "Movies remain the perfect vehicle for the introduction of certain rites of passage that come to stand for the quintessential experience of border crossing for everyone who wants to take a look at difference and the different without having to experientially engage with the 'other.'"She has said she is drawn to marginalized characters, "I want to question what the outside is and who defines it. I often find those that are considered to be on the outside extremely inspiring. They are the people who see through the double standards, like the kid in Salaam Bombay and the courtesan in Kama Sutra." (Guardian interview)The "other" she explores has taken the form of women, exiled or displaced people, and racially tender and nuanced subjects.


From her early documentary work about Indian cabaret workers, her re-imagining and re-framing of female sexuality in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, to the complex family and identity explored in Monsoon Wedding, Nair has traced and affirmed the more extensive features of female authorship: the vivification of anxieties of authorship in characters writers detest, an 'oddity' and 'eccentricity' of style, a revision of genres as well as linking aspects of female sexuality with textuality. (Author/Auteur) Exile, loss and longing are themes she explores, "I feel very much that cinema is born as a medium to capture exile. The idea of going out of your hotel in Mississippi and looking out of your window and seeing your garden in Kampala. This something that cinema lends itself to brilliantly, almost as much as literature." (Guardian interview)


 Nair has said that Monsoon Wedding was her love letter to India, her version of a Bollywood film. In this age of mixing and hybridity, popular culture, particularly in the world of movies, constitutes a new frontier providing a sense of movement away from the familiar and journeying into and beyond the world of the other. (Movie Magic) It is a comedy-drama about a huge, over-the-top, traditional arranged marriage in contemporary, middle class India. In the film, there are layers of relationships between the central family members, and servant characters. Incest and abuse, infidelity and adultery, and ultimately love are explored. Monsoon Wedding staggeringly includes five plots lines, sixty-eight actors, three languages, cartloads of marigolds (inflection?), love, laughter, incest, sorrow, potentially gay sons and constantly ringing cell phones into one lush, mirthful and questioning film.

Mira Nair is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Her production company is Mirabai Films.




Citations:

Author/Auteur:Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film

Introduction: Making Movie Magic

Kahleeli, Homa. "Top 100 Women: Art, Film, Music and Fashion." Guardian. 7 March 2011: n. page. Web. 2 May. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/mar/08/mira-nair-100-women>.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2002/jun/12/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank1

Her IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0619762/bio

Post 5- Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola is probably a name that sticks out for most people. Her father Francis Ford Coppola is a famous director and screenwriter that is most known for directing "The GodFather," Sofia Coppola is no small name in Hollywood but is often critiqued for her directing style and general approach to filmmaking. Her most notable work would be "Lost in Translation," and "Marie-Antoinette." Coppola's film "Lost in Translation," is a film that most notably, pushed her into the mainstream of Hollywood. The movie explores the accidental relationship between a middle aged actor (Bill Murray) and a young 20 something college graduate (Scarlett Johansen). The movie is just beautifully written and directed. Despite from directing the film, Sofia Coppola also wrote the actual movie. People often question, wether the actual movie was written by Coppola because of the complexity of the relationship between both of the protagonists. 

Her approach to film making is somewhat complex. Her approach is somewhat avant-garde, she doesn't stick to the norm of hollywood.  Her films in my opinion have complex Aesthetics. Her has a strong attention to detail in terms of the design and color put a surprising flare onto her films. Especially a movie like Marie-Antoninette, which drove away from the typical historical film. The film broke away from the norm and creates it's a powerful message in regards to women. According to Roger Ebert "This is Sofia Coppola's third film centering on the loneliness of being female and surrounded by a world that knows how to use you but not how to value and understand you." Auteur Theory does play into the work of Coppola, most notably because she is creating her own content. She is both the screenwriter and director. I would say that the author theory is plausible because she was able to capture the emotion of her own work to she show her capable to triumph all the aspects of film. 

The movie is shown through Marie Antonitte's perspective and sort of humanizes this women. Bell hooks states that "Changing how we see images is clearly one way to change the world." Even though most people would critic her work, its seems that people are themselves, lost in translation. Debra Zimmerman states "Many experimental and cutting edge filmmakers are dismissed by the film critics, who don't seem to understand what the filmmakers are trying to do." It's often dismissed because of the notion that female directors can't be as creative as men, which is ridiculous. 

Work Cited 

"Sofia Coppola." Senses of Cinema. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://sensesofcinema.com/2007/great-directors/sofia-coppola/>.

"In Defense of €˜Marie Antoinette: Sofia Coppola Re-Imagining Surprisingly Feminist." The Opinioness of the World. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://opinionessoftheworld.com/2012/03/27/marie-antoinette-film/>.

Zimmerman, Debra. "Women Make Movies." 261-65. Print.

 Hooks, Bell. Making Movie Magic. Print.