Miss March misses the mark (heh)

If you haven’t actually seen the trailer for the new movie Miss March, then do yourself a favor and don’t actually seek it out. Or at least don’t seek it out if you don’t think women falling out of vans and getting run over or killed and lesbians making out all for the pleasure of straight guys watching (because isn’t that what all lesbians enjoy doing? Making straight guys horny?) is funny. If you DO think all these things are funny, well, then this blog post is hopefully for you.

The basic premise of the film involves a young man who falls into a coma (head trauma is hilarious) and awakens 4 years later to find out that his high school girlfriend, a chaste woman when they were dating, has become a Playboy bunny. Also of interest is the fact that the night the man fell into a coma, he was planning on losing his virginity with said chaste girlfriend. Naturally, this means only one thing: Road trip to Playboy manor to lose some virginity and to visit Hugh Heffman! (At this point your blogmistress is spinning around a spitting on the ground to rid herself of the bad spirits associated with that man) Because, in case you were unaware, all women who are featured in Playboy must spend some time in Heffner’s modern-day harem. Therefore, our majestic young hero and his smirking friend must venture to Southern California to finally receive his very deserving gift of being deflowered by a beautiful, if sullied, woman. Along the way, they’ll run across a vertiable circus of minstrel shows and lesbians and crazy ex-girlfriends.

So, that’s the basic premise. If you don’t mind having the plot of this deep, intricate exploration of the human soul spoiled, please read the review by MaryAnn Johanson. She is far more articulate than I could ever be, but she also references feminist theory that might not be perfectly understood by all readers, and I think it’s vitally important that exactly why movies like this are problematic is understood.

In this movie, when a woman does something that might act against the intensions of the main characters she will be ridiculed or even thrown out of a moving bus (!). When the main character discovers that his previous paramour has moved on with her life and probably had sex with people other than him, he goes out of his way, his recently recovered from a COMA way, to make sure he gets what he deserves from her. When we run into the ex-girlfriend of one of the main characters, naturally she’s portrayed as crazy and evil, and ultimately gets seriously injured in persuit of her own goals. When the main dynamic duo run into a pair of lesbian lovers, the women become either titilation or the butt of a joke because they exercise a sexuality that is outside of the normal range of the other women in this world, and especially because they exercise a sexuality that doesn’t include men by definition. Again and again, when the actions of the women in this movie move against the intentions or actions of the main character, they are hurt, attacked, humiliated or even possibly killed.

So, in other words, the humor of this movie hinges upon the idea that women deserve to be hurt or killed or humiliated if they do something that doesn’t explicitly benefit men. And this is supposed to be funny, and this is supposed to be something many people will spend their money on. Needless to say, I won’t be paying money any time soon for this film.

No, rape really is the right word to use

via Shakesville

This story about a man convicted sexual assault of a 2-year-old and 6-year-old is obviously sickening enough, even without mentioning that he filmed the assault on the two-year-old. Horrible all around.

However, compounding the gross for me was to see the fact that the headline called the whole thing a “toddler sex case.” Sex is absolutely not the right word. Never. A two-year-old or six-year-old cannot have sex. They cannot consent. The very least of it was sexual assault, but really the most accurate word to use is rape. In this case, using that word sheds MORE light on the situation, not less. After all, isn’t that the journalist’s job? To shed light?

I understand that editors want to be clever and make good use of space, but the word rape has only one extra character. They aren’t saving themselves a huge amount of space. Instead, all they’re doing is muddying the waters of understanding for their reader. I can’t even think of a good reason why, other than perhaps carelessness. But this is a dangerous sort of carelessness. After all, if assaulting a child isn’t even enough to warrant the description “rape” or “sexual assualt” what the hell is?

Target: Women sums things up nicely

That’s right, the world stopped…STOPPED. Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston are rivals the likes of which this world has never seen, and the Oscars was their battleground, and of course, the rest of the world gives a shit.

Clearly, there’s a story here, and as always, Sarah Haskins is on the case.

Arizona Women’s Expo: FABULOUS

Did you know that women love to clean? They also absolutely adore beauty and healthy eating and fabulousness. Why, they love it all so much there’s an entire expo in Arizona dedicated to it! The Arizona Women’s Expo, according to this fantastic press release, the Expo includes just about everything women in Arizonan apparently care about.

A quick investigation of the event’s website makes it clear that there actually is a wide variety of different interesting being focused on at the expo. Naturally its main focus is as a hub for PR tabling and give-aways in order to generate new customers or what have you, and there are clearly a wide variety of areas that Arizona women are interested in. This should not be shocking, since Arizona women are human beings.

So my question is this…why is this the angle the press release is choosing to follow through on? Why is the default assumption always that women are a monolithic group of single minded individuals who all worship at the feet of make-up idols and weight loss gurus? Why not take advantage of the fact that there are as many viewpoints held by women as their are women in this world and use that as an excuse to wildly diversify the expo’s coverage? Well, other than the excuse laziness and sexism, obviously.

This is not all to say language like “Men all grunt and eat meat hur hur” doesn’t exist, because it does, but men also don’t get their own expos dedicated to their supposed “interests.” They aren’t marketed to on the same level as one monolithic group. And either way, the last thing we need more of in the media is to perpetuate gendered assumptions.

Prostitution in the News and some Kudos

At Shakesville, another entry in their long list of “I Write Letters” posts focused on a recent news feature published on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website.  The letter is a lengthy and impressive take down of all that is wrong with listing and posting pictures and names of women arrested on charges of prostitution. The letter is worth reading in its entirety, but one of the highlights are as follows…

Publishing a lavish photo spread featuring “Las Vegas’ most prolific prostitutes”–under the 64-point headline, “WORKING GIRLS”–isn’t edgy, interesting, or funny. It doesn’t do your readers a service. 

Now, this should go without saying, but obviously the Review-Journal disagrees. As the story’s lead explains, they have found a way to justify their grossness…

Call it a unique kind of most wanted list or simply an attempt to clamp down on the area’s worst-kept secret.

As the letter states very eloquently, this isn’t news. This isn’t serving your readers. All it’s doing is humiliating these women and exploiting them to get attention. It’s gross, and sensationalist. And really, the lead makes it clear the Review-Journal lead is aware that it’s not newsworthy (“worst-kept secret”) and if the police already know who these women are, why would the public need to know? (“simply an attempt to clamp down”) 

Despite all of that grimness above, my post is actually mostly positive. In contrast to the deeply unethical decision made by the Review-Journal, check out the East Valley Tribune’s article on a similar topic. 

This article is newsworthy, and errs on the side of being as respectful as possible. There are two pictures posted, both of ringleaders of these operations. I would argue that the scope of what they’re accused of makes them a far more newsworthy addition to any news article than the “grunts” which are what the women in the Review-Journal article are. Basically, congratulations EV Trib. You could have gone the gross, exploitive route, and decided that wouldn’t benefit your readers. Well done!

See-thru panties are newsworthy?

It’s by the grace of God alone (or perhaps photoshop) that we aren’t being treated to an up close and personal view of this young woman’s ass crack. (Take a look at the photo, not that you’ll be able to look away…)

Now, I could go on for years and years about all the problems I have with Valentine’s Day. It’s a corporate conspiracy, it’s a partner to the diamond companies who for years have been telling people that true love equals the ability to purchase useless hunks of solidified carbon, it’s a holiday that is horrifically heterosexist. So on and so forth..

HOWEVER

That is not what this post is about. This post is focusing on the even more insidious practice of almost soft-core porn imagery becoming acceptable in mainstream media publications. The age-old sexist trope of “sex sells” really means “sexy female bodies sell.” For a crash course in what this means and how this is becoming more and more prevalent in advertising, please take some time out to learn more about, or even watch “Killing Us Softly 3,” the amazing film by Jean Kilbourne. There is no doubt that sexualized images of female bodies are becoming more and more prevalent. Even more disturbingly, they are becoming used more and more to sell things.

The female body is being commodified, and it’s truly horrifying to see this practice continue in this most mainstream of media organizations. The article is little more than an ad, and there is absolutely no criteria of newsworthiness that is served by a woman in sexy clothing. Ridiculous.

Not a “Girl,” not yet a “Woman”

This is something I see time and again in news and headlines. The constant referal to even grown women as “girls.” This recent example at AZcentral is a good example of something that can not only muddy the meaning of the story, but can infantalize the woman involved.

The story tells us how the woman in question waited until she was 18 (in other words, until she was an adult) to alert authorities about her father’s alleged molestation and rape of his daughter, her sister. The headline as follows: “Girl: I was fed up with father’s abuse of sister” is confusing and just plain inaccurate. The person who was fed up with the abuse is now 18, and calling her a girl is wrong. While the actions of the father toward the woman-in-question’s sister took place when the woman was younger, the woman is currently a legal adult and this whole story deals with quotations taken from her as an adult.

It seems like splitting hairs to complain about semantics like this, but consider the alternative. Would an 18 year old in the same position ever be refered to as a boy? I highly doubt it. (In fact, I will keep my eyes peeled, and post it immediately if I find an example of the reverse. )

The reason an 18-year-old man would never be in the same position is because in our culture, there is a clear dilineation between adulthood and childhood for men, and this is reflected in how society treats men. That is much fuzzier when one starts to talk about women. Instead, even legal adults are sometimes refered to in childish ways because of cultural narratives about the fraility and innate immaturity of women. Even without any specific, malicious intent, this article treats the woman in question as legally and socially less, and feeds the unfortunate narrative. And even if the use of the word “girl” was  just to save characters, as I imagine was the case in this headline, the result is still both disrespectful and innacurate.

Description of Blogroll

My blogroll includes general sites about feminism, general sites about the media, and other sites that include important information for media practitioners.

Blogs

Feministing – A feminist blog with multiple authors that often posts about the media and its depiction of women. Lots of good information, even if I find the commenting community problematic at best.

Media Matters – comprehensive blog detailing the state of the media, and many of its problems and pitfalls.

Photoshop Disasters – Hilarious site, detailing the ridiculous use of photoshop in the media the world over. Often fascinating in the way it highlights the way women’s images are treated in even the most mundane of places. Photoshop is used in more than just high-fashion photo spreads, and often it’s used poorly. 

Shakesville – A blog I check multiple times daily, contains numerous lists and posts detailing just how badly the media fails women. 

The Curvature –  focusing on feminism, reproductive health and the author’s personal experiences. It’s an interesting of the public and political, with the private and personal. Very good blog.