MIGRAIN: Feminist and gender theory

 Media Magazine reading - two articles on feminism and theory

1.) The two examples provided of "male gaze" are Pan Am and Beyonce's song "why don't you love me?"

2.) The argument the article suggests that feminism is not needed in a contemporary audiences itself could be seem as sexist since they will always and have always been discrimination against people for things such as race, gender, sexuality, etc. 

3.) Male Gaze – referring to Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ which argues that main stream Hollywood films subject female characters to the ‘male gaze’ of the camera, fragmenting and objectifying their bodies.

Post-feminism – An ideology in culture and society that society is somehow past needing feminism and that the attitudes and arguments of feminism are no longer needed.

Patriarchy – An ideology that places men in a dominant position over women.

1.) The article states that children are taught to perform gender so that they are not socially othered and alienated from their peers and society. 

2.) The phrase "non-binary" refers to an individual who does not align with the traditional sexes of female or male (or intersex). The article suggests that its becoming more common and the youth are becoming more comfortable with non gender conforming pronouns. 

3.) The article suggests that the media also reinforces gender stereotypes for consumers mostly through narrative meanings. 

Music video analysis - Beyonce music video

1.) The video itself serves as a performance portraying the stereotypical view of women through the character that Beyonce is displaying, her performance of the female sex here is purely for decoration and performance. 

2.) van Zoonen would perhaps suggest that this music video belittles and diminishes women through its stereotypical display of women. 

3.) In my opinion I do not think that Beyonce herself intended to portray the video to be a caricature of femininity and female values through stereotypes due to other external sources but I do believe that this music video did definitely came off as sexist and anti-feminist. 

Music video analysis - Will Jay "Gangsta"

1.) The video itself tells the story of how masculinity has changed over the years from a more stereotypical and traditional sense of masculine to a more free and subjective and personal meaning, subjective to each individual who associates themselves to being masculine.  

2.) David Gauntlett suggests that over the past 20 (ish) years masculinity has become less traditional and more objective during more modern times throughout a more contemporary audience. 

3.) I do think that younger audiences of males are still under the stereotypical influence of toxic masculinity since other opinion leaders lead portrayals of media which is usually targeted towards a younger of generation of males, meaning they are influenced in the same toxic way about masculinity.