Gender and identity. Week 4

Gender and identity.

Aims: This week will chart how media and cultural studies in the 1970s moved away from grand narratives and all-conquering theories, to consider new social movements such as feminism, gay rights, and minority empowerment.

Objectives:  This week you will gain a greater understanding of how traditional roles have been constructed through the media, and understand how identifying these forms of representation can be the first step inchallenging them.

Readings:

bell hooks, 2015/2000 'Introduction: Come Closer To Feminism', in Feminism Is For Everybody: Passionate Politics, Routledge, New York, pp. xi-xiv

Gauntlett, D. (2007). Introduction. In Media, gender and identity: An introduction (pp. 1-21). London: Routledge.

Mulvey, L. (2004). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In L. Braudy & M. Cohen (Eds.), Film theory and criticism: Introductory readings (pp. 837-849). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1975).

Through this collection of readings a number of claims can be made about gender and performativity within media studies. Surprisingly though many of these readings were published in the last 20 years, as such can the claims of these authors be seen within media nowadays? Are media sources still concerned with grand narratives, or with setting up the hegemonic (and patriarchal view)? Or are media sources much more open? 

Use the exercise below to interrogate your text to see if changing media texts to incorporate more minority groups changes the content of these shows for better or for worse.

Exercise goals

1. Choose a visual media text of your choice to relate to gender, race and identity.
2. Choose a character that either epitomises or faces these issues.
3. Swap this character for a character that epitomises the hegemony, see if this changes the storyline/implications of the media text. Use Photoshop or GIMP to alter the image of the text to illustrate this change – alternatively make use of pre-existing fan content to make these points.
4. Swap this character for another that is within a minority group, see if this changes the storyline/implications of the media text. Use Photoshop or GIMP to alter the image of the text to illustrate this change – alternatively make use of pre-existing fan content to make these points.
5. Discuss whether these changes rely on an understanding of the social context of these characters, or are inconsequential to the storyline.

Link to photo editing software: https://www.gimp.org/