hegemony
the willing agreement of people to comply with government rules because they are told it's in their best interest when it's really not
how is hegemony maintained? is ir stable?
it's always threatened so it's always changing, it can only be maintained with consent of the subordinate classes, society is always competing in ideologies for hegemony
who was the first theorist to study pop culture in 1981?
Fiske
What 2 things did Fiske study?
1. constructions of masculinity
2. Ways of reading a text
According to Fiske, what are the three ways of reading a text?
Dominant-situated to agree w/ dominant ideology, "hail"
Negotiated-most people, needs to inflect it but generally dominant, little resistance, based on readers personal experience
Oppositional-reading produced by someone's social situation puts them into
Why is impossible masculinity a thing according to Fiske?
the constant need to re-achieve masculinity is one of the underlying reasons for the popularity of the frequent televisual display of male performance
"both exerting and submitting to authority
Maleness is a fact of nature but masculinity is a cultural constraint that gives meaning to maleness by opposing itself to femininity
quote: Fiske
The social forces of masculinity under threat
1. women with power
2. capitalism-"the organization of work denies many men the independence their masculinity requires
3. utter impossibility of ideal masculinity-cope in any situation
How does a muscle drama fulfill ideal masc?
any inadequacies of one team member are compensated for by the strengths of another
Flitterman-Lewis
castration anxiety, Oedipus complex, id, ego, superego
Who focuses on the cinema?
Flitterman-Lewis
according to Flit-Lewis, how does the cinema replicate unconscious desires?
1.like youre in the movie-dark,immobile,surrounded by other bodies
2.hiding of cinematic apparatus and spectator's "illusory ability to be everywhere at once"
3.primary cinematic identification through pov shots and editing, seeing everything through thei
id
uncoordinated instinctual trends of psyche
ego
unorganized, realistic part of psyche
superego
plays the critical and moralizing role of psyche, Flit says we need repression for people to act normal
voyeurism
peeping-tom, we do it in cinema so its not creepy
Who? intro to film theory
Mulvey
Who? the gender of the "gaze
Mulvey
Mulvey
fetishization, spectator identification among genders, pov shots and male identification
according to Mulvey, what are the roles of men and women in film?
male: narrative, to carry plot
female: "to-be-looked-at-ness", action stopped in moments of erotic contemplation
Mulvey films
Vertigo, Top Gun, Open Your Heart
Vertigo
detective follows around blonde girl and falls in love with her, zooms in on her in ways he cant really see
Top Gun
Tom Cruise is military guy and intelligent woman is insulted but still falls for him
Open Your Heart
Madonna music video in peep show
This writer criticizes Mulvey
Bell Hooks
Mulvey says there are 2 options as a woman watching film
1. masochist-pleasure in pain (identifying with female objectification
2. transvestism-pleasure in being a man
What is Bell Hooks response to Mulvey?
says black women have been keeping a critical distance for years bc they arent represented at all in film, says Mulvey is only thinking of white priveliged women
Oppositional gaze
Bell Hooks, defiance, stares in the face of domination
Who studied the black male gaze and the politics of looking
Bell Hooks
According to Hooks, what pleasure do black men get in watching film?
they don't have the same power as the white man but can get pleasure in looking at white woman
What options does a black female spectator have?
1. shut out image entirely
2. ignore racism and sexism and watch anyway
3.pleasure in critique
4.keep a critical distance
Black characters ther to maintain white womanhood as the object of the phallocentric gaze
quote: Bell Hooks
Who? Narrative
Neale
Addition to Mulvey's analysis of film
Neale
Neale
Narrative compensation for the erotic display of male bodies, masculine pleasure-see main male character as perfect version of himself, narcicism and ego in function of male movie star for the male spectator, wanting to be, not to have
According to Neale, how do films with gay aspects keep from being gay?
violence, dance, sports, war, etc.
Neale films (homosocial)
Vision Quest, Top Gun, Fight Club, Magnolia, Saturday Night Fever
Vision Quest
wrestlers naked in locker room weighing themselves, anorexic, physical contact while naked
Magnolia
guy dances on stage very sexually and straight men cheer him on bc he's supposed to be having sex with a woman
saturday night fever
disco dance, guy has all men watching him dance in tight shiny clothes
Who? male body cannot be marked EXPLICITLY as an erotic object
Neale
Dyer
why male pin-ups don't work for women-bc it disrupts gender roles, to look is masculine and active, to be looked at it passive and feminine
male gazing up or off into distance to keep masculinity-ignoring female looking at him, keeps power
face off mascul
Who? esquire
Brezeale
Who? magazines
Brezeale
Who? creation of male consumer
Brezeale
Why did a male consumer need to be created in the first place?
Post great depression, no one was buying anything they didn't need
How did Esquire invent the male consumer?
visual imagery and editorials (Petty Girls)
women don't understand- saying they would buy all the wrong stuff-alcohol, food, furniture, decor
Tie between Breazeale and Mad Men
Men drink a lot and eat steak while wife eats salad, she is supposed to be pretty and submissive so they can be masculine, guy buys gun after being made fun of for dish
Who? Playboy
Ehrenreich
What did Playboy say?
women just want to steal your money so don't get married, avoiding marriage now wasn't gay, but rather very heterosexual, you can keep your job tho, rebellion
Why did Playboy do this?
to sell furniture and stuff that's more expensive for bachelor pads
Who was Playboy's audience?
upper middle class men
What was Ehrenreich's criticism?
Women were blamed for being gold diggers, she doesn't support playboy or the life for women before it in the home
Susan Bordo
Changing styles of masculinity in ads
Rock vs Leaner
Calvin Klein
Historical Background-didn't used to dress based on gender, but more based on class
African American Masculinity
Rock
Dyer's version in pin ups, hard, phallic, active
Leaner
s curve, looks down, more feminine pose, not as threatening, more for women's pleasure, there to be looked at, soft facial expression
Hagar/Docker's man
revolt against women,queers,blacks,anyone who decided they werent important
wearing knackis, dad pants, real men dont care abt fashion
African American Masc
bad mothaf*cka" black men could dress very feminine and still be so masculine
Bigorexia
men anxious about their bodies, not big enough
Spigel
tv in the home and cultural anxiety: laboring woman
how ads for tv assuaged this anxiety
types of shows marketed to daytime and the homemaker
Work/Leisure split
for men: work-work, leisure-home
for women: not clear line,work inside home is coterminous with work time
Daytime tv
aimed at housewife bc
1. primetime spots taken
2. advertising on daytime was cheaper
Types of daytime tv
soap opera-no action or visual interest like a radio, allowed housewives to "listen to dialogue while working in another room"
variety show-fashion, cooking in discrete segments
How ads for tv assuaged anxiety?
women felt it was part of their job to watch tv bc they did work during commercials and learned about how to be a better wife
femcee
provide narrative flow through a variety of segments, appeal=averageness
televisual anxiety
that watching tv would make them not productive in the home->put tv in kitchen, furniture on wheels
isolation, bc wife will cook and do dishes while family watches tv->open floor plan, dishwashers
Modleski's purpose/approach
to show how they prodive a unique narrative pleasure . . . thoroughly adapted to the rhythms of women's lives in the home
Who? Soap Operas
Modleski
Modleski on viewer as ideal mother
want everyone's problems to be solved but then you wouldn't be needed
"thusc soap operas convince women that their highest goal is to see their families united and happy, while consoling them for their inability to realize this ideal and bring about famil
The role of the villainess
the negative image of the spectator's ideal self", "an outlet for feminine anger"-housework gets frustrating, gets pleasure from seeing woman say f you to the system
she kinives, gossips, uses femininity to get what she wants, reverses gender roles, will
soap opera's appeals
narrative: housewife's dispersed energy-necessary distraction=interuption and waiting, commercials
close ups: reading men or people is feminine, emotions
Williams
Bodily Genres: low culture
melodramas-you cry when they cry
horror-you jump when they jump, female bodies tortured and killed
porn-you get aroused, female bodies at angles to see more
Williams: Why study the gross and excessive?
Female victimization onscreen and the pleasure of the female spectator- idea that you can still be a good girl while orgasming
McClintock
history of porn, Inside Deep Throat, women are barred from porn bc of male insecurity, female gaze as judge of male->moneyshot, anti censorship argument against WAP
Snitow quote
to analyze Harley Quin romances is not to make any literary claims for them. Nevertheless it would be at best grossly incurious and at worst sadly limited for literary critics to ignore a genre that millions and millions of women read voraciously.
Snitow's purpose
the books reflect how females feel about life
romance novels strengths
they insist that good sex for women requires an emotional and social context that frees them from constraint (good girl/bad girl) when women want sex and companionship, society offers them marriage but it's not that great so they read these books bc assym
Key tropes of good romance novel
diff men and women, woman as subject and man as object, heroine not involved in anything else, heroine overrun with sexual desire out of control" impediment is integral
radway
romance reader
smithton women
women who read romances
Deshane
Saints Signs and Symbols, trans people, child makes you feel bad for them so straight people feel good about themselves
Benshoff
Brokering Brokeback Mountain, queer text, audience studies, challenge to masculinity
Clover
slasher films, cross gender identification of male spectator, final girl and masc, tie to mulvey, Halloween and Cabin in the Woods
Tosenburger
Harry Potter, fanfiction
Slash
gay fanfiction
benefits of slash for adolescence:
literacy
access to an equal space
allow young people to see each other as cultural producers/writers
actively engage in supportive artistic comm
"queer space" to do "strange and unusual things