Justin Timberlake, your new video for “Tunnel Vision” isn’t cool or original. It’s tired and cliche. Can’t you think up anything else besides the clothed man/ naked woman trope? Been there, done that.
Are you copying Nick Cave?
GQ?
Perhaps Vanity Fair?
Edouard Manet?
This is, of course, just a tiny collection of images. Thousands more of the dressed man/ naked woman trope can be found in museums.
As Miss Representation posted about GQ:
The implication is that the men here are valuable for something beyond what they look like… but that the woman is valuable only for what she looks like.
The clothed man/ naked woman trope isn’t about “beauty” but about power.
What would art look like and music sound like if women were the ones who’d been celebrated for making it for thousands of years? These images are a history lesson of what the world looks like when men are in power. “Tunnel Vision” is the latest incarnation of the classic male gaze. Aren’t we ready for something different in 2013?
I really wanted to say great things about “Despicable Me 2,” so I’ll start with the positive. This movie made me laugh a lot. As far as personal enjoyment, I had a lot more fun watching “Despicable Me 2” than I did watching “Monster University.”
It was great to see a movie with my three girls about three girls. Except “Despicable Me” isn’t really about three girls. It’s all about Despicable Me AKA Gru, the star of the movie, played beautifully by Steve Carell. Before you protest as I go on to call “Despicable Me” sexist, please read this next sentence carefully: If the male protagonist with females limited to supporting roles was featured in just a few children’s movies, or even half of them, I would have no problem with the gender roles. The problem is that kids hardly ever get to see a female protagonist in movies made for children. The fantasy world, where anything should be possible, is sexist and unfortunately, “Despicable Me 2” is no exception to this rule.
The villain in “Despicable Me,” is also, surprise, surprise, male. I admit, this guy totally cracked me up. First of all, his name is El Macho. When Gru describes him, he says, “El Macho died in the most macho way possible, strapped to a shark, flying into a volcano.” Hilarious and only when I write this, do I remember sharks don’t fly.
Though I was kind of uncomfortable with the Latin lover stereotype– Macho’s open necked shirt reveals a hairy chest and he wears a huge gold chain– I delighted in the gender play.
There is more gender play in “Despicable Me 2” that could’ve been great– and that’s why I wanted to say good things about this movie– but again and again, instead misses the mark. Gru is a single dad of three girls, so there’s a lot to work with there. But just like “Monster University” had sororities with cool characters, but then gives them minimal lines and screen time, “Despicable Me” doesn’t pull off gender equality. It doesn’t try to.
The movie opens with a princess party (ugh) for Agnes, the youngest daughter, and Gru is dressed as a fairy princess. Again, I laughed when I saw him, but frankly, seeing a female dress up in pink frills ought to be be just as ridiculous. But it’s not, of course. A female looking like this is normal and expected in kidworld.
The minions also dress up as females to comic effect, as a maid and also in a grass skirt topped with a pair of coconut shells, to give just two examples.
I laughed during these scenes too, but the whole “boys dressed up as girls, how hilarious” joke solidifies all kinds of gender stereotypes. I wish we could leave it out of kids’ movies. There are so many ways to get kids to laugh without teaching them this one.
Gru’s spy partner, Lucy, is a pretty good Minority Feisty. She’s smart, brave, and enjoys adventure. But Lucy is clearly Gru’s sidekick. After the initial capture, she follows his lead and becomes his love interest.
There is a truly awful scene where Gru goes on a date with the superficial Shanon, and Lucy shoots a dart in Shanon’s ass. All kinds of unfortunate things happen to Shanon after that, and this part of the movie I didn’t find funny at all.
As far as Lucy’s lipstick taser which you’ve seen if you seen a preview, I for one, am sick of lipstick as a symbol of female empowerment. When Pat Benatar sang about a notch in her lipstick case 25 years ago, it was an original and ironic image. Now it’s a cliche, as overused and tired as an empowered woman ripping off her corset. Though I admit, I did laugh again when, in a desperate moment, Gru uses Lucy’s taser and she calls out “You copied me.” The final insult: the movie shows Lucy as the classic Damsel in Distress, strapped to a rocket and shooting into a volcano, and Gru, of course, saves them.
I liked the three girls, loved that there were three of them, and the oldest is named Margo.
I would LOVE to see a movie where these three are the stars with Margo as the protag and Gru in the supporting role. Universal, are you listening?
Before you comment on this post, let me say three things:
(2) I am not advising you not to take your kids to see these movies. I thought that was obvious because I blog about taking my own kids to see these movies. I try to teach my kids to watch with a critical eye. If the movie is sexist, I usually will not see it again, rent it, buy it, mention it much and try to avoid buying my kids games or clothing with the characters. If the movie has a female protag, I will buy a lot of that stuff. Some movies, I do avoid, for example, I didn’t go see “Oz” or take my kids. I couldn’t take what they did to Dorothy and Ozma, but that was a personal decision as yours, of course, should be.
(3) I wrote this already, but the problem is the repetitive pattern of marginalized females. The pattern, okay? Kids learn from what they see, through repetition.
In children’s media, females, who are half of the population, are presented as a minority. That is why I came up with the term Minority Feisty. Often, today, there is not jut one token female (as with the Smurfette Principle) but several and she is “feisty” ( a demeaning way to describe strong, usually reserved for females, and often used by film critics describing females in kids movies.) But the Minority Feisty is not enough. If we keep moving along at this slow rate, the Geena Davis Institute reports, we won’t have gender parity for 700 years. Your kids won’t experience it, nor will their kids, nor will their kids, on and on.
“Despicable Me” is a classic example of this sexist pattern. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of male minions. Why are there are no females? These scenes are so funny, my favorite parts of the movie, but females are excluded from them.
Two great posts came out this week about sexism in film and the Minority Feisty issue:
Please don’t be distracted by the Minority Feisty in children’s movies. She is there to distract you, to make you forget the lack of female protagonists. To the point the New Statesman made, and I have made numerous times on Reel Girl: We are all heroes in our lives. We all have our dragons to slay. But too often, women are trained to find a man in power, someone we can rely on to do the scary deed for us, instead of taking the risk ourselves. No risk, no reward, right? Except that women often don’t get the same cultural rewards men do for being heroes.
In fantasy, a world we can control, why can’t we show children a place where females and males are treated equally instead of perpetuating sexism? If we can’t imagine equality, we can’t achieve it.
Reel Girl rates “Despicable Me 2” ***S*** for gender stereotyping
Update: Just learned there will be a 2014 spin off of “Despicable Me.” YAY, I thought, a movie starring the three cool girls: Agnes, Edith, and Margo, just like I hoped for. But no. It will be a movie about the all male minions. Read about it here.
I wrote about the desperate situation for women in Texas for the SF Chronicle 13 years ago when George W. Bush was running for President. Check out the political history of the state under Bush, the ramifications of his policies, and what we’re up against now. Thank you, Wendy Davis for maybe, finally, starting to turn this situation around.
Ask a pro-choice person to explain casting a vote for a pro-life candidate, and the proud response is likely to be: “I don’t support candidates based on just one issue. I care about education, health care, and the economy too.”
Even political savvy supporters of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader aren’t that concerned with the threat to a woman’s right to choose, claiming its one issue among many.
But choice has never been a single issue. Reproductive rights don’t exist in isolation. They have everything to do with women’s economic and political power, women’s access to education and health care, women’s status in society and women’s abilities to take care of themselves and their children.
Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger once said, “If a woman doesn’t have the right to control her own body, she has no rights.” Choice is a political barometer, indicative of how politicians feel not only about the basic rights of women, but about the role of women in society, abut sex education, health care, welfare, poverty, the economy and the role the government should play in an individual’s life.
A position on choice indicates whether your representative will fight to get your kids vaccinated and to make contraception affordable.
Years ago, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, said that pro-lifers believe “life begins at conception and ends at birth,” meaning pro-life politicians are adamant about protecting the fetus but don’t care much about protecting the child once its born
His notion was rekindled recently when Prof Jean Schroedel of Claremont College came out with a survey examining the relationship between state abortion laws and spending on children. Her research revealed that the states that most severely limit abortion are the same ones that spend the least on foster care, parents who adopt special needs children, and poor women with dependent children. States with strict abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women. For example, Louisianna had some of the tougest abortion laws and spent $602 per child. Hawaii had some of the most liberal laws and spent $4,648 per child.
Schroedel also discovered that states with restricted abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women.
Her findings support the work of Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations World Population Fund. Sadik has been instrumental in turning the debate over how to limit population growth into a campaign for women’s rights.
She is widely credited with bringing attention to the correlation between over population and the status of women. When women are educated, when they achieve economic independence, when they have access to good health care, when they are valued in society for their intellect and their accomplishments, they have fewer babies.
Unfortunately, pro-life politicians still don’t seem concerned with improving the status of women. One classic example is presidential candidate George W. Bush. Look at his record as governor of Texas.
Texas women had a higher than average chance of living in poverty. The state minimum wage, earned by those in the female-dominated service and domestic workers industries was $3.35 per hour, totaling $6,700 annually for full time employment.
The percentage of women and children without health insurance is the second highest in the country.
Texas ranks 42nd in per capita welfare spending.
Bush made it more difficult for women to obtain abortions in times of crisis, but offered no preventative policy initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancy, no expansion of family planning or funding services, no comprehensive sexuality education program and no insurance coverage for contraceptives.
Texas had the second highest rate of teen pregnancy in the nation.
And the Texas system doesn’t promote sexual health. Texas law requires that sex education courses teach abstinence, but it does not require teaching contraception or HIV/ STD prevention.
Compare that to France where mandatory sexuality education begins when students are 13. Parents are prohibited from withdrawing their teenagers from this program. France’s teenage birthrate is approximately 6 times lower than the rate in the US; its teen abortion rate more than 2x lower, and overall AIDS rate, more than 3x lower.
Conservatives like to say, “The government that governs best, governs least.” What happened to this party? Now, they sound so much more like big government believers.
Many Americans wonder how they came to intrude so much into our private lives, legislating personal choices like whom we should sleep with or pray to.
The reason is because if politicians aren’t going to help to provide access to health care, contraception, STD prevention, access to child care and sex education, and economic autonomy there is nowhere to go but blame pregnancies on loose morals and loose women.
If Republicans acknowledge that women have reproductive rights, they’ll have to acknowledge that women have other rights as well. For Texas, that would mean reasonable funding for family planning and welfare, a higher minimum wage, insurance to cover contraceptives, real sex education and access to heath care.
Pro choice isn’t one issue and it isn’t one choice. Pro-choice means women have the choice to graduate from college, the choice to borrow money to start a business, the choice to get a good job with a fair wage, the choice not live in poverty and keep their kids out of poverty. Choice means that women get to be autonomous citizens, just like men do- with the power to determine their own destinies.
Pro-life candidate George Bush understands better than anyone that choice isn’t just one issue. Before heading to the ballot box in November, Americans need to realize pro-life is really only pro-birth.
The Republicans’ concern for mother and child is severed with the cutting of the umbilical cord.
What can you do now, in July, 2013?
Demand public hearings across Texas
On Independence Day in 2013, Texas women are still fighting for their rights!
Politicians in Austin are blocking Texans from speaking out against harmful legislation that would deny Texas women the right to make their own private medical decisions, and essentially end access to safe and legal abortion in the state.
Last night, during a hearing before the State Affairs Committee, the chairman cut off testimony at midnight, denying more than a thousand Texans who had signed up to testify the opportunity to speak out. This isn’t the fair democratic process that we value in Texas.
Texas legislators must stop playing politics with women’s health. Speak up now — urge legislators to schedule public hearings across the state to support the fair democratic process that Texans value.
Please visit Stand With Texas Women to sign your name to this letter going out to decision makers in Texas.
Check out what book I found my 4 year old cuddled up with this morning: R. Crumb’s Genesis! No idea how she go her hands on this, but talk about sex and violence, the Bible is at the top of the list.
My daughter has been waking up super cranky in the morning, so last night when we put her to bed, we unclipped her reading light. An hour later, my husband went down to check on her and found her with a flashlight. Back again, he removed 2 more lights. This is what I saw on the kitchen counter this morning. She’d managed to get her younger sister’s clip on light as well. I have no idea how she acquired light #6. Yet another reason to be pissed off at her partner in crime, Rick Riordan…
The post set off a discussion about the best and worst reading lights. I think we may have finally found the answer. After all of the lights pictured above eventually broke, I went back to Christopher’s Books, (where I think I’m their best customer due to my book buying addiction.) Srore owner, Tee Minot, told me she no longer stocks lights. She didn’t think any were much good. Tee told me the best reading light she ever got is a camping light, the kind your kid can put on her head. She found hers at Sports Basement. Today, my husband bought a 3 pack of LED headlamps with three modes (dim, bright, strobe), batteries INCLUDED for $9.69 at Costco. Look at that night owl’s happy face. I have high hopes for this one, as long as she doesn’t discover the strobe. Now, if I could just get her to be this smiley in the morning…
When Pixar writers (Robert Baird, Daniel Gerson, Dan Scalon) showed the script for “Monster University” to producers, or execs at Disney, or whoever you go to up and down the chain of command to get the green light, did it occur to anyone, anyone at all, that making a movie about rival fraternities might make girls, half of the kid population, feel a tad ignored?
Here’s a pic of OK, the geek fraternity on campus, featuring our buddy-stars: Mike and Sully. “Monster University” centers on this group.
Here are the rivals of OK, the BMOC frat, ROR, led by Johnny Worthington, the one with the horns.
Rival frats. I am not kidding. That’s what this movie is about. So here on Reel Girl, I don’t have to even analyze or point out how or why this narrative is sexist. After watching it, I’ve got to conclude that in spite of the token “Brave,” Disney/ Pixar really doesn’t give a shit about including females in its narratives in a significant way.
What do you think the chances are that Dean Hardscrabble will get her own spin off movie? (Sort of like how Puss In Boots got his own movie after no less than 3 Shrek movies.) Perhaps Hardscrabble will get a prequel, like “Monster University,” where we see how she grows up, changes from a scared little kid into the fierce and powerful monster she is? Along with the help of a courageous and devoted team of females, of course. See that film coming soon to a theater near you?
I’m also a fan of the librarian, a Minority Feisty who has a brief but impressive part.
Another Minority Feisty I liked is Claire Wheeler, the Greek Council President.
Claire isn’t fabulous, but she can be funny. She doesn’t do anything stupid or offensive.That area is totally covered with the look, name, and poses of the PNK (get it?) sorority: pink and purple, mini-skirted, furry boot wearing girls. I dread the toys and sippy cups.
“Monster University” is all about a competition but you hardly notice or care when females get eliminated, as they all do. We don’t get a chance to get attached to any of the female competitors.
There is a cooler sorority, HSS. Its role in the movie is even smaller than PNK, and it gets eliminated earlier. Again, the event is hardly noticed except that Mike and Sully’s frat advances.
A Minority Feisty I hated? Ms. Squibbles, Squishy’s mom. Throughout the movie, she is shown in curlers and a housecoat, cooking, doing laundry, or driving a minivan.Think the “Ms.” is feminist? Nope, the moniker is to elucidate her single status. I didn’t think Pixar could get any more gender cliched, but at the end of the movie, Ms. Squibbles actually gets engaged (to her son’s frat brother, no less.)
Before the movie even starts, Ms. Squibbles shows up in an ad for Swiffer. That’s right– a cleaning product. All the males are sitting on the couch watching football when a hot dog with ketchup gets dropped on the floor and Squishy says: “You guys, my mom just cleaned this place!” The ad could be worse, I suppose. Squishy cleans up the ketchup himself, and Ms. Squibbles dirties the floor up again cheering the team. It’s got that tiny speck of feminism within a sexist framework that we’re supposed to be grateful for. Here’s the ad.
I’m bottom feeding for images to be grateful for in “Monster University,” but I found a few. There are pink and purple male monsters in this movie. There are also male monsters with eyelashes. Sometimes, I couldn’t tell if a monster was male or female until she spoke, a highly unusual situation for an animated movie, even one about cars or robots or planes or fish or monsters, of course. Thanks a lot, Pixar/ Disney. My three daughters and I are super grateful.
Reel Girl rates “Monster University” ***SS*** for gender stereotyping
I’m at my wit’s end here. After a trip to Target, Kara Bara posted this pic on Reel Girl’s Facebook page of the store’s sexist Justice League display:
She writes:
I love your blog and I was in my local Target and I noticed Wonder Woman had gone missing from all their Justice League superhero stuff. She’s already outnumbered 7:1 on the team and now she’s completely missing from all the displays.
Kara posts a second pic:
Here’s the other side of the display with an even more obscure member, Cyborg, instead of WW – just in case we didn’t get the message that superheros should only be dudes.
After I saw this, I went to Target’s website, and guess what? Wonder Woman has gone missing from the all male group pic. Can you get any more sexist in your marketing strategy for children than excluding the only female? Seriously, Target, WTF? Please stop teaching kids that males are more important than females. Put Wonder Woman back where she belongs.
WASHINGTON — Isolated human genes may not be patented, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday. The case concerned patents held by Myriad Genetics, a Utah company, on genes that correlate with increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.
The patents were challenged by scientists and doctors who said their research and ability to help patients had been frustrated. The particular genes at issue received public attention after the actress Angelina Jolie revealed in May that she had had a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she had inherited a faulty copy of a gene that put her at high risk for breast cancer.
The price of the test, often more than $3,000, was partly a product of Myriad’s patent, putting it out of reach for some women. The company filed patent infringement suits against others who conducted testing based on the gene. The price of the test is expected to fall because of Thursday’s decision.
I hope you’re having a wonderful summer and enjoying time with friends and family.
Many of you who recall my active participation during Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president have asked me if she will run again. My first instinct is to say I hope she does, but the truth is, I don’t know the answer. Hillary has given so much of herself for so long and I’d like for her to take as much time as she needs to make that decision.
In the meantime, I’m sure by now you have heard about Ready for Hillary. It is an organization dedicated solely to building and supporting the national grassroots effort that today’s political campaigns demand. Ready for Hillary is doing this work now — giving Hillary the time she needs to make her decision. In fact, the reach Ready for Hillary has built on Facebook already has people paying attention. In a few short months, they have amassed a following of more than 200,000 supporters! We all watched President Obama’s campaign change modern politics. It showed the power of local organizing and the importance of investing in the use and development of new technology. We also cannot overlook the way the Obama campaign amplified its message using social media platforms. Should Hillary decide to run for president in 2016, her campaign is going to need us to use these strategies to win.
But the kind of infrastructure that powers a successful campaign requires an investment of money and time to build. It simply isn’t possible to grow a list, do the necessary analytics, organize activists on the ground, and maximize a return on social media overnight, in a week or even a few short months. This is why those of us who want to see Hillary run again need to support Ready for Hillary now. You can give $25, or $50, or $100 or more. I am wholeheartedly supporting this grassroots effort as I believe that Ready for Hillary will be a crucial element to ensuring that, if Hillary decides to run for president in 2016, her supporters will be organized and ready to hit the ground running from day one. I have made a financial investment in this effort and I hope you will join me in making a contribution to Ready for Hillary. Any amount you’d like to give will help and will be much appreciated. I’m ready for Hillary. Are you? If so, click here to contribute today.
With warm regards and appreciation,
Susie Tompkins Buell, San Francisco, CA
STB is probably the most passionate, clued in Clinton supporter I know of. This email tells me, more than any hint so far, that Hillary is running for President in 2016. Am I donating? Oh, yes, I am. I hope you do too.
You may have noticed that I haven’t been quite as obsessive about blogging as usual. Though it kills me to do it at 997 Facebook Likes (because I really would like to get a nice, even, lovely 1,000) I’ve gone deep into Fairyworld.
Most of you know that I’m writing a Middle Grade fantasy book. I’ve been working on this story for about two years and I’m about 2/3 done with the draft. Though I write everyday, when I blog, its hard for my mental energy not get stuck in the news. I don’t know if you’ve found this is true, but since becoming a mom, I need to be choose carefully where I focus my brain cells. Never have I been more aware that the space in my head is so limited. Between work and drama, schedules and crises, I have no extra bandwith (is there a better tech term? That one kept coming up when my blog was crashing and crashing, which is how I feel.)
In a way, it’s nice to be aware of limits, like the good feeling you get when you clean out the garage. I have no space for junk. Frankly, I don’t even have a garage, just tiny, flat closets in this rickety 1911 Victorian.
I don’t think blogging is junk by the way. I think it’s changing the world. I honestly don’t even know how I personally managed to sane before blogging (not to mention using the internet to connect with people who understood what I was saying and didn’t argue with me before I could complete a sentence.) It’s just I have to finish this book. For the summer, every hour is scheduled, all brain cells are committed, and this damn thing is going to get done.
I will be blogging now and then, and I do have scheduled in MG reading time, so I hope to get reviews to you. I’ll also be seeing movies with my kids that I’ll blog about. Please use this blog, Reel Girl’s FB page and Twitter feed to connect, post, and speak about issues.
