True Blood Rolling Stone Cover- Possible Interpretations

My first reaction when I saw coverage of the bloody, naked Rolling Stone cover featuring three True Blood stars was that True Blood was once again combining sex and violence in a really disturbing way. I hadn’t watched the show until this season, but after seeing a really graphic rape scene and other, subtler sexist elements that fetishized violence against women I was disgusted. I realize it is a vampire show and some amount of sex intermingled with violence is inevitable. However, the violence was almost always erotic when committed against women and not nearly as often when committed against men.

So like I was saying, seeing the True Blood cast naked and drenched in blood just seemed like another instance of sexualizing violence. But Stephanie at Ms. Magazine’s blog has another, more interesting take on the cover.

By mixing sexy bodies with blood, Stephanie argues, that the cover serves to remove some of the taboo surrounding menstruation and “period sex.”

Most often in popular culture, the only images of naked people we see are in sexual situations (other possibilities include naked people bathing and as babies). And because sex + menstrual blood = an absolute no-no for mainstream media, then blood and naked bodies–especially women’s naked, bloody bodies–are not likely to appear together.

So when I saw the True Blood cover I was surprised and a little thrilled. I knew I was supposed to be seeing sexy vampire stuff, but immediately I started to think about other situations in which you might be naked and bloody. And what did I come up with? Period sex. Which is an even bigger taboo than menstruation itself.
…
And that brings me to why I think this cover is so fantastic. Though Anna Paquin (likely) isn’t menstruating in this photo, we are seeing blood, sex and bodies in the same frame, forcing us to consider the mingling, seeping and blending of these very human things. If we can look at these sexy, naked actors covered in blood and still think they’re damn fine, we’re one step closer to getting over the menstrual
taboo and taking part in the joys of loving our girlfriends while they’re bleeding.

Frankly, I still stick by my first analysis of the cover though I think Stephanie’s thoughts are really interesting. So what do you all think? Does the cover fetishize violence the way many True Blood episodes have, is it a celebration of menstruation, or something else?

18-year-old singer gets Botox to prepare for Glee debut

From time to time I come across random things on the internet that really kind of worry me. This is one of them.

Charice Pempengco, an 18-year-old Filipino singer who recently released her first album, prepared for her debut on the show Glee "by getting Botox and an anti-aging procedure".

Charice's publicist insisted that the Botox procedure was undergone for muscle pain and not for cosmetic purposes, but that seems to be thrown into question when the singer is quoted as saying (emphasis mine):

"All people will be anticipating how will Charice look? Is she good enough to pit against Rachel Berry? So of course there is tremendous pressure," Charice said.

And the cosmetic surgeon who worked on Charice, Vicki Belo, said that the singer underwent a 30-minute procedure to make her round face more narrow. Belo also said (emphasis mine):

"You chew gum and it turns out to be a favorite super-exercise for these muscles, your chewing muscles. So we will show you, this muscle here it's a bit protruding," Belo said as she touched Charice's face. "It's like a ball, so we are going to Botox that in order to get it flat so she will have a cuter face ... we want to give you the apple cheek look because it's cute, right?"

To me, that indicates that while perhaps there was some muscle pain that the singer was dealing with, that beauty was definitely also part of the equation.

Because in Hollywood you're never too young to start suffering for beauty's sake, right?

Why TV sucks: Part ten

Direct TV brings us this commercial, featuring a man (people on YouTube say it's Peyton Manning - I honestly couldn't tell you because I don't follow American football) standing in front of a large flat screen television, telling the viewer why they need to watch football games in high definition. His reasons? The "one-handed grabs," the "naked bootlegs," and "all the punishing hits." As he says these things, different shots of cheerleaders on the TV behind him seem to match up with his words, showing scantily clad female cheerleaders making grabbing motions, doing high kicks, and throwing their arms out as he says "punishing hits." Then this guy turns around, sees that the TV isn't showing football games, but cheerleaders, and he says "Real funny, guys. Real funny," as if he isn't totally into using women's bodies to sell a product. Good use of showing how exposed women's bodies are so frequently used to sell all manner of products, including products that have no connection to the female form, or products that are even claiming to be used for something completely different (in this case, for viewing football games, of which only a small aspect involves women).




Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Man Men and the question of feminism

In honor of Mad Men season 2 released on DVD this week, Jezebel has put together 15 feminist moments in Mad Men. They range from women actively taking control of their lives to men exerting privilege over women in both domestic and public spheres. Regardless of if you've seen the show, it's worth checking out.

The implicit and explicit logic behind this list is that the show is, indeed, feminist. Mad Men's creator, Matt Weiner, believes his show is feminist "exactly because of its painfully accurate portrayal of the treatment of women in the workplace in the early 1960s."

I'll put this point up for discussion - in a show that frequently depicts vastly unfeminist actions - blatant sexual harassment, patronizing attitudes by male characters towards female characters regardless of relationship (boss/secretary, husband/wife) - can we consider it feminist? Does the stark portrayal of this world expose the sexism of the times and put it in absurd contrast to the inherent sexism of today?

Or does it fail, unable to make that leap and just remains to reinforce patriarchy in a work enviornment?

Advertising then and now

I've mentioned before, but I'm part of a survey pool for new products, new marketing campaigns, etc.

Because of my demographics as a 20-something woman, I end up taking a lot of surveys about things I'm not really interested in. I answer questions about things like cleaning supplies (am I concerned about the product hurting my family while still cleaning well?), cereal (is this healthy enough for my family?) and make up (how much am I willing to spend on a product nearly identical to 4 others out there?). It's somewhat annoying to answer repetitive questions about products the company feels are "women's products." From time to time, I get fun surveys about alcohol or movies, but mostly it's things traditionally advertised to women.

I've been rewatching Mad Men and this scene stands out even more to me in light of my own surveys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Hru4IucB0 (embedding disabled).

In the scene, the all-male advertising staff puts the office secretaries in a testing room and watches as they all try on lipstick. The men say things like "Maybe we should have put a man in there so they'd take it seriously." After Peggy, the main character's secretary, displays some talent in coming up with catchy slogans, one of the men describes it as "like watching a dog playing piano."

Mad Men is a window into the blatant sexism of the early 60's, where men constantly disregard the women or view them as objects, where people of color are completely invisible (except in service jobs), where the queer characters repress their sexuality and hide themselves from the people around them.

But as I watch the show, I'm reminded of how much this hasn't changed. About how when I take surveys, I'm an age and a gender before I'm a person, about how the questions asked of me have as much to do with antiquated notions of gender binaries and what women "should" be concerned about as my own personal interests.

Why TV sucks: Part nine

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while because I saw this commercial almost every day when I was at home for a week, earlier in the month.

The commercial is for Go Daddy, a web hosting company, which apparently has been criticized before for its sexual commercials. The following is the version that I saw on TV.



The above version prompted me to look online to "see what happens next." This is what I found (probably NSFW).



Now I admit, I am a harsh critic of most advertising. But even the casual viewer should be able to determine the absurdity of this commercial. The overt sexuality, even in the abridged TV version, has no connection to the services offered by the company. In fact, after viewing this commercial two or three times on TV, I still wasn't able to say exactly what Go Daddy was. I have a huge personal problem with advertisements that do not even attempt to focus on the product/service they are promoting. Isn't that the whole point of advertising? I know people will say that "sex sells," but what exactly is it selling if we're too distracted by the sex to know anything about the product? Either way, exploiting women's bodies and their sexualities to sell web hosting is unacceptable. Period.

Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Why TV sucks: Part seven

Because cell phone users can't be bothered to be smart with their money unless a conventionally attractive woman shows up at their door. Duh.

Parts one, two, three, four, five, six.

Sports Night and the ladies

I am a huge Aaron Sorkin fan, and especially a huge fan of Sports Night. My rule of thumb is that anyone who owns the Sports Night DVDs is a good person (with some exceptions - but few).

Jennifer over at The Hathor Legacy has done a really nice critique of women characters in Sports Night. I didn't realize it until she mentioned it, but every single episode passes the Bechdel/Wallace test. Dana and Natalie, the two producers for the show-within-the-show, surprise surprise, talk about something else besides men constantly. What an amazing concept, huh?

She nails it with this:

On TV, women in these situations usually catfight, and men usually hit each other, then bond over beer and become best buddies. Dana and Sally do neither: they put professional accumen and the one thing they have in common - being women in a male-dominated field - ahead of more petty, personal concerns. Forget passing the Bechdel/Wallace test - this is a depiction of women with little in common but the men in their lives choosing not to let that theme rule their interactions.

Even though I've never been a fan of sports, I remember watching Sports Night when it was airing on Comedy Central (probably right after it was cancelled*). It never stood out to me as a show with better than average depictions of women, simply because I expected that television would show women characters with nuance and depth. I wasn't at the point where I cognatively realized that tv shows suck with showing women - I hadn't realized that women aren't the target audience for television.

Aaron Sorkin isn't always the greatest with his female characters; just yesterday I saw the West Wing episode introducing Ansely Hayes, an attractive Republican woman who comes to work in the Democratic White House (but she can get away with it because, you know, she looks like she does). But usually he's better than average, as Jennifer's post describes.

Jennifer also did a spot on analysis of the show's depiction of Dan Rydell, one of the sports anchors, which I think is a really good critique. So go watch the show, and if you pick up the DVDs (which recently had a 10 year anniversary re-release), I'll think you're a good person.



*Speaking of canceled TV shows I love, watch Kings on NBC so it doesn't have the same fate as Sports Night or Studio 60. More on Kings soon, I promise.

My Boys and tomboys

My sister and I frequently watch the TBS show My Boys. It's about PJ Franklin (well-acted by Jordana Spiro) and her group of mostly male friends. PJ's a sports reporter in Chicago who is often contrasted with her "girly" friend, Stephanie. For her male friends, there's Brendan, an old roommate who DJs; Mike, the goof of the group; Kenny, the nice nerdy guy; Bobby, another sports reporter who PJ kinda likes but is getting married; and Andy, PJ's brother who lives in the suburbs.


I like PJ because she embodies a lot of the traits I have/would like to have (funny, smart, little bit neurotic), but mainly that she's in a non-traditional field (sports journalism) and has a lot of guy friends without relationship jumping from one to the other. Plus they have a neighborhood bar they go to all the time, and I've always wanted one of those.

Right now in the show, Bobby's getting married and one episode revolved around his bachelor party. Because she's a woman, PJ wasn't invited to the party but instead his fiancee's wedding shower; she doesn't want to go because she doesn't know Elsa very well and there's no beer at the shower. She laments bachelor parties inherently sexist nature - not inviting women along unless they're strippers - but PJ and Stephanie end up at the same bar anyway.

While watching, I thought, "Yeah, awesome! Way to call out bachelor parties as sexist and to show someone having a nice party without strippers and all of that stereotypical junk! PJ is so awesome for being 'one of the guys' and not conforming to standards of femininity!"

However, that particular episode just barely passes the Bechdel Test:

1: Two female characters - yes; PJ, Stephanie, Elsa, Andy's friend from work, shower guests
2: Talking to one another - yes; lots of talk between PJ and Steph
3: About something besides men - barely yes; most of their conversations are about men, however, they do talk about Stephanie's career as an author a bit. Seems solid, but Stephanie's book is about relationships and men - so technically it passes, but juuuust barely.

While this post was still in the planning stages in my mind, I came across this post from Bitch PhD about "playing the [race/gender/sexuality/etc] card":

I'm sexist. On this one, I'm much more sure why. Because I'm a woman, I see all the sexism directed at me even as I'm directing it at others. So it's easier to name. I prefer having male friends to having female friends. I enjoy being told that I'm like "one of the guys." When people tell me that I have masculine qualities, I feel a sense of pride. I feel somewhat less pride when people tell me I am caring, emotionally open or self-sacrificing because I associate those qualities with femininity and they are thus denigrated. I have disdain for the idea of being a 'stay-at-home-mom'. I have privately assumed that women who have lots of sexual partners must have emotional issues. I internally criticize women for dressing too provocatively or not provocatively enough. I have been disdainful of movies and books that are associated with women. Like above, I could go on. These are only some of the things I have thought about, and am self-critical of.

I've always wanted to be 'one of the guys,' and have valued tomboy qualities over others. At some point between kindergarten and third grade, I stopped being "girly" and it took until 9th grade confirmation, then high school graduation, for me to wear a dress again.

So while I like PJ because of the gendered traits she has and feel ambivalent towards Stephanie because of her more traditional female traits (not actively liking is almost the same as disliking), I'm reinforcing and buying into the idea that masculine/male is better. In a way, one could argue that My Boys, while trying to be different and subversive in their choice of a protagonist, just ends up reinforcing conceptions of male privilege and praises women for acting more like men.

For me, at least, that's kind of depressing and I'm not sure if I (completely) buy into that argument.

If anything, this makes me feel better about the feminist qualities of the show: it was created, executive produced, and written by Betsy Thomas (writer/production blog here), with Arlene Sanford directing five episodes, and 3+ female writers on staff. Considering how little representation women have behind the scenes in the television industry, I'm really glad to see the show, while depicting a strong female character, represents that in real life as well.

Anyway, as much as I may have inadvertently ripped on My Boys, I do love it and enjoy it. I'd suggest watching a few episodes, at least.

Little Rant

So, basically, I'm pissed.

My roommate was flipping channels earlier, and she landed on the show Reaper, which is basically about a guy who sold his soul to the devil and has to do errands for him. So, on the episode today, there was this gem of a quote:

On seeing a supermodel, dead, because someone had thrown acid on her:
"Why would a woman do that to another woman?"
"Why else would a woman be this angry, the angriest? Jealousy."

Hardy Har Har.
Yeah, Reaper, because women don't get angry over politics, the environment, racism, abuse, religion, or, you know, sexism.

Aw, shit, I just did.