http://www.eonline.com/news/590557/watch-these-adorable-little-girls-drop-f-bombs-and-truth-bombs-to-promote-feminism

I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I saw someone posted this, titled: Adorable Little Girls Drop F-Bombs for Feminism.  I think this video is interesting because we see two things that are completely out of the ordinary.  The first and most obvious being young girls saying the word “fuck” or “fucking” and the second is that it is the children that are sending out a strong message about feminism, when it is usually someone much older.  The message of the video is that society should spend less time getting offended by curse words and pay more attention to the fact that women are still treated unfairly.  Take a look at the video, its informative yet super funny and cute.

Came across this video today, and I think it’s pretty great. I’m also attaching the link to the article I talked about the other day in class.

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVjXD.kZUKr8A1RMPxQt.;_ylc=X1MDMjExNDcwMDU1OQRfcgMyBGZyA3locy1pcnktZnVsbHlob3N0ZWRfMDExBGdwcmlkA2N4Z0hJTFBhUUZ1bUpxLl9YaTZraEEEbl9yc2x0AzAEbl9zdWdnAzAEb3JpZ2luA3VzLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDMjkEcXVlcnkDZmNraDggdmlkZW8gd2l0aCBsaXR0bGUgZ2lybHMEdF9zdG1wAzE0MTM5Mzc4Njg-?p=fckh8+video+with+little+girls&fr2=sb-top-us.search&hspart=iry&hsimp=yhs-fullyhosted_011&param1=yhsbeacon&param2=f%3D4%26b%3DChrome%26cc%3DUS%26p%3Dmcyahoo%26cd%3D2XzuyEtN2Y1L1QzuyB0Azz0AyD0D0AtCtG0F0BtA0EtGyDtDtAtAtGzzyDzytCtG0B0Bzz0CtA0BtCyB0ByCyE0AtN1Q2Zzu0StCtDtDzytN1L2XzutDtFtCyE1HtN1L1Czu%26cr%3D1821740816%26stype%3Dmcy_dnldstr_14_41_ch%26a%3Dmcy_dnldstr_14_41_ch&type=mcy_dnldstr_14_41_ch

and her’s the link to the article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lea-grover/this-is-what-sex-positive-parenting-really-looks-like_b_5516707.html

I found this article about a new game that these two teens created and — stay with me on this — I think it ties back to our recent class discussions.

I was thinking about some of the reactions to watching Filming Desire and Window Water Baby Moving, and the ways we’re socialized into what is “normal” or what makes us “uncomfortable.” Mostly, it seems like our society has a real issue when it comes to talking about female pleasure, just like it has a tendency to equate nudity with sex. Seeing naked women outside of the context of sexual intimacy was jarring for some people, and a lot of people were a little freaked out by the intensity of the child birth video, especially if this was their first time watching it (or maybe the second, if you count the time in the 5th grade when many public school systems tried to freak you out and scare you as much as possible about the consequences of sex).

This article kind of takes that idea and goes in a different direction; it’s about two teenagers who created a video game called Tampon Run, where, you guessed it, you run and throw tampons at people instead of shooting bullets at them. They made it to parody of sorts, to make a social statement about “idea that in society, we’re more comfortable with guns and violence than we are with teaching girls to be comfortable with their bodies.”

I’m reminded of that scene from Orange is the New Black that we were talking about in class on Monday where the women don’t even have a basic working knowledge about female anatomy. As an earlier post mentioned, in mainstream media, showing women wanting or experiencing sexual pleasure (or god forbid, giving birth — can you even imagine the rating that would get??) often automatically generates higher maturity ratings.

Really? What kind of message does that send, when we can show men’s faces during orgasm during a PG-13 or R rated film, but not women’s? Or when we can show countless bloody and gory and violently graphic scenes in television and media (shows like Hannibal or Game of Thrones, I’m looking at you), but the word “tampon” makes some people squeamish?

I love the idea behind the game, and it’s pretty simple and fun, so give it a shot! Realizing the kinds of images and topics that make us uncomfortable, and thinking about why they do, can hopefully help us become more critical consumers of the world around us.

Below is bunch of information on Anita Sarkeesian, I won’t summarize or post my opinion since we’re all intelligent people and therefore should form our own opinions.  Since her recent work was mentioned in class it would benefit discussion to get a little background information.

wikipedia bio page 

Youtube Channel 

Threats against her

I did a little research about the question I asked in class today about the ratings of films.  I didn’t find a check list of any sorts, but the general trend is that if a woman experiences sexual pleasure, the film will be rated NC-17, which really sets the film up for limited exposure. But a movie that shows rape, torture, or violence against women can be rated PG-13 or R.  Definitely messed up. Here’s one of the articles I found that is really interesting and a quick read.

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/blogs-main/advocates-blog/1743-twist-and-pout-the-mpaas-sick-rating-system

There is a disconnect about female sexuality in our society and what role sexuality should play in a woman’s life.  Women are objectified and sexualized by our media, but they cannot experience sexual pleasure in mainstream media. I read an article last year that argued  ignoring female sexual pleasure begins at a young age in school when taught about reproduction.  The story of reproduction involves the male orgasm, it’s one of the big contributing factors. But, the female orgasm is left right out of the lesson.  Sex is set up to be something men enjoy but women endure.

For the past few classes we have been talking about sex scenes and how they work in terms of feminism. Scrolling through Facebook I came across this article that talks about what it is really like to film a sex scene. I thought this would be an interesting insight to the behind the camera so we can learn about the actors feelings. It also go me wondering why we were uncomfortable watching filming desire, but when it comes to watching movies like Boogie Nights we don’t get as freaked out. I’m not sure if it’s because we know Boogie Nights is about the porn industry or just that we can’t take Mark Wahlberg serious. That brought me to wonder if because in the US pornography is such a huge thing does that take away cinematic sex scenes or just make it more awkward. We went out of our comfort zones and watched sex scenes from the Eastern part of the world, and the content was pretty much the same. Is it the fear of the unknown? I personally got weirded out when we watched Film Desire then I questioned why I am I able to watch so many films with sex especially graphic like Boogie Nights and not feel weirded out.

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/10/what-really-happens-while-filming-movie-sex-scenes

After watching Stan Brakhage’s short film Window water baby moving I couldn’t stop thinking about it after class.  It was a very memorable piece of work to watch and even on my ride back to the hill with a few girls from the class, we all discussed what we had just watched.

I think the way that Stan Brakhage filmed the entire piece was so artistic that as a viewer even though we were seeing a fully naked women, it was not a sexual scene at all.  I think the quick cuts, no audio and the intimate moments we saw the woman have with her husband did a good job of making the whole thing looks less sexual and focus more on the beauty of a mother giving birth to her child. It is hard to have nudity and to not view it in a sexual way through being apart of American culture and how we are conditioned to viewing nudity, but Brakhage managed to show very intimate parts of the womans body while still keeping the main focus of the short film on the beautiful birthing experience a woman has.  The way he shot close ups of the woman smiling or of her with her hands on her belly kept the primary focus of the film intact.

As we discussed in class, I appreciated the how Brakhage didn’t introduce us to the characters and we didn’t hear about their life story because as a viewer I did feel like I was not supposed to be in such an intimate private moment in this couples life, but it would have been even more uncomfortable learning about the couple through the film and then experience the birth of a couple that I feel like I kind of got to know though watching the film.

I began pondering the idea of child birth being sexualized today in class after we viewed Baby Moving. Because I didn’t perceive any of the scenes as being sexual, I was curious as to how it could be.   Tati mentioned that the cuts between the expecting mother’s vagina and her facial expressions is what suggests that the scene is sexual.

I believe it comes down to the way we each read a film. Some insert themselves into the actual scene as if they’re witnessing it first-hand, while others view the scene objectively. I interpreted each cut as an addition to the larger moment that’s taking place (child-birth). I never felt as though I was hovering over the woman’s face as if my eyes were the camera lens, but I was viewing each scene separately to understand the director’s perspective/interpretation as a whole. The sunlight coming through the window shining on the woman’s face and body, her smile and laughter, the way she’s being kissed on, all illustrated nothing more than beauty to me, to represent the idea that child-birth is beautiful, even with the not-so visually pleasing parts. I think the absence of sound is especially important for this analysis because we understand that there’s an extraordinary amount of pain that goes with having a baby. The sound of the woman screaming would have detracted from the moments we’re viewing on screen.

Filming Desire, provided substantial insight on the practices of filming sexual encounters. I found the content of the film to be very interesting and relative to some of the discussions that we have had about constructing that (seemingly unattainable) feminist sex scene.

Before I elaborate on that, I found the introduction sequence and and title cards to be a very distinct part of the film. I thought that it was a very bold choice on the part of the filmmaker to use naked human bodies  to provide transitions to the topics of the film. I thought that, as much as the naked bodies were relative to the topic being discussed in the film, I felt that this creative choice neither added or subtracted anything to the overall message of the film. And, in all, the film could have been just as effective without those topic headings. I found myself shaking my head each time I saw a naked man clapping at the camera or text written above a pair of hard nipples. I’m interested in hearing what other people thought about this choice to include those scenes with the bodies.

In regards to the content of the film, I found that a common trend amongst some of the filmmakers being interviewed was this idea that sex is more than just the physical act, and the troubles of using a visual medium to portray these scenes. One filmmaker made a point of saying that sexual sensations are something that are within, but the camera is not. That being said, it seems almost contradictory to use solely a visual medium to portray an act that is compiled of so many more levels.  A few filmmakers noted that they used voiceover to communicate some of the thoughts going through the minds of female characters to display that they are more than just their physical attributes.

Does it seem like voiceover is this the only way that we can have anything close to a feminist sex scene? Since voiceover allows us to understand what is happening underneath the physical aspect of the sex scene, it seems appropriate that it adds complexity to female (and in some cases, male) characters. But in a way, using voiceover can take away from the visual representation. Even if there is voiceover will problems with visually portraying the male or female body still arise? In fact, is it fair to say that voiceover can compensate for any misrepresentation of those images?