This was the Ad I was referring to in class about the sexualization of feminist.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/femvertising-advertising-empowering-women_n_5921000.html  This is the article that first brought it to my attention.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/karl-stefanovics-sexism-experiment-today-presenter-wears-same-suit-for-a-year-20141115-11ncdz.html

This article is extremely interesting and for those who have seen Miss Representation, it should bring back some of the points made in the film about the media’s representation of women in the media inudstry and news.

By now I’m assuming most people have seen the photos of Kim Kardashian for Paper magazine.  The internet has been split about how to read these images. Some criticizing her. She has a young daughter and is posing nude. Additionally years earlier, she has been quoted saying “I’ve definitely learned my lesson (on posing nude)… I’m never taking my clothes off again, even if it’s for Vogue… I don’t want people to be like, ‘All she’s good for is, you know, being naked'”. Kim has already been questioned for the source of her celebrity status. Critics like Chelsea Handler have used this magazine cover to bring up issues not only of what seeing Kim’s body all over the internet, but also issues such as Instagram’s policy of nudity. Chelsea has previous uploaded a picture of herself topless riding a horse, mimicking Putin. After it was deleted, she re-uploaded the picture and criticized Instagram for allowing male nipples and not female nipples. The photo was again removed. Handler now uploaded a picture comparing her body to Kim’s revealing her own butt to the world. In Handler’s caption, she questions the realness of Kardashian’s butt. Natalie Portman also recently posed topless in a magazine. She insisted that the pictures remain untouched, specifying the size of her breasts remain the same. There has been little backlash for these pictures aside from a few journalists criticizing her for attempting to draw attention to herself. To me, being the center of attention is the point of being on the cover of a magazine so I don’t see these arguments as wrong but just irrelevant. Where the discussion becomes interesting to me is the response that these three celebrities receive. Natalie Portman received very little coverage for her stand against photoshop, Handler’s act was seen as nothing more than a sarcastic response, and no one has decided the societal response to Kardashian’s butt. Is it because Portman was trying to make a statement about self love that she recieved the least amount of coverage? Why won’t people take Handler’s criticism more seriously? Because of her personality or because of a desire to ignore the criticisms? Why are we all so fascinated with Kim’s body? Is there something damaging about her image? If so who is she damaging? Where do all of these images fall under feminism and post-feminism?

Hey, NHS, I fixed your poster. pic.twitter.com/xbCCfySYRg

— Tyrannosaurus jess (@neverjessie) August 1, 2014

Here is the tweet I was talking about in class if anyone wants to look.

I am honestly still shell-shocked from watching Boys Don’t Cry. I have been sitting with this movie for over a day now and hoping I’d be able to write this fabulous blog post critiquing the movie but I am still unable to. I finished the movie curled up in my bed with my new stuff-a-plush and still felt the movie weighing me down the entire time. After the movie ended, I began to research the story behind the film and came across the recording of the police interrogation. I found it difficult to listen to but think it is still extremely interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lswb1SFl_gY I think it is also interesting that the Brandon Teena/ Teena Brandon’s family seems extremely reluctant to allowing Brandon to still identify as male years later.

I think it is interesting to compare The Help to Boys Don’t Cry in terms of how much detail and how explicit the two movies are about the oppression and ignorance around the main characters. Boys Don’t Cry holds almost nothing back. Whereas The Help has a very strong feeling of sugar coating on the entire situation. Both are movies about people who do not have a lot of previous representation in the media. But I think both do the topics justice. The audience is what changes for these films. The Help is something I could comfortably let my 9 year old brother see where as Boys Don’t Cry is something I’m not even sure I am old enough to handle viewing. Racism and homophobia are still large parts of our society. These movies have two extremely different ways to approach how these topics are portrayed but both received a large amount of both criticism and acclaim. For Boys Don’t Cry, Hilary Swank received an Academy Award for Best Actress nd Chloë Sevigny was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The Help was awarded Best Supporting Actress to Octavia Spencer and nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress (Viola Davis). Both Received nominated and awards at the Golden Globes as well. These two movies on such opposite ends of the spectrum still received such similar awards. I think it is interesting when we think about the decisions that go into filming a movie.

I still have not stopped thinking about the feminist sex scene since our discussion in class. Its been plaguing me really. What’s really been bugging me is the idea of the gaze being male especially the audience. I think it is not possible because of this. The thought that kept coming back to me was about banned books. When I was younger one of my favorite books was Olive’s Ocean. In high school I learned that it is one of the most banned books in this country. It baffled me. The books was banned for “sexually explicit content”. The most sexually explicit moment that occurred is the main character receives her first kiss and an awkward flirtation. Yet this does not stop the book from being challenged by numerous libraries and schools. I was 8 or 9 when I first read the book and had no issue with it. But others found the book horribly offensive. This is similar to the issue with the feminist sex scene. Someone will always be offended. A director can work as hard as they possibly can to avoid any instances of sexism but someone may still take issue with how the scene is filmed.

When we first started this discussion a clip from the movie Across the Universe came to mind. This scene is not exactly a sex scene. However it is clear that the two and possibly others do have sex. I think what is so great about this scene is the body positions. They are in water so there is no “on top”. They just float around equally. Additionally although they are naked, there is no showing of any genitalia on either Jude or Lucy. It is simple and clean and to me both characters seem  equal in their positioning, how much of their body is revealed and who is in control. To me this is as close to a sex scene as I could imagine where it is neither sexist and does not try to use equal exploitation as a solution to sexism either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrrSH6P7eDw

It is interesting to examine  that she wants to be an actress. Someone who is still looked to for physical beauty, however she is unsuccessful. Even though she is successful in bedding men using her sexuality, she can not seem to be successful  in finding an acting job. When her sexuality is in your face and Bree is naked with her clients, she is successful. But when she tries to be subtly sexual, she is unsuccessful.
Bree could’ve been a multitude of other careers but the decision to make her an aspiring actress says a lot about how different types of sexuality is viewed. She wants to work in a male dominated field where she will constantly be judge for her looks by men but in that field has much less control over her role. The scene when she is auditioning for an ad of some sort and the casting directors simply brush her over for having odd hands struck me. One girl was turned away for being “too pretty.” We never see the casting director’s face in this entire scene. He is simply looking down on all these women. Here the male has successfully dominated these women by being able to look them over quickly and dismiss them.
This film is incredibly subversive. When Bree is challenged in that male dominated world, she creates her own world where her sexuality is her own and no man is equal to her.

During the film, I could not help but to watch how the costuming replicated the mood of Helen. In the beginning when she is nude, it represents the idea of Helen as a fairy. Then she is in very motherly outfit: an apron and dress, as she attends to her child and duties around the home. But once she must become the seductress, her outfits reflect this too. A hat carefully covering one eye to show that she is hiding a part of herself, the large coat to display her previous successes. All of these play into the role she is playing. When she brings her costume home, it is the sign that she has shifted away from mothering and into supporting her family as a man would. The glamor of the costume brings about a feelings that the world she is in is too small for her to be a part of. When Helen eventually turns her son over to her father, she is again in motherly clothing. These clothes are tattered, covered in patched, and simply awful to see a woman in. This is symbolic of her mothering technique. Its gone downhill. She can no longer care and provide for her child like she thought she once could. In Paris, her singing outfit is a suit. No longer in dresses and frills, Helen herself has turn cold and is supporting only herself, much like a man who would wear such a power suit. She has abandoned her roles of  motherhood.  Her return home, she is at the door in a luxurious coat. But she sheds it when she tells Johnny the loves story. Here again she is wearing a simple dress, completing her journey and ending it again as a mother.