After watching “Shooting Women” and reading “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” I now realize that although women are often told they can do whatever a man can do by parents, teachers, and mentors when it gets to doing the job there are obstacles that the trusted adults in our lives had never warned about.  In “Shooting Women” several of the women said that they had been sexually harassed while on set.  They felt like men were bothering them because they felt that the film industry was still a man’s domain and they didn’t want women around to screw it up.

In “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”, Slaughter says that no matter how high up a woman gets in her career she will still be expected to be the primary care giver to her children and if she failed to do so that might her career even more.  Slaughter has now begun to telling ambitious, young women that they can have it all, but not all at the same time.  It is possible to have a successful career and a happy family life, but they can’t exist at the same time as they do in a man’s life.  She says that telling women that you can have it all only sets them up for disappointment in the future.

My question is: What should we be telling the girls of today and the women of tomorrow? Should we tell them that they can have any job they want and risk that they may be harassed or abused at that job? Or do we warn them that harassment may happen and allow them to choose a career with that in mind? Both options have both negative and positive outcomes, but being honest about the potential problems down the road, as Slaughter does, may discourage women from following their dream job.  However, hiding the fact that harassment is a possibility may lead women in to danger.  Neither option is good, but one must be chosen until women are seen as equally capable of every job that a man has held in the past.

A few nights ago, my roommates and I watched the thriller Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005) and I could not believe how much the film tied into our class discussions.  The film stars Ellen Page, the girl from Juno, as a young girl who goes on a date with a older man.  I do not want to give too much away, but the girl suspects the man is a pedophile.  The film puts an interesting twist on female stereotypes, feminism and sexual objectification in film.  I would definitely recommend everyone in the class to watch it.  It is not like anything I have ever seen before…

http://www.refinery29.com/2014/10/76620/renee-zellweger-responds-new-look

This past week, Renée Zellweger stepped out at the Elle magazine Women in Hollywood Awards on Monday evening and, I’ll admit, looked surprisingly different. But, thankfully, there wasn’t much coverage on the event and everyone moved on with their lives in a quiet manner. HA, just kidding.  Every news source and possible form of social media has been blowing up ever since regarding this supposed plastic surgery transformation. Of course, without fail the brilliant media channels of the world (E News, People, Celebuzz, Hollywoodlife, TMZ, etc) are leading the field day over this “controversy” and have been flooding the Internet with headlines like “Renee Zellweger is Unrecognizable, ” “Oh my God, What happened to Renee Zellweger?”  “Doctors Decode Renee Zellweger’s New Face” and my personal favorite, “Why Renee Zellweger’s Face Matters.”  I have news for you: it doesn’t.

This entire dramatic media-led episode encapsulates entirely what’s wrong with Hollywood and society’s fixation on the female image in general. Why should it matter whether this woman underwent a physical procedure to alter her looks? Isn’t that sort of the point…that it is her looks? How this affects anyone besides Zellweger is above me, but that’s not even what is most frustrating. For me,  what I found most disappointing from all of these responses is that they went as far as criticizing the actress for making any decision regarding her body. Who are we to determine how anyone is supposed to look or present themselves, especially in a way that best suits our tastes?

One especially stupid article wrote this:

“Zellweger exploded onto the scene the same year that Love redid herself for Hollywood after getting raves for The People Versus Larry Flynt. Zellweger was a cuddlier version of the oddball ingenue. When she smiled, her entire face curled up like a kitten. As an actress, her whole mythology was that the awkward girl could get the guy: Tom Cruise, Hugh Grant. That wasn’t the subtext of Jerry Maguire and Bridget Jones’ Diary—it was the plot. She was excellent in those roles, but people rarely talked about her talent. Especially during the two Bridget Jones films, Zellweger could suffer through an entire interview where she was only asked about her weight.

Fans didn’t love Zellweger for her beauty, though she was in her own way very, very beautiful. (Just picture her perfect, shocked pout when Cruise kisses her breasts on the porch.) Fans loved her because her appeal transcended beauty—she was aspirational in a way that didn’t require a knife.

Except, it turns out that she did. Or rather, that she somehow became convinced of it. ”

What’s wrong with this article (besides everything) is that it is trying to formulate its argument in a feminist way, but it so tragically contradicts itself as it goes on. I get the purpose of the bit that Zellweger was only interviewed about her weight with Jerry Maguire, because that’s so blatantly absurd and insulting we don’t even need to get into it. But when it transitions to saying “fans loved her because her appeal transcended beauty,” it’s basically just saying Zellweger didn’t need to fit our definitions of what beauty is because she had other qualities that redeemed herself. But, don’t worry–“She was, in her own way, very, very beautiful.” I love that it had to clarify she could potentially be considered beautiful, just in her own way. (Technically, aren’t we all beautiful in our own way? Marilyn Monroe was beautiful in her own way. Marion Cotillard is beautiful in her own way. Melissa McCarthy is beautiful in her own way. Because they are all different people– hence the different faces.) The article is essentially saying, Renée– you we liked you on the inside and sometimes even on the outside too, so what happened?  Uh…. what? Even further, it harps on the disappointment that she finally succumbed to going under the knife because “she somehow became convinced of it.” How does the writer of this article have any idea what she was or was not convinced of? It’s disappointing that people are calling their interpretations of this event (which shouldn’t even be deemed an event in the first place) at all feminist because the very act of dissecting a woman’s choice regarding her own body is the antithesis of feminism. The link I posted above is Zellweger’s response to all of this criticism, and it’s just sad to me that something like this elicits a response at all. Okay– that’s enough of my rant. Going now!

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