Cultural Anthropology: Post-Feminism in the Media of the Modern Era
Introduction
In the wake of Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement that made women who speak out about sexual assault Time’s Person of the Year in 2017, a reassessment of the values (often contradictorily) displayed in the media in the modern era regarding sex and sexuality is in order. In the 20th century, the Women’s Movement launched the Feminist ideal, which argued that women had the right to be independent, treated as equals to men, work alongside men, and not be viewed as slavish homemakers or as sexualized fantasies for what Laura Mulvey called “the male gaze” (6). In the 21st century, the Feminist generation appears to have be replaced by a post-Feminist generation that, instead of resisting the male gaze, actively seeks to attract it and use it to its own advantage. For instance, the arrival of the Britney Spears in the 1990s ushered in an era of sirens in the video and music industry that is still continuing today, and getting more and more erotic (and often aggressively so) with every passing year. Britney was followed by Christina, Beyonce, J-Lo, Miley, and a host of other female performance artists as well as actresses who have used sexuality to sell their image. How does this aggressive use of sex and sexuality gel with the Feminist ideals and doctrines supposedly still promoted and upheld in the modern era? This paper will examine what cultural anthropologists have had to say about this idiosyncrasy in the history of Feminism and what it means in today’s culture.
Literature Review
The article by Rosalind Gill entitled “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility” examines the meaning of postfeminism and how the term itself means different and often contradictory things to different people. Gill looks at how media interpretations of strong womanhood range from women who are politically active and in public or corporate leadership positions (such as Hillary Clinton or Angelina Jolie) to women who are sexually empowered and use sex and sexuality to dominate and control the male-female relationship (such as Britney or Beyonce). The article discusses the inherent contradiction in the fitting of these two descriptions under the same label, especially as the latter depiction of feminism seems to undermine the former’s seriousness. The latter, after all, appears not to be a repudiation of the male gaze and the “phallocentric” social order...
Bibliography
Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2007, pp. 147-166.
Holson, Laura. “A Blurred Lines Boomerang: Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke See a Reversal of Fortunes.” The New York Times, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/fashion/miley-cyrus-and-robin-thicke-see-a-reversal-of-fortunes.html
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn 1975, pp. 6-18.
Unger, Michael. “The Aporia of Presentation: Deconstructing the Genre of K-pop Girl Group Music Videos in South Korea.” Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2010, pp. 25-47.
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