User:Annalystad/Finalessay

Media's Evolution in Feminism

Reading Amelia Jones’ Feminism Incorporated, “Post feminism” in an anti feminist age describes that post-feminism happened because of a backlash in feminism. Jones describe that the media has contributed to this backlash by declaring it ‘dead’ in both text and photography and brings up examples from movies and TIME magazine. Jones brings up different ads showing that media has been mocking the feminist movement, and therefore was slowly moved into the post-feminist movement. This backlash in the media was also created by professional women whom are “self-denied feminist, who confuse and transgress previously accepted codes of domesticated femininity.” [Jones, 1992, p.315]

I find this text highly relevant in the sense that post-feminsim is a movement that is now something we are more aware of in today’s media storm. I find it interesting to see how media has contributed to this with such mockery in the past and how it now is not so apparent anymore, although it has a great deal of sexism. This feminist movement has become more of a knowledge, something most people are aware of and can detect more easily. Today it is more about the equality of both gender and sexuality, yet we have not reached this idea of equality but have progressed hugely in the last 15 years. This backlash Jones is describing created the post-feminist movement, it has shifted the focus in the media - making feminism apparent in society with a more positive tone instead of being mocked. Jones’ Feminism Incorporated has also shown me how in the feminist era that femininity is lost in it - the fact that being a feminist was more about becoming more ‘manly’ how women moved from the kitchen (where we belonged) in to something more masculine, both in the sense of clothing, manners and in the workplace. Considering Jones’ text on post-feminism and its backlash, this was a good thing for moving the feminist critique and femininity to be more accepted in today's society, although there is still a great deal of sexism displayed in the media. My argument is that this since have progressed this far, we can now use our knowledge and media to shine more light on the issue, and progress in a positive way.

Jones is discussing how post-feminism has been promoted through photography and written texts - that photography is a ‘truthful’ medium and is widely spread through magazines and advertisements. These ads and magazines are setting the standard view of male/female truth when it comes to limits of gender, race, sexual and class differences. She is claiming that photography has been a part of this execution of feminism. Jones is using one such example - “Basic Instinct (1992) by Paul Verhoven, where the ‘strident lesbian’/bisexual becomes a man-killer with an ice pick/phallus. These narratives produce the necessity of annihilation the non-domesticated contemporary woman in bloody orgies of human destruction, or reinscribing her into the family structure. With the termination of the contemporary professional woman comes the termination of feminism and its threatening anti-patriarchal goals.” (Jones, 1992, p 321) Here Jones is saying that Hollywood was in one way trying to do something different and make the woman the powerful one, although using her femininity as a disguise for something negative . Not only that but creating this stereotype which states that lesbians/bisexual women are psychotic and only uses her femininity for selfish reasons. Thereby being incredibly destructive to feminism and its message, this movie in particular is saying that lesbians are psychopaths. In many different mediums like photography, film, writing there is a lot of this anti-feminism where they are trying to empower women but utterly failing at it.

Further, I will explore my way of using the photograph to represent the human body in a way that is not defined by gender, sexual preference, class or race. I will explores the subject of how the human body, which we objectify and confine to the rules of society. It will be portrayed as something visually beautiful yet dark, grotesque and disturbing. To me, beauty is not just something you see, it is something you feel. Something that inspires you, makes you addicted, something you can never have enough of. In my art, I explore the human body, its shape, texture and context within the world. Because of the media today creating this ideal body almost forces one to feel bad about themselves - me included. This obsession with body has been a form or therapy, and exploration and acceptance of my own unique beauty. Exploiting the raw truth within others selfishly helped me. The idea that beauty is a fetish, in a way that we depend on it, we are forced to see it in certain things, objects or places such as a symmetrical object or face. I don't think i have ever heard anyone say ‘that was a ugly sunset’, or had a discussion of how the sunset could have been better if you moved one cloud a little to the right. If this feeling is a subjective one or an objective one I can not answer you, although I believe it is a little bit of both. There are things that are more objective in the form of beauty such as a sunset, and then we have The Mona Lisa, which people find beautiful and others might not agree. The more we obsess with our bodies, they become more or less beautiful. Either beauty is a feeling which blinds us of seeing the truth or it helps the truth. Yet, Jones quotes Mulvey “It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.” (quoted in Jones, 1992, p.325), and I find this sentence to be true, if you are analyzing your body you will discover what you can change to make it better. You can do the same with a sunset, analyzing the weather for that day, that this particular could was like a wrinkle in the sky that didn't need to be there. By analyzing it - you destroy the pleasure and feeling you got from it. “According to Mulvey’s argument, the construction of woman as objectified other through visual representation is inevitable, and feminist must work to refuse this objectification. Woman, Mulvey argues, stands “in patriarchal culture… as bearer… not maker of meaning,” becoming object of scopophilic and inexorably male desire or the fetishizing male gaze, serving to palliate the male viewer’s fear of lack.”(quoted in Jones, 1992, p.325), what Jones and Mulvey are discussing is how we have to refuse something that is only natural - the male gaze. I am all for not objectifying women, although it is in our nature to find pleasure in others. Instead of denying it, rather find the feminine side and portray it - this goes for men and women of all sorts and shapes. I do not believe in singling out anyone, who is to say that women do not find pleasure in looking at men? I am partially agreeing with this quote, instead of neutralizing the female body I will explore all kinds of human bodies, and finding pleasure in them in a grotesque and feminine way.

In my work, I will try to package and distort what I find beautiful, my obsession, the human form and texture. I am not analyzing the beauty or the pleasure it gives me, rather observing it and making it come to life, creating a new language. This fascination with beauty and how it makes us feel is an ongoing project for many, getting more fit, slimmer, better health and feeling better has an underlying tone of wanting to feel beautiful. This obsession can be just from our own visuals of our body, social pressure, or health issues. Society today is like a meat market, you can choose whatever you might desire, height, what type of cut and what kind of flavour you want. No matter what the reason might be, it is this fetishism with beauty and the body, this addiction to feel good, about ourselves or in society. By portraying this concept I want the viewer to feel the beauty yet understand the consequences of neglecting it.

People go through all kinds of regimes to achieve beauty, I am exploiting this idea within my art by photographing the human body for what it is, it's natural and unnatural, whatever that might be, and comparing that with different kinds of meat that have various texture, color, look and shape. This metaphor is meant to both find beauty and the scary truth of how we treat and see our bodies. With this process I am learning how to see beauty in my body, my flaws, and how I should accept me for me. A beauty that will not be analyzed, but rather enjoyed for what it is. After reading Amelia Jones’ text, I have come to the conclusion that sexism is a part of the media today, and we have not reached complete equality for everyone - yet we have come far. Now we have the power and knowledge today to critique feminism in a positive way, contributing to equality in the way we can. As I am doing with my photography project, to make us one people - not different types of meat.

Bibliography Jones, A (1992) Feminism Incorporated, “Post feminism” in an anti feminist age