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SciFi originals are one of my weaknesses, and although they’re a little embarrassing from time to time, they are so fun that I am not ashamed to share with you another of my newest (Netflix Instant)  obsessions: Primeval.  The show is essentially about a merry band of scientists who are investigating anomalies in the space-time continuum which have allowed dinosaurs to slip through into the modern world (along with the occasional future monster).  I know what you’re thinking – AWESOME!  Even better is the rock score that accompanies the action scenes.

Fantastic, right?  But what is it doing on a feminist review site?  SciFi’s attention to female characters is often a double edged sword: female characters are intelligent, competent, and typically hold their own with the manfolk – just in less clothing.  Primeval is no exception to this rule.  There are three primary female characters in the series: Abby, Claudia Brown/Jenny Lewis, and Helen Cutter.  Let’s break them down across the seasons: Read the rest of this entry »

Lady Gaga fascinates me.  She makes me think.  I often find myself wanting to defend her, to whom I’m not sure.  I think she puts me on edge, makes me wonder why she does what she does, and I always come up with a self-satisfying answer.  Take her fashion statements for example.  They’re often… weird, to say the least.  They are revealing, bizarre, and often unattractive or even kind of hideous.  She does not dress like we typically expect our pop star/sex icons to dress.  And in an avant-garde, art club/theater kid misfit kind of way, that’s cool.  But I think it’s more than an angsty rebellion.  Lady Gaga’s fashion choices often make statements about how our society dictates female beauty.

Lady Gaga is thin, white, blonde, hairless…  She’s got the body of the pop star/sex icons of the last decade (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, P!NK, Fergie, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Gwen Stefani… you know the mold), so she’s not scoring major points by presenting us with a new body type.  But what she does with that body is unusual.

Exhibit A: Body Shape

Despite having that “perfect” bod, Lady Gaga frequently distorts the way we see her body, using sharp angles, increasingly large shoulderpads, and poufs or wings to accentuate her hips.  Each of these things in moderation have been considered attractive/fashionable at one point or another, but the extremes to which she takes them have a distracting effect, creating a mismatched, unnatural body shape.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m minding my own business, studying at my favorite bookstore coffeeshop, when I look up to give my eyes a break and what do I see?  This:

Exclusive! “TIGER: Raw, Never-Before-Seen Photos! by Annie Lebovitz”

Ahh, yes, always one to bring the scandal (remember the Miley Cyrus / Billy Ray Electra controversy last year?) I am not surprised to see Ms. Lebovitz has a hand in this.

“The MYSTERY of a SPORTS SUPERSTAR we thought we knew”

What is going on here.  Do I think that Tiger’s affairs should be cover material?  No, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, isn’t it.  I don’t see why any celebrity (or politician) sex scandal deserves front-page anything, save for our human voyeurism.  But how is it that after all the scandal Tiger still comes out as an Adonis?

I can’t even think of a role-reversal example of this to compare it to.  We typically are left with the aftermath of a husband-gone-wild and a wife in shambles, where Mr. Wild Oats comes across as the bad guy.  It is rare that we see as much attention paid to scandals of Mrs. Wild Oats’s adventures of her own.  But, if we did, I think it’s safe to say that Mrs. Wild Oats would play the role of slut/whore/bitch and not be featured on the cover of fashion magazines as a brooding sexual object only months after the debacle.

And yet, there Tiger is in all his shirtless, weight lifting glory (where are the golf clubs?), with Never-Before-Seen Photos! and an Exclusive! insight into the MYSTERY of the man we “thought we knew.”  Please.  Vanity Fair will do anything to move their lavatory literature.

Can you think of any examples of women in Tiger’s position that come out on top?

Always ready to piggyback on social events, PETA was on top of things this week with their 2010 “State of the Union Undress.”  It’s offensive, objectifying, and irritating so I’m not embedding, and I’m not even linking.  If you really want to see it, you’ll find it, but the screencap should give you a clear enough idea of their theme:

Choice lines include (emphasis theirs):

“A hopeful country looks on while a new leader strives to arouse in us our passion for a better future.”

“As the health care debate rages in Congress, we have urged Americans to take matters into their own hands [actress caresses own breasts] with a healthy vegan diet.”

“While the deficit goes up, our fight for animals goes on … and when necessary, our shirts come off.”

“It has always been our policy to show people as much as they need to see in order to make them … stand at attention.”

Yeah, this goes on for a while.  PETA has used innumerable tasteless and despicable tactics in the past to make their points (badum-cha – you activists aren’t the only ones who can manipulate the double-entendre), so I can’t say I’m surprised. The site includes both a safe-for-work and uncensored version of their “speech.”

It also includes links to the 2008 speech, which featured a white model, presumably because we had a white president at the time, and a link to their Slideshow of Naked Campaigns Worldwide.  Classy.

‘Cause you know, nothing says “I believe in the equal status of all creatures” like objectifying women in the name of animal rights.  Pathetic.

Shoutouts to Emily of Jukebox Heroines for the tip!

Feministing had a great visual representation yesterday of the changes over time in beloved childhood characters.  I couldn’t think of any other characters to expand on, but I thought that the sexualization of these characters when it comes to costumes was worth noting.

Strawberry Shortcake

And so it begins.  It’s not like Strawberry Shortcake was lacking in the cuteness department, however her raggedy look apparently just didn’t cut it in these modern times.  Everything about her was neatened up, and her vibrant reds were subdued into girly pinks.  She became taller and thinner with flowing hair, big eyelashes, and modern clothes.  However, her traditional look is maintained in the adult costume (nothing like a sexy apron to compliment that too-short-for-your-stockings skirt, eh ladies?), which hypersexualizes the cartoon cutie.  Because costumes aren’t for playing with your identity, they’re for playing sexy.

Rainbow Brite

Unlike her traditional counterpart, Rainbow Brite is a girl from the future (check out her sweet moon-boots!).  However, just like Strawberry, Rainbow has gone through “the transformation.”  Her legs got longer, face got older, hair was made to flow more gracefully, and her waist was narrowed.  And, of course, in costume form her skirt was shortened even further, her wand became a phallic symbol to hold near the face with and moon-boots were traded for tall socks and stilettos.  This is not the future I hope to visit.  For more on Rainbow Brite’s makeover, check out this post at Feministe.

Dora the Explorer and that all time favorite, Barbie, after the jump.

Panty predicament?  Fear not.  Cosmo’s got your back (lower back, if you know what I mean).

Classy.  Because not only do I need a magazine to tell me which undergarments to wear, I need them to be named after the underwear of children of the opposite sex, and I need them to make my butt look like someone else’s butt. The article begins:

A little more than 10 years ago… wearing a thin strip of fabric between your butt cheeks was considered daringly sexy.

Are we supposed to pretend that Cosmo didn’t tell us that thongs were “daringly sexy?”  The article goes on about the history of the thong and other “man-melting undies” – which might actually be interesting if it was about women’s fashion for women’s sakes, and not just as lures for mates.

But, that’s why I subscribe to Bitch and Bust and not Cosmo.  Thanks Jezebel!

5:00 Edit: The timeline of underwear at the bottom reminded me of this:

I’ve been under the impression that I ought to give 30 Rock a chance for a while now.  Typically (or at least in theory) I like Tina Fey, so it had that going for it.  On the other hand, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan usually make me want to barf, so it was kind of a toss up.  Now that I’ve made it through season 1, I have mixed feelings.  There is a lot of problematic material here.  I think that we’re supposed to interpret this as “ironic” or “tongue-in-cheek” a lot of the time, but mostly the running gags come off as distasteful.  Stick with me through some clips and concerns, and I promise to try to look on the bright side at the end.

First there is the idea that Liz Lemon is an unattractive, pathetic spinster despite the fact that Tina Fey is gorgeous, intelligent, and successful (all of which seem to translate into Liz as well). Take the following clip from “The Baby Show” where crazy Liz can’t control her baby cravings and steals a baby instinctively.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Cerie the sexy secretary,  Jenna the ditz, Jack the misogynist, and running jokes about how gross sex workers/persons with disabilities/gay men are, as well as my attempt to look for the silver lining after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Because reverse objectification isn’t any better than the status quo.

This ad stinks.

“With the gay movement, it’s personal. The same religious-right assholes who took away
my civil rights and put me in jail for a year because they don’t like what I do for a living
have taken away gay rights. I know firsthand how it feels to have your civil rights
stripped from you… P.S., lots of lesbians marched, too.”

- Joe “Girls Gone Wild” Francis

Joe Francis, the creator of the Girls Gone Wild franchise, on why he supports the gay rights and marriage equality movements.  Because as beautiful as freedom and equality are, they pale in comparison to the beauty of two women making out for Joe’s personal satisfaction.  From here.

By now you’ve probably seen one of those irritating kgb commercials for a service that allows you to text that annoying question that you can’t think of the answer to to someone who will find it for you for a dollar.  Aside from the fact that you could just keep your pants on long enough to get to a computer and look it up yourself, and aside from the fact that kgb is the acronym for the USSR’s communist secret police, those ridiculous ads have crossed the line from stupid to offensive.

First, I saw this one.

Then came this one:

And for good measure, lets add a little racism to the mix:

Awesome.  Listen – save your dollar, write your question on a napkin, and look it up yourself.  Maybe look up “How can we end the objectifican of women in the media?” or “How can we eliminate racial stereotypes as a source of humor?” or “How can 99 cents make the world a better place?” or “How can I get these stupid commercials off my tv?”

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