Reading Questions Set 2

Hi all–

Post your questions for the Gauntlett Chapters 1 & 2 in this thread. If you haven’t been able to get hold of the Gauntlett book yet, please let me know via email, and in the meantime post on Chapter 1 (which is available on e-reserve).

– L

21 thoughts on “Reading Questions Set 2

  1. Anna Gallagher

    Gauntlett quotes Faluidi, saying that our Western culture is “saturated with a competitive individualism that has been robbed of craft and utility, and ruled by commercial values[…] enslave[d] to glamour.” Though this statement criticizes the affect that media has had on our lives, Gauntlett seems to suggest that media has also changed our attitudes in a positive way (not necessarily our practices) regarding equality between the genders. How are these two ideas held in tension in Chapter one? Can we be “enslaved to glamour” and liberated in other ways by the media simultaneously?

    Gauntlett refers to Mulvey’s ideas as “disappointing, simplistic and/or sexist,” though I think he misses her point. In her essay on “Visual Pleasure,” she is describing a LANGUAGE of CLASSICAL cinema that established a pattern which modern films are descended from. She deals with films of a certain era, and how the camera frames the action, which set up a patriarchal “norm,” for other films to follow. However, he does make a valid point concerning her disregard for the “feminine gaze.” Does she address any of his issues in her follow up? How valid is his criticism of her? Though many current films take issue with her analysis, isn’t her theory still useful and applicable?

  2. Eleanor Krause

    According to the “Masculinity” section, men are having a much more difficult time adjusting to the social changes of the present and are struggling with purpose. The chapter also states that mass media and popular culture “offer important tools to help men – and women – adjust to contemporary.” Does this mean that todays media provides more guidance for women compared to men? There are numerous shows, as we saw last week, that provide examples of strong “modern women”, but are there similar illustrations for men? The article remarks that “men don’t need to become ‘like women’ but can develop a new form of masculinity which places ‘a greater value on love, family and personal relationships and less on power, possessions and achievement’”. It seems to me that media is not providing many examples of this new outlook, most shows feature strong stereotypical men. Is media (and thus our culture) encouraging women to become more “masculine” but not encouraging men to become more “feminine”? In that case in order to be “equal”, as feminism desires, women have to become like men but men can stay in their previous roles.

    1. Eleanor Krause

      Chapter 2:

      Fiske views media as a huge society-lead movement towards social change. So, the people who blame media for “corrupting the minds of young generations” through sexually suggestive media should actually be blaming society for supporting it. Then does this mean that, as Freud suggests, human’s primary subconscious thought is of reproduction, and this idea is coming to light through media’s continually increasing uncensored nature?

  3. Amelia Furlong

    Chapter one.

    Gauntlett specifically says that this book does not criticize media so much as it asks how much it affects our notions of gender. Yet, how can Gauntlett mention “women’s magazines” as positive examples of media that “encourage their readers to be assertive and independent” while completely ignoring the many ways these magazines sexualize women and emphasize the importance of losing obscene amounts of weight and enticing men? It almost seems as if Gauntlett is missing the point.

    Chapter Two.

    Gauntlett is very critical of Mulvey’s essay, the one written in the 70s, yet he uses movies that were made in the 2000s to supposedly “debunk” her theories. Gauntlett says: “Mulvey’s arguments cannot be too strong if mainstream films like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Elektra and Aeon Flux can bounce it off the rails altogether.” But those movies were made thirty years after Mulvey’s article. How can he expect her to know what kind of movies are made in the future? Mulvey is responding to a specific kind of movie. She is not denying that other types of movies exist, ones in which women are not sexualized and turned into objects. She is simply responding to the type of movie that has humiliated and objectified women, and which is still seen today. How can Gauntlett act as if this is not a legitimate source of anger and frustration?

  4. Caroline Fernandes

    Gauntlet defines Biological Determinism as the “view” that because of biological genes, “women and men are fundamentally different, and they cannot help it – they were born that way”. Although this theory isn’t discussed in the introduction, the definition struck me because I’ve always had this feeling that defining feminism as “men and women should be equal”, was inadequate and too simple. Many people would agree that men and women should have equal opportunity and receive equal respect, but why did men and women gender roles drift so far from apart in the first place if there wasn’t a fundamental difference between the behaviors and tendancies of the two sexes?
    Yes, I believe women shouldn’t have to do housework if they don’t want to, and no one should have to be anything they don’t want to be. But could it be that, biologically, women in general are better suited than men are for, for example, domestic activities?

    1. Caroline Fernandes

      (Chapter 2):
      Stuwart Hall’s “encoding/decoding model” is about the variance between a purpose (“encoding”) of a certain media versus the individual interpretation (“decoding”). Every individual has a unique perspective on everything they encounter, but how much do broader factors influence the decoding of media? Is the media interpreted differently between groups based on class, geography, education level, race, etc?

  5. Rajsavi Anand

    Gauntlett devotes various parts of this book towards the study of masculinity and its challenges or rather how men feel they are being ridiculed because of the feminist rise. Why do men feel that masculinity as defined by the relation between us and the media is what men use to judge their personal growth? How can we fix this problem?

  6. Amethyst Tate

    For decades, it has been seen as essentially a universal fact that women are subordinate to men. Relegated to the domestic sphere, women are seen as nurtures, caretakers of children, and lacking authority, while men are thrust into the public sphere, where emphasis is placed on achievement, authority, and economic status. Though Gauntlett states that women being confined to the home is becoming less popular, which is true, when women do enter the public sphere, they are often still subject to being treated as “less than,” with emphasis placed on the body, such as when Obama was running for President, and all the media, including newspapers and talk shows talked about in regards to Michelle Obama was her outfit choice and hairstyle; who cared that she graduated from an ivy league college? While Gauntlett states on page 7 that attitudes are changing in regards to men and women being seen as equals, I have a hard time believing such a statement. Focus on women is still placed on their looks as opposed to their brains, and they are often still described in relation to men. If there was a show about a man who enters the domestic sphere and takes care of his children while his wife worked, what do you think would be the reaction of the general audience? Does such an act go against “masculinity” and if so, what can mass media do to change this perception of women belonging in the domestic sphere and men in the public so that men and women can truly be equals?

    Recently I saw a cartoon online about mass media where one guy asks another: “Are you too influenced by TV?” and the other man replies: “Depends-can I ask the audience or go fifty-fifty?” making a reference to the show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.’ It is evident that the media has a strong influence on society, as Adorno pointed out, however, I also agree with Fiske’s argument that society has some control over popular culture. When I open a magazine and see a beautiful woman wearing a certain brand, I am convinced that I need to buy what she has on. Yet, I am aware that it is all an illusion. Buying something from a Victoria’s Secret catalog will not make me look like Giselle. Yet, in one form or another, we still all buy into this popular culture. Do you believe that the media shapes our values and defines who we are and how we interact with others? And if so, is this a social problem that needs to be addressed? How can we change the relationship between the media and society?

  7. Laura Hendricksen

    Chapter I:

    David Gauntlett’s essay aims at analyzing the impact of the media on the formation of our gender and sexual identities…
    But, to what extent does popular media actually influence the way we think of ourselves when one knows that TV shows and advertisements are in reality restrained to representing only what the audience would tolerate? Should we not insist on how the media is limited by the boundaries of what is and what is not acceptable in society? David Gauntlett says it himself: “Women and men are usually equals in today’s movies and TV shows; we raise an eyebrow when this isn’t so”. Doesn’t the media show what the society wants to see?

    Chapter 2
    If the media and society have a symbiotic relationship, is the criticism from scholars simply a critique of society? Does this mutual reliance imply that gender will always be static?

  8. Rosalind Downer

    David Gauntlett begins his argument by suggesting that the media influences “our own way of conducting ourselves, and our expectations of other people’s behavior”, and goes on to suggest that “magazines for women encourage their readers to be assertive and independent”. Why then, has this media influence, which as we have seen depicts women in roles of high power, not changed the “culture of men” which is still found in top jobs in businesses, as well as not changing the number of women in Great Britain holding the CEO positions in cooperate businesses to more than a mere 15%? Why are women still the underdogs? Will this ever change?

    1. Rosalind Downer

      Gauntlett cites Adorno’s realization that “The customer is not king, as the culture industry would have us believe, not its subject but its object”. Therefore is it not true that the media’s objectification of women is solely a mirror of human interaction and nothing more? Is it fair to demonize the media?

  9. Bryanna Kleber

    Intro:
    In class, we talked about words and ideas associated with masculinity and femininity. The words we chose we not necessarily words that we personally associate with masculinity and femininity, but words that we think others may associate with masculinity and femininity. Gauntlett notes how these ideas “have been pulled through the social changes of the past few decades in quite different ways.” Has our belief that people have these ideas associated with masculinity and femininity stunted our own ideas about masculinity and femininity? Moreover, have these ideas confined and inhibited men and women to act in a natural manner?

    Chapter 2:
    We have read about the two main arguments Mulvey presents as the pleasures of cinema, scopophilia and narcissistic scopophilia. Gauntlett mentions that Fiske would also likely think that we support media because, to a certain extent, we relate on an emotional level. One argument that has yet to be mentioned is the idea of idolization. Personally, I think this could be the strongest argument. If I were to ask a group of friends why they watch Gossip Girl, the majority would say that they love Blair or they want to be Serena. Most wouldn’t say they enjoy it because they relate to these two characters, but rather they want to relate to them. Media creates ideal lifestyles that often have situations playing out with favorable results. The created lifestyles seem like great ones to strive to replicate. What would Gauntlett say about this idea of media being something we idolize and strive to have?

    1. Bryanna Kleber

      After Tuesday’s class, I realized I misunderstood something I wrote about in my question. *Mulvey’s two main arguments of scopophilia are voyeurism and narcissistic voyeurism.*

  10. Alexander Griffiths

    Adorno points that saying “fuck you consumer society”, in reality is more like, “Thank you consumer society”. So if the concept of selecting a consumer good is in fact a pre-planned motion, planned by a capitalist body, so to trick you into the belief of choice, are we all automatons? Is it the reality that we drive the creation of consumer goods, by the process of supply and demand that scares us the most? Don’t to a point, we all endorse the homogenization of society, and don’t we enjoy our shared experiences within it?

    If as Mulvey points out that both men and women emulate with the male character of medium, has feminism died within the media, are women in fact obsolete? Has feminism momentarily fainted at the sight of Daniel Craig’s swimwear and so do women really want anything more? Or has the media empire just sold out women?

  11. Luke Martinez

    Has feminism gone too far? The alarming fact is that men are embarrassed and shamed in their sex, based on public scrutiny of every action for which they take pride and have a major role in. “Now the whole issue of men – the point of them, their purpose, their value, their justification – is a matter for public debate… (men) appear terrified by the prospect of revealing that they can be – and often are – depressed, dependent, in need of help” (Anthony Clare, pg 8). Men have been so heavily influenced by feminism over the past several decades that they are embarrassed to be what they have identified as for eons, confused as to their role in society (it has been discussed that the male role in a family is not even necessary), and ashamed to admit to and seek help for their weaknesses. Women have a seemingly large chip on their shoulder to establish that they are just as capable as men at everything, reducing masculinity down to the anatomical level. Gender roles have rapidly evened out, based on relentless political and social campaigns, and hint at the “uselessness” of the male. Feminism has altered male sexuality and gender roles significantly. This leads to my question: When does this rush for feminism go too far, and what does feminisms’ ever increasing pressure mean in terms of male identity in the future?

    The “meaning” of media is interpreted by each person in the way it applies best to them. We take larger topics like love (just an example) and reflect on our own lives from what we’ve seen. It is our choice to see the film or read the magazine, it is our choice to fund said production, and our choice to apply what we’ve seen to our every day lives or not. I thoroughly buy John Fiske’s theory of the population controlling media culture, and instilling symbiotically current actions and topics into media. Therefore, what is it in human nature that forces us to blame others for what we create? Violence and sex, marriage and crime, all are things we have endorsed on tv, so why are we blaming others for our own creation?

  12. Laura Hendricksen

    Chapter I:

    David Gauntlett’s essay aims at analyzing the impact of the media on the formation of our gender and sexual identities…
    But, to what extent does popular media actually influence the way we think of ourselves when one knows that TV shows and advertisements are in reality restrained to representing only what the audience would tolerate? Should we not insist on how the media is limited by the boundaries of what is and what is not acceptable in society? David Gauntlett says it himself: “Women and men are usually equals in today’s movies and TV shows; we raise an eyebrow when this isn’t so”. Doesn’t the media show what the society wants to see?

  13. Avery Rain

    Chapter 1:
    I am intrigued by the idea that, in today’s modern world, traditional values of masculinity are to some degree extraneous, leaving men in a state of transition, whereas femininity includes characteristics that women can choose and manipulate when they want. As traditional masculinity becomes less important, will traditional femininity show the same influence? If one thinks of femininity as that which is not masculinity (and vice versa), wouldn’t it seem that the decrease of definition and prominence of one would necessarily lead to a similar pattern in the other?

    Chapter 2:
    In Chapter 1, Gauntlett addresses a movement of media usage from passive to active, stating that “people’s relationship with media today is more often characterised by the role of ‘user’ or ‘participant’ than ‘audience member’. How does this shifting definition of media audience inform the opposing arguments of Adorno and Fiske discussed in Chapter 2?

  14. Maria Macaya

    Gauntlett mentions that mass media can help both men and women to change and adjust to modern society. This sounds like a good way of helping people cope with the changing gender roles and lifestyles. However, isn’t it dangerous to give the power, to re-shape society, to the few people encharge of TV programming? Are they apt?

    Adorno and Herkheimer expressed how even in the 1940’s movies were very predictable. Gauntlett points out (and we can attest to this) that this still applies to movies today. Why hasn’t it changed after all this time? We sometimes don’t like movies with an unexpected ending because “they didn’t end as we wanted them to”. Is it that that we like knowing how a movie will end, we want to feel in control? Have we learned to like the usual movie strucuture after all these years of watching it?

  15. Oliver Sutro

    One of the debates in the Gauntlett is media’s affect on society and society’s affect on the media (perhaps we could switch some words in like “chicken” and “egg”). Which came first? Is the media teaching us how (for example) to kiss and make love or is society’s demand shaping the media?

  16. Joyce Ma

    In class, we listed characteristics that are associated with masculinity. Similarity, Gauntlett discusses the issues of “masculinity in crisis” and states because of “men are renowned for their ability and inclination to be stoned, drunk or sexually daring,”they fear to be viewed as “depressed, dependent,” and “in need of help.” Shouldn’t the fear of not expressing ones emotions be considered cowardly?

    Adorno argues that “the public will buy any old rubbish if they have been shown it enough times on TV.” Does repetition in media somehow enforce its credibility? For instance, if one continues to see a certain advertisement over a span of 4 years, does that prove that the product is effective in our minds?

  17. Alexander Griffiths

    “Ann E Kaplan wrote that Madonna’s image usefully adopts one mask after another to expose the fact that there is not essential self and therefore no essential feminine but only cultural constructions, therefore femininity was just one of the available guises.” Is it naïve to think that women are wholly repressed by this guise? In turn is their exploitation of this guise/repression an indicator of their assertion of feminism?

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