Post your questions for the following readings below:
- Doane, Mary Ann. “Film and the Masquerade.” (Thornham)
- Pressler, Jessica and Rovzar, Chris. “How Gossip Girl is changing the way we watch television.”
- Havrilesky, Heather. “Loaded.”
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“The male ‘transvestite’ provides an occasion for laughter; a female ‘transvestite’ only another occasion for desire. If this is true, must we argue that any feminisation of the male or movement toward being a metrosexual will always be taboo that female spectators cannot gaze at comfortably? Does this mean that female transvestitism is in fact a freedom that men are not afforded?
Eeeee! Sorry, I completely blanked that reading questions were still due for Thursday. My sincerest apologies that these are late.
Loaded:
For more privileged television viewers, Gossip Girl and other “rich” shows portray the reality of their lives rather than an escapist fantasy. What relationships can this audience cultivate with the media?
The Genius of Gossip Girl:
Pressler & Rovzar presented a compelling and detailed argument why Gossip Girl is the “most awesomely awesome show ever.” Yet they acknowledge that some people are feel shame about their love of the show. Why are people ashamed? What about the show leads people to “cloak [their] adoration in irony”?
Doane:
We have read about how the male gaze fetishizes and makes a spectacle of women, yet Doane seems to argue that the masquerade of femininity is initiated by women as a compensation for their nearness to bisexuality. Are women sexualized and feminized by themselves or by men? Can these processes coexist? Which comes first?
Heather Havrilesky writes, “Can these dramas — which are made for young people, after all — really be written off as harmless fun when so many of us aspire to throw money around like young barons and dukes with demonstrably tragic consequences for the entire country?” How does class interact with the power and sexuality of female characters on “Gossip Girl?”
How does the real-life activities of stars affect our viewing of their characters in shows like “Gossip Girl” or even movies in Old Hollywood? Does the life of the star ever have a bearing on our conception of them as a potential “ego ideal?”
Has the role of the female spectator changed in recent years? Are female spectators still confronted by the distance that Doane talks about—are we still torn between the “transvestite experience” and identifying with the female as a spectacle?
Pressler and Rovzar admit that they’re “technically a little old for Gossip Girl,” just because they were in high school a while ago. But, what if an older, late teens and twenties, audience was the intended target? Not many 13 or 14 year olds would be able to relate to the “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite,” nor would they likely want to. They are just too young to want such a lifestyle, yet. What is the purpose of a director or creator of a television show to target an older audience in a series about teenage lives? What does it do to society? Does it create age expectation confusion by portraying that going to a bar and drinking at the age of 17 is the norm or that getting involved in catty drama is not immature for a 25 year old?
Havrilesky says, “these are rare low moments in otherwise fabulous, fun-filled lives.” Sure, there are the countless parties, fancy dinners, frivolous shopping trips, and spur of the moment vacations, but there is an equal amount, if not more, of sorrow and troubles in these character’s lives. They are under constant pressure to stay skinny, be popular, get the guy/girl, and live up to their parent’s expectations. There is a reason that many develop some sort of addiction, be it to alcohol, drugs, sex, or some sort self-destructive habit. Is it shows like Gossip Girl, 90210, and Privileged that teach people they can do drugs to numb their pain, or they can vomit to loose weight?
Doane argues that women with glasses can look and have a gaze, yet they are not looked at. Mulvey would argue that only male characters can look. Women with glasses represent intellect and knowledge and they take on a “masculine” characteristic of being able to look. Are they undesirable because men feel intimidated by the power these women denote? Or, are they instinctively turned off because these women are more masculine than feminine by possessing the power to look?
After watching 2 seasons of gossip girl and reading this article, despite all my prejudices, I want to be a part of the gang. How do writers and directors alike make gossip girl into such a desirable reality (or false reality)? Is it because “there are absolutely no consequences for anyone’s actions?”
Do shows like 90210 and Gossip Girl push people to become more successful or is it a false reality for people who know that they’ll never be any better than what they are right now? Is the week in between shows painful because one must continue living a normal life?
It seems after four weeks in GSM, the most common names I hear are Mulvey and Freud. Why does the entire force of the gender and sexuality investigation team (I jest) bow down to these figures? It seems in every paper I have read they have both been mentioned at least twice. Why have there not been any other great intellectuals mentioned?
XOXO,
Gossip Girl
did you watch gossip girl before we saw the screening…?
*** On the article ‘Film and Masquerade’by Doane.
‘Historically, there have always been certain imbrications of the cinematic image and the representation of the woman’.
If cinema is focused on women, made for women, so closely linked to the female persona, then how could the female spectator be evicted at first from the analysis of visual pleasure? If it isn’t through cinema, then where else can the ‘riddle of feminity’ be solved? Isn’t cinema all about women after all? She is the image and she is the spectator: female audiences have always been very important in the history of cinema and this surely continues on with girly TV shows…. So, why does she have to put on a mask and play out her sex?
In “Film and Masquerade,” Doanne concludes that “… the growing insistence upon the elaboration of a theory of female spectatorship is indicative of the crucial necessity of understanding that position in order to dislocate it.” How can we accomplish to “dislocate” it? What is the most effective method? If we continue to use cinema as a medium to expose the problems of female spectatorship? Or do we change the laws or rules created by our society because femininity is a social construction?
Mary Ann Doane suggests that the female spectator is consumed by the image rather than consuming it. How is this so for shows such as Gossip Girl? Does the fact that Blair and Serena exercise female control and power over their male characters (for example when Serena attacks Chuck on the roof of the party in episode 1) deny this opinion? For as a female spectator, are we not witnessing a woman in her own right possessing her own image, and holding full control over it? And therefore providing the female spectator with something she can relate to?
Genius of Gossip Girl:
The author states: “The show mocks our superficial fantasies while satisfying them, allowing us to partake in the over-the-top pleasures of the irresponsible superrich without anxiety or guilt or moralizing.” Isn’t this the premise of every show? In a movie about serial killers, we are put into the mindset of one, but never are actually given any of the effects. I think that it’s interesting to use this view on a movie such as Rebecca. Isn’t our reaction towards the main character the same? We would love to marry into a rich a family as a normal person. However, we never have to accept any of the problems. Does this affect how we can relate to the character?
Loaded:
The author states: “Why can’t we tell our kids the story of a resourceful, clever teenager living with her single parent in a run-down apartment? She could be a smart, crafty, sharp-tongued heroine who’s charismatic and wise enough to put the shallow rich kids in their place. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to encounter a heroine who didn’t need favors or loans or the kindness of rich strangers to get by?” I feel this question is an interesting one. There are shows such as the Middle on ABC that don’t do quite as well as any of these shows. Do shows now-a-days need to have a character that is in a different position that us (supernatural) for us to relate? We see the advent of new shows such as Vampire diaries, where we relate to the characters, yet they have nothing in common with us. Why does the spectator now need someone who we can’t relate to understand ourselves?
Mascarde:
The author states: The woman is there as the butt of a joke- a ‘dirty joke’ which, as Freud has demonstrated, is always constructed at the expense of a woman. This quote has many flaws as it assumes that women are always the ones who are laughed at in cinema. Although this may be true in the movie described, I’d like to argue that the men are in fact the ones who can be the butts of jokes. When men melt under the female gaze as in the movie It where the main male character turns into a child, or when Maxim is reduced to near-sucide because of Rebecca, how can it be said that women are not in power? Is it not funny when the men beg back their woman counterparts as does Chuck in gossip girl?
“Masquerade”:
According to Mary Ann Doane, the unaccustomed distance created by the cinema gives a female spectator two choices: “the masochism of over-identification or the narcissism entailed in becoming one’s own object of desire.” Do men spectators have the same option during a female oriented film such as “Rebecca” or “Gossip Girl”? Or does their supposed familiarity with distance allow them to avoid these options?
“Genius of Gossip Girl”:
The article states and exemplifies just how obsessed society has become with television shows and actors, and conveys how fiction and reality are becoming intertwined. Are people becoming too engrossed in this “fictional reality” that the media is creating and selling to them? Has the border been crossed when fans are so compelled by a show and the scenes created in public that they begin to loose grasp of what is real and what is fiction? If/when this occurs will the balance between media and public control be tipped to favor media?
“Loaded”:
Earlier in the course we established that thriving media is that which the public supports. Does the fact that the shows thriving display money as the ultimate power say something about the wants of society? Do people want to see a world were money can solve all problems? Do we delight in fantasizing a life in which something tangible such as finances allows us complete control of our surroundings?
In “Loaded,” Heather Havrilesky points out that the CW canceled Veronica Mars. Why? Is Gossip Girl a more realistic reflection of our lives? Or could it mirror what we fantasize what our lives could become?
Pressler and Rovzar in “How Gossip Girl is changing the way we watch television,” is enthusiastic about the characters having similar personalities in real life. The viewer does not whether the actors in real life had these personalities before acting in Gossip Girl or if it was development because of the show. Can acting translate into real life? Therefore in cinema, when woman were portrayed as spectacles, off set, will they also see themselves as spectacles?
In Gossip Girl, the characters are exaggerated but it allows the viewer to see the similarities between the fictional character and people in reality. Does drawing the extremes of a situation allow the viewer the clarity to observe the reality of the situation?
On Doane:
If a woman is caught between flaunting her femininity, which Doane argues is only to make up for her “lack” of a phallus, and being the transvestite (which, by the way, is not a politically correct term) then where is the “real” femininity of women in films? Is the woman dressing in men’s clothes so much a want to be a man, or an expression of a different kind of femininity? If the “masquerade” of femininity, as Doane calls it, is just a mask, and the reverting to men’s clothes and attitudes is transvestite, what is left, and when do we see it in film?
Doane states that female spectators should wear their femininity as a mask, and this mask in effect creates distance between themselves and the represented femininity on the screen. So is femininity just a masquerade? And what does the act of concealment say about gender performance and identity?
*Doane : )
Doan states ” …she is the image…the female spectator’s desire can be described only in terms of a kind of narcissism”. Is there joy in being the spectacle of a gaze, voyeuristic or not? Don’t the characteristics of a movie theater allow for at least a false voyeuristic tendency in women? (i.e. the darkness, the distance from the screen)
Gossip Girl is a sick, twisted marketing ploy geared towards young “twenty-somethings” to sell clothes, shoes, accessories, and even hotels and bars in New York city. The glitz coats over the moral issues of the show (drugs, alcohol, sex, fraud and embezzlement to name a few), showing teens (and apparently middle aged bloggers) that all of life’s issues go away if you throw money at them. I know all of this…yet I am hooked on the show. What makes this show so accessable to teens if hardly anyone lives this kind of lifestyle? Why can someone identify all the issues with something yet love it?
Why can all the main characters be portrayed as ego-ideals? Are foil characters necessary to bring out the best (or worst) of the characters? Do the parents serve as foils to the characters in a negative way?
Havrilesky states that “As our country abandons its middle-class roots to become a nation of very rich and very poor, our television screens reflect this shift in the Armani-clad Manhattan prep school teens of “Gossip Girl,” Is it really that television is reflecting this widening gap between the rich and the poor or is it actually encouraging it and contributing to it? Havrilesky asks “should we feel so comfortable celebrating the growing divide between the haves and have-nots?” The answer is obviously no but we feel comfortable because we see it as natural after watching shows such as gossip girl. So what are the true effects that these shows are having on our society? on our country, on ourselves?
Pressler and Rovzar state that “the best, and most addictive, aspect of Gossip Girl is that the delectable tangle of jealousy, loyalty, confusion, and general teen angst coils and recoils at such a frenetic pace”. The massive audience Gossip Girl has had supports that this is true. Why do we like to feel this way? Why do we find pleassure in feeling jealous, confused and anxious? Is it healthy to want to feel like that and experience these feelings constantly?
Doane expresses that “the hieroglyphic, like the woman, harbours a mystery, an inaccessible though desirable otherness. On the other hand the hieroglyphis is the most readable of languages”. Have women already been understood or is this just a potential understanding? Would this explain why women are always the spectacles of films? Because they pose a dangerous mystery to men but there is always the chance that this mistery can be solved?
On Havrilesky:
Do shows like “Dallas” and “Dynasty” really give us a better characterization of wealth and privilege just because they show the hard and ugly side of it? There are definitely moments of “The O.C.”, and there are probably moments in “Gossip Girl” when the excessive partying and wealth of the characters is seen negatively. Was it so much better on these other shows, or are any television series that glamorize these ridiculous lifestyles just giving young people unrealistic consumerist expectations?
In ‘The Genius of Gossip Girl’ the writers are extremely curious about every detail of these stars lives. And America is as well. Who is Blair dating in real life? Where does Chuck live? I remember for a few weeks magazine writers went crazy when they thought one of the male characters was gay in real life. But that begs the question: If he were gay, would that change our perception of his character on the show? Would a male no longer be able to identify with his fictional character because of his sexual preferences in real life? And what does that say about the spectator if he/she is not able to differentiate an actor from their performance?
The lifestyles which the character Pressler and Rovzar discuss in a negative light, “dressed in the latest clothes…smothered with a thick coat of money”, however I would argue, are these necessarily a bad thing? After all, in Gossip Girl, alongside the affluent lifestyles exists powerful women, which is arguably revolutionary on screen. Shouldn’t we realize that this indeed is a great success in itself, rather than critiquing their aspirational lifestyle?
Heather Havrilesky argues that “It’s a perverse consumerist fable for young people, built on the notion that money provides the only sure escape from tension, stress and impeding challenges”, however I question why it is deemed a problem to aspire to this lifestyle? Is this not a way in which these women can prove their success and empowerment? Of course, this is not the only way in which women can do this, however it is clear that it is a particularly easy way to represent successful women on screen, and therefore should this empowerment be criticized so heavily?
On Pressler and Rovzar:
The authors of this article say that “Gossip Girl” is “profound social commentary” and then go on to give an example of this “profound social commentary” as a mother telling her daughter not to eat a croissant. I have wealthy friends who live in New York City and go to fancy private schools, and while their lives are intense, they do not have this shallowness that “Gossip Girl” so acutely portrays. How is it profound, and how does it comment on society or satirize anything, to glorify people whose conception of life is no bigger than the bubble of the Manhattan island?
And I mean marketing ploy geared towards women.
*herve leger. oops. ;p
In high school, numerous Gossip Girl episodes were filmed a couple of blocks away from my school and my friends would run during their lunch break and after school to the set to watch (and at times stalk) the actors on set. They would buy the same Tory Burch shoes Blair wore and talk about buying the Harve Lerge dress B wore in the last episode for prom. I doubt male friends would sit in class talking about Nate’s bomber jacket or Chuck’s sweater. In magazines I would always read gossip magazine and see advertisements about exactly what Blair wore on set and where to purchase it. Is Gossip Girl a TV show or a clever marketing ploy?
Gossip Girl is described as a « perverse consumerist fable for young people built on the notion that money provides the only sure escape from tension, stress and impending challenges ».
While we would imagine that the audience may feel unconfortable watching an embellished portrayal of wealth and ode to consumerist values, the effect seems to be quite the opposite!
Then, why does this series appeal so much to young people from all classes when the characters represent such a small priviledged class? Doesn’t the success of Gossip Girl prove that the audience enjoys the series because they envy these « cool, rich and sexy » teenagers?
However still, does the series really portray emancipated women that control and use their sexuality as a seductive harmful tool? Or elsewise, is it displaying female characters still trapped in a looked-at-ness behavior in a society where money, beauty and sex appeal define one’s identity?
The second article « The Genius of Gossip Girl » suggests the existence of intertwined links between fiction and reality – between onscreen and off screen.
Do the fictitious representations of teenagers on the screen actually influence others to perceive themselves in a particular way in « real life »? If so, would the provocative representation of teenagers’ sexuality in Gossip Girl be a way to empower teenagers to reflect about their sexual and gender identities? No taboos, no judgements, just « gossips », part of any teenagers’s life… what impact may such a message have on the audience?
Gossip Girl effectively plays to the desire to want, have and get. Consumerism is vast throughout Gossip Girl whether the sleek implementation of a Burberry Trench or a more obvious promotion of a New York City hotspot. In truth just like celebrity, Gossip Girl plays on our desires for self-betterment. Is Gossip Girl playing on our desires, with easy come easy get, or is it creating a generation of cut throat women that in-fact are alienating themselves from the world? Or has Gossip Girl finally removed the fairytale and asserted women against naivety that we have seen in cinema? XOXO.
MONEY!! The root of all evil right?? Gossip Girl emphasizes to its audience that “the filthy rich aren’t the cartoonish demons they once were” but a demographic to be aspired to. How far is this American Dream a reality. Havrilesky argues that, “it’s a peverse consumerist fable for young people, built on the notion that money provides the only sure escape from tension stress and impeding challenges”, so I ask what does Havrilesky have against money and fun, does all life have to be hard, or is she merely resentful that her life isn’t encircled by private jets and parties?