Cocu 132 Gender & Media Midterm Study Sheet

COCU 132 Gender & Media Midterm Study Sheet

• Session 1: Winter’s Bone

• Main character: Ree; Ree’s uncle: Teardrop, the women that beats Ree up: Connie, and the old man/grandfather with all the information is Thump Milton, Ree’s father is Jessup, Ree’s siblings are Sonny and Ashlee
• Traditional ideals of femininity do not hold true in this society— women protect their men, do their dirty work and a run on the backs of women
• Women draw their authority from their relationship with their men family members (ie woman with baby has to ask husband to use the truck)
• Women hold the final say, and save their family (i.e.: women are the ones that finally save Ree and reveal where her father is)
• Ree takes on a dominantly male role as a figure in battle in a coming of age story
• Women are the gatekeepers of information and protectors of their husbands (i.e.: wife of older man, won’t let Ree talk to him and even resorts to violence to protect her husband from Ree’s quest for the truth)
• Ree goes through this journey, as a coming of age—she is initiated into this community, she is apart of this community, she passes the test, she does not rat out her kin folk, she passes and gains membership into this community

• Session 2: Gender, Art & Power

• Main Idea: Women depicted as Submissive vs. Men do the Depicting
• Nochin, “Women, Art and Power”

• Jaques David, Oath of Horatii

• Binary between the men and women
• Physicality: men take up most of the painting—important; the women are concentrated to one side of the painting, the corner
• Bodies: men are represented as strong, rigid, protectors, physical, united, driven with emotion to take action; women are depicted as fragile, physically and emotionally weak
• Men’s role is dominance, to take care of their state, protect their people vs. women are too weak to stand up, want to stop the fighting and preserve the family life.
• Classic representations of civic duty and determination vs. the sorrow and weakness of the women.

• Titan’s Venus of Urbino vs. Manet’s Olympia

• Titan: defines the ideal nude by taking classical allegory of ancient myth

• Nude woman is seen as submissive, waiting for a man
• Left hand is inviting and soft
• Colors are warm, warm reds, glowing, soft lines
• Enticing, warm open atmosphere  

• Manet: strips class from reclining nude, focuses on a the sexual transaction

• Olympia has a strong gaze, looking outward to the view, she stares at you
• Strong hands blocking men, she has the say, she is not submissive, retains control.
• Manet uses harsh and flat lines, muted colors, she lacks distinct human form.
• Shoes, jewelry, flower all indicators that she is a high class prostitute,  receives flowers from a man patron?

• Kollwitz’s Outbreak vs. Millet, The Gleaners

• Kollwitz: Black Ana leads a peasant revolt, she challenges the normal representations of the female subject.

• Strong aggressive leader, she’s dominant and depicted rigidly, dynamic figure, active.
• She’s leader, she is not passive like the gleaners
• Violence usually seen as male is depicted female.
• Challenges status quo of peasantry and the submissiveness of women

• Millet: looks at the representation of women in passive manner, they are seen as anonymous dominated by the land

• The horizon is above the women, representing their lower role in the world, lacking control, they are part of the land.
• The women’s roles are seen as natural--- rationalizes rural poverty
• Reaffirm natural order, peasant are part of the land.
• Weakest members of rural society, getting their source of food (scraps of bread)
• Contrast between richness of the harvest and the poverty of the women in the foreground
• Millet naturalizes this occurrence; the bodies are literally bent over submitting to the land.

• Goldberg, “Where are the Female Directors

• Women are not taken seriously in the “old boy” network of executive that the film industry was built on.
• Men retain the control of the industry, as women’s films are seen as unable to carry an audience.
• Women cannot charm or socialize with the executive men without being seen as flirting or sexual advances.
• Men maintain the control through systems like Academy that reaffirm and perpetuating the social divide.

• Session 3: Public vs. Private Spheres

• The public sphere was associated with masculinity, where husbands and men worked and dominated to provide for families.
• Private spheres associated with women, domestic femininity
• Female painters like Cassatt painted areas that they were familiar with like dining rooms, private gardes and the domestic space, these areas were private areas, domestic spaces, , ie: the tea room in Five O’Clock Tea. This reinforced the division of public and private spheres.
• Cassatt’s At the Opera vs. Degas’s Work (In the Box, Dancers)

• Cassatt: paints the female as a spectator, the semi private space of the balcony, the female viewer observes the opera from her own private area.
• Degas: depicts the ballet from the public male sphere, in which men are privileged and able to spectate from the behind the scenes where dancers are seen as sexually available women

• Cassatt’s Garden work vs. Monet’s Garden of the Princess

• Cassatt: paints the female view of the garden, a mother and child walking in the garden. Privately walking mother and child.
• Monet: paints from a privileged view, afar and birds eye, sees everything, public view.

• Men were privileged to be depicted with more socially fluid spaces: bars, cafes city streets, back stage of opera
• The Flauner vs. Female Prostitute

• The flauner male spectator of urban life, seen as powerful within the urban scene
• Female prostitute, closest equivalent to the flauner 

• Rappaport, “A New Era of Shopping”

• Main idea: Selfridge’s department stores gave women a place to go in the city to socialize in the more public arena that formerly men dominated.
•  Department stores was a place in which classes could mix and mingle, interaction took place under one roof, some working and some shopping.
• Increasing opportunities for middle class women to work outside the home makes this idea of working women more respectable.
• Shopping in Selfridge’s is a pastime, a recreational and romanticized space that was suggested to be a public space where men and women could meet and women be romanticized.
• Selfridge invokes advertising to women: in newspapers directed to women as a reader for the first time
• Emergence of Kleptomaniac: middle class women seen to need help while the poverty stricken women steals to survive is a thief needing to be punished

• Peiss, “Cheap Theater and the Nickel Dumps”

• Main idea: brought women in public but also reinforces the male gaze to look at women as an object.
• The space of the cinema: gave women another place to go and visit in the masculine public sphere. Women were able to choose what they could watch, working women could access theater on their own time women could choose what they want to watch and not wait for a man to take her to a nice theater.
• The audience of the cinema: women, and working class people, nickelodeon theaters were inexpensive compared the opera theaters.
• The content of the films: the spectacle of the female is displayed; risqué movies, like the burlesque reinforce dominant imagery of women as objects and forms of entertainment, i.e., What Happened on 23rd Street (men waiting for women to walk over subway vent to see under skirts) and, Trapeze Disrobing Act (spectators watch female trapeze artist undress)

• Film reasserts patriarchal power

• The “New Women”: the Suffragette and the Gibson Girl

• The “new” woman: she possesses advance views, defied convention, educated, independent and energetic. Women enter into the work place and defy Victorian norms.

• i.e., Hazards of Helen, Episode #26 (Helen proving to her worth to her railroad employers, she is independent, powerful and a hero)

• Suffragettes depicted as dominant, persistent and even at times masculine women fighting for her cause.

• i.e.: The Strong Arm Squad of the Future (see different kinds of women being seen as a suffragette, some look masculine, terrorizing)

• The Gibson girl, new approach to femininity, is outdoorsy (beach scene) strong, dominating, intimidating, superior kind of woman while maintaining being gorgeous and statuesque. i.e. Arrow Collar ads.

• Session 5: Fashion

• Turbin, Detachable Collar

• Victorian, English View of Masculinity

• Detachable collars mark the strict boundaries fundamental to Victorian life (social position, gender, age, etc)
• Starch, stiff linen used by the rich that could afford maintaining the collars.
• English gentility, marks when society take notice physical
• Rich man was seen as slender, refined and graceful
• Economic or political authority of a entrepreneur (property owner, independent farmer or shop/factory owner, political leaders)
• Self Discipline, restraint, autonomy in private life, business and politics
• Collars constructed the bodies of gentlemen: not comfortably fitted, stiff
• High standing collars in the 1890s were of high ranking men, prevented downward gaze
• Through their dress, working

• The New Masculine Man

• Salaries are seen as equal to entrepreneurs, working hard for your money was seen as wealthy and elite too
• Independent entrepreneurs and salary earners are seen as social class the same
• Strong, masculine, strength masculine, well defined features, high brow, chiseled nose, bow lips, and large jaw with cleft chin
• Rejected European gentility, the idea of a new man is embedded in American culture. European values reject seen as too effeminate and overly civilized.
• Masculine man is refined, educated and hardworking in the white collar, business world
• FACE

• Democratizing of the New Masculine Man, Fall of the Collar

• Fall of the detachable collar’s importance (laundering innovation is easier now, as much time to wash a collared shirt as a detachable collar—this is technology is obsolete
• The workingman is seen as masculine through his choice in fashion, you could purchase your masculinity through fashion.
• Now factory workers, and laborers wore suits to work, changed into work clothes and went home in a suit
• Masculinity is a muscular man, broad shoulders, rugged
• Men dress across the classes: importance on body type, fashion, hairstyle
• Tanning associated with wealth now: as a mark of leisure and ability to take vacation time

• As the detachable collar left and soft collar take over, convergence of middle class and social class
• Emergence of Soft Collar

• Soft collar appealed to the younger generation cause it blurred the lines of formal and informal
• The boys of WWI, don’t want to dress you dad, sign for generational change, wear ready made wear with soft collars
• White, middle class men want comfortable, brightly colored clothes, different from their fathers more conservative dark colored clothes

• Rudolph Valentino: The Feminized Man & Powder Puffs

• Emergence in the 1920s as young men are coming from WWI wanted to be less like their conservative older relatives
• Marked the emergence of the feminized man who cared about personal grooming, physical appearance
• Men were now more accepted to be seen as well manicured
• Before men were seen be natural, while women were accepted to be artificial and enhance their appearance with makeup and beauty techniques
• Valentino seen as feminine, as he was concerned with fashion, ruled by the women in his lives---second wife having dominance over him: seen as feminine.
• i.e.: The Sheik, Scene where Valentino is tied up and beaten

• Valentino not seen as strong and the idealized Leyendecker created.
• Valentino is a object to be looked at as the more passive object in the scene. He lacks control over the situation compared to the ideal man who is rugged and has dominance (similar to the nudes).

• i.e.: The Sheik: Love Scene

• The audience is drawn to him, which normally is true of females as he is being objectified. He is desirable, Valentino is associated with the feminized form of entertainment, privileges the audience. We see his whole body for entertainment, is objectified.
• Valentino is exposed in a submissive pose-- his hands are tied.
• Interest in his body, overtly sexualized like women normally are; this a threat to the ideals of masculinity—marks the changing view of women and their desire for men.

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