Flipping the Script - The Interviews

Famous actor Jim Carey sports
 one piece suit on the beach

My final project, Flipping the Script came to me during the lecture on advertising. When the group was presenting on how some ads were discovered online of men posing as the women in magazines the idea hit me, well at least in part. I am an active Tumblr reader, if thats even a thing, and I came across a blog post (that I cannot find unfortunately) that demonstrated how the women in Hollywood are treated in terms of the Red Carpet and the questions they get asked. All the questions that the actresses/celebrities who are women, involve their sexuality, their personal life or their vanity, which fueled my idea as well. The final inspiration or should I say first, since we watched the movie before the lecture, came from the movie Misrepresentation. Within the movie *find name of woman* says that women especially in politics are never asked questions that require much thought and all the headlines or media focuses solely on a woman's beauty rather than if she could save the world, for example. My initial idea was to do a reverse cat calling skit, where the women would cat call the men, but when I sat down to think about it, I was afraid of the actual consequences. I was a bit nervous with the reaction of some of the men, especially since some could be come violent and it was something I wanted to avoid. With the inspiration from the three topics above I came up with the idea of interviewing several men and women but instead of asking the women questions on their vanity, I decided to question the men on their vanity and gave the women more thought provoking questions. I recorded their reactions, but not everyone reacted exactly how I thought they would. In fact, the whole scenario brought out a different side to two of the men and as for the women, some were rather surprised on the questioning. The project revealed more than just nonchalant attitudes, but rather that men care too much about their vanity and all the more proves further that men are affected by patriarchy a well, which we have recently discussed.

How the Media failed women in 2013 video

Vodka ad which displays
a man being pregnant instead
of the woman

Some of the questions that were asked to the men included, What products do you use on a daily basis? What did you eat today? etc, some that weren't featured in the video at all. Some questions that the women were asked but not included in the video were, What is your major and why? What are your hobbies or things you do for fun? etc. The women mostly had trouble answering questions that provoked more than a simple answer, which is what the media tends to avoid. Any type of questioning that may evoke that women are indeed just as smart as men and have the capability of answering intellectual questions are avoided in every sense of the word. Even if a woman were to say she had the cure to cancer, the media would focus on whether or not her skirt was too short or if her hair was done. Within my project, as you will view, the women had much hesitation when answering the questions, most had a hard time answering them as well. Two of the women were confused and weren't sure if what I was asking was real. This was definitely something they were not used to. As for the men, though this  particular conversation wasn't captured on film, but rather conversations I had afterwards, they were slightly "weirded" out. They weren't comfortable with the questioning they were receiving, two which expressed such when interviewing. One had asked me what questions the women were asked and when I explained, he said "Damn, I wish I had gotten those questions instead." Which I am sure women both in the media and in real life ask everyday. Why can't women be asked questions that deal with their thought processes rather than our bodies, why can't they listen to what I have to offer that has nothing to do with my looks. 

Men posing as women would in ads.

This was just the beginning of exploring other types of role reversals. I have been thinking constantly of ways I can further explore the idea of flipping the script. I will eventually want to proceed on making the catcalling video, in due time. My next idea will feature when children realize they are forced into a certain role in life. I work with kids from grades K-5th and asking them questions like "throw like a girl" "sit like a boy" will demonstrate how they will react to certain things and at what age they become to realize what "role" they fit in best with. I have posted the video on Vimeo and YouTube and have shared it with all my Facebook friends. I hope to spread awareness that women are more than their looks and their sexuality, that women have a lot more to offer than what people let on. Hopefully by spreading awareness on this situation, that may seem small to some, people will begin getting down to the nitty gritty on how women are treated on and off media outlets.


Resources/Works Cited - 
1. Kilbourne, Jean. "Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." Media & Values 1989: 121-25. Print.
2. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women. New York: W. Morrow, 1991. 59. Print.
3.  Steinem, Gloria. Sex, Lies and Advertising. 1990. Print.
4. Bahadur, Nina. "The Flip Side: Video Shows What Happens When Men And Women Switch Roles." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 21 May 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/flip-side-video_n_2220370.html>.
5. Welsh, Caitlin. "Is Gender-Flipping the Most Important MEME Ever?" Http://www.junkee.com. N.p., 18 July 2013. Web. <http://junkee.com/flip-it-and-reverse-it-how-to-fight-the-gender-wars/15081>.
6. Lewis, Mike P. "Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Hollywood's Gender Role Reversal." Loome RSS. N.p., 26 Aug. 2006. Web. <http://loo.me/2006/08/mr-mrs-smith-and-hollywoods-gender-role-reversal/>.
7. Grinberg, Emanuella. "Flipping Gender Roles, from 'Ghostbusters' to 'Scarface''" CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Oct. 2014. Web.<http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/21/showbiz/hollywood-gender-cast-ghostbusters/>.
8. Reporter, DailyMail. "'Let Me Buy You Boys a Drink': Hilarious Role Reversal Video Shows What Happens When Women Try Typical Male Chat up Lines." Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers, 18 Dec. 2012. Web. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2246390/Hilarious-role-reversal-video-shows-happens-women-try-typical-male-chat-lines.html>.
9. Hess, Amanda. "Gender Role Reversal in Music Videos Can Only Be Achieved By Objectifying Women." Slate. N.p., 28 July 2014. Web. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/07/28/maddie_tae_girl_in_a_country_song_video_gender_reversal_in_music_videos.html>.
10. How the Media Failed Women in 2013. Dir. The Representation Project. How the Media Fail Women in 2013. YouTube, 3 Dec. 2013. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NswJ4kO9uHc>.

Magazines for Real (project proposal)

I’m going to create a more realistic magazine where women are still beautiful but they’re not so impossible or unrealistic as human beings, for us to relate and associate with. Magazines where the image has been cropped will have a clear and obvious disclaimer. Like the food labels that even McDonald’s had to follow suit with. They state how many calories each food item on their menu is. At the end of the magazine the unedited picture of the models will be featured.

There will also be a section, not the last page of the magazine, where there will be real life stories of women who learned or who feel comfortable in their body shape and size. There will be workshops on how to help women find the right clothes for their body type and what make up is best for their skin. Each body type has different clothing types that will best highlight and flatter each body type.

                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                  Girls are taught two things early on. (google.com)

I’m making this magazine because it is frustrating to see unrealistic ideals fed to everyone and no one noticing how impossible it is reach these ideals and how unnecessary it is to meet those ideals. While tabloid and fashion magazines have proven to cause serious injury to women in various ways, they do sell and are profitable. 

It would be ideal if we as humans, men and women, focused and spent our time on more academically stimulating literature instead of following the every foot step of one particular (albeit famous) individual who will never know or meet you – but that’s not the case. And that is not the main problem here. The level of pervasiveness of magazines and the extent of its influence in diverse areas of life from the mundane like the cereals we eat to more personal areas like our sex life begs for some sort of [effective] regulation.

Cosmopolitan.com

While parents carry a heavy burden of the responsibility of regulating what their children consume, apps that regulate and/or block access to certain accounts can only do so much when the advertising is everywhere: on trains, buses, TV shows, etc. The website healthychildren.org asks parents to read the magazines that their children consume to understand the values that are being fed to them. While this website extension of the American Academy of Pediatrics is a start, it is not enough. Other magazines that don’t follow the norm like Bitch magazine are

Feminist magazine (bitchmagazine.org)

successful and explore various areas of women perspectives, its audience is limited and clearly not for a younger generation who are yet to learn what the terms feminism and gender equality mean, let alone other topics that are touched in that magazine.

Ways Of Seeing The Male Gaze

At the age of 13, I vividly remember being street harassed alongside my father in a foreign city walking to our hotel. That feeling, a mixture of both nausea and discomfort, I've come to find as the male gaze. "One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relations of women to themselves." (Berger 47) That feeling of women holding a mirror to themselves unconsciously asking themselves,  "Do I look okay today and by whose standards?" can be alarming, which can also be explained by where society puts its priorities. 

Cartoon exemplifying what society deems acceptable and unacceptable

There are moments in time where being a woman and taking care of yourself that somehow correlate with shame and embarrassment -- embarrassment of a new menstrual cycle, taking a birth control pill at the dinner table with family, breastfeeding in public. Basic female necessities that keep women healthy that the male gaze umbrellas, almost always the body, are somehow deemed as inappropriate and unacceptable. The female orgasm in film is rarely seen, as that too, is unacceptable. Patriarchy is the idea of, "To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men" (Berger 46) Women are for gazing, women are for having, but women cannot be for themselves. 

Jennie Finch, renowned softball player, plays "cutesy" in a mini skirt
and wiffle bat yet her male counterpart from the MLB lands
an action shot on Sports Illustrated.

This type of sexualization of women can be traced back for centuries but the fascination of the female body has yet to have ceased, for all the wrong reasons. In media, women are most often objects. As a woman, and especially a woman of color, it can be easier to actively avoid and distance yourself from that objectification by taking on the "oppositional gaze". "...I had developed the oppositional gaze. Not only would I be hurt by the absence of black female presence, or the insertion of violating representation, I interrogated the work" (hooks 122) hooks describes the movie going experience for a black woman as a sense of invisibility and frustration, to not have to the ability to identify with what she knows -- but without  "mammy" trope. The gaze, the stare, has been a part of the black experience for centuries, "By courageously looking, we defiantly declare: "Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality." (hooks 116) That defiance and courage is how I imagine the patriarchy to change. By fighting the norm, the pa

In "Oppositional Gaze", bell hooks has once again proven that intersectional feminism is the only type of feminism that should be in existence in today's culture. When there is inequality, struggle, and hardship, each member of those parties should rise together to defeat it -- not compartmentalize based on gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. As Mulvey points out from A Question of Silence, "Perhaps the final horror for a male viewer of A Question of Silence is the textual prelude to murder: when all three women share a gaze they are empowered to kill" (Mulvey 109) In my experiences with white male privilege, the root is fear of loss of power. Sojourner Truth realized as far back as 1851 in her feminist speech, Ain't I A Woman?, "I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon." The deeply rooted fear of the collapse of patriarchy and the fear of being treated as women and people of color is what needs to change in society today.

Equality, at its core, is inclusion. It's the idea of sharing experiences with equal weight and gravity. hooks, in my experiences correctly, notes that, "Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation...Men who have heard and know the world usually associate with women's liberation, with feminism" (17 hooks) The understanding of patriarchy needs to be more apparent in everyday culture. It is just as damaging to men to live up to unrealistically stable expectations as it is for a woman to be unrealistically perfect object.

        

 (Kerry Washington's reading of

                                                          "Aint I A Woman?" by Sojourner Truth) 

Works Cited:

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting :, 1973. Print.
hooks, bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Washington Square, 2004. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. 2nd ed. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire [England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.