…still won’t be good enough, as Us Magazine reminds readers with it’s first 2009 cover proclaiming “2009′s Diets That Work!” This is followed with captions that announce the disappearance of Britney’s “belly fat” and the fifteen pounds Beyonce dropped. But, it’s not just about celebrities.
It’s about YOU!
“How stars get instant results” which means that you can, too, if you buy these products and behave the insane ways described in this “special” issue with a “28 page bonus.” Some of the advice? Don’t eat carbs after 6. Leave half of everything on the plate (and, what, throw the rest away?). Do leg lunges while you brush your teeth.
2009′s first cover strikes an eerie resemble to, yup, 2008′s diets that work and it’s 23 page bonus. In fact, when I looked at all the covers of Us Magazine for 2008 via their slide show I found almost 20 covers that mentioned dieting, make-overs, and body image at least once. Note: the slides are not complete images and may not show the diet/body reference For complete images of all 2008 covers click on the slide show link above.
I have not seen Revolutionary Road yet but Melisa Silverstein’s piece has me more excited than ever.
Revolutionary Road is a tough movie for a woman who grew up after the women’s movement of the 1970s to watch, but after watching it a couple of times I actually think that it should be required watching for all young women who think that feminism is irrelevant. (Disclaimer, I am a consultant to the studio and organized a blogger screening for the film.)
The film tells the story of April and Frank Wheeler living the post World War Two “American dream” that morphs into the American nightmare. It is the era described in the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan the book that articulated for women the “problem with no name” which Kate Winslet read while preparing for her role as April. She stated in an interview: “It was the era of prescription medication, you know, and women really starting to believe …Maybe I’m crazy, because I don’t want this life, I think there’s something wrong with me.’” (The Guardian)
April and Frank were was supposed to be different. But they weren’t. They were exactly the same as everyone on their boring suburban street and that’s what was driving them both crazy. But the thing is that Frank had options and choices and given the fact that it is 1955, April did not. Frank went into the city everyday on the train with lots of other men to their boring jobs and April was stuck at home.
She had no choices, no options.
A scene that really shows April’s suffocation is when she takes out the garbage cans and positions them perfectly on the curb. She then looks up and sees all the other garbage cans perfectly positioned on the curbs up and down the street. Her face at seeing all the cans, the disbelief that this has become her life is palpable. Juxtapose that with the scene of Frank standing on the train smoking and breathing in the fresh air and the suburbs fly by. He’s free, she’s in a box.
As Silverstein points out, films that can accurately portray the conditions that led to the second wave of feminism, or the Women’s Liberation Movement, are important for young women AND men today that often believe that feminism is unimportant or outmoded. The haze of collective amnesia is thick. It is always striking to me when young women don’t have a sense of their own history as women and lack a working knowledge of the women and men that paved the way for their own choices. The women and men that do acknowledge gender issues usually proclaim the ever popular phrase, “I’m not a feminist but…”
While I maintain a critical eye on the fabric of popular culture, I am the first to acknowledge and utilize popular culture as a relevant learning tool. Films like Iron Jawed Angels, North Country, Far From HeavenThe Hours and , shows like Mad Men and Sex and the City provide points of analysis that resonate with many young people and provide opportunities to move beyond their preconceived notions. These films and shows often provide the first puncture mark in the bubbled reality many people have about women, men, gender, feminism’s place historically and in the future. That’s saying a lot. I have no doubt that I’ll incorporate this film into my own curriculum.
Bitch Magazine featured a recent article on the abstinence message in the Twilight series and the uproar that followed the inevitable consummation (after marriage, of course!).
Abstinence has never been sexier than it is in Stephenie Meyer’s young adult four-book Twilight series. Fans are super hot for Edward, a century-old vampire in a 17-year-old body, who sweeps teenaged Bella, your average human girl, off her feet in a thrilling love story that spans more than 2,000 pages. Fans are enthralled by their tale, which begins when Edward becomes intoxicated by Bella’s sweet-smelling blood. By the middle of the first book, Edward and Bella are deeply in love and working hard to keep their pants on, a story line that has captured the attention of a devoted group of fans who obsess over the relationship and delight in Edward’s superhuman strength to just say no.
The Twilight series has created a surprising new sub-genre of teen romance: It’s abstinence porn, sensational, erotic, and titillating. And in light of all the recent real-world attention on abstinence-only education, it’s surprising how successful this new genre is. Twilight actually convinces us that self-denial is hot. Fan reaction suggests that in the beginning, Edward and Bella’s chaste but sexually charged relationship was steamy precisely because it was unconsummated—kind of like Cheers, but with fangs. Despite all the hot “virtue,” however, we feminist readers have to ask ourselves if abstinence porn is as uplifting as some of its proponents seem to believe.
Given that teens are apparently still having sex—in spite of virginity rings, abstinence pledges, and black-tie “purity balls”—it might seem that remaining pure isn’t doing much for the kids these days anyway. Still, the Twilight series is so popular it has done the unthinkable: knocked Harry Potter off his pedestal as prince of the young adult genre. The series has sold more than 50 million copies, and Twilight fan fiction, fan sites, and fan blogs crowd the Internet. Scores of fans have made the trek to real-life Forks, Wash., where the series is set. The first of a trilogy of film adaptations of the books, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, was scheduled to hit theaters in time for Christmas.
Another study just confirmed that purity pledges and abstinence-only education (surprise, surprise!) doesn’t work.
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.
Instead of wasting money on failed “sex education” programs and “sexy” movie propaganda selling the sex of no sex, let’s face reality (people have always fucked, they like to fuck and will continue to do so) and offer some real education, guidance and protection.
Here’s a great take on the latest comic book film, The Spirit, from Bitch Magazine:
The Spirit is Frank Miller’s tribute to Will Eisner’s classic comic book series from the 1940s, and it features quite a line-up of female characters: Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), Plaster of Paris (Paz Vega) and Lorelei Rox (Jaime King). But don’t get too excited about this – after all, what we’ve really got here is a sexy jewel thief, a sexy surgeon-next-door, a sexy secretary (Silken Floss was actually demoted from scientist to secretary in the film adaptation), a sexy exotic dancer, and a sexy siren (yes, a siren!). Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned that there’s also a sexy female cop in the film, too. Kudos to the actresses who play these roles, as they really do make something out of their characters (Scarlett Johansson actively lobbied Miller for more to do in the film). And it’s worth noting that these women are not helpless: Paulson commented in a recent interview, “The thing I liked about the part was just that there’s not a single woman in this movie who’s a damsel in distress. There’s not a single woman in this movie who isn’t a strong woman.” The Spirit and Sin City pretty clearly show us that Frank Miller knows how to write tough women. The central problem with The Spirit isn’t so much the female characters or the cleavage shots, but the fact that they’re entirely deployed in the service of a dumb, juvenile fantasy of malehood.
Here’s Miller on the film: “I wanted to recapture some of the glory of manlihood that I feel the
world has lost. I wanted to bring it back through the Spirit.” Comic book adaptations took some leaps and bounds this year with their more thoughtful representations of masculinity and it’s a bummer to see Frank Miller close out the year by wasting so many talented actresses on a completely adolescent fantasy. And it’s not great news for men, either. Miller basically flushes The Spirit and his nemesis the Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson, down the toilet – yes, they even get a fight scene in sewage. Crazy, sexy babes and toilet humor: is this a comic book masterpiece?
Women, Action and the Media is opening registration for their 2009 conference in Cambridge, MA. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in the media and activism.
From abstinence-only education, abortion and the cost of birth control to the global gag rule, the Obama administration is ready to take fix the damage left by in the wake of the Bush administration.
A recent study blames romantic comedies for unrealitisc relationship expectations. FINALLY!
Rom-coms have been blamed by relationship experts at Heriot Watt University for promoting unrealistic expectations when it comes to love.
They found fans of films such as Runaway Bride and Notting Hill often fail to communicate with their partner.
Many held the view if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them.
Psychologists at the family and personal relationships laboratory at the university studied 40 top box office hits between 1995 and 2005, and identified common themes which they believed were unrealistic…
“We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people’s minds.
“The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise.”
I’ve been lecturing on this very topic for years. It became evident in my own life many years ago when I went to see Kate and Leopold. Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote in 2002:
I did it again…thinking about the movie I saw last night- “Kate and Leopold.”
I don’t think these romantic movies are good for me.Entertainment inventing reality.Cold, eternal winter, heart frozen, walking to my car alone, sitting in the theater alone, feeling disappointed with my own experiences, my lack of quality experiences with men, yearning for Leopold.Hoping I’ll meet a man like that or have a situation like that.Dreaming.Feet hitting the ground evenly, beat of heart and step of feet in unison.
I’m pissed for thinking about this, because I feel like that’s so much of what women do…fret over, discuss men, scenarios, fairytale meetings, fairytale marriages, mystical connections, unborn babies, and none of it is real.It is not happening right now.I don’t know if it ever happens, if I want it to happen, if it could happen.Why does this matter?It shouldn’t matter.Spoon-fed illusions, unrealistic images of what I should be, what we should be, and what relationships should be, what we should hope for, what I should expect. Dangerous expectations. Manufactured dissidence, manufactured bliss built on a delusion.
Romantic comedies are like heroin. I know it’s bad for me but I keep shooting up with the latest installation. It’s not surprising, really. Romantic comedies or “chick flicks” simply reinforce the same themes, messages, images and heterosexual story lines that we’re socialized to adore and believe in as young girls. Rarely, do I feel better about my love life or my romantic relationships after one of these films.
The Notebook has got to be one of the worst films ever. I realize this is not a romantic comedy but it serves the same function. It creates a set of expectations about what heterosexual relationships should look like. I always advise my students, women and men, to view this film critically. Shit, this guy builds the love of his life a house! A freakin’ house! Talk about unrealistic.
And, we (women, specifically) watch film after film, year after year and the we wonder why we aren’t satisfied or why we compare our relationships and ourselves to characters and plot lines from films.
Alec Greven’s first book, a self-help book on how to talk to girls, is getting tons of attention. In fact, it has given him enough attention and fame that he is working on his next book, has been on Ellen and Hollywood plans on turning How Talk to Girls into a major film.
He’s 9.
This is just another pathetic and inappropriate example of the fast-forward on childhood and the dollars that are reaped from it. Not cute.
I’ve known for years that gyms are not health clubs. As Lester Burnham declares in American Beauty, he works out “to look good naked.” And, that idea of “looking good” has become even less attainable without the “aid” of cosmetic surgery. Equinox Fitness is quite candid about it’s true aim with it’s tag line “It’s not fitness. It’s life.”
The following ad makes a bold cultural statement about girls and women in the 21st century minus the insecurities, side effects, risks or money costs.
