"The Strength to Resist:
Media's Imact on Women and Girls"
The Study Guide: Introduction
Acknowledgements
Section 1: Looking Through
the Lens of Race
Section 2: Using the Film with Middle and
High School Students
Section 3: Using the Film with College
Students and Adults
Section 4: The Voices of Girls
Section 5: Additional Essays and Curriculum
-Working With Girls
Ages 10-12
-Speak! Using the Voice and Body
-Media Images and their Effects on Asian-American
Women
-Marketing “Woman” to Women Online
Section 6: Additional Resources
Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc
P.O. Box 390385
Cambridge, MA 02139-0004
(617) 484-3993 fax-(617) 484-0754
e-mail: mail@cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org
www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org
The Study Guide Uses of the Film This study guide accompanies the
33 minute documentary "The Strength to Resist." The film
looks at the toxic and degrading messages imbedded in the images of
girls and women that dominate the media and the risks that these messages
pose to both mental and physical health.
The film goes beyond merely analyzing the issues and aims at developing
in the viewer critical thinking skills, an ability to resist media
manipulation, and a commitment to activism. The video presents the
ideas of several leading authorities in the fields of psychology of
women and girls, eating disorders, anti-racism, violence against women,
and media literacy, all of whom focus on potential long term solutions.
The film has been used by schools and colleges, as well as professional
and community groups, to look at women’s representation in the media
and its impact on gender roles from such perspectives as health, gender
studies, sociology, media literacy, psychology, and teacher education.
Study Guide Content
The study guide is designed with two populations in mind: students
from middle school through high school, and college students and other
adults. Although Section 2 focuses on the 4 The Study Guide adolescent
and Section 3 on the adult viewer, you may find ideas, questions and
activities in each that can be used with both of these age levels.
Although the film looks primarily through the lens of gender,
the issue of race and racism is critical to understanding the
role and impact of media images of girls and women. We have
devoted Section 1 to this topic. We think you will find it useful
to read Section 1 as well as the curriculum that is appropriate
for your age group and to incorporated the ideas and some of
the suggested questions in your discussions.
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Section 1—
“Looking
Through the Lens of Race” by Valerie Batts, Ph.D.
In order to more effectively analyze the implicit messages of contemporary
media, Dr. Batts (who is featured in the film) highlights some of
the differences between the overt racism of the first half of the
20th century and the “modern racism” of today. This section also includes
questions that will help students analyze aspects of institutional
racism and oppressive biases in the media, and provides some suggestions
for ongoing activism.
Section 2 — “Using the Film with Middle
and High School Students” by Linda Mizell This section
includes a series of questions and activities developed to help adolescents
think critically about the ways in which they are influenced by the
images they see every day. It includes activities to support students’
healthy resistance to the media’s narrow definition of what is “good,
right and beautiful” in its depiction of body types, relationships
and cultural images.
Section 3 — “Using the Film with College
Students and Adults” by Gail Dines, Ph.D. In this section,
Professor Dines (who is featured in the film) explores in depth the
issues she addresses in the film: our image-based culture, the ideology
of images, pornography, body image and resistance to media images.
Her teaching points and the accompanying activities encourage a complex
analysis of the media’s affect on gender relations and violence against
women, as well as the influence of corporate consolidation of the
media and the drive for profit on the images produced.
Section 4 — “The Voices of Girls” by Jamila
Capitman and Briana Deutch
In this section, two teenage girls offer their thoughts on issues
such as racism, make-up, weightism and the importance that strong
women role models have made to each of them personally in keeping
their “voices” at an age when many other girls are losing theirs.
Section 5 -- Additional Essays and Curriculum
We have included (1) a special curriculum
designed by media educator, Cheryl Hirshman, for girls 10 to 12 years
old, (2) an essay by playwright and director
Deborah Lake Fortson about using the voice (as in acting or singing)
as an alternative to athletics as a resistance strategy, (3)
an essay by psychologist Teresa Mok on images and stereotypes of Asians
in the media and (4) a humourous and scathing
look by Noy Thrupkaew at online marketing to women.
Section 6 — Additional Resources
A brief listing of additional resources and materials which are available
to supplement this guide are included in this section. A more extensive
listing, as well as opportunities to comment and share insights are
all included online at www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org
where you can click on the link for "The
Strength to Resist"
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contents
Study Guide Contributors
Valerie Batts, who is featured
in the film, is a licensed clinical psychologist and is the Executive
Director of VISIONS, Inc., a consulting firm with a focus on cultural
diversity, multiculturalism and issues of oppression. Since 1975,
Dr. Batts has provided consultation and training nationally and internationally
to human service providers, psychotherapists, educators, clergy, and
private sector managers in a variety of areas. She has written several
articles on modern racism and multicultural organizational change
strategies and is the author of Modern Racism: New Melody for the
Same Old Tunes.
Linda Mizell is a writer and
educational consultant who has worked extensively with schools, colleges,
and other organizations on the creation of multicultural, anti-racist
institutions. She is the author of Think About Racism (a text
for young adult readers) and a number of articles on anti-racist teaching
practice. Among her curriculum projects are the award-winning Teacher’s
Guide to the PBS series Africans in America and a literature-based
language arts curriculum for a Southern urban school district. Mizell
is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Gail Dines, who is featured
in the film, is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Sociology
at Wheelock College. She is the author of Gender Race and Class
in Media and Pornography: The Production and Consumption of
Inequality. A staunch advocate for media literacy, Professor Dines
lectures across the country about the hidden codes and conventions
of advertising and the pervasive themes of violence against women.
Jamila Capitman, who is featured
in the film, is an eighth grader at Cambridge Friends School in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. She is interested in drama and has acted in several
amateur productions in the Cambridge area. Jamila also enjoys soccer,
dance and socializing with her friends.
Briana Deutch is also an eighth
grader at Cambridge Friends School. She is likes to write, play soccer
and hang out with friends. Briana is active in several organizations
concerned with issues of social justice.
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contents
Section
1
Looking Through The Lens of Race
by Valerie Batts, Ph.D.
Why is it important to explicitly name race in a discussion of the
impact of the media? Clearly, media images have become the central
form of communication for most young people in the United States.
Our country is based on the assumption that “White is Right and West
is Best.” The media has been a primary carrier of this message. The
video, "The Strength to Resist" begins to challenge this
assumption, and this discussion of race and racism is an attempt to
deepen that challenge.
Talking about race and racism is often difficult for teachers. Many
white teachers fear saying or doing “the wrong thing.” Others practice
“color blindness” and claim to treat everyone the same — usually the
same as other white middle class children — thus ignoring the impact
of racism on many of their students’ lives.
Many teachers of color believe racism will always be a factor and
that talking about it won’t make any difference. Each of these positions,
though understandable, actually keep us from using our power as teachers
to get young people to think critically about their world so that
they may become advocates for real and lasting social and economic
change.
We need a common language to find our voices and empower our students
and ourselves. Educators need to understand what talking about these
issues brings up for them, personally, before they begin group discussions
with other teachers or with students. To assist in this self-understanding,
personal reflection questions have been interspersed
in italics and blue
throughout this article.
Developing a Common Language
Racism is
“a system of advantage based on race.” It is created and sustained
on 4 levels:
- Personal (individual thoughts and feelings)
-Interpersonal (individual behavior in relation to others)
-Cultural (values, definitions of beauty, preferred modes
of thought and communication — what’s “good, right, beautiful
and normal”)
- Institutional (rules, practices, laws, histories, power
structures of society and its institutions) NOTE: The difference
between personal and interpersonal racism is the “acting out”
of biases. The difference between cultural and institutional
racism is that the prevailing values and culture of the privileged
are legitimized and institutionalized. It becomes an institutional
“acting out” of held beliefs. this article.
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Racism Defined Many people
associate racism with people holding prejudiced ideas or acting
toward another person in a prejudiced way. We all have individual
biases and prejudices, but racism in the United States goes further
than individual acts of bias or meanness. When we talk about racism,
we are talking about a system of advantage based on race. It is
sometimes defined as “prejudice plus power.” It is the ability of
one group — white people — to define what is the “right” way of
doing things, what is “normal”, what is “beautiful” or “good” coupled
with the power of institutions, organizations, and government to
put in place policies, procedures, and practices that give advantage
to whites.
Questions
for teachers:
How have you defined racism up until now? Which levels
of racism (personal, interpersonal, cultural or institutional)
do you feel most able to identify? Which are more
difficult? What feelings do you notice as you discuss
these aspects of racism?
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“Old-fashioned” Racism
“Old-fashioned” racism refers to overt acts of racism at
the personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels:
Personal racism
(Example: believing that blacks and other people of color
are inferior)
Interpersonal racism (calling people racist names)
Cultural racism (seeing black culture as “less
than” or impoverished)
Institutional racism (Jim Crow laws)
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Such types of racism were the “law of the land” in many parts
of the United States throughout our history and remained in the
Southern region until the passage of the l964 Civil Rights Act.
Institutional racism results in the targeting of certain groups
to receive fewer of society’s resources. This means that the chances
for their success are less, and the chances of success for the
privileged group are better.
In advertising, examples of old-fashioned racism include symbols
of black women such as Aunt Jemima or the lack of black women
in ads altogether. Aunt Jemima was a television commercial and
advertisement character that represented a stereotypical image
of black women who served as domestic workers for whites. She
was a typically loved character who was not supposed to be smart,
beautiful or powerful, but sweet, lacking in sensuality and loving
at all times. Women of color from Asian, Latina and Native American
communities were virtually non-existent in advertising but, when
included, were uniformly stereotypical.
As an African American woman growing up in the South in the l950’s,
I experienced old-fashioned racism in its interpersonal, cultural
and institutional dimensions. By the time I was in graduate school
in l975 at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, the social
psychology literature was suggesting that racism had all but disappeared
in this country. What was disappearing was old-fashioned racism
(although studies show that 25% of people still hold oldfashioned
racist views), and something new and harder to pin down was taking
its place.
Questions
for teachers: What feelings
and images does the word “racist” conjure up for you
first? As you reflect on this question and the section
above, do you tend to think first about racism in
terms of its “old-fashioned” form?
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“Modern Racism”
“Modern racism”, by contrast, uses non-race related reasons for
denying equal access to opportunity. “It’s not the blacks, it’s the
busing I object to,” is one common refrain. “It’s not that we don’t
want to hire people of color, but we need qualified applicants,“ is
another.
When my daughter and I were exploring how decisions are made about
which models are used in commercials, she was told by advertising
agency representatives that the cornrows she was wearing might be
seen as “too ethnic.” The underlying assumptions of this opinion are
all examples of modern racism.
- It assumes that white consumers will not find beauty
in a particular black woman’s style. It does not provide
them an opportunity to stretch their perspectives about
what is “right and beautiful.”
- It assumes that consumers from all backgrounds share
this bias. For too long women and men of color have
been trained to disregard the standards of beauty traditional
to our group or cultural heritage and to feel a need
to strive for white images.
- It defines what is beautiful in European “ethnic”
terms. This is as damaging to people of color as is
the stereotypical image of the “mammy” and to whites
as is the stereotypical image of the “china doll”.
- And finally, it begins to create an image of what
is beautiful that is so narrow that very few can see
themselves, unless they strive to be white-looking Asians,
Blacks, Latinas or Native Americans.
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As Gail Dines points out in the video, the media
is controlled by a few U.S. corporations who make profits globally
from the marketing of this narrow perspective of beauty. All of
us become victims of this media imaging and, over time, lose touch
with the fact that very few people of any racial or cultural group
look like what is on the television or movie screen. This distortion
of reality for economic gain is cultural and institutional racism
at its most extreme...and it is happening all over the world.
Question
for teachers: If you are European- American
in heritage, have you ever thought of yourself as
looking “ethnic”? How does this alter your perspective?
If you are a person of color, what are images of
beauty in your culture?
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Internalized Oppression As people of color, we struggle to hold
diverse images of ourselves in a country that still communicates through
its media that “white is right” and white images are what sell. Against
this barrage of white images, we have to remind ourselves to value
the normal and natural ways that we look, dress, talk and walk when
we are not attempting to assimilate into white culture. This pressure
to assimilate and the racism we face when we do not sometimes causes
us to devalue these and other expressions of our natural selves —
a reaction described as “internalized oppression.” In its modern form,
internalized oppression is when people of color, as “targets” of oppression,
engage in behaviors and beliefs that undermine ourselves and our community.
It is when we seem to collude in our own oppression and it often happens
on a level that is quite unconscious. When we choose a white doctor
over a doctor from our own cultural group because we think the white
doctor is probably more qualified — that is internalized oppression
at work. When we lighten our skin or get cosmetic surgery because
we believe that our skin or features are not beautiful as they are
— again, that is internalized oppression.
Internalized oppression is inevitable, given the intensity of racism,
and is first and foremost a “survival strategy”. In the slavery and
Jim Crow days, smiling, agreeing with the white man, and acting “simple”
meant that you could live another day, both literally and figuratively.
It was a functional response to racism. It was self-preservation.
It is still difficult to avoid these “traps” of behaving in ways that
used to be effective as survival mechanisms, but have now outlived
their usefulness. We can bring these behaviors into our awareness
and then seek support from others in our community to practice “letting
go” of internalized oppression behaviors and find new strategies for
getting our needs met in the world.
Questions
for teachers of color:
What are some examples of the misinformation we
have been taught about ourselves as people of color?
What are some of our behaviors that limit our success
that we need to address? What are some personal
reflections on the concept of internalized oppression?
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Questions for white
teachers: Think about an area where you may
be a “target” of oppression — due to gender (female),
class (working class or poor), language (English
as a second language), age (youth or elderly), physical
ability (disabled), sexual orientation (gay/ lesbian)
etc. What are some behaviors or beliefs that limit
your success that might relate to internalized oppression?
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So what can we do about racism in the media?
So what can we do? We educate ourselves. We engage in the dialogue.
We come to recognize our biases as well as our buying practices. This
includes recognizing the ways in which we have come to accept current
media images of beauty as ideal. We need to develop a strategy for
confronting racist and “Westernist” images in our personal lives as
well as in our families and communities.
We can choose not to purchase materials or products that add to personally
unhealthy and economically debilitating outcomes. We can write media
executives, advertisers, and government officials to make our positions
clear. We can organize to support programs that promote media literacy,
both locally and globally. We can object to gender and racial stereotyping
wherever it occurs.
And, as we view "The Strength to Resist", we can use the
following questions both with our peers and with our students to explore
the impact of race on our experience with the media, on our image
of ourselves, and on our perceptions of what is “right, good and beautiful”
in our culture.
QUESTIONS to use with video audiences:
I. Getting started
- What do you know now that you didn’t know before...or
what did you know before that you now understand in
a different way?
- What questions about racism does the video raise
for you?
- What did you think was missing?
- Give one example of how each of the following was
discussed in the video: Personal prejudice, Interpersonal
racism, Cultural racism/bias, and Institutional racism
II. Reflections of the Culture
Let’s look at this film through the lens of race:
-
Who were the experts about the subject
matter? Who were the experts about their experience?
-
How many minutes had passed before
the topic of racism was introduced? Does this make a
difference? What does positioning imply about the importance
of a topic?
-
Describe two examples of racism being
identified or confronted in the video?
-
If you were going to remake this video,
what might you add? What might you change?
III. Racism in the media industry
-
Notice your evening newscasts. Who
are chosen as the “content experts” and who are chosen
as representatives of the “experiences” of their group.The
pattern of choosing whites as the former and people
of color as the latter is common in media portrayals
of serious issues. If the white group continues to “use”
people of color in this way, they are practicing a form
of modern racism. If the person of color continues to
participate in events in this way, she or he needs to
look at whether the behavior is currently functional
for the cause of community building, or whether it has
become a kind of internalized oppression and needs to
be confronted.
-
When you think historically of women
of color in advertising, what images come to mind? To
whom were these images/ads directed? Why? Do these images
reflect “old-fashioned racism”? (If possible, bring
in magazines from the 1940’s through the 1960’s so that
students can see the older ads. You might also consider
showing something like the video “Ethnic Notions” to
give students some background.)
-
When you think of current images of
women of color in advertising, what images comes to
mind? To whom are these images/ads directed? Why? How
might some of these images reflect “modern racism”?
(In addition to some magazines such as “Cosmopolitan”
or “Seventeen” or “Life”, you might bring in some magazines
targeted at various racial/ethnic groups within your
audience’s age group, or progressive magazines that
show a diversity of images.)
-
Have you seen examples of people of
color promoting or participating in advertising in a
way that reinforces stereotypes? Why do you think this
happens? Can you relate this to internalized oppression
or survival behaviors?
-
What are 3 steps we as individuals
can take to challenge racism in the media? u An excellent
essay by Dr. Teresa Mok on Asian-Americans in the media
is included on the Cambridge Documentary Films website.
She comments, “Asian American women are forced to struggle
with the consequences of both racism and sexism, although
we live in a culture that often views racial differences
through a monochromatic black-and-white lens. This can
often lead to confusing feeling of being “invisible”
racially and culturally in this country. Yet, at the
same time, Asian Americans are often seen as foreign,
exotic, or “different” — suggesting that, indeed, race
and culture do matter and are noticed.” Have students
read Mok’s essay. How is the portrayal of Asian Americans,
Latinas/os, and Native Americans in the media similar
to and different from the portrayal of African Americans?
What are the stereotypical images/ representations used?
IV. Bringing it closer to home
-
What magazines aimed at cultural groups
other than white European-American exist in your school
or community library? Do these magazines focus on issues
of interest to that group? How are the magazines different
than similar magazines focused primarily on white audiences?
-
Are there programs or classes in your
school or community that teach media literacy? Is the
issue of racism being addressed?
-
Notice the local billboards, advertisements,
store promotions, newspaper stories, etc. Who is included?
Are their people of color? How are they portrayed? What
are the similarities and differences in the representation?
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of contents
Section
2
Using the Film with Middle
and High School Students
by Linda Mizell
You are now the first image-based generation to come
of age....Today the major form of communication is the
image. What does that mean to move from print to image?....Let’s
talk about how this affects you, how this affects the
way you think about yourselves, the way you think about
your bodies, the way women think about femininity, the
way men think about masculinity and the connections between
the two.
-Gail Dines, "The Strength to Resist."
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The following questions and activities are designed to help adolescents
think critically about the ways in which they are influenced by
the images they see every day. Activities like these have been used
by teachers in middle and high school classrooms in a variety of
settings: suburban and urban, public and independent schools, and
after school programs. Teachers have used the film in English, social
studies, health, journalism, media literacy, and other subject areas.
Most of these questions and activities do not need additional resources
in order to complete them; however, we have included references
to additional materials and resources which are available on the
film’s website link at: www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org.
Although you can pick one or two activities to accompany the film
if time is very limited, most teachers have found that a minimum
of three class sessions seems to be most effective in working with
this film as a teaching unit.
I. STUDENT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Before watching the video, ask students:
- How do you decide how you should look?
- Who or what influences your ideas about how you should
look?
Record key points of the discussion on the board.
As students watch the film, encourage them to note words, phrases,
images or concepts (including but not limited to those from
the film) that relate to their own experiences or feelings.
After watching the video, ask students:
- In what ways has the film challenged any of your previous
beliefs or ideas? In what ways does it support any of your
previous beliefs or ideas?
- Which media do you think have the most influence on you?
In what ways? Which have the least?
- In what ways can you recognize negative media influences?
How did you come to recognize them? In what ways have you
resisted them?
- Jamila, the 13 year old girl in the film, describes the
dilemma she faces in sorting through what is truly her and
what is the media’s influence: (see Section
4, The Voices of Girls) “It is hard to be sure I am
being true to myself all the time. I think sometimes, ‘Do
I try to look nice because I want to? Or is it because I
feel I have to?’ I don’t know how I make the decision about
what looking nice is, or whether I do look good or not....”
How do you know whether you are dressing a certain way or
acting a certain way because you want to and you are being
true to yourself, or whether you are reacting to all of
the messages that surround you?
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II. STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Prior to starting these, you may
wish to start a class collection of media images that can be
used by students for these activities. Have students bring in
copies of magazines they’ve recently read, covers from their
favorite CDs, etc. You also may wish to review excerpts from
the film as part of these activities. Suggested segments are
included.
1) Images of Beauty Segment:
Gloria Steinem @ 4:58min.
Before watching:
Ask each student to collect images (from magazines, newspapers,
CD covers, internet sites, etc.) of five women who they think
best represent their ideal of beauty.
After watching:
Organize the class into pairs. After students have shared their
image collections with their partners, ask each of them to address
the following questions as their partners take notes:
- What physical characteristics do the women in these images
have in common? (Consider such features as hair color and
texture, skin color, height, weight, etc.)
- Did you consider anything other than physical characteristics
when you chose these five images?
- Do you think your best friend would choose images that
are similar to the ones you chose? Why or why not?
- Ask each pair to review their notes and discuss whether
the film has challenged or supported their analysis. Reassemble
the class and engage a discussion of the students’ analysis.
Encourage them to use specific examples to explain their ideas.
Ask students:
- Where would you look for images if you did this activity
again?
- Were there any general differences that you noticed in
the images that boys picked vs. girls?
- What role do boys play in deciding who/what is beautiful?
How are you affected by this?
2) Self Portraits Segment:
Gloria Steinem @ 22:51min.
Ask students to create a self portrait that reflects, as accurately
as possible, the way they see themselves. They may make use
of drawings, photographs, magazine cutouts, computer generated
graphics, or other visual media to create their self portraits.
Next, ask them to add single words or short phrases that describe
how they see themselves.
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As an alternative, students may use the following
sugges- tions to create a “word portrait.”
TITLE Your name (first middle, last or nickname)
in capital letters
Line 1 Four characteristics that best describe
you
Line 2 [Brother, sister, son, daughter, foster
child, etc.] of [relative/guardian’s name] Line
3 Friend of [name]
Line 4 Who loves [list three objects, people
or places]
Line 5 Who feels [three items]
Line 6 Who needs [three items]
Line 7 Who fears [three items]
Line 8 Who gives [three items]
Line 9 Who would like to see [three items]
Line 10 [Choose your own descriptor]
Line 11 Repeat the name you used in the title
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- What parts of your self portrait (either your images or
words) do you see reflected in the media?
3) Men and Women Segment:
Gail Dines @ 14:55 min.
Before you view:
Ask each student to find an image (from magazines, newspapers,
CD covers, internet sites, etc.) that includes both women and
men (or girls and boys).
After viewing:
organize the class into small groups. Ask each group to analyze
how men and women are portrayed in the images, and to list their
observations, specifically noting:
- Who is placed higher in the shot? Who is lower?
- Who is in the background? Who is in the foreground?
- Who is looking at whom or what?
- How are the men dressed? How are the women dressed?
- What attitudes are conveyed by their body language?
- Who appears to be the most powerful? Why?
- Do the images support the assertions made by the people
in the film?
Ask students to comment on the following quote from Jamila,
the 13 year old girl in the film (see Section
4, The Voices of Girls):
“Whenever I see an image of a young man hurting a women
or acting tough and “manly,” I feel sad. Not just because
women can never be portrayed in charge of themselves like
that, but because of what it does to boys my age. Boys grow
up thinking this is how they have to be. Not only is it
a body image, but a whole aura that they have to show.”
4) Music Videos Segment:
Brittany Spears @ 1:22 min.
Ask students to watch six music videos (two by male artists,
two by female artists, and two by groups), with the following
questions in mind. For each one, they should record the time
the video was shown, the network on which it was shown, the
name of the artist, and the title of the song.
- Describe the physical appearance of the women in the videos.
What did most or all of these women have in common?
- What were the women doing? What were the men doing? What
did their actions have to do with the lyrics of the song?
- What are some of the themes than run through the videos?
- How many of the videos you watched portrayed women in a
negative way? What made them negative?
- How many portrayed women in a positive way? What made them
positive?
- Were the videos by female artists significantly different
from those made by male artists? If so, in what ways?
5) Using Your Body Segment:
Athletics/Boxing @ 24:02 min.
One of the strategies suggested in the film to resist the media’s
unrealistic images of beauty is to use your body physically
— to get to know your body as something other than a reflection
in a mirror or a source of dissatisfaction.
NOTE TO TEACHERS: For some
students who viewed this video, there was too much
emphasis on athletics to achieve this body knowledge
which limited options for people who were not interested
in athletics or who were physically challenged.
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Have students get together in small groups and brainstorm options
for appreciating your body — it’s strength, power, usefulness
— other than athletics. What were some other suggestions made
or implied in the video?
Ask students to act out these alternatives for their classmates,
using words, music, dance, mime or other forms of physical expression.
Have students read and comment on Deborah Lake Fortson’s essay
on using the voice -- as in singing or acting -- as an alternative
resistance strategy. (The essay is available on the film’s website
link.) You might want them to write a short reaction and then
read it out loud — with lots of expression! — to the class.
6) Getting Real—Images of Real Women
Segments:
Gloria Steinem & Photo montage @ 23:00 min.
and Catherine Steiner-Adair (photo tree activity) @ 28:48 min.
Ask each student to bring in pictures of two women they admire,
look up to, or who have been positive influences in their lives.
Have students design a bulletin board to display these images.
As students place their two pictures on the board, ask them
to introduce these women and describe why they admire them.
At the end of the period, ask students to reflect in writing
about what it means to focus on real women... ...and/or ask
them to reflect on this quote from Briana, a 14 year old girl
(see Section 4, The Voices of Girls):
“It has helped me so much to have my mother and sister
as role models to me. They look just like a woman should,
and they are beautiful. They are opinionated, assertive
and loud, and encourage me to be as well. And I am. These
are not the only strong, confident women in my life. I have
a whole community of them, and I can’t tell you how much
they have helped me. Just like the models in the magazines
influence young girls, my role models influence me to be
who I am — but in a good way. Obviously, I, being 5’7” and
over 110 pounds with curly brown hair, a Jewish nose, big
hips and big thighs, am not perfect in the society’s image.
But I am perfect in many other peoples’ image, and I am
just fine to me....Why can’t we just be ourselves?”
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of contents
Section
3
Using the Film with College
Students and Adults
by Gail Dines, Ph.D.
The following curriculum guide expands the topics presented in
the film:
and allows students to actively take their analysis to deeper levels.
College instructors can use any or all of these topics with their
classes — particularly in media studies, gender studies, women’s
studies and sociology — and additional materials and suggested resources
can be found on the film’s web site link at: www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org.
Educators working with adult groups for a single event or within
a very limited timeframe may want to select an area of concentration
or choose one question or activity from each area. Section
2, “Questions and Activities for Middle and High School Students”
will also have some material that may be appropriate for use.
I. Analysis of Image Based Culture
Within media studies, there is a growing discussion on the nature
and importance of moving from a print-based culture to an imagebased
culture. The main argument here is that the major form of communication
today is the image rather than print. Media theorists argue that
this shift has brought about changes in the way we think, process
and decode information. Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi sees the difference
between a print-based culture and an image-based culture as one
where images “undermine the power of logos, the slow development
of rational understanding and analysis, in favor of rapid and fragmented
bits of information; instead of abstract conceptual language, it
provides vivid, particularistic images, and instead of intellectuals,
it creates celebrities.”
Issues to Consider:
- While many of the images we see are stills, increasingly
we are bombarded with moving images from television, film,
video and the internet. These images move at the speed
of the producer, not the consumer. This takes the power
away from consumer to process at his or her own speed.
The pace of the images today makes it impossible to critically
analyze the messages. We see them but do not have enough
time to deconstruct the meaning within the images.
- Print allows us to go back to the text and analyze
it at our own pace. We can put the text down and come
back to it. Moving images are here one second and gone
the next. Ultimately, they all just collapse together
into a confusing, but often disturbing, mush.
- To produce print, you need literacy, access to writing
materials and the printing press. This was always political
in that only some people (elite classes) had access to
main stream distribution. But print based culture did
allow for a range of ideas to be disseminated since the
technology needed was relatively inexpensive.
- To produce the moving image, you need expensive equipment
and skills that few have. Producing this type of image
media is much more complex and requires sophisticated
technology that few can afford.
- Images are more seductive than any other kind of communication.
They draw us in and speak to us in ways that short circuit
critical analysis. They have the appearance of always
telling the truth because we are seeing it with our eyes.
- Moving images require less energy than print. We become
much more passive when consuming the image since we really
do not need to use our imagination. All the work is done
for us. (Example: Think about reading a book and then
seeing the film. The characters rarely look like they
do in our mind’s eye. We often are disappointed with the
film and can never really go back to our own images that
we have constructed from the book.)
- Images surround us everywhere. The visual landscape
has been taken over by corporate produced images designed
to sell us products. It is impossible to ignore images.
They are on buses, on billboards, at bus stops, in the
supermarket, checkout, in stores, on the television, in
magazines, and over the Internet. We are now in an image-cluttered
environment where the producers are competing for our
eyes.
- The staple of the image-based culture is the sexualized
body of young, thin, white women. Whereas print allowedfor
a diversity of women’s bodies, the image culture has narrowed
the diversity to an almost single body shape. As women,
we constantly compare ourselves to the image of the “perfect”
body. We can never actually meet the standard since it
is a constructed image that has little connection to real
women’s bodies.
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Ask students to:
- Keep a log of the number of the advertising images
they see each day as they go about their normal daily
routine. Write down what the image was selling and
what clues helped them understand what the image was
selling, both overtly and covertly.
- Watch television to research how often the screen
changes from one scene to the next. It is useful to
separate the genres so that students can time screen
changes for advertisements, drama shows, news, MTV
and children’s shows, especially cartoons. Which genre
has the most screen changes? What do screen changes
do to/for the viewer?
- Read a book and then watch the movie version. Require
them to write a description of the visual aspects
of two or three characters as they imagine them from
reading the book. After seeing the movie, they can
discuss in class how they now see the characters.
The next project could be to reverse the process whereby
students watch the film first and then read the book.
One issue to explore here is to examine which genre
was more powerful.
- Watch an old movie and keep a log of how often
the screen changes. Also, explore how the dialogue,
the camera techniques and the development of the story
are different from present day movies.
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II. Images and Ideology
Media theorists in that last decade have tended to adopt a more “cultural
studies approach” to understanding the way media images construct reality.
Rather than talking simply in terms of short-term “effects”, a more
psychologically based concept; the discussion now focuses on the long-term
ideological effects of living in an image-based culture that is controlled
by corporate interests. This kind of analysis necessarily raises questions
about how we construct notions of reality from the media and whose reality
is actually being portrayed.
One of the main arguments put forward by cultural studies theorists
is that the media only tells the stories of a select group of elites
and either distorts or renders invisible the lives of minorities. Larry
Gross has called this “Symbolic Annihilation” and argues that those
without the money and power to own or control the media do not get to
have their voices heard in the market place of ideas. (See Section
2: Valerie Batts’ “Looking through the Lens of Race” included in
this study guide.)
Issues to Consider
- All images are encoded with ideological messages. There
is no such thing as an innocent image since it has been
carefully constructed to meet a particular standard in order
to sell a product.
- Images rarely, if ever reflect reality. All images are
a distorted view of reality since they are highly stylized.
They are not a slice of life but a constructed version of
reality.
- Many theorists argue that the version of reality encoded
in images is that which serves the interests of the dominant
group such as corporations and wealthy, white, heterosexual
men.
- This process has been termed “hegemony” and is defined
by Michelle Barrett as “the organization of popular consent
to the ideology of the dominant group and for ‘hegemony’
to be secured everyone must accept, at the level of ‘common
sense’ knowledge, the view of the dominant class.”
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Ask Students to:
- Watch the evening news on the same channel every day
for one week. Who actually gets to speak? What do they speak
about? Are they “subject matter experts” or do they have
another role? Which groups do these people represent? Observe
how often during the week the stories of racial or cultural
groups other than white European- Americans are featured.
- Examine how minority groups are represented, how they
are depicted. Are they shown as experts in a field or as
examples of people who do not conform to the American dream
through choice rather than lack of opportunity?
- Watch several sit-coms, police dramas and talk shows
to see whether minority groups are “symbolically annihilated”.
- Find examples of alternative media. Discuss in class
what makes the text and images challenge the prevailing,
mainstream media
- Explore how consumerism is promoted as a way of life and
as a solution to problems that are created as a result of
the unequal distribution of money and power.
- Design an advertising campaign for a product which students
find useless. Their job is to sell the product to the class
in a way that makes it appealing. Consider what goes into
a “real” advertising campaign: target audience(s), geographics,
profit potential, creating a need for products that may
have little use or value, etc.
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III. Body Image
Studies show that girls and women are extremely dissatisfied with their
bodies, often to the point of hating their bodies, as well as themselves.
While this is not a new phenomenon, the images of women have become
more and more impossible to live up to. Models are thinner today than
they have ever been and there are fewer and fewer alternative images
in the media. From movie stars to TV anchorwomen, women in the public
eye are expected to conform to a narrow standard of beauty, which is
achieved through plastic surgery, excessive dieting, exercising and
sophisticated air brushing technology.
Given that real women come in multiple shapes and sizes and skin colors,
there is a growing rift between the ideal beauty standard and reality.
However, as we become a nation of image consumers, the line between
media and reality blurs since we take the media to be a representation
of real women.
Issues to Consider
- How can we, as women, appreciate our own bodies on their
own terms when we are “symbolically annihilated” in the
media?
- Why have media images of women become so limited in their
standard of beauty? How does this tie in with the massive
growth in plastic surgery, the dieting industry, and the
sales of cosmetics?
- What does it mean to walk around in a body we are at
war with? How does this affect the way we feel about ourselves
and our rights to demand equality?
- In what ways do such images impact on our relationship
to food? Having a healthy appetite is often seen as a sign
of gluttony and lack of self-control. The problem here is
that we need food to live and that healthy eating is a sensuous
experience that should fill us with pleasure.
- In many developing countries, women are the last to be
fed. They are denied food because of its scarcity and their
political standing in society. In this country, where most
women do have access to enough food, we are now starving
ourselves rather than being purposely starved.
- What is the relationship between the images of women
and eating disorders? Eating disorders in the extreme are
anorexia and bulimia, but many women have a difficult relationship
to food, one fraught with guilt, shame, and secrecy. This
could be seen on a continuum of eating disorders, not as
a rare, deviant behavior exhibited by a few anorexics and
bulimics.
- In the past, women with large hips and sturdy thighs
were seen as sexual and desirable. Why have we now moved
to a culture where these traits are seen as “fat and ugly”
and it is only extremely thin women who are viewed as the
most desirable?
- Do standards of beauty differ between various ethnic
and racial groups? If so, what are some of those differences?
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Ask Students to:
- Think aloud how they feel about their bodies. Write the
responses on the board so they can get a sense of what others
think and the commonalties and differences between the feelings.
(Or, you could hand out 3X5 index cards and ask each student
to write down 5 phrases which indicate how the student feels
about her or his body. Then you could write the comments
up on the board, putting checkmarks by the duplicate answers.)
- Bring in advertisements of women in order to explore
how these images construct particular notions of femininity.
- What do they say about what it means to be feminine
in our culture?
- What are the dominant ways of representing women
in advertisements? Look at facial expressions, body
poses, the point of view of the camera and the story
encoded in the image.
- Develop a list of the themes that run through the
ads.
- Compare the images of women and men in the ads. Explore
how the images differ in terms of the messages of what
constitutes the “perfect female” and the “perfect male”.
- Examine ads for their racial diversity. Are there
any common themes of how women of different ethnic groups
are represented?
- Compare images in magazines geared to white audiences
versus those geared to black audiences. How are femininity
and masculinity constructed in the magazines?
- Examine magazines geared to “larger women” to see if
these models are portrayed differently than those in the
regular magazines. And importantly, how large are these
women really, who represent the “larger women”?
- Explore the placements of food ads in the magazines. Are
they located near an image of a thin model or any ad or
article on diets?
- Look for alternative images of women. What makes these
images challenge the predominant, mainstream images?
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IV. Pornography
This topic is extremely controversial in both academic and non-academic
circles. Many students will come to class with strong opinions on both
sides and the aim should be to explore the different sides of the debate
using a range of readings. The brief discussion in the documentary takes
the position that much of pornography is a threat to women’s dignity
and their right to be safe in their homes, workplaces and communities.
From this framework, pornography is seen as a propaganda tool used by
patriarchy to legitimize, condone and celebrate violence against women.
The argument is not that pornography causes individual men to rape
women, but rather produces and sustains notions of femininity and masculinity
that perpetuate violence against women. The pro-pornography position
argues that pornography is a form if sexual fantasy that allows for
both women and men to explore their sexuality in a sexually repressed
society.
To assume that pornography is just fantasy, however, ignores the economic
dimensions of the industry. It is also argued that any attempts to limit
pornography will result in the censorship of sexual expression and freedom.
Yet those who do not have money, cannot produce their own forms of sexual
expression. It is also useful to ask whose image of sex is being depicted,
male or female.
NOTE: This is a difficult subject
to teach in class. Some students may be very upset by
seeing pornographic images, especially videos. There are
usually students in class who have histories of sexual
abuse and the topic could trigger memories. Students should
not be forced to look at pornography; other options should
be discussed in class.
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Issues to Consider
Pornography is not just fantasy, rather it is a multi-billion
dollar a year industry that is produced in a capitalist, patriarchal
system. This means that we need to explore the conditions
of its production in terms of who controls the industry and
the lives of the women who are used in the industry.
- Some of the women who work in the industry have written
about their experiences. It would be useful to examine the
range of experiences these women discuss.
- There is a growing body of literature on the relationship
between the trafficking of poor women and the production
of pornography. Since pornography is a multinational industry,
it is important to examine how women from developing countries
are increasingly being exploited and abused by a global
sex industry.
- Pornography uses specific codes and conventions (the
“come get me” look, bondage, women enjoying rape, etc.)
to represent the female body. Exploring these codes and
conventions facilitates a development of a definition of
what pornography actually is.
- The pornographic codes and conventions filter down to
mainstream images of women, especially in advertising. This
means that we are often viewing pornographic images without
consciously recognizing it. What impact may this have on
our acceptance as pornography as mainstream media?
- Pornography is now a major part of the Internet. To gain
a full understanding of pornography, we need to explore
the accessibility and nature of Internet pornography.
- The video pornography industry has grown over the last
10 years to the point that the industry magazine (Adult
Video News) has reported that approximately 10,000 new videos
were released last year, compared to about 3,000 in 1994.
Clearly, the Internet has played a role in the marketing
of pornography, but this does not completely explain the
growth. What could be the long and short-term effects of
this increas?
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Ask Students to:
(These suggestions should be discussed with students first.
Some may decide they do not want to participate.)
- Discuss their experience with pornography. When did they
first see it and what affect did it have on them?
- Visit an adult bookstore (if students feel okay about
this, do not go alone but go in groups). Take notes on the
titles of the movies and the different genres on sale. Observe
the social interactions of consumers in the store. Can they
discern patterns of interaction that are different to those
in other stores?
- Explore the themes in pornography.
- Analyze from whose point of view is the image? Does it
take on the position of the female or the male?
- Examine how the female body is portrayed, what are the
facial expressions, does she look like she is enjoying the
sex, are there suggestions of violence and coercion?
- How are men portrayed, are their bodies scrutinized by
the camera in the same way as women’s bodies?
- Are there any connections between the participants other
than sexual?
- Consider what the image would look like if women made
it? Would sex be portrayed in the same way?
- Think about what is actually missing from the image/
story? Does the images seem like a realistic representation
of sex in this culture?
- Develop ideas on how sexual representation could be constructed
differently to show an egalitarian relationship between
the participants.
- Explain why the majority of pornography is still bought
by men. While there is a tendency in the media to say that
women are now buying pornography in greater numbers, the
empirical evidence suggests that this is industry hype.
- Examine if there are any differences between erotica
and pornography? For those who see differences, ask them
to find images of erotica and to explore how these images
differ from mainstream pornography.
- Consider what is sexual liberation for women and men?
What type of images would provide illustrations of this
liberation?
- Explore what sexual images might look like if penetration
was not the main theme.
- Research how pornography is linked to major corporations
who own pornographic web sites. How have pornographers adopted
business models to develop the industry? What is the estimated
size of the industry? (This material can be found in the
business magazines such as Forbes and computer magazines.)
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V. Resistance to Media Images
One of the themes developed in cultural studies is the notion of resistance.
Media scholars have explored the concept theoretically in order to discern
what resistance actually means. Some theorists argue that consumers
do not necessarily decode the images in ways that they were encoded.
This has been termed “reading against the grain” whereby individuals
bring their own histories, world-views, and experiences to a text which
results in them making a range of meanings not necessarily intended
by the producers.
Other scholars however, have argued that this “reading against the
grain” is a pseudo form of resistance, since it does not change the
political and economic context of media production. It is important
to keep in mind that texts are polysemic (have multiple meanings) while
also acknowledging that texts are encoded within a dominant ideological
framework.
Given this debate, it is useful to think of resistance in terms of
both individual resistance and organized resistance, which calls for
structural changes in the ownership and control of media production
and distribution and more access to alternative media.
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Issues to Consider:
- How does capitalism as an economic system shape media
production and distribution? The last few years has seen
the incredible growth in mergers of multinational corporations
that have resulted in six major corporations controlling
a vast amount of the media worldwide. Thus the question:
How can free speech really exist in capitalism?
- The international nature of these conglomerates has enormous
implications for the authentic culture of countries. If
the United States is exporting its media across the world,
what happens to the culture industries of poorer countries?
- Corporations have political interests in creating and
sustaining ideologies that legitimize consumerism as a way
of life. What does this mean for democracy since to flourish,
it needs a range of ideas and information?
- What role can the Internet play in opening up debates
and allowing access to ideas that are not found in the corporate
controlled media?
- Groups that are excluded from the mainstream have tended
to produce their own media, often in the forms of magazines
and newspapers. The aim of this media is often to create
a community among the minority group and to provide a forum
for discussion of issues that directly impact on the lives
of their members.
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Ask Students to:
- Decode the mainstream media to see how hegemonic ideas
are encoded in mainstream genres such as news, shows, sit-coms,
etc. (You might have students get into small groups and
each group analyze one genre.) Examples of hegemonic (dominant)
ideas might be that America is a meritocracy, that women
exist to be looked at, that capitalism is the only economic
system that works, that African-Americans are violent by
nature, that the poor are poor because they are less intelligent
and not because we live in a society that has poverty built
into the economic system.
- Examine how texts can be polysemic. One useful method
is for all the class to see a movie and discuss how they
interpreted the text. Often, there will be a range of interpretations
and this highlights how the text is not a closed meaning
system.
- Find examples of progressive and conservative alternative
media and examine how they differ from mainstream media
owned by corporations. A good example is to compare mainstream
teen magazines with “Teen Voices,” a pro-feminist, multicultural
magazine aimed at teenage girls. “Ms. Magazine” is another
good source. For the conservative magazines, students could
use right-wing religious magazines aimed at youth. Another
way would be through internet sites.
- Watch some independent movies see how they differ from
mainstream movies in content, narrative structure and ideology.
- Take a particular event in the news and examine how progressive
alternative magazines such as “The Nation,” “Mother Jones”
or “Utne Reader” approach the issue. What kind of points
do these magazines explore and how do they frame these issues
within a progressive paradigm. Compare the coverage of the
event to that of a conservative magazine such as “New Republic”
or even mainstream media such as “The Wall Street Journal.”
- Find magazines that are more conservative than mainstream
media and explore the “taken for granted assumptions” in
the stories. A good example would be the magazines of the
N.R.A. or the right to life movement.
- Write an article on a topic of interest and submit to
a progressive magazine/newspaper or produce a video and
submit it to community television in your area.
- Interview the editors, writers or owners of some alternative
magazines to explore how they perceive their role in providing
a different way of thinking about events and issues.
- Search the Web to see how alternative organizations are
using this technology to organize their supporters and plan
events such as protests, letter writing, boycotts, conferences
and local meetings
- Choose at least one area where you can take a personal
activist stance:
- Write letters to protest images, advertisements or
stories that you find offensive;
- Boycott corporations/products that have sexist or
racist ads;
- Organize a protest, start a petition or letter writing
campaign; or
- Join an organization that promotes group activism
around a media issue that concerns you.
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back to table of
contents
Section
4
The Voices of Girls
essays by Jamila Capitman and
Briana Deutch
Briana — October 28, 2000
My name is Briana. I am in the 8th grade at Cambridge Friends School.
I am 13 years old (almost 14).
It used to be that when someone saw a young girl who was around 5’3"
and over 100 pounds, they’d keep living their lives and wouldn’t comment
on it. Now, if a girl is the weight she should be, she is criticized
by the world. One form of this criticism is teen magazines. They send
subliminal (or not so subliminal) messages to young teen girls telling
them to live up to the expectations of the society.
The magazines put skinny blonde white girls in their pictures and
pretend not to realize that these fake women are what the future women
of our world look up to as role models. These “role models” are usually
wearing tight, popular, cute clothes that many teen girls either can’t
fit into or can’t afford.
When girls realize this, they think of some way to change it, but
the only thing they can change is the “fitting into” part. They set
to work, making themselves skinnier, and they usually don’t stop.
Eating disorders are taking over the world, and teen magazines certainly
aren’t helping to stop them.
Teen magazines are also making girls want to be dumb. The models
often pose in positions with their finger in their mouth, looking
stupid yet innocent. Teen girls already have trouble speaking their
minds because they are afraid to look inferior to boys, but the magazines
encourage girls to act stupid and just be giggly and shy. When these
girls become anorexic or bulimic, they don’t have the courage to speak
up to themselves and tell themselves to eat, or to keep their food
down.
If a model isn’t looking stupid, she’s looking sexy. Magazines have
commercials in them with women lying on the floor, touching their
bellies, or something. And they almost always look depressed, but
nobody ever notices that because they’re too busy staring at the fake
breasts that are popping out of the model’s shirt (if she’s even wearing
one.) Of course, girls want to be beautiful, so they go and get implants
or surgery and destroy their natural beauty, which can never be recovered;
once you have wanted to be different, there is no way you can ever
be the same.
If it weren’t for our strong women of the world, we teenagers wouldn’t
survive. It has helped me so much to have my mother and sister as
role models to me. They look just like a woman should, and they are
beautiful. They are opinionated, assertive, and loud, and encourage
me to be as well. And I am. These are not the only strong, confident
women in my life. I have a whole community of them, and I can’t tell
you how much they have helped me. Just like the models in the magazines
influence young girls, my role models influence me to be who I am
— but in a good way.
In the video, some psychologists said that something happens to girls
when they go from being young girls to being young women. They lose
some part of them, the loud part and the opinionated part.
I do agree with this idea, but I think that it happens more to girls
who don’t have a big community of strong women. I can’t say that it
didn’t happen to me at all, but I know it happened less to me than
it did to other girls I know, and I think this is because I have a
huge community of strong women who I am very close with. In the video,
someone said that they “give themselves up” to be liked by others.
I think this is true, not only for girls, but for boys too. I think
it happens to girls more and it is also more noticeable in girls because
they lose their loudness and their opinions and they give themselves
up to be liked by others at the same time.
Some of the women in the film said that the way you react to media
images is that you lose sight of how you really look. I agree that
this is one of the many ways of reaction to media images. You see
all these pictures of skinny blonde white girls and then you see all
these people who have been affected by that image and have tried to
match themselves to the image, and then you lose sight of what women
really look like, and what women should look like. You start to think
that blonde, skinny and white is the norm because that’s what everyone
looks like in the ads. Instead of trying to make everyone see what’s
happening, and trying to make everything go back to normal, you make
yourself look like everyone else and ignore the lies that are swirling
around right in front of your eyes.
I think that when girls say that they don’t want to be fat, they
are really saying that they don’t want to grow into their mature bodies.
They don’t want to have hips, or a stomach, or big thighs, which is
a woman’s mature body, and actually, most people are attracted to
it, which is what girls want. They don’t want to grow into their mature
bodies because they think they won’t be attractive, when it’s actually
the other way around.
Some people might think that the film is too harsh on the cosmetics
industry, and that cosmetics are just playful and fun, and don’t send
messages to girls to fit a certain image. I think that is definitely
not true. Cosmetics commercials are always advertising new things
that you can put on quickly and just throw in your bag, things that
won’t wear off easily, so that in situations like when you have a
meeting, you don’t have to keep re-applying your lipstick or cover-up.
You don’t put cosmetics on for fun when you’re going to a serious
meeting. Also, if cosmetics commercials weren’t sending a message
to young girls to fit a certain image, there wouldn’t only be blonde
skinny white girls advertising the products. This is the image that
society tells us to fit. Why can’t we just be ourselves?
Changes need to be made in our society, and I think this video can
help. Obviously, I, being 5’7" and over 110 pounds, with brown hair,
a Jewish nose, big hips and big thighs, am not perfect in the society’s
image. But I am perfect in many other peoples’ image, and I am just
fine to me.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Jamila — October 28, 2000
My name is Jamila. I am thirteen years old and I go to school in
Cambridge. I live in Arlington with my Mom and Dad — my brother is
away at school. I like dancing, soccer and music, and I spend a lot
of time with my friends. I really enjoyed being in the video with
my mother. It gave me a chance to talk about some very important issues
and learn about the technical process of making a movie.
After seeing the film I found myself wanting to talk about the role
of race in media images. There are by far less black women in the
media than white. This is very confusing to young black girls because,
unlike the white girls they know, no matter how hard black girls try,
they can never become white. Black girls can starve themselves, can
straighten their hair and even sometimes lighten their skin but, no
matter what, they are still black.
Another part of the race issue is the “exotic look”. In magazines,
TV and movies, Asian and Latina and Black women are portrayed to have
a sort of unearthly charm. Most often, these women do not really look
fully Asian, Latina or Black. Boys that I know have talked about models
and singers of color being attractive but they are usually referring
to the light skinned, straight haired Black models or the Latina Jennifer
Lopez look-a-likes.
Obviously, the push to be skinny is a major factor in the media today.
I personally feel that weightism is just as important as racism, sexism
and homophobia. The difference is that people can control their weight.
This would not be such a problem because there is nothing wrong
with being healthy, but when the images that young girls strive
to be like are unhealthy it is a problem. The control can turn to
chaos, or eating disorders.
I think one of the biggest problems about the push to be skinny is
that it is meant to be attractive to men. Not only do women get taught
by the fashion magazines, but by men as well. It is really only a
few men who choose these standards, not normal men we see on the street.
Women are constantly told, get smaller, and men are constantly told
that woman should get smaller. They lose sight of what real women’s
mature bodies look like and think that these skinny super models are
perfect and everyone else is fat.
As teenagers in our world, we want to be cool, we want to have fun
and we want to have friends. All the time, everywhere we go, someone
is trying to tell us how to do this: “Wear these clothes, listen to
this music, be like this.” Media screams these things at us and even
if we try not to, we have to hear.
These images, about how to dress and how to act, really limit us.
If I do choose to buy these clothes and listen to this music, I am
limited in my choices of my appearance and what music I listen to.
I am nothing but these clothes and this music. It puts me in a clique
of people who dress like me, and because of my “category” I am from
a completely different planet then, for instance, a close friend who
chooses to dress a different way.
Much of today’s media is targeted to young people. It get us in their
trap and makes us fall in love with it. We don’t usually notice how
much media images make us hate ourselves. It is not fair for us, as
the main consumers, to be given such a narrow perspective of how life
for young people is and should be. We accept this version which hurts
us and we don’t even notice it is doing us harm. There needs to be
a revolution!
Whenever I see an image of a young man hurting a woman or acting
tough and “manly,” I feel sad. Not just because women can never be
portrayed in charge of themselves like that, but because of what it
does to boys my age. Boys grow up thinking this is how they have to
be. Not only is it a body image but a whole aura that they have to
show.
Black men watch these stereotypes of other black men and think that
is how they should look and dress. I personally think that if someone
wants to wear baggy jeans, they should be allowed to without being
looked at suspiciously, but since this is not the case, young black
men need to see positive role models that are not always dressed a
certain way. Women need to see men who are different so that men do
not feel so concerned about being “manly” enough.
I think that experimenting with clothing and make-up can be a lot
of fun for young girls. I love nail polish and make up because I enjoy
seeing myself in new ways. I certainly don’t feel as though I need
these things to be who I am, or to be beautiful, but I enjoy the decision.
I don’t think there is any reason why young people should not be allowed
to have make up, just so long as they know they don’t need it.
The girls we see on television are always heavily made up and, if
we see them get out of bed in the morning the first thing they do
is put on more. Girls think that is beauty, that is how I must be,
so I need make up. I certainly go through never leave the house without
lip gloss fazes, but when I stop and really ask myself if I want to
wear lip gloss for me, or because of the ad I saw on TV some times
I put it down and sometimes I don’t.
It is hard to be sure I am being true to myself all the time. I think
sometimes, do I try to look nice because I want to? Or is it because
I feel I have to? I don’t know how I make the decision about what
looking nice is, or whether I do look good or not, but I usually am
happy with myself. It is important for girls to explore options, there
is more than one way to be.
I think that the strong women in my life have played a very important
role in keeping me healthy and confident about myself. Stories of
my grandmothers, my mother and my many Aunties — all of these women
who are not fashion models, but role models — have shaped my life.
I think for a girl to grow up with strong assertive women around her
is a wonderful gift. For some young girls it ends up being the gift
of a voice in teen years. I love all the strong women in my life for
being themselves and loving themselves, and I also am inspired by
remembering all the struggles they went through to get where they
are now.
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contents
Section
5
Additional Essays and Curriculum
Working with Girls 10-12
by Cheryl Hirshman
(Cheryl Hirshman is an artist, founder and former director
of the New England Children’s Film Festival and a media
literacy teacher in the Lincoln, MA school system)
I would like to share some of my experiences using this video with
younger girls in the 10-12 age group. I first want to present some of
my ideas about media and children that I have developed after working
over 15 years in this field.
Background
As parents and educators we accept th |