Short Response for Feb/3rd

I enjoyed today’s readings a lot. I think Douglas touched on several controversial topics that really forced me into thinking more deeply about the media and how women are consistently being portrayed in the wide spectrum of feminism. Before I read this chapter, I had no idea that ¨Clueless¨ had unleashed the unprecedented rise of chick flicks and thus, the new wave of girly feminism. Douglas analysis of other movies like ¨Miss Congeniality¨ and ¨Legally Blonde¨ left me even more perplexed. First of all, these are movies I have not only seen once but multiple times.  Hence, I guess I was able to follow through all her descriptions and recall each of the scenes clearly in my mind. This in effect, made her points stand out even more. 

The most important thing I noticed was the subtle difference between the way white women and black women are portrayed in the TV shows and movies. On the various example Douglas gave, white women are always beautiful and strong. Characters like Ally McBeal and Elle Woods try to exude a lot of confidence and ultimately end up in positions of relative power. However, their personal lives are complicated with conflicting desires. On one hand, they are professional women…empowered women. On the other hand, because of their sexuality, hyper-femininity, they are merely a joke for men. The take home message was something on the lines of: as women, there’s no way you can have brains and beauty all at once. In contrast with these female roles, African-American women like Oprah and Queen Latifah are all portrayed in a slightly different light.  They are all empowered, successful role models that try to embrace life beyond the over sexualized black women represented in rap videos. In addition, they are often admired because they speak from their hearts, and have no fear of men. Even though they can kick some ass, the media nonetheless has always succeeded in making fun of black women through downplayed characters like Big Momma. This made me realize how much more we need to strive for in order to break the race and class barrier.