Something Queer Here

In Doty's chapter, Something Queer Here, he starts off by talking about audience reception in mass culture. He describes audiences as "already acknowledged to be fragmented, polymorphous, contradictory, and 'nomadic' whether in the form of individual or group subjects." (Doty, page 1) He goes on to say that in order to analyze audience receptions they need to focus "upon the dense patterns and practices of daily life and way in which the media are integrated and implicated within it, rather than starting with already established audience categories." (Doty, page 2) This is when Doty introduces the term "queer". When using this term Doty is referring to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender. I actually thought of this word choice to be a little confusing because when I think or hear the queer I think of something being odd, and I don't necessarily agree with it being used to label someone based on their gender preferences.
I think that one of his main points in this article is that despite whether we are straight or "queer", "the intense tensions and pleasures generated by the woman-woman and man-man aspects within the narratives of the former group of films create a space of sexual instability that already queerly positioned viewers can connect with in various ways, and within which straights might be likely to recognize and express their queer impulses." (Doty, page 9)
In more traditional media, "queerness" was present but it was hidden by values of that time. Nowadays, "queerness" in media is more straightforward and in the open. Examples in media today would be shows like Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, The Fosters, Chicago Fire, Revenge, Glee, and several more.

Women's Roles In Movies

In Laura Mulveys Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, she talks a lot about women's roles in movies and how they are just there to be looked at. After discussing how men drive all movies and women just appear, I started to think about movies I've seen and women's roles in them. Looking into it more, I found this YouTube video of movies that don't pass the Bechdel Test for Women. This test is used to see how present a female role is in a movie. The video shows movies that have women in them for all the reasons that Mulvey suggests in her article.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s

Laura Mulvey's Theory.

In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey wants to talk about women, and their roll in the cinema.  Of course the female actresses do their job by acting, and providing a great performance, but it is much more than that.  To Laura Mulvey, it’s about portraying a hot, sexual image to the public.  She wants to stress scopophilia: “the pleasure in using another person (usually female) as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” (Class Notes 10/21).  Generally speaking, Mulvey wants to emphasize that women serve as an erotic image throughout films.  Laura talks about how the editing of a particular film will help add the sexual image that the public wants.  Editors can do this by taking shots that are close-ups of the body, using shots that involve only certain areas of the body, or even adding slow motion to a certain shot.  The editors use simple techniques to edit the shots, so it makes it easy for them to provide for the audiences.  In turn, this produces a huge capital…

In accordance with today’s media, it is easy to find Laura Mulvey’s theory still present.  It is clear to see her theory in Cameron Diaz’s performance in Bad Teacher when she opens up a car wash to raise money.  In this particular scene, Diaz is wearing shorts, a cut-off shirt, and heels, which makes this scene even more stereotypical.  The edited shots of this film are put together in a way to to show off Diaz’s best features, presenting itself in an erotic fashion.  In the clip, you see Diaz sliding across the hood of the car, spraying herself with the hose, and of course, bending over to only see her behind.  Scopophilia is shown at it’s best in this scene because you can see how much power the women figure holds.  

http://youtu.be/OjSmSXblWRM

-Cameron Diaz Car Wash Scene

Something Queer Here Reading

In chapter one, “There’s something Queer Here”, Doty talks about how the word "gay" no longer covers a range of sexualities, but instead uses the term “queer” or “queerness” to cover various sexualities. He talks about how using the word “gay” and talking about the subject used to be a touchy subject because many things and people were not yet openly gay, like today. He suggests that even during these times media still appealed to the queer and had subtle queer instances. He says as a gay man he chose to identify with the female characters because of the way he viewed himself with feminine qualities. He also says, that a lesbian woman and a straight women may choose to identify with the character. He gives the example of the character Russell, in Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Although, she is a women is depicted in a butch-femme way and has ‘male’ mannerisms, like holding the door open for another woman. He concludes in saying that “queerness has been in popular culture and their audiences all along” (Doty, 16). I think Doty's main idea is that despite your sexual orientation queer culture is there and experienced. 

In today’s media, more specifically TV shows are becoming openly gay or queer, as Doty would put it. Maybe media has always had “queerness” to it, but until recently it wasn’t open. The first example I can think of is Pretty Little Liars, which aired in 2010 on ABC Family. ABC Family is known for covering hardships teens go through by addressing it through their characters and offering support after the episodes. I remember watching Pretty Little Liars and being shocked as one of the characters on the show, Emily Fields, comes out as lesbian. What was even more astonishing was the episodes showed her kissing girls. There was a lot of talk as to the show should be taken down off ABC Family because it is made for families. ABC Family does not censor heterosexual scenes of kissing as they are viewed as romantic. So, why when its two women is it concerned “too much”. I think by bringing in openly gay scenes and characters to medias its opening doors to the future. Viewers can choose to identify with whomever they choose queer or non-queer.

Another example that raised uproar in negative and positive ways was the release of Orange is the New Black in 2013. As media was more openly gay, it was viewed as acceptable as showing some scenes of kissing, but never like this. Orange is the New Black covers not only lesbians as pretty feminine women, but also as butch. The show also has a trans-gender female. There were rumors about the show being taken off Netflix because of the rated R content, but it was not taken down. It is now one of the most watched shows despite the criticism of the “queerness” of the show. 

In my opinion I like that our medias are being bold and including queerness openly. There are LGBT people all over and I think it’s a wonderful thing they can be open and happy. Why do they have to be excluded, or censored? 

Queer Culture

          In the reading for tomorrow, titled "There's Something Queer Here" by Alexander Doty, the study of queer culture is discussed and analyzed. Doty brings up "queerness" as mass culture reception practice. Reception practice means “focusing upon the dense patterns and practices ‘of daily life and the way media are integrated and implicated within it’” (Doty, 2). He uses the word “queer” to describe both lesbian and gay culture as a whole. I thought it was interesting that Doty discussed how most of us are brought up in a “straight” culture and learn everything as heterosexual. When something is homosexual or queer, Doty explains that we are more likely to repress the text or information. We have not really been able to examine queer culture and Doty explains that queer culture is not gender specific to lesbians or gays and wants to explain that queer culture also includes people who identify as straight. 
          Doty begins to use examples of media that contribute to the queer culture. “Traditional narrative films such as Silvia Scarlet, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Trapeze… which are ostensibly addressed to straight audiences, often have greater potential for encouraging a wider range of queer responses than such clearly lesbian- and gay- addressed films…” (8). Ultimately I think Doty’s point in this reading was to prove that queer culture is experienced by all types of people whether they associate themselves with lesbian and gay culture. 

The basic baywatch Scence

In Laura Mulvey's Article "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema(1975)" the female body in films is talked about in certain aspects of the film industry, as I was reading this article I thought she was only trying to get across the point that women are just looked at in films or shows as objects for sexual desire, therefore the Victoria Secret Annual Fashion Show came to mind.  As I went on reading and as you started explaining in class that it is much more than that, I then realized she is talking about the way films cut and edit certain scenes and aspects of the film in order to portray the female body in a certain way, realizing that, the basic Baywatch scene came to mind. The classic slow motion, down to up or up to down, glistening oily body that I'm sure we've all seen before in films. I find it funny that the way that the film makers make it important to focus on the body, even with the example of Baywatch, they have the perfect hair blowing in the wind as they come out of the water, the way the lighting hits the body makes it some how more desirable, it leaves guys drooling by the end of the scene. This does not just happen in Baywatch, it happens in 99% of the movies from today all the way to when films started being made, it can be an action movie, comedy movie, horror movie, some type of eye candy has to be present for some odd reason, guess to give the guys a reason to want to watch the movie even more. I grew up with all guys so I would know how they react to the films, as soon as a preview with a hot girl comes on television they automatically say, "Man I have to go see that movie." Film industries do not care if they portray the female body to be some type of object for sexual desire rather than being a human whose body deserves respect, as long as they are making money that is all that matters, and nothing is going to change unless women stop playing that sexual desired object, which will not happen either because as long as they are getting paid their hundreds of thousands of dollars they do not care either. Do not be fooled, because us girls are just as bad when it comes to that, although it is not really mentioned in the article girls are the same way when it comes to some eye candy, such as in the movie Magic Mike, do not think women went to go see that movie for the great acting and story line of Magic Mikes life, they went to go see it because all the hot guys that are in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuYrRebvFHc
-Baywatch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og9UkWfX_OY
-Magic Mike

America Loves Looking at Beautiful People

I feel as though the points Mulvey makes in her article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" while still relevant today, are becoming increasing less so.

Today, I don't think films purposely try to oversexualize females because they see females as less of a person, or the "male other."  I think oversexualization is prevalent in films because sex sells. America loves looking at beautiful people, as vulgar as it is to think about.
I think this subject looks mainly back at what we've talked about earlier in class about capitalism. Would Wonder Woman sell as well if she was a chubby girl with acne? No!
Its also important to remember now days this is happening to all people in media.  Did Jacob need to be shirtless for the entire Twilight movie? Probably not.  Did it encourage more hormonal tween girls to spend 10 dollars on the movie ticket? Of course!

I like to believe that we are past the point of passive female characters who don't move plot along.  We can look at Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games, or even the whole cast of Bridesmaids.  These movies are making millions and they barely rely on their male characters!

People are still sexualized but in a new way.  For example, take the movie The Other Woman.  The movie has three female leads.  The plot would be literally nothing if you took them away.  At the same time,  we are still looking at actresses like Kate Upton and Cameron Diaz.  Gorgeous women!

I think while we can criticize the way woman are looked at in movies, we sort of lead this double standard.  This sounds terrible, but as a whole in our society, we don't want to idolize ugly people. As I said before, sex sells.