Chapter 11 Popular Culture and Media

Chapter Introduction

The chapter opens with a discussion of women’s invisibility in movies. It examines inequalities in media gender representations, ending with a discussion of gender representations in music videos, particularly hip hop.

Mass Media and Gender

A society with high levels of inequality must develop ways to legitimate itself. Mass media (the Internet, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, CDs, and films) play important roles in creating ideas about how our society is the best of all possible worlds and communicating that message to audiences.

The lives of nearly all North Americans are drenched in media images, sounds, and messages that help to define reality. Many of these messages are about gender, and often they legitimate gender inequality. Images of hegemonic masculinity (subordination of women, authority, aggression, and technical competence) and emphasized femininity (dependence, sexual receptivity, motherhood, and subordination by men) dominate television.

Gender on Television

Research in the 1970s and today finds that men are more represented on television and they are represented in greater diversity than women, who are more stereotyped. Women are also missing as producers of media, in network news (where women are valued more for their appearance), and as sources for stories. Violence against women remains popular in police and other drama. Lesbians and people with disabilities are nearly nonexistent in the media. Age combines with gender to make some groups invisible, others hyper-visible. Young men, men over 60, and women over 50 are under-represented; most TV men are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Women in their 30s are dramatically over-represented.

Reality TV and Gender

Reality TV is not really reality, but the resulting product is temptingly believable and powerful because of its supposed real grounding. It portrays women in particular ways, which constitute what Jennifer Pozner (2011) calls a “pop cultural backlash against women's rights and social progress.”

LGBT on TV

LGBT characters were nearly invisible on TV until the 1970s, but even into the 1990s they were rare and played limited roles as villains, victims, and comedic relief. Since Queer as Folk started airing in 2000, LGBT people in popular media have enjoyed growing visibility, which has challenged dominant views of masculinity. However, some argue that these representations fall into a too-narrow white, wealthy demographic. With Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, LGBT TV gave hegemonic masculinity a makeover in the 1990s and has returned to television again.

Missing Women in the Television Industry

Gender inequity is present in television production. Fewer women are creators, directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and directors of photography on broadcast television programs. Women are also missing in network news, or they are valued solely for their appearance. Stories about women are common on the news, but women are far less likely to report the news or to be interviewed as news sources.

Symbolic Annihilation

Women’s invisibility on television—their “symbolic annihilation”—sends the message that they do not matter and their views are unimportant.

Gender in Advertising

Advertisements confirm existing social arrangements and provide a source of stereotypes that influence our understandings of and action in the real world. Stereotypes of masculinity in advertising have shifted over the years. From 1930 to 1980 men who were hard-working, good providers and socially and economically successful prevailed. In the 1990s the independent and solitary Marlboro Man held sway. The transformation of G.I. Joe dolls illustrates the growth of the strong, muscular, violent image of masculinity. Today, men in ads are commonly portrayed as danger-seeking, tough, violent, and callous about women and sex.

Advertising Masculinity

Two stereotypes of masculinity have been persistent in advertising: the sturdy oak and the big wheel. In the late 1990s, independence and isolation also became prominent. Additionally, there has been a growing focus on physicality and especially body size and muscle development.

Men and Beer. In beer commercials, drinking beer is the way to manliness. In the world of beer, men work hard and play hard. Beer helps boys grow up. Part of being a real man is drinking beer with the other guys. Beer commercials tell men how to relate to women: be attractive but detached, cool, and confident (see Box 11-1).

Advertising Gender in Three Nations. Women are stereotyped in ads around the world.

Gender in U.S. Advertising

In U.S. television commercials, women and especially older women are under-represented, conventionally attractive, and often scantily clad, while men appear more often in active or professional roles. The intersection of race ethnicity is crucial to consider when analyzing gender in advertising. Four images predominate: powerful white men, white women sex objects, aggressive black men, and inconsequential black women.

Gender in Turkish Advertising

Since the 1980s Turkey has been changing from an agrarian society into a postmodern consumer society. Traditional large families are less numerous and the proportion of educated employed women is growing. As a result, messages about gender are changing, driven by the rapidly growing media. In ads almost all women are young, married, not working, and tied to home and family. Men span a broader age range and are portrayed mostly out of the home.

Gender in Japanese Advertising

In Japanese advertising, women outnumber men, but they are housewives associated with household products, cosmetics, and services and are almost always young. Men of many ages are shown as office workers and are linked to electronic products. Arima (2003) found that five characters predominate in Japanese advertising: beautiful and wise housewives, young ladies attracting people’s attention, young celebrities, middle-aged and old people enjoying private time, and the middle-aged worker bee.

Some stereotypes are common across countries, including the limited age range for women and the association of women with domestic products and family settings. But in each nation gender intersects with different variables. In Turkey the tension between East and West and the newness of commercial media are significant. In Japan, age is an important issue, as is men’s business image. In the U.S. race ethnicity takes center stage along with gender.

Gender in Film

In films, men and boys outnumber women and girls. Most men characters were in their 30s and 40s, while most women were in their 20s and 30s. Older women did not lead purposeful lives or have goals, while men’s leadership and occupational power increased with age. Older people were dramatically under-represented compared to their real numbers in American society.

Children’s Movies. In G-rated movies, men and boy characters are dominant, solitary, dangerous, more prevalent, and more important to the story than are girls and women. Only 15% of the characters in the movies are people of color. Men are half as likely as women to be parents or to be in a committed relationship or marriage compared to women. Almost half of the men and boy characters and one-third of white women and girls are violent, while women and girls of color are more likely than white women to be violent or aggressive.

Sexualization of Girls and Women in Media

Women and girls are sexualized on television and often described as broads, bimbos, and dumbass chicks. TV characters insult their bodies with such words as jugs, boobs, knockers, and hooters. Music videos and lyrics sexualize women and/or refer to them in degrading ways. Magazines and magazine ads sexualize teen girls. These images are linked to girls’ dissatisfaction with personal appearance, eating disorders, depression, and plastic surgeries. Many girls “buy” the images and start to behave in ways dangerous to themselves, such as decreased condom use and diminished sexual assertiveness.

Gender and the Internet

In video games, women and girls are largely invisible; when women and girl characters do appear they are sexualized through their clothing, behavior, and body shape. Men were once more likely to use computers and surf the net, but by the turn of the century this gender “cybergap” had disappeared and even reversed. Very young girls and boys use the Internet in equal numbers and girls lead boys in Internet use by middle school. Factors other than gender, such as race ethnicity, income, and education, are more important distinctions between groups in the U.S. who use the Internet and those who do not. In the United States men decide on purchasing computers and men and women differ in their perceptions of their skills in using the Internet, even though women and men have similar skills in locating information online.

Media Theory

What connects the media and society? Hegemony theorists argue that media supports the status quo. Others claim that audiences are not just passive receivers but reinterpret what they see based on social position and background. From this perspective, ideas about issues such as gender are a result of a combination of what the media sends and what we make of it, both accepting and resisting different messages. This idea is known as reception theory.

Music Videos

Music videos play a major role in young people’s lives. One observer calls hip hop “the CNN of today’s youth.” There are debates over hip hop music for its often misogynist and racist lyrics. Some critics suggest that viewers “censor” out the images and lyrics with which they disagree and accept the ones that they believe are positive for women today. Others argue that videos show contradictory images of women and sexuality, some of which resist sexist and racist stereotypes and present radical visions of strong women. A review of music videos of black women musicians found 3 types of stereotypic images: they emphasize the bodies of thin, young, and pretty women; they present black women as one-dimensional (no pregnant women, no women over 30, no mothers, no lesbians); men are in control, calling the shots. Women’s resistance to the stereotypes is also part of the music. They embrace their pride in being black; they are assertive and challenging; they look to each other for partnership and support. Finally, women’s sexuality is portrayed as active and autonomous of men. Music videos simultaneously legitimate and challenge the status quo.

Short-Answer Essay Questions

1. Explain the terms “emphasized femininity” and “hegemonic masculinity” and how they appear in television representations.
2. How does “reality” TV portray gender? How does its claim of “reality” affect its gender representations?
3. How have LGBT characters’ representations changed on TV since the 1970s?
4. Name two ways gender inequity is present in television.
5. How is masculinity advertised?
6. What are some cultural differences in gendered advertising? List ways the U.S., Turkey, and Japan differ in the case studies the chapter offers.
7. How is gender portrayed in children’s movies?
8. What gender differentials are found in video games?
9. What are two opposing claims of media theory about the effects of media on society?
10. What are some ways hip hop represents gender and sexuality?

Long-Answer Essay Questions

1. Find a short media text, for example a magazine article, music video, or news story. Interview a handful of people to get their interpretations of it. Use the interviews as the basis for a paper or in-class presentation on audience interpretation.

2. Collect some popular magazines—news, fashion, business, sports—and select (or clip) a sample of the ads. Explore the kinds of social relationships that are the background, setting, and context for the ads. What do the ads suggest about relationships between men and women and about women’s and men’s lives? To add some historical perspective, go to the library to explore magazine ads from the 1950s or 1970s. How do the earlier ads compare in their depictions of gender roles?

3. Compare news reporting on gender from around the world. Try to follow a story and report on differences in how it is framed in different countries, or compare the differences in choices of topics on gender. You can find materials by Googling “international news about gender.” The United Nations website Woman Watch (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/) is also a good source of international news on gender equality and empowerment of women. One World.Net has extensive reports on gender (http://us.oneworld.net/section/us/gender/latestnews). If you can read other languages, focus on news written in the language(s) you know.

4. Gendered Consumption: Mall-based Exercises. Go to a mall and spend time in one or several of the following stores. Alternatively, you may visit a neighborhood shop or department store.

Spend time in a toy store. How are the dolls targeted toward boys and toward girls (don’t forget, dolls for boys are “action figures”)? Are there any gender-neutral dolls? How are guns presented? What personality characteristics are promoted by the dolls? By the guns? What messages does the packaging convey? Study the other toys and games. Select two you think are very gender-specific and two you think seem gender-neutral. Describe the color and pictures on the packaging of the gendered toys. What messages do they give about what it means to be a girl or a boy in our culture? How do these contrast with the neutral packaging? What social roles are gendered toys teaching children? What about the neutral toys?

Go to the music section of a bookstore or department store and take notes on the following questions. Choose 10 to 15 CD covers and describe how they portray men and women. Then try to understand the implicit and explicit gendered values represented on the CD covers (for example, toughness, romance, aggressiveness, coyness).

Visit a card store and describe colors, pictures, roles, and texts on the cards by gender.

Visit a clothing store. Walk through the departments for men’s clothing and for women’s clothing, including the sections devoted to underwear. Notice the models and the advertisements. What differences do you notice? What messages are communicated in the ads and displays?

Critical Thinking Exercises

1. List characters in your favorite TV show. Do they fall into stereotypes of emphasized femininity and hegemonic masculinity? How so? Do they disrupt these ideals in any way?
2. Analyze a character on TV who is LGBT. What do you think the effects of this particular character are with regard to representations of gender and sexuality? For instance, does the character unsettle normative definitions of masculinity?
3. Reread the section of chapter 11 that compares advertising in three cultures. Now find several examples of advertising on YouTube from a fourth culture and analyze them. How do they portray gender? What gender stereotypes do you see represented? How do these differ from the examples the book offers?

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the Bechdel Test?
   1. A quiz that assesses how aware high school students are of lesbians in the media
   2. A medical test that measures toxins televisions emit and their effects on different racial ethnic groups
   3. A way of counting females in movies that brings attention to the “missing” women in the media
   4. A personality quiz that measures what type of gendered television watcher a person is
2. How does the media play a role in societal legitimation?
   1. It makes people feel better about themselves and less insecure.
   2. It prompts cynicism and helps the common person develop a desire for societal transformation.
   3. It makes audiences more fully aware of the intersectionality of oppressions, including race ethnicity, gender, and class.
   4. It creates an image of our society as the best of all possible worlds and communicates that message to the common person.
3. In what way have TV images of gender become worse in the past several decades?
   1. The proportion of male characters to female
   2. The extent to which female characters are stereotyped as hypersexual
   3. The disproportionate increase of depictions of violence against women
   4. The numbers of women in positions of authority
4. What do Gaye Tuchman and her colleagues suggest with their term “symbolic annihilation”?
   1. That the underrepresentation of women in media renders women invisible and sends a message that they do not matter
   2. That violence against women is a direct result of the increase of representations of violence against women on television and in movies
   3. That U.S. media commits a kind of violence against other nations with its lack of international programming
   4. That depression and anxiety have resulted in great numbers among women because of the lack of media role models
5. What variable does gender intersect with on American television advertising, in comparison with Turkish and Japanese television advertising?
   1. Race ethnicity
   2. The tension between the East and West
   3. Age
   4. Power
6. What is “sexualization,” in comparison with healthy sexuality?
   1. When a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior to the exclusion of other characteristics
   2. When a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy or is sexually objectified
   3. When sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person
   4. Any of the above
7. What is “self-objectification”?
   1. Another term for self-love or self-esteem: when women and girls learn to feel positively toward their own bodies
   2. When women and girls “buy” sexualized images in the media and start to behave in ways consistent with them
   3. Another term for “narcissism,” when women and girls love themselves more than they love others, because the media has taught them to do so
   4. The idea that selfhood as it is currently structured by the media in the United States turns people into “commodity fetishes”
8. What proportion of U.S. women report experiencing online abuse or harassment?
   1. 1/5
   2. 1/4
   3. 1/3
   4. 1/2
9. What does “reception theory” argue about media’s effects?
   1. That media play a conservative role in society, manipulating and persuading viewers to believe that the status quo is the best of all possible worlds, or even the only possibility
   2. That viewers, listeners, and readers are not just passive receivers but rather engage in thinking about and giving meaning to what they take in
   3. That each person, no matter what his or her social position or background is, interprets what the media deliver very similarly
   4. That our ideas about issues such as gender are a combination of what the media sends and what our government tells us
10. What was Beverly Guy-Sheftall referring to when she said, “it’s not the whip, it’s the dollar bill” that keeps women oppressed”?
    1. Her contention that it is the capitalist system itself, rather than individuals, that is responsible for the oppression of women
    2. A claim that women are far more likely to respond to financial incentives and intimidation than to physical threats
    3. Her argument that hip hop music is far less racist than its detractors claim
    4. The similarity she perceives between the nearly naked women in music videos and America’s racist past, when women were paraded naked at slave auctions
11. Which theory states that media play an active role in manipulating and persuading viewers that the status quo is the best, if not the only, option?
    1. Hegemony theory
    2. Reception theory
    3. Reflection theory
    4. Objectification theory
12. Advertising in the 1930s-1980s generally depicted two types of ideal masculinity. What were they?
    1. Loners who shirked institutional responsibility (“drifters”) and rugged individualists (“cowboys”)
    2. Thrill-seekers (“daredevils”) and tough, violent men who are callous about women and sex (“bad boys”)
    3. Men who prioritized family and social duty (“sturdy oaks”) and men who achieve professional success (“big wheels”)
    4. Mysterious loners (the “handsome stranger” type) and strong, patriotic men (e.g. soldiers and cowboys)
13. Which of the following gender stereotypes has declined significantly in children’s media?
    1. Female characters being mothers at higher rates than male characters being fathers
    2. Men portrayed in work settings more often than women
    3. Men committing violence
    4. Women being damsels in distress
14. Which of the following is NOT a stereotype that researchers have observed in U.S. advertising?
    1. White men tend to be depicted as powerful.
    2. White women tend to be depicted as sex objects.
    3. Ads feature the trope of the “wise, beautiful housewife”
    4. Black women are more likely to be shown in paid employment
15. Who was the first openly gay character on U.S. television?
    1. Ellen DeGeneres on Ellen
    2. Billy Crystal on Soap
    3. Eric McCormack on Will and Grace
    4. Lance Loud on The Louds
16. What percentage of 12-15 year olds in the U.S. say they prefer YouTube to watching TV?
    1. 20%
    2. 33%
    3. 50%
    4. 87%
17. A 2017 study found that ______ percent of recurring television characters are LGBTQ – the highest ever recorded.
    1. 1-2%
    2. 6-7%
    3. 10-12%
    4. 20%
18. ________ occurs when a person is treated as a thing for another’s use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making.
    1. Sexualization
    2. Objectification
    3. Self-objectification
    4. Misogyny
19. Which of the following does Emerson (2004) observe in her analysis of the music videos of black female hip hop and rap artists?
    1. There is a lack of diversity of body types and ages.
    2. They tend to depict women as one-dimensional objects of male consumption.
    3. Independence themes are common, such as speaking out and speaking one’s mind.
    4. All of the above are correct.
20. Which of the following best supports the reception theory of media?
    1. Women taking fashion and style cues from a television show while also criticizing the sexist themes in the show
    2. Young girls planning their future weddings based on the weddings of princesses they have seen in movies
    3. Boys and men feeling dissatisfied with their bodies and wishing for bigger muscles after watching muscular characters on television
    4. Consumers buying products after seeing advertising for them