The Gaze: The oppositional gaze as described by Bell Hooks is a political rebellion and resistance against the repression of Black people. This notion was explored through Beyoncé’s music video, “Lemonade.” Beyoncé’s video demonstrates the oppositional gaze through using only women of colour while also beautifully encapsulating intersectionality. To read more please see reading analysis week 5.
hooks, b. “The Oppositional Gaze,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation
Post-Feminism: Post-Feminism includes important key points of how feminism has evolved. A few of these points from Rosalind Gill’s work, “Postfeminist Media Culture” are: femininity as a bodily property, a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment, dominance of makeovers and sexualisation of culture. This reading later connected to the film “Hot Girls Wanted” where we got an intimate view of women entering the amateur pornography business and how they demonstrated Post-Feminism. To read more please see reading analysis week 7 and 9.
Gill. R., “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” European Journal of Cultural Studies: 10, 2 (2007): 147-166.
Rethinking Sexualities: Gayle Rubin explains a concept called The Charmed Circle Vs. the Outer Limits in her work, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Essentially what this describes is “Good Sex” which can be identified by what is good, normal and healthy in our society such as being married and heterosexual. The opposite to that is what is described as “Bad Sex” and can be identified as bad, abnormal and unnatural such as having fetish’s and being transsexual. And then there is a middle area that is neither good nor bad which is identified as being unmarried or masturbation. Rubin conceptualized this in 1984 so there are differences in how this would be represented today but the shocking part is how in tack and embedded this idea of “Good Sex” and “Bad Sex” is in our society. This reading was paired with the film “The Intervention” and we were able to make the clear distinctions between the two categories.
Rubin, G., “Thinking Sex,” in Vance, C., Pleasure and Danger, New York: Routledge, 1984.