Here at Feminist Frequency,
we're constantly being accused of being killjoys
who just want to make sure that no one enjoys
anything, ever.
Video games, movies, tv, music, social media...mayonnaise--
well, that's mostly Ebony's thing.
I actually really like mayonnaise.
But, the truth is,
we love those things just as much as you do --
even the cheesy stuff.
Carolyn would rather die than share how much anime
is in her Netflix watch list.
And Ebony's number one karaoke jam
is "Total Eclipse of the Heart."
And as for me?
Well, I've been maintaining the internet's most popular
Dirty Dancing Livejournal account since 2011!
But despite being the card-carrying pop culture weirdos
that we are,
we're nevertheless very serious about the mission of
Feminist Frequency;
which is helping to educate folks about the power
and importance of bringing a critical awareness
to the films, tv, music, ads, literature, and news we
engage with each day.
What is media literacy?
And why should you care?
I'm glad you asked!
According to the Center for Media Literacy,
"It provides a framework to access, analyze,
evaluate, create, and participate with messages
in a variety of forms --
from print to video to the internet..
Media literacy builds an understanding
of the role of media in society
as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression
necessary for citizens of a democracy.
It's important to realize that every piece of media
is created by human beings,
and so, by its very nature, every piece of media
carries with it a complex array of assumptions,
biases, and values in the same way
that we as humans do.
Nothing just happens,
and no piece of media,
whether it's a YA book series or a fast food commercial,
is free from the guiding logic at work in our society.
Now, we're not saying that all art is
bold print propoganda --
although, some of it definitely is.
But we are saying that media functions to
communicate messages to its audience in all kinds of ways.
Sometimes, those messages-- about race, gender,
class, sexuality, and so on,
may not even be apparent to the creators themselves.
They may even run counter to beliefs that the creators
themselves espouse.
The fact that those messages may not be intentional
doesn't make them any less effective.
And if you want to uncover exactly what your media is
trying to tell you,
it's crucial that you ask yourself those basic questions.
Becoming literate in the general sense,
i.e. learning to read,
means learning to decipher symbols and signs
to form meaning.
Likewise, becoming media literate
means learning how to decipher what the signs,
symbols, and language of our media means.
When examining a piece of media,
ask yourself questions like:
What is this? Who created it?
Who was it created for?
Why was it created?
These questions might sound pretty simplistic,
but they open up a world of issues to consider.
Take the first question:
What is this?
Whaaaa!
Ok, no seriously -- what is this??
Holy shit! Is this an ad for a shake?!
What the f-
You know what?
Let's start with something a little
less likely to send Anita into cardiac arrest.
Here's another ad:
Oh my God!
I don't know which is worse.
Deep breaths, Anita.
Now these are images from a 2011
campaign for milk.
You'd be forgiven for thinking it was an ad for
a 1950s-era sitcom, but it's not.
When we start by asking "what is this?"
we can immediately it as an advertisement.
And so, what we know about advertisements
informs how we understand this image.
For instance ads --whether they're
tv commercials, print advertisements, online pop-ups
or whatever --
have a very limited amount of time
to grab your attention and attempt to
persuade you to make a purchase.
They have to be visually impactful and any
text or speech must be equally impactful.
Ads, perhaps more than any other kind of media,
need to be able to quickly communicate in a
shared shorthand, or "trope,"
to get their point across.
And the shorthand being employed
in these ads for milk is basically:
"we all get it, right?
Men are longsuffering nice guys
because women are irrational."
Yeah, and let's not ignore the real kicker.
Take a look at that tag line:
"Milk can help reduce the symptoms of PMS."
Which leads us to the next couple questions.
Who created this?
And for whom?
I would bet all of the bitcoins floating around
the darkweb that the creative team that
high-fived themselves over this piece of genius
was mostly men.
Women can carry a ton of internalized misogyny,
no doubt,
but for some reason, I just can't imagine
a group of female executives at the
California Milk Processor Board
deciding that Tariq, Kevin, and Chad up there were
the best spokespeople to persuade us that a big
glass of milk has pain-relieving properties
during a person's menstrual cycle.
Especially if the ad is directed at women.
How do we know that the ad is directed at women?
Well, we can make a reasonable guess,
given certain facts.
The bulk of household buying,
including things like groceries,
is still done by women.
And the overall message is about PMS,
a health issue that affects a huge number
of people -- especially cis women.
Which leads us to our final question:
Why was this created?
The answer here is two-fold:
obviously, this ad is designed to sell more milk.
And since this ad is put out by a dairy council,
they're not even concerned with selling
a particular brand of milk --any milk will do.
But the secondary effect of this ad is
to uphold an antiquated notion of gender
and gender dynamics.
Because by doing so,
it's easier to sell products to us.
People who can be persuaded that they need fixing
are much easier to sell to.
The importance of casting a critical eye
over our media can't be overstated.
Listen, we know.
Sometimes, you just want to watch a game
and drink a beer, right?
We all want to turn our brains off sometimes
and just fall asleep in a pile of mashed potatoes.
But the fact is,
the more you engage with media uncritically,
the more susceptible you become to its more
insidious aspects.
Sure, you might just want to chillax with your fam
and watch the Superbowl,
but do you ever ask yourself
why there's so many commercials
for the U.S. Army during sports broadcasts?
Because the gridiron has become a marketplace
to sell viewers a very specific kind of patriotism--
that's being sold right alongside
pickup trucks and KFC.
According to a recent article by Think Progress
concerning the controversy surrounding
Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the national anthem,
"As recently as 2015,
the Department of Defense was doling out
millions to the NFL for such things
as military flyovers, flag unfurlings,
emotional color guard ceremonies
enlistment campaigns, and --
interestingly enough,
national anthem performances."
And what about Marvel's planned
partnership with Northrup Grumman,
the 5th largest defense contractor in the world?
That's right, Marvel, the media powerhouse
behind all your favorite superheroes, like
Captain America, Spiderman, Black Panther
and Iron Man.
Before that deal was quashed,
a comic was produced that teamed up
the Avengers with a crew of Northrup Grumman
contractors.
If you take a look at the comic,
it's not good.
And its ideological underpinnings are pretty apparent.
But that's not always the case.
One of the reasons it's crucial to
work on our personal media literacy
is because in the midst of the
thousands of images and lines of text
we engage with every day,
so many pass into our consciousness without
being questioned
because they confirm our unconscious biases.
When media critics ask us to be aware
of how often we see white, cisgender, middle class,
straight men on our screens,
compared to literally any other identity,
it's not just because we tell better stories
when we're more inclusive--
it's because, with every white male hero we see,
we unconsciously support and reproduce a system
where we believe that these
are the stories that are most important
and these are the people who are most important.
Think about what kind of message that sends every
single person in society.
Think about what it means
for poor people to see themselves written
out of every narrative,
except as objects of derision or trauma.
Think about how that message is internalized by
queer and trans kids of color,
who too rarely get to enjoy and learn from
models for happy, healthy lives.
Latinx people who are still way more likely
to be background characters performing manual labor
than tech geniuses or superheroes.
Young Asian actors who are like,
"why should I even audition for this role --
Scarlett Johanssen is gonna get it!"
Nothing is created or sonsumed in a cultural vaccuum.
Context is everything.
It tells us to pay attention to the
environment in which our media is created --
an environment in which everyone
is required to perform gender in predetermined ways;
in which racial and ethnic minorities are sidelined
or erased;
or in which we're unwilling to talk
about the working class unless they
are white conservatives.
When this is the world we live in,
we must pay attention to how the media
we enjoy both reflects and shapes
that world.
Hey, if you liked this video,
maybe consider sharing it
with some folks!