While women have undergone some serious heartache watching depictions of themselves in the media and will likely continue to, there are television shows that do leave us feeling like we may be inching towards equality, at least on screen. The Representation Project’s “How the Media Failed Women in 2013” video portrays both the applause-worthy and cringe-worthy depictions of women in the media in the past year. On the merits of their wit alone, HBO’s “Girls,” MTV’s “Girl Code,” and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are helping to create a strong front against shows from the likes of “The Real Housewives” franchise and “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”
“Girls” is an HBO production following the lives of four fictional post-grad twenty-somethings living in New York City. While the show features witty and well-educated women, the show has been criticized for its failure to incorporate people of color into the plot beyond nannies or lovers. I enjoy the show as much as I enjoy the fact that a young woman was behind the creation.
While I would like to see my skin color represented on this show in a way that I and other women of color would find suitable, I also do not hold this show responsible for promoting every sector of feminism. When the creators behind the show do decide to include characters of racial minorities, it should be for more roles of higher status, but I’m not expecting Dunham and her team to compensate for the media’s current and past failures.
The designation and positive reception of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as hosts of the Golden Globes signaled a change in the male-dominated field of comedy. The two have been asked to host the Globes for the next two years. Beyond their noted roles in the production of Saturday Night Live, both Fey and Poehler have made feminist headway with Fey’s autobiographical book Bossypants and Poehler’s web series, “Smart Girls at the Party.”
For those of you that haven’t seen the show, “Girl Code” features 14 quirky and candid female comedians discussing dating, friendships and sexuality. While the show may not be teemed with intellectual discourse, it represents the female response to the culture that we live in.
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at Temple University, Professor Chincholkar-Mandelia – who is currently working on a book titled “Foundations in Transnational Feminisms: Essays and Case Studies” – referenced “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarlane’s “Boob Song” during last year’s Oscars in a discussion on representation of women in the media.
The song, which created controversy in Hollywood, consists of McFarlane naming numerous A-list actresses that have bared skin in a movie role. Not only did the song show an inexpressible disregard for women in Hollywood by humiliating them, but it also discarded their accomplishments, as if revealing their breasts was necessary in order for them to be successful.
To increase the tastelessness of the spectacle, a gay chorus was then introduced to add a smidgen of vocal talent to the act. The fact that a gay chorus was chosen makes a viewer wonder if the creators thought that it would tone down the offensiveness to have a non-heterosexual man singing it. The use of homosexuality for that intention is another shame-worthy problem on its own.
Mandelia pinpointed one of the chief problems with the media’s undervaluation of women.
“I think college women also need to see that they can be something on their own. They don’t have to shape their lives according to the dictates of society and the media, where you have to be extremely thin, feminine, and at some point not too intelligent…It’s absolutely damaging because we don’t see ourselves as our own subjects. We are not our own people, we are not in our own bodies, we are not comfortable in our bodies because we are constantly trying to change that,” she explains.
The reality is that the media fails to accurately portray every demographic because it’s easier to adhere to an audience’s preconceived notions about certain groups. We make headway when there are more diverse images presented that contradict the ubiquitously offensive representations of ourselves. While racial diversity is noticeably lacking in these more highly regarded depictions such as “Girls,” we can appreciate the fact that there is gradual progress. “Girl Code” provides females with comic relief, and there is comfort in knowing that women are providing this relief in a relatable fashion. The sense of shared oddities among women communicated in “Girl Code” helps women to see reflections of themselves and promotes a sense of harmony, which is one step closer to the highest level of respect women seek from the media.