GENDER & CULTURAL STUDIES

COM 327February 18 2014

QUIZ!!!

1. Which of the following is not part of the Bechdel Test?

a) The text has to have at least two women in itb) They are fully clothedc) The women talk to each otherd) They don’t talk about men

2. The Bechdel Test is named after Alison Bechdel, who produced _______.

a) pornographyb) comic booksc) pop musicd) video games

3. Kennedy suggests that the male gamer playing as Lara Croft represents a kind of “transgendered” dynamic, a mix of feminine and masculine traits into one.

This kind of analysis is what’s known as a:

a) Ego tripb) Queer readingc) Class struggled) Transmission model

4. Which one of these is not mentioned by Kennedy as a (potentially) feminist text alongside Tomb Raider?

a) Tank Girlb) Thelma & Louisec) Buffy the Vampire Slayerd) Terminator 2

BONUSKennedy: “If we are going to encourage more girls into ________ then we need to encourage the production of a broader range of representations of femininity than those currently being offered”

a) academiab) the gaming culturec) male rolesd) drug trafficking

1. Multimedia journals

2. Final projects

3. Group presentation!!

4. Today’s article: what does cultural studies ‘do’?

5. What is gender? Gender and/in everyday life

1. Multimedia journals (individual assignment)

Changed the date to APRIL 15 (from March 25)

Throughout the semester, compile news stories, images, blog posts, videos, twitter feeds, and other web-based content related to your issue. How you compile them is up to you; you can use a Facebook group, Tumblr feed, WordPress site, or Prezi, etc.

Requirements:• Compile 20-30 sources throughout the semester• For each entry, provide the date and the source, and add a brief (25-50 word)

caption.• Use images whenever possible• By 11:59 PM on April 15, send me the URL for your journal and an accompanying

500 word summary (how has the issue developed over the time you’ve been following it? What are the main perspectives on the issue? Who are the major actors?)

2. Final projects

FILL IN THE SPREADSHEET! FIND A PARTNER!

Spreadsheet:COM 327 Spring 2014: Final Project Topics & Groups

Examples• Advertisement for “manly” products

http://youtu.be/bhdDtP5MnQU

• Interactive fiction about Facebook & privacy

• Board game on “hacktivism”

GROUP PRESENTATION!

Kennedy & Cultural Studies• She both does it and points to the limitations of it.

“Static text”?

These readings demonstrate the range of potential subversive readings, but there exists no real "extra-textual" evidence to back this up – hence the focus on the text itself, which is on its own inadequate to explore the range of pleasures available from playing as Lara – we can only conjecture.

In this article, I have tried to be attentive to what might be different about the relationship between representations within the game world and the experience of playing the game.

what is the Bechdel Test?– What does it test?– What doesn’t it consider?– What can/should it be used for?

“In everyday life we take gender for granted. We instantly recognize a person as a man or a woman, girl or boy. We arrange everyday business around the distinction.” --- Raewyn Connell, 2009

What is gender?

What is gender?

• The rules, beliefs, systems and practices by which we organize everyday life into M vs F.

• The “naturalization” of certain learned traits & behaviors as M or F.

• The everyday performance of masculinity & femininity

Judith Butler

Gender Trouble (1993)Bodies that Matter (1998)

The categories of ‘sex’ – of male’ vs ‘female’ -- is a way of making the social category of gender seem natural.

SEX is (one) ‘natural’ way of differentiating human beings. The division of social life into “male” and “female” based on sex is NOT natural.

Raewyn Connell

Masculinities (1995)Gender (2009)

There is as much, possibly more variation within the category of ‘male’ and within the category of ‘female’ than there is between the two (e.g. brain differences: Kimura, Sex and Cognition, 1999)

DISCOURSE

Gender in everyday lifeWe always perform gender.

Think of a context or situation in your everyday life where you are compelled to be / act a certain kind of ‘man’ or a certain kind of ‘woman’.

• What is that context?

• What kind of man / woman do you have to be?

• What are the consequences for not acting that way?