Post: Call for Proposals on Women of Color in Popular Culture

This came to me through the Comics Scholars List-Serve and the deadline is fast approaching (July 1st!). It's for junior tenure-track faculty, but I thought I should post it in the hopes that at least one person gets a great opportunity out of it.


CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
ESSAYS OR BOOK CHAPTERS ON Women of Color in Popular Culture

JR. FACULTY PUBLICATION WORKSHOP
Thurs. Sept. 18-Sat. Sept. 20, 2008
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA


The CENTER FOR ETHNIC STUDIES AND THE ARTS (CESA), University of Iowa, seeks proposals for participating in a two and a half day workshop for junior tenure-track faculty on their research-in-progress on “Women of Color in Popular Culture.” Workshop participants are also CESA Junior Fellows for Fall Semester 2008 and are part of a collaborative network of scholars.

Topics may include but are not restricted to:
➢ issues of representation regarding gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexualities in any form of popular culture, including literature, music, photography, film and television, comic books, art, dance and performance, technoculture and cyberspace
➢ women of color as creative producers and expressive artists
➢ body politics and women of color
➢ feminist or womanist approaches to race and popular culture
➢ stardom and celebrity
➢ race, gender, and American popular culture in U.S. and transnational contexts
➢ female and racialized audiences, reception, and popular culture

The workshop will consist of: sessions and written feedback on individual drafts: style tips; networking with faculty from many colleges and universities; information about publication and fellowship application strategies.

Participants are expected to participate in sessions from Thursday afternoon Sept. 18 through Saturday afternoon Sept. 20. Preference will be given to faculty from CIC-member or Midwestern universities and colleges. For out-of-town participants, travel and lodging expenses will be reimbursed up to $700.

This workshop is part of CESA’s 2008-2011 Arts in Everyday Life Initiative. CESA recognizes that art and creative expression are integrated components of religion, ritual, everyday life, and other cultural practices of minority communities. The Center seeks and encourages multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches to studying these practices as well as to the ways that ethnicity and popular culture shape U.S. national and international issues and cultures. It seeks critical histories as well as contemporary ones.

TO APPLY:
All participants must be Assistant Professors with a tenure-track faculty position (effective September 1, 2008) and must submit a draft of approximately 7-15 pages of the article or book chapter being proposed for workshop development. Only work that has not yet been published is eligible. Please send: a letter of interest that includes an abstract of your submission, a CV no longer than 4 pages, and workshop paper draft to: cesa@uiowa.edu. Please send materials electronically as attachments to your e-mail letter of interest.

DEADLINE: JULY 1, 2008. Participants will be notified by AUGUST 1, 2008.

For questions and further information, please contact: Professor Lauren Rabinovitz, Director, Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts; (319) 384-3490; Lauren-rabinovitz@uiowa.edu or cesa@uiowa.edu

Superwomen in the Movies

On the subject of female heroes in movies and television I wanted to link to a couple of thought-provoking posts & sites.

The first is by Cindy Cooper of Blog Spot "The Bad Genious" who passionately writes about the need for women and girls to see positive heroic representations of their sex/gender to be able to grow up believing in themselves. In fact, she relates a story about spinning with her sister until dizzy and nauseated, hoping upon hope to burst into Amazonian Princesses, that echoes one I tell in my book introduction almost word for word. She also asks, and answers, the question,"So why didn’t those little girls watching superheroes grow to be a generation of women reading about superheroes?" and notes the frustrating fact that movies featuring superwomen just aren't given the same respect as those with supermen--which forces young girls to identify with either the love interest or the contemporary male heroic ideal.

Supervillainess over at "Female Comic Book Superheroes" asks female audiences an important question with What's Your Dream Superheroine Movie? (My desires include: A Modesty Blaise movie worthy of her character, a Promethea movie, a good Buffy movie, Wonder Woman, natch, and Birds of Prey.)

And Heroine Content always has thoughtful critiques of race and gender in movies and television.

Senior Women's Issues Correspondent

"They're called 'Underoos'--all women wear them when they're fighting injustice."

Female Mascotitude! Kristen Schaal on Gender Discrimination in Olympic Mascots

Caught this fabulous, scathing, poignant, and funny commentary on gender discrimination presented by Kristen Schaal on The Daily Show. One of those daring pieces that you could tell made the audience really uncomfortable (as it should have) and ended so brilliantly I actually clapped at the television!





Hurray for The New Progressive Mascots of the Olympics!

Success! Power! Possibility! Stay at Home Dad! and Anonymous Sperm Donor!

See also her piece on Women Presidents:




The Daily Show has always presented progressive comedy, and while Nancy Walls, and Samantha Bee have been formidable comedians they were no where near as blatantly feminist as Schaal. I loved her as the adorably creepy fan, Mel, on Flight of the Conchords and hope we see more of her soon. In fact, she should get a cover story on BUST, and I should write it!

Chocolate and Poop: An Ode to Ms. Tina Fey

Not long ago our dear friend brought his children over for a late afternoon visit, and to play with our doggie, Giles. They had spent the day at their grandmother’s house, and the three-year-old and younger of the two, proceeded to share with us the wondrous details of her adventure, as only a child can.

“I had hot chocolate. I ate a cookie. And I pooped.”

I relate this story because this charming description of the events of her day are all also the very elements that made up the highlights of last week’s brilliant episode of “30 Rock.”

And a shout out to Tina Fey is in order.

From the wicked social commentary of MILF Island (a reality-show in the vein of Survivor that features bikini clad MILFs and eighth grade boys) to the base “He can eat my poo.” (a joke that only Fey can make sound adorable, and that manages to get funnier every time she says the word, “poo” –such an accomplishment could only come from a comedienne with a child in potty training) the show consistently manages to do what so little comedy can—appeal to the masses, as well as the very smart.

And Tina Fey is very, very smart.

Her work adroitly addresses gender issues such as unequal representation in the workplace (see the writers room on “30 Rock”), and women’s body issues (as in the scathing episode where Jenna realizes that she’s more popular when overweight and is excited to see a t-shirt for sale with her tagline “Me Want Food!”).

In the October 2007 issue of Geek Magazine Fey said these sorts of issues interest her “because there is this sorta weird double standard that women want to not care about that stuff [body image and interplay of men and women] but then we all still do care about it and talk about it.” She said her goal with comedy is “talking about it but also calling bullshit on it.” Adding, “It’s a weird thing of we shouldn’t care about our bodies but if you’re gonna be Britney Spears, you’d better keep that weight off.”

Fey’s work reflects a self-consciousness about gender -- yet I’m concerned that most Americans are not likely to get that her work is deeply layered, and with her snarky observations that Fey is getting the last laugh. It even took me several episodes for this to become clear, and I was originally disappointed that Fey’s alter ego Liz Lemon was a junk food addict (how the hell does she metabolize that stuff?!?) as well as a validation junkie.

Writer Sarah Seltzer shared these concerns in a Love it/Shove it column for Bitch magazine’s Summer 2007 issue in which she noted that Fey’s status as one of the premiere female comedic writers of our time should make her a feminist role model, but laments that Fey trades “on sexist stereotypes at the expense of herself—and smart girls everywhere.” She was disappointed that Fey presents Liz as a consistent fuck-up, “saddled with stereotypes attached to powerful females . . . woefully single . . .allegedly unattractive . . . eating junk food to drown her sorrows . . .”

Fey clearly writes Lemon as a geek-grrrl version of Carrie Bradshaw—can’t keep a man (because she makes tragically bad partner choices in the first place), royally screws up with network executives, and destroys a chance to own real estate when she spends the night drinking bottles of wine as she makes obsessive drunken phone calls to the co-op board (whom she thinks gave her a fake number):






Liz Lemon’s self-deprecation and the jokes on herself, are in fact, a joke on the audience. (Though I’m glad Seltzer called the question out—especially in the pages of an astute magazine such as Bitch—because it’s important to interrogate pop culture before we come to a conclusion about what it might possibly mean or represent.)

Take for example the hilarious bit from last week’s episode when Kenneth is confronting Liz for accidentally being quoted in a gossip column for calling her boss, Jack Donaghy, a “Class A Moron,” and Tracy runs up to them holding a copy of the newspaper.

Tracy: “Ms. Lemon, I can’t believe they put what you said in the paper!”

Liz: “Shhhh. How do you know about that!?!”

He hands her the paper.

Liz: “This is a Cathy cartoon.”

Tracy: “Yeah. That cartoon copied exactly what you said the other day.”

In perfect imitation we cut to a flashback of Liz waving her hands in exasperation as she says

Liz: “Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! AACK!!!!!”

And so, in one episode we have the stereotype of women obsessed with chocolate, the cookie Cougars of MILF Island, and good-girl Liz incapable of saying anything dirtier than “poo.” (On top of Tracy’s irreverence, Jack’s schemes, and Kenneth, the Page.) The Cathy reference proves that Fey is smart enough, and savvy enough to know what she’s doing; making fun of the way we make fun of women. The question is, are American viewers of “30 Rock” getting the joke?


The current issue of ET Weekly has an interview with Tina Fey available here.