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Image via Wikipedia

Reality television is an international phenomenon. The Big Brother franchise, in particular, can be found in different incarnations around the globe. Because reality television is now such a recognized and popular mainstream format, it is easier for programs and individual contestants to sneak in subversive or provocative messages for the purpose of education and awareness. The question is: Do such messages work?

On a recent episode of Africa’s Big Brother All Stars, contestants Sheila and Meryl were found sharing a bed and being intimate under the covers. The precise degree of intimacy is unclear — some reports mention kissing, others mention sex. Only one housemate, Mwisho, walked in on the activity, and he handled the situation respectfully. Overall, there has been little to no backlash on the show itself, aside from the fact that Sheila was later eliminated, and it is unclear whether or not her relations with Meryl had anything to do with her eviction.

The backlash from Big Brother‘s viewers, however, is another story. Read the rest of this entry →

Recently, Change.org‘s Michael A. Jones covered a “public relations” misstep by the highly-recognized corporation, Target. It was revealed that the chain had donated $150,000 to a known antigay political figure in Minnesota (home to Target HQ). The matter of whether or not Target officials will work on rebuilding the their image is up for debate. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t look like they are conducting a whole lot of self reflection.

Target has had a gay-friendly history, and many have cited egalitarian hiring practices when discussing the recent scandal. It is hard to imagine that such a playful and youthful corporation brand would be aligned with an “aggressively antigay” political figure, as described in a New York Times editorial. The editorial also offered a business-minded opinion on the matter, which noted that,

The Target experience should be a lesson in the value of disclosure. The company, which insisted it supported Mr. Emmer solely for his pro-business views, discovered that it is bad business to back a candidate so out of step with the rest of its values. Presumably, it will be more alert now, knowing that customers are watching.

This is good business advice. But that’s not what is striking about the professional wisdom–instead, it is the last sentence that caught my attention. It seemed so odd that such a public organization would have to remind itself that people are watching.

Target’s image owes much to the Pop Art sensibility–their famous logo even resembles a Jasper Johns (an artist credited with influencing the Pop Art movement) painting, Target, which was created in 1958 (four years prior to the original logo design). Pop artists tended to be playful and cheeky, mixing the suggestive wit of a dirty joke with the language of advertising.  By doing so, the interdependence between consumerism and voyeurism was illustrated. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo via AMC

Melinda Page Hamilton as Anna Draper (left) and Caity Lotz as Stephanie (right)

Fans of Mad Men will recognize Caity Lotz as the character Stephanie–who was recently introduced as Anna Draper’s niece in the heartbreaking episode ‘The Good News’. But beyond her stint on Mad Men, Caity has been making the rounds in all sorts of mediums. From appearing in music videos and touring with Lady Gaga to acting as stunt doubles in films such as Step Up 3D and dancing in theatre productions like Groovaloo, her career shows no signs of slowing down.

Following the Mad Men episode, I was able to catch up with Caity and despite her extremely busy schedule, she was able to answer a few of my questions:

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Photo via CW's Smallville

A while back, I spoke with Margaret J Bates about the character Chloe Sullivan and her role in the popular TV show, Smallville. Along with a number of dedicated fans, Bates put together a video tribute to Chloe that aired on television, which highlighted some of her strongest attributes and proved why young women can look up to her. Originally, I was going to expand that interview into a round-table discussion with another editor but that transformed into another project which is still forthcoming.

Coincidentally, it was recently announced at the San Diego Comic-Con that the character Chloe Sullivan, who was created specifically for the TV show, will now be inducted into the official DC universe. So, with many apologies to the makers of Legendary Chloe for posting this interview so late, here is the transcript of our talk (and the video tribute) below:

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Image courtesy of vanityfair.com

I’m no comic book expert — I’ve read and liked a few that others have recommended to me, but it is not my reading genre of choice. I do, however, tend to really enjoy films based on comic books and graphic novels. Not surprisingly, the films I love most are those that include interesting female characters. And they aren’t hard to find — from Persepolis to Ghost World to the X-Men franchise, dynamic roles for women are found throughout cinematic adaptations of comic books and graphic novels.

It was through that lens that I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series). I was not particularly impressed by the film’s trailer, but I did my best to watch the film with an open mind. There is much to appreciate about the film — most notably, the hyper-stylized cinematography and editing — but, ultimately, the gender politics soured the experience for me.

(Spoilers below.)

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Image courtesy of ifccenter.com

Last night, I attended a screening of the Finnish documentary Miesten vuoro (Steam of Life in English). The film offers a look inside the Finnish sauna, with a primary focus on the men who visit saunas as a way of communing with each other. Without narration or establishing any firm facts or conclusions, Miesten vuoro simply observes as anonymous men (we don’t learn the names of any of the individuals profiled until the credits) sit in saunas and talk with each other about deeply personal issues, including love, lust, family, abuse, addiction, friendship and death. Rather than perpetuate the notion of men as quiet and emotionless, Miesten vuoro highlights a masculinity that is open and sensitive, if one that hides behind the surface in most public situations.

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Last month, I wrote an article about the Video Data Bank, a non-profit video art rental, screening and preservation facility in downtown Chicago, for Chicago Art Magazine. Having utilized the center for research on a number of occasions over the last year and a half, I was surprised to learn from its director that the screening room receives relatively little access outside of those affiliated with the School of the Art Institute, within which it is housed, and I wanted to make its resources more apparent to Chicago’s art-loving public. I was familiar with their collection of video art and video-recorded performance pieces by feminist artists, such as Sadie Benning, Yvonne Rainer, Peggy Ahwesh, Carolee Schneemann, Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, Dara Birnbaum, Gregg Bordowitz, Abigail Child, Valie Export, Coco Fusco, Jenny Holzer, Joan Jonas and Shigeko Kubota, as I had spent most of my time at Video Data Bank watching pieces by these artists, but I had only recently came across other sorts of historical feminist material in their collection, the nature of which I found relevant for all feminists, rather than just those with a particular interest in art history or criticism. Due to the limited nature of my first article, I was unable to highlight these special videos, which I hope to ameliorate here. These materials can be categorized into two different sorts: documentary video footage of feminist events and happenings from the sixties, seventies and eighties and interviews with feminist artists, theorists, academics and critics from the seventies through the present. Read the rest of this entry →

Janelle Monae is a groundbreaking new artist with the musical chops to back up her bold and sweeping sci-fi narratives and confident persona. She fuses a wide range of musical styles (r&b, funk, punk, hip-hop, classical, glam rock) seamlessly and crafts an intricate and provocative story through her lyrics. In interviews, Monae repeatedly speaks of being fearless, non-conformist, and empowering. Her stated goal is to alter history. Through her three-part suite The Chase she attacks the practice of “othering” and challenges the idea of a monolithic culture. The story she tells is one of Cindi Mayweather, an android living in a futuristic society where time travel and technology are used to repress emotions and individuality. Cindi is an anomaly– despite her programming she has feelings and insight and commits the ultimate crime when she falls in love with a human. Cindi’s story is told through a lush musical soundscape as she flees the authorities who want to dismantle her and reclaim her mind. Janelle Monae deserves attention for her work, which challenges the status quo not only musically but socially and politically.

Monae’s music adds to the long history of science fiction critiquing and confronting modern society. In her case, she uses Cindi Mayweather’s android status as a stand-in for race. This metaphor is a well-traveled path (check out Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or Battlestar Galactica for more on this) but rarely has it been expressed in popular music, and certainly not in such a complex way. The details provided about Cindi and her experiences explore not just her race but the interplay between race, class, and gender as she finds herself outside the boundaries of what her society deems acceptable. The society in Monae’s albums is as complicated and multi-layered as our own. She does not stop at simple metaphors but pushes into fuzzier territory and addresses the role of allies, institutions, and mechanisms for change.

I’m an alien from outer space
I’m a cybergirl without a face, a heart, or a mind
(I’m a product of metal, I’m a product of the man)
See, I’m a slave girl without a race (without a face)
On the run cause they’re here to erase and chase my kind
(They’ve come to destroy me) And I think to myself
(Impossibly, they’re gunning for me)
Wait, it’s impossible
Now they’re gunning for me (and the Pawn is after you)
And now they’re after you (For loving, too)

The buzz around Monae has been building for the past 2 years, however it has increased exponentially with the recent release of her two part album The ArchAndroid: Chase Suites 2 & 3. Monae’s vivacious and daring live performances on late night tv have earned her new fans and praise. While she is young and still considered an emerging artist, she confidently leads her band like a seasoned pro, and successfully pays homage to a number of her musical influences (namely James Brown) and manages to walk the fine line between compliment and copying.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMyc148Do_Q]

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Image via Duke University Press

The study of female homoeroticism in Chinese media is a small yet evolving academic discipline. It is, therefore, of great importance that Backward Glances was written. Exploring popular media produced during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, author Fran Martin addresses the ways in which same-sex love between women is commonly depicted, and the ways in which those depictions simultaneously reinforce and challenge the conventional discourse on homosexuality in China.

On the surface, many of the novels, television dramas, and films Martin analyzes do not appear to be particularly transgressive. A common theme among the media she explores is memory; stories of same-sex desire between women are often presented as a fleeting childhood fantasy, something that perpetually exists in the past and can never be fully realized by adults in the present. This memorial mode is also tied to what Martin calls the “going-in” story. Unlike “coming-out” narratives, which depict homosexual identity as the final stage of an individual’s struggle with sexual identity, “going-in” stories start with same-sex desire and end with heterosexual marriage. None of these tropes disturb the status quo of Chinese society, where homosexuality remains incredibly stigmatized.

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Chicago is an exciting place to be right now for viewing experimental cinema, both old and new. Namely, the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival has just ended, and the Chicago Underground Film Festival has just begun. Last Sunday, I had the great pleasure to attend an Onion City screening at Chicago Filmmakers that paid tribute to three amazing women who passed away in the last year—JoAnn Elam, Chick Strand and Callie Angell. The Elam and Strand were both filmmakers, working out of Chicago and San Francisco, respectively, and Angell was the curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The screening was a compilation of a number of short titles, including Elam’s Lie Back and Enjoy It, Strand’s Cartoon le Mousse and Warhol’s Shoulder and Four of Andy’s Most Beautiful Women as well as newer works similar to these classics in both structure and subject matter. One common thread that ran through a number of films was the choice to focus in on women’s faces, drawing attention to their slightest physical expressions for the purpose of subtle social commentary.

Now, in mainstream cinema, it would seem that we see this all the time. The close-up shot, as opposed to the medium shot, full shot or long shot, has been used for almost a century to illustrate the emotions being felt by characters on screen. Today, the amount of attention and detail that goes into capturing this emotion just right—through make-up, lighting, framing and acting—is exorbitant. The difference in the use of close-ups between these more typical examples and in these experimental films, however, is manifold. Namely, they are there to be appreciated in and of themselves, rather than as catalytic sources of information within a narrative. This isolating of the image of the face of a woman allows us to look closely and carefully at what is there and see more clearly what is being conveyed, whether consciously or not, through the brief twitches of the eyes, mouth and cheeks of a woman’s face. This, in turn, causes us to recognize before us an unique individual and a shared human means of expression. Read the rest of this entry →