Week 12: Patriarchy is No Malarkey (Gender and Comedy)

My son was only about six months old when we moved to Moldova. Since our possessions at the time were limited to what we could fit in our suitcases, and because he was already growing quickly, we figured that it made sense to buy most of his clothes once we got there. Fortunately, it turned out that baby clothes are much cheaper in what is statistically the poorest country in Europe. We also learned that in former Soviet states, pink and red are traditionally associated with men, while blue and particularly light blue are considered feminine colors. It used to be this way in the U.S., too, and the blue/pink boy/girl binary that we know so well was only established in the post-World War II baby boom. Prior to this, most baby clothes in just about every culture have historically been gender-neutral. Even as late as the early twentieth century, it was common for boys and girls in the U.S. to wear dresses as toddlers, because this allowed easier access to their diapers when they needed to be changed.

Pictured: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, age two.

Sex is a biological term that relates to one's reproductive organs. Gender and sexuality, on the other hand, are social constructs. By that, I mean that it is our culture that decides that blue is for boys and pink is for girls, that girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks, or that men usually have short hair and women usually have long hair -- but it is also our culture that dictates its own set of rules for what it considers to be normal sexual behavior. This all goes back to the concept of ideology, which tends to be far easier to recognize from outside than from within. With this in mind, one of the many reasons why you should try to empathize with other cultures as much as possible is because it allows you to see your own from another perspective, thereby illuminating the blind spots of the ideologies to which we subscribe but may otherwise fail to recognize. 

Fun fact: Everybody has an accent, even you.

We live in a heteronormative society that commonly marginalizes those who do not comfortably fit within prescribed expectations of normalcy. However, we must remember that different cultures throughout history have had very different standards for what are considered to be normal gender roles and sexual behavior. In other words, "normal" is a moving target that is constantly changing shape. Consider the ancient Greeks or the ancient Romans. Numerous scholars have even noted that we had a United States President, as well as a Vice President, who were commonly known to be gay (and intimately involved with each other, in fact), but people at that time recognized that this made no difference in terms of their ability to lead our nation. (That said, I must also acknowledge that according to most historians, they were both pretty terrible at their jobs, but a lot of that had to do with the political climate in the antebellum South. Besides, they certainly weren't the only people that Americans ever elected to public office who turned out to be terrible.) Although Buchanan and King were not President and Vice President at the same time, they were "roommates" for over fifteen years and many of their colleagues openly referred to them as Mr. and Mrs. President.

In contemporary U.S. culture, the heteronormative patriarchy is a very commonly held ideology. It is the assumption that normal is defined as boys who grow up to be men and girls who grow up to be women, and then they pair up, marry each other and make more babies. The men are destined to rule the world and make money, while their wives (as if women are property) manage the home and the family. And everybody lives happily ever after. These ideas are almost constantly reinforced in popular media and thereby made to seem natural, but to accept these as truths is (by definition) sexist in that such beliefs discriminate purely on the basis of a person's reproductive organs and on that individual's performance of gender. Further, as social constructs, these rigidly defined notions of gender and sexuality only serve to reinforce the heteronormative patriarchy. They are a way of maintaining existing power structures.

How and who a person loves makes little to no difference in anything else that they do. I hope this doesn't come as a shock to anyone, but a vast majority of your interactions with almost everyone you meet in your life will not involve your genitals or theirs (and if they do, you should probably see a doctor). So maybe that's not the best basis of judgment. It would be like discriminating against someone for being left-handed. Unless you're arm-wrestling that person, what difference does it even make? Besides, it's pretty commonly accepted that your dominant hand is a trait with which you are born, so it's not like a person chooses to be left-handed or anything.

As should be obvious, these constructs of gender and sexuality are particularly damaging when they become prohibitive to individual human rights. In a nation that prides itself on freedom and equality, it seems reasonable to suggest that who a person is attracted to, as well as their own self-worth, should be decided by the individual and not by the culture-at-large. Reproductive organs and how they are consentually used should not be the basis for discrimination. So why is our society so obsessed with other people's sex lives? Where do we get this weird combination of pseudo-puritanical beliefs and hyper-sexualized imagery?

Watch commercial television for more than ten minutes and you can probably figure it out. The sex drive, as discussed on week nine, is a base human desire that is exploited to sell just about everything, whether hair products, hamburgers or vitamins for senior citizens. Our culture already does a thorough job of crafting very specific ideals of human beauty, and in America, where bigger is generally thought to be better (unless we're talking about waistlines or golf scores), socially defined traits of masculinity and femininity often become exaggerated under the assumption that the more macho or hyper-feminine a person is, the more attractive they are to their counterparts of the opposite sex. 

This first requires clearly defined gender roles, and so we, as a culture, have also developed a number of informal rules that dictate how men and women are expected to look and behave. This is how gender is performative. These representations are then reinforced ad nauseum through popular media to the point of seeming natural. It is here that the line between representations and the real becomes blurred, and it is a place where stereotypes thrive. In our culture, for example, phobias tend to be more accepted in women, while men are often thought to be irresponsible with kids. Women are more in touch with their feelings and men love sports. God how we love sports. 

But what if human beings are more complicated than that? What if maybe it's not a good idea to make sweeping generalizations about half of the population on earth, especially when these assumptions are based on localized social constructs and drawn from a presentist perspective? We must also consider how the media influences our perception of appropriate gender roles and behavior. While I readily acknowledge that there are clearly differences between men and women (differences that I personally am thankful for), these differences are almost entirely physical. Moreover, men and women fall into specific patterns of behavior established by the culture of which they are a part. Conforming to these expectations is part of the superego. A little boy is exposed to football all his life, then he grows up and watches games with his son, and so on, because this is what is expected of him. Why else would so many grown men (and women, for that matter) give a damn about a bunch of guys in brightly colored uniforms running around a field trying to grab a ball and knock each other down? We model our behavior, our tastes and our beliefs upon the things that we are exposed to. With this in mind, I hope that you can also understand why movies are such an important part of our culture. Think about how many of your expectations in life have been shaped at least in part by movies.

Movies teach us how to deal with conflict. When an audience empathizes with the characters on screen, this forces them to think about how they would act if put in a similar situation, no matter how far-fetched it may be. Movies also provide models of human behavior. They teach us how people succeed in their endeavors and fall in love, and they also show us what a fistfight or a first date is supposed to look like. Popular films reflect the culture and help shape it. And if we ever find ourselves in an empty neighborhood with newspapers flying around, thanks to movies, we know to keep an eye out for zombies. 

Cinema provides multi-sensory counterpoints to our own subjective realities, thereby creating virtual experiences that validate that which we already believe. However, films may also challenge those beliefs. In Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord wrote, "The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as an instrument of unification. As a part of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all consciousness. Due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of generalized separation" (3). Translated: the spectacle of modern western culture in which we are immersed is a commonly believed but artificial reality made up of a series of distractions that are competing for our attention while blinding us from the reality of our own subjugation. And now, the five cent version: mass media brainwashes people into accepting an idea of normal that is specifically designed to give some people power over others. Obviously, most of the ideas that Debord discusses are every bit as relevant today.

As you will read this week, movies often serve to reinforce the heteronormative patriarchy, but they may also challenge this ideology. Some films merely call attention to its existence, but as with any good trap, the first step in understanding an ideology is in recognizing its existence, because only then can it be addressed. Unfortunately, that's about as far as a lot of movies get. In Mr. Mom, as just one example, sexism is superficially brought into light, but then the movie ends with the main characters resuming their original roles within the "traditional" family structure. She stays home with the kids, while he gets his old job back, and everybody lives happily ever after. Meanwhile, this film draws most of its humor from the perceived absurdity of a man trying to do what we are led to believe is women's work. Mr. Mom. Get it? 

This week's movies are both about patriarchy, and since most movies do simply reinforce archaic gender roles, I wanted to help give the other side of the argument equal weight in the discourse, at least within the context of this class (and ideally beyond). 

Feminism is not a bad word. It simply means that you don't think someone's gender should be a determining factor in that person's access to equality. It means that if you have two children, and one is a girl and the other is a boy, then you hold them both to the same expectations and will encourage them to pursue their passions, whatever (and whomever) they may be. It means that you believe that women should be paid the same to do the same work and should not be systematically shut out of any profession because of gender. It means that you value the human being over the socially constructed idea of who that person is supposed to be. No matter what your gender happens to be, if you're not a feminist, perhaps you should ask yourself why not. And is your perception of feminists, and perhaps of women in general, based largely on media representations (and/or the reenactment of these representations within our culture)? Feminism is not the belief that men are evil, nor does it suggest that men and women are exactly the same; it is simply the understanding that gender, as a social construct, should never be a hindrance to opportunity.  

I want you to keep this stuff in mind, particularly while you are watching this weeks films. They are Some Like It Hot and 9 to 5. Once you have watched at least one of them and read this week's student blog posts, as well as the first half of chapter four in the King book (pg. 129-143), please answer the following screening question:

From a feminist perspective, how does [the film you chose to watch] challenge "conventional" gender norms? Use specific examples from the film, as well as quotes from this week's reading to support your argument. 

The following people are exempt from answering this week's screening question, as they are assigned blog posts:

Alyssa Kapelka - Biography (Richard Pryor)
James Knapke - Biography (Mel Brooks)
Charles Rainbow - Biography (Eddie Murphy)