Between the ominous acapella version of the classic Mary Poppins song performed by Suzanne Vega and the skin crawling subject matter in this vid, Laura Shapiro has expertly remixed and brought to light a reoccurring problem in women’s science fiction representations. All to often female characters in science fiction and fantasy television narratives are forcibly impregnated with some supernatural being that will bring destruction/salvation to the world. The demonic/alien pregnancy plot device is so pervasive that the remix artist almost had too much source material to work with.
Laura uses scenes of women who have been forcibly knocked up, had their ovaries harvested or otherwise reduced to their basic biological functions, ultimately becoming nothing but baby making machines. And it’s not only forced pregnancies that Laura is critiquing but also women carrying natural, wanted fetuses whose wombs are being used as sites of torture. She used clips from science fiction and fantasy television shows to explore what she sees as reproductive terrorism, “the way women’s reproductive capacity is used to colonize them and made to seem unnatural, spooky, disgusting, and horrifying.” Laura has created a stunning visual critique that exposes this sexist TV trope that can only be described as “creepy”.
Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist media literacy advocate, pop culture critic and fair use proponent. She maintains an ongoing web series of video commentaries from a fangirl/feminist/anti-oppression perspective at her website www.FeministFrequency.com.
Jezebel makes a remix! The popular feminist-leaning blog took over 25 movies to the chopping block to create a bloody montage of the female curse: menstruation. Because women are supposed to be pure and clean, periods have been portrayed as a horrific, embarrassing and disgusting 7 day experience used to publicly humiliate female characters, confuse male characters and instill fear in every prepubescent tween. See the remix below the fold…
It has been about 9 months since I first posted my Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed video online and in that time it has been seen nearly 3 million times, been voluntarily translated into 30 languages, sparked discussion threads on countless website and it’s even being used as a teaching tool in classrooms across the country. Not bad for a pro-feminist mashup about vampires and gender roles!
So I’m excited to announce that Buffy vs Edward has been nominated for a 2010 Webby Award in the Best Remix/Mashup category! Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is kinda like the Oscars for the internets.
In this re-imagined narrative, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes, some of the more sexist gender roles and patriarchal Hollywood themes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed – in hilarious ways. Ultimately this remix is about more than a decisive showdown between the slayer and the sparkly vampire. It also doubles as a metaphor for the ongoing battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century.
Jonathan and I have had interesting and exciting experiences with political remix video over the last few months. While our stories differ, they represent the shifting dynamic between gatekeepers and creators.
I was recently featured on the front page of the Boston Globe in an article on activists using video as a voice (excerpt below). It focused on my Sex and the Remix series and how activists are using video to create instant political commentary and disseminate alternative messages to the main stream media.
This remix by Anita Sarkeesian of FeministFrequency.com appropriates the sexist song “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor” by Flight of the Conchords to critique the male domination, hyper masculinity and glorification of violence in popular video games. The video uses source material from 39 different games and was inspired by Sloane’s “Star Trek Dance Floor” vid which comments on the lack of women in the Star Trek movie re-boot released last year. (Incidentally, Sloane’s vid also holds the distinction of being the most viewed post on our blog.)
Once paired with the misogynist lyrics, the games’ imagery of guns, swords and chainsaws become phallic representations of patriarchal power in a virtual world where few women exist. Especially lacking are female characters who are not hypersexualized and/or simply replicating the intense violence of male game heroes. Anita’s remix uses the lyrics to highlight two games in particular (both with women of color protagonists) that help counter the genre’s male dominance: Portal, a first person action puzzle game which utilizes non-violent problem solving strategies, and Mirror’s Edge, a less-violent adventure game involving the navigation of a dystopian city maze. You can also see a list of all the games used in this remix on FeministFrequency.com
Over the past few years I have been developing a series of fun workshops that use simple video remixing projects as an engaging way to teach critical media literacy to youth. Back in December I taught one of these workshops with the Reel Grrls – a Seattle based non-profit that aims to empower girls to critique media images and to create their own films. As both a fun introduction to the remixing process and also as a form of creative media literacy I gave participants the assignment of switching the video and audio from Saturday morning cartoon toy commercials aimed specifically at boys with those aimed at girls. The resulting juxtapositions provided hilarious and insightful commentary on the way the advertising industry manipulates gender roles and helps develop gendered socialization in children.
Embedded above are remixed ads by Reel Grrls Sahar & Diana – also make sure to check out Julia & Caitlin’s remix ads, Gwyn & Emma’s remix and Mari’s remix. I had a lot of fun teaching this workshop and was definitely inspired by the Reel Grrls media making talent, skill and creative energy.
Over the past two years the Unilever corporation has been one of the favorite targets for parody videos online. This is primarily do to the fact that the multinational company makes both Dove and Axe, two brands that present diametrically opposing values and views of women.
In 2004, Unilever launched their Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, a marketing strategy wrapped in a feminist package. Their tag line: “challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty“. The marketing tactic included the online video Onslaught, that warned consumers about the beauty industries negative effect on young girls.
Rye Clifton noticed that Unilever also makes Axe Body Spray, a product whose brand identity is steeped in misogynistic notions of masculinity. Interestingly enough, the spray is accompanied by a sexist advertising campaign featuring exactly the kind of depictions of women that the company is supposedly criticizing with its Dove brand. So Rye re-edited the Onslaught ad replacing all the images of women with footage from Axe tv commercials. The remix exposes the inconsistency and deep hypocrisy of Unilever’s corporate brand identity. Clearly the only value Unilever is really interested in is money – they will say anything to get you to buy their products. Clifton’s remix was even featured on CNN’s the Situation Room a couple years ago.
Below is the original Dove Onslaught ad for those that have not seen it.
