The mainstream media --specifically, whatever twisted barrage of messages it sends out to the world about women-- has not been a conscious everyday concern in my life. I have known for a long time, and from much personal experience (I am after all a black woman living in the United States), that the media is no friend to my womanhood. I feel almost immune to advertisements. I’m that shopper who knows what she wants, because she has done the research, not the one who needs the salesperson’s opinion in order to make a decision. At the same time, I don’t have the resources to change the system I live in immediately, so what ends up happening is my daily attempt at finding balance between living with a certain automatic sense of armor about me , always there like an extra thickness to my skin, and trying to be what I would like to see more of in the world (love, positivity, manners, attention spans, real conversations, etc...). Until recently, this is what worked for me.
Then I heard the first two soundbites from the trailer to Miss Representation, a documentary by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, that explores the ways in which women are under-represented in positions of power, challenging the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media:
"The media is the message and the messenger, and increasingly a powerful one."
Pat Mitchell, President & CEO of Paley Center for Media
Former President & CEO of PBS
"In a world of a million channels, people try to do more shocking and shocking things to break through the clutter. They resort to violent images, or sexually offensive images, or demeaning images."
Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media
Lawyer and Professor of Civil Rights at Stanford University
Along with the accompanying imagery, these two people’s words snapped me out of my way of thinking. See, the images (women in various stages of undress in different scenarios, some with legs splayed open and cash being poured on them, etc...) were nothing new, and what was being said was nothing new, but the way the information was broken down and delivered hit home: So what if thus far, I’ve had the (collateral) luxury, as a woman who chooses not to have children, of not having to think about how the media’s potential role in my offspring’s self esteem, or their sense of perception in general? I’m still not immune to the results of what is happening.
Even if I can see through it, many more (and many younger) cannot, and that’s dangerous for us all. On a personal level: If things keep going the way they have been, that random pack of ill-behaved, way too loud young girls in barely any clothes, who just know they’re grown, that we can still cross the street to avoid in a pinch, could very well become the norm. What happens when there is no other side to cross to? Do we really need to get there to know that it’s not where we want to be? Check out the trailer. What do you think?
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