Thursday, July 28, 2011

To Embrace A Woman's Role or Shout the Postfeminist Raunch Culture





Postfeminism suggests that something has indeed changed from decades past when women weren’t allowed to divorce, or vote, or wear pants. It accepts that some progress in the women’s rights arena has been made. Postfeminism also points out that there are men in the world who aren’t oppressive, and that maybe the gender divide is becoming archaic and stale. However, postfeminism also believes that “constructive dialogue and structural change” (Barker 284) would further facilitate the role of women in society.


All of the above understandings about postfeminism make a pop culture celebrity like Christina Aguilera an ideal subject by which one can recognize the way postfeminism radically drives forward the feminist need. Christina Aguilera is a current, influential raunch culture icon but she didn’t always present herself in such a manner. Her first album created an image for her that was reflective of the girl-next-door, teen-age, nice girl. All of which are acceptable and considered appropriate by mainstream society. On her second album however, Christina embraced an image that “advocate[d] sexual provocativeness and promiscuousness by women as women… [that] spoke of … rights to objectify sexuality like a man” (312). When asked about her recreated, fractured identity in a 20/20 interview, she claimed that people didn’t have such a negative reaction to music videos in which men portrayed hyper sexualized and often times, anti-feminist messages. She said, “I think it scares people when a woman is comfortable with herself, her sexuality” (Aguilera). Not only did she become comfortable with herself and her sexuality during the process of preparing for her second album, but she also prepared herself to project lyrics that pointed out inequalities in the male, female master/slave relationship. A prime example is her song entitled “Can’t Hold Us Down.” The video and lyrics are shown below:





So what am I not supposed to have an opinion


Should I be quiet just because I'm a woman


Call me a bitch cause I speak what's on my mind


Guess it's easier for you to swallow if I sat and smiled



When a female fires back


Suddenly big talker don't know how to act


So he does what any little boy would do


Making up a few false rumors or two



That for sure is not a man to me


Slanderin' names for popularity


It's sad you only get your fame through controversy


But now it's time for me to come and give you more to say



This is for my girls all around the world


Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth


Thinking all women should be seen, not heard


So what do we do girls?


Shout out loud!


Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground


Lift your hands high and wave them proud


Take a deep breath and say it loud


Never can, never will, can't hold us down



Nobody can hold us down


Nobody can hold us down


Nobody can hold us down


Never can, never will



So what am I not supposed to say what I'm saying


Are you offended by the message I'm bringing


Call me whatever cause your words don't mean a thing


Guess you ain't even a man enough to handle what I sing



If you look back in history


It's a common double standard of society


The guy gets all the glory the more he can score


While the girl can do the same and yet you call her a whore



I don't understand why it's okay


The guy can get away with it & the girl gets named


All my ladies come together and make a change


Start a new beginning for us everybody sing



This is for my girls all around the world


Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth


Thinking all women should be seen, not heard


What do we do girls?


Shout Out Loud!


Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground


Lift your hands high and wave 'em proud


Take a deep breath and say it loud


Never can, never will, can't hold us down



[Lil' Kim:]


Check it - Here's something I just can't understand


If the guy have three girls then he's the man


He can either give us some head, sex a roar


If the girl do the same, then she's a whore


But the table's about to turn


I'll bet my fame on it


Cats take my ideas and put their name on it


It's airight though, you can't hold me down


I got to keep on movin'


To all my girls with a man who be tryin to mack


Do it right back to him and let that be that


You need to let him know that his game is whack


And Lil' Kim and Christina Aguilera got your back



But you're just a little boy


Think you're so cute, so coy


You must talk so big


To make up for smaller things


So you're just a little boy


All you'll do is annoy


You must talk so big


To make up for smaller things



This is for my girls...


This is for my girls all around the world


Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth


Thinking all women should be seen, not heard


So what do we do girls?


Shout out loud!


Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground


Lift your hands high and wave 'em proud


Take a deep breath and say it loud


Never can, never will, can't hold us down



This is for my girls all around the world


Who've come across a man who don't respect your worth


Thinking all women should be seen, not heard


So what do we do girls?


Should out loud!


Letting them know we're gonna stand our ground


Lift your hands high and wave 'em proud


Take a deep breath and say it loud


Never can, never will, can't hold us down


Spread the word, can't hold us down



Noting that Aguilera sings about the double standards that society forces upon us while strutting around in a purple tube top and short-shorts number, with heavy make-up and suggestive movements further emphasizes the point she attempts to make in her 20/20 interview. Women should not be ashamed of their sexuality, nor should they be subject to the male gaze just because of their physiology. Perhaps rejecting the traditional female role in favor of a more risqué appearance is only feared because it places the still well accepted notion that “all women are linked by childbearing bodies and innate ties to the natural earth that support egalitarian, nurturance-based values” (288). If a woman begins to assert her power and sexuality, if she allows herself to enter what Luce Irigaray theorized as “a presymbolic space or experience for women that is unavailable to men… constituted by a feminine jouissance or sexual pleasure, play and joy, which is outside of intelligibility” (288), then what becomes of the familial role? What happens to the cultures idea of womanhood and motherhood? Who raises the children to be ‘proper’ citizens? If women are asserting and wildly expressing their sexuality, then the voices of society would seem to beg, will every aspect of the family as we know it crumble? People like Christina Aguilera are willing to challenge these cultural fears in favor of a freedom from the oppression that follows any person with breasts and a uterus.


What becomes problematic is the way in which society views the women who are brave enough to step outside of their presubscribed roles. Even the way Barker’s text presents it’s section on raunch culture reads as connotatively negative. It claims that women of the raunch culture believe that “they are entitled to rejoice in their own sexuality and to act on it in just as assertive, and even predatory, a way as men. One might describe raunch culture as postfeminist party-time” (313). If acting just as assertive and predatory when rejoicing in their own sexuality becomes postfeminist party-time for women, then it is the subtext that becomes interesting here. Perhaps it’s suggesting that rejoicing in sexuality and in the physical body that genetically makes one a female is party-time and thus frivolous or irrelevant. However through comparing a woman's rejoicing to a man’s already established way of life, as is suggested, it becomes evident that for a male the ability to be assertive is normal, and in fact respected.


Maybe Christina Aguilera is on to something. Pushing against the societal norms is the only way to project ideas and beliefs that aren’t widely accepted. A more appropriate title for raunch culture would be ‘postfeminism x-treme’. Postfeminist party-time reads as quite tame.


Word Count: 729



Works Cited


20/20. Perf. Christina Aguilera. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 10 Mar. 2009. Web. 27 July 2011.


Barker, Chris. "Sex, Subjectivity, and Representation." Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage, 2008. 288+. Print.


Can't Hold Us Down. Perf. Christina Aguilera. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 17 Nov. 2009. Web. 27 July 2011.


"Christina Aguilera Lyrics." AZ Lyrics. Web. 27 July 2011.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

People of the Los Angeles Coffee Shop Culture


The sound of blenders and the smell of burnt coffee grinds buzz in the air. Drains flush loudly, and milk steamers scream like teapots. Two female baristas work the Starbucks conveniently located inside of a Barnes and Noble. One takes orders, and has on gold hoop earrings and purple eye shadow. The other shuffles her feet when she walks. She makes the drinks and hands them to the customers over a short clear class partition. They both wear green aprons and black caps. Two customers wait near the partition, tapping away on their iPhones. They don’t look up or at one another although they entered the shop together. The female counterpart wears a bikini top underneath her tank top. The male wears a stuffed backpack and oversized jeans. As the female approaches the counter to retrieve her hot beverage, I notice a large tattoo of wings in black and grey ink located across her entire upper back. She also has sunglasses on top of her head.

A woman across from me is eating hot tomato soup. It smells like pasta. There is an elderly couple behind me. The male gets up about every five minutes to ask the barista if his drink is ready. Each time he returns to his seat, he wonders aloud if the next drink being thrust over the partition is his. A woman in a blue and white floral blouse orders a drink. The blender is on. Refrigerators are being opened. Two men enter the shop. They open the small drink refrigerator before they approach the counter. One man is young with a blue star tattoo on his elbow. The other man is older with grey hair, a tan cap, and blue jeans. A woman waiting in line behind the two men shifts back and forth from foot to foot. She stares at the case concealing cookies and cheesecakes and other treats, and shifts her feet some more.

Now, the barista taking orders is a short female who can barely see over the register. She has a pink flower stuffed in her shirt pocket. A man stares up at the Barnes and Noble level above us while waiting for his drink. He wears a green button up shirt, and has an afro. Three women, two brunettes and a blonde, sit to my right. One brunette puts her fingers up and waves them in the air when she talks. The blonde keeps her drink in her hand the whole time and nods. The other brunette woman has her back to me but her head shakes from side to side occasionally.

The line is growing quickly, and people continuously shift their eyes to see if anyone in the seating area is getting up. It’s a crowded Monday afternoon. A woman sits punching in things on her white iPhone, and a man is coughing next to her. He is on a large black laptop, wears a pink shirt and has ear buds in his ears. A man with a green collared shirt grabs a banana and walks off. The barista refills the espresso machine. Two women with backpacks sit down and begin talking in a high pitched tone. One checks her makeup in a compact mirror, and begins touching and dabbing her face all over. She has glasses on. The woman at the table next to them reads a book that says Thailand on the cover. It’s a National Geographic edition. She is Asian.

A woman in a purple knee length jacket and green skirt enters the shop. She wears sunglasses on her head and has a large brown leather satchel on her shoulder. She is looking into the case of cookies. A man in a blue collared polo shirt has been anxiously searching the shop for a place to sit. After pacing back and forth and moving his backpack from one section of the store to another, he finally grabs the table the two women with backpacks were sitting at. He motions to a female to come sit with him. He pulls out a Macbook Air and a notebook. The female companion is writing something on a sheet of paper. The man in the blue polo switched from the seat on the right of the table to the seat on the left. He pulls his laptop along with him. He crosses his feet.

An older woman enters the shop with a blue and white striped cap and dark brown sunglasses. She has grey roots but the rest of her hair is red, or at least what I can see of it under the cap. She has long fingernails and wears a large ring on her left hand. She has a white coat hanging from her shoulders and wears beige, sharply ironed pants. She orders at the counter and her male companion enters the store to pay for her order. He has unruly grey hair and lifts each leg cautiously when he walks. He has a yellow polo shirt and a large belly. His pants are also perfectly ironed. He has brown suede shoes. They talk to each other and he smiles. Unfortunately, I can’t hear their conversation. The woman turns around and her blue stud earrings and red lipstick show brightly. The retrieve their coffees and walk out of the shop together side by side. There is a lull in customers and the two baristas are counting the change in the drawers. One emerges from behind the counter to wipe of the few empty tables and to refill the condiment bar.

A girl in a green T-Shirt and black leggings orders something at the counter. She is hunched over and her hands are clenched in front of her chest. She bounces up and down while talking to the barista. A tall woman with short blonde hair stands in line behind her. She fluffs up her bangs. She wears a black suit jacket and black sweatpants. She orders and scratches the side of her face. There is a woman dressed in running attire behind her. Her shirt, pants, and bag are all some shade of blue. She has a magazine under her arm. The woman with the black suit jacket stands at the condiment bar. She leans over when she pours the sugar into her drink.

A woman with a pink black and white floral print dress enters. She’s digging in a bag that is literally as long as her torso. There is a blue clip on the side of her bag. She digs for a minute or so, but the walks away. She drags her feet as she exits the store. She had on black sandals with approximately two-inch –tall heels. The woman in the black suit jacket stands, coffee in one hand, weight sitting on one hip, and looks at a rack of magazines. She sips quickly.

A girl next to me writes frantically on a piece of paper. She has books and journals strewn all across her tiny table. She has a coffee sitting there that she hasn’t touched. The steam rises from its open lid and I can smell the caramel. A woman with small legs and a short torso with a green jacket tacked with silver buttons down the sleeves and red hair stands at the counter. She has a brown purse strap trailing across her back. She leans over to sign her receipt. She wears black and white pumas and dangling green earrings. Her jeans stop right above her ankles. She’s smiling. She stands at the side of the partition looking around at the shop, and the people occupying its space. A man stands behind her wearing a blue cap and glasses with a neck strap.

A woman in short shorts and a white zip up jacket stand at the counter next to a guy in a plaid shirt. He licks his lips as he looks into the air. She plays with her long light brown hair. After ordering, she stands at the partition with her arms crossed and back turned to the barista. A woman stands in line whistling loudly. She has blonde short hair and large bangs. She holds what looks like eight magazines in her arms, and sets them down on the counter when she orders. A woman in a red long sleeved shirt enters, but goes straight to a seat. She orders nothing. She has a backpack on and immediately begins talking on her cell phone. I hear her talking about how she can’t afford the trip to Santa Barbara, but she says she will keep the person on the other end posted. The plaid shirt guy and the girl in short shorts walk out of the store. He puts his hand in her back pocket. She’s holding a large black purse and a pink beverage. She twirls strands of her hair in her free hand, and they leave.


What the entire above observation becomes, is a construction of identity. Each thing mentioned in the ethnography has its own constructed truths. The Starbucks itself has characteristics that signify it as what it is, baristas with green aprons and black caps, the saturating smell of coffee grinds and sugar, and the display case of sweet treats. The cups with the green Starbucks mermaid logo: clear ones for cold beverages or solid white for hot ones, is a sure identifier of the brand.Has the Western world become so obsessed with the notion of identity that even its stores must possess and hold true to one? The Starbucks store itself has a social identity. People expect all of the aforementioned things to appear in the Starbucks they enter. If they don’t, then that store sure isn’t Starbucks. Perhaps it’s a Coffee Bean.

Each person who entered Barnes and Noble and then trekked up the two flights of escalators, cell phones and laptops in hand, before reaching the Starbucks was projecting an image that helped to create their social identity for that moment. In a place as packed as that particular store was on a Monday evening, asserting ones identity was as easy as pouring sugar into a coffee. Each customer’s identity seemed to be “formed through difference as constituted by the play of signifiers. Thus, what [they] are is in part constituted by what [they] are not” (Barker 221). It was evident that the baristas were not the customers as signified through one’s uniform and physical position behind the counter, and another’s “everyday” clothing and ability to enter and leave the store as they wished. It was clear that some were in a hurry and others weren’t, as it was that some were male and some were females, and some were older and some were younger.

However, if looking at one specific example from the theoretical perspective of Ernesto Laclau, in which he attempts to dissolve the constraints and connections imposed by cultural and hegemonic commonalities, one can see that perhaps the labels applied to the customers of Starbucks are lackluster, elementary, and even stereotypical. Using the older couple as a prime example, it might be difficult to identify them as older than other customers when understanding that “the concept of articulation suggests that those aspects of social life, for example identities, that we think of as unified and eternal can instead be thought of as the unique, historically specific, temporary stabilization or arbitrary closure of meaning” (229). Although it is true biologically that the couple was older than most at the store, evident by the grey hair, wrinkled skin, and the slowness of their movements (which could be seen as their social identity), their self-identity emanated beyond their physical appearance. It shows that they care about their outward appearance. They appear to take better care of their clothing and their appearance than younger people, which is interesting to note being that this seems to be a culture so focused on appearance and looking attractive. The woman of the couple wore perfectly sculpted makeup and pretty jewelry. By no means did this couple assume the American stereotypical appearance of elderly people. They were not trapped in decades past, and were not abusing their identity as elderly people. They seemed to focus more on a connection with one another, and presented a quite strikingly young identity, if one is looking solely at outward accessories. This understanding of the two people breaks down the “links between discursive concepts” (229). This couple’s true age is more complex than it seems at first glance. Sure they may have lived more than sixty years on this planet already, but they seem to refuse to succumb to societal restraints that the age supplies for them.

Truly ruminating on identities takes more thought than an hour-long observation at a public place. Each person mentioned in the observation can be broken down and understood (just as the “elderly” couple was) in terms of Laclau’s idea that connections between discursive positions and essential identities are temporary. Perhaps all of society’s notions of the surrounding world are just that: simply ephemeral.

Word Count: 2,170

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. "Issues of Subjectivity and Identity." Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage, 2008. 229. Print.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Jerry Maguire Shows You The Love

The film Jerry Maguire seems to portray the message that love is the threshold upon which success blooms. It seems to suggest that inspiration paired with commitment is the pathway to this love, and that if one doesn’t have love in their life things will eventually fall apart. The film also purports that experiencing love in one relationship can simultaneously spark the appearance of love in another. Overall, all of the above said things lean to proving the simple fact that love grows. It doesn’t begin in full force with commitment and approving a lack of make-up.

Love starts out like it does for the characters Jerry Maguire and Dorothy Boyd, with a strange and awkward yet somehow kind meeting in an airport. An interesting “knight-in-shining-armor” moment occurs which forces the underground attraction between the two to move up a level. What woman wouldn’t love that the hot-shot of the company she works for is willing to help her find her young son in the middle of a crowded public place? The attraction then builds when Dorothy, spurred by the inspiration and fairness supplied in Jerry’s mission statement, agrees to leave the large corporate company in favor of working for Jerry. For Jerry, Dorothy’s decision was what allowed him to continue passionately pursuing his career. For her, passion and the desire to create a company that allows personal connections with clients is enough for her to walk away from a stable paycheck to support herself and her son. Both of them are seeing their relationship to the other through an individual lens. This places an interesting spin on Feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir’s claim that “humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being” (de Beauvoir). Both male and female in this situation define themselves in relation to what the other can provide, and in this way neither are autonomous. This causes the relationship between the two to be more static, and forces this notion that to them is love, to grow faster. The constant close connection between the only two workers at Jerry’s new company creates intimate opportunities for even more attraction to grow like moments where Jerry interacts with Dorothy’s son Ray.

The relationship Jerry develops with Ray can be seen as the force that truly pulls Dorothy further into the relationship, as her son was without a father figure. She thinks she loves him because her son does. And as one can see, the relationship develops into something like love. Each party needs the other for a particular purpose, although the relationship between the two never really develops beyond what role they need the other to fulfill.

Of course, the Hollywood happy-ending ties all of those ragged and love rejecting ends together. The development of the way this couple experiences love must come full circle in order for the audience to see a shift in Jerry Maguire’s character.

Jerry says, “Tonight our little company had a very big night… but it wasn’t complete… because I couldn’t share it with you.” He comes to realize that having success and having someone worth sharing that success with are synonymous. Witnessing his client being able to share his success with his wife, allows Maguire to realize that he needs that same ability. Does love create success? Jerry Maguire says yes. Jerry Maguire also says that passion and the drive to keep that love alive are necessary ingredients.


Word Count: 589

Works Cited

Beauvoir, Simone De. "Simone De Beauvoir The Second Sex, Woman as Other 1949."Marxists Internet Archive. Web. 25 July 2011. .

Jerry Maguire‬‏ - YouTube. Dir. Cameron Crowe. Perf. Tom Cruise and Johnathan Lipnicki. TriStar Pictures, 1996. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. YouTube, 14 June 2008. Web. 25 July 2011. .

U Had Me at Hello‬‏ - YouTube. Dir. Cameron Crowe. Perf. Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger. TriStar Pictures, 1996. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. YouTube, 07 Apr. 2007. Web. 25 July 2011. .

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Things that Make Us Different

How has culture managed to transition from the realms of art, literature, and classical music into a world of celebrities, reality television, and cosmetic upkeep? As a society, functions have changed, ideals have shifted and priorities have nearly flipped upside down. People of the twenty-first century look to the media for practically every bit of advice and every ounce of their relaxation. That being said, it’s no wonder these things that come to define our society have become demandingly popular. Most people could tell you the size of Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring, or what happened on the last episode of So You Think You Can Dance (or perhaps thrill you with whatever their cultural indulgence of choice is for that month).

Understanding that the aspects of society that the current generation deems important have not always been popular, let alone, have existed is a necessary epiphany one must have in order to gaze deeply into the world which we inhabit. Definitions of culture have embodied from a classical sense what it means to have taste artistically and from an anthropological standing: to understand behaviors and how people interact. It has stretched to encompass class domination and how people respond to that rule. Culture has offered people a way to escape from the capitalistic, hierarchical structures that are their lives, and has simultaneously broken down these ideals and offered people an opportunity to challenge them in innovative ways. The expanse of definitions of culture mentioned above move from what is considered high culture to what is believed to be low culture: yet another way to distinguish between classes, between generations, between sexes, between careers, and ultimately between what is, simply put, good or bad.

Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan’s Introduction entitled “The Politics of Culture” mentions French sociologist Pierre Bordieu’s provocative belief that “culture is a way of distinguishing between positions in the social hierarchy. Those who are born into upper-class echelons will acquire dispositions that allow them to appreciate certain forms of culture (high art, for example), and such abilities will help them secure elevated positions in the class hierarchy” (1026). This observation leads me to the questions, then, how prevalent is this upper-class group of people who can appreciate high art? And what exactly is this high art? The way it seems, most people, high class or not, are consumed by a consumer culture, whether they’re buying from Victoria’s Secret or La Perla, shopping at Target or Saks Fifth Avenue, visiting the Getty or watching Beyonce in concert. True, each one of the above signifies that there are differences between the people who do one versus those who do the other, but ultimately each person is searching for their own identity in the midst of the things that populate the world they live in. Sorting through those things, finding what strikes them as important, and then reflecting that in the way one lives is the most common way to carve out a niche for oneself. Perhaps that is all culture is really supposed to do.

With that said, now would be an appropriate time to watch a little something mentioning the things that bring people together. A little comedy-culture from below never hurt anyone, right? Here is George Carlin's perspective on some of our differences and more of our similarities.

Word Count: 551

George Carlin on Our Similarities‬‏ - YouTube. Perf. George Carlin. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 3 Aug. 2007. Web. 19 July 2011. .

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan, eds. “Introduction: The Politics of Culture”. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. Excerpt.