feminism paper draft 1

Gracy Hardin

COM 370 

Review Paper #1

October 5th 2016

Pop Culture: the Arch Nemesis of Modern Feminism

Popular culture is a term describing a broad concept: what is recognized as significant by the majority of a population? In other words: what movies does America like to watch? What TV shows are viewed and discussed by the largest groups? Which celebrities are viewed as entertaining, respectable, or otherwise worth attention? These questions are important to consider. People, by nature, learn through example; thus, what a population watches, a population absorbs. Media such as films and television shows therefore have a great deal of influence over the people who watch them. When a person is influenced by an idea, he or she maybe subsequently apply such ideas to everyday living and decision making. Essentially, media has the potential to seriously impact culture. One significant example of this effect is pop culture media's relationship with the ideology of feminism. Popular culture is essentially the arch nemesis of modern feminism. 

Feminism means different things to different people; the overall concept is that women are equal to men, and vice versa. However, many varying perspectives exist on this subject. One such perspective is that of Laura Kipnis: in her book Against Love, she discusses the ideas about love perpetuated in our society. She argues that in this day and age, a committed relationship is anti-feminist. Kipnis asserts that in a modern monogamous relationship, a woman's individual autonomy is sacrificed for the "other person's security and peace of mind" (78). She traces this back to aspects of the traditional reasoning for marriage: "wives were a form of property" (60) and women were conditioned to experience "physical revulsion at sex with the wrong person" (62). 

If a relationship truly consists of sacrifice and submission at the root of it, why would a woman choose to involve herself in one? Kipnis argues that marriage has long been promoted as the perfect happy ending. She states that women are essentially forced into two options: become domesticated and live happily ever after, or live life as a hopeless, perpetually solo, walking train wreck. Interestingly enough, Amy Schumer's Trainwreck seems to perfectly exemplify Kipnis' assertions about society. This film is a classic transformation flick -- the entire point of the movie is to watch Amy's character learn and grow. It is implied that she is "better" at the end of the film than she was at the beginning. While this is not explicitly explained, the atmosphere created by the movie is a fairytale happy ending - one that only occurs when Amy succumbs to traditional ideals by ditching her spontaneous party girl ways in favor of joining a more typical, nuclear family-type structure.

Initially, while living a life focused solely on her own wants, needs, dreams, and desires, Amy is depicted as a titular "train wreck". That is to say, she is portrayed as immature and even ridiculous for enjoying a life of freedom (especially in terms of sex: Amy is implicitly vilified for "sleeping around"). The audience is intended to look down on her autonomous and fun seeking nature. However, once Amy finally caves and gives up her wild ways to "fall in love" and subsequently become domesticated. This storyline is incredibly typical of hundreds (if not thousands) of movie and television plots. Together, such films send a strong message: marriage, domestication, and motherhood is what a successful life looks like for a woman. Any alternative lifestyles are lived by women who are simply waiting to be "rescued" by a man and "transformed" into the archetype of the housewife. These movies feed into the dominant ideology of "marriage or bust", so to speak, thus perpetuating one major issue that feminists so desperately want to conquer: the idea that a woman's proper place is in a domestic, committed relationship.