Tap and Teeth: Virtuosity and the Smile in the Films of Bill Robinson and Eleanor Powell

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Rigid System ◽  
White Femininity ◽  
And Gender

Several films of 1935 catapulted tap dancers Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Eleanor Powell to movie stardom. Robinson'sThe Littlest Rebeland Powell'sBroadway Melody of 1936utilize a cinematic formula that intercuts the virtuosic footwork of the tap artists with giant close-ups of their toothy grins. The experience for contemporary spectators can be unnerving, as magnified lips, teeth, and eyes dominate the screen and interrupt the pleasure of watching expert tap. While the close-up smile and the choreography of the camera helped the film industry reproduce the excitement of live performance, these dance scenes also mobilize constructions of black masculinity and white femininity, through editing techniques that create multilayered narratives of power, intimacy, and submission. Robinson's close-up can be read as a depiction of racial subservience, as audiences are confronted with the smiling minstrel mask and the perpetuation of the legacy of minstrelsy in Hollywood. Powell's smile in close-up emphasizes her feminine sexual availability and evokes the voyeuristic camera shots of beaming, passive showgirls. The interplay in these two movies between the extremes of the tap dancer's body, the smile and feet, offers an opportunity to examine tap virtuosity within Hollywood's rigid system of racial and gender stereotypes.

Anatomy of a Spectacle: Race, Gender, and Memory in the Kobe Bryant Rape Case

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Markovitz
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
White Femininity ◽  
Gender And Crime ◽  
Rape Case ◽  
And Gender ◽  
American Society

This article argues that coverage of the Kobe Bryant rape case illuminated bitter divisions in American society, because the allegations against Bryant brought forth tensions involving conceptions of Black masculinity, White femininity, and the role of sport and celebrity in public life. The divisions laid bare by the Bryant case involve long histories of discursive contests waged by social movements and state actors over the meanings of categories of race and gender. I argue that these struggles have influenced public understandings of history; that contemporary understandings of race, gender, and crime are very much indebted to rhetorical battles fought long ago; and that invocations of collective memory can help to determine how various audiences make sense of public dramas unfolding in the mass media.

Emboldening and Contesting Gender and Skin Color Stereotypes in the Film Industry in India, 1947–1991

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Sudev Sheth ◽  
Geoffrey Jones ◽  
Morgan Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Film Content ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
And Gender ◽  
New Evidence

This article examines how the film industry influenced prevailing gender and skin color stereotypes in India during the first four decades after Independence in 1947. It shows that Bollywood, the mainstream cinema in India, shared Hollywood's privileging of paler skin over darker skin, and its preference for presenting women in stereotypical ways lacking agency. The influence of film content was especially significant in India as audiences often lacked alternative sources of entertainment and information. It was left to parallel, and often regional, cinemas in India to contest skin color and gender stereotypes entrenched in mainstream media. As conventional archival sources for this history are lacking, the article employs new evidence from oral histories of producers and actors.

Every Detail Counts: Robert Stoller, Perversion and the Production of Pornography

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Escoffier
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Systematic Method ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
Pornographic Film ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Do So

After the publication of his pioneering book Sexual Excitement in 1979, Robert Stoller devoted the last 12 years of his life to the study of the pornographic film industry. To do so, he conducted an ethnographic study of people working in the industry in order to find out how it produced ‘perverse fantasies’ that successfully communicated sexual excitement to other people. In the course of his investigation he observed and interviewed those involved in the making of pornographic films. He hypothesized that the ‘scenarios’ developed and performed by people in the porn industry were based on their own perverse fantasies and their frustrations, injuries and conflicts over sexuality and gender; and that the porn industry had developed a systematic method and accumulated a sophisticated body of knowledge about the production of sexual excitement. This paper explores Stoller's theses and shows how they fared in his investigation.

An investigation of STEM Interest, Mathematics Beliefs and gender stereotypes among pre-service early childhood educators

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Delahunty ◽  
Máire Ní Ríordáin ◽  
Mark Prendergast
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Gender Stereotype ◽  
Early Childhood Teacher ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Underrepresentation Of Women ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Stem Interest

BackgroundThe underrepresentation of women in STEM fields is a pervasive global issue. Despite evidence casting doubt on the preconceived notions that males outperform females in these domains, gender stereotype beliefs persist and have been highlighted as potential cultural barriers limiting females opportunities. Gender stereotype and ability beliefs emerge in early childhood and recent evidence has highlighted early childhood education as a promising period for the cultivation of positive STEM dispositions. AimsThis study investigated gender stereotype beliefs, mathematical self-beliefs and STEM attitudes among a sample of pre-service early childhood teachers to assess the existence of stereotype endorsements and predictive relationships with STEM interests.SampleParticipants were pre-service early childhood teacher (N=74), mean age 21.17 years, 4 males and 70 femalesMethodsElectronic surveys utilising a series of pre-established scales, measuring gender stereotype bias from ability and cultural perspectives, mathematical self-belief variables (self-efficacy, self-concept, anxiety), and interest in STEM, were distributed. ResultsRegression analysis reveal previous level of mathematical study at secondary school, social persuasions as a sources of self-efficacy and gender stereotype endorsements as significant predictors of overall attitude to STEMConclusions Findings suggest the importance of previous school experience and social influences as well as participants’ gender stereotype endorsements in influencing interest in STEM. These data are discussed in light of implications for teachers; future practice and teacher education

Fail Better

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet O'Shea
Keyword(s):  
Martial Arts ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
And Gender

This chapter examines martial arts practice as an encounter with failure, in which a practitioner withstands both getting hit and launching shots that do not land. Martial arts practice signals the possibilities of failure but also admits its painful consequences, literally and metaphorically. Therefore, this chapter suggests, martial arts provide an opportunity to rethink cultural associations of failure in a society that would deny it. Even the current celebration of failure in the form of “failing up” and “soft landings” focuses only on instances when failure becomes transmuted into success, disavowing its consequences and ignoring the conditions from which it emerges. This chapter includes a consideration of the differing race, class, and gender associations with failure. It also puts forward a theory of the live—as in live training and live weapon but also live performance—as predicated upon failure.

scholarly journals Custody and Care of Children in Spain: Can the Two Rights be Reconciled?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela Jabbaz Churba
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Parental Authority ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Children’S Voices ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis study aims to analyse the legal decision-making process in the Community of Valencia (Spain) regarding contentious divorces particularly with respect to parental authority (patria potestas), custody and visiting arrangements for children, and the opinions of mothers and fathers on the impact these judicial measures have had on their lives. It also considers the biases in these decisions produced by privileging the rights of the adults over those of the children. Three particular moments are studied: (1) the situation before the break-up, focusing on the invisible gender gap in care; (2) the judicial process, where we observe the impact of hidden gender-based violence and gender stereotypes; and (3) the situation post-decision, showing how any existing violence continues after divorce, by means of parental authority. The concept of ‘motherhood under threat’ is placed at the centre of these issues, where children’s voices are given the least attention.

scholarly journals Intersecting race and gender stereotypes: Implications for group-level attitudes

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 1172-1184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis E. Phills ◽  
Amanda Williams ◽  
Jennifer M. Wolff ◽  
Ashley Smith ◽  
Rachel Arnold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Minority Men ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

Two studies examined the relationship between explicit stereotyping and prejudice by investigating how stereotyping of minority men and women may be differentially related to prejudice. Based on research and theory related to the intersectional invisibility hypothesis (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008), we hypothesized that stereotyping of minority men would be more strongly related to prejudice than stereotyping of minority women. Supporting our hypothesis, in both the United Kingdom (Study 1) and the United States (Study 2), when stereotyping of Black men and women were entered into the same regression model, only stereotyping of Black men predicted prejudice. Results were inconsistent in regard to South Asians and East Asians. Results are discussed in terms of the intersectional invisibility hypothesis (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008) and the gendered nature of the relationship between stereotyping and attitudes.

Masks and Selves in Contemporary Java: The Dances of Didik Nini Thowok

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Mrázek
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Chinese Descent ◽  
And Gender

This essay reflects on the plays of masks and selves in the dances and the life of Didik Nini Thowok, and the resonances between dance and life. An Indonesian of Chinese descent and a female impersonator whose comic dances combine different regional styles, Didik upsets notions of ethnic and gender stereotypes and identities, the notion of identity itself.

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