scholarly journals Transformations of Hegemonic Masculinity and Functions of Female Images in Contemporary Western Films

2020 ◽  
pp. 78-83
Author(s):  
Ksenia Igaeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Dominant Type ◽  
Popular Cinema ◽  
Male Roles ◽  
Normative Models

The controversy about modern transformations of consumer society typically is not related to gender studies. At the same time, the spread of mass culture in the consumer society has had a significant impact on the redistribution of gender roles. Gender studies have long been dominated by the study of women's history through criticism of hegemonic masculinity as a system for the distribution of social roles, and economic inequality was only their derivative. Moreover, starting from the first decade of the XXI century, many researchers appear (M. Kimmel, S. Bordeaux, S. Robinson) striving to move away from the established tradition. Thus, according to modern researchers, the concept of "hegemonic masculinity" is controversial. However, it is generally well established in gender studies to describe the power of middle-class white men, their everyday behavior, and normative representations in culture. The purpose of this article is to identify the feedback – the growing influence of the consumption laws, as well as the consumer culture formed on their basis, on the distribution of gender roles in popular Western cinema, which is both a representation and a reinforcement of normative models of social behavior. In modern cinema, the image of a man belonging to the hegemonic type of masculinity undergoes several stylistic changes that allow preserving the former normative ideal. Male images are mimicking in the new social space that has developed in the post-industrial economy, imitating changes in the dominant type of masculinity, which, however, does not lose its power positions. At the same time, the female heroine in popular cinema fails to fundamentally change the established model of normativity: she tries on traditional male roles and becomes a consumer of established stereotypes, refusing to try to change the very system of hegemony.

scholarly journals Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man: A Depiction of the Trials and Tribulations of an Androgynous Personality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chhavi ◽  
◽  
Rajiv Bhushan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Indian Family ◽  
Cultural Domain ◽  
Conventional Practice ◽  
Indian Theatre

Abstract Mahesh Dattani is one of the leading Indian dramatists who responded to the problems of sexuality on the canvass of Indian theatre. He examined various facets of subjugation and marginalization rampant in Indian society. His plays focus on the sub-urban Hindu family and its trifle with gender and alternate sexuality. His plots revolve around the damaging implications of patriarchal constructs and his characters strive for liberty and self-satisfaction beneath hegemonic masculinity, compulsive heteronormativity and prejudiced cultural domain. Regarding his famous play Dance Like a Man, this paper critically examines the existing socio-cultural domain which practices politics of exclusion of androgynous identities behind the façade of peacefully cohabiting heterosexual Indian family and shows how Dattani, has remarkably countered the presentation of the polarized association of gender roles with conventional practice through performance of his protagonist. Set against the backdrop of patriarchal mindset, this paper delineates that the victim of patriarchal norms is not a woman but a man, who has traits of androgyny. It gives a brief account to highlight the significance of androgyny and portrays how androgyny is directly proportional to creativity. It elucidates how androgynous men undergo searing experiences of stigma and social untouchability in a traditional setup and how patriarchal norms reinforce dominant powers of society to stunt the growth of their personality.

The Bhāgavata Speaks of Woman

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-136
Author(s):  
Gopal K. Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Gender Discourse ◽  
Positive Light

Indic texts have played a crucial role in constructing, and greatly influencing, gender roles and social norms in Indian society. Scholarship on these texts has identified problems of identity and hegemony that are thoroughly discussed in such fields as subaltern studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and the like. Because of cultural practices such as satῑ‎ and religious laws for widows, Hinduism and some of its associated texts tend to have a reputation for patriarchal misogyny. In her Encyclopedia of Feminism, Lisa Tuttle advises scholars to ask “new questions of old texts;” following her lead, this chapter intends to examine the gender discourse contained in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, focusing on the text’s characterization of women as māyā, which we have here defined as God’s deluding or covering potency. The analysis should make it plain that while the Bhāgavata does support patriarchal institutions and practices, on a deeper level it portrays women in a far more positive light, holding them in a more esteemed position than one may assume.

scholarly journals The Upshot on Princess Merida in Disney/Pixar’s Brave: Why the Tomboy Trajectory Is Off Target

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Lauren Dundes
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Role ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Traditional Gender Role ◽  
Gender And Power

Princess Merida, the “tomboy” princess in Disney/Pixar’s Brave, won praise for escaping the strictures of femininity and maternal demands for feminine propriety. In addition to her overt defiance of gender roles and demand for agency, Merida also enacts hegemonic masculinity by mocking her suitors during an archery contest in which she is the prize. The ridicule is the prelude to her dramatic, winning bullseye that feminizes the men, in a scene rich in symbolism about gender and power. In enacting the final phase of the tomboy paradigm, however, Merida reverses her trajectory as her rebellion against femininity ebbs. She then resolves conflict by displaying vulnerability rather than performing brave deeds. This marked shift to a more traditional gender role raises questions about her stature as a model of autonomy able to withstand the pressure to conform.

scholarly journals ‘Camera Obscura’ to ‘Camera Dentata’: Women Directors and the Politics of Gender in Malayalam Cinema

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-60
Author(s):  
Meena T. Pillai
Keyword(s):  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
Women Directors ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Camera Obscura ◽  
The Real ◽  
Popular Cinema

This article examines women directors in Malayalam cinema as historical subjects, looking at the manner in which they place themselves within Kerala’s cultural semiotics and its popular imaginary, disrupting or legitimising an illusion coded to the measure of gender desires and differences within its semiosphere. The logic of commercial cinema demands that women directors fall in sync with the representative politics of the male gaze and a capitalist libidinal economy, seducing women into passive codes of femininity and aligning men within the registers of a hegemonic masculinity, in effect foreclosing the play of alternative languages of desire. Malayalam cinema has had two kinds of women directors, one who tries to puncture this logic from within the male bastions of popular cinema, and the second who strives to be an ‘other’ to the mythmakers of the phallic order. The article attempts to read the first mode of intervention using the Marxian specular metaphor of the camera obscura as a hierarchical apparatus of ideological inversion where the real is substituted by a spectacle of the illusory. To analyse the latter, the article puts forward the metaphor of camera dentata – that modus of representation which seeks to topple the patriarchal and capitalist ideological predispositions of the cinematic apparatus, thus rendering it capable of diminishing the power of phallic signifiers and ‘the moral panics of sexuality’ they engender.

Rural Ambivalence Toward Mass Society: Evidence from the U.S. Parcel Post Debates, 1900–1913

Rural History ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Kielbowicz
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Mass Society ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Cost

For rural Americans, the debate over establishing a parcel post evoked all the hopes and anxieties associated with the expansion of mass society at the turn of the century. Parcel post, today an accepted and seemingly inconsequential government service, was originally seen as a linchpin in the emerging industry of mass culture. The media of mass communication advertised products and ran stories acclimating readers to a consumer society, thereby encouraging demand for mass-produced goods that were distributed, finally, by parcel post. Opponents of parcel post foresaw a decline of small towns, a centralization of production and distribution, a disruption of the ‘natural’ relations among labor, retailers, and consumers, and the aggrandizement of urban culture. At the other extreme, proponents claimed that parcel post would increase consumer choice, reduce the cost of living, and bridge the widening chasm between urban and rural life. Thus, the simple act of carrying a parcel from Chicago to a farmer's lane became freighted with a panoply of issues agitating the nation.

scholarly journals The Phenomenon of a Thing in the Transformational Manifestations of Mass Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 48-54
Author(s):  
V. Petrenko
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Physical Thing ◽  
First Time

The research deals with a different understanding of things in the context of culture. An attempt was made to analyze the phenomenon of a thing through the scientific­methodological approach of Lacan, Marx, and Heidegger. The article also attempts to answer the main question: what does a thing mean in modern society, and what transformations of this concept took place in a historical perspective. The article analyzes such order of things in which things at different levels (physical, social, axiological, etc.) manifest themselves in different ways, as well as possess different qualities and characteristics, which gives us the opportunity to talk about a new understanding of a thing in the context of an information society, in which the physical thing is nullified and the symbolic thing appears. To distinguish these two concepts, we need to understand how the thing is realized in the desire, because the desire itself is the direction that motivates a person to make a choice, and this is what a person is deprived of the XXI century. The purpose of this article is a thorough consideration of thing in the context of mass culture. Designation of connections between human “I” and a thing in the context of the new information society. The relevance of this article consists in the fact that in modern Western societies there is a loss of the value of a thing as a value that is not only inside the thing itself, but also goes beyond the material world. This is primarily due to mass production and the emergence of a consumer society. The methodology: the author uses a systematic approach and the analytics is made from the point of view of materialism, existentialism, and psychoanalysis. The results: the author identifies ten points that characterize the thing in the context of mass culture. The emphasis is on mediocrity as the main agent of consumerism. A broad analysis of the subject is given in the context of social criticism of the USSR and Western societies of the modern type. The topicality. This article for the first time specifies a correlation between things in popular culture and mediocrity as an extra class phenomenon that significantly affects social processes. It also for the first time analyzes things on the basis of the fundamental philosophical teachings of the XX century and makes connection between Marxism, phenomenology and psychoanalysis, which for a long time have been considered methodological antagonists. The removal of this conflict leads to the discovery of new methodological studies in the field of culture, since they can study human activity from different sides (each with its own), but also closely cooperating with each other. Practical value. Research in this area using philosophical methodology gives us the opportunity to comprehend the concept of mediocrity and trace its connection with the thing, which in its turn opens up opportunities for us for a deeper understanding of the processes that began to take place after the Second World War. For a modern person, it is very important to ask yourself questions about the relationship between me and things. Questions like these are just as important in the educational process.

scholarly journals Inventando la Heroína de las Mil Caras: una propuesta didáctica de creación literaria. Inventing the Heroine of a Thousand Faces: a Literary Creation Didactic Proposal

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
Catalina Millán Scheiding
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Literary Creation ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Escritura Creativa ◽  
Ideological Context

Esta propuesta didáctica ejemplifica el uso de la escritura creativa como una forma de acercarse al discurso de género, a través de la generación de un héroe o heroína de fantasía. Se ofrece una actividad en la que se trabaja el conflicto aparente y el conflicto subyacente, donde los roles de género pueden ofrecer respuestas diferentes y redefinir las estructuras narratológicas. El alumnado trabaja sobre su propia creación literaria para definir sus expectativas literarias y los conflictos hegemónicos que se presentan en las historias de fantasía y ficción de su contexto social e ideológico. El contraste de los textos de creación propia con el análisis de textos y ejemplos audiovisuales de fantasía y ciencia ficción de creadoras literarias y de personajes femeninos, presenta una oportunidad para generar un espacio contrastivo y constructivo, a la vez que enlaza con competencias educativas y facilita un acercamiento comparativo a la critica literaria. This didactic proposal exemplifies the use of creative writing as a way to approach gender studies, through the creation of a fantasy hero. The activity offers the possibility of working both the apparent and underlaying conflicts, where gender roles can offer different answers and redefine narratological structures. The students work on their own literary creation to define their literary expectations and the predominant conflicts that appear in fantasy and fiction stories in their social and ideological context. The contrast of their own textual creations with the analyses of textual and audiovisual examples from fantasy and science fiction by female authors and including female characters offers the possibility of generating a contrastive and constructivespace, which also links to educational competences and facilitates a comparatist approach to literary criticism.

scholarly journals SciFi Cinema as one of Spatial Localizations of Military Images in American Mass Culture

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Kyrchanoff Maksym W. ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Military Experience ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
Military Images

War is one of the most popular topics in modern mass culture. The author analyzes the features of the perception of war in modern science fiction cinema. The purpose of this article is to analyze the representation of war in American science fiction as a form of historical memory in mass culture. The author uses inventionism methods to analyze the images of war in the film production of mass culture as “invented traditions” of the consumer society. The range of perception of war and military experience in popular culture is analyzed. Modern global film industry and national film industries regularly address military themes in the world or national contexts, producing films that actualize military experience of nations and states. The film industry segments that specialize in the production of science fiction and fantasy films also do not ignore the military theme. It is supposed that popular culture offers a variety of images of war, including militarism, violence, military collective trauma, and military political psychosis. The author believes that military theme in popular culture arose as a result of reflection on real military conflicts, and the creators of the pop-cultural project could reject the war or idealize it. The author believes that military science fiction in modern American mass culture actualizes the values of pacifism or militarism as reflections of the left or right preferences of the creators of such cultural product for the consumer society. Science fiction films actualize various forms of war, including global military clashes, civil conflicts, aggression, intervention and genocide. Popular culture is becoming the main sphere of existence of the memory of war because military conflicts of science fiction series can be perceived in the consumer society as more real than the historical wars of the past. Military images of mass culture are supposed to actualize various forms of war memory, including memory as trauma, memory as marginalization, and memory as nostalgia which idealize war.

scholarly journals Masculinity and Advertisements: The Case of Nepal Television

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Indira Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Television Commercials ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Male Roles ◽  
Men And Masculinities

The article explores the television commercials broadcasted by the Nepal Television (NTV) that have male roles to analyze how masculinity is presented in them. In Nepal, studies of men and masculinities remain a rare compared with studies of women and femininity. It is essential to analyze the representation of masculinity to understand men’s experiences, attitudes, beliefs and practices, not only to challenge men’s superiority over females, but also to create gender equality. ! e aim of this article then is to study how a hegemonic masculinity is represented and constructed within NTV commercials.  DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ctbijis.v1i1.10463   Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol.1(1) 2013; 1-10  

The Evolution of Gender Studies and Its Impact on the African Society in the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Kurebwa
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
21St Century ◽  
African Society ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
Multiple Interfaces ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

This study traces the evolution of gender studies from the 1970s to the 21st century. The impact of gender studies to the African society is also covered in greater detail. Gender studies includes a method to appreciate the ideologies, social patterns, and descriptions that shape our world and our lives. It raises questions about how and why a gender divide is created or preserved and also many times resisted or weakened. Gender studies explores the multiple interfaces among race, caste, class, and gender. It investigates traditional disciplines through an interdisciplinary perspective that focuses on the significance of sex as a social construct and the importance of gender and gender roles. It also advances the historical and existing portrayal of both women and men in religion, arts, literature, and many other arenas.

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