Sex and Spectacle in Seventeen Magazine: A Feminist Myth Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meenakshi Gigi Durham
Keyword(s):  
Media Literacy ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Adolescent Female ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Literacy Strategy ◽  
Rhetorical Figure ◽  
Seventeen Magazine ◽  
Mediated Images ◽  
Representation Of Sexuality ◽  
Feminist Practice

This paper interrogates the semiotic processes by which semiological codes operate to construct female sexuality in a top-circulating fashion and beauty magazine targeted to adolescents. While a number of studies have found the representations of femininity and sexuality in teen media to be restrictive, unrealistic and conservative, this paper fills a gap in the literature by presenting a close analysis of the strategies by which sexuality is constructed. Given that there is a documented difference between the real-world exigencies of girls’ sexual lives and the representation of sexuality in teen media, this paper uses Barthes’ concept of myth and Debord’s understanding of spectacle to frame media rhetorics of sexuality. For Barthes, a myth is a rhetorical figure that supports ideological social beliefs; for Debord, the spectacle is a system of capitalism that manifests itself via mediated images. On the basis of these ideas, the paper claims the semiological method of myth analysis as a feminist practice. Using myth analysis, patterns of representation of adolescent female sexuality in the 2006 issues of Seventeen magazine were analyzed. The analysis uncovered four overarching myths of girls’ sexuality in the magazine: the myth of sexuality as a function of body hierarchies, the myth of sexuality as spectacle, the myth of sexuality as a heterosexual male domain, and the myth of girls as sexual victims. The paper calls for myth analysis as a media literacy strategy that offers feminist emancipatory potential.

Managing Female Adolescence in Disney's Witch Mountain Movies during the Women's Liberation Era

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Pike
Keyword(s):  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Women's Liberation ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Control Female ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Women’S Liberation ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Female Adolescence

Although Disney's 1970s Witch Mountain films were tremendously popular with preteen girls, they have been largely overlooked in historical scholarship on gender, film, and second-wave feminism. To help extend and shed new light on the history of girls on film during the women's liberation era, this article explores how Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and Return from Witch Mountain (1978) negotiate ideas about youthful female independence, power, and sexuality. Though on the surface these films appear to fit Disney's model of “innocent” entertainment, close analysis reveals patterns common to the era's horror films made for adults—especially preoccupations with, and attempts to control, female sexuality. The specific mode of regulation applied to the preteen heroine depended on her age and maturity level. Thus, kindhearted male characters anxiously try to safeguard ten-year-old Tia (Kim Richard)'s innocent sexuality in Escape, while villainous characters viciously try to terminate it in the sequel. This shift, I argue, is tied to Tia's entrance into adolescence and the attendant horror produced by the intermingling of puberty and supernatural power. The films’ attempts to contain Tia's emerging sexuality speak to diffuse cultural anxieties surrounding female empowerment during the rise of women's liberation; yet, in showcasing girlhood strength and agency, they also offer pleasurable possibilities for youthful female identification. An analysis of the films’ gendered tensions not only illuminates how adult creators envisioned girls in the 1970s, but also suggests how girls growing up at the time might have experienced competing discourses about liberation.

Romance, the Robinsonade, and the Cultivation of Adolescent Female Desire in Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens

2019 ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Amy Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
Adolescent Female ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Experimental Site ◽  
Connection To Nature ◽  
Female Desire ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Sexual Desires ◽  
Desert Island

This chapter argues that Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens, a satirical riposte to the Robinsonade genre, draws on the broad tradition of codifying the desert island as a space for romantic interludes and posits the island as a distinctly experimental site for girls to navigate gendered behaviours, in order that they might question conservative social mores concerning female sexuality. It also argues for a critical perspective that reclaims women’s connection to nature by reconsidering the cultural construction of “woman” as one that is potentially transgressive within the narrative, and it schools young readers in finding pleasure in their own bodily, sexual desires.

scholarly journals Representations of Female Sexuality in Polish cinema after 1989

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Ostrowska
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Ideological Discourse ◽  
Representative Model ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Representation Of Sexuality

REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE SEXUALITY IN POLISH CINEMA AFTER 1989: LIBERATION OR COMMODIFICATION? IN CONSIDERING the issue of female sexuality in Polish cinema after 1989 it is necessary to locate it within the broader context of the Polish ideological discourse on femininity and the representation of sexuality in Polish cinema. First, it can be claimed that specific historical circumstances resulted in the domination of national issues over that of gender, and that gender roles were predominantly defined according to the demands of the national ideology of Polishness. The origins of the Polish dominant discourse on femininity can be found in the 19th century, particularly when the myth of the Polish Mother was created. (1) The analysis of representations of this myth in Polish art demonstrates strongly that they were based on the tradition of the representation of the Virgin Mary. Using this representative model inevitably led to a de-sexualization...

scholarly journals Piger på nettet. Repræsentationer af unge kvinders seksualitet i den digitale tidsalder

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (75) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Flanagan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Adolescent Female ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Adolescent Female Sexuality

“Girls Online. Representations of Adolescent Female Sexuality in the Digital Age”Media representations of social media and cyberspace often emphasise their negative social impact for adolescent girls. There is the potential, however, for virtual reality to function as a pro-feminist space that enables young women to form supportive, networked communities. A number of YA fictions published post-2005 adopt this type of representational paradigm and explicitly seek to construct a positive relationship between feminine subjectivity and digital technology.  This article will focus particularly on how three YA narratives – L8r, g8r (2007) by Lauren Myracle, Fangirl (2013) by Rainbow Rowell and the short story “Tumbling” (2014) by Susie Day – comment on the manner in which social media has affected the expression of female sexual desire in the digital age. These YA fictions provide young readers with progressive representations of adolescent female sexuality that acknowledge and validate female desire and also showcase the positive role that online social networks can play in nurturing unconventional and empowered expressions of female sexuality.

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