NORMAL?

My younger brother and I took these pictures with my parents' apple computer. I think it is cool how much you can alter your physical appearance, and how easy it is to look completely different. We look at so many magazines and see "perfection", often without stopping to consider how the people in those magazines "really" look. I think this also goes along with the way we can now actually change our bodies through plastic surgery.

Jennifer Terry - Anxious Slippages between "Us" and "Them"

Selection from text:

"Hermaphroditism in an individual was the sign of a lagging evolutionary process because the lesser the distinction between masculine and feminine traits in any one person, the lower the individual on the evolutionary scale. Thus, individuals who displayed what were taken to be sexually ambiguous traits - whether these be anatomical or behavioral - were interpreted to be primitive and, most likely, degenerate. Conversely, progress was signified by a greater degree of sexual difference, or dimorphism, as well as procreative heterosexuality. Homosexual inverts, because they were seen as blurring the boundaries of gender - either as masculine women or effeminate men - were regarded as 'unfinished' specimens of stunted evolutionary growth, a status they shared with 'savages' and certain types of criminals" (Terry, 1995: 135).

My Response:

I chose these photos from People Magazine to show how prevalent gender is in the American society. Magazines such as People show the American public about the ideal couples, and what it means to be male and female. This may not be intentional, but it becomes the standard for what we consider to be "normal". It simply ignores those who are not "normal", whether anatomically or socially.This couple, on the other hand, attracts more attention. Why are they not shown in People Magazine?

Transgender Video

I think this video clip is interesting, because it has very emotional music playing along and really paints a sad or depressing picture of what life is like for a transgender individual. I think it further separates these people from the "normal" when they are portrayed in such a victimized way.

Sources:
Terry, Jennifer. 1995. Anxious Slippages between "Us" and "Them": A Brief History of the Scientific Search for Homosexual Bodies. In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture. Terry, Jennifer, and Jacqueline Urla, eds. Pp. 129-169. Bloomintgton: Indiana University Press.
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi
http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20045075_20049947,00.html?cid=hottestphoto-2
http://www.youtube.com/

bell hooks - Is Paris Burning?

Selection from text:

"For black males to take appearing in drag seriously, be they gay or straight, is to oppose a heterosexist representation of black manhood. Gender bending and blending on the part of black males has always been a critique of phallocentric masculinity in traditional black experience. Yet the subversive power of those images is radically altered when informed by a racialized fictional construction of the 'feminine' that suddenly makes the representation of whiteness as crucial to the experience of female impersonation as gender, that is to say when the idealized notion of the female/feminine is really a sexist idealization of white womanhood. This is brutally evident in Jennie Livingston's new film Paris is Burning. Within the world of the black gay drag ball culture, she depicts, the idea of womanness and femininity is totally personified by whiteness" (bell hooks, 1992: 147).

Video Clip of Young Girl - The Ignorance & Destructive Manifestation of White Supremacy
There are many things we can take from this video clip, especially the fact that this girl's parents are instilling concepts in her head about what her race is all about. She is not old enough to have developed these ideas on her own, but will now go through life with these things drilled into her memory. I think bell hooks would be appalled at what this girl's parents are teaching her, especially since they are not only saying that her race is inferior, but that her basic existence is inferior to that of a white girl's.


White America - clip from Paris is Burning
I found this clip on YouTube; it is a small piece from the film Paris is Burning. I think it is one of the most profound parts, and wanted to post it so that people can refer to it whenever they want. :)

Wikipedia "explanation" of the film
It was funny to me that a description of this films actually exists on Wikipedia. Sure, there are components of the film that are universally understood, but I do not see how it is possible to make such broad, generalized statements about a film that has so many complexities.

Sources:
bell hooks. 1992. "Is Paris Burning?" In Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End. Pp. 145-156.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi
http://wikipedia.org/

Judith Butler - Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion

Selection from text:

"To claim that all gender is like drag, or is drag, is to suggest that 'imitation' is at the heart of the heterosexual project and its gender binarisms, that drag is not a secondary imitation that presupposes a prior and original gender, but that hegemonic heterosexuality is itself a constant and repeated effort to imitate its own idealizations. That it must repeat this imitation, that it sets up pathologizing practices and normalizing sciences in order to produce and consecrate its own claim on originality and propriety, suggests that heterosexual performativity is beset by an anxiety that it can never fully overcome, that its effort to become its own idealizations can never be finally or fully achieved, and that it is consistently haunted by that domain of sexual possibility that must be excluded for heterosexualized gender to produce itself. In this sense, then, drag is subversive to the extend that it reflects on the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is itself produced and disputes heterosexuality's claim on naturalness and originality" (Butler, 1993: 125).I chose this picture because it shows two women who feel they must act like men in order to be successful. This is so interesting, because the gender ideals have so many layers and complexities. On one level, we have men dressing up as women; on another level we have women who feel inadequate in a man's world and act like men. I think it goes along with Butler's arguments about gender as a construction of our society. As we discussed in class, these classifications have very real, and often painful consequences. By categorizing and separating we set up a two-way classification system without taking into account those who do not fit.



Juliette's explanation
This is a video clip created by a person who wants to explain her situation to the world.

Sources:
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive LLimits of "Sex." New York: Routledge.
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi (Accessed August, 2007)
http://www.youtube.com/ (Accessed August, 2007)

John Kasson - Who Is the Perfect Man?

Selection from text:

"Thus, to his gradual transformation from sickly youth to strongman Sandow added a second, virtually instantaneous metamorphosis: from man of the crowd to marvel of muscle. This simultaneously placed Sandow in a class by himself and appealed to fantasies of self-transformation in boys and men, much as Clark Kent was to inspire later generations to dream of stripping off their street clothes and eyeglasses in a telephone booth and turning into Superman" (Kasson, 2001: 38).
My Response: Where do we draw the line between fit and overly muscular? If a man does not fit these standards, are they less of a man? John Kasson explains how Sandow dramatically altered the standards for the "perfect man". Both men shown above obviously have muscle definition. However, the one on the right has obviously done something to alter his natural state. I posted a picture of two male rowers above, doing something athletically challenging. Is a man perfect if he simply looks strong? Or does it go deeper...is a man more perfect if he actually uses that strength to accomplish a goal?

Sources:
Kasson, John F. 2001. Who is the Perfect Man? Eugene Sandow and a New Standard for America. In Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America. Pp. 21-76. New York: Hill and Wang.
http://www.abercrombie.com/anf/index.html (Accessed August, 2007)
http://www.row2k.com/ (Accessed July, 2007)
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi (Accessed August, 2007)

The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture

Selection from text:

"On the surface, at least, Barbie's strikingly thin body and the repression and self-discipline that it signifies would appear to contrast with her seemingly endless desire for consumption and self-transformation. And yet, as Susan Bordo has argued in regard to anorexia, these two phenomena - hyper-thin bodies and hyper-consumption - are very much linked in advanced capitalist economies that depend upon commodity excess. Regulating desire under such circumstances is a constant, ongoing problem that plays itself out on the body" (Urla, 1995: 298).


I included a photograph from the J.Crew website. First of all, the women shown on this website are all very thin. I think this is interesting, because it gives us the idea that only women who are extremely thin can wear these clothes. I also included a picture of a "Japanese Barbie" that I found on the internet. The article quoted above explains the transformation of the "fashion barbie" to all the other forms of modern Barbies that have developed over the past fifty years. However, this Japanese Barbie does not really look Japanese. In fact, it looks very similar to the original Barbie. The ad above is a mac makeup advertisement; it is interesting to me how she looks exactly like a Barbie doll.

Sources:
Urla, Jacqueline, and Alan C. Swedlund. 1995. The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling IDeals of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture. In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture. Terry, Jennifer, and Jacqueline Urla, eds. Pp. 277-313.
http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/category.jhtml?navAction=jump&id=cat210186 (August 2007)
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi (August 2007)

Susan Bordo - The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity

Selection from text:

"The symptomatology of these disorders reveals itself as textuality. Loss of mobility, loss of voice, inability to leave the home, feeding others while starving oneself, taking up space, and whittling down the space one's body takes up - all have symbolic meaning, all have political meaning under the varying rules governing the historical construction of gender. Working within this framework, we see that whether we look at hysteria, agarophobia, or anorexia, we find the body of the sufferer deeply inscribed with an ideological construction of femininity emblematic of the period in question. The construction, of course, is always homogenizing and normalizing, erasing racial, class and other differences and insisting that all women aspire to a coercive, standardized ideal. Strikingly, in these disorders the construction of femininity is written in disturbingly concrete, hyperbolic terms: exaggerated, extremely literal, at times virtually caricatured presentations of the ruling feminine mystique. The bodies of disordered women in this way offer themselves as an aggressively graphic text for the interpreter - a text that insists, actually demands, that it be read as a cultural statement, a statement about gender" (Bordo, 1993: 168-69).




Super skinny models/celebs

My Response:
I think this video clip summarizes just how skinny many models and celebrities have become. It is actually frightening, since their health obviously suffers. We have expectations about the way models/celebrities "should look", and what size their bodies should be. We want everyone to look the same, but this is not a possibility. We must account for the inevitable variation in human beings, since we are each different.

Weight Loss Video Made by a Mom
This video stands out to me, since it is done by a middle-aged woman looking to find her "original" body through exercise and diet. Doing things in moderation seems to be working for her, and she loses the weight. What stands out to me is that she actually posted this video on a public site...to be seen by anyone. I guess she is proud of her accomplishments, but it seemed sort of sad to me when I first saw it.


Sources:
Bordo, Susan. 1993. The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity. Pp. 165-184.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi