GENDER & RACE IN NEW MEDIA & POPULAR CULTURE
A Gender Research Group Event
Research Beehive Room 2.20
Friday, 10 June 2011
1-1.10pm
OPENING REMARKS by Ashleigh Sawyer & Anne Graefer
1.10-2.40pm:
PANEL ONE: REPRESENTATIONS OF ETHNICITY IN POPULAR
CULUTRE AND NEW MEDIA
Chair: Lucy Gallagher
•
‘Conceptions of British national identity, citizenship, and gender in the ‘veil affair”’–
Nasar Meer , School of Arts and Social Sciences, Northumbria University
•
‘Identifying everyday Islam in Scotland: How Muslim women respond to their representations in
popular culture’ – Rahielah Ali, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle
University
•
‘Muslim women’s activism in the online space’ – Ashleigh Sawyer , School of Arts and Cultures,
Newcastle University
2.40-3pm:
TEA & COFFEE
3pm-4.30pm:
PANEL TWO: THE POLITICS OF COLOUR IN POPULAR CULTURE
Chair: Emma Short
•
‘Celebrity-Skin: The construction of whiteness in satirical celebrity gossip blogs’ Anne Graefer, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University
•
‘“Not quite/not black.” The depiction of black men and women in Bollywood’ –
Vedita Cowaloosur, Department of English and Comparative Studies, University Warwick
•
“White Goods?” Exploring the Intersections of Race, Masculinities and Sexualities in “Sexy”
Advertising’ – Steve Walls, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University
4.30-5.15pm:
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Chair: Monica Moreno Figueroa
5.15-6pm:
Wine Reception
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PANEL ONE: REPRESENTATIONS OF ETHNICITY IN POPULAR CULUTRE AND NEW
MEDIA
‘Conceptions of British national identity, citizenship, and gender in the “veil affair”’– Nasar Meer
This paper reports on a study of mediatised public discourses of British nationhood, citizenship, and
gender, to analyse the ways in which these accounts may be utilised in the cultivation of particular kinds of
social identities. We distinguish our approach at the outset from other lines of inquiry to report on a
macro level exploration of an event in which these value discourses were operative, namely the national
the press reaction to the former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s 2006 comments on
the Muslim veil or niqab. The paper traces and plots the interactions and intersections of completing but
overlapping accounts of nationhood, social cohesion and characterisations of the role of Muslim women.
It identities interdependent clusters of responses that illustrate the ways in which the veil remains a
‘contested signifier’ in contemporary social and political life, and how nationhood, citizenship, and
feminism can feature in these debates.
‘Identifying everyday Islam in Scotland: How Muslim women respond to their representations in
popular culture’ – Rahielah Ali
There is a tendency within popular discourse to see Muslim women as ‘passive victims of oppressive
cultures’ and as the ‘embodiment of a repressive and fundamentalist religion’ (Dwyer, 1998: 53). Muslim
women are assumed to be the victims of a patriarchal culture, marginalised by their partners and forced to
commit themselves to a life of housework and family care. Recognising the ways in which gendered
identities are constructed relationally, these problematic representations of Muslim women are often
reinforced by ideas about Muslim men which see them ‘constructed as militant and aggressive, intrinsically
fundamentalist ‘ultimate Others’ (Phoenix, 1997) (Archer, 2001, 81). As such, the typecast of aggressive
and domineering Muslim men reinforces the stereotype that Muslim women are marginalised and
oppressed. Few representations acknowledge the complex and everyday experiences of ‘ordinary’ Muslim
women, some of whom work to support their families, carry out community work and make conscious
decisions to engage in the public sphere throughout their lives. Indeed, such women often engage with
problematic gendered assumptions about their identities in sophisticated ways, challenging the
representation of their faith communities and engaging politically on an everyday basis. Taking from
qualitative interviews carried out during December 2009 and June 2010, this paper goes some way into
identifying the everyday Islam. The paper explores the responses Muslim women have to negative media
portrayal and ways in which they seek to remedy ‘us’ and them’ cultures through a variation of ways
including community engagement and subtle activisms.
‘Muslim women’s activism in the online space’ - Ashleigh Sawyer
In which ways do Muslim women utilise online space as a means of communicating (their) political and
social activism (points of view)? The objective of this paper is to map out the field of research that has
already been carried out with regards to Muslim women’s use of the internet as a domain of activism, self
expression and other. Arguably, to explore how private interests/ individual pursuits are being
communicated through the medium of social networking sites, discussion forums and various blogging
sites. This paper will focus on The Muslim Women's Network UK (MWN-UK) as a case study to discuss
this idea of the online space as one where social and political activism is rife for this organisation in
particular.
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PANEL TWO: THE POLITICS OF COLOUR IN POPULAR CULTURE
‘Celebrity-Skin: The construction of whiteness in satirical celebrity gossip blogs’ - Anne Graefer
The connection between stars and race, in particular whiteness, has long interested scholars in film and
cultural studies (Dyer, 1997; Redmond, 2007). Most of this work emphasizes that both terms are
connected through their paradoxical nature: both are simultaneously extraordinary and ordinary, present
and absent. Stars are (or have) something special, something inert or God given, which makes them
extraordinary. At the same time they are ‘just like us’: they go shopping, fall ill, get fat, become skinny and
go through times of crisis. Whiteness, as these scholars argue, is also ambiguous: it is constructed as
something ‘extraordinary’ which provides a number of privileges (McIntosh, 2004; Hunter 2004) while at
the same time, it is not visible as the ‘white race’ but as the ‘human race’. It is constructed as the
‘normalized or ordinary standard’ against which every other race is measured. In my paper I take ‘skin’ as
my point to departure to provide a more nuanced reading of whiteness in online representations. Skin, is
like stardom and whiteness ambiguous: it is inside and outside, confining the body while opening it up to
the world. Just like stardom and whiteness, it operates within an economy of (cultural) visibility/invisibility
and affect. And it is, just like stardom and whiteness, socially constructed and underlined with discourses
about ‘nature’. But primarily, it is paradoxically the heuristic device of skin which will make visible that
whiteness is not a matter of skin tone and only skin deep. Rather ‘whiteness’ is not a monolith category
and the effect of complex intersections of gendered, classed and sexualised discourses which are, due to
their constant repetition, saturated with different affects. I will demonstrate how a reading through the
skin allows us a more nuanced look at whiteness on the example of online representations in the celebrity
gossip blog dlisted.com.
‘“Not quite/not black.” The depiction of black men and women in Bollywood’ – Vedita
Cowaloosur
Discussions of race, perhaps due to the historical role of colonisation, almost invariably veer towards the
dichotomy between the “white” and the “coloured.” The layering in each of these categories is however
far more complex. Each category has its own sets of (unspoken, but internally assumed and accepted)
hierarchies. These are often transmitted and perpetuated via media and popular culture. Through literature
and other cultural artefacts, the then “jewel-in-the-crown,” India, for instance, still projects itself as the
first among equals among the other British ex-colonies. Using Indian cinema as my study, I will explore
the ways in which the Indians position themselves vis-a-vis the black race. From the mid-sixties, when
scriptwriters would not think twice about using the word “habshi”--literally, “slaves”--to describe a black
person in their film (such as the 1969 film, Intequam), to the more recent phenomenon such as the
inclusion of black background dancers in song sequences with film stars (Shahrukh Khan’s “Dard-eDisco” in Om Shanti Om, 2007) or the soliciting of iconic black musicians to play cameo roles, in order to
endorse the film on a larger scale (America rapper Snoop Dogg’s 3 minute song sequence in Singh is
Kinng, 2008, which was aired for the promotion of the film, pre and post release), Bollywood has indeed
come a long way in treating its coloured brethren. In my paper, I will explore the different stages of this
depiction over the past 5 decades, and analyse the causes and consequences of the change.
‘“White Goods?” Exploring the Intersections of Race, Masculinities and Sexualities in “Sexy”
Advertising’ – Steve Walls
Advertising and consumption remain prominent in the way that individuals form their own subjectivities
and objectify others. Particularly through the world of advertising, hierarchical social relations among
cultural groups are revealed in explicit and implicit ways. This paper seeks to open a dialogue regarding the
intersections of race, masculinities and sexualities in relation to specific advertising campaigns. Most
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notably, Eurocentric attitudes towards what is sexually alluring, attractive as well as ‘dangerous’ and ‘risky’
with regards to the male body will be explored. Theoretical focus will engage with advertising for male
fragrances and underwear to illustrate the continued dominance of stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes
towards the sexualities of racialised ‘others’. Examining the sexualised images of the male
models/celebrities in these contexts elaborates how the white/European male body remains the
hegemonic ideal when marketing associated products/lifestyles and becomes intimately tied to brand
image. Whereas the white/European male body may be increasingly represented through advertising in
sexually subversive ways, the bodies of racial ‘others’ remain somewhat fixed and ‘subordinated’ (Connell,
1995). When racial ‘others’ are represented in these contexts, they often fall into traditional/stereotypical
formats or become absorbed into the overall brand strategy (e.g. as ‘exotic’, ‘edgy’, ‘subversive’) thus
perpetuating their marginalised status and the process of ‘othering’. Opening discussion on these themes
will help to unravel and identify the complexity of such structural and discursive power relations and how
they may reflect ‘hidden injuries’ of advertising (Sennett and Cobb, 1973) as well as the ‘transtextuality’
(Diawara, 1998) or ‘flexibility’ (Adkins, 2000) of white/European male sexualities.
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