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Fall 2011
English 398/598
Feminist Media Studies
Class Meeting: W 6:30-9:20 pm
Dr. Suzanne Leonard
Room: L004
Email: suzanne.leonard@simmons.edu
Office: C301D Phone: (617) 521-2544
Office Hours: Wednesday 12:00–1:30, Thursday 1:30-3:00 or by appointment
Course Description : Welcome to Feminist Media Studies. This class will take as its starting point the observation that the discipline of American feminist media studies is closely related to the goals and objectives of the second wave women’s movement. In the mid-1970s, an era in which women were drawing attention to their position within various domestic, political, and cultural spheres, feminist media scholars began questioning women’s participation in, and representation by, various media industries, particularly film and television. During this period, feminist theorists attempted to both critique and recreate media forms—they analyzed the way media positions women, investigated how female audiences consume various mediums, and urged women to take active roles in producing media texts that reflected their lives and experiences. Our study of feminist media theory will account for all of these, and we will focus on both the origins of the discipline and its contemporary applications.
This course is organized around a number of tropes and genres that have been useful in organizing the field, but it is not strictly chronological. Instead, the structure is designed to explore how different thematic strains alter and change according to their historical contexts: for instance, studying the “unruly woman” in American culture offers a way to showcase housewives rebelling against domesticity in the 1950s and 1960s, examine classed portrayals of the struggles of working class families in the 1980s, and finally to see how this figure is disciplined in postfemnist representations which temper unruliness into a search for love.
This course is designed to introduce you to the field of feminist media studies and to equip you to better analyze contemporary events and discourses in American media culture; assignments are created with these goals in mind. Please note: this course is both reading and writing intensive.
Goals for the Class
Students who take English 398/598 should come away from the class with:
1.
An understanding of the origins of feminist media studies including its early reliance on theories of representation, audience, and spectatorship, and its insistence on the relationship between theory and feminist practice.
2.
The ability to analyze film, television, and other media texts from a feminist perspective, including, but not limited to, conversations about gender stereotyping, the gaze, spectatorship, race and ethnicity, and sexuality.
3.
Familiarity with key debates and canonical texts in the field of feminist media studies.

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Cognizance of how the development of critical race theory, queer theory, reception theory, cultural studies, and postfeminism have shifted the field of
American feminist media studies in the contemporary era.
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The ability to apply foundational concepts of feminist media studies to contemporary texts, debates, and controversies in American culture.
Required Textbooks
The Gender and Media Reader, ed. Mary Celeste Kearney. Routledge, 2012. [Referred to as GMR ]
Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader , 2 nd
Edition, Ed. Charoltte Brunsdon and Lynn
Spigel. Oxford: Open University Press, 2008. [Referred to as FTC ]
Dow, Bonnie. Prime Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s
Movement Since 1970 . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
Additional articles are available in a few different ways. Articles available on our eLearning site will be referred to as eLearning . Articles available online through electronic library reserves are referred to as Library eReserve, and can be downloaded from there. The password to access the library website is “film.”
Course Requirements and Grading
1.
Short Weekly Responses (50%)
2.
Feminism Online Assignment (15%)
3.
Final Paper (30%)
4.
Attendance and Participation (5%)
Description of Weekly Responses/Discussion Questions (8 papers total)
Each week, you will be responsible for writing a brief (roughly two page) response to the materials for the week. You may write about the readings, the media materials, or both.
These are short papers, meant to give you an opportunity to better understand the contribution that an individual theorist or work is making to the field. I would recommend focusing on a particular term or concept introduced in the readings, responding to it, and, if applicable, applying it to the week’s media texts . While these are response papers rather than summaries, be sure that you nevertheless quote the readings you are referring to, and explain how you interpret these ideas. At the end of your paper, please include at least one discussion question that you would like to see taken up in class this week. (I will use these as fodder for our conversations.)
Weekly responses are due by 12:00 noon on the Tuesday before Wednesday’s class.
These responses may be emailed to me. Please note: you must complete 8 responses in total, which means that you may elect to skip three. I recommend, however, that you do not skip the earliest ones, as they are good practice for the type of thinking we will do in this class. Responses will be commented on but not graded individually. At the end of the semester, I will assess your work holistically and assign you a grade based on the body of

3 your work. Please save these papers so that you can hand them in as a group at the conclusion of the semester.
Feminism Online Assignment
This assignment is designed to help you apply your knowledge of feminist media studies to contemporary online culture. You will be following a website/discussion forum/blog for a period of about a month, and writing an analysis of it. This assignment is detailed on a separate assignment sheet.
Final Papers
As you consider your final paper topic, keep in mind that you will need to develop an argument that can be sustained over a significant number of pages. There are a number of different approaches you might take to this subject. For instance, you might focus on a specific film or television text, star, director/showrunner, or a particular theory or body of critical scholarship. Whatever you choose, you will want to demonstrate that you have a command of how feminist media theorists have (or would) approach this subject, and that you have a particular position to advance as well. Papers will be evaluated on the basis of originality, the scope of the research, and the clarity and coherence of the writing.
Please note: you will also be doing a brief presentation about your final paper on the last day of class, December 7, 2011 .
Final Paper Proposal with Brief Annotated Bibliography
To help you prepare to write your final paper, you will be submitting a one page proposal outlining what texts you will focus on and what you plan to argue. In addition to the one page description, you should also attach a brief annotated bibliography of key critical works. The annotated bibliography should include a brief summary of the author’s argument and an indication of why you think this argument will be useful. (You are not bound to use these works in your final paper, but you should begin thinking about which theories and theorists will be of particular value to your argument.) I am also happy to suggest additional articles or books, so feel free to consult me for ideas.
Length Requirements
Undergraduate Students: Annotated Bibliography of Three Critical Works
Final Paper 10-12 pages
Graduate Students: Annotated Bibliography of Five Critical Works
Final Paper 15-18 pages
Media Availability and Viewing
All of the films and television shows assigned for this class are available through the
Simmons College Library or online. Please note: the films and television shows are a required part of this class .
To access the library copies, go to the main circulation desk in the Beatley Library. Then, go to the Media Viewing and Listening Room, where you can watch it at an A/V station. Alternatively, you can take materials to any of the work stations in the Library and Information Commons. (Headphones can be checked out at the
Technology Desk.) Finally, most (but not all) of the films and television shows should be available from Netflix or in streaming capacities.

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Class Attendance
Because this course includes a great deal of in-class work, including the screening of short videos, films, and television shows, attendance is absolutely mandatory. Students are allowed a maximum of two absences. (All absences, however, will be factored into your attendance and participation grade.) Also, please note: if you miss three or more classes, you will automatically fail this course. Students who are more than 10 minutes late to any scheduled class period will be counted absent for the day.
Class Participation
You are both encouraged and expected to participate in classroom discussion, and you should come to class ready to discuss the assigned readings and films. I encourage you to initiate debate, offer comments, and speak what is on your mind. Please be mindful that participation and attendance is worth 5% of your final grade.
Office Hours
I will be in my office (C301D) on Wednesdays from 12:00-1:30, and on Thursdays from
1:30-30. Please feel free to come and talk to me about the class, course materials, or any other questions you might have. I am also available for scheduled appointments on other days, and I check my email regularly.
Email Policy : I check my email often, and during the week, you can expect a response to an email within 24 hours. Emails sent after 5:00 pm on Friday will be responded to on
Monday.
Syllabus Policy: This syllabus is not a contract. Although the syllabus is not likely to change, I reserve the right to alter the course requirements and/or assignments based on new materials, class discussions, or other legitimate pedagogical objectives.
Special Accommodations
If you need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, please contact me privately at the beginning of the semester to discuss your specific needs. If you are seeking such accommodations, you should also obtain a Student Academic
Accommodation Request (SAAR) form from the Disability Services (DS) office
(617-521-2474). Disability Services (DS) office is located on the third floor of the Palace
Road Building, Suite P304.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is when you copy someone else’s work and pass it off as your own. This is in violation of university policy and absolutely unacceptable, both in the academic community and in the world at large. When you make use of someone else’s ideas or language, you need to cite him or her using an appropriate footnote or in-text citation.
Similarly, if you quote a source directly, or if you summarize or paraphrase, you also need to use a citation. If you are at all unclear about this policy or whether or not you are plagiarizing, please ask me for help.

Schedule of Readings and Viewings (Readings Due on the Day Listed, Films and
Television Shows Should be Seen by Class Time)
Week One: First Impressions: Where is Feminist Media Studies Today?
W 9/14
Susan Faludi, “Feminism’s Ritual Matricide,” http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/10/0083140
Nancy Bauer, “Lady Power” http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/lady-power/
Proctor, Branch, and Kristjansson-Nelson, “Woman with the Movie
Camera Redux” http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/womenProdnClass/index.html
Recommended: http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/684905/you-and-ilive.jhtml#id=1668980
Week Two: Backgrounds to Feminist Film Theory: Psychoanalytic Theories, the
Gaze, and the Female Body
Film for the Week: Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
W 9/21 Sigmund Freud, “Fetishism” (Library eReserve)
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (GMR, 59)
Tania Modleski, “Femininity by Design:
Vertigo
” (Library eReserve)
In class clips: Peeping Tom; Dance, Girl, Dance ; Mad Men Clip at: http://criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/MadMenWomenW hoLookBackComp.mov/view?searchterm=feminism
Week Three: Backgrounds to Feminist Television Studies: Women as Television
Consumers
TV for the Week: “Just a Housewife”, The Donna Reed Show , 1960
Access at: http://www.hulu.com/watch/147738/the-donna-reed-show-just-a-housewife#sp1-so-i0
Film for the Week: Nurse Betty (LaBute, 2001)
W 9/28
Marsha Cassidy, “Sob Stories, Merriment, and Surprises: The 1950s
Audience Participation Show on Network Television and Women's
Daytime Reception” (FTC, 320-340)
Lynn Spigel, “Women’s Work” (eLearning)
Tania Modleski, “The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas,”
(FTC, 29-40)
Annette Kuhn, “Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory”
(GMR, 593-599)
Recommended for Graduate Students : Marybeth Harolovich, “Sitcoms and Suburbs: Positioning the 1950s Housewife” (eLearning)
In Class: Be Prepared to Share Your Selection for the Feminism Online Assignment
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********Special Film Event on Thursday September 29, 7:00 pm, C103*********
Screening of Night Catches Us (2010) and Q&A with the Director Tanya Hamilton
Week Four: Unruly Women on Film: Histories and Contexts
Film for the Week: Queen Christina ( Mamoulian, 1933)
W 10/5
Linda Williams, “Gender, Genre, and Excess” (GMR, 480-490)
Andrea Weiss, “A Queer Feeling When I Look at You: Hollywood Stars and Lesbian Spectatorship in the 1930s” (Library eReserve)
Jane Gaines, “The Queen Christina Tie-Ups: Convergence of Show
Window and Screen” (eLearning)
In Class: Clips from Morocco, Christopher Strong, Ilusions
Week Five: Unruly Women on Television: Histories and Contexts
TV for the Week: “Job Switching,” I Love Lucy , 1952
Access at: http://www.tv.com/video/10529744/i-love-lucy--job-switching
“Mother Meet What’s His Name,
Bewitched , 1964
Access at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYn3iobKZFA
W 10/12
Patricia Mellancamp, “Situation Comedy, Feminism, and Freud:
Discourses of Gracie and Lucy” (library eReserve)
D’Acci, “Defining Women: The Case of
Cagney and Lacey
” (GMR, 67-
85)
Kathleen Rowe, “Roseanne: The Unruly Woman as Domestic Goddess”
(eLearning)
In Class: I Dream of Jeannie , Roseanne
Week Six: Focus on Genre: Documentary Form as a Political Exercise
Film for the Week: The Watermelon Woman (Dunye, 1996)
W 10/19 bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” (GMR,
600-609)
Lesage, Julia. “The Political Aesthetics of the Feminist Documentary
Film” (Library eReserve)
Michelle Citron, “Women’s Film Production: Going Mainstream” (GMR,
170-181)
Catherine Zimmer, “Histories of the Watermelon Woman: Reflexivity
Between Gender and Race” (eLearning)
In Class Screening: Joyce at 34 (Chopra, 1973)
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Week Seven: Focus on Genre: Screwball Comedy
Film for the Week: It Happened One Night (Capra, 1934)
Recommended: His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)
W 10/26
David Shumway, “Screwball
Comedies: Constructing Romance,
Mystifying Marriage” (Library eReserve)
Kathleen Rowe, “Romantic Comedy and the Unruly Virgin in Classical
Hollywood Cinema” (eLearning)
Tamar Jeffers MacDonald, “Screwball Comedies” (eLearning)
In Class: Clips from His Girl Friday ,
Adam’s Rib
Week Eight: Focus on Genre: Reading Romantic Comedy Against Film History
(aka, The Rise of the Chick Flick)
Film for the Week:
Bridget Jones’ Diary
(Maguire, 2001)
W 11/2 Roberta Garrett, Chapter Three, “Romantic Comedy and Female
Spectatorship” (eLearning)
Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, “Chick Flicks and Chick Culture”
(eLearning)
Maureen Turim, “Women’s Films: Comedy, Drama, Romance”
(eLearning)
Karen Hollinger, “Once I Got Beyond the Name Chick Flick” (eLearning)
Recommended: Shelly Cobb, “I’m Nothing Like You! Postfeminist
Generationalism and Female Stardom in the Contemporary Chick Flick”
(eLearning)
Week Nine: Questions of Visibility Past and Present: From Lesbian Cinema to The
L Word
Film for the Week: Desert Hearts (Deitch, 1985)
11/9
Karen Hollinger, “Theorizing Mainstream Female Spectatorship: The
Case of the Popular Lesbian Film” (Library eReserve)
Ann Ciasullo, Making Her (In)visible: Cultural Representations of
Lesbianism and the Lesbian Body in the 1990s (GMR, 329-343)
Doty, “There’s Something Queer Here” (GMR, 610-622)
Dow, “Ellen, Television, and the Politics of Gay and Lesbian Visibility
(FTC, 93-110)
Susan Wolf and Lee Ann Roripaugh, The (In)visible Lesbian: Anxieties of Representation in The L Word ” (FTC, 211-218)
In Class: The L Word
Feminism Online Assignment Due (be prepared to speak about your findings briefly in class)

Week Ten: Working Girls in a Feminist Age
Film for the Week: Nine to Five (Higgins, 1980)
W 11/16 Dow, Prime-Time Feminism
In Class:
, Introduction, and Chapters 1-2
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (pilot)
Final Paper Proposal Due in Class
W 11/23 No Class --- Thanksgiving Break
Week Eleven: Working Girls in a Postfeminist Age
Film for the Week: Working Girl (Nichols, 1988)
Recommended: The Devil Wears Prada (Frankel, 2006)
W 11/30 Dow, Chapters 3, 4, and Afterword
Brunsdon, Charlotte, “Postfeminism and Shopping Films” (eLearning )
Jane Arthurs, “
Sex and the City and Consumer Culture: Remediating
Postfeminist Drama” (FTC, 41-56)
Boyle, Feminism Without Men (FTC, 174-190)
Rosalind Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of Sensibility”
(GMR, 136-148)
In class: clips from Sex and the City: The Movie ; Elisa Kresinger’s Queer
Carrie project
Week Twelve: Last Week Wrap Up
12/7 Final Paper Presentations
Final Papers Due on Wednesday, December 14 by 4:00 pm.
Citations for additional articles
Freud, Sigmund. “Fetishism.”
The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud . Ed. James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1961.
Gaines, Jane. “The Queen Christina Tie-Ups: Convergence of Show Window and
Screen.”
Quarterly Review of Film and Video . 11 (1989): 35-60.
Garrett, Roberta. “Romantic Comedy and Female Spectatorship.” Postmodern Chick
Flicks: The Return of the Women’s Film
. Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan,
2007. 92-125.
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Haralovich, Mary Beth. “Sitcoms and Suburbs: Positioning the 1950s Homemaker.”
Quarterly Review of Film and Video . 11 (1989) 61-83.
Hollinger, Karen. “Theorizing Mainstream Female Spectatorship: The Case of the
Popular Lesbian Film.”
Cinema Journal 37.2 (Winter 1998): 3-17.
Lesage, Julia. “The Political Aesthetics of the Feminist Documentary Film.” Ed. Patricia
Erens. Issues in Feminist Film Criticism . Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990. 222-237.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. “Screwball Comedies.”
Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl
Meets Genre . London: Wallflower, 2007. 18-37.
Mellancamp, Patricia. “Situation Comedy, Feminism, and Freud: Discourses of Gracie and Lucy.” Brunsdon, Charlotte, Julie D’Acci, and Lynn Spigel.
Feminist Television
Criticism, A Reader. First Edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. 60-73.
Modleski, Tania. “Femininity By Design:
Vertigo
.”
The Women Who Knew Too Much:
Hitchcock and Feminist Theory . New York: Routledge, 1988. 73-85.
Rowe, Kathleen. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter . Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1995.
Shumway, David. “Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage”
Cinema Journal 30.4 (Summer 1991): 7-23.
Spigel, Lynn. “Women’s Work.”
Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in
Postwar America . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. 73-98.
Weiss, Andrea. “A Queer Feeling When I Look at You: Hollywood Stars and Lesbian
Spectatorship in the 1930s.” Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film . New York:
Penguin, 1992. 30-50.
Zimmer, Catherine. “Histories of The Watermelon Woman: Reflexivity Between Race and Gender”.
Camera Obscura . 23.2 (2008): 41-66.
Books on Reserve at the Library
Abbott, Stacey and Deborah Jermyn. Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in
Contemporary Cinema . London: IB Tauris, 2009.
Brunsdon, Charlotte, Julie D’Acci, and Lynn Spigel.
Feminist Television Criticism, A
Reader. First Edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.
Deleyto, Celestino. The Secret Life of Romantic Comedy . Manchester, England: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2009.
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Doane, Mary Ann, Patricia Mellencamp, and Linda Williams. Re-vision: Essays in
Feminist Film Criticism . Frederick, MD : University Publications of America, 1984.
Erens, Patricia. Issues in Feminist Film Criticism . Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.
Ferriss, Suzanne and Mallory Young. Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies .
New York: Routledge, 2008.
Garrett, Roberta. Postmodern Chick Flicks . Palgrave, Macmillan, Houndsmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2007.
Spigel, Lynn. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America .
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Waters, Melanie. Women on Screen: Feminism and Femininity in Visual Culture . Ed.
Melanie Waters. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2011.