Well, the midterm is now done, but the thing is after studying it I am starting to relate EVERYTHING I see to all the content in class. Every word I use, or random things I see relate to class; people think I'm crazy when I am telling them about the feminist theories I've learnt in 320. It has been a long time since I have picked up some good quality mind garbage such as Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and the likes. I usually ignore that kind of 'opressive' garbage, however yesterday while in cue, I can't handle being idle so I, as directed by Fiske in Popular Culture, picked up the mass cultural product and created my own pop culture.
I sat in an unexplainable dumb-founded awe and disgust trying to relate the theory we've learned in class to the magazine pop culture. Cosmopolitan messes with my mind in so many ways as a Feminist. Going along with "feminist" ideologies I shouldn't be picking up this mind garbage, but rather I should be reappropriating, refunctioning (Kipnis), disarticulating the Cosmopolitan and rearticulating to challenge that hegemony. What screws around with me the most is that Cosmopolitan is woman driven in its reading audience AND production. On that note, I think the big question is, WHO is screwing with us? Althusser says it is an interaction of the elite and the base, however in the last instance the base will have the last call. It's this weird cyclical .....'fuck': we, women, can't stop screwing ourselves!
How to rearticulate Cosmopolitan and make a radical interruption? I already talked to the service individual I was waiting in line for about this craziness!!! - interrupted his day, but I am sure he learned a great deal of what I have learned in this class. But to fully use what is avaialable to us to make an interruption (Rhodes & Kipnis) I should rearticulate Cosmopolitan in my zine. However is that radical enough?? A zine (like a magazine) will use the hegemonic structure to throw something back in its face but how.......to rearticulate the content? It is hard to rearticulate half naked freaks of nature (yes, freaks of nature because not everyone is 6 feet tall and 115lbs). It is hard to think of radical ways (or maybe I am not creative enough), but we aren't taught to think 'outside' of the box all the time. I cannot just put scantily clad women in my zine and wite about how horrible it is, that's not radical enough although I am rearticulating hegemony. I am in conflict with myself over this stuff and it's driving me crazy. I have to be doing a multitude of things as a feminist to challenge the hegemony:
1. Don't ignore Cosmopolitan
2. Rearticulate Cosmopolitan
3. Refunction Cosmopolitan
4. Reuse what is given to you
5. significantly reflect
6,7,8...................nth number
The list goes on, and each point I have to ask "how am I going to do this", and its crazy because each time I have an answer on how to rearticulate, refunction and make an interruption, it conflicts with something else and I don't think it is effective in use any more. AH!!!!!!!!!! - or is this just anotoher manifestation of my obsession with perfection as Baudrillard asserts?
Well, at least the individual who was providing the service at the end of the line knows about this now, and maybe he'll make an interruption somewhere else? Who knows any more.
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Hey Puddle Jumper,
While in the never ending lineup at Wal-Mart this weekend I too picked up the November edition of Cosmo and thought, “who the hell reads this shit?” After I got past the fashion “freaks of nature” and onto the 500 tantric and impossible sex tips (I just don’t bend that way), making my sex life appear G rated and completely pathetic, I could not help feeling utterly assaulted by the mass cultural bullshit presented before me. As the cue inched forward, I closed the magazine and in putting it back on the shelf turned the cover away from the next unsuspecting Wal-Mart customer. While my small action of revolt did little to stop the mass production of artificial feminine norms, it was but one small instance of retaliation-take that Cosmo! Maybe the next woman would opt for another magazine or none at all? I did my part, however insignificant, to make a difference and maybe, just maybe if all women could turn the cover and refuse to pick up the next edition of Cosmo a collective discontinued participation in “walking nihilism” would occur, and instead a positive and realistic conceptualization of femininity created.
Kelly Mac.
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