Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Lisa Simpson: A Feminist Icon

Yes, we all know who the Simpsons are. No, these cartoons are not made for children. But I grew up with them.

The Simpsons series tells the satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield; a family in which we find one of the most admirable and endearing characters, but also one of the most misunderstood and underestimated: Lisa Simpson.

Well, what can we say about this little eight-year-old girl? She is in favor of education and activism. When she cares about something and believes in it, she does not mind the others' opinions. She fights for it. However, sometimes her character does not get the merit she deserves because she is a cartoon. But for this reason, what I really want to talk about is Lisa's feminist side.

There are many examples throughout the series that make Lisa one of the best feminist role models that has been sitting under everyone’s nose for twenty-eight years. This is why some deserve to be analyzed:

  • Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy (what a parody of Barbie, huh?)

"Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act -- that they can never be more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband, and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband!"
In this episode, Lisa leads a protest against a talking doll which she believes is sexist. Some of Stacy's words were "Don't ask me, I'm just a girl", "I wish they taught shopping in school!" or "Let's bake some cookies for the boys!" (because this is what women are expected to do, isn't that right?). As a protest, Lisa creates a talking feminist doll, for which she records some lines such as "When I get married, I'm keeping my own name." Oh, no, that should probably be "If I choose to get married." Bravo!

  • Girls Just Want to Have Sums

 In this episode, Lisa makes it clear once again that she was not born to tolerate sexist comments such as "girls are bad at math just because of being girls" (what about the team of African-American women mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the US space program?). Springfield Elementary is divided into two separate schools (one for boys, one for girls) following Principal Skinner's demotion. Concerned that the boys are receiving a higher standard of education, Lisa disguises herself as a boy. But in the end, she reveals her true identity and proudly claims that she is glad she is a girl, and she is glad she is good at math.

  • Bart to the Future
"As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump. How bad is it Secretary Van Houten?"
"We're broke."
In this episode, The Simpsons predicted that Lisa would become the President of the United States after Trump. There is not much to say about this. Just as they "predicted" Trump's presidency, may this prediction come true too.

Three cheers for Lisa Simpson!

by Ana Álvarez Nogales
Sources:

· IMDb. (2017). The Simpsons (TV Series 1989– ). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/?ref_=nv_sr_2 [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· IMDb. (2017). Hidden Figures (2016). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340/?ref_=nv_sr_1 [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Huerta, H. (2015). 13 Times Lisa Simpson Was The Ultimate Feminist Icon. [online] MTV News. Available at: http://www.mtv.com/news/2140944/lisa-simpson-feminist/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Kenwrick, S. (2017). An ode to Lisa Simpson, everyone's first feminist role model. [online] The Tab UK. Available at: https://thetab.com/uk/2016/12/09/ode-lisa-simpson-original-27689 [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Knopsnyder, G. (2016). 5 Reasons Lisa Simpson Is A Feminist Icon. [online] Odyssey. Available at: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/5-reasons-lisa-simpson-feminist-icon [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Borth, M. (2013). 5 Moments From ‘The Simpsons’ That Prove Lisa Simpson Is A Feminist Badass. [online] Thought Catalog. Available at: http://thoughtcatalog.com/maddie-borth/2013/08/5-moments-from-the-simpsons-that-prove-lisa-simpson-is-a-feminist-badass/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Griffiths, M. (2017). Look, Lisa Simpson is Still My Feminist Hero and I Don’t Even Care. [online] CATALOGUE MAGAZINE. Available at: https://www.cataloguemagazine.com.au/feature/look-lisa-simpson-is-still-my-feminist-hero-and-i-dont-even-care [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Harris, G. (2015). Why Lisa Simpson Is An Awesome Feminist. [online] Politicsandprogress.wordpress.com. Available at: https://politicsandprogress.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/why-lisa-simpson-is-an-awesome-feminist/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Keysmash, H. (2014). Lisa Simpson: FEMINIST – KEYSMASH. [online] Keysmashblog.com. Available at: http://www.keysmashblog.com/lisa-simpson-feminist/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].
· Buchanan, D. (2014). 19 reasons why every woman should love Lisa Simpson. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11298541/Simpsons-25th-anniversary-Why-every-woman-should-love-Lisa.html [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Women in cinema. The feminine stereotype.

Cinema and television reinforce and legitimize all the types of women’s stereotypes.  Women are usually represented in minor and traditional roles and, doing it in a repetitive way, makes the audience see them as if they were clung to the past. So the audience sees women’s horizons limited by the same roles. But there are more and more directresses, so the women role is taking more importance, although the cinema still presents to the society a critical vision of women, either being dependent or obviously independent.

In cinema it’s hard to find films which treat the coeducation issue openly. As much, they take it for granted. This happens a lot in North American cinema: the audience always sees boys and girls together in the classrooms, especially teenagers ¾ except in the colleges of elite, in which discrimination is continuously supported.

The critical feminism opposite to the filmography does a critique to the patriarchal position in cinema and the repetition of static schemes, as the heteronormativity in the cinematographic narrative representations, apart from undertaking a questioning to a system structured by the feminine and masculine roles. These analyses underline the idea of the images and stereotypes that are assigned to the feminine characters, and highlight the binary game of positive versus negative representations: mother/prostitute, the bad girl/the good girl…

Cinema is for the most part controlled by men. Values like power, sex, violence or money turn out to be legitimized on the screen. We can distinguish between negotiable and consumable women. The first ones would be pure, while the second ones would be those who have only use value.


So, the main feminine roles, according to cinema, are:

• The wicked woman:
This representation of the woman stereotyped as the wicked one and the seductive versus the innocent one is reflected in the representation of the vamp woman in diverse movies. Bette Davis won the title of perverse in The Little Foxes (1941) of William Wyler, another example can be the ‘castrating mother’ of Psycho (1960).

• The woman who fulfills his social function:
The function that women fulfill in society; that is, the role of women and the construction of their representation in relation with a patriarchal system that classifies her in terms of their function in society: heterosexual, virgin, wife or mother.

• The woman object of desire or the ‘fetish woman’:
An "object of desire" that supports passively the active role of the man.

• The woman who looks for her prince:
This is the example of Snow White and other Disney Princesses. The girl’s end is usually successful, when she ends up with the man; or unsuccessful, when he cheats on her.

• The superhero woman:
She disputes the heroisms of the man, such as Katniss Everdeen in the recent cinema.

So, these are the different roles adopted by women in cinema. Which one would you say it is the most frequent?

María Negrillo Macarro


Sources:
Posted by at 1 comment:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)