The Findings of “Keywords In Media Studies” & The Analysis of “Dear White People”
Keywords in Media Studies is a piece of media that helped me understand the main vocabulary that was used in this course and laid the foundation for the key concepts and theories that was touched on. This reading can be used as a stepping stool to gain a basic understanding of the concepts and theories, as well as how they are used in the world of media. Throughout the reading, “Keywords” such as feminism, gender, genre, identity, queer, and representation are broken down by scholars. During my critical cultural studies research and analysis, I will be touching on four of the concepts briefly and how it is portrayed in media.
The text begins with feminism, a social movement that has become a mass entity over several decades. Susan J. Douglas, the scholar that covers this section of the texts, starts by informing her audience of the first major feminist demonstration curated by television star, Robin Morgan, in 1968. Morgan organized busloads of women and gathered on the Atlantic City boardwalk, where they threw objects that represented their femininity into something they called the “Freedom Trash Can”. This demonstration was against the Miss America pageant, one of the highest rated television programs at the time that promoted sexist representation of women.
Betty Friedan exposed the mass media as the main source of this representation of women in The Feminine Mystique. It was at this point where women really began to buckle down on their misrepresentation. Douglas explains that feminist media studies were developed by feminist scholars and driven by sexism and discrimination against girls and when. Also, by the dismissive stereotypes of women in the media. She quotes, “society was structured, institutionally and ideologically, through the patriarchy — the domination of men over women.” However, feminist analysis of media today has allowed audiences to have a different perspective and look through the feminist eye.
(Ways of Seeing Ep.2 explaining the portrayal of the female nude/male gaze)
Identity is covered by scholar, Myria Georgiou, in this reading. She starts by stating that identity has depth, in which it can have many different meanings and ways of looking at it. Topics like ethnicity, nationality, social class, gender, sexuality, and religion all play a factor in a person’s identity. Georgiou explains that identity is associated with questions like “Who am I?” or even “Would I sacrifice for my community?” Erving Goffman argues this about identity, “In everyday life, it primarily relates to the presentation of the self to others: identity is no less than an ordinary performance”. In the past years, one of the bigger identities covered in media is queer and those of the LGBTQ+ community, which goes into the next “keyword”, queer. Queer media has been on the rise for a while now, but have just recently been given the proper representation (as we will speak on in a few) that they wanted. Queer is a pillar in the LGBTQ+ community. Queer media and its emergence has expanded the range of media from the normality’s set on society. We are seeing media become more inclusive and more aware of the world around, instead of being tunnel visional and ignorant. We have also learned that queer media can’t be produced without a queer point of view and is a representative of the community.
At the end of the day, all of these theories and concepts trickle down in the category of representation. Lisa Henderson, scholar of the representation section of the reading, explains that the way people communicate is through symbols, like words or images. These words or images stand for something, “stand for” is what scholars call representation. Symbolic representation is a much broader practice of “standing for” throughout media. Representation is a key component in media studies. Feminism coincides with representation because this is a movement where women are fighting for how they are perceived by the world. Identity play a factor in representation because individual or groups of certain identities want to also be represented, as well as being presented how they see themselves and not how other perceive them through stereotypes. Queer, being an identity, wants more representation throughout media. To sum it all up, all of these “keywords” from the reading, Keywords in Media Studies, are all involved with one another in many ways.
The series, “Dear White People”, focuses on the Black population of a prestigious PWI institute. Throughout the series you are introduced to the main characters who are Black students at the university and you follow them on their journeys and conflicts at the school. The show is called “Dear White People” because one of the main characters, Sam, host a radio show on campus where she calls out the university and its predominately white students on uncalled for experiences that her peers and herself have experienced on campus or things white people should take into consideration in general. She starts each show with “Dear White People….” Yes, my explanation of the show makes it sounds like a show focused on the social justice of Black people. However, it is that and many more. The show also focuses on topics such as identity, feminism, queer theory, sexuality, and masculinity within the black community. In fact, some of the character’s character development relies on these topics and that is what I would like to dive into during this analysis.
Let’s talk about “Dear White People” and its demonstration of feminism in the black woman community. The show has many demonstrations of black women that represent different forms of the black woman. You have Sam who is the revolutionary, Coco represents the black girl who grew up in high class, white suburbia, Joelle represents the all-around “strong black woman” stereotype, and Kelsey represents the highly femme lesbian black woman. Although each woman may take up different personas of black women they encounter a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw that was made to describe the different frame of feminism that minorities face, called intersectionality. Through intersectionality you are not only able to see the pressure put on these black women because of their gender but because of their race. The pressure adds on based on their persona. For example, Kelsey has to deal with the pressure of being a woman, black, and lesbian. Or even Sam being a black woman, a mixed black woman (Her mom is black and father is white), and dealing with the fear of not being black enough.
The series also dives into a handful of identities. One of the most prominent being the identity of the character Lionel or shall I say the finding of his identity. I say this because as you go through the first two seasons of “Dear White People”, one of the character plots is Lionel finding his true identity. In his journey, he finds himself moving into the identity of a gay black man. He slowly begins to be comfortable in his skin. As a new member of the queer community, Lionel is set on to this journey. In Michael Cuby’s article, “Dear White People’s Lionel Is Showing the World How Gay Culture Works”, Cuby describes Lionel as seeing everything with fresh eyes and because of this he is an ideal audience surrogate. Through Lionel we are able to fully experience the queer community at Winchester.
Now let’s tap into Kelsey’s character, who is lesbian is identified as queer femme by Sesali Bowen in her article “Why This Dear White People Lesbian Narrative is So Important”. It wasn’t until season two that Kelsey’s character verbally told us she was lesbian, but because of her femme presentation her friend Coco was unable to grasp this. Bowen made a great point that lesbians are expected to “present” themselves to the world. Meaning that they are supposed to abide by the lesbian stereotype of the baggy clothes, short hair, and masculine characteristics. Kelsey plays a role in expressing that femmes have to go through a lot more just to prove their identity.
Finally, moving on to representation in “Dear White People”. This is the main reason I love this show. Not only does this series bring social injustices to the platform, it brings a full representation of many identities within the black community. Watching the series, you will notice that not one of the black characters are the same. Each character portrays a certain identity with in the black community. In a “Dear White People” Directors’ interview on intersectionality and finding yourself, Justin Simien, creator of “Dear White People” talks about intersectional frame of the black community as a whole. He says you can be black and many other things, this is what he wanted to represent through “Dear White People”. He wanted to show that the black community has depth. One last thing I would like to point out is that the cast of directors of the series is also an example of the strong representation of the show. The cast of directors include feminist writers, black directors, and also queer directors. Their input means the most because it’s authentic and its critiqued by individuals who live the life.
