Girls, Women and Popular Culture

WS203Z Spring Session

Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo
Spring Term, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9 11:50 AM; Room: 3-106 (ALC)

Instructor: Lorraine Vander Hoef
Course Website: MyLS at Laurier
Email: MyLS preferred; alternatively lvanderhoef@wlu.ca
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:30 1:30 PM, R106M or by appointment
Office Phone: 519-884-1970 ext. 3625
(please leave phone messages with Faith McCord, WS Administrative Assistant)




Course Description:

From the New Woman of the 1890s, to the flappers of the roaring twenties, the city dame of the
noir period, the domestic divas of the fifties, the flower children of the sixties and the pop icons
of today, women have both participated in and been represented in popular culture. This course
will combine film with a variety of presentations and seminar discussion to analyze the ways in
which women are both oppressed and empowered by popular culture, as actors and movie-goers,
dramatic characters and readers, subjects of representation and artists, producers and consumers.

Learning Objectives:

This course is designed, first of all, to introduce you to the feminist study of popular culture.
You will have the opportunity to familiarize yourselves with several theoretical perspectives on
gender and to apply these theoretical lenses to aspects of our contemporary media and material
cultures. The second goal of this course is to prepare you to make clear, critical distinctions
within an interdisciplinary context, both orally and in writing, about the psychological, social,
and intellectual impacts of media and culture on the lives of women. In particular we will work
together to:
1. Engage in interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge that allow for both creative
synthesis of these various approaches and productive debates within the discipline.
Our feminist perspective is informed by literary approaches to narrative; film
criticism of advertising, film and television images; and cultural analysis of early
industrial and consumer culture, contemporary tween markets and the gendering of
post-modern consumer and religious identities relevant to the disciplines of English,
Film, Cultural and Communications Studies, as well as History, and Religion. Our
cultural analysis points us as well to productive debates on post-feminism and
distinctions between feminist and queer theory approaches to disidentification.
2. Conduct an analysis of gender in relationship to power that recognizes the
intersectionality of privilege and oppression rooted in race, class, age, ability, sexuality,
and ethnicity. Intersectionality theory is introduced in lecture and applied directly
to an analysis of gender and power in the Childrens Book Project, as well as in-class
writing assignments and online discussion board postings.
3. Locate feminist movements and their histories socially and politically. In lecture, we
contrast the New Woman and her feminist aspirations through the literary, and
particularly, magazine, culture, at the end of the nineteenth century to the maternal
feminism of this first-wave period. We then follow the cultural constructions of
femininity addressed by the social theories and political practices of second-wave
feminism in Joanne Hollows introductory chapters. Finally, through Hollows third
chapter and the lectures, we examine the concerns with gendered identities in the context
of third-wave, or contemporary feminist critiques of pop culture.
4. Comprehend key research methodologies, including historical, textual, qualitative, and
cultural analyses and in several instances be able to apply these research
methodologies to assignments. Historical method is introduced in our contextual
studies of the New Woman, the silent film star and the city dame to track social,
psychological and political difference in the formations of womens identities.
Students also learn to recognize textual methodologies and qualitative research in our
review of womens and girls reading cultures. Cultural analyses are highlighted in our
consideration of the social construction and performativity of gender in masculine spaces,
and female body experience in various media. Students learn to apply textual
methodologies to the formal structures of narratives and images, as well as a cultural
analysis to gender constructions in both their childrens books and the novel, Low-fat
Love.
5. Understand and be able to apply both historical and contemporary theories relevant
to feminist scholarship. We examine theories of spectatorship, including the male gaze
and female spectatorship; gender resistance and disidentification theories; classical
political theory and its relation to gender binaries; intersectionality theory; and literary
theory on intertextuality.
6. Be able to use feminist concepts, methodological skills, and theory to understand and
analyze both our own lives and the world around us for personal and professional
development. Students bring a critical feminist awareness through the novel study
to their own consumption of pop culture and media, on which they may also engage
with family and friends. Students also attend to the social and political
constructions of gender and develop resistive reading skills through the Childrens
Book Project, which are applicable to interpersonal relationships with younger
family members, or to a professional role as an educator. These critical and resistive
reading skills are also relevant to a human resource, management, advertising, and
legal, historical or political research or policy setting.
7. Develop self-reflexive understanding of the politics and ethics of knowledge
production, including the significance of social and political locations, and to be able
to identify the inevitable gaps and partiality of knowledge. The novel study
challenges students to recognize their social and political locations in light of their
own cultural consumption and participation in a shared interpretive community in
the on-line book chats. The debate on post-feminism points to the limits of feminist
cultural criticism in interpreting cultural forms of gender representation and
resistance.
8. Create critical arguments, communicated in a clear and concise manner with
particular attention to academic integrity in both oral and written projects,
individually and collaboratively. Our in-class debates, online discussion forums and on-
line book chats allow students to engage one another in oral and informal arguments to
develop an informed position or contribute to a group project. The childrens book
project is a creative and interactive approach to a research and writing assignment in
which students provide evidence of gender constructions in the form of a narrative
reconstruction or resistive reading of the text along with a critical analysis of the
dominant gender pattern(s) in the narrative. The short paper similarly involves a written
analysis of Leavys novel in the context of one course theme.
Learning Outcomes:

1. Be able to identify and recognize the three approaches to feminist cultural theory outlined
in Hollows text, and be able to relate them to their particular historical contexts.
2. Be able to discuss the four definitions of popular culture introduced by Hollows.
3. Be able to identify and recognize gender binaries in cultural expressions of gender.
4. Be able to discuss the empowering and limiting constructions of the femme fatale within
three distinct historical contexts.
5. Be able to apply feminist social construction theory to gendered aspects of our visual,
material and reading cultures, including advertising, the romance reading world,
teen/tween and childrens markets, masculine spaces, female body experience and the
music industry.
6. Be able to discuss feminist perspectives on consumption and pleasure, and their relation
to Marxist feminist criticism.
7. Be able to discuss and apply theories of spectatorship relevant to feminist film criticism.
8. Be able to discuss current post-feminist debates within the field of feminist cultural
theory and criticism.

Required Texts:

Joanne Hollows, Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2000.
Articles available online from the Laurier Library website
Patricia Leavy, Low-fat Love
One childrens picture book of your choice (excluding The Berenstain Bears Forget their
Manners by Stan and Jan Berenstain)



Recommended Texts:

Susan J. Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, New
York: Times Books, 1994.


Evaluation:

Participation: 15%
Movie Review: 20%
Childrens Book Project: 30%
Final Exam: 35%

Assignments:

MOVIE REVIEW: Movies continue to express and influence deep social, political and
intellectual assumptions about the lives and goals of women. For this assignment you will need
to rent/view a recent Disney movie, for example, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Brave,
Frozen, Maleficent or How to Train your Dragon 1or 2, and write a three-page, double-spaced
review for the movie after viewing it. Several of these recent films have been noted for their
progressive heroines. Your job will be to assess any feminist points of resistance in the film
and either recommend the movie to your audience or dissuade them from spending their money
on it! Has story/story-telling been used to interrupt or to reinforce patriarchal narratives,
particularly that of the romance? Does the film resist or depend on gender binaries. Briefly
summarize the movie, and then present a thesis that is supported in the remainder of your paper
with detailed evidence from the film, regarding plot, characterization and dialogue, production
strategies, the music and lyrics, etc.
It is not necessary to consult additional sources for this paper, but include full bibliographical
details on the film and the course materials you use. Be creative, thoughtful and clear about the
feminist issues raised by the film and the reasons for your assessment!

Please note that the MOVI E REVI EW is due in hardcopy at the beginning of class, and a
second electronic copy must be submitted to the MyLS Dropbox by 11:59 PM on the due date.




CHILDRENS BOOK PROJECT: The consumer and corporate worlds spend untold dollars
packaging many cultural assumptions for us about what women ought to be doing, how they
ought to look, and how they ought to conduct themselves. During the latter part of the term, we
will be considering womens lives in relation to consumer and material cultures. As feminist
social construction theorists have pointed out, we are already socialized from a very young age to
accept particular constructions of masculinity and femininity as normative, and to read past the
ways in which gender biases intersect with race, class, age, and other social and cultural patterns
of hierarchically organized difference.

This process of gender socialization is often clearly at work in childrens literature. For this
project then, you are asked to analyze a childrens picture book and thoroughly deconstruct its
gendered structures and assumptions by applying an intersectional analysis to the text. This
assignment involves two components.
A) You must first of all read and analyze the book and its relation to gender and other social
and cultural patterns of hierarchical difference, and then physically change its structure
in one of two ways.

1) You may choose to provide a NARRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION, in which you
change the pictures and the storyline to disrupt the problematic gender constructions
and create a retelling of the story.
2) Alternatively, you can create a RESISTIVE READING of the text, in which you
introduce reading strategies to disrupt both the visual and narrative gender
constructions. A resistive reading may take one of two forms:
a. You may take a pedagogical approach by offering parents and educators a
guide to resistive reading strategies for your book.
b. As a second option, you may choose to do a cultural jam on the book in which
you offer your own feminist criticism in a satirical commentary on the
narrative and images throughout the text.

B) The second component to the project involves a two-three-page, written analysis of the
book. Be sure to identify your project as either a narrative reconstruction or a particular
format of the resistive reading. You must provide a thesis statement that clearly
identifies the dominant or overarching themes and patterns relating to gender as it
intersects with further social and cultural categories in the text. Be sure that your
argument is supported with sufficient evidence from the findings you explored in the
book segment.

In addition to your assigned readings, the following articles from the Laurier Library website
may be helpful in your research:
Children and Family (from Ch. 3)
APA Congressional Testimony on Media Violence and Children
Karin A. Martin, Ch. 26, Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools
Growing Up Feminine or Masculine (from Ch. 4)

Please note that the book project and analysis is due in hardcopy at the beginning of class, and
a second electronic copy of the analysis must be submitted to the MyLS Dropbox prior to class.

ONLINE BOOK CHATS: During our consideration of Patricia Leavys novel, Low-fat Love,
you will be asked to participate in an online book chat on one of the following topics addressed
by the novel:

Consumption
Masculine Identities
Female Body Experience

Each group will address a set of questions relevant to the chosen topic and consider the role of
interpretive communities in womens cultures. The group discussion questions will be available
from the course website and contributions will be graded as part of your participation grade for
the course (4%).

EXAMINATION: The Final Examination will be held online through the MyLS course website
under the Quizzes tool during the exam period.

PARTICIPATION: You will have a range of options for earning your 15% participation grade.
Participation grades are assessed on the basis of the following contributions:
a) Attendance and assignments or exercises to be handed in during class
b) Online book chats (required)
c) Discussion board postings related to lecture topics
(1/2% for first post and 1/2% for each additional two posts)
d) Reading review quizzes on selected readings to be completed online through the Quizzes
tool. Reading review quizzes are due by midnight, Saturday of the week in which the
reading has been assigned on the syllabus, although they may be done in advance. No
late submissions will be accepted. A participation grade (1/2%) is assigned to each
reading quiz passed.
e) Online exercises as assigned in class and submitted through the Survey or Dropbox tools
(1%).

READING REVIEW EXERCISES AND BREADCRUMBS FROM THE LECTURES: These
questions to be found on the MyLS site are provided for study only and not for credit purposes.



LATE PENALTY: A late penalty will be assessed at 2% per school day, (excluding weekends
and holidays), on any assignment handed in after the due date. The assignments are due in hard
copy no later than the beginning of class to avoid a late penalty, with a second copy of the
written work to be submitted to the dropbox prior by 11:59 PM on the due dates. Extensions will
not be granted in the week prior to the due date, through email or by catching the instructor
before or after class. If you have a significant concern about a due date, you must come and
discuss it with me during my scheduled office hours. Papers that are late due to illness must be
accompanied by a doctors note.

ALL LATE ASSIGNMENTS WITHOUT EXCEPTION MUST BE SUBMITTED NO LATER
THAN 4:30 pm ON THE LAST DAY OF TERM, IF YOU WISH TO HAVE THEM
COUNTED TOWARDS YOUR FINAL COURSE GRADE.

Course Web-site: A course web-site will be available through My Learning Space and may be
accessed from the Laurier homepage to all those registered in the course. The course website
will allow you another avenue for class participation by posting about the lecture topics or
readings on the discussion boards and completing online exercises or review quizzes on the
readings. It will also provide you with a copy of the syllabus and hand-outs; allow you to view
the weeks assignments at a glance on the calendar; provide you with lecture outlines to print or
upload; give you a convenient communication tool for obtaining class notes; include online links
to applications discussed in class for your review; offer you a glossary to check definitions and
terms before an exam; and provide you with study and review questions in the Breadcrumbs
section.

E-mail: Please allow a maximum two-day turn around for responses to email enquiries. I ask
that you email me through MyLS when at all possible and not through Laurier groupwise email
unless necessary (when myls pages are down, for example). This allows me to access the
gradebook and course materials if necessary while answering your questions. Email is also not a
very useful forum for discussion, and is to be reserved for brief questions only. It is always in
your best interest not to use email as a substitute for seeing instructors during their office hours.

Missed Classes: It is the responsibility of the student to obtain lecture notes for all missed
classes. A student discussion board is provided on MyLS to allow students to request notes from
one another. Bear in mind that obtaining notes from a classmate is no substitute for your
presence in class, and each student should make every effort to attend lectures regularly.
Participation exercises and grades cannot be made up for missed classes except through
consultation on missed material during my office hours. Further opportunities for participation
are also offered online and in future classes.

Examination: Failure to write an examination in the scheduled period will result in a grade of
zero (0%) for the assessment. Make-up exams are not available without prior consent from the
instructor, medical documentation, or authorized deferment from the Dean of Arts office.
Students are responsible for keeping their passwords and computers secure. All examination and
quiz attempts made from your myls account will be processed as part of your final grade.

Mobile Device Policies: The use of laptops and other mobile devices in the classroom is to be
strictly reserved for note-taking purposes for this course. The use of mobile devices to web-
browse, check email, face-book, etc. is distracting to fellow students. Phones are to be turned off
and put away during class. Those in violation of these policies may receive a written warning
before being asked not to return to class with their devices. Persistent violations will be reflected
in a reduced participation grade for the course.

Plagiarism: Wilfrid Laurier University uses software that can check for plagiarism. You may be
required to submit your written work in electronic form and have it checked for plagiarism.
Conduct Policies: Students are expected to be aware of and abide by University regulations and
policies, as outlined in the current Undergraduate Calendar (the web version is the official
Calendar).
Laurier is committed to a culture of integrity within and beyond the classroom. This culture
values trustworthiness (i.e., honesty, integrity, reliability), fairness, caring, respect, responsibility
and citizenship. Together, we have a shared responsibility to uphold this culture in our academic
and nonacademic behaviour. The University has a defined policy with respect to academic
misconduct. You are responsible for familiarizing yourself with this policy and the penalty
guidelines, and are cautioned that in addition to failure in a course, a student may be suspended
or expelled from the University for academic misconduct and the offence may appear on his or
her transcript. The relevant policy can be found at Laurier's academic integrity website along
with resources to educate and support you in upholding a culture of integrity. Ignorance of
Lauriers academic misconduct policy is not a defense. Please see:
www.wlu.ca/academicintegrity for further information on these policies.
Students are to adhere to the Principles in the Use of Information Technology. These Principles
and resulting actions for breaches are stated in the current Undergraduate Calendar.
Privacy Policy: Students names may be divulged in the classroom, both orally and in written
form, to other members of the class. Students who are concerned about such disclosures should
contact the course instructor to identify whether there are any possible alternatives to such
disclosures.
Learning Accessibility Office: Students with disabilities or special needs are advised to contact
Laurier's Accessible Learning Office for information regarding its services and resources.
Students are encouraged to review the Calendar for information regarding all services available
on campus.


University Closures: If the university is shut down due to weather or health conditions, an
announcement will be posted on the university homepage. Please consult the announcement
board on the MyLS course website for instructions on how to proceed in the case of a prolonged
disruption to classes.



Course Outline:

Week One: Introduction
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Introduction to the Course, Readings, Assignments, Web-site, the ALC and each other
INTRODUCTORY EXERCISE: Disney Film Clips
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Feminism and Western Political Discourses on Citizenship: Binary Constructions of
Gender and Femininity
Intersections of Race, Class and Gender
Hybridity: Gender on the Global Market
Readings: Climbing the Great Wall of Feminism: Disneys Mulan, Henke (online)

Week Two: Women in Print and Film History
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Pandoras Legacy
The Femme Fatale: The New Woman, the Flapper and the City Dame
FILM CLIPS: Kiss Me Deadly (orig. 1955)
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Theorizing Pleasure, Desire and Romance/Love: Early Cinema, The Womans Film and
the T.V. Era (Mulvey, Rabinovitz, Doane, Douglas)
Definitions of Popular Culture (Hollows)
Readings: Hollows, Ch. 1, pp. 2-9; Ch. 2, pp. 19-33; Ch. 6, pp. 116-121.

Week Three: Feminist Film Criticism and Cultural Theory
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Feminist Movements: Images of Women, Woman as Image, and Images for
Women (Hollows)
EXERCISE: Theoretical Applications: Advertising; Childrens Literature and Websites
Readings: Hollows, Ch. 3, Film Studies and the Womans Film.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Male Gaze (Mulvey)
Female Spectatorship (Doane) and Theories of Gender Resistance (Williams, Stacey,
Mulvey, McRobbie)
Readings: Isabel Molina Guzman and Angharad N. Valdivia, Brain, Brow, and Booty;
Latina Iconicity in U.S. Popular Culture, (online); Begin reading Patricia Leavy, Low-
fat Love
MOVIE REVIEW IS DUE

Week Four: Gender and Consumption
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Theories of Consumption (Hollows, Fiske)
Emphasized Femininities and Advertising Agency?
FILM: Buying into Sexy
The Harlequin Empire and Romance Reading (Radway)



Girlhood: Tween and Teen Fiction (Blackford)
Readings: Hollows, Ch. 6, Consumption and Material Culture, p.112-116; 122-135;
Dove, Strategy One, Nancy Etcoff, and Susie Orbach, Only Two Percent of Women
Describe Themselves as Beautiful, Marie D. Smith, Decoding Victoria Secret, and
Debra Merskin, Lolita Lives! and John Fiske, Shopping for Pleasure (online)
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Hegemonic Masculinity and Resistances
FILM CLIPS: Tough Guise
Readings: Anneli Rufus, Marlboro Country: Advertising; Meterosexuals and
Bears; and Peter Hennen, Bear Bodies, Bear Masculinity (online); finish reading
Patricia Leavy, Low-fat Love

Week Five: Female Body Politics
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
ONLINE BOOK CHATS AND BOOK PROJECT WORKSHOP
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Constructing Womens Reproductive Lives
Motherhood: Mommyblogs and Interpretive Communities (Friedman)
The Female Body as a Canvas (Pitts)
Readings: The Multiply Transgressive Body of Anna Nicole Smith, Karen C. Pitcher,
(handout)

Week Six: Gender and Performance
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Pop and Punk Cultural Backgrounds
Mags and Zines
Gender as Performance (Butler)
EXERCISE: Gaga photo essay
MUSIC CLIPS: PINK, Gaga, Christina Aguillera, etc.
Readings: Charity Marsh, Reading Contemporary Bad Girls: The Transgressions and
Triumphs of Madonnas What It Feels Like for a Girl, and Riot Grrrl, Riot Grrrl
is (online)
CHILDRENS BOOK PROJECT IS DUE.



Thursday, August 14, 2014
Post-feminism (McRobbie)
Readings: Hollows, Ch. 9, Feminism in Popular Culture, pp. 190-7; and Susan J.
Douglas, Enlightened Sexism (online)
Term Review

ON-LINE FINAL EXAMINATION IS TO BE HELD DURING THE
UNIVERSITYS FINAL EXAM PERIOD. Students are required to be available for
final exams as scheduled and are advised not to make travel plans over this period.