Redefinition of “Choice”:

A Comprehensive Book Review on

Andi Zeisler’s Feminism and Pop Culture

Media Criticism: Approaches and Practices

COM531M – Mr. Elvin Valerio

Master of Arts in Communication: Applied Media Studies

College of Liberal Arts, DLSU

Submitted by:

Sofia Mae D. Costales

24 October 2017
 Pop Cultureholics Will Love This Book

Andi Zeisler describes herself as a “pop cultureholic” – someone who subscribes to a bunch

of magazines and newsletters, buys music and movies in forms of CDs and DVDs, owns a lot of

books and encyclopedias stacked in a shelf, listens to a significant amount of podcasts, reads online

web blogs and keeps up with daily news and TV series. Pop culture, as she states in her book

Feminism and Pop Culture, is a platform which represents women and other social movements

altogether. As a co-founder and creative director of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Andi

uses the context of feminism as a viewfinder for us to look into the constantly evolving realm of pop

culture (ranging from movies, music, advertisements, television shows, books, zines, and web) and to

shape and reshape ourselves and our perspectives about women in society. The book suggests that

pop culture has become a “common language”, a common ground to express and make sense of the

broader, much larger concept of feminism.

The book traces pop culture that dates back to the 1920s until today’s millennial generation

and gets bulk of its references from different authors and theorists to debunk myths and false notions

on women. Its goals were to not only introduced its readers the importance of intertwining

relationships between theory and application of feminism, but also to open the possibility of

problem-solving and analyzing critical feminist perspectives though identifying mainstream media’s

effects and deconstructing the histories of feminism all within the discourse of pop culture.

With love and dedication, Andi Zeisler and her co-editor Lisa Jarvis traces pop culture in a

way where they can talk about “guilty feminist pleasures” and ask some of the most unresolved

questions freely, supported with active engagement provided by female contributors in between

chapters (What’s Your Favorite Pop Culture Moment Ever?). The phrase “we wanted to” was

frequently used to assert interest in discovering the truth about why women rarely appeared in big-

named magazine covers, why there was a need for gender-specificity in girls’ and boys’ toys and

clothes, or why sexual pleasure wasn’t a language to be talked about for most teen girls. This

introduced readers the importance of intertwining relationships between theory and application.

Hence, the main objective of Feminism and Pop Culture was clear: to provide answers by looking

back at the waves that started it all.

!2
 The Basic Language of Pop (and Circumstance)

With use of simple yet captivating words, the first chapter defines pop culture in many ways,

depending on where people’s beliefs are coming from. It takes the place of “low culture”, appreciated

by the masses, as opposed to “high culture” which refers to higher forms of art and literature. It is

“any cultural product with a mass audience” and is “available to anyone with the money to access

it” (1-2). Pop culture can basically be all things under the influence of media in the form of TV, news,

movies, radio, websites, and print. Anything “in-demand” then becomes dependent on advertising, a

tool which promotes consumerism and forms mass consciousness. The chapter then focuses on

advertising as an aspect of pop culture with a deliberate focus on women as main targets of products

and brands up to this day. The author suggests that by looking through the wide lens of popular

culture, we can understand how it becomes a source of inspiration to cultural studies and women’s

movements. Advertisements were the primary interactive space where women are told that they

would be, in a sense, “liberated” on how they originally view themselves.

This chapter discusses that the relationship between feminism and pop culture can be quite

challenging. One way to discuss women’s rights, as sensitive as a topic could be, is to use smaller

elements of pop culture to solve bigger puzzles such as skewed images of women found directly in

the pretentious aura of advertising. For a long run, music and television portray women as sex

symbols, and this frustrated the female audience. There are feminist issues that tackle wage gaps, sex

discrimination, violence, autonomy, mother-and-wife definitions, and equal rights, to name a few.

The first chapter suggests that with something as powerful as the entertainment industry, people are

able to view, relate, or change themselves due to the expectations that the screen provides – all

through the “male gaze” or the man’s constructed point of view. The concept of “to-be-looked-at-

ness” is also briefly defined in this chapter, mostly quoted from feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey,

who used psychoanalysis to validate her intersection of women in film, wherein the woman’s image

signifies that the male viewer is in a masculine subject position and therefore the “bearer of the

look”. The purpose of pop culture is to push women to redefine themselves and their choices and

how the world’s view toward them can be smarter, better, and less stereotyped.

!3
 Post-War: Feminism at its Finest

The second chapter mainly centers on the effects of World War II. Television became the

source of motivation and a “sense of national community fostered by the war” (23). People’s lives

were dictated by the media at that time where safety and precautionary measures were considered

first priorities. It was also in times of war when women are being perceived as the other or the

“second sex”, further familiarized by French writer Simone de Beauvoir with supported notions of

women not having to share the same workforce as men. However, it was a time of also putting

women out in the field, and a different kind of advertising was put out: the message was to stop

worrying about themselves and start doing things for their country. As President Roosevelt stated in

his 1942 Columbus Day speech, “we can no longer afford to endure such prejudice” (27).

In spite of this, images of women continued to flourish in advertising with two distinct roles:

first as sexy pinups aimed at men (and soldiers) as a reason to keep fighting for the country at war,

and second as the language of love aimed at women, who, in turn, ended up choosing to get married

and have children. War became the turning point of feminist ideals and served as the proof of the

shift on women’s representations, from one pinup poster to the next. The second-wave feminism was

in fact the most critical point of all the waves because it also achieved an opening of private and

social matters to political analysis that explained the systematic nature of women’s oppression (the

“problem with no name”).

In relation to pop culture, films during 1940s–1960s mostly involved drama, suffrage,

sacrifice, and pain – all directed by men – and called it “women’s film”. The Hays Code, which was

practiced during those decades, demanded the rules where only the correct standards of life (subject

to drama and entertainment) shall be presented and that marriage should be upheld even onscreen.

Women’s unconscious resistance in real life was used as a subtext in most movies, and they are

portrayed as happy housewives with traditional families in order to maintain a happy-family

propaganda and lessen divorce rates, which obviously was not bound to happen.

With the second-wave as an attention to rape issues, women’s shelters, custody changes, and

divorce laws, and with its construction of ‘positive’ images from an overly sexist society, pop culture

served as the solid foundation to raise voices and consciousness, altogether with a socially moving

!4
anthem (“I Am Woman”) created by the women. From here, the “female gaze” – or how women saw

themselves – changed the game and greatly impacted their lives. Pop culture became a platform for

feminist actions, as women have become more vocal and politically active in the women’s liberation

movement, which got them “what they want”.

Battle of the Sexes

The third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s and presented itself as a redefined

“individual movement” with attempts to expand feminism to include women of other identities,

which were predominantly defined by their color, race, and social class. This began to change men’s

overall expectations from women’s appearances and actions. (There goes the “male gaze”.) The role

of feminism as a third-wave movement shifted to a new ground of sales and marketing, emphasizing

a figure of the “new woman”. Films “centered on the lives of female protagonists chafing at the

patriarchy embodied by their husbands and communities” (68).

In the third chapter, men have become the “other sex” due to films giving women “bad-ass”

and violent roles which associated men’s fear of the liberated, modern women. It was a form of

sexual politics because even the male directors wanted females to have their sense of empowerment,

because the women have indeed won their place. Films during this time adapted real life occurrences

that is takes a working group of women to change the sexist system in society. The term “pro-

woman” is also significantly used here, where women are deemed triumphant at the end of a film.

However, there are inevitable commentaries of TV critics (mostly men) still had something negative

to speak about: that women are still being degraded as “mindless dolls” and were preferred to just

“shut up and look pretty”. When Wonder Woman was first used as a psychological propaganda for

this “new type of woman” society were constructing, the comic has recognized itself to be an

emblem of the women’s lib in its posters and comics – showing how women can be both “powerful

but also beautiful and feminine” (79). Yet, it was still the “male gaze” who ran the show and

positioned her, again, as a sex symbol.

It is in this chapter that women’s roles seem to be going back and forth. In this confused

battle stage, women’s identities thrive from being sex toys and dumb blondes at one point, and then

!5
being educated, well-versed feminists and activists on the other. An example here are TV

documentaries aired on MTV, a music television channel, that feature a “new picture of gender roles”

(83) that changed the conventional way we view men from women, or vice versa. Though MTV fell

back on sex-selling and narrative freedom, it didn’t stop famous pop icons to use pop culture to

reinvent themselves, namely the Madonna (“Queen of Pop”), who pushes the boundaries of her lyrics

and music videos while maintaining her freedom. It was a launch of a queer-ness being socially

accepted, and that a pop culture mix of sensitive articles such as race, religion, and gender were just

at the surface of the mixed cultural message.

Women Want Pride and Recognition

Women during the 1990s were viewed as both independent and responsible. But these came

in with a price, most specifically on single women’s dangerous reputation as seen on films, ads, and

television shows. These “new women” seemed to push their limits way too high to keep their

aggressiveness and liberation intact, but failed to fulfill their duties as a woman (or simply as a

housewife and a childbearing mother). To function as a working-class woman in society, there was a

need to find work outside the home, and this was recognized as more of a necessity than a choice.

The fourth chapter tries to elucidate how television shows “how a career could be a real source of

satisfaction and pleasure for women” despite the rise of single-motherhood portrayals in film that

soon was criticized because of its rejection of family values (92-93). From here, the choice of raising

a child alone becomes part of a lifestyle, let alone the idea of divorce. This chapter also links female-

centric shows with heroines “coming out” in a world with the changes already brought about by

feminism. These shows touched issues such as the need for marriage, surgical procedures, and even

sexual harassment and LGBT cases which suggest that women’s rights have “gone too far”.

In the sidebar Girls Kick Ass! (Er, Not You, Lara Croft), during a time when a large number

of TV series, books, and cartoons dominated the 90s, heroic female embodiments were at its peak –

Xena, Buffy, the Powerpuff Girls, Sailor Moon – these segments obtain the hidden message that

women and girls can choose to fight, as they are agents of third-wave feminism. But what we fail to

understand is that in the very same message lies another meaning: that in the end, women just wanted

!6
to feel acknowledged and validated. Women are told that maybe it’s okay not to be a superhero, and

it’s alright to hate their weaknesses and their bodies, because nobody is perfect.

This chapter noted a “celebration of single women’s economic independence” wherein

women learn to become tough and free. Television series Sex and the City began to draw an urban

female stereotype to its viewers, giving them an idea that women don’t necessarily need men.

Women are already capable of being rich and powerful to buy what they want (as they are products

of the waves of feminism before them) and don’t need to wait for men to make them happy. The role

of ads in the 90s was to “narrowcast” its audience and encourage the woman that she can buy what

she wants as a statement of her independence. It is a kind of consumer feminism that asks a rhetoric

question, “it’s your choice, it must be empowering, right?”

The 90s music also cried expressions about changing the world. Music was first influenced

by “punk” and “Riot Grrrl” genres but it couldn’t sell because its music was too controversial for the

mainstream audience, so they repackaged it into “girl power” (Spice Girls). It is obvious here that

society and pop culture always finds its way to the market. Still, at the time the media were falling

over themselves to identify girl icons and co-opt “grrrl” anger, there were heartfelt attempts to

redefine women’s music away from easy labels (110). Hip-hop genres were also formed,

accentuating female rappers that can match the guys’ lines.

At the end of this chapter, it discussed post-feminism as a way to get rid of feministic ideals

of the past, simply move on from it, and enjoy freedom today. The enriched interactions between

feminism and pop culture offered a new, innovative space that no longer just talked about the

redundant topics of wage gaps and sexism but covered far more important issues such as gender

equity and people empowerment.

New Feminism: Women’s Choice

In the 21st century, post-feminism indicated that women’s movements were finished, and the

women have won. However, the last chapter of this book asks, “what did women want?” and tries to

communicate there were many women who wanted to end the notion that feminism’s goals have been

achieved. Books debated on existing feminist theories that embrace color and race, and argued about

!7
generational rifts on the ways feminism is understood. The only way to effectively critique feminism

is to use pop culture’s commercial and consumerist approach, and this solution has become the key to

make sure that its critical ideas were not left behind.

Reality TV viewers were shown images of desperate women and are conveyed messages that

beauty and marriage are still the most important things so one can be rewarded in the future. From

here we see gendered power imbalance with the expectation to move forward. As television being a

source of motivation, women would seldom realize on each episode, there are reinforcements of

beauty ideals and partnership responsibilities in order to liberate themselves. With TV competitions

allowing snapshots of contemporary women on screen, there is an invisible pressure and desire of

“being everything she can be”.

This chapter defines the true value behind third-wave feminism, and it revolves around the

question of “choice” – that from the start, feminism made sure that women had equal choices and

opportunities that would lead their lives into a better state in society. “Choice” may also refer to court

decisions or marketplace options, and is now used to express “the feminist thing to do”. The chapter

also questions, “was choice now shorthand for feminism?” and tries to cite situations such as

abortion, cosmetic surgery, and female consumer imperatives. Because of the concepts of “choice”,

women’s lives were always in a near-constant state of empowerment (132) with an affirmation of

survival though financial independence.

Raunch culture was also used by women to self-objectify themselves as they wore graphic

tees with bold printed statements such as “porn star” and “girls gone wild” – with attempts to

question these unchanged sexually appealing stereotypes of girls and women as a sense of

empowerment. In another subchapter, Real Women and Beyond: Advertising’s New Feminism, the

journey and celebration of women’s bodies are upheld by the industry since their aim to “manipulate

women’s visions of themselves”. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund was originally designed to boost self-

awareness of younger generations of women yet still received criticism from society. This

interconnects with media literacy’s image versus the reflections of what’s real, and to understand the

deeper contexts in such ad campaigns must be practiced. The importance of media literacy groups is

to teach critical-thinking in a converged area of media and culture.

!8
 Pop culture, as a marketplace of ideas, is becoming a common ground for hot controversial

ideas – such as feminism, equality, and empowerment – and as readers of this book, we are expected

to “voice out what we think” and finally become critics of our own, using our literacy to illustrate our

different, yet similar points of view.

But It’s Not Just About Women

Earlier feministic ideologies have grown, and more than we know, we contribute to a big part

of it. It’s not just about the endless comparisons between men and women. As a millennial coming

from a very modern age of podcasts, ebooks, magazines, advertisements, music, food, beauty,

clothing, fitness, and even online friendships – feminism is now emerging in the public sphere. Its

theories and ideas thread everywhere, and it has encompassed all genders. What the authors are

trying to convince is that before assuming anything, one must understand the underground principles

that root from feminism.

Zeisler didn’t provide a run down of in-depth historical references regarding the major waves

of feminism until the book’s fourth chapter, in What Women Want: The 1990s. Her brief explanation

of the different waves provided an enlightenment to a more specific “framing” of pop culture’s

approach on feminist and gender-related issues, yet it could have been better if it was discussed at the

earlier stages of the book. The author’s rich use of text from various resources such as anthologies

and interviews largely contribute to a wider perception of pop culture’s encounter with everyday life,

oftentimes intriguing her readers with explicit analysis that come from mainstream television,

movies, and music.

Andi Zeisler comes from the colorful world of magazine publications and her use of an

informal, easy yet interesting pop language makes every line very amusing to read as it captivates a

very Western-focused cultural atmosphere. She avidly motivates her readers to follow through with

the transcending facets of pop and at least try to “read, examine and deconstruct” these ideas. She

also distinctively separates the fine line between high and low cultures and tries to lay out that “there

are even broader, more global, and more complex issues of what it means to be a woman, a feminist,

and a seeker of human and civil rights” (7). Using the main propositions of John Berger’s “men act

!9
and women appear” as well as Laura Mulvey’s “to-be-looked-at-ness”, as a woman myself I am

thoroughly enraged with the simple fact of how women were once viewed and objectified. Andi

Zeisler’s use of these important film theories gained consciousness from her readers right from the

start of the first chapter.

The very same concept of “to-be-looked-at-ness” does not only apply to white middle-class

women depicted in films, but also to people (and children) of various color, race, and gender.

Feminism started off as women’s movement, and is now headed to seek new ways to interact with its

audiences to let them be free of self-consciousness. To understand where people are coming from, to

know what they have encountered, and to leave judgement behind – these are what we are supposed

to feel after reading this book. Zeisler addresses a liberating way on how we can possibly react to

intolerance and discrimination: to stand up against it and try our very best not to be overly dictated

by the media industry. This book, nonetheless, did not include topics that involve masculinity under

siege, evidence for contempt for men in pop culture, or a wider scope of men as portrayed in music,

movies, and TV.

The last few paragraphs of the first chapter found on page 21 profoundly summarizes the

book, that “there’s nothing wrong with loving, consuming, and creating pop culture with an eye

toward how it can be better: smarter, less insulting to women (and men, for that matter), more

diverse, and less hell-bent on perpetuating ugly and unhelpful stereotypes. And understanding more

about feminism and pop culture’s long, difficult, and occasionally fruitful relationship is a good way

to start.” Each of the five chapters covered a quick glance on the unfolding timelines on how choices

without bias can be made, and can inspire others through written works and collaborative actions. To

best achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment, program designs should be implemented

for both men and women, and now even the LGBT. According to Gender Equality and Women’s

Empowerment: Central to New Development Enterprise: it’s all about solid development outcomes

that improve lives for all with rights and dignity (Koppell & Grown, 219). As we embrace today’s

openness to new cultures, and the moment we choose to think that the world can be a better and

equal place for all people, then we might just be a step closer to world peace.

!10
 A World Where We Decide

“Equality makes way for an increased number of free, considered choices, and an increased number
of people with access to them. But choice itself isn’t the same as equality…” – Andi Zeisler

Pop culture spontaneously determines how a person’s life should ideally look like. It

welcomes different premises such as feminism and challenges our generation to understand and learn

from it. A recurring theme is that the media can always limit its audiences and continue to categorize

people, products, and labels, offering us a buffet of ideals to choose from. Choice is found

everywhere. In this world of cultural studies, we can derive several meanings that consumers actively

construct from. The choice of whether to work or not is no longer a argument, but a firm statement of

fairness and objectivity towards all sexes. The role of feminism is to addresses academics, media, and

technology all within aspects of change. To address the question why feminism matters involves

understanding the issues that face women in the twenty-first century (Woodward, 161).

When we were younger, we were asked to think about what do we want to become when we

grow up. We are asked to think about who our role models were, and why they were significant in

our lives. As early on, our exposure to these different arrays of choice becomes central to our beliefs

and how we picture ourselves in the future. Girls can be girls even if they choose toy trucks and

action figures over stuffed toys and Barbie dolls. Women can now look fierce and feminine at the

same time, and can even uphold men’s roles as superheroes. Even creators of comic books “not only

enter into dialogue with readers, but show their creation as a process of involving narrative and

aesthetic choices” (Robinson, 108). It is found in the very illustrations of Wonder Woman where

gender equality thrives in present-day conditions, reminding us that empowerment is a key to

promote social and economic stability.

When we take a closer look at our television screens and see how male and female characters

are being portrayed, we are able to pinpoint a distinction of race and social class that plays around the

plot line, and from there we can opt to define who these people are based on their individual pasts or

their cultural backgrounds. Like in science, feminism is like a microscope, and popular culture as its

slides. It is up to us on how we choose to interpret them through a manually-controlled eyepiece lens.

!11
List of Cited Sources:

Zeisler, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. Seal Press, 2008.

Woodward, Kath, and Sophie Woodward. Why Feminism Matters: Feminism Lost and Found, 2009.

Palgrave Macmillan, doi: 10.1057/9780230245242.

Robinson, Lillian S. Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superheroes. Routledge, 2006.

Koppell, Carla, and Grown, Caren. “Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Central to the

New Development Enterprise.” Shah, Rajiv J. and Steven C. Radelet, USAID Frontiers in

Development. USAID, 2012., pp. 214–219

!12