feminism and pop culture

The Crunk Feminist Collective, an amazing community and blog "where crunk meets conscious and feminism meets cool" (who should promptly be added to your blogroll, RSS reader, Twitter/Tumblr dash, what have you, if they're not already there), recently posted an open letter on their Tumblr page from some of its contributors to the writers of the web series Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl asking for accountability regarding transmisogyny, ableism, and homophobia that have popped up in recent episodes:

We have seen your responsiveness to the fans of ABG and we hope that by raising this concern you will respond accordingly by not using such language in future episodes. There are so many awkward queer, trans, and disabled folks who love the show and it hurts to see and hear our lives used as punchlines.

Yesterday, Republican Presidential hopeful Herman Cain clashed with Piers Morgan about whether or not people are born gay. Here's the video:

The important thing to know is that Cain sets out saying that "homosexuality is a sin" because of his "Biblical beliefs," but Morgan quickly steers the conversation into "born this way" territory, outraged that Cain won't concede his point. Cain's response: "What does science show? You show me evidence other than opinion, and you might cause me to reconsider that... Where's the evidence?"

I agree that apocalyptic imagery has figured prominently in the public imagination in 2011 in part as a result of the anxieties of this moment in time. Nowhere has this been more evident than in songs about love, in which said love is either a distraction from or metaphor for the end times. First, let's take a look at Aussie singer, Lenka's "At the End of the World (lyrics here): 

 

This week, after 25 years on the air, we say goodbye to the Oprah Winfrey Show, a juggernaut that has shaped the popular culture landscape perhaps more than anything else on TV.

Susan Douglas's seminal 1995 book Where the Girls Are: Growing Up with the Mass Media explored how woman see and are seen in pop culture, tracing feminism in pop culture from the 1950s and '60s through the 1980s.  Her newest book, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work is Done, revisits the subject of women's representation in the mass media, and finds a troubling series of mixed messages, empty "empowerment," and consumer imperatives masquerading as postfeminist power.

As longtime fans of Douglas's wit, irreverance, and spot-on critique, Bitch is thrilled to feature the epilogue of Enlightened Sexism. It's after the jump, as is an interview with Douglas by Andi Zeisler.