Zooey Deschanel

I'm a feminist and a high school English teacher in the south suburbs of Chicago. Last year, one of the students in my class was inspired to start a group for girls at our school and approached me about sponsoring it. Of course I agreed! A few weeks ago, we tackled the topic of positive female role models in pop culture. The high school students came up with a list of eight current, mainstream "feminist idols" they and their friends look up to.

The list is a good insight into what interests teen girls these days, as well as hopefully a helpful resource. We talk a lot about degrading and regrettable portrayals of women in media, here are eight actresses and comedians my high schoolers are excited about supporting.

 

1. Emma Stone: My students loved the movie Easy A, a modern film inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In it, Emma Stone plays a high school student who tries to bring the book into her real life. The movie definitely has feminist undertones, but Stone herself is a major feminist. In a recent interview she did with her boyfriend Andrew Garfield, she was asked who her style icon was. After Garfield said he never got asked questions like that, Stone piped up, "You get asked interesting, poignant questions because you're a boy... It is sexism." Way to call out sexist media, Emma Stone!

On their latest album A Very She & Him Christmas, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward cover the creepy (yet catchy—creetchy?) classic with a twist: Deschanel is the "wolf" to M. Ward's "mouse." Does this make the song any less of a problem?

Welcome back to another episode of Bitch Popaganda! Tune in as Mac, Andi, and Kelsey discuss the male objectification in the media, Fox's The New Girl, and the obsolescence of Miss Universe (and beauty pageants in general). Plus, Bitch faves!


Transcript here.

I close the "Tuning In" series with my thoughts about Zooey Deschanel's attempt to adapt Pamela Des Barres's I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie for HBO.