topic refinement

I found the pitch exercise contributed mostly to my brainstorming process. It helped to stir my ideas around and narrow down my topic to a feasible research question.  It is a useful pre-writing exercise for any writing assignments because it forces you to take an extra step in sorting out your ideas, especially if you’re trying to decide on a topic, or be specific, before your starting. It also allows for some feedback early on in your process for the assignment.

Attn: Sarah Mirk (producer), Bitch Media 

Feminist Podcast

We live in an image-based culture where advertisements are unavoidable if you’re participating in mass media. In this episode I will emulate the podacast Popaganda, and explore how the male gaze is projected onto the masses through advertising. Many advertising campaigns, such as Axe deodorant, Victoria’s Secret, and cosmetic brands, drive messages that women should be thin, pretty, “feminine”, and preferably white. This podcast will focus on an advertising campaign from the popular clothing company American Apparel. In several of their ad campaigns, the company flaunts the versatility of their “unisex” clothing. The men are consistently dressed in trendy ensembles and standard poses, while the women are adorned in that single article they’re choosing to showcase, are otherwise completely nude, and in contorted poses to emphasis their sexuality. 

This is a clear example of how the male gaze, the lens of the hegemonic idea of how women should be, dominates most popular advertising in North America. It inverts the gaze women have on themselves, teaches men how to look at women, and limits the image and expectations of how women should act and appear.