Saturday, February 22, 2014
How Much Should We Excuse Historical Pop Culture?
I was recently watching Gilligan's Island from the 1960's and came across a difficult question. In the episode I was watching, there were numerous references to a woman's place being in the home. Similar lines are found all over dated shows, movies, and songs. My question was how much should we excuse historical sexism as just being outdated. The problem is that many of these stereotypes continue into present day, even if they are in less overt forms. The solution that I came up with is to continue to watch and appreciate older shows and movies, but to always do so in a critical manner. Obviously there is a line that is unacceptable to cross regardless of when the show was filmed. As long as that line is not crossed, however, I think it is acceptable to continue watching movies and shows that have dated social views, as long as we view them through the feminist lens to ensure that the negative messages they often provide are not continued into current culture.
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I definitely think you have the right idea about how we should be treating older tv shows and movies. There is absolutely no problem with still appreciating these shows as long as you continue to think about them critically and understand, historically, when they were created and where they were supposed to take place. Another big question to ask is why were these stereotypes even reinforced? Kind of like when looking at older folk tales and fairy tales, why did the person who wrote them want men to be the dominant gender and women to be their subordinates? I think it is also important to critically look at if the sexism is supposed to be satirical or how it was used in the context of the story, what the characters are like, etc.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is really important that people acknowledge the sexism that existed in these types of media, and to examine them while watching them. I don't see any harm in still watching them though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Molly has already said and I hope i'm not only entirely restating it with what i'm about to say. Those movies have already come and gone for the most part so I don't think that watching them encourages any sort of oppression in society, however it is important to not allow yourself to view these things as acceptable. Observing oppression is just as important, if not more important, as observing and appreciating equality. It is sad whenever oppression exists, but when it does it is important to study it to better understand how to negate it.
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