Feminism and Media
Introduction
Because we are living in a century that most of the people and culture is highly depending on media, every topics and issue are likely to be discussed through the media. Feminism is one of the issues that is often discussed very actively in society. There are still some controversies, so each one of the opinions would be presented through media in different ways such as novels, music, movies, Social network, etc. Also, there are many countries which have some rights to express their thoughts and morals, people would tend to express their personal thoughts or experiences through their own preferred ways. These media that are written and expressed is very influential today to many people because it can be easily accessed. And these kinds of media would let the society to be aware of very easily.
Feminism in Books
One of the best seller books which brought some issues to the society has been still discussing over some of the issues of feminism. It is the book named “Kim Ji Young born in 1982” written by Nam-Ju Cho. This book shows some of the parts that the author thoughts and feelings which she felt discriminated and unfair about while herself living in Korean society as an ordinary woman. Some of the discrimination that she explained in her books had some examples such as having her job interviews failing only because she is a woman, always had to give up on promotions in her jobs to another co-worker who was a man, she had to hear some of the criticisms of “Mom bugs” when she brought her stroller to the coffee shop. Because of continuous discrimination, the character in this book visits the counselor but she couldn’t get any better than before. This book gave a lot of women not only in Korea but all over Asia, agreeing with the society where women had to go through these kinds of struggles. The book has not been not really popular at first, but many reviews have been going around the Social Networks and after the floor party of the Justice Party saw the posts and the book, gave the book to the President of Korea as a gift. This book now is the representative book of feminism in Asia (Shin, p.1).
Feminism in Movies
Movies are also one of the ways that people tend to express some of the factors that they know about Feminism and at the same time, a great way for viewers to be influenced too. Tasker gives one example of a movie which showed some of the factors and ideologies of post-feminism. It is the movie “Enchanted” which is one of the popular Disney movies directed by Kevin Lima. This movie is based on some “Happily ever after” concepts, showing a princess Giselle, who was preparing to get married to Prince Edward in the kingdom of Andalasia, dropped down to the NYC in one second. While she was suffering going through the process of knowing the city which was totally different from the world that she would use to live before, she meets a divorced lawyer Robert, and finally falls in love with him after she is been awaken from the “True love’s kiss”. This movie shows Giselle’s extreme femininity and innocence. The movie shows how her femininity could be used to help herself to survive and to get used to life in NYC. Also later on in the movie, it shows Giselle saving Robert from the enemy with a sword in her hand rather than the prince saving the princess like a usual plot in the fairy tales.
Feminism and Famous Figures.
Because the media have been some of the important parts of society, it became very natural that famous figures and celebrities give a lot of influences on society as well. One single word or act becomes an issue to society. Beyonce is one of the examples for this case, she is one of the celebrities who identifies herself as the feminist, so her actions and word becomes issues very fast. She would tend to express her identity through the social network, her words that she speaks during the interviews or concerts and also by her looks as well (Cupid & Thompson,p.94). In her album named “The Visual Album”, Beyonce continued to show her identity as Feminist through the album. Beyonce became the role of encouragement to lots of women around the world to speak out their own feminism as well. Now Beyonce is like one of the brands which state “Letting young women know that they can be a feminist and care about pop culture gives them permission to care about equality (Cupid & Thompson,p.106).”
References
Cupid, J. and Thompson, N. (2019). UBC Library | EZproxy Login. [online] The Visual Album Beyonce,Feminism and Digital Spaces. Available at: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzEyODE4NTVfX0FO0?sid=d893739c-85d2-455e-b403-5ca6308b7aed@sdc-v-sessmgr02&vid=0&format=EK&lpid=navPoint-49&rid=0 [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Shin, J. (2019). Bringing to light the subtle sexism in modern Korea: Cho Nam-joo’s book reflects the discrimination many women face daily. [online] Korea JoongAng Daily. Available at: http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3038016 [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Tasker, Y. (2019). UBC Library | EZproxy Login. [online] Www-taylorfrancis-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca. Available at: https://www-taylorfrancis-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/books/e/9780203152416/chapters/10.4324/9780203152416-13 [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].