124262 KO Critical Media Analysis (2018W)

After the successful completion of this course, students will be able to critically examine the construction of unruly femininities in contemporary popular culture, as they will have learned how to appropriately use a toolbox of genre-specific methods of visual analysis (e.g. semiotic analysis, mis-en-scène analysis for moving images, etc.).

We will use Anne Helen Peterson’s insightful contribution to celebrity studies "Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud. The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman" (2017) as a course reader (that will be accompanied by other course readings), as it consists of a series of well-rounded ‘critical media analyses’, making explicit the norms of ‘appropriate femininity’ that usually remain hidden. The essays in the book are excellent examples of intersectionality theory put into practice – teaching students how to notice and scrutinise cultural markers of difference like race, gender, class, sexuality, body type, ability/health, and age in a variety of different media and contexts (in advertising, TV series, reality TV, the music business, sports, politics, comedy as well as on social media). By focussing on concepts like transgression, excess, and abjection, we will make the rules of ‘acceptable femininity’ visible and, therefore, assailable. By introducing students to key texts in gender studies, celebrity studies, body studies, as well as fat studies and providing them with a toolkit for visual analysis, students will be able to discuss contemporary femininities in an informed, intersectional way after they have completed this class.