Mass Media

Explaining the world one tragedy at a time.

~ Randy Blazak ~ 4 Comments

November 30, 2015

The world can seem so chaotic. Does it ever take a break?

Sometimes, in my line of work, things get a little busy. I’ve been getting a lot of media time lately. From local hate crimes to the global terror alert, from suspected Klan activity in Oregon to responses to the Black Lives Matter movement. Throw Paris into it and a few other issues in the news flow and I’ve been in overdrive lately. I’ve written about playing the role of “expert” in the media and hopefully I mentioned that I never get paid for any of it. But there’s a reason I’m on your TV.

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The world can seem so chaotic. But a lot of it is our media-saturated culture. Sociologist (and now Lewis & Clark University president) Barry Glassner wrote about this in his 1999 book, The Culture of Fear. Just think about the local news. When I was a kid it was on for a half-hour at 6 and 11 pm. The local news in Portland starts at 4 am and then occupies at least 8 hours of daily broadcasting on each channel until 11:35 pm. That’s a lot of space to fill. And “if it bleeds it leads” can drive each one of those hours. Terrorism abroad, mass shootings at home, and a story about packages being stolen off porches for good measure. It’s enough to keep a person inside their house and watching TV. Suffice it to stay, research shows that the more TV people watch, the more fearful they are of the world.

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I can either try to ignore it or subvert it from the inside. So the reason I say yes to most local, national, and international media requests is that it provides an opportunity to slip a critical perspective into the shockingly uncritical news paradigm. And this is usually a feminist perspective. For example, the numerous mass shootings I’m called to comment on must include an analysis that this is male violence in a culture that promotes violence as an acceptable means for men to express themselves. Can you imagine if all these shootings were by females?

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So we hop from crisis to crisis trying to patiently explain things to people who are often resistant to anything other than the explanation that fits their picture of the world. A perfect example is the folks who blurt “All lives matter” in opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. These people are either ignorant (which is something we all share about different things) or they are straight up racists. So here is the simplest explanation I can offer these folks: “Black lives matter,” means all lives matter, including black lives that have been devalued by the criminal justice system and racism in general. Got it? It does not mean your white life doesn’t matter. Now shut the fuck up.

Often I offer an analysis to try to explain a very complex social problem and what gets on the air is a three second sound byte that really doesn’t explain much. That’s why I prefer live TV and radio because you can go for the one point that really want to make. I learned this the hard way when I appeared on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. Bill O’Reilly just talked over me the whole time. One of my conservative friends emailed me and said, “You just should have yelled over him.” I guess that’s how Fox rolls. Lesson learned.

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There is a root cause that links most of this together and it’s patriarchy. Friday’s shooting at the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic is an obvious example. Conservatives wage a war on women’s advancement and rights. A Trump follower commented on this blog recently, “Does your wife bring home the bacon while you blog and change diapers or take of your children? Very manly there. Get a real life fool.” Trump, Fiorina and others spread lies about Planned Parenthood to their war-loving moronic minions who just want to bomb SOMETHING. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that this week’s domestic terrorist (aka, right-wing white male) attacks a women’s health center with an AK while ranting about Obama and “baby parts.” This is what patriarchy looks like.

There is also feminist perspective on the racial issue. The dehumanization of other people, including African Americans and Syrian refugees (who my cousin compared to snakes and Ben Carson likened to rabid dogs) starts with the dehumanization of women. Religions with male gods do this especially well. It’s easy to claim power over someone who you think is a child or an animal or a thing. Or a terrorist.

There’s just not a lot of places to get the macro analysis in the mainstream media. We just get little corners of the real issues that are at the core of the nightly news stories. Where is bell hooks or Noam Chomsky being interviewed on the news? Lord knows, there’s enough time to fit them in. But instead we get sound byte analysis for the short-attention span masses. Here’s a clip of Trump mocking a disabled person. Here’s a talking head saying his followers could care less and on to the next non-story.

I became a feminist in my head a long time ago because it helped to explain the big picture throughout human history. I became a feminist in my heart with the arrival of my daughter and the hope the world could finally make a great leap forward for her generation. That the trifles of Trump and travails of war would become artifacts of the past. (This optimism may come from watching too much Star Trek.)

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And I’m happy to take my show on the road. Last week I was in Washington, D.C., making a case for the re-evaluation of hate crime laws at a meeting of criminologists from around the world. This week I’m off to New York City where I’ll be discussing how plea bargains institutionalize racism at a university in Manhattan. You can’t shut me up. These issues are too important. And yeah, I’m going to continue to be pissed off at the people who choose not to get it. Their world is changing and they are becoming an obnoxious minority (not a “silent majority”). But that keeps me going and at some point we can talk about the big picture.

See ya in the funny papers.

Was this a feminist Super Bowl?

~ Randy Blazak ~ 5 Comments

Feb. 2, 2014

OK, as a Seahawks fan, I’m not going to talk about the last 60 seconds of the big game. If I was a hockey fan, I might have enjoyed it, but it was just a sad ending to an exciting game. So end-zone battles not withstanding, how could the Super Bowl ever be viewed as “feminist”? It’s framed as a celebration of male violence that drives a billion dollar industry that promotes more violence as sport. The players are chewed up with the lure of big paychecks and the chance of not ending up with debilitating head injuries. This past year’s issues with players and domestic violence surely hasn’t helped the sport as a place where women can feel safe in the stands or on the couch.

I can guess what Patricia Hill Collins thinks of the NFL, but plenty of 3rd wave feminists have made a case for football fandom.

Feminist Football Fan: Reflections from the 12th Woman

How to be a feminist and a football fan and not hate yourself

Now that Super Bowl 49 is in the can, how does it rate? Over 100 million people watched, so it’s important to look at the gendered messages.

This year’s face-off between Seattle and New England had a lot of bright spots. The first thing is what was missing from the game. There was a serious absence of gratuitous shots of cheerleaders bumping and grinding for the cameras. I’m old enough to remember when the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders were the main attraction to the 1977 Super Bowl, setting the precedent for maximizing eye candy for male viewers. It’s clear that the NFL knows the female viewing audience is growing.

Also missing was the annual cleavage-heavy Godaddy commercial. The King of Sexist ads, Carl’s Jr, had their sad entry pulled in many markets. While the game was still dominated by male voices (I would love color commentary from Amy Poehler or Wanda Sykes), seeing Missy Elliot in the half time show, next to Katy Perry, was a welcome dose of serious femtasticness! The rap pioneer has been suffering from Graves Disease, so any moment we get to share with Ms. Misdemeanor should be cherished.

So let’s talk about the ads, because unless you want to discuss who is cuter, Tom Brady or Russell Wilson, that’s the topic of the day.

Aside from Kim Kardashian’s hips (they lie!) and a generic Victoria’s Secrets ad, there were plenty of rare feminist moments during the broadcast. Everyone’s talking about how depressing the ads were (Christ, don’t let a flatscreen TV fall on my daughter!). But the NoMore.org about ad about domestic violence was chilling and needed after this past year. I’m sure it was a tough moment at Ray Rice’s house. Or it was a bathroom break?

Instead of endless Viagra commercials warning of about 4 hour erections (Please sir, may I have another?), we got Always feminine pads with an important message, that when you use “like a girl” as a put-down, you are putting down all girls, including your sister. This add went viral on Facebook last year, but seeing it featured on such a massive media platform was like a breath of fresh air. On a summer’s eve.

My personal campaign to get men to embrace feminism got a serious, if subtle, push in the ads as well. In a sport where there are lots of props for moms who raise players, often on their own, 2015 was the year of the dad. Toyota’s “Bold Dad” ad and Nissan’s take on “Cat’s In The Cradle” commercial, both celebrated father’s being present. Although anyone who knows the Harry Chapin song knows the tune does not end well for the father or the son. Fortunately for Nissan, the ad maxed out at 90 seconds, before the song’s sad climax.

The prize winner in the dad category was the one for Dove Men. The company has done much around the issue of women’s body image in advertising but here we get a redefinition of masculinity. What makes a man stronger? the bit asks. The answer is not having a better car or winning an arm wrestling contest. The answer is simple and it’s not about power or oppressing others. It’s “showing he cares.” And after 30 seconds of images of dads being there, you believe it.

There were other refreshing moments. Seeing Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler (T-Mobile) made us forget when Jerry Lewis said that female comedians can’t be funny. There was Mindy Kaling showing us that brown women can feel invisible (Nationwide) and Loctite Glue entertaining us with the most normal looking people ever. Even horrible McDonald’s sacrificed the production budget for a simple message of love and Jeep gave a shout-out to Mother Earth.

There will be plenty of Monday morning quarterbacking. (“Why oh why didn’t Russell just give the ball to The Beast?”) But this year feminists were part of the conversation. Even the Portlandia feminists, who run the TV version of the very real feminist bookstore just down the street from me, were live tweeting during the game.

We’re About To Freak Out! Real Feminist Bookstore To Live Tweet Super Bowl

Maybe someday there will be a female professional football league with a Super Bowl that will be nothing like Lingerie Bowl. Or at least an audience for women’s sports that rivals 100 million people on a winter afternoon. But, at the moment, we can take a NFL that now sees domestic violence as a serious problem, not something the sports heroes sometimes do, as a small victory. The voice of women has changed the game and there is a new standard emerging. The female senators who urged the NFL take a zero-tolerance stance on domestic violence are just part of that chorus. The country is realizing that girls and women love sports as much as the guys.

It sort of makes me excited for Super Bowl 50. And no, I don’t want a Budweiser.

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My Unhealthy Attraction to Kelly Ripa

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

January 2, 2015 OK, first let me be clear. I am madly in love with my super foxy wife. She is the be all and end all of all I will ever need. This is not about another  woman. It is about the weird state of daytime TV that I have recently been exposed to. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

My morning routine of heading off to work on bike to dazzle Portland State students with feminist theory and stories of Nazi skinheads has been put on hold while I’m on parental leave. Here’s the new dad routine:

7 am Get up and make coffee and help my wife get ready for work.

8:30 Take Andrea to work at Planned Parenthood.

9 am Clean the kitchen with baby in her frog chair and we listen to podcasts.

10 am Maybe baby naps so I can work on this blog. She’s probably crying so I’ll give her some applesauce and try to not let my blood pressure explode. But a baby face covered in applesauce is pretty cute.

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11 am Bottle Time! Baby gets her first bottle of mother’s milk while we watch some Regis & Kathie Lee.

Noon Some tummy time and exercise. I put the baby in the bouncy seat and try to do some housework. I check to see if I won the lottery and check how many emails I can ignore. Eat a sandwich.

1 pm Often we go to pick up a fresh bottle of milk from mom and go to the store to get food for dinner. I notice that bars are open.

2 pm Nap time please sweet baby Jesus.

3 pm 2nd Bottle Time! We put on Ellen, Cozy’s favorite show. She falls asleep by the first guest.

4 pm More housework before mom gets home. I might squeeze in an episode of Justified for my manly moment.

5 pm Go pick up Mom! Baby gurgles in happiness.

It’s surprising how fast the day goes (how little gets done). It’s given me a chance to drop back into the world of network daytime TV and it sucks. When I was a kid, daytime TV was geared towards stay-at-home housewives, so there were lots of soap operas designed to bring a little passion into their dull day. (Oh, All My Children, take me to Pine Valley.) There were also plenty of mindlessly fun gameshows, like Hollywood Squares, Matchgame and Joker’s Wild. A day home from school meant The $25,000 Pyramid and the Price Is Right prize models.

The daytime line-up seems more geared to women than ever. From The View to The Chew, fashion, cooking and celebrity gossip seem to still be the main themes. But between the informercials for Proactive and Kathie Lee and Hoda baking cupcakes with firemen there are some bright spots. This is not 1965. In 2015 it is understood that women actually have brains and can tackle tough issues between their shopping tips. I think the legendary battle between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasslebeck over the Iraq War in 2007 on The View was a turning point on television. But like the “debate” on evolution (Sorry, creationists, you lost a while ago), the chatter is never framed in larger issues of oppression. Maybe I’ve missed Whoopi Goldberg’s position statement on patriarchy and intersectionality. Has Angela Davis been a guest on The Talk? At this point I’d settle for bell hooks as a contestant on Let’s Make a Deal dressed as a mariachi.

And of course Ellen DeGeneres has single handedly turned the tide on marriage equality. What red state Ellen fan is going to say, “Those queers are all going to hell. Except for Ellen.” Her dancing has won hearts and minds. Or maybe it’s the cute baby videos. Or the heteronormative hunk-fest. But we’ll give Ellen a pass on that one. Demographics!

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There is some real entertainment value sprinkled in. I find Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan (Live!) a real highlight in our TV day. I remember Ripa’s first arrival on All My Children in 1990 as the rocker kid Hayley Vaughan. Her hair was dyed black and she was headed to a Metaluna concert (Great fake band name). She had a spark then and now the 44-year-old mom is tearing up daytime TV with her neurotic energy (Sometimes she spins around so fast I worry that her bobble head will come flying off). Her chemistry with Strahan on Live! is infectious and, like a train full of beautiful people crashing into a bus full of serial killers, you can’t look away. I have to wonder how a chat show featuring a petite white woman and a large black man would have gone over in 1965, but in 2015 it’s more about the manic energy of Ripa played against her gentle giant than any larger social issues, for better or worse. I’d say better. Who wants a debate on GMOs when Ripa is on a six left-turn tangent? Watching Kelly is like having Sugar Mountain liquified by the bright light of the sun and carried by a Keystone XL pipeline straight into your cerebellum. You think the baby drools a lot. But it’s a drool of bliss.

Taking care of a baby can be tiring. Sleep is not an option. I just want to thank Kelly for providing me an alternative to snorting lines of crank. Kelly Ripa is the new crank!

Yeah, I should use this time to read more. (I’m almost done with Linda Ronstadt’s autobiography.) I’ve got a volume on Eco-feminism to get to but it’s hard when the baby is crying. The TV is a pacifier. It always has been. But dad needs a binky, too.

UPDATE: Here is another reason to love Kelly Ripa:

Kelly Ripa Gives Inspiring Speech at 2015 GLAAD Media Awards

This book is available at Powell’s by clicking the cover below.

Feminist Guilty Pleasure 1: Cowboys

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

December 22, 2014

As a “male feminist,” I face routine tests and conflicting impulses that pit my intellectual self against my (learned) emotional self. I did not watch the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. (My wife did.) And I only looked up at the screen to criticize it, I promise. (C’mon, Taylor Swift. If you’re a feminist, start reading The Beauty Myth.) I stopped watching Game of Thrones because it was too “rapey” and I threw out some old Maxim magazines so my daughter would never find them (the Beyoncé issue!). That was easy. More challenging is confronting my love of westerns.

As a pre-internet latchkey kid, my after-school activity 5 days a week was usually the Four O’Clock Movie. This meant that by age 13, I had seen every Elvis movie, Godzilla movie, musical, Jerry Lewis movie, war film and Western that any citizen should see to be culturally literate. I’m always crushed in my Criminology class when I reference West Side Story and find out that none of the students have seen it. (Damn you, Xbox!)

At age 12 I adopted Clint Eastwood as my spirit animal. Between A Fistful of Dollars and Kelly’s Heroes I had him down. I would practice squinting in the mirror. On the Woodridge Elementary playground (No middle schools in Georgia in the 70s), I would lean against the wall, sucking in my cheeks, silently observing, a sucker stick poking out of my mouth like a Marlboro. I was a goofy loquacious kid, so the “strong and silent” thing was essentially impossible. But he was my role model.

Of course there are a legion of problems with this. If you’ve ever watched the first 20 minutes of High Plains Drifter (1973), you know that, without uttering a word, he kills several men and rapes a woman (who seems to enjoy it) before we even know that he’s the “hero.” Long before Clint became a vocal conservative, talking to empty chairs, feminists have had issues with him and he has had issues with them.

Academics have had a go at him as well. One of my favorite film books is Acting Male: Masculinities in the Films of James Stewart, Jack Nicholson, and Clint Eastwood (1994) by Dennis Bingham. I read it when I was creating a fun summer sociology class at Portland State called “Hollywood Elvis: Post-War Masculinity Through Elvis Films.” I wanted a course that explored the evolution of screen masculinities from the 1950s to the 1970s. And I wanted the students to never ever have to say “Viva Las Vegas? Haven’t seen it.” again.

The class also allowed me to explore the literature on the Western genre. What was so appealing about it to me as a kid? If I wasn’t watching a John Wayne movie at 4 o’clock, I was watching reruns of The Rifleman or The Wild Wild West. Was it just the phallic gun usage that taught pleasure in shooting? Was it the taming of wild horses (as Elvis did in Charro!) as a metaphor for taming women? Was it Miss Kitty and her stable of hookers in the saloon? Was it the leather chaps?

There’s all kind of juicy stuff to dive into when untangling the Western. Many films from the 50s to the 70s were seen as allegories for the backlash to the civil rights movement. The western town was a bastion of civilization on the edge of the wilderness that required the taming of the “uncivilized” Indian. So that’s the civilized white suburbs on the edge of uncivilized black ghetto. The native people are portrayed as violent and hyper-sexual. Gee, where have we seen that before?

But the main thing is the creation of the iconic cowboy archetype. The cowboy is the ultimate symbol of male autonomy. He rides into down, without saying much, he does his thing (letting his guns speak for him), and then rides off into the sunset. John Wayne never talked about his feelings. Clint Eastwood never cared what women think (or probably anybody else in town). As a boy trying to stand alone from the tribe, how could that not be appealing? The reality of frontier life was much different than the screen version. Susan Faludi does a great job if explaining this in The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America (2007).

As a child I learned that boys don’t cry and boys solve problems “like men” (with violence) in westerns. I learned to leave town before a woman ties you down. And I learned I could always take out my frustrations on the “injuns.” As a professor I dove into the list of the Top 100 Westerns of All Time list on americancowboy.com and saw the same pattern over and over again. I was saturated with cowboy masculinity. (And it resonated with my boyhood self.)

So the question is, do I share this genre with my daughter at some point? How do I frame it? As an artifact of a bygone era in gender roles? That might be true if Season 5 of Justified wasn’t on my Netflix queue. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, lead character on the show, is pretty much the 2010s version of Clint Eastwood (complete with the squinting but without the raping). But in a post-Ferguson world the idea that Givens’ relentless killing as “justified” because he is a marshall is a bit less palatable.

I want Cozy to know that just acting like boys, like cowboys, is not the same as female empowerment. I want her know that when some dude says somebody needs to “cowboy up,” it’s nothing but bad news. Most of all I want her to know that the men who ride off into the sunset are not happy. It’s the men who stay in town and build connections to friends and family that win the day.

These books are available at Powell’s independent bookstore by clicking the covers below.