Thursday, March 29, 2007

GND's- Encouraging Hegemonic Norms


Some viewers may claim that "The Girls Next Door" is simply a show for entertainment purposes and that it does not serve any role or have any influence on society. However, the show enlists hegemonic norms of society making it a valuable part of popular culture.

In "Inventing the Cosmo Girl", the author identifies the hegemonic norm that "single women are depicted as shrews or 'gold diggers' while bachelors are advised to pursue sex on a casual basis to avoid getting snared in a 'long term contract.'"1 This norm is presented in "The Girls Next Door" through the girls and Hef. The girls receive whatever they want (whether its going on shopping sprees, throwing lavishing parties, or being in Playboy) as long as they keep Hef pleased. This provides much motivation for the girls to pursue sex and a relationship with the 80 year old and allows them to portrayed as "gold diggers" by the media.

The girls also represent the hegemonic norm regarding women and their status. In society, women are seen as gentle, childlike, attention graving, and inferior, and that their only purpose in life is to please their man and look pretty. On the show, the girls act more like little girls than mature women. They dance around the Playboy mansion playing and giggling deprived of any responsibility. Their only demand is to provide a "pretty" and "sexy" persona, but never to appear over-bearing or controlling.

On the episode, "Calender Girls" Holly, Bridget, and Kendra are posing in their own Playboy calender. The girls obsess about their appearance trying to look perfect for Hef. "I just want Hef to like it. I'm doing this all for him." said Kendra after photoshooting the month of June which resembles that of Christina Aguilera's "Dirrrty" video in the boxing ring. The girls constantly critique their appearance, questioning whether they look just sexy and sweet enough for Hef. This encourages the norm that women are expected to look attractive all the time in order to impress their man and remain on top.

Therefore, the girls display some hegemonic norms of society pertaining to the role of feminine characters. In the media, women lack authority and are seen more as objects who obsess about their appearance than as strong figures with confidence and power. The girls encourage this view and send out a powerful message to its viewers about femininity- that women are meant to be beautiful and keep the dominant males in their lives satisfied even if it means excessive dieting, spending long hours in the beauty salon, or being overtly sexual behavior.

1. Gender, Race, and Class in the Media. Inventing the Cosmo Girl. p.120

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Jen-
I'm so sorry you were one of the students whose last name was lost in the middle of the alphabet (I was grading from a-z and then z-a and a couple of students were inadvertently missed by me due to grading at multiple sittings!).

I think you've done a good job of improving the quality of your analysis in the post here (from the first two posts). I would like to see you play "devil's advocate" here a bit in order to explore the idea that maybe they're not only depicting hegemonic norms, and that maybe it can be understood as a artifact of popular culture that is overwhelmingly disseminating hegemonic messages, but also includes counter-hegemonic messages.
Because we as viewers, don't know who raised the women on the show, or anything other than what E! and the editors of this show want us to see, we can't really infer too much about what "might have happened" because we didn't see it.
However, what they don't show can still be analyzed. The absence of work (whether it's overtly directed at a particular project--i.e. a photo shoot or an event--or it is "backstage" work to look "playmate" perfect, or mental energy--even if it seems vapid, such as thinking about how to look good, please someone else, etc. it's all work...that we don't see because the show doesn't include it in the final cut that airs on E!) can be analyzed in multiple ways. Whether your analysis of the absence of such issues is ultimately understood as hegemonic or not, is going to depend on your analysis :o) However, it's meant to get you thinking about how to approach the show analytically because it can be challenging to analyze something like this show for gender and pop culture...because it just all seems so obviously sexist...or obvious in whatever world-view one brings to the TV when watching the show.
Perhaps you could think about using issues of empowerment for your final post and try to figure out which images are more empowering than others in this show. It may be a challenge at first, but you're on the right track to do it :o)
-Jessie

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