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Glenna Jones
Dr. Nathanson
Feminist Media Studies
Final Exam

Lighting the Torch

In her article “Popular Misogyny: A Zeitgeist”, Sarah Banet-Weiser shares that “Dressing

in your feminist ideology is simple; there are feminst tank tops, buttons, and entire wardrobes

courtesy of Etsy.” (2) this emphasis on the materiality of feminism today, and the easy access of

such materials on “Etsy”, offers a window into the capitalistic qualities that feminism has taken

on. Although this is an idea that any person could technically make the connection to in their

day-to-day lives—by walking by a “The Future is Female” shirt in a fast-fashion store or hearing

a friend use the title of feminist for its social value—it is not so easy to see the big picture amidst

the day-to-day, since seeing patterns is difficult when standing too close. As Banet-Weiser

asserts, there is a risk that “Feminism becomes a sort of product, easy to either embrace or reject,

rather than a historically complex series of movements and activism.” (2) When immersed in the

fast-track attitude of convenience that is modern-day America—and most of the developed world

—it is easy to mistake shallow understandings for something deeper, as well as to completely

miss the relevance of something within a broader scope. Feminist media scholarship offers the

step-back necessary to see the bigger picture, providing an entry point from which to engage

with the politics interwoven in the popular culture of one’s day-to-day.

Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette becomes a perfect example of the present day intersection of

popular culture and politics. Her one-hour comedy act on Netflix is debatably not a comedy act at

all, at least in the known sense of the genre, but due to its mixture of comedy and frank

discussion of politics, as well as meta commentary on the social function of comedy itself,
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Gadsby’s act pushes the boundaries of a genre. Gadsby fluctuates so smoothly between her role

of entertainer and her seemingly “real” self, confronting and confessing to the audience, that it is

hard to tell what is to be taken as performance. The act is entertaining, intellectual, and

emotional, causing a jarring effect that makes the viewer wonder whether they were just witness

to a comedy show, or a lecture—or a protest.

Gadsby’s act highlights ideas of normal and non-normal, using her identity as “gender

non-normal” as well as being gay as opening points to discuss the ways in which society does

and does not make space for certain groups of people in the world. This idea connects with the

scholarship of Kirsten J. Warner in her article “ABCs Scandal and Black Women’s fandom”,

which discusses how margnialized fans, particularly black women, are united through shared

isolation from popular texts, and how their interaction on social media spurs responses and

attention from creators of texts, becoming a united effort behind individuals in shared interest

and ultimately likening fandom to a movement. This politicization and popularization of spaces

created by marginalized groups is not unlike what Gadsby creates with Nanette. Warner states

that:

If one can consider the narcissistic act of seeing themselves as a kind of resistance, then
Black women in fandom are doing this work….imagining a peripheral
Black female character as the lead, or writing “meta” about the ways the series
depicts the woman of color, or even discussing within the group how the
dearth of roles is emblematic of Black women’s place in society are all part
of what make an interpretive as well as a fan community. (38)

If we can extend this idea of “the narcissistic act of seeing [oneself] as a kind of resistance” to a

gender non-normal, gay body, then Gadsby is performaing an act of resistance with her stark

honesty about her experiences on the outskirts of society, and she is also performing a similar

kind of “meta” resistance by not only describing the way popular texts treat marginalized people,
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but how her very own text that she performs in real time is presenting a marginalized person;

herself.

While the majority of the first part of the act is in line with what would be expected of a

comedy act, featuring some moments of awkwardness or discomfort repeatedly resolved with a

clever quip from the comedian, as the act goes on the frequency of the laughter becomes

increasingly spaced, the discomfort becomes deeper, and the role of comedy within the act

moves from being something Gadsby performs to something she discusses:

I have built a career out of self-deprecating humor and I don’t want to do that anymore.
Do you understand what self-deprecation means when it come from
somebody who already exists in the margins? It’s not humility, it's
humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission
to speak, and I simply will not do that anymore, not to myself or
anybody who identifies with me. If that means that my comedy career is over, then, so be it.

By flipping her role as comedian to one of commentator on comedy, Gadsby echoes the role of

scholar exploring the connections between popular entertainment and politics. Gadsby seems to

acknowledge herself as a bridge between the world of entertainment and feminist politics,

revealing that as a “non-normal” body, someone who does not fit into the traditionally accepted

parameters of what a female is, Gadsby can use humour to manipulate the level of discomfort in

the room, a discomfort created by bringing to the surface the root of the reactions her non-normal

body and identity incites.

Repeatedly referring to the power she has as a comedian to create and release tension in

the room, by the end of the act Gadsby makes the audience aware of the “last joke” she is willing

to offer them, putting the emphasis on the fact that providing them with jokes is a favor, that

their laughter is a privilege. Gadsby ultimately leaves the audience in the state of tension that

would normally precede a joke, but rather than deliver one, she leaves the stage: "This tension is
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yours. I am not helping you anymore. You need to learn what this feels like, because this tension

is what non-normals carry inside of them all of the time. It is dangerous to be different.” Gadsby

merges the worlds of entertainment and politics, and leaves the room suspended in the mix with

the choice to remain in the dark, or pick up the torch and explore these new notions; not unlike

scholars.

Bibliography:

Banet-Weiser, S. (2015). Popular Misogyny: a Zeitgeist. Culture Digitally.

Warner, K. (2015). ABC's Scandal and Black Women's Fandom. In: E. Levine, ed., Cupcakes,
Pinterest and Ladyporn: Feminized Popular Culture in the Early Twenty-
First Century. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
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Hannah Gadsby's "Nanette". (2018). [video] Available at: https://www.netflix.com/title/

80233611 [Accessed 10 Dec. 2018].

Separate Together:

How Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” Harmonizes Feminism of the Past and Present.

In her introduction entitled “Fantasies of Power”, Susan Douglas combats the seemingly

contradictory self-branding of the Spice Girls: “they proclaimed that New Age feminism meant

“‘you have a brain, a voice and an opinion.’” And hot pants. Hmmm.” (2) Douglas, struggling

with the clashing of the feminism of the past with the emerging post-feminism of the 90s,
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expresses her confusion with the modern-day phenomenon that is pink-wearing, heel-strutting,

self-sexualizing feminists. What does it mean for feminism to have this kind of feminist exist,

and in droves? How do we reconcile the past and the present? According to Douglas, a

negotiation is necessary. By locating and allowing the negotiation of feminisms in modern-day

texts, feminists can keep themselves in the conversation with women and feminists, allowing

difference to fuel conversation toward feminism for the modern day rather than allowing

difference to become an agent of intimidation and silence, forging a divide between the present

and the past. In order to better understand what such a negotiation looks like, we will engage in

Ariana Grande’s recent music video “Thank U, Next”, and how it offers itself as a tool for

harmonizing feminist ideas of the past and present.

“Thank U, Next” is an example of what Taylor Nygaard refers to in her article when she

describes “The messy, sometimes contradictory trenches of feminist political discourse in a

postfeminist age.” (70) In this instance, Nygaard is referring to the work of comedian Amy

Schumer as being within this category, but with her recent video Ariana Grande fits in alongside

Amy Schumer as a present day example of a celebrity who negotiates feminist and post-feminist

ideals. In her chapter entitled “I’M COOL WITH IT", The Popular Feminism of Inside Amy

Schumer”, Nygaard describes the effectiveness of Schumer’s contradictory style, saying that

“The tensions and contradictions of her sketches provide especially productive fodder for debate

and discussion across media convergences; they have the potential to spark debate that disrupts

easy questions or assumptions about contemporary womanhood and what feminism should or

should not look like.” (69) The contraditions Nygaard speaks of pertain to Schumer’s

stereotypical appearance as a blonde, femme, traditionally attractive woman, as well as her

tendency to play into roles of what men could find attractive. However, it is the stated “tensions”
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that are key in Schumer’s work, as could be argued for Grande’s video. The video is riddled with

images of Grande in various states of pink and shiny, usually pouting and always wearing

makeup. The video is majorly focused on Grande’s relationship to men. The factor that skews

interpretation of all of this as indicative of female stereotyping, however, is that the scenes of the

video are adaptations from popular movies in which Grande has replaced herself as the leading

role, and through layering the video with her lyrics featuring themes of independence from men,

she subverts the themes of the actual movies, which majorly focus on the female protagonists

dependence on men for their sense of worth.

Feminist ideals are confused nowadays, according to older considerations of feminism,

and perhaps would be seen as made less serious than they are—but Nygaard would likely argue

that, as Schumer does, Grande has made feminist ideas accessible to the public through more

popular images and playful language, and that by feeding the idea with a spoonful of sugar, so to

say, it may actually go down—or at least be made palatable to those who would not otherwise

know how to approach it. “Thank U, Next” speaks to ideas of individualism that are consistent

with considerations of “post-feminism”, and what some would align with “third wave feminism”,

such as Astrid Henry in her article “Orgasms and Empowerment: Sex and the City and the third

wave feminism”:

third wavers have steered clear of prescribing a particular feminist agenda and instead
have chosen to stress individuality and individual definitons of feminism.
This is paralleled in the preferred writing genre of third wavers — the
autobiographical essay, a form which shares little with the group manifestos
of a previous generation. (71)

“Thank U, Next” may not be an autobiographical essay, but it contains both auto-biographical

elements as well as an emphasis on individuality. The opening lyrics reference people Grande

has dated by their actual names, and later rejoices in expressions of gratitude for having these
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men out of her life because she “met someone else”, “her name is Ari” and they “havin’ better

discussions”. According to Henry, these lyrics would not only be third-wave because of their

sentiments of self-love, but also because Grande moves outside of the normative female

resentment of male ex-lovers that dominates so much female-made music. Not only is Grande

radical in exulting in herself as her lover, but in her compassion for her past male lovers. Grande

does not align, however, with the post-feminist idea of using lovers casually and without feeling,

the post-feminist woman’s supposed way of gaining power through mirroring typical male

behavior. Grande surpasses the predictable conventions of post-feminism for the more brave,

more human approach of acknowledging vulnerability and strength to be found in love

relationships: “One taught me love / one taught me patience / and one taught me pain / now, I'm

so amazing”. Grande asserts the importance of men in her life, and the importance of her valuing

herself separately from her relation to them. In doing so, she presents a negotiation of the

feminist call for equality of men and women and the post-feminist desire for independence,

suggesting a revitilization of the non-binary thinking that the Spice Girls insisted on.

While her lyrics indulge in the freedom and benefits to be found in engaging in romantic

relationships, Grande up-ends tropes of women agonizing over the male presence in their lives

by parodying female protagonists of mainstream romantic comedies, such as when she

exhaggeratedly mimics the actress Jennifer Garner’s crying over losing her love interest in the

movie “13 Going on 30”, and when she alters the focus on scenes to be in the interest of female

friendship over female relations to men, as when near the end of the music video the two groups

of opposing cheerleading teams from “Bring it On” join arms and dance together; or when the

sexual dance scene of “Mean Girls” turns into the girls playfully messing up the dance and

falling over each other in good humour, Grande even picking up a girl’s fallen hat and putting it
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back on her head in a gesture of valuing friendship over performance. The tension created by the

slight differences in the scenes brings to the surface the root of the emotions and power dynamics

that were at play in the original scenes, making women’s attendance to men and the male gaze

obvious, and rendering it absurd.

Perhaps one of the most notable re-framing of scenes that could be equated with the

subersive qualities of the song comes from the “Bring it On” scene where, after receiving a mix-

tape from her love interest title “To Torrence, From Cliff”, the lead character breaks into a fit of

dancing on her bed, ecstatically punching her cheerleading pom-poms in the air. Grande imitates

this scene almost exactly, except for in her case, she is dancing after giving herself a mix-tape

from herself, titled “To Ari, From Ari”. Grande effectively gifts herself a self-written anthem—

and by extension, all women who listen to her song—while simultaneously offering not only a

declaration of freedom for the self, but a celebration of a healthy inter-dependencey of men and

women.
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Bibliography

Douglas, S. (2010). Enlightened sexism. New York: Times Books, p.Introduction: Fantasies of

Power.

Henry, A. (2004). Orgasms and Empowerment: Sex and the City and the third wave feminism.
In: K. Akass and J. McCabe, ed., Reading Sex and the City. London: GBR.

Nygaard, T. (2018). "I'm cool with it", The Popular Feminism of Inside Amy Schumer. In: J.
Keller and M. E. Ryan, ed., Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a
Postfeminist Media Culture. Routledge.

Ariana Grande's Music Video "Thank U Next". (2018). [video] Available at: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl1aHhXnN1k [Accessed 10 Dec. 2018].