One of the things that stuck out to me while discussing, “Agency:
Promiscuous and Protean,” by Karlyn Campbell was the idea that the feminine
experience has been morphed and skewed to fit through the lens of a patriarchal
society. I enjoyed reading about Campbell’s five pillars of agency. One of the
main points that stuck out to me was the idea that agency is communal and
participatory (Campbell 2). Campbell gives examples of feminine framing through
the public eye and how society has failed in the past to allow a true feminine
experience. While reflecting on this, I tried to think about what some of the
possible negative repercussions of this type of framing might have on the
public’s ability to both understand and empathize with the fundamental views of
the modern feminist. I wanted to unpack both the ideals and dilemmas that
Campbell faces within her recognition of the public’s role in the feminine
experience. I realized quickly that the best way to understand this would be to
put Campbell’s text in conversation with a modern real life example.
The link below is to a skit from a 2008 episode of Saturday Night Live:
This skit centers on the framing of females within a political setting. The skit is about Senator Hilary Clinton and Sara Palin delivering a non-partisan address about the roles of females and sexism in politics. The majority of the skit is about the public’s inclination to frame women as one of either two groups: the “slut” or the “bitch”. During the skit, Hilary Clinton is painted as a power-hungry politician sulking over her defeat in the race for presidency while Sara Palin is painted as a clueless, uneducated sex symbol who is one step away from the Presidency. This skit serves as a satire to the way that we, as a public, categorize and frame powerful women. We, as Campbell would argue, use our false understanding to categorize what we don’t comprehend (Campbell, 4).
Saturday Night Live attempts to satirize a major issue at
hand- the idea that we must place different women into different social groups.
Campbell provides the example of Dana Gage’s attempt to assimilate Sojourner
Truth and her suffrage speech into the public’s idea of how a former slave from
South Carolina would act and speak (Campbell 12). Campbell suggests that is
effort is originally made in an attempt to make certain material “digestible”
for the public. In essence, however, Campbell believes that this shift directly
breaks away from and destroys the authenticity of the petition (Campbell 13).
I wanted to see how a modern example of the dilemma posed
the Sojourner Truth scenario would translate into the publics need and desire
to categorize ideas and individuals. Half of the enjoyment from the Saturday
Night Live skit is the fact that one can see the weight that it actually does
hold in current society- that is, to say, that there is actually some merit to
it. It is interesting, however, to see that this skit, in and of itself, is
still being framed through the lens of a masculine society. While the rhetoric
behind it is still very intentional and anti-sexist, the actions and dialogue
exchanged by the characters still, in a sense, reinforce the categorical nature
that Campbell unpacks. For example, Hilary Clinton speaks very aggressive and
appears power hungry. Campbell suggests that gender is associated to the
externals (Campbell 4). To the public, the external desires of Hilary Clinton
make it hard for her to be categorized traditionally. This is where, instead of
embracing her unique nature, she is written off as crazy.
When identifying her own feelings with Gage’s interpretation
of Sojourner Truth, Campbell recognizes the potential injustice that occurs in
the translation. Campbell is lead to a moment of crisis when she decides to
provide the public with her own translation of Sojourner’s text; one that she
feels is more accurate (Campbell 14). This is an interesting moment because
Campbell is recognizing the possible hypocrisy in her attempt to create a
translation. To me, this is almost an admission in which Campbell recognizes
that, unfortunately, woman might need to relinquish some power in an effort to
provide the public with the closest and most honest version of a feminine
experience. When analyzing the Saturday Night Live example, this practice can
be seen in the use of the medium itself. “SNL” is, in majority, a male-driven
medium. For the woman’s experience to be embedded, some of the misogyny and
false truths must be played to. In doing so, the feminine experience can be
slipped in and the public can recognize the truth. While the skit plays into
some of the stereotypes it’s directly combatting, it still manages to address
the topic of sexism in politics.
Campbell manages to outline in her five pillars of agency
the role of the public. She utilizes the example of the relationship of
feminine rhetoric and masculine mediums. Campbell believes that we should
strive for the most accurate form of any experience when considering agency
(Campbell 12). At the same time, she doesn’t deny the role of the public in
creating frames. Recognizing Campbell’s theories within a relatively modern
example, one can see how these ideas still hold merit today. It is important to
know how the public can still frame agency and even skew a message. It is the
role of the agent to be creative and work to embed their message in new and
creative ways.
-Kiernan Doyle
Wow! This is a pretty brilliant connection that you have made here. In watching the SNL skit with Campbell and her discussion of Sojourner Truth in mind, I definitely came to understand the issue that she was addressing more clearly. I have seen the video before but I have never really thought about it this way.
ReplyDeleteI honestly have very mixed feelings about the video, which I can see you do too. While it does boldly address a topic that is in desperate need of addressing. I am not entirely sure if it was done is the most politically correct way. It is true that several harmful female stereotypes are addressed head on. Sara Palin is portrayed as very ditzy and superficial, spontaneously modeling in front of the camera. She is more feminine. Hillary Clinton is much more assertive and driven and is thus portrayed as masculine and bossy. I think that SNL does a good job of starting the conversation about why these stereotypes are wrong, but, like you said, I’m not sure they do it in the right way. While watching the video, I felt like the sexist stereotypes were being perpetuated as they were being addressed. While I understand this is satire, I still feel like the women were cast into those roles, maybe unconsciously. While addressing how harmful these assumptions about women are, they seem to be making fun of these women. This unsettles me.
This tension that I felt watching the video definitely helped me better understand the tension that Campbell must have felt reading Gage’s version of Sojourner Truth’s speech. Gage is obviously on Truth’s side, but in representing her, she effectively puts her back into the category from which she is trying to free herself. This is troubling, but also very interesting. Campbell is conflicted as to whether or not it is her place to correct Gage’s work. Should the work even be corrected? I’m not sure that I would recreate the SNL skit to make it more politically correct. It seemed to have gotten its point across regardless. This leads me to wonder if political correctness is necessary to get a point across effectively. In these cases it seems it is not. But then I wonder if the morality of it is relevant at all. That is the part that troubles me most. Yes Gage and SNL both communicated their messages, but could they have done it in a more respectful and ethical way and had the same impact? This, I am not sure of.
--Morgan