Feedback from Assignment 4

Received feedback from tutor on my Assignment on the portrayal of women in sport

Am very pleased with the comments:

"This is an impressive submission, which I have judged as excellent across all four criteria. I particularly liked your discussion of the representation of women in sport. which I thought raised very important questions about the ability of cultural theory to keep up with changes in technology as well as with what is new and significant in popular culture."

It is particularly gratifying that tutor notes my attempts to present visual culture as far as possible in a contemporary way. A major paradox of reading books and periodicals as source of understanding and reference for visual culture is that they are two dimensional, static, and often include minimal examples of  the very visual element about which they write. I have tried to use the blog as a medium to include colour images, and short video clips. There is an argument that perhaps at least one Assignment should be presented entirely as a visual presentation. 

I spent a long time researching the Assignment, reviewing and reading many articles, as tutor notes, and several that are not included, either because out of date (this is a fast moving subject); using inadequate research (I used mainly the work of researchers who had performed substantive studies); or would have made the essay too long. Most articles were found online, but I bought a few from subscription sites, including a few that were not incorporated in the essay. 'Less is more' is an important adage when writing essays within a prescriptive word count; there is a temptation to include too much and lose the thread, a point by implication that tutor notes:

"Your research is indicated by your references to twenty different sources in your bibliography, all of which you evaluate with an enviable ease and discrimination in the text."

Tutor highlights that I use Mulvey's distinction between voyeuristic and fetishistic gaze; the idea for the Assignment came to me while reading the article, as it seemed to me that the portrayal of women in sport probably demonstrates Mulvey's argument better than the movies she used as examples (with due recognition that she wrote some time before there was significant female participation in top level sport).

My use of statistics and related issues such as health are viewed by tutor as 'admirable'; I thought it important that while the topic needs be discussed against the backdrop of an academic study (that was, after all, the brief), it should also be placed, as tutor says 'in wider context of sexism.'

Tutor would have liked more discussion of the Nike advert of Maria Sharpova. The YouTube clip was included only as a sort of taster within the abstract, as sort of visual update on Berger's well known passge of 40 years ago, that was included above it. I considered that Nike cleverly parodied our (male and female) instinct to view the likes of Sharapova as beautiful and glamorous rather than as a great tennis player. Tutor considers that the likes of the bellboy, receptionists etc admire Sharapova because 'she is a great deal less successful than she is.' Not sure of the exact meaning of this statement, but the 'decisive moment', in Cartier Bresson terms, of the clip is when Sharapova serves, drawing breath from the audience and stopping the 'I Feel Pretty' song in its stride. She is (as at 19 October 2014) ranked world number 2, and has won five Grand Slams over ten years: two French Opens, and one of each of US, Australian, and Wimbledon. That is sporting success in anyone's books, and gives Sharapova a sporting kudos as well as celebrity status. By comparison, Anna Kournikova's celebrity status was undermined in a sporting sense by an absence of singles success, an injury at just 21 forcing her retirement. She did win two Grand Slam doubles titles with Maria Hingis (source: Wikipedia).

In hindsight, taking tutor's point, it might have been better to have used the clip rather than the Colombian cycling team as the lead, the instigator, of the essay and use the image as an example of the ridicule (albeit self imposed by one of the female team). The furore over the Colombian women's cycling team's uniform coincided with the idea for the Assignment.

More generally, tutor appreciates the common sense approach, using the discussion around the black maid in Tom and Jerry cartoons as an example. We should be empathetic to the Zeitgeist of the time when material was written and created; it is not a question of the portrayal being 'wrong at the time', it is a question of what is socially acceptable in a more understanding, broad-minded society than existed 50 years ago. Discrimination of any kind (sexism, racism, anti Semitism to quote a few) devalues us as individuals and as a society, but it is foolish to pretend that what we now see as discrimination would have been seen as the natural order of things in the past.

Lastly, tutor considers my discussion of Simba might have benefited from more discussion of the relationship between Alan and Mary and how it 'helped to underscore the portrayal of racial differences.' Fair point, as a subtlety of the movie is the premise white people have loving relationships, whereas the only personal relationship between blacks in the movie is that between the liberal Dr Karanja, attempting to bridge the gap between the races, and his father, Simba, the local Mau Mau leader and perpetrator of much of the violence against whites. Having viewed Battle of Algiers first, I was more inclined to make the comparisons (as noted by tutor, in grid style) and the second movie eschews any significant personal angle.