NOW Protests TV’s Powerless Women
The National Organization of Women has begun a letter-writing campaign to major media companies for the portrayal of women in movies and television shows as normal human beings, completely devoid of super powers.
“For too long, every woman has been judged by the standards of a man,” said NOW president Kim Gandy. “I think it’s time we start being compared instead to Superman.”
The B&S has obtained a form letter from the NOW website, which includes this excerpt: “Most women have the power to give birth. Surely some of them can fly as well. Stop keeping women down with gravity, Hollywood!”
The League of Women Voters joined the campaign and subsequently changed its name to the Justice League of Women Voters.
“Buffy slaying vampires was a start,” said JLWV spokesperson Carissa Lewis, “but when will they show women that can breathe underwater or turn invisible? Uh, Jessica Alba doesn’t count. A woman can have it all—a husband, a family, a job, and a fortress of solitude. After all, if she can manage those first three things, she must have the ability to stop time. Or undrainable sources of alien energy.”
A recent NOW study of prime-time TV shows also found that none of the major networks showed a woman who was a robot that could transform into a semi-truck or giant cassette player.
A spokesperson for Warner Brothers (a notoriously male-named studio) countered the NOW campaign, saying that mass media shows many women who are superhumanly attractive. “Jessica Alba sooo counts,” he said.
Katie Logan ’08, a member of Feminist Action Coalition (FAC) told The B&S she agreed with NOW. “Seriously, I’m so tired of unrealistic portrayals of women in the media. I can’t think of any women in real life who look like Jennifer Aniston, have weekly madcap dating misadventures, or wash their hair on a regular basis. But I can think of dozens of real women with X-ray vision.”
Another FAC member, Tameka Johnson ’06, showed her anger by using her superhuman strength to smash the television in Clark lounge.
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