New York City, NY – 10/22/10


Spark Summit: workshop
When
Friday20101012
13:30 - All Ages
Where
68th St. & Lexington Ave
New York City, NY
Other Info
Join Jennifer L. Pozner (Reality Bites Back; Women In Media & News), Andrea Quijada (Media Literacy Project), and Jamia Wilson (Women's Media Center) for an interactive media literacy discussion at the SPARK! Summit on the sexualization of girls in the media. Our session will look critically at how women and girls are represented in the media, and cover how representation is directly correlated with who the decision makers are. We’ll explore what you can do to change the conversation with media literacy, advocacy and action! For more information, see: http://www.sparksummit.com/

Reality Bites Back at SPARK Summit: Challenging media sexualization of girls


Quick reminder: if you’re in New York City, Hunter College is the place to be today, as media literacy activists, media makers, youth educators, girls’ rights advocates, scholars — and, importantly, girls themselves — will be coming together for the SPARK Summit (Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge).

On behalf of Women In Media & News, I’m thrilled to be presenting tomorrow during the “Shining a Light on Sexualization in the Media” workshop, along with Andrea Quijada of the Media Literacy Project, and Yana Walton and Jill

Marcellus of

the Women’s Media Center. Andrea will be conducting an interactive media literacy game, we’ll show a Spark Summit-produced video about sexualization (including many clips from reality TV shows), after which I will discuss sexualization in reality TV–in particular, stereotypes about women’s sexuality, the differences in how hypersexualization of women of color plays out, how to watch critically.

Media personalities including Geena Davis and MTV’s Amber Madison will be speaking, as will WIMN allies such as Samhita Mukhopadhyay of Feministing, sex educator and young feminist leader Shelby Knox, Emily May of HollaBack, the WMC’s Jamia Wilson, and many others.

See the SPARK Summit agenda.

There’s still time to register.


New in the readers gallery: L.A., Philly, Seattle


On Saturday, I introduced you to six people in the Reality Bites Back readers gallery: Andrew from Brooklyn, Veronica from Chicago, the interns of Reel Grrls in Seattle, and a very precocious (or, well, hungry) kid in Los Angeles.

Today, it’s time to meet four new members of our reading community:

Straight from the belly of the beast — Los Angeles, where reality TV stereotypes are carefully crafted — professor Melanie Klein snuggles up on her

couch with the book. Melanie will be teaching from Reality Bites Back this semester, along with many women’s studies, ethnic studies, communications/media studies, and humanities professors across the country. (Which I’m really excited about, by the way.) She is also helping to organize this event:

Melanie Klein reads Reality Bites Back

It seems Seattle-based Jerry Darcy was a bit confused by the book. First, he apparently thought some of the reality show anecdotes I described are so preposterous, they’d made more sense upside down:

Jerry Darcy, extremely confused

Then, he searched in vain for a Reality Bites Back centerfold pinup. (You’ll be looking for a long time, there, Tiger…):

Jerry Darcy, confused

When he finally started reading it right-side up, he was shocked, SHOCKED, by what he learned: Jerry Darcy can't believe his eyes. (And neither can we.)


TONIGHT: Livetweeting America’s Next Top Model Cycle 15, 8pmEST: Join me on Twitter @jennpozner


OK, it’s official: my summer reality TV fast (a needed respite after sending the Reality Bites Back manuscript off to my publisher) is over. To mark the occasion, I’m going to be livetweeting analysis of the season premiere of America’s next Top Model, Cycle 15 — yes, 15 — tonight at 8pm EST. (UPDATE: Full feed of the livetweeting session below.)

Long-time readers of my other blog (WIMN’s Voices, the group blog of Women In Media & News) know that I’ve monitored this series since it debuted, often to horrifying results. Not surprisingly, then, ANTM features quite often throughout Reality Bites Back, in chapters on body image, race, and product placement advertising and media economics. But the show also has the distinction of being the only reality series of the decade to get its own chapter in the book: “Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, and Cha Cha Divas: Race, Beauty, and the Tyranny of Tyra Banks.” Let’s see if tonight gives us a glimpse why…

Send your questions, comments and snarky hashtags about gender, race, beauty, product placement, manipulation, Tyra Banks’ batshit crazy antics, and anything else ANTM-related to @jennpozner on Twitter, or post your questions to the comments section below. (You can connect to my Twitter feed by clicking on the blue “t” icon on the sidebar at the right of this page.)