Feminist Criticism in Television Programming in Analyzing

Feminist Criticism in Television Programming

In analyzing the impact of mass media to its audiences and cultures in today's societies, it is important to also consider the theoretical framework from which mass media analysis is based from and developed on. Television criticism is particularly a controversial field in which theories and methodologies for critical analysis are applied and contested. By itself, the idea of employing feminist criticism to analyze representation of women in television programming inevitably provides a critical view of TV programming itself in the context of gender representation and in most cases, gender equality.

As a theoretical perspective, feminist criticism cannot be specifically defined unlike other theoretical frameworks (e.g., structuralist and functionalist perspectives). Over the years, the feminist movement has evolved; thus, feminist criticism has evolved as well to recognize and consider these changes in schools of thought concerning the feminist movement and its theories. Because feminist theories are inherently critical and centers on the issue of gender inequality or unequal representation between males and females in any platform or fora, it is challenging to provide feminist criticism that is, at most, "fair" in looking at female representation and recognition from an objective perspective. That is, there is no assumption that there is a male or female criticism -- there is simply an objective observation of how women (as well as men) are represented in mass media (specifically, television). This is indeed Kolodny's (1975) point when she argued that when providing a critical analysis of women representation and recognition in mass media such as television (84):

…the challenge to the feminist critic is not only to analyze how and if female experience…is qualitatively different, and hence differently imaged and structured into a different kind of literary language, but also simultaneously to insist that we tread very carefully before asserting that the sometimes grotesque…perceptions of reality…are a distortion of any kind.

Indeed, in order to provide an effective critical analysis hinged on feminist criticism and theories, the critic must ensure that there is also an understanding of male representation and recognition as well. As Kolodny asserted, it is possible that men and women undergo the same challenges and experience the same realities, only, they use different languages or forms to express their perceived "subordination or oppression." It is this consideration of the other side of the spectrum (i.e., looking into male representation and recognition) that is the strength of feminist criticism not only in television, but in studying mass media in general and literature as well. Inherently, another strength of the feminist criticism is its ability to look critically into 'production, negotiation, and legitimization' of meanings produced through text and images shown on television (Acosta-Alzuru, 2003:270).