April 14th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Kim and Khloe Kardashian examine boxes of U by Kotex.
U by Kotex, which launched last month in the US, has started the next phase of the campaign featuring reality television stars the Kardashian sisters, Kim and Khloe. I’ve seen two press releases about this so far today. The sisters and their mother, Kris Jenner, star in a new “Getting Real With the Kardashians” video series online.
It’s very unusual for celebrities to appear in femcare ads. Although there are a few well known cases of early career femcare ads (Cheryl Tiegs, Susan Dey, and Cybill Shepherd all appeared in print ads before achieving fame in other arenas, and Courteney Cox, later of Friends fame, holds the distinction of being the first person to utter the word “period” in an American television ad for a menstrual product), the only celebrities that have promoted menstrual products after becoming well-known are gymnasts Mary Lou Retton and Cathy Rigby, and actor Brenda Vacarro. All took some heat for it.
The cycle of fame today is much shorter, and arguably narrower. By narrower, I mean that a star might be famous to a smaller segment of the population; to put it another way, I’m not really familiar with the Kardashian sisters and I’m not sure exactly why they’re famous. But I’m not the target demographic of U by Kotex, either. The products are aimed at young women ages 14-24, who presumably ARE part of the audience reached by the Kardashians.
I’ll be interested to see how this affects their careers, and how fans react. Any fans of the Kardashian sisters care to comment?
Tags: advertising, Celebrities, FemCare advertising, Kotex, viral video
Posted in Advertising, Celebrities, Disposable menstrual products, Internet, Menstruation | 7 Comments »
March 27th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
I’m surely not the only fan of Amy Poehler and Parks and Recreation around here, am I? (Oh, Amy Poehler, have you been reading my mail? Leslie Knope is more like me than I care to admit.)
As I’ve written elsewhere, menstruation is seldom mentioned or represented on television outside of femcare advertising. The one notable exception has been when a girl’s menarche is played for laughs in the family sitcom. Now there’s another exception, in last week’s episode of Parks and Recreation.
In this episode, Leslie brought together all the surviving Directors of the Pawnee Indiana Department of Parks and Recreation, hoping for some inspiration for the catalog copy she needed to write. Instead she found a lot of bullying, misogyny, and other bad behavior.
In clip at right, the oldest of the former directors advises Leslie to stay away from leadership roles because the intellectual demands will interfere with her reproductive abilities. Leslie politely dismisses this by explaining that times have changed, and she aspires to greatness. But more importantly, she turns off the tape recorder, letting viewers know that this retrograde attitude is so unacceptable that she won’t be recording it for posterity. Having such views expressed by the oldest character also makes them easy to dismiss.
Tags: Amy Poehler, attitudes toward menstruation, comedy, Humor, Menstruation, television
Posted in Celebrities, Humor, Menstruation, Television | 1 Comment »
March 23rd, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler
Last July we posted photos from an unnamed film set where Dakota Fanning stood, ready for camera, with blood running down her thighs and a blood stain on the back of her skirt. Were these menstrual markings or the next era of horror film misogyny? The answer can be seen in the newly released film The Runaways, a drama about a 1970′s all girl rock band fronted by Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and guitarist, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart.)
Here, menstruation is a framing element, as the film begins with a screen sized image of a red blood drop falling to the pavement. Cut to Fanning wiping blood from her thigh in disbelief. Her sister, Marie rushes her to the bathroom to attend to their first period, for Marie whines “Everything happens to you first!” Cherie packs her undies with paper towels, ties a sweatshirt around the stain, and in stunned disbelief of what has just transpired, tags behind her sister and her sister’s creepy dude date. He leers at her, “You’re a woman now.”
Later that evening, Cherie crops her hair, paints a David Bowie red streak across her face, and begins to come into herself. Becoming a woman in this film, does not include being soft and desirable for boys. Rather, menarche signifies entrance into glam rock iconography.
As Cherie meets up with Joan, and the two launch The Runaways, Cherie’s early entrance into womanhood seems to have come too soon. Still a child, Cherie is pushed into the front of a stage and asked to groan into a mic about her bursting sexuality in the song Cherry Bomb. The demanding manager, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), yells at her to give more to the song “This isn’t woman’s lib. It’s woman’s lib-ido.”
In the coming weeks on tour, Cherie will partake in her first kiss, first sip, first line, first pill – revealing how womanhood has not “dropped” upon her. It arrives in waves through her choices, or her inability to make them. And there is still more growing to do.
Tags: Menarche, Menstruation, movies
Posted in Celebrities, Independent Film, Internet, Menarche, Menstruation, Music | 5 Comments »
March 2nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
In the grand tradition of Ms. magazine, we present the latest installment of SNL’s “Classic ESPN Women’s Sports Tournament” with NO COMMENT.
(OK, if you really want to know what we think, see our previous posts about this misogynist series. We’re just too tired to say it again.)
Tags: Celebrities, FemCare, FemCare advertising, misogyny, SNL, television, vagina
Posted in Celebrities, Communication, FemCare, Television | 2 Comments »
February 10th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by David Linton, Marymount Manhattan College
Four years ago I published an article in Sex Roles (March 2006) about the twists and turns of the media coverage of a scandal that came to be known as “Camillagate.” It concerned the publication of a surreptitiously recorded phone chat between Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles, that occurred in 1993. The reason the mild sex banter between two horny middle-aged royals got so much attention was that at one point they made joking references to tampons in an erotic context. The exchange was widely misreported with a distorted claim that Charles expressed a desire to be transformed into a tampon. It even became the basis for a skit on Saturday Night Live (only a small portion of it is available now online).
At the time I predicted that Charles would never get away from the tampon association. What I could not predict was how nuanced the forms of mockery would be. Who could possibly have guessed that the story would play out as a means of bolstering George W. Bush’s faltering reputation by contrasting his macho style with the more effete image of The Prince of Wales?
In October 2005 as Charles was about to visit the U.S., he told an interviewer in London that he hoped to speak with President Bush about improving relations with Muslims. The thought of a Brit having the temerity to advise Bush so enraged some in the right wing that they attacked with menstrual guns blazing. A blog called “The Citizen Journal: Conservative Political Forum, Articles & Resources” headlined a brief screed, “’Prince Tampon’ aka Prince Charles to lecture Bush on Muslims!!” (exclamations in original). The next day (Halloween!), the blog of a woman named Debbie Schlussel, a self-described “conservative political commentator,” echoed the same theme and in a far more vicious tone. Her piece was titled “Another Halloween Costume: Tampon Man Now Islam’s Envoy to U.S.” She repeated the phrase “Tampon Man,” “Prince Tampon,” “Prince Charles of Tampon” or “Tampon Prince” eight times and also included a crude cartoon depicting a box of Tampax with legs and arms and several tampons sticking out of the top, one with a crown and Charles’ face with the caption, “Sweet Camilla, Your wish is granted.”
Whew! What a lesson! Would it be any wonder that men, particularly any men exposed to this kind of vitriol, would conclude that menstrual contact of any kind must be avoided at all cost? The threat to one’s social standing is too great. If the reputation of an heir apparent of a great nation can be so publicly bashed over an innocent and misreported sex joke, can any man escape menstrual mockery?
The public’s fascination with the story has manifested itself in curious ways as it has settled into the realm of popular myth. In 2006 a British paper, the Daily Star, ran a survey to mark the 130th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone asking its readers to select “the biggest phone scandals of all time.” To the paper’s surprise, Prince Charles and Camilla’s “saucy” chat edged out all others including soccer super star David Beckham’s text sex exchanges with Rebecca Loos (number two on the list) and Richard Nixon’s Watergate recordings (number four). Further evidence of how well entrenched the tale has become is revealed by how efficiently and subtly it can be evoked. An episode of the cartoon program The Family Guy once had the lead character say on the phone “I want to be your tampon,” and a ballet performance titled “Diana the Princess” choreographed by Peter Schaufuss in London in 2005 featured dancing tampons. Is it possible that one day “Charlies’ tampon” will be as familiar an allusion as “Achilles’ heel?” It would be shorthand for any man who even toyed with the thought of voluntarily exposing himself to anything menstrual. Continue reading...
Tags: boys/men, guest post, Humor, shame, SNL, tampons
Posted in Celebrities, Communication, Internet, Men, Menstruation, Newspapers, Television | 2 Comments »
January 19th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Remember last fall, when half the Western world was shocked – shocked! – by The Guardian‘s publication of an Ingrid Berthon-Moine photo of a woman with menstrual blood on her lips? We’ll never forget.
Apparently menstrual activists are just a few steps ahead of high fashion: Blood red lips are now considered “quite glam”.
Perhaps Laura, my colleague here at re:Cycling and SMCR, is right: Menstruation IS coming out of the closet.
Tags: Activism, cosmetics, fashion
Posted in Activism, Celebrities, Menstruation | 1 Comment »
January 19th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by Heather Dillaway, Wayne State University
First, it was Tampax, and then it was Vagisil. But it’s good they didn’t leave out Summer’s Eve. And I expect Midol (for those irritating PMS-y women) and something about menopausal women’s hot flashes (can’t they control themselves with hormone therapies?) to be next. Although probably SNL writers aren’t savvy enough yet to even contemplate what menopause is or how they feel about it, so they’ll probably stick with skits that revolve around women’s body parts and younger women’s reproductive experiences.
I was frustrated with SNL’s skit about ESPN’s coverage of a women’s billiards tournament, “Tampax to the Max Tournament of Champions” (see my blog post about it). I was disgusted and concerned that SNL writers revised this skit for a second airing, to include a spoof about women’s yeast infections during a Women’s bowling tournament, “Vagisil Superstars of Bowling Tournament”. After seeing the second skit, I (along with many other critics) knew that the power of the skits was not in jokes about women’s menstruation alone but, rather, in jokes about the disgusting nature of women’s bodies more generally.
This past weekend, SNL revised the skit once again to be a skit about ESPN coverage of a women’s darts tournament, and the main sponsor was Summer’s Eve, “Summer’s Eve Stars of Darts Competition”. The skit was as dumb as it was the first two times, but the one-line jokes within the skit carried even more jarring phrases in my opinion (e.g., “when your situation down south makes him breathe through his mouth” or “when your man’s in a coma from your panty aroma”). As a trio, these skits point to the fear, dislike, and disrespect for women’s bodies. The three skits also all revolve around talk about women’s vaginas, and the mysteries, misunderstandings, fears, and disgust surrounding this body part. As a trio, the skits produce the message that vaginas are gross, that men do not understand women’s reproductive processes and conditions, and the not-so-subtle message specifically to women is that women should keep their vaginal “conditions” private and not bother men with them. Indeed, the message in the one-liners this time around is that vaginas should be good-smelling, unbloodied, and available for men’s use at all times (and no other situation is acceptable).
After watching all three skits, I think we can safely conclude the following: Continue reading...
- Commenters on our previous blog entries about these skits that thought it was “just a spoof on ESPN’s early coverage of women’s sporting events” were wrong. While this may be one of the ideas behind the initial creation of the skits, the skits’ messages move way beyond and mask this. These skits are about making fun of women’s bodies.
- Commenters who suggested that SNL writers were just picking random products, and that these skits “could have very well been about Preparation H” were wrong. These skits will never be about products that everyone could use. The power of these skits is the fact that they are making fun of women’s bodies and products for only women’s bodies.
- One commenter on the previous blog entry about these skits also suggested that we have “been taught since childhood that vaginas and penises are serious business. Laughing at them is naughty, so we laugh at them because being naughty is fun.” Sure, this is true, but everyone also knows that when you decide to continually joke about one body part over the other funny ones, there is a reason. (Just like when that one kid was picked on over and over in elementary school – that kid wasn’t picked at random.) At least one SNL writer (and probably several, given how television writing typically works) doesn’t understand and respect women’s body parts. They understand penises and respect them and therefore aren’t joking about them in this particular skit. If they were making fun of everyone’s body parts and everyone’s products, then we wouldn’t be writing about these skits here at re:Cycling.
Tags: Celebrities, Communication, FemCare, guest post, misogyny, SNL, television, vagina, vagisil
Posted in Celebrities, Communication, FemCare, Television | 18 Comments »
January 18th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Jane Lynch just gave us another reason to join her fan club. Interviewed on the red carpet at last night’s Golden Globe event, in addition to being asked about her outfit and jewelry, Lynch was asked what was in her bag. She replied, “My invitation, a little bit of lipstick, and a tampon.” The (male) interviewer chuckled and responded, “Are you feeling lucky tonight?” Check out her reply in the video clip at the left.
(I am bit disappointed that she wasn’t planning to make the same announcement if/when she won the award . . . )
[via Kate Harding]
Tags: Celebrities, Communication, Humor, tampons
Posted in Celebrities, Communication, Menstruation | 7 Comments »
January 16th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
The feminist blogosphere has been buzzing lately over all the decorations available for ladyparts. We chimed in ourselves on the labia dye, My New Pink Button. Now, via Broadsheet, we learn of “vajazzling”, or bedazzling one’s vajayjay. Actor Jennifer Love Hewitt, star of The Ghost Whisperer, recently announced to George Lopez and his talk show audience that her “precious lady” now “shines like a disco ball” because it is covered with Swarovski crystals.
Note that I used the term “vajayjay” above only because that is the term used by Love Hewitt in advocating the practice of vajazzling. (She says all women should vajazzle their vajayjays, and has an entire chapter of her new book dedicated to the topic.) Perhaps I take things too literally, but I understood vajayjay = vagina, so when I read Mary Elizabeth Williams’ Broadsheet article, I had a lot of questions. Like, WHY? why put crystals in your vagina? No one but your gynecologist will see them! And doesn’t it hurt? Aren’t crystals sharp? And what, exactly, does one use to ATTACH Swarovski crystals?
Of course, Jennifer Love Hewitt isn’t putting crystals in her vagina. She’s decorating her vulva. But cutesy terms like precious lady and vajayjay obscure women’s anatomy even more than Swarovski crystals and pink colorants. Vajayjay entered the pop culture lexicon because network censors would not approve a Grey’s Anatomy script using the word vagina too many times:
Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of “Grey’s Anatomy,” who brought the word into full public view, never intended to promote a euphemism or slang term for the female anatomy. Rather, she fought to use vagina in the script.
“I had written an episode during the second season of ‘Grey’s’ in which we used the word vagina a great many times (perhaps 11),” Ms. Rhimes wrote in an e-mail message. “Now, we’d once used the word penis 17 times in a single episode and no one blinked. But with vagina, the good folks at broadcast standards and practices blinked over and over and over. I think no one is comfortable experiencing the female anatomy out loud — which is a shame considering our anatomy is half the population.”
When grown men start referring to their penises as “pee-pee” or “winky”, I’ll consider vajayjay an acceptable label for my vulva. As for vajazzling, I’m with Madeleine and the other Lunapad ladies:
At the end of the day, for all the language of self-love and empowerment used in the marketing copy for these products, I still can’t get around the underlying implication that our vulvas are not in fact just fine, thanks, without smelling or looking any different than they already do. To my way of thinking, even planting a seed of doubt of this kind in a woman’s (let alone a girl’s) mind about her bodily self-esteem is to perpetuate a dangerous climate of self-loathing against which most girls and women will struggle at some point during their lives.
Tags: anatomy, Celebrities, slang, television, vagina, vulva
Posted in anatomy, Celebrities, Communication, Language, Television | 3 Comments »
January 15th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Since I am both far too old to follow Katy Perry on Twitter and too completely uninterested in celebrities’ personal lives to read The Huffington Post (WTF? Didn’t HP used to be a political blog?), a friend had to tip me off to the big news that Katy Perry is menstruating and presumably not pregnant.
The image at right is of one of Ms. Perry’s Twitter messages from Wednesday, which reads, “ur gonna make me cry, maybe that’s my period tho. THAT’S RIGHT I’M BLEEDING. Face. Better luck next month peepz”.
As far as I’m concerned, Katy Perry can tweet about her period until the cows come home – hell, that’s what Twitter is for. And in general, the more open acknowledgment that Menstruation Exists, the better for all menstruators. But the comments on the Huffington Post article provide another fascinating study in communication about menstruation. I don’t have enough Sanity Watchers points to read all six pages (and still accumulating) of comments, but I did scan a couple of pages. Most of the comments are along the lines of “TMI” and “It’s gross to discuss that kind of stuff.” One Perry fan posted this remark: “Katy, get pregnant fast so that you can talk about that instead of this.”
Apparently it’s acceptable to talk about the contents of one’s uterus only when it’s full.
[via my buddy genehack]
Tags: Celebrities, Communication, internet, Menstruation, uterus
Posted in Celebrities, Communication, Internet, Menstruation | 2 Comments »
January 10th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
This advert for Tampax appears in the February 2010 issue of Marie Claire, and probably other ladymags as well. It shows tennis star Serena Williams posing in a victory stance with clenched fist in the foreground, while security guards cart off Mother Nature, who is bearing a red-wrapped gift for Serena. The legend printed across the picture reads, “Serena shuts out Mother Nature’s monthly gift”.
As I said previously, I have some ambivalence about these ads. In today’s period-hating cultural climate, it takes some courage for a celebrity to appear in advertisement for a menstrual product. And it’s great to see acknowledgement that an athlete can win contests at any phase of her menstrual cycle (even the Boston Marathon).
But look closely at this ad, and read the copy. What’s missing?
That’s right – there’s no mention of blood or menstruation. The word period, itself a euphemism, isn’t even used. Only the flowery, secretive euphemism “Mother Nature’s monthly gift” represents menses.
And Mother Nature is reduced from the clever, wise-cracking Aunt Flo portrayed here to a kooky sitcom aunt reminiscent of Gladys Kravitz. Who wants to receive her gift?
Tags: advertising, blood, Celebrities, Communication, FemCare advertising, Procter & Gamble, sports, Tampax, tampons
Posted in Advertising, Celebrities, Disposable menstrual products, FemCare, Language, magazines, Menstruation | 7 Comments »
December 22nd, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
Mel Gibson claims his work has suffered due to male menopause.
Guest Post by David Linton, Marymount Manhattan College
An earlier re: Cycling post about a clever viral marketing strategy that exploited the notion of male cramps reminded me of some other ways that men have tried to appropriate aspects of the menstrual mythos for their own interests.
Gender jealousy was spelled out by Freud with his concept of “penis envy” and rebutted by Karen Horney who claimed that “womb envy” was an even stronger psychosocial phenomenon that expressed male anxiety at their inability to give birth. Then the term “menstrual envy” came along in an attempt to explain a variety of male attractions to behaviors including sports and war.
Recently there has been a rise in use of the term “male menopause,” probably a reflection of demographic shifts and concern for the well being of the aging American male. An early advocate of this syndrome was Jed Diamond whose 1998 book, Male Menopause, claims that the purpose of the hypothesized phenomenon (also called viropause or andropause) “is to signal the end of First Adulthood and prepare men for Second Adulthood.”
Another web site identifies eight “symptoms of male menopause,” but reading the list reveals that what is now being called male menopause used to be called simply “getting old,” as it includes items such as declining sex drive, forgetfulness, weight gain, and irritability.
The Fox news network has also gotten behind the idea with testimony from the “Foxsexpert,” Yvonne Fulbright, who sports a sexy pose to support her title under a headline that reads, “NOT SUCH A MYTH: MALE MENOPAUSE” The Sexpert goes on to state, “He’s feeling hot flashes — and they have nothing to do with desire. Like a woman, his body is letting him know it’s going through “male menopause.” Far from being a myth, this hotly debated experience really does exist. Yet few people know about the condition more formally known as andropause.”
Actually, once the article turns its attention to the medical circumstances surrounding andropause, it raises some very important issues that men would be well advised to know about.
(more…)
Tags: boys/men, guest post, Menopause
Posted in Celebrities, Men, Menopause | 3 Comments »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
