MALE FANTASIES, MALE FANTASIES is everything run by male fantasies? If you believe Margaret Atwood the male gaze is inescapable. If a man isn’t looking at you (but tbh when is he not?) then you are your own voyeur, always seeing yourself as male culture (“entertainment”) has taught you to -- whether you know it or not.

 

“Protagonism is propaganda that protects and perpetuates privilege,” Jill Soloway announced at TIFF this fall. Gina Young put it another way: “The people with all the power control the stories that get told.” And the stories they’re telling are often narratives that reduce women to objects and false dichotomies, narratives that are designed to teach us how to behave, how to be in service of a male agenda, how to be.

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This episode is about taking control of the ways we’re seen -- the ways we’re looked at, in what context, on whose terms, and for what purposes. This episode is about two womxn and two ideas in conversation: What would media look like if we told our own stories? And how could those stories give us permission to really be ourselves? THE FEMALE GAZE is how we see the world, ourselves, & each other.

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In this episode WE DISSECT DIRECTOR JILL SOLOWAY’S MASTER CLASS: Jill Soloway perfectly articulates our rage, suggestions for what cis-males should do in the feminist utopia, and why Zack Morris is the epitome of white dude fragility.

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WE VISIT GINA YOUNG’S FEMINIST ACTING CLASS: The tragedies of Hollywood typecasting, queer casting calls and feminist sororities, and how to maintain your sanity when your body is a commodity.

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This episode features music by DEATH VALLEY GIRLS and INTI WAWA. Photo of Gina Young (above) by @sorrelscrutton.  

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bitchface is written, recorded, hosted + produced by Nicole Kelly & Phoebe Unter. This episode was mastered by Elyssa Dudley.