Portrayal of Women in Media

After our discussion in class today, I couldn't stop thinking about how women are portrayed in The Joke. It doesn't seem as if we really get to hear any of the women's perspectives in the novel, except for Helena, but all she really talks about is her ex-husband, what she should wear, etc. Also, and the author comments on how this is done purposefully, Helena's monologue in part 2 is pretty much just one run-on sentence. When I read it, I felt like she was just rambling and talking just to talk. It almost feels like the author is making her sound like she doesn't have anything important to say and maybe even nothing important going on in her mind. The next woman we are introduced to is Marketa, and like some people said in class, she is almost made out to seem like an awful person for turning Ludvick in to the Party for the joking letter he wrote to her. That is pretty much her only role in the novel as of right now. And then we meet Lucie, who barely has any lines in the novel except for when Ludvick tries to force himself on her, which is when she starts to say that she doesn't want to have sex with him. The only other interaction Ludvick has with a woman up until part 3 is when he goes to the bar with his friends from the camp, and all the soldiers are trying to pursue the few women there, and when they meet one, Ludvick and his friends take turns with her. I'm not sure exactly what the author's intention is when portraying women in The Joke, but from what I can tell, it's not a very positive portrayal, and I don't even consider myself a feminist.
It's made me think about my last post about cliques, and made me try to focus my attention more towards how women are portrayed in the media. Clearly in Gossip Girl, girls are always fighting, making their best friends hate them one day and then becoming best friends the next day, and sleeping around with any guy they can find. Shows like Gossip Girl want girls to create drama. And just like this, the portrayal of women in books like The Joke are making women feel like they are only as good as the guy they're with, or that their main goal should be to look good so that they can find a guy. Maybe I'm overreacting to the book, but it's a serious issue in our society today that women are constantly under pressure to look perfect. This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and it's mainly the media that has made women feel the need to become thinner which lead to eating disorders. Thinking about the way women are portrayed reminds me of a video that I watched in my Intro to Sociology class last year:

I feel that Kundera is not allowing the women in his novel to show their ideas (unless they are about the Party) on purpose, and I think that is my biggest issue with The Joke right now. I wish that we could see what's going on inside of Lucie's head. I understand that Ludvick is the main character and that we can only hear his thoughts, but the fact that we hear more from his friends at the camp that we do from Lucie really upsets me because he claims that he loves her, yet we never hear anything from her unless she's resisting him. Maybe we'll find out more about who she is later on in the novel, but she is just another example of women who are portrayed as being passive. 

Cliques

As I said before, ideology can be described as something that people can go along with, or hide behind. Cliques are a great way for people to lose their individuality and hide behind something, because it is very easy for people to get lost in a big clique. Cliques mainly consist of girls - from what I have seen, I don't think boys necessarily fall into cliques, I think they are friends with whomever they want to be friends with. But with my experience as a girl, I can tell you that girls definitely want to "fit in" with the "popular" people at school, and so they will join a clique and follow whatever is going on in that clique. As a middle school girl, I definitely bought into the idea of cliques. I had just lost a bunch of friends and didn't want to end up with only one or two friends, so I joined a clique. It was fun until the girls decided they wanted to start drinking at the age of 13, and I just wasn't into that. I thought I could "live within the lie" for a little bit by making excuses to not hang out with them when they were drinking, and just hang out with them at school or when they weren't, but eventually it caught up with me and they stopped inviting me to hang out with them.

Another thing about cliques is that they generally have a leader, which people like to call the "Queen Bee". When I think of this term, and cliques in general, mainly I think of Gossip Girl. For those who do not know anything about Gossip Girl, it is a show about a bunch of rich teenagers who live on the Upper East Side in New York. The school that all of the main characters attend are separated into a boy school and a girl school, but we mostly see what happens at the girl school. Blair is considered the Queen Bee of the school, and she has a group of followers who would do pretty much anything for her. Jenny is a character on the show who is not rich, but who so desperately wants to fit in with Blair's clique. In order to achieve this, Blair makes Jenny do a lot of things for her, including doing errands for her before a Masquerade Ball, which can be seen in the video below. Jenny does everything Blair asks - getting her dress, jewelry, etc. - and believes that this will help her get an invite to the ball. Jenny is willing to do anything to be a part of the clique, even though she knows that if she does join it she will lose her individuality and have to go along with everything that Blair says to do. But Jenny so badly wants to be a part of it that she goes along with everything Blair tells her to do. Unfortunately, Blair, as Queen Bee, was just using her, as can be seen below from minute 2:07-2:42.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr7OYL_J5nM

It seems kind of a stretch to relate this back to Havel, but his idea of ideology and living within the lie as a way to find something to hide behind can be seen in everyday experiences, and on TV. Shows like Gossip Girl are promoting cliques, because even though it is clear that Blair is not a great person and Jenny shouldn't want to follow her, Jenny still tries and even when she doesn't succeed, she ends up without any friends. Gossip Girl is making it seem like you need to be a part of a clique in order to have thoughts and ideas that will make people like you. This is why girls in our society today end up joining cliques and sometimes don't end up thinking for themselves or speaking up when people in their clique says/does something that goes against their values. This is why it is important to recognize that living within the truth can seem scary, but it helped Jenny become her own person and stand up for her values, even though she ended up not having friends. The message of Gossip Girl should be that everyone should choose to live within the truth.

Definition of Ideology

To write about how ideology relates to the media, I figured I should give a few definitions ideology.
According to dictionary.com, ideology is defined as the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group. 

Vaclav Havel describes ideology in this way:

"Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier to part with them" (page 28).

He also states: "The primary excusatory function of ideology is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe" (page 29).

These two statements are the base of Havel's definition of ideology. He then goes into detail while talking about how ideology goes hand in hand with "living within a lie". He describes this aspect of ideology by saying: "Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them" (page 31). 

When reading Havel, I immediately connected these ideas to the media, and how women are portrayed in the media and how women in society feel they need to follow the "rules" set up by TV shows, reality shows, movies, music videos, etc. I want to use real life situations, such as how every girl in my high school felt they had to wear Northfaces and Uggs and act a certain way, as well, but I will mostly be relating it to the women on Gossip Girl and other reality shows.