Paley Center Fieldwork 11.28.16

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We went to the Paley Center for a fieldwork on November 28th, 2016. Once we went upstairs, a woman named Rebecca led us into a small theater. Once seated (in the front row), Rebecca asked us on our opinion on how women are portrayed in the media. The rest of the fieldwork was led in a similar style: she would ask us questions as to how we felt about women nowadays (did body images affect us, have we ever acted dumb to attract attention, did we feel insecure due to stereotypes, did we feel the need to conform to stereotypes, what were we most insecure about, etc.). Towards the end, Rebecca played a mix of videos and commercials that portrayed women all throughout the time periods, including Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball, and Britney Spear’s Hit Me Baby One More Time. Then, we watched pieces from Wonder Woman and compared it to clips from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Wonder Woman, the character wore much skimpier clothing and did much less physical movement – the most dangerous thing she got to do was roll down a hill. She also relied heavily on her special items, like her rope and her bracelets. However, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy was doing parkour and fighting vampires twice her size single – handedly and still winning. The difference in time periods in which these tv shows were created effects the limit as to what the female characters are doing, because in those time periods the idea of what women could do were different.

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