Name: Sydney Royce

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Women’s Role and Representation in the Media (print/ads/tv)

Date of Fieldwork: February 2, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Paley Center

Type of Fieldwork: Workshop

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

On Thursday, February 2nd, we were given the opportunity to go to the Paley Center. The Paley Center is a digital museum that teaches classes on certain topics relating to TV, advertising, and radio programs. We sat in on a private workshop led by Rebecca. She showed us a montage of different clips from TV shows, music videos, and commercials from the 50’s to the early 2000’s. Most of them exemplified the same topics.

In some of the older clips from the 50’s-60’s they were very discriminatory of different body types, and being “fat” was seen as scary and ugly. Most of the girls who were stereotypically pretty, got more attention, and the girls seen as “ugly” were completely ignored. In more media from the 70’s-80’s there was a lot of talk about dieting and eating disorders, and also making sure girls looked perfect for boys. There were also a lot of women that were over sexualized. For example, in a wonder woman show from the 70’s, she wore a tight corset showing her cleavage, and very tiny shorts. When she was fighting she would barely fight so she could remain “womanly.” In clips from the 90’s-2000’s there were a lot of common themes with high school girls talking about random or serious things then randomly jumping to talking about boys. There was a lot of themes being stupid and clueless.

Overall, even though we have evolved as a society and our perception of women in the media, there are still the same themes coming up today. It’s important for us to realize and notice these things. It made me think because some of these shows that were shown in the montage, are shows I have watched before. I didn’t even notice some of the problems with the way that the female characters in the show were portrayed. This was a very eye opening experience, and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to go to a class. I’m excited to learn more about this and do some of my own independent research.