Popular culture, gender, and enjoyment

Encouraging things are happening in gender-progressive news these days. Germany instituted a third gender option on birth certificates in November: parents can now choose between M, F, and blank. I love the multitude of possibilities opened by “blank,” instead of having a designated new category with a name, or using the already-existing neutral personal pronoun. As a political move, too, I think it has more progressive potential than any declaration. Alongside this move, but on a different level of impact, Swedish cinemas have taken the step of providing viewers with ratings according to the Bechdel Test, in an attempt to stamp out sexism and promote gender equality. The Bechdel Test, if you remember asks two interconnected questions: 1. Are there at least two women talking to one another in this film? 2. Are they talking about something else than a man? If the answers to both those questions are affirmative, then the movie passes the test.

On a similar note, I’ve been thinking about my (scant) leisure time activities, and the way they allow me to enjoy myself. I won’t get all psycho-analytical on you and talk about jouissance or anything like that, but I just want to know and understand better how to make free time pleasurable, in a deliberately useless and guilt-free way. Isn’t that overanalyzing! But really: I’m so good at “making use” of my (again, very limited) free time, that I always end up making it useful for work, instead of making it into a break from work. For goodness’ sake, remember how I was talking about scheduling yoga, so I can stay sane, last week? What does it take to enjoy something for its own sake, for using free time as time away from work, rather than rationalizing it as “time for renewal so I can work better.” Really, that’s what it’s come to?

Here’s the thing, though, which brings me back to the progressive move regarding gender and popular culture in Sweden: there isn’t much in the way of popular culture that is both gender-progressive and to my liking. I’m on a mission to amass items that fulfill both categories, and while the latter is rather subjective, it’s usually contingent on the former: stuff has to not be sexist or, worse, misogynist, for me to like it. It also has to NOT be classist, racist, ableist, sizeist, or ageist. A tall order, I know. Also: it has to be a conclusive waste of time! It has to be something that I will not teach. Or write an article on. Or a conference presentation.

I might have found just the thing*: an Australian mystery series featuring a sexually-liberated (though decidedly hetero, so far) flapper, who emerged from extreme poverty, and became rich, “because too many young men died in the Great War,” which made her father inherit a large fortune and a title. After a few formative years in Britain and Europe, she returns to Australia, and uses her fortune to solve crimes, and support women’s rights all over the place. Phryne Fisher, Kerry Greenwood’s protagonist empowers women to take charge of their lives. The women whom she helps are not victims, so Phryne [pronounced ‘Fry-knee] is not a female version of Prince Charming rescuing damsels in distress Down-Under. Instead, she’s a stylish and fashionable woman determined to share her newfound wealth and improve the world for women. A veritable superhero, with perpetual shiny hair and perfect attire!

I’d say this series fulfills, and even goes beyond the Bechdel Test. Moreover, I refuse to make any academic use of it: I will not teach it, write (any more) on it, or even analyze it too much. I will, however, take any other recommendations you might have of books, movies, TV series, that I can consume and not use. What’s your popular cultural fix these days? The more guilt-free, the better!

*Thanks to Sarah Gilligan (@idleponderings) for leading me to this series!