BROAD CITY: AN ANALYSIS OF BIOPOLITICS AND FEMALE REPRESENTATION ON TELEVISION MA-THESIS: TELEVISION AND CROSS-MEDIA CULTURE LISA LOTENS Date: June 24th 2015 Graduate School of Humanities University of Amsterdam Thesis Supervisor: Leonie Schmidt Second Reader: Toni Pape Word Count: 22993 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Scientific relevance 6 1.2 Social relevance 9 1.3 Chapter outline 10 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 11 2.1 Governmentality, biopolitics and media representations 11 2.1.1 Government and governmentality 11 2.1.2 Biopolitics 15 2.1.3 Media and governmental politics 17 2.1.4 Media, governmentality and neoliberalism 18 2.2 Governmentality and Broad City 19 3. Feminism 21 3.1 First and second wave feminsim 21 3.2 Third wave feminism 21 3.3 Postfeminism and neofeminism 22 3.4 Contemporary waters 24 4. METHODOLOGY 25 ANALYSIS 30 5. Sexuality in Broad City 30 5.1 Biopolitics and sexuality in Broad City 41 6. Dress practices in Broad City 42 6.1 Cross-dressing 44 6.2 Mixing masculine elements with feminine elements 53 6.3 Mismatching lingerie 55 6.4 Biopolitics and dress practices in Broad City 58 7. Unruly working girls in Broad City 60 7.1 Biopolitics, unruly women and Broad City 68 8. CONCLUSIONS 70 8.1 Moving towards an alternative, intersectional ideal of “a woman?” 72 9. REFERENCES 74 ABSTRACT The recent trends of incorporating unruly women and feminist politics in visual culture possibly signify a new way of representing the female body. This thesis takes television series Broad City as an object of study to critically scrutinize these trends. It asks the question: How are women and female sexuality represented in contemporary visual culture and how do representations and (feminist) politics promote specific behavior? With the use of Foucauldian discourse analysis of sexuality, dress and genre, I examine the functions of governmentality and biopolitics in Broad City and I explore the different behavioral patterns that are promoted. This thesis proposes that Broad City indicates a shift from the neofeminist ideal of a woman to an alternative ideal that is characterized by gender-fluidity, non-normativity and an intersectional feminist political agenda. Furthermore, it proposes that Broad City is ambivalent towards neoliberal ideology as a whole, and that governmentality is not automatically interrelated with neoliberalism. 1. INTRODUCTION In recent years there has been a significant resurgence of claims to ‘feminism’ in popular culture. This stands in contrast with the predominant postfeminist era of the 00’s, which is characterized by individual choice and feminine consumer culture without an explicit political feminist agenda (think of Sex and the City (1998 - 2006, HBO). Examples of this resurgence are Beyoncé at the 2014 VMA’s, proudly taking claim to feminism while the word brightly lit up behind her (figure 1). In September 2014, actress Emma Watson delivered a proclaimed ‘game- changing' speech on gender equality and feminism, which has been watched on YouTube over six million times (2015).1 On the web a great amount of Tumblrs2, blogs3 and Facebook-pages4 have emerged, all dedicated to feminism. Earlier, in 2012, Lena Dunham premiered her series Girls (2012-, HBO), representing females, female sexuality and female friendship in a different way than for example one of the most influential series of the 21st century: Sex and the City. No longer is the woman glamorized in a ‘pink’ world that revolves around consumerism (figure 2). Girls, through its narrative and grimy aesthetics, was one of the first series that represented female bodies as imperfect, raw and authentic (figure 3). Dunham quickly became a feminist icon. Figure 1: Beyoncé at the 2014 VMA’s (Source: Washingtonpost.com) 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-iFl4qhBsE 2 https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/feminism 3 http://feministing.com/ 4 https://www.facebook.com/everydayfeminism?fref=ts "1 Figure 2: The glamorized world of Sex and the City. (Source: theredlist.com) Figure 3: Lena Dunham in Girls. (Source: paulienvr.wordpress.com)! "2 Girls is not the only series with claims to feminism in visual culture. There has been a trend, especially in comedy, of females who write and produce television series, movies and web series and practice feminist politics in these series, such as Amy Poehler in Parks and Recreation (Comedy Central, 2009) and Amy Schumer in Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central, 2013). These writers seemingly represent female bodies, gender and sexuality in a different way than the glamorized representations of women such as in Sex and the City. These women are less (lipstick) feminine. They are imperfect and fully acceptant of their flawed qualities: they do not confirm to societies rules imposed on women (they are, in contrast, failing their jobs, using explicit language, and they wear androgynous clothing). As Molly Lambert writes: “It seems like in recent times, the culture has expanded slightly to accommodate the idea that ladies can be dumb-asses, too.” (Grantland, 2014). In 2007, Sarah Silverman premiered the Sarah Silverman Program (2007, Comedy Central) (figure 4) in which she negotiated with stereotyped gender roles, race and sexuality. Other examples are Tina Fey portraying Liz Lemon in 30 Rock (a series which she created, and which first aired in 2006), Jenny Slate in Obvious Child (2014) and Abbi and Ilana in Broad City (2014). These unruly women, in contrast to the postfeminist woman – who is characterized by consumerism, individual achievement, and a youthful, overtly feminine appearance – are seemingly defying gender roles and are possibly changing the way we think of how a woman should act. Figure 4: Sarah Silverman in The Sarah Silverman Program (Source: fanpop.com) "3 At the same time, there has been a strong backlash of this growth of feminism in popular culture. While pro-feminism websites began to grow, anti-feminist websites became bigger too. In 2013, a Tumblr “I don’t need feminism because…”5 appeared, showing girls holding posters stating that they’re anti-feminist, individualist, and independent human beings who believe feminism is no longer needed (figure 5). On Facebook, this page has garnered over 30000 likes6. Figure 5: I don’t need feminism because… (Source: Tumblr) In this same period, websites such as Womenagainstfeminism.com and Dontneedfeminism.com popped up, claiming that identifying yourself as feminist is a sign of weakness (e.g. “I don’t need feminism, because I am not a victim”). 5 https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/i-don't-need-feminism-because 6 https://www.facebook.com/WomenAgainstFeminism "4 It is clear that our zeitgeist faces contradictions regarding feminism and female representation in media. Visual culture is trying to redefine the concept of female representation and women and men alike are trying to figure out what it really means to be a woman today. The trends of incorporating unruly women and feminist politics in visual culture possibly signify a new way of representing the female body. These observations raise a number of questions: How are women and female sexuality represented in contemporary visual culture and how can we understand this in a longer tradition of feminist critique? How do these representations reflect our zeitgeist, especially with regard to feminism? What kinds of politics are practiced by these representations? And how do these politics function to promote specific behavior? Or, in other words, how do these politics function in relation to governmentality and biopolitics? What claims to feminism do these constructions actually make and how are they (re)defining feminism in the process? And what changes and continuities are occurring in the representation of women in visual and popular culture? To analyze these questions, this thesis will primarily draw on the works of Foucault Governmentality (1978a), Discipline and Punish (1975), The History of Sexuality (1978b), Society Must Be Defended (2003), Security, Territory, Population (2007 [1977 - 1978] and The Archeology of Knowledge (1989). This thesis will provide an analysis on a narrative and visual level and will elaborate on discourses that are constructed through narrative, mise-en-scene, editing, sound, props and camera. Eventually, these observations will be related to governmentality and biopolitics: which behavioral patterns are promoted? This Foucauldian lens allows me to thoroughly scrutinize my object of study and expose hidden social structures and relationships of power and interrogating the governance of femininity and sexuality within Broad City. This thesis will use television series Broad City (2014 - 2015) as a case study to explore these questions and examine the shifting tendencies of female representation in popular culture. Broad City started out as a web-series in 2009 and it was picked up by Comedy Central in late 2013. The series follows Abbi and Ilana, two women and best friends in their mid-twenties living their daily lives in New York City. It has gained significant popularity and critical appraisal. In late 2011, Wall Street Journal writes that Broad City encapsulates ‘sneak attack feminism’, dealing with annoyances such as cat-calling and having brunch with perfectly put-together girls (S1WEP, 5). Furthermore, A.V. Club critic Caroline Framke calls Abbi and Ilana worth watching, because of their “‘casual take-no-shit attitude’ that’s all their own” (Framke, 2014). Today, "5 running in its second season, approximately 5000 viewers rated Broad City with an 8.6 on IMDB (IMDB, 2015). In addition, it has been confirmed that Broad City is renewed for a third season on Comedy Central (TIME, 2015). In the series - unlike the postfeminist representation of women - the two are failing their jobs, use explicit language, wear androgynous clothing and constantly tangle themselves in awkward situations. However, they do not apologize for it. In fact, they fully embrace their flaws as women and they do not confirm to norms society imposed on them.