Anne Graefer | Birmingham City University (original) (raw)
Journal Articles by Anne Graefer
At the Women's March in January 2018, many protest posters featured offensive jokes at the expens... more At the Women's March in January 2018, many protest posters featured offensive jokes at the expense of Trump's body and behavior. Such posters were shared widely online, much to the amusement of the movement's supporters. Through a close analysis of posts on Instagram and Twitter, we explore the role of " vulgar " and " offensive " humor in mediated social protest. By highlighting its radical and conservative tendencies, we demonstrate how we can understand these practices of offensive humor as a contemporary expression of " the carnivalesque " that is complexly intertwined with social change.
In the current recession, German television has developed a particular proclivity for 'emigration... more In the current recession, German television has developed a particular proclivity for 'emigration shows'. In this article, I explore the most prominent of these, Goodbye Deutschland – Die Auswanderer (Goodbye Germany – The Emigrants, since 2006). Through a figurative analysis, I investigate how Goodbye Germany produces its female protagonists as failed national subjects worthy of social derision and contempt. By highlighting how the programme equates the departure from Germany with a departure from coherent feminine respectability, I show how we can understand this programme as a cultural expression of 'commercial nationalism' that produces Germany as a 'safe haven' within an economically unstable Europe.
The " affective " turn has enabled many scholars to theorise media representations not only as te... more The " affective " turn has enabled many scholars to theorise media representations not only as texts that can be distantly decoded but also as a matter of emotional attachments, intensities of feelings, synesthetic sensations, and embodied experiences. Yet, what has been less often theorized is how this affective meaning-making is (re)shaped by the dynamic and interactive nature of social networking systems such as Facebook or Twitter. How do images and the affective qualities that " stick " to them, travel and transform through user engagement where " users grab images and technologies by which they are grabbed in return " (Paasonen, Carnal Resonance 178; Senft 2008). We aim to explore this question further through examples of humorous images from the January 2017 Women's March, considered within the digital contexts of Facebook and Twitter. Social movement scholars argue that emotional engagement can be a powerful and positive motivating factor in getting people involved in political life, and we here suggest that these humorous images can move the reader in new critical directions, encouraging them to challenge systems of inequality and oppression in contemporary society. The Women's March was an international protest event on January 21, 2017, advocating for legislation and policies on issues such as women's rights, racial equality, LGBTQ rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, climate change, freedom of religion, and workers' rights. The rallies took place the day after President Trump's inauguration and took aim at his statements and positions that many regarded as misogynistic, racist or otherwise offensive. Protesters participated in almost 700 marches across the world, making it one of the biggest human rights demonstrations in history. Social media networks played a crucial role in the preparation, organisation and communication of this multi-sited event. Our study explores one key aspect of this communication, which was the widespread circulation of humorous feminist images from the march on Facebook and Twitter. We want to examine this practice to reflect on some of the opportunities and limitations for using digital humour to communicate political messages and struggles. By bringing critical humour studies into dialogue with contemporary scholars of affect, digital media and political communication, the article explores the affective and sensuous relationship between humorous online images of protest and social/political change. Rather than understanding these humorous images merely as a product and commodity of a new form of affective capitalism (which they are!), we suggest that they can also have the capacity to move " users " in new critical directions, encouraging them to challenge systems of inequality and oppression in contemporary society. This potentiality lies in the complex ways in which humour and the affective force of these online representations can move and touch the offline reading body.
The fine line between humour and offence has long been of interest for scholars and media outlets... more The fine line between humour and offence has long been of interest for scholars and media outlets alike. While some argue for an avoidance of offence at all costs, others defend the 'right to offend' as an essential part of humour. By bringing critical sociological studies in humour into dialogue with feminist writings on affect and the politics of emotion, this article argues for a more nuanced and contextualised understanding of offensive humour. Based on empirical data from an audience study about offensive television content in Britain and Germany, we consider what exactly people do with humorous content they find offensive, not what it does 'in general'. Such a contextualised approach illustrates the ethical and transformative potential of so-called negative affect. Thus, rather than perceiving offence as an 'ugly' feeling with merely negative consequences for society, this article contends that the avoidance of offence can also operate as a strategy for evading responsibility and action, thereby hindering social change. The fine line between humour and offence has long been of interest for scholars and media outlets alike. While some argue for an avoidance of offence at all costs, others defend the 'right to offend' as an essential part of humour. By bringing critical sociological studies in
Communication, Culture & Critique
In this article we analyze fieldwork with 90 people in the UK and Germany, exploring the expectat... more In this article we analyze fieldwork with 90 people in the UK and Germany, exploring the expectations audiences articulate about regulatory processes behind television content they find offensive. First, mapping people's responses on to the conceptual pairing of citizens and consumers, we find audiences aligning themselves with citizen interests, even when, often on the surface, they respond to media regulation and institutions with suspicion. Second, we find that complaints that make it to media regulators are just the tip of iceberg. Third, in investigating people's expectations of actors and institutions in their responses to television content that startles, upsets, or just offends them, we note that it is crucial to treat a conversation on free speech and censorship with caution. In this article we analyze fieldwork carried out with 90 people in the United Kingdom and Germany, exploring the perceptions and expectations audiences articulate about the regulatory processes behind provocative media content they find offensive. Across the political spectrum, from liberal to conservative positions, a popular view remains that offense and feeling offended by things in the media is the price of living in a liberal society. Voices within the right and far-right seem to champion the cause of rescuing the right to not be bounded by so-called political correctness. The populist press in the United Kingdom, with denunciations of " political correctness gone mad, " or right-wing populist movements in Germany, such as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA), offer a remedy against a Lügenpresse (lying press) that is ruled by a set of powerful, unnamed actors, who are trying to control everything people do and think. At antipodal ideological positions too, for entirely
Humour has long been investigated for its power to reinforce and/or disrupt cultural norms and va... more Humour has long been investigated for its power to reinforce and/or disrupt cultural norms and values but is has less often been explored from the perspective of political economy. This article addresses this research gap and explores through three examples from celebrity gossip blogs how humour is put to work in affective capitalism. Each example delineates a different way in which humour is linked to capitalism: The first instance shows that humour valorises and masks the tiresome and precarious working conditions of bloggers. The second case illustrates that humour serves to accrete value for capital by creating a buzz or conversation about a celebrity story. In the third example humour works to conceal how the ridiculing and shaming of seemingly ‘trashy’ celebrities functions to weave people deeper into economic circuits that create the very conditions under which celebrity is first made manifest. Each example combines the affective and material aspects of labour that create a particular value and relation to the economy. Overall, this paper argues that humour – far from being personal, unique and outside of economic considerations - is an important and cynical ingredient of affective capitalism.
This paper contributes to the move towards the sensory and affective in the study of representat... more This paper contributes to the move towards the sensory and affective in the study of representations because it explores some of the affective and embodied ways through which we make sense of online representations in celebrity gossip blogs. These blogs with their “funny” celebrity representations are important examples of contemporary popular culture because they are not only thoroughly embedded in everyday social practices, but are more radically constitutive of contemporary social life. Through the example of a Lady Gaga blog post, the paper argues that meanings are not only communicated through the visual content but also through the affective and sensuous experiences that we have through our interaction with these online representations. The heuristic device of skin is helpful in this complex analysis because it illustrates that reading a blog post implicates not only looking but also touching (the keyboard, the mouse, the screen) and being (emotionally or physically) touched. It draws as such attention to both, the material properties that enable and shape the blog experience as well as the affective reactions of the sensing, researching body.
![Research paper thumbnail of ‘‘Charlotte makes me lafe [sic] sooo much’: Affect, Online Laughter, and Femininity in Geordie Shore](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/38535598/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Highly successful structured reality television shows such as Geordie Shore (UK), The Only Way is... more Highly successful structured reality television shows such as Geordie Shore (UK), The Only Way is Essex (UK), Made in Chelsea (UK) or Jersey Shore (US) draw audiences wide beyond their regional and national appeal, thereby exerting a considerable influence on contemporary popular culture. Lying at the intersection of documentary, soap opera and drama, reality television’s specific form – its immediacy and its emotionality –invites viewers to judge and moralize the lives depicted on screen. In this article I explore the affective ways in which ‘Geordie Shore’ produces ideas about femininity and how comic moments in the show influence this emotive process. By analysing online comments on the show’s official Facebook page I argue that the humorous quality of the text does not merely reinforce the disciplining white, middle-class gaze through which ‘Geordie’ femininities are produced as hypersexual(ized) ladettes worthy of social derision. Rather, the online laughter that I found in some online comments highlights that these representations are also animated through feelings of joy, affection and emotional attachment. Attending to online laughter can help us to further understand the movement between connection and disassociation through which audiences make sense of reality television.
Bringing deconstructivist approaches of critical whiteness studies into dialogue with feminist wr... more Bringing deconstructivist approaches of critical whiteness studies into dialogue with feminist writings on affect theory, this article asks how ideas about whiteness become produced and circulated through celebrity representations in humorous celebrity-gossip blogs. Through an affective reading of blog posts and user comments on the websites dlisted.com and perezhilton.com, I illustrate the ways in which celebrity online representations can be understood as affective interfaces through which ideas concerning idealised and ‘improper’ whiteness are negotiated. This article underscores the importance of understanding celebrity representations not only through the lens of ideology and discourse, but also through feelings, emotions and affect. Affects, together with the interactive, dynamic nature of blogs, encourage us to rethink these celebrity representations not as fixed images that mediate one dominant meaning – and in this sense which simply reiterate or challenge dominant ideas about whiteness – but rather as relational becomings that have the power to move us in sometimes contradictory and surprising
ways.
Book Reviews by Anne Graefer
Conference Presentations by Anne Graefer
‘Goodbye Deutschland. Die Auswanderer’ (Goodbye Germany. The expatriates) is one of Germany’s mo... more ‘Goodbye Deutschland. Die Auswanderer’ (Goodbye Germany. The expatriates) is one of Germany’s most successful reality television programmes. Since 2006 the show portrays working- or lower middle-class families who leave Germany to start a new life, often in sunny places such as Spain, Turkey or Thailand. The focus of every episode lies on the misfortunes and setbacks that these people experience once outside of their home country. Since these downfalls are often framed as caused by the ignorant and naïve expat, the mainly German viewers are invited to feel superior and get pleasure through Schadenfreude. This paper investigates how discourses of gender, class and nationality synergize in this TV programme to represent working- and lower-middle-class femininities that decided to leave Germany as dysfunctional, erratic and deluded. Feminist media scholars have long shown how reality television feeds into a classed and raced history that produces working-class femininities as ‘abject’ and/or ‘other’. This paper contributes to this body of critical scholarship by illustrating how Goodbye Deutschland ridicules femininities that refuse to stay fixed and marginalized. Decisions to leave Germany are portrayed as selfish, irrational and badly-planned. The participants’ refusal to stay at home (and in Germany) generates most social derision and contempt because it violates conservative values of patriotism and national gender stereotypes such as the ‘Hausfrau’, which are currently enjoying a celebrated revival in Germany. In this sense it can be argued that Goodbye Deutschland generates ideas of femininity which dovetail nicely with both the contemporary climate of austerity in which conservatism and classism regain strength, as well as Germany’s current self-image as a safe haven within an economically unstable Europe. Therefore, leaving such a place could only be ‘mad’.
As highly visible public figures that are both admired and mocked, female celebrities play a cruc... more As highly visible public figures that are both admired and mocked, female celebrities play a crucial role in the cultural production and circulation of ideas about femininity. Celebrity gossip blogs like Perezhilton.com or Dlisted.com are by now influential players in the production and consumption of celebrities and as such important sites through which these ideas become circulated and (re)negotiated. Their happily provocative and deliberately offensive online content is up-dated several times throughout the day, supplying gossip hungry audiences with stories about the everyday life of stars and the alleged failures and downfalls of mainly female celebrities. This paper maps out some of the affective workings of the humour that is used in these blogs. It argues that humour can be understood as an affective-discursive tool which does not only help to represent ideas of ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ femininity but rather it is generative of them, producing ‘abject’ femininities worth of social derision. By bringing feminist writings on affect and emotion into dialog with phenomenological approaches in new media studies this paper illustrates how humorous celebrity gossip blogs often intensify the affective investments which already travel along classed, racialised and gendered discourses and practices of everyday life. Thus, this snarky online humour does not necessarily function to critique and deconstruct the narrow standards of a sexist celebrity industry, but rather it can be seen as an affective vehicle to repackage and resell them to audiences.
Talks by Anne Graefer
Die richtige Performance von Gefühlen ist lange nicht mehr nur Sache von Filmstars. „Gefühle rich... more Die richtige Performance von Gefühlen ist lange nicht mehr nur Sache von Filmstars. „Gefühle richtig zeigen zu können“ gehört zur Schlüsselkompetenz einflussreicher Politiker_innen, Manager_innen und all jener, die erfolgreich sein wollen. In einer emotionalisierten Gesellschaft dienen Gefühle und Emotionen nicht nur dem Entertainment, sondern sind eine Art Schnittfläche, auf der unsere moralischen Vorstellungen von Richtig und Falsch immer wieder durchgespielt werden sollen.
Anne Graefer geht in ihrem Vortrag der Frage auf den Grund, wie die Online-Repräsentation von Celebreties durch ihre Emotionalität unsere Vorstellungen von Gender und Sexualität formen und auf welche Weise diese Ideen im Netz zirkulieren. Celebritiy Gossip Blogs wie Perezhilton.com oder Dlisted.com veröffentlichen nicht nur alltägliche und unvorteilhafte Fotos von Celebrities, sondern verspotten diese mit oft höhnischen Kommentaren oder Bildmanipulationen.
An Beispielen von verschiedenen Blogposts zeigt sie, wie diese „humorvollen“ Onlinepräsentationen Bilder und Vorurteile von Gender, Klasse und Race wiederholen und verstärken, aber dabei auch immer subversives Potential zeigen.
Papers by Anne Graefer
Conference Announcements by Anne Graefer
Echoes of Fascism in Contemporary Culture, Politics and Society SUSSEX CENTRE FOR CULTURAL STUDI... more Echoes of Fascism in Contemporary Culture, Politics and Society
SUSSEX CENTRE FOR CULTURAL STUDIES Annual Conference
FRIDAY MAY 26TH 2017, University of Sussex
Keynote speakers:
Dr Gholam Khiabany (academic and political journalist, author of Blogistan)
Dr Angela Nagle (author of Ireland Under Austerity and Kill All Normies)
Professor Arlene Stein (author of Reluctant Witnesses, The Stranger Next Door, Sex and Sensibility)
Dr Sarah Tobias (feminist theorist and activist, author of Trans Studies)
Within the past year, we have witnessed a number of alarming social and political developments in the UK and globally. The success of the Brexit campaign in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the USA and his recent imposition of a travel ban, have all been dependent on racially charged ideologies, and accompanied by a notable rise in racist, misogynist, and homophobic attacks in the UK and in other Western countries, as the Far Right mobilises and becomes more legitimated.
In broad terms, this conference poses questions around our ethical responsibilities (as academics, community organisations, and human beings) vis-à-vis these developments:
as the neoliberal consensus frays, how do we respond to resurgent nationalism?
how can, or should, we respond to the backlash against pluralism, the rise of the alt-right, and the waves of ‘populist’ movements that are sweeping across the West?
More specifically, the conference will provide an opportunity to consider the historical backdrop of contemporary conservative movements. Parallels have frequently been drawn in the media between, for example, 1930s German fascism and the contemporary political and social landscape. We thus seek to question:
to what extent are we currently seeing ‘echoes’ of past fascist movements?
If every age has its own fascism, as Levi has argued:
can we learn from the history of fascist movements in a way that will help us to understand our contemporary situation?
Finally,
how can we put these lessons into practice as we mobilise against racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia?
The conference is particularly interested in: past fascist movements and their bearing on the present; the rise of the alt-right and new right-wing populism; the right-wing critique of neoliberal globalisation; the current state of, and threats to, human rights, reproductive rights, rights of freedom of movement, LGBTQ rights, and social democracies; feminist activism (past and present); and racialised public discourse. We will also consider these issues through the prism of film, visual culture, literature, memory studies, and creative practice.
At the Women's March in January 2018, many protest posters featured offensive jokes at the expens... more At the Women's March in January 2018, many protest posters featured offensive jokes at the expense of Trump's body and behavior. Such posters were shared widely online, much to the amusement of the movement's supporters. Through a close analysis of posts on Instagram and Twitter, we explore the role of " vulgar " and " offensive " humor in mediated social protest. By highlighting its radical and conservative tendencies, we demonstrate how we can understand these practices of offensive humor as a contemporary expression of " the carnivalesque " that is complexly intertwined with social change.
In the current recession, German television has developed a particular proclivity for 'emigration... more In the current recession, German television has developed a particular proclivity for 'emigration shows'. In this article, I explore the most prominent of these, Goodbye Deutschland – Die Auswanderer (Goodbye Germany – The Emigrants, since 2006). Through a figurative analysis, I investigate how Goodbye Germany produces its female protagonists as failed national subjects worthy of social derision and contempt. By highlighting how the programme equates the departure from Germany with a departure from coherent feminine respectability, I show how we can understand this programme as a cultural expression of 'commercial nationalism' that produces Germany as a 'safe haven' within an economically unstable Europe.
The " affective " turn has enabled many scholars to theorise media representations not only as te... more The " affective " turn has enabled many scholars to theorise media representations not only as texts that can be distantly decoded but also as a matter of emotional attachments, intensities of feelings, synesthetic sensations, and embodied experiences. Yet, what has been less often theorized is how this affective meaning-making is (re)shaped by the dynamic and interactive nature of social networking systems such as Facebook or Twitter. How do images and the affective qualities that " stick " to them, travel and transform through user engagement where " users grab images and technologies by which they are grabbed in return " (Paasonen, Carnal Resonance 178; Senft 2008). We aim to explore this question further through examples of humorous images from the January 2017 Women's March, considered within the digital contexts of Facebook and Twitter. Social movement scholars argue that emotional engagement can be a powerful and positive motivating factor in getting people involved in political life, and we here suggest that these humorous images can move the reader in new critical directions, encouraging them to challenge systems of inequality and oppression in contemporary society. The Women's March was an international protest event on January 21, 2017, advocating for legislation and policies on issues such as women's rights, racial equality, LGBTQ rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, climate change, freedom of religion, and workers' rights. The rallies took place the day after President Trump's inauguration and took aim at his statements and positions that many regarded as misogynistic, racist or otherwise offensive. Protesters participated in almost 700 marches across the world, making it one of the biggest human rights demonstrations in history. Social media networks played a crucial role in the preparation, organisation and communication of this multi-sited event. Our study explores one key aspect of this communication, which was the widespread circulation of humorous feminist images from the march on Facebook and Twitter. We want to examine this practice to reflect on some of the opportunities and limitations for using digital humour to communicate political messages and struggles. By bringing critical humour studies into dialogue with contemporary scholars of affect, digital media and political communication, the article explores the affective and sensuous relationship between humorous online images of protest and social/political change. Rather than understanding these humorous images merely as a product and commodity of a new form of affective capitalism (which they are!), we suggest that they can also have the capacity to move " users " in new critical directions, encouraging them to challenge systems of inequality and oppression in contemporary society. This potentiality lies in the complex ways in which humour and the affective force of these online representations can move and touch the offline reading body.
The fine line between humour and offence has long been of interest for scholars and media outlets... more The fine line between humour and offence has long been of interest for scholars and media outlets alike. While some argue for an avoidance of offence at all costs, others defend the 'right to offend' as an essential part of humour. By bringing critical sociological studies in humour into dialogue with feminist writings on affect and the politics of emotion, this article argues for a more nuanced and contextualised understanding of offensive humour. Based on empirical data from an audience study about offensive television content in Britain and Germany, we consider what exactly people do with humorous content they find offensive, not what it does 'in general'. Such a contextualised approach illustrates the ethical and transformative potential of so-called negative affect. Thus, rather than perceiving offence as an 'ugly' feeling with merely negative consequences for society, this article contends that the avoidance of offence can also operate as a strategy for evading responsibility and action, thereby hindering social change. The fine line between humour and offence has long been of interest for scholars and media outlets alike. While some argue for an avoidance of offence at all costs, others defend the 'right to offend' as an essential part of humour. By bringing critical sociological studies in
Communication, Culture & Critique
In this article we analyze fieldwork with 90 people in the UK and Germany, exploring the expectat... more In this article we analyze fieldwork with 90 people in the UK and Germany, exploring the expectations audiences articulate about regulatory processes behind television content they find offensive. First, mapping people's responses on to the conceptual pairing of citizens and consumers, we find audiences aligning themselves with citizen interests, even when, often on the surface, they respond to media regulation and institutions with suspicion. Second, we find that complaints that make it to media regulators are just the tip of iceberg. Third, in investigating people's expectations of actors and institutions in their responses to television content that startles, upsets, or just offends them, we note that it is crucial to treat a conversation on free speech and censorship with caution. In this article we analyze fieldwork carried out with 90 people in the United Kingdom and Germany, exploring the perceptions and expectations audiences articulate about the regulatory processes behind provocative media content they find offensive. Across the political spectrum, from liberal to conservative positions, a popular view remains that offense and feeling offended by things in the media is the price of living in a liberal society. Voices within the right and far-right seem to champion the cause of rescuing the right to not be bounded by so-called political correctness. The populist press in the United Kingdom, with denunciations of " political correctness gone mad, " or right-wing populist movements in Germany, such as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA), offer a remedy against a Lügenpresse (lying press) that is ruled by a set of powerful, unnamed actors, who are trying to control everything people do and think. At antipodal ideological positions too, for entirely
Humour has long been investigated for its power to reinforce and/or disrupt cultural norms and va... more Humour has long been investigated for its power to reinforce and/or disrupt cultural norms and values but is has less often been explored from the perspective of political economy. This article addresses this research gap and explores through three examples from celebrity gossip blogs how humour is put to work in affective capitalism. Each example delineates a different way in which humour is linked to capitalism: The first instance shows that humour valorises and masks the tiresome and precarious working conditions of bloggers. The second case illustrates that humour serves to accrete value for capital by creating a buzz or conversation about a celebrity story. In the third example humour works to conceal how the ridiculing and shaming of seemingly ‘trashy’ celebrities functions to weave people deeper into economic circuits that create the very conditions under which celebrity is first made manifest. Each example combines the affective and material aspects of labour that create a particular value and relation to the economy. Overall, this paper argues that humour – far from being personal, unique and outside of economic considerations - is an important and cynical ingredient of affective capitalism.
This paper contributes to the move towards the sensory and affective in the study of representat... more This paper contributes to the move towards the sensory and affective in the study of representations because it explores some of the affective and embodied ways through which we make sense of online representations in celebrity gossip blogs. These blogs with their “funny” celebrity representations are important examples of contemporary popular culture because they are not only thoroughly embedded in everyday social practices, but are more radically constitutive of contemporary social life. Through the example of a Lady Gaga blog post, the paper argues that meanings are not only communicated through the visual content but also through the affective and sensuous experiences that we have through our interaction with these online representations. The heuristic device of skin is helpful in this complex analysis because it illustrates that reading a blog post implicates not only looking but also touching (the keyboard, the mouse, the screen) and being (emotionally or physically) touched. It draws as such attention to both, the material properties that enable and shape the blog experience as well as the affective reactions of the sensing, researching body.
Highly successful structured reality television shows such as Geordie Shore (UK), The Only Way is... more Highly successful structured reality television shows such as Geordie Shore (UK), The Only Way is Essex (UK), Made in Chelsea (UK) or Jersey Shore (US) draw audiences wide beyond their regional and national appeal, thereby exerting a considerable influence on contemporary popular culture. Lying at the intersection of documentary, soap opera and drama, reality television’s specific form – its immediacy and its emotionality –invites viewers to judge and moralize the lives depicted on screen. In this article I explore the affective ways in which ‘Geordie Shore’ produces ideas about femininity and how comic moments in the show influence this emotive process. By analysing online comments on the show’s official Facebook page I argue that the humorous quality of the text does not merely reinforce the disciplining white, middle-class gaze through which ‘Geordie’ femininities are produced as hypersexual(ized) ladettes worthy of social derision. Rather, the online laughter that I found in some online comments highlights that these representations are also animated through feelings of joy, affection and emotional attachment. Attending to online laughter can help us to further understand the movement between connection and disassociation through which audiences make sense of reality television.
Bringing deconstructivist approaches of critical whiteness studies into dialogue with feminist wr... more Bringing deconstructivist approaches of critical whiteness studies into dialogue with feminist writings on affect theory, this article asks how ideas about whiteness become produced and circulated through celebrity representations in humorous celebrity-gossip blogs. Through an affective reading of blog posts and user comments on the websites dlisted.com and perezhilton.com, I illustrate the ways in which celebrity online representations can be understood as affective interfaces through which ideas concerning idealised and ‘improper’ whiteness are negotiated. This article underscores the importance of understanding celebrity representations not only through the lens of ideology and discourse, but also through feelings, emotions and affect. Affects, together with the interactive, dynamic nature of blogs, encourage us to rethink these celebrity representations not as fixed images that mediate one dominant meaning – and in this sense which simply reiterate or challenge dominant ideas about whiteness – but rather as relational becomings that have the power to move us in sometimes contradictory and surprising
ways.
‘Goodbye Deutschland. Die Auswanderer’ (Goodbye Germany. The expatriates) is one of Germany’s mo... more ‘Goodbye Deutschland. Die Auswanderer’ (Goodbye Germany. The expatriates) is one of Germany’s most successful reality television programmes. Since 2006 the show portrays working- or lower middle-class families who leave Germany to start a new life, often in sunny places such as Spain, Turkey or Thailand. The focus of every episode lies on the misfortunes and setbacks that these people experience once outside of their home country. Since these downfalls are often framed as caused by the ignorant and naïve expat, the mainly German viewers are invited to feel superior and get pleasure through Schadenfreude. This paper investigates how discourses of gender, class and nationality synergize in this TV programme to represent working- and lower-middle-class femininities that decided to leave Germany as dysfunctional, erratic and deluded. Feminist media scholars have long shown how reality television feeds into a classed and raced history that produces working-class femininities as ‘abject’ and/or ‘other’. This paper contributes to this body of critical scholarship by illustrating how Goodbye Deutschland ridicules femininities that refuse to stay fixed and marginalized. Decisions to leave Germany are portrayed as selfish, irrational and badly-planned. The participants’ refusal to stay at home (and in Germany) generates most social derision and contempt because it violates conservative values of patriotism and national gender stereotypes such as the ‘Hausfrau’, which are currently enjoying a celebrated revival in Germany. In this sense it can be argued that Goodbye Deutschland generates ideas of femininity which dovetail nicely with both the contemporary climate of austerity in which conservatism and classism regain strength, as well as Germany’s current self-image as a safe haven within an economically unstable Europe. Therefore, leaving such a place could only be ‘mad’.
As highly visible public figures that are both admired and mocked, female celebrities play a cruc... more As highly visible public figures that are both admired and mocked, female celebrities play a crucial role in the cultural production and circulation of ideas about femininity. Celebrity gossip blogs like Perezhilton.com or Dlisted.com are by now influential players in the production and consumption of celebrities and as such important sites through which these ideas become circulated and (re)negotiated. Their happily provocative and deliberately offensive online content is up-dated several times throughout the day, supplying gossip hungry audiences with stories about the everyday life of stars and the alleged failures and downfalls of mainly female celebrities. This paper maps out some of the affective workings of the humour that is used in these blogs. It argues that humour can be understood as an affective-discursive tool which does not only help to represent ideas of ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ femininity but rather it is generative of them, producing ‘abject’ femininities worth of social derision. By bringing feminist writings on affect and emotion into dialog with phenomenological approaches in new media studies this paper illustrates how humorous celebrity gossip blogs often intensify the affective investments which already travel along classed, racialised and gendered discourses and practices of everyday life. Thus, this snarky online humour does not necessarily function to critique and deconstruct the narrow standards of a sexist celebrity industry, but rather it can be seen as an affective vehicle to repackage and resell them to audiences.
Die richtige Performance von Gefühlen ist lange nicht mehr nur Sache von Filmstars. „Gefühle rich... more Die richtige Performance von Gefühlen ist lange nicht mehr nur Sache von Filmstars. „Gefühle richtig zeigen zu können“ gehört zur Schlüsselkompetenz einflussreicher Politiker_innen, Manager_innen und all jener, die erfolgreich sein wollen. In einer emotionalisierten Gesellschaft dienen Gefühle und Emotionen nicht nur dem Entertainment, sondern sind eine Art Schnittfläche, auf der unsere moralischen Vorstellungen von Richtig und Falsch immer wieder durchgespielt werden sollen.
Anne Graefer geht in ihrem Vortrag der Frage auf den Grund, wie die Online-Repräsentation von Celebreties durch ihre Emotionalität unsere Vorstellungen von Gender und Sexualität formen und auf welche Weise diese Ideen im Netz zirkulieren. Celebritiy Gossip Blogs wie Perezhilton.com oder Dlisted.com veröffentlichen nicht nur alltägliche und unvorteilhafte Fotos von Celebrities, sondern verspotten diese mit oft höhnischen Kommentaren oder Bildmanipulationen.
An Beispielen von verschiedenen Blogposts zeigt sie, wie diese „humorvollen“ Onlinepräsentationen Bilder und Vorurteile von Gender, Klasse und Race wiederholen und verstärken, aber dabei auch immer subversives Potential zeigen.
Echoes of Fascism in Contemporary Culture, Politics and Society SUSSEX CENTRE FOR CULTURAL STUDI... more Echoes of Fascism in Contemporary Culture, Politics and Society
SUSSEX CENTRE FOR CULTURAL STUDIES Annual Conference
FRIDAY MAY 26TH 2017, University of Sussex
Keynote speakers:
Dr Gholam Khiabany (academic and political journalist, author of Blogistan)
Dr Angela Nagle (author of Ireland Under Austerity and Kill All Normies)
Professor Arlene Stein (author of Reluctant Witnesses, The Stranger Next Door, Sex and Sensibility)
Dr Sarah Tobias (feminist theorist and activist, author of Trans Studies)
Within the past year, we have witnessed a number of alarming social and political developments in the UK and globally. The success of the Brexit campaign in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the USA and his recent imposition of a travel ban, have all been dependent on racially charged ideologies, and accompanied by a notable rise in racist, misogynist, and homophobic attacks in the UK and in other Western countries, as the Far Right mobilises and becomes more legitimated.
In broad terms, this conference poses questions around our ethical responsibilities (as academics, community organisations, and human beings) vis-à-vis these developments:
as the neoliberal consensus frays, how do we respond to resurgent nationalism?
how can, or should, we respond to the backlash against pluralism, the rise of the alt-right, and the waves of ‘populist’ movements that are sweeping across the West?
More specifically, the conference will provide an opportunity to consider the historical backdrop of contemporary conservative movements. Parallels have frequently been drawn in the media between, for example, 1930s German fascism and the contemporary political and social landscape. We thus seek to question:
to what extent are we currently seeing ‘echoes’ of past fascist movements?
If every age has its own fascism, as Levi has argued:
can we learn from the history of fascist movements in a way that will help us to understand our contemporary situation?
Finally,
how can we put these lessons into practice as we mobilise against racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia?
The conference is particularly interested in: past fascist movements and their bearing on the present; the rise of the alt-right and new right-wing populism; the right-wing critique of neoliberal globalisation; the current state of, and threats to, human rights, reproductive rights, rights of freedom of movement, LGBTQ rights, and social democracies; feminist activism (past and present); and racialised public discourse. We will also consider these issues through the prism of film, visual culture, literature, memory studies, and creative practice.