Nurturing Nature: Finding the Unnatural in Media Essentialism

As the proverb goes, it was very unlikely that a fish discovered water. So too does culture often possess this illusive characteristic for those who are engulfed in its definitions. One of the most evident ways in which culture exerts its power is through the stories and scripts it creates to explain its constructions. By naturalizing cultural constructions, it is clear that oppressive forces—patriarchy and asymmetrical treatment of the sexes in advertisement included—take a paramount position within society, justifying the created and unnatural ways in which culture categorizes and privileges groups.

This point is particularly evident in the continually hypersexual nature of media and advertising and the message it sends about the genders. Steinem’s article illustrates the strong manipulation gender plays in choosing advertisement campaigns; with her experiences with Ms. Magazine, Steinem describes the difficulties the magazine had with securing companies to advertise their products in a feminist-oriented magazine when many of their campaigns featured traditionally misogynist themes. Of course, the feminist orientation of Ms. proves that there is nothing inherent in the nature of women in comparison to the advertisers it was courting. The advertisers clearly played up traditional women’s roles and associations in order to sell their product, but the issues with Ms. arise when it is made apparent that these roles and associations can and should be challenged.

A similar point is made in Rushkoff’s discussion of the blossoming of his masculinity with porn. Rushkoff describes the ways in which porn laid out the “appropriate” ways to view women and sex: as objects. More importantly, Rushkoff found himself initially unable to buy in to the sexual script that Playboy and other “skin mags” presented to him, and when he finally does, he finds himself categorizing individual women based on a few qualities rather than considering the women as whole human beings. Later in the piece, Rushkoff illuminates the many limitations in the masculine script skin mags offer to men, establishing them as entirely constructed despite their presentation as “natural,” and, indeed, coming-of-age “tools” for being a man.

Though the naturalization of constructed gender is particularly prevalent in these articles, implications of this phenomenon exist in other readings for this week and in certainly in the media at large. The biggest issue with this naturalization, of course, is that, like the fish, we are not always able to discern the “fiction” of culture from the “reality” of what actually is natural. For example, women may be (on average) smaller than men, but this “essential” characteristic not only does not account for women with larger builds, but also creates a picture of the ideal woman as impossibly small and fragile (marking larger women far from the cultural ideal of beauty), creating a dichotomy of preference—and from that, behavior—derived from what our culture defines as “natural.”

While this dichotomy may seem relatively innocent, the danger in naturalizing the categories culture creates is that individuals who fight back against the “system” not only have to stand up to cultural norms, but what is considered natural as well; indeed, it is often perceived that they are fighting against nature—and all that “nature” entails, including God—itself. Recalling the “Wussy Boy for Pussy Power” article reinforces this, along with Rushkoff’s discomfort and befuddlement about why his sexuality at age 11, which was perfectly natural in his eyes, was put under fire by his classmates who had already been enculturated to Playboy and company.

One of the most proactive steps we can take in defeating this construction-turned-nature phenomenon is to be able to decipher between the two. Construction is just what it sounds like: an unnatural, created definition. Nature and essentialism, however, should be treated with a bit more caution. While we can easily point out things about people that appear to be “natural,” we first must consider why we think this way (i.e. do we have underlying motivation for defining ideal beauty for women as impossibly small?) and avoid assigning value to the “natural” qualities we find in individuals. Taking this to the world of media will help to reveal the fallacy inherent in the essentialism provided by advertisements, television, art, film, and so fourth, creating a sharper “gendered eye” with which to take on the patriarchal world.