Thursday, October 27, 2016

Code Pink, Raging, Grannies, and the Missile Dick Chicks


In this article  Code Pink, Raging, Grannies, and the Missile Dick Chicks, they talk about how different feminist groups do performances for activism for the contemporary anti-war movement.  Specifically, in the Raging Grannies use norm-embracing stereotypes to challenge their audience.  All of these groups aim to do this- challenge their audience.  Some allow for new members to easily join the group at demonstration while others like the Raging Grannies cannot have this because of their costumes and outward appearances.
The Raging Grannies use satirical songs and rewrite lyrics to spread a message.  This is seen with a re-write of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" making fun of "Georgie Porgie".  This re-do of the song spreads their message to their audience in a well known tune making the audience able to sing along.  Similarly to this, in 8th grade my history teacher made us change the lyrics (and preform to the class) for the song, "We Didn't Start The Fire".  This well known song connected to our meaningful lyrics added relevance to current history topics.  For our re-write we needed to continue from where the song 'left off' and include relevant historical events to make the youth of today understand their recent history in a new, enjoyable way.  This is a positive way of spreading a message through media action just like the Grannies and other groups.
The goal of all these groups is to show the illegitimacy of constructing gender roles.  For instance, typically, grannies are not out fighting and protesting.  These people defy ageism and dominant gender norms and manipulate the audience's stereotypes in the process.

1 comment:

  1. Putting your own lyrics to the tune of a song is a very smart tactic. I think that it gets the person's point across much more easily because listening to a song is catchy, more rememberable, and popular in today's culture. I remember having to choose a song in my 6th grade music class and my group had to come up with our own lyrics for the song. The lyrics had to take a stance on something that we felt strongly about, and promote it. Using the tactic of using a song to get a point across has been a popular technique for the past few generations, but has become increasingly popular throughout the years.

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