Bad Feminist

Lena Dunham (1986-Present) is a writer, director, actress, and producer. She is best known for creating and starring in the HBO series, Girls, for which she received several Emmy Award nominations, received two Golden Globe Awards, and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing for a comedy series. Dunham’s career has also included her creation of short films, feature-length films, a book, and a feminist online newsletter.

Dunham figures into Gay’s text primarily in Essay 6’s discussion of Girls. Gay discusses the privileged and narrow perspective from which Dunham writes the show and its characters, noting the upbringing and nepotism that facilitated Dunham’s rise to success (Dunham is the daughter of Carroll Dunham, a famous painter, and Laurie Simmons, a famous artist and photographer). Gay offers her critique of the show, the most significant being the lack of racial and class diversity, but also notes that this critique is broadly applicable to American pop culture. Thus, Dunham exemplifies The Burden of Responsibility Placed on Marginalized People to be everything to everybody, especially when it comes to The Representation of Marginalized Identities.

Judith Butler (1956-Present) is a philosopher and gender theorist whose work has contributed to the fields of political philosophy, ethics, feminist theory, queer theory, and literary theory. She received a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in philosophy from Yale University, and she has held teaching positions at Wesleyan University, George Washington University, John Hopkins University, UC Berkeley, and Columbia University. Butler’s theoretical contributions to feminism include her complication of the gender binary and of the conflation of sex and gender.

Butler is best known for her 1990 work, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, in which she articulates the theory of gender performativity. Gay cites Butler in Essay 8 to build her analysis of Green Girl, Play It as it Lays, and the depictions of women on reality television. She also cites Butler’s 1988 article “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” to apply Butler’s notion of gender essentialism to feminism.

Kate Zambreno (1977-Present) is novelist, essayist, critic, and professor. She studied journalism at Northwestern University and performance theory at the University of Chicago, and she currently teachers writing at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College. Zambreno has published seven books, but she is best known for Green Girls and Heroines, both of which Gay discusses in the text to illustrate the harmful impact gender performativity has on women—namely, the disconnection from themselves and their own humanity. Gay also discusses Zambreno’s Heroines in Essay 10, identifying the work’s honest subjectivity as the book’s primary strength. However, she also notes Zambreno’s silence on race, class, and heterosexual privilege.

Hanna Rosin (1970-Present) is a writer who has authored work for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and GQ, among other publications. She is best known for her 2010 book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women, which Gay discusses in Essay 10. While Gay acknowledges the strengths of Rosin’s book, she is largely critical of its anti-feminist stance and its suggestion that patriarchy is dead, arguing that feminist progress for certain privileged women doesn’t mean The Spectrum of Patriarchy is dead and that feminists have a right to continue fighting against all forms of misogyny. Thus, Rosin represents a figure with a limited and stereotypical view of feminism.

James McKinley, Jr. (1962-Present) is a journalist for The New York Times who specializes in criminal justice and law enforcement. He received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cornell University and a master’s from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Following the publication of the article that Gay discusses in Essay 13, McKinley was embroiled in controversy for the way that he chose to frame the piece. Gay comments on McKinley’s writing to argue that how he chose to frame the piece indicates a broader cultural numbness towards sexual violence and the language around it. McKinley illustrates Gay’s belief that writers have a responsibility to exercise care in writing about sensitive issues.

Jerry Sandusky (1944-Present) is a former Pennsylvania State University football coach who was convicted on 45 counts of child molestation in 2012. Sandusky’s victims were youth involved in the nonprofit he founded in 1977 to serve underprivileged and at-risk youth. Sandusky was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. Gay discusses Sandusky in Essay 16, building an argument about the ways that patriarchy distorts manhood, male behavior, and power. She also notes the complicity of the men around him and indicates the way in which society gives privileged public figures sympathy and a platform to proclaim their innocence.

Daniel Tosh (1975-Present) is a comedian, writer, and producer. He rose to prominence in 2001 after a performance on the Late Show with David Letterman, going on to host his own Comedy Central series, Tosh.0, from 2009 to 2020. He also went on a series of comedy tours from 2010 to 2015. Tosh is known for deliberately offensive jokes that frequently feature racist, sexist, and homophobic themes. His rape jokes are the subject of Essay 19, where Gay argues that Tosh represents patriarchal entitlement, as well as society’s carelessness towards issues of sexual violence. Gay’s discussion of Tosh also points to the influence that celebrities and pop culture have in terms of promoting oppressive ideologies.

Chris Brown (1989-Present) is a singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor who has been credited as one of the most successful R&B artists of his generation. He rose to promise around 2005 with the release of his first self-titled album, and he has since released numerous projects and won numerous awards. In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault against Rihanna, who was his girlfriend at the time. He accepted a plea deal that required community service, five years of probation, and domestic violence counseling. The incident is the subject around which Essay 20 revolves, where Gay points out the way that society rewards bad boys and bad behaviors, noting Brown’s Grammy Award and performances in the aftermath of the incident and the release of the police report.

Robin Thicke (1977-Present) is a singer, songwriter, and producer. He is best known for “Blurred Lines,” which is the subject of Essay 21. The song is one of the best-selling singles of all time, and it was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 2014 Grammy Awards. Gay emphasizes that when Thicke was called out on the song’s sexual violence undertones, his response was to double down. Thus, Thicke exemplifies the bad boys and bad behaviors motif and the way that society not only takes misogyny as a cultural norm but also rewards men for it.

Kathryn Stockett (1969-Present) is a novelist who is best known for her 2009 debut novel, The Help. Tate Taylor (1969-Present) is a filmmaker and actor who is best known for directing The Help, Get On Up, and The Girl on the Train. Both Stockett and Taylor grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and Taylor received the rights from Stockett to make the film adaptation of the book before the book was even published. Stockett and Taylor are a point of discussion in Essay 23, where Gay points out the many racist elements of the book and the film. Stockett and Taylor are key figures because they help Gay illustrate the point that writers speak from particular perspectives (and privileges), which can be a problem. Stockett and Taylor try to write across difference, but they do so carelessly and in ways that reinforce stereotypes.

Quentin Tarantino (1963-Present) is a filmmaker and actor. His work is known for its dark humor, stylized violence, abundant profanity, and ensemble casts. He is a point of discussion in Essay 24, where Gay discusses his 2012 film Django Unchained, arguing that the movie merely exploits its Black characters and Black history as a whole. Thus, Tarantino provides another example of white artists mishandling the sensitive topic of race and the painful history of the United States.

Tyler Perry (1969-Present) is an actor and filmmaker best known for creating the character Madea. His work evolved from the writing and production of stage-play films to the writing and production of feature-length films and television shows. Perry is a highly successful and wealthy figure, and he opened Tyler Perry Studios in 2015, making him the second Black American to own a major film studio. Perry’s work has been criticized for his reliance on stereotypes about Black people, and in Essay 26 Gay points out Perry’s misogyny, fetishization of the working class, and mishandling of sensitive topics like domestic violence and sexually transmitted infections. Perry illustrates the way in which the paucity of representation of marginalized identities forces those who are marginalized to accept scraps.

Ryan Coogler (1986-Present) is a filmmaker best known for Fruitvale Station, but he also co-wrote and directed Creed and Black Panther. Fruitvale Station was Coogler’s first feature-length film, and he received numerous awards and critical acclaim for the movie. Coogler serves as a key figure because he exemplifies the complicated relationship between the representation of marginalized identities and the burden of responsibility placed on marginalized people. On the one hand, Fruitvale Station and Coogler’s acclaim for it indicate Hollywood’s obsession with the struggle narrative. On the other hand, Coogler gives his audience insight into Oscar Grant’s humanity, while also showing the audience the consequences of demonizing young Black men and restricting their opportunities for success.

Trayvon Martin (1995-2012) was a 17-year-old unarmed Black teenager shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman (1983-Present). Zimmerman claimed self-defense, and Florida’s stand-your-ground law prevented law enforcement from arresting and charging Zimmerman immediately. However, nationwide protests and media attention led to Zimmerman’s eventual arrest. A jury acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Martin and Zimmerman are both a point of discussion in Essay 32, where Gay points out the way that Zimmerman’s defense team and the media and public at large demonized Martin as an example of racial profiling. In Essay 33, she juxtaposes the treatment of Martin to the treatment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Gay’s discussion of Martin plays a key role in building on the theme of the fullness and complexity of humanity, linking justice to the recognition of marginalized people’s humanity.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (1993-Present) is a Kyrgyz American man who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, killing three people and injuring 280 others. In addition, Tsarnaev killed a MIT police officer. Tsarnaev was arrested, charged, and convicted for the act of terrorism, and he was sentenced to death in 2015. In Essay 33, Gay discusses the controversy over the Rolling Stone cover, emphasizing that it demonstrates the prevalence of racial profiling and cultural ideas about what criminality looks like.

Paula Deen (1947-Present) is a chef, cookbook author, TV personality, and restaurant owner known for southern cuisine. In 2013, she was sued by a former employee for workplace harassment. A transcript of the trial deposition in which Deen reveals her casual racism is the topic of Essay 34. Gay uses the backlash to the revelation of Deen’s racism to point out the unspoken rules of racism. The implicit argument is that Deen’s overt racism is not in line with the subtler forms of racism that are prevalent today.