Media as an Extension and the Trans Movement

One of Marshall McLuhan's main theories was about how media is an extension of ourselves. Some examples of this include the internet and social media being an extension of the nervous system, clothing being an extension of the body and makeup being an extension of the face. I would like to relate McLuhan's theory to transgender individuals, particularly transgender celebrities, and the way that they use media to present themselves. 

Most people don't think very much about media such as clothing or even social media being an extension of ourselves, we simply dress in a way that we feel comfortable and post what we like. For trans people however, they recieve excessive scrutiny for the way they present themselves using media. A good example of this would be the online presence and controversy surrounding Dylan Mulvaney. Dylan Mulvaney is a Broadway actor who came out as a trans woman in 2022. She has created a series called "Days of Girlhood" on Tiktok where she shares about her life as a girl. In these videos, she frequently wears pink dresses, puts on makeup and talks in an exaggerated girly voice. The videos have received mixed reactions. Some people praise Dylan for spreading trans joy and trans visibility, allowing other trans youth to see themselves represented as happy and successful. Others say that Dylan's videos do nothing but perpetuate female stereotypes that cisgender women have historically tried to distance themselves from. To directly quote the first video of her Days of Girlhood series, Dylan says "Day 1 of being a girl and I've already cried 3 times, I wrote a scathing email that I did not send, I ordered dresses online that I could not afford, and then when someone asked me how I was I said I'm fine when I wasn't fine." 

I'm curious to hear from the rest of the class. Do you think trans people are under more scrutiny than cisgender people on the way they use media. What are your thoughts on Dylan Mulvaney's portrayal of girlhood? Do you think that it is harmful or empowering?  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post #4: Applying McLuhan's Hot and Cool Theory to Podcasting

Image
  Hi everyone!  For this blog post, I am interested in outlining Marshall Mcluhan’s Hot and Cool media theory. In particular, this post will use his theory to dissect the similarities and differences between how radio and podcasting are typically consumed in contemporary culture. Ultimately, the goal of this post is to illustrate how modern-day podcasting’s technological affordances allow for a more cool communicative method in comparison to traditional radio broadcasting.   McLuhan's Hot and Cool media theory categorizes different media forms based on how the receiver experiences its content. Specifically, for McLuhan, different media forms demand varying degrees of audience participation which impacts how one extracts meaning. Hot media is largely defined by its “high definition” as it focuses on one singular sense (ex: auditory, visual, etc). This intensification of a single sense facilitates the demand of a viewer’s attention as it does not leave much context to ...
Read more

The Freedom Convoy as Hot or Cool Media / Zach Tyrrell

A prominent idea in Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book Understanding Media is looking at media as either hot or cold. Hot media demands a viewer's attention whereas cold media requires conscious participation by the medium’s consumer. Examples of hot media include; photographs, print, and radio. On the contrary cold media includes the; telephone, seminars and television. To reiterate, the differentiating factor between the two is audience involvement.  The freedom convoy took the nation by storm in early 2022. As most of you probably know, the freedom convoy was a nationwide protest against the vaccine mandate instituted by Trudeau’s government. The convoy made its way to Ottawa as hundreds protested outside of the Parliament building for a number of weeks. So, is the freedom convoy hot or cold media? I personally feel that it is difficult to categorize the convoy as one or the other which therefore makes it a combination of both. As we know hot media demand’s a viewer's attention a...
Read more

Blog Post #5

Image
Hi everyone!  Before I answer this week’s blog prompt, I want to establish a few key points of McLuhan’s medium theory in order to predict how he would interpret social media as a communicative medium. As we have discussed in our class, McLuhan’s approach to interpreting different media forms focuses on how they construct a social environment that can vary the meaning and sense of the information that is being communicated. Particularly, McLuhan explains that a medium can be seen as an extension of our human senses. This causes different media to favour certain senses which influences how we interpret meaning within the barriers of that sense. For example, since radio privileges the sense of hearing, this then causes receivers of its message to perceive its message within the limitations of hearing. Thus, this idea of media as an extension of human senses has certain implications regarding how different media can shape our social environments and cultural communicative practices....
Read more