Morning Cup

What is Morning Cup?

Morning Cup is a space for outreach that uses social media to create and enrich the NMSU Women's Studies community online. We feature a variety of media with a range of student and faculty profiles, You Tube videos, music mixes, links to our Tumblr image blog, Facebook group, and Twitter feed, as well as circulating examples of trends in public academia. Morning Cup is not place to visit once. Drop by any time to see what's brewing!

NMSU Women's Studies Pop Media

NMSU WSP and WS-related Social Media on the Web

follow our NMSU WSP Image Blog on Tumblr

Doc J's WS Mixes

Of April and May... from NMSUWSP on 8tracks.

Our Facebook Group

Our NMSU WSP Twitter Feed. Keep Up on NMSU WSP Events and WS-related Issues and News Worldwide

...It's Madam Secretary

This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went viral as the latest, hottest internet meme. As Maureen Dowd describes in the New York Times, "Texts from Hillary"

It features invented tongue-in-cheek texts between the don't-mess-with-me Hillary in dark shades and other famous people pictured on their gadgets.

When Mitt Romney texts 'Any advice?' to Hillary, she replies: 'Drink.' She rejects a "friend" request from Mark Zuckerberg, cuts off Joe Biden when he tries to tell a bar joke, instructs a cooing Ryan Gosling to call her 'Madam Secretary,' blows off Jon Stewart by saying she's already booked on Colbert, and wields a put-down from The Devil Wears Prada on Anna Wintour.

WSP prof Dr. Laura Anh Williams says she loves that a meme portraying a woman in politics as intelligent, witty, and powerfully cool has taken off like wildfire. Typically women in politics are popularized or ridiculed for their looks, their age, their wardrobe. (Of course, women in popular culture face this scrutiny. This week actress Ashley Judd wrote at length about the sexism inherent in the social acceptability of scrutinizing women's appearance). The images from "Texts from Hillary" in particular talk back to the ways Secretary Clinton was negatively portrayed in the media, especially during her run for the Democratic presidential candidate against President Obama, even making reference to the "It's 3 a.m...." television spot that her campaign aired. The images and captions position Madam Secretary with the hottest musicians and actors, the most successful internet entrepreneurs and political frontrunners, and "Hillz" always out-cools them all. Secretary Clinton herself has gotten in on the meme, meeting with the creators of the blog, posing for photos with them and submitting her own-- what the creators have decided is the final, ultimate Text with Hillary. She noted, however, that the Ryan Gosling entry was her one of her favorites. Dr. Williams admits that her favorite is the one featuring President Obama:

Not Quite... A NMSU WSP Film Suggestion

From the Documentary's Website

Silk Road Rising's Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness (24 min., 8 sec.), directed by Jamil Khoury and Stephen Combs, is a documentary film dedicated to a vision of whiteness that is anti-racist and rooted in economic justice.

Not Quite White explores the complicated relationship of Arab and Slavic immigrants to American notions of whiteness. It expands the American conversation on race by zeroing in on whiteness as a constructed social and political category, a slippery slope that historically played favorites, advantaging Northern and Western European immigrants over immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and the Middle East. Inspired by Jamil Khoury's short play WASP: White Arab Slovak Pole, Not Quite White integrates scenes from WASP alongside interviews with Arab American and Polish American academics who reflect upon contested and probationary categories of whiteness and the use of anti-Black racism as a "whitening" dye.

In Not Quite White, Silk Road Rising Artistic Director Jamil Khoury draws upon his own Arab (Syrian) and Slavic (Polish and Slovak) heritage as the lens through which to investigate the broader issue of immigrants achieving whiteness and hence qualifying as "fully American." The film advances society's on-going conversations about the meaning of whiteness and efforts at redefining whiteness.

A World Gone Meme or Feminist Theory Hits the Internet...Finally

For those of us who know and love Feminist, Queer and other purportedly "dense" and "unfun" forms of critical theory, the recent appearance of Feminist Theory memes on Tumblr has been a much appreciated turn in public academia online. First we were all taken with Danielle Henderson's channeling of Feminist Theory in "Feminist Ryan Gosling" (see below), and now we have Kristie L. Yandoi's "Feminist Harry Potter" (see below) a blog that brings attention to Feminist Theory "one Harry Potter reference at a time" and Hola Lind@'s Gael García-Bernal Feminista (below) a bilingual blog that states, "If you like feminism, social justice, and Gael García-Bernal, then this is for you." NMSU WSP Feminist Theory prof, Dr. M. Catherine Jonet notes that these memes offer great teaching tools, if not "cultural flash cards" for learning and circulating Feminist Theory. She points out that the memes' combination of critical theory and popular culture respond to a kind of "wish fulfillment' where fans demonstrate a desire for the concepts circulated in Feminist Theory to be expressed as idealized and sexy with pop icons becoming all the more desirable for doing so. Jonet comments that "Feminist Harry Potter" in particular offers a recuperation of the Hermione character as heroine and a questioning of the much beloved series's compliance to dominant ideologies of gender, race, and class. Well, what are we waiting for? How about "Feminist Gaga" or "Feminist Downton Abbey?" Let's not leave out the ladies as part of this meme and let's certainly not leave out public academia's guilty pleasure. Sybil loves social justice and isn't Mary kinda sorta the New Woman?

"Hey beautiful. Sometimes, I think about the false virgin/whore dichotomy that our society has constructed, and it makes me want to cry with you."

"Hey beautiful. My new year's resolution is to commit myself more to being an ally to the feminist cause."

"Women's Health Experts Speak Out" from Funny or Die

On February 16, 2012 the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing titled "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?" The topic focused on the decision of the administration to mandate birth control coverage. The five person panel, made up of three male religious leaders and two male academics, did not include one woman. A female Georgetown student selected to represent an opposing view point because of her experience with losing contraception coverage was not allowed to testify. She was rejected as "not qualified."

Equality... Feminism Is...

A photographer using the moniker Facecasesplace captured different people who have put to the question. Here are the images produced.

"WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines" Premieres at SXSW 2012

Wonder Woman has traveled a tough road of late, but the Amazonian princess is getting a historical retrospective in the form of a new documentary slated to show at South by Southwest, "WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines."

WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES (formerly THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN) traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today, WONDER WOMEN! looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society's anxieties about women's liberation.

WONDER WOMEN! goes behind the scenes with Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, comic writers and artists, and real life superheroines such as Gloria Steinem, Shelby Knox and others who offer an enlightening and entertaining counterpoint to the male dominated superhero genre.

Tracing the evolution of Wonder Woman's narrative as it reflects the state of American politics and culture is fascinating. But it's kinda weird hearing Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and founder of Riot Grrl cite the Lynda Carter "Wonder Woman" and "Charlie's Angels" as inspirations. Those two shows were the very essence of "Jiggle TV."

The disconnect is heightened by the outrage that was sparked last summer by the first looks at Adrianne Palicki as NBC's new "Wonder Woman," practically spilling out of her bustier. "How is she supposed to fight crime dressed like that?!?!?!" was a common cry. We have no idea about the physics behind such mysteries, but Wonder Woman has been fighting crime dressed like that for more than 70 years. But the show went to an early grave, before even making it to air, taking the issue with it.

Text from ww.nbcnewyork.com/blogs/popcornbiz