Dan Fishback: Confront popular culture

When I look at a magazine rack, I don't set it on fire. I roll my eyes -- not because I believe some media does not deserve to go up in flames, but because it would be pointless to attack. It would be like throwing pebbles at a tank. Mass media is too powerful. It's too omnipresent.

So people like me, people who are sick and tired of seeing women reduced to objects and orifices, people who resent the constant assault on our senses and sensibilities -- people who care -- turn into people who groan, people who shrug, people who roll their eyes. We've become desensitized to our own anger and brush it aside just as we do these dehumanizing images of our sisters.

A whole nation of white youth subculture bases itself almost entirely on a rejection of these ideals and the mainstream marketing machine that spawns them. Aloof and sedentary, the most these kids do to attack the beast is mock it, pastiche it, parody it and deliver it reflexively back upon themselves. They are effectively immersed in the same images they reject, pretending it's all just a joke.

In lieu of a promising strategy against media misogyny, we resort to lame irony. It's defeatist, and it's understandable. The monster is just too big.

The nice thing about college campuses, though, is that they're usually a microcosm for the larger corporate/political world -- particularly this college campus. You have your ominous administration, your tiny groups of largely-ineffective radicals and, perhaps most importantly, you've got the media.

And it's run by students.

It's not the impenetrable fortress of the Big Five corporations. So when it screws up, you can put aside aloofness, irony and defeatism -- you can do something about it.

Some people are.

Recently, after 34th Street magazine ran a few flippant, revolting "jokes" involving rape, students got fed up and made noise. They organized, they sent e-mails, they printed flyers and they have scheduled a public forum for Wednesday to air complaints about The Daily Pennsylvanian and 34th Street.

Their point, shared by many, is that 34th Street, despite occasional insights and occasional wit, often resorts to immature, misogynistic humor. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that sexism alone equals comedy. Someone figured that depictions of prejudice and stupidity are inherently satirical even if they lack comment, condemnation or even a punch line.

The intent might be benevolent or an aloof parody. The jokes might come from the same ironic resignation that prevents me from attacking newsstands.

But they don't work. They just deify the very phenomena they are supposed to attack. Not only is such a comedic platform insulting and often intensely hurtful, but it's just not funny.

If you present something horrible, you're not necessarily presenting it as horrible -- particularly if you do it over and over again. Repetition matters.

And that's how the now-infamous rape "jokes" became infamous at all. They weren't just repulsive or hurtful. These "jokes" alone did not anger people. This was just a garish materialization of an atmosphere that people have apparently been sensing all along. This was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

And that's why it is difficult to take an apology seriously. Whether or not they ever trivialize rape again directly, it seems that parts of 34th Street will always be written for immature, horny, heterosexual boys.

It will always present women as commodities, thus alienating and insulting Penn's women, while encouraging and empowering the more dehumanizing impulses of Penn's "men."

That is, unless we make it clear that rape "jokes" are only the worst examples of a larger, more serious problem. It isn't just an unfortunate oversight that much of 34th Street seems to speak directly to well-off, white, heterosexual men. It's part of a larger media phenomenon that addresses the sexual concerns of this group as its main subject.

Even media meant for heterosexual women addresses mainly the sexual desires of heterosexual men. It's this exaltation of the male libido that allows a rape culture to thrive. And our campus publications do not have to take part.

In her column last week, Hilary Moore wrote, "34th Street needs to change its attitude and approach on a long term basis." I concur and extend -- we should change our approach, too. We should follow the lead of responsive campus voices, speak up when we experience the unacceptable and do our best to positively influence the media around us while we still have a fighting chance.

Dan Fishback is a junior American Identities major from Olney, Md.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.