Bemis Public Library
6014 S Datura St
Littleton, CO 80120
United States
Join us for the Big Ideas Lecture Series for “Bleeding Hearts: The Risky Business of Depicting Romance for the Strong, Independent Woman” with Dr. Allison Palumbo (English) on Thursday, May 7 from 6-7pm at Bemis Public Library. The Big Ideas Lecture Series brings faculty from Arapahoe Community College into the community to share fresh insights around questions connected to the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Hosted by Bemis Library, each talk is free, public, and designed to spark thought and conversation.
How do film and television portray romance for strong, independent women? Why should we care? This multimedia presentation explores a facet of the larger arguments Dr. Allison Palumbo, English faculty at ACC, makes about sexual politics onscreen in their book, Love and the Fighting Female: A Critical Study of Onscreen Depictions. It takes the audience on a journey to find the answers to those guiding questions by analyzing forty years of fighting female characters onscreen (like private eyes, cops, and spies) who struggle to find love. It explores how love has been constructed in American culture based on heterosexual norms and hierarchical power dynamics that both explicitly and implicitly favor men’s strength and independence. Even in fantasy worlds, where anything should be possible, love relationships tend to disempower the characters who have been assigned female at birth, no matter how kick-ass or otherwise empowered they might seem. After all, hierarchies always subordinate someone. Ultimately, learning to question America’s ideas and ideals for romance and challenge inequitable relationship expectations fostered by the mass media means learning to imagine more inclusive and equitable ways of loving.
For more information or accommodations, contact Patrice Session at patrice [dot] session [at] arapahoe [dot] edu.