The month of December means zillions of end-of-year best of lists. On that note, I’m working on a little project with Media Action to compile a list of our own and need your help, dear Shameless bloggers and readers. We’ve had wide-ranging discussions over the past year on the horrifying, idiotic, mean and often hilarious ways in which women have been portrayed in the media: depictions of motherhood (from Demi’s artful pose on the cover of Vanity Fair to the attacks on Britney Spears), the sexism in beer and booze ads, issues of race, violence against women, shallow judgements of female gamers, and the list goes on. On the other hand, we’ve celebrated a lot of things in pop culture: Tina Fey, Veronica Mars, Joss Whedon, Natalie Portman and her math skills.

What, in your opinion, have been the best and the worst things about women in the media and pop culture of the year? If you could call out media producers on something, what would it be? What inspired you to deliver them a high-five for an awesome representation of women or girls?

In this installment: upon examining Unilever‘s conflicting brands and marketing tactics, the ad industry discovers there’s something strange afoot!

Apparently there’s a bit of a controversy about the Dove vs. Axe advertising contradictions, which we’ve been discussing on this blog for quite some time. I wonder what will happen when industry-types start calling out Dove for its disingenuousness?

In it’s defence, the company stated that “The Axe campaign is a spoof of ‘mating game’ and men’s desire to get noticed by women and not meant to be taken literally… Unilever is a large, global company with many brands in its portfolio. Each brand’s efforts are tailored to reflect the unique interests and needs of its audience.” I’m not quite sure that marketing-speak is going to convince people this time.

(Thanks to Kevin for the tip!)

Watching 30 Rock has inspired a love for Tina Fey that I didn’t know was possible to find in a prime-time female television character (but which may be emerging on a more consistent basis? I don’t watch enough TV to comment accurately on the matter). And I’m not the only one, the internet is full of love for Fey and her character, Liz Lemon.

Lemon, who’s in charge of a big network sketch comedy show, is hilarious and smart, totally dorky and totally real. I love so many scenes where her feminist sensibility emerges in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, but the scene in which she gets the guy is one of my absolute favourites (a close second is the one in which she — who is very single — buys a wedding dress because it’s on sale, then eventually rolls it up in a ball and uses it to prop up the leg of an Ikea desk she finally put together but which doesn’t quite work).

I can’t find a clip of the video, which is sad, as it truly is great. But here are some of the things she reveals to Floyd, the guy she’s after:
• She’s been sexually rejected by two guys who later attended Clown College.
• She gets super-nervous at the sound of vacuuming, which her mother used to mask the sounds of parental fights.
• She almost never – okay, never – vacuums as a result.
• She’s already had three donuts today.
• During college, “I pooped my pants, a little bit, at a Country Steaks All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, and I didn’t leave until I finished my second plate of shrimp.”
• A couple of months ago, she went on a date with her cousin.
• There is an 80% chance in the next election that she will tell all her friends she is voting for Barack Obama, while she secretly votes for John McCain.
• When she was a kid, she would put on her fanciest nightgown, mix orange soda and cream soda in a champagne glass, sit in the dark and watch, “The Love Boat.”
• Consequently, she has “sexual fantasy stuff” for Gopher.
• She lied. She’s had five donuts.

Amazing! And she gets the guy. Here are some other awesome Liz Lemon moments.

Fey, who also writes and produces for the show (and as a result has been called “a rising player in what has been a man’s game”) has been on the picket line during the Writer’s Guild strike (even though as an actor/producer she had to finish her obligations!) and has been articulate and outspoken about issues facing writers and other workers in the industry. Be still my beating heart.

Malalai Joya has been called “the bravest women in Afghanistan.” At 28, she is the youngest member of the Afghan Parliament and has been an outspoken critic of the occupation of Afghanistan and warlords and drug lords in the government.

“Today we need security and liberation, but in the name of security, the foreign troops deprived us of our liberation. We need international support, but we don’t want occupation,” she has said.

Joya was expelled from parliament in May, which Canada and its NATO allies have remained silent about, despite pre-occupation propaganda about women’s rights and democracy.

Joya is speaking in Toronto tonight, and a day of action is planned for tomorrow to demand her reinstatement.

Details of the event below.

(more inside…)

Media Democracy Day is being celebrated in cities across Canada from today until Oct. 26. Media activists in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have organized speakers, film screenings and alt-media fairs, including a film and panel discussion on Burma and the media at Toronto’s Brunswick Theatre today, and a media democracy and community radio conference at McGill in Montreal (where the amazing Amy Goodman will speak!).

For full event listings, go here.

If you know of any other Media Democracy Day events in your city or town, let us know!

Finally, there’s some research to back up your “Feminists-do-it-better” T-shirt. According to this piece in the Globe and Mail, two academics at Rutgers University set out to bust the stereotype that feminists are “romantically challenged” in heterosexual love and lust.

Make of this what you will, but their study found that women who identify as feminist are more likely than women who don’t to be dating or married, and that “men and women with feminist partners tend to be happier with their relationships and more satisfied with their sex lives.”

Pretty cool study. Also cool to see it on the front page of the Globe‘s Life section — it’s pretty to see the F-word in a headline.

Here is something awesome: sex workers in Vancouver are planning to open a cooperatively-owned brothel. Being planned by British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Women, the idea is to create a safe place to work and enable sex workers to have control over their work.

Thousands of women have been killed in Vancouver, many of them sex workers, and a worker-owned co-op, where women could work inside, is a step toward preventing this kind of violence.

According to Women’s E-News, any sex worker can join the co-op and rent rooms. Workers set their own rates and keep all of their profits, and the co-op will adhere to labour standards. Plans include an art gallery, a museum on the history of sex work and a dinner club featuring burlesque shows.

Even the police and politicians are backing the idea, as the city tries to “clean up” its image (read: hide from view its many and persistent economic and social problems) for the 2010 Olympics. In fact, the only people opposed are escort agencies that are afraid of a little competition.

Ontarians are voting today, not only for the provincial government but for the kind of electoral process we wish to have in this province. The Toronto Star has a neat little video in which random people on the street say if they’re voting, and why or why not. So far I haven’t heard any compelling reasons why not to vote. Happy voting!

The Toronto Women’s Bookstore and Amnesty International Toronto Organization present the premiere of Juarez: The City Where Women are Disposable, a documentary by Alex Flores and Lorena Vassoloon on the countless women who have “disappeared” in Ciudad Juarez, and the lack of government response to this situation. The last issue of Shameless featured a story about the horrific acts of femicide happening in the Mexico border town.

Thursday, Sept. 27, 7 p.m.
Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street W., Toronto)
Tickets: $10, available at Toronto Women’s Bookstore or online at
juarezdoc at lasperlasdelmarfilms dot com.