What happens when a celebrity feminist slings microaggressive shade?: Twitter and the pushback against neoliberal feminism

ABSTRACT

Bouncing off the excitement expressed on Twitter and onstage at the 2015 Video Music Awards ceremony involving Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and music fans, this case study explores the pronounced whiteness among celebrity feminists within our neoliberal postfeminist culture and the pushback on social media against the glaring contradictions of Swift’s and Cyrus’s white feminism. Analyses of the tweets are conducted through both critical rhetoric and microaggressive theories, useful tools for exposing problematic hegemonic social practices regarding race, gender, and body politics within the music industry. This cultural critique on the role of celebrity feminists unmasks the role of discourse – intentional and unintentional – in both reproducing and challenging hegemonic ideologies; exposes Swift’s unknowing contribution to neoliberal feminism; and positions Twitter as a valuable venue for emerging feminists to create counter-narratives that challenge formations within celebrity feminism. By examining the celebrities’ digital interactions and the responsive fan intervention, we are able to come to a clearer understanding of the gestures that both support and challenge the co-constitutive structures of celebrity and feminism and see specifically the ways in which Swift’s neoliberal form of feminism reinscribes the very oppression that she and other celebrity feminists claim to be against.

KEYWORDS:

• Microaggressions
• white feminism
• celebrity feminism
• neoliberalism
• Twitter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judy L. Isaksen

Judy L. Isaksen, who earned her PhD from the University of South Florida, is a Full Professor of Media and Popular Culture Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at High Point University in North Carolina, where she teaches courses at the intersection of rhetoric, critical/cultural theory, and media studies—most particularly television, film, and music—focusing on issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. She has published two articles on Barack Obama, the latest in a special legacy issue of the Howard Journal of Communications. Her work also appears in Communication Studies, Legal Studies Forum, the Journal of Popular Culture along with a variety of book chapters and anthology articles. You can follow Isaksen on Instagram @judy.isaksen

Nahed Eltantawy

Nahed Eltantawy is Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Journalism at the Nido R. Qubein School of Communication in High Point University, North Carolina. Eltantawy earned her PhD from Georgia State University, and her research focuses on media representations, Muslim & Arab women in the media, social media activism and critical and cultural studies. Her work has been published in various books and peer-reviewed journals, including Feminist Media Studies, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and the International Journal of Communication. You can follow Eltantawy on Twitter at @ntantawy