Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Computers and Composition 44 (2017) 52–66
Haul, Parody, Remix: Mobilizing Feminist Rhetorical Criticism
With Video
Abby M. Dubisar
*
, Claire Lattimer, Rahemma Mayfield, Makayla McGrew,
Joanne Myers, Bethany Russell, Jessica Thomas
Department of English, Iowa State University, 203 Ross Hall, 527 Farmhouse Ln., Ames, IA 50011-1201, USA
Available online 8 April 2017
Abstract
Video composing can subvert, or critically remix, the power dynamics of mainstream popular culture as well as facilitate students’
desires to write against sexism and enact intersectional feminist identities. We feature six video projects created for a fall 2015
undergraduate class on the analysis of popular culture. As models, these videos encourage writing and rhetoric instructors to invite
students to communicate their own intersectional identities and values through multimodal assignments. Doing so remixes the pos-
sibilities for how and where students’ ideas can take shape. Organized into the two thematic categories of 1. media misrepresentation
and rape culture and 2. anticapitalist criticism and feminist parody, this article shows how students’ videos that adapt such genres
as the consumerism-based haul video and musical video parody mobilize feminist rhetorical criticism.
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Feminism; Intersectionality; Media; Video; Popular culture; Rhetorical criticism; Haul; Parody; Remix; YouTube
It’s the patriarchy/and it’ll never set you free (Russell, 2015).
Feminists must create their own audiences and involve them in technology by developing projects in all forms
of new media, while continuing to monitor and critique cultural images of gender (Hocks, 1999, p. 111).
This article locates itself at the intersections of remix, feminist digital pedagogy, and undergraduate research. We
argue here that video composing can subvert, or critically remix, the power dynamics of mainstream popular culture
as well as facilitate students’ desires to write against sexism and enact intersectional feminist identities. Our argument
is based on video projects created for a class on the analysis of popular culture.
In “Remembering Sappho” (2011) Jessica Enoch and Jordynn Jack feature ways students can revise and expand the
rhetorical tradition, including students’ digital projects like blogs and websites that amplify the perspectives of southern
women who are largely unknown to the public. Laurie Grobman and Joyce Kinkead (2010) open Undergraduate
Research in English Studies by describing all the benefits yielded by undergraduate research, including enabling
students to “contribute their voices to creating knowledge” (ix). While contributors to their book showcase a variety of
types of undergraduate research, none feature digital projects. Jane Greer (2009) argues that including girls in feminist
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dubisar@iastate.edu (A.M. Dubisar), clairel@iastate.edu (C. Lattimer), rahemmam@iastate.edu (R. Mayfield),
makmcgrew@gmail.com (M. McGrew), jmyers@iastate.edu (J. Myers), bethanygracerussell@gmail.com (B. Russell), jessicat@iastate.edu (J.
Thomas).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2017.03.002
8755-4615/© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.