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Deep Dish TV: Socialist Feminist Pedagogy Realized in Public Access Television

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To see the show I'm referencing, click here

 

The history of television is one wrought with misogyny; a corporate structure built on the subjugation of women in its industry practice as well as the media it produces. Like all consequences of capitalism, network television profits off of societal power structures, its very foundations rooted in oppression. The best way, perhaps, to rid the bounds of patriarchy is to remove the pressure of profit entirely. Public access television functions as a space for socialist feminist pedagogy in its distinctly anti-capitalist deconstruction of network television’s patriarchal framework by creating a space for collective practice. Deep Dish TV network’s show The Opening Series demonstrates how true equal access invites space for radical thought in its episodes “That's Women’s Work!” and “Mediums Well Done.” This show’s experimental aesthetics and progressive messaging exist in opposition to the conventions of mass-media, thus divulging from the profitable aspects of television and separating itself from the patriarchal business structure. 

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The business of network television is patriarchal due to its capitalist enforcement of class structure, formed in the systematic exclusion of women in the industry and oppression through the media it portrays. Much of the feminist analysis of television concerns the male gaze within the context of media being produced, dissecting the voyeuristic and domineering framings of women. Hegemonic assumptions about gender were sold to and by advertisers that funded programming, largely targeted at white, middle class people to attract the most revenue (Watkins 154). The values attached to the portrayals of suburban America are integrally tied to the understanding of the nuclear family, commercially harnessing patriarchy. While the gendered narratives of the media itself are one important facet of women’s oppression, the symbiotic nature of industry marginalization is what solidifies television’s capitalist oppression of women beyond the theoretical. As media production became industrialized, men held the key roles of corporate power in production, distribution, and exhibition (Watkins 155). Women were not given opportunities for authority (in line with most other business models operating within patriarchal capitalism), systemically excluding women from media production and access. Thus, network television both adhered to as well as reinforced gender roles in its corporate distribution of power as well as its conventional, marketable, aesthetic practice.

 

Socialist feminist theory, a byproduct of Marxist feminist theory, conceptualizes how patriarchy stabilizes the relations of reproduction, production, and consumption under capitalism, and that gender hierarchies are anchored in class relations (Armstrong 3). This framework uses the pedagogy of socialism, where the means of production are owned by the community, in conjunction with the recognition that women have historically not been given opportunity for ownership. Socialist feminism reframes gender liberated from capitalism, realizing true equality must be separate from the oppressive patriarchal structures of production. 

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Public access television is a direct reaction and deconstruction of the business of network television by being non-profit, community driven media production. Cable television was created as a community-oriented response to the barriers of network television: certain communities were simply unable to receive broadcast signals due to barriers of terrain and distance, so cable was invented as an alternative to redistribute signals directly into peoples’ homes through coaxial cables (Janes 15). Notably, there was a fundamental locality in the creation cable, limited by the physical capacity of the technology. In 1972, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued The Cable Television Report and Order, requiring that the cable television systems operating in the top 100 television markets, or those with at least 3,500 subscribers, create access channels (Janes 14). As a facet of cable’s larger business structure deregulation, these access channels were run by either a nonprofit group or the cable companies themselves, without the intention of profit (Streeter 176). This socialist structure of media, regulated by communities without the motivation of capital gain, became the first true opportunity in television for gender equality because there were no barriers of entry. Thus, public access television became a space where feminist pedagogy could flourish because there were no patriarchal limitations seeking profit. 

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No media exists within a vacuum, and the idealist notions of public access television were in some ways inherently limited. Public access stations were largely located in suburban areas, and those who had time devoted to making public access television had the privilege available to them to work without profit. It must be understood that art is a form of leisure under capitalism, and the privilege to create art is not available to everyone. To truly look at the statistics of intersectional access to public access television would be a separate project unto itself, but this paper serves to display the realized potential and representation of socialist feminist theory through the 1986 Opening Series of Deep Dish TV. While not a perfect solution to societal limitations, existence of public access television represents a recognition of the need for media production separate from the corporate television structure. Deep Dish’s progressive opinions represent the show’s liberation from capitalism, and thus alignment with socialist feminism. 

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Deep Dish Television takes the calling of

community practice to another level by creating

a collage of public access television shows,

highlighting the scope of public access’ thought

reach and condensing the poignant media from

a large map into a collective piece. Existing as

the nation’s first satellite connection show, Deep

Dish TV sought to organize local distribution on

a large scale by connecting similar stories from

far-reaching places into a single program. Show

creator Dee Dee Halleck writes, “By compiling

local reactions to specific issues, Deep Dish

demonstrates how national in scope the issues

are. These programs begin to do the opposite

of what decontextualized fragments of

mainstream network news does. On Deep Dish,

issues are contextualized and made coherent”

(Halleck 418). The network would gather

programs from across the U.S. and compile

them according to themes, then distribute them

to access channels by satellite (Higgins 24). The

Opening Series was the first show aired by the network in 1986, and it covered a range of issues from labor rights, affordable housing, police brutality, and mass media. Progressive ideals are at the forefront of every episode, but episodes nine and ten particularly illustrate the active feminist involvement in their production. 

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Episode nine of the series, “That’s Women’s Work! TV By and About Women,” opens with the following statement: 

“Many of these tapes have been shown on public access cable, one of the few places women enjoy (almost) equal access to the media. The percentage of women working in the media industry is still terribly small and in most places not increasing at all. At the same time the number of women producing video independently is growing rapidly. This program represents only a fraction of the work being done by women and in no way reflects the full spectrum of issues and styles in women’s video today.” (“That’s Women’s Work” 1:47)

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This opening clause sets the tone of why a show like this needs to exist, how its creation is in reaction to the systemic structure of television and operates in opposition to the conventions of media. The episode includes fifteen excerpts of public access television programming, all created by women and about women’s issues. The show prods at the traditional notions of women's work through its aesthetic practice, a campy self-awareness seen visually when each segment is introduced with a woman hanging laundry with the titles printed on the clothing. While each excerpt is unique in its topic and style, every video threads feminist progressive thought through its emphasis on community and storytelling of underrepresented issues that would not gain air-time on network television because advertisers do not rationalize their profitability. A few segments particularly utilize experimental technique to highlight socialist feminist thought in unconventional narratives.

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The fifth segment of the show, “You Never Left,” by Laura Davis, opens

with a snail's-pace pan intruding on a woman cleaning dishes (“That’s

Women’s Work!” 12:00). Classical music plays while a woman throws us

into a story, recounting a night from her teenagehood. As details slowly

fall into place, the narrator tells us about the time when her best friend’s

boyfriend raped her, a painfully honest reflection on how she wrongfully

believed she was at fault for his behavior. The piece is a single

three-minute shot of the woman cleaning the space, only seen from the

neck down. What makes this work particularly effective is the maintained

anonymity of the narrator creates the ability to project another woman into

her place. While it was an individual’s account, these types of stories

happen to many; by trapping her in a single kitchen scene, beheaded by

'the camera’s framing, the mise-en-scène serves the message of women’s

power and identity being stripped from them. This was not the only story

about rape in the show, but the experimental technique in this piece separated it aesthetically from merely a news piece or a narrative, thus creating space for a different emotional response. These nontraditional modes of storytelling, avoiding rules of camera coverage and logical narrative arcs, are not advertisable to audiences in the same ways as network television. Thus, this film’s inclusion in the “Women’s Work” episode reveals a larger permission to produce media outside of a purely business context. 

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