On an episode of Daria, the teachers are striking. They have signs. The feminist science teacher, Ms. Barsch, has a sign with a female symbol (you know, the circle on top of a cross) with a fist in it. I thought it was kind of a dirty joke–fisting…but the other youtube commenters didn’t seem to agree. Am I dirty or are they too clean?
Here it is. About 1:22 in you get a really good shot of it.
And by dirty I don’t mean that vaginas are dirty–is this meant to be a sexual joke.
Sure, the fist is sort of a revolutionary symbol by itself. But putting it inside the female circle like that is definitely a clever innuendo. Good catch.
You’re reading too much into it. It’s the “raised fist” combined with the female symbol. This used to be a fairly common feminist/female power symbol. Maybe it’s fallen out of fashion now, I guess it originated in the '70s, but I remember seeing it on t-shirts and necklaces in the '90s. It’s the sort of thing a real feminist might have put on a protest sign at the time Daria was on the air.
Yeah, it’s an obscure feminism symbol. But you can damn well bet that the writers and cartoonists selected it because of the silly double entendre it created. It’s a comedy not a documentary.
The possibility exists that the designer of the symbol intended the connection - a single entendre if you will. There was a group of feminists claiming that it was impossible to be a feminist and also have sex with men.
Actually, I just looked at the poster for the concert video I’m editing right at this moment for the Kansas City, MO location for the Paul Green School of Rock. If you’re not familier with the PGSOR, it’s an after-school program for kids 7 to 17 that teaches music with the goal of actually getting them on the stage of real rock venues, playing music. They did four concert programs just before Christmas, and one of them was called Who Invited You? - A Celebration of Women Who Rock, and that bad boy is right there in the middle of the poster.
The kids themselves make the posters, so it can’t be that obscure if it’s right there in the middle of iconic images Rosie the Riveter.
I think half my friends in college had posters with that symbol. I mean, OK, I went to Berkeley, but still it was pretty common. I don’t think it was originally meant to be a double-entendre.
I’ve seen that symbol for most of my adult life, and never once ever thought of it in a sexual way. Ever.
Mainly because I’d never heard of fisting until that symbol had been around for 20 years. And even then, I never tried to put those two together in my mind…doesn’t actually make any sense in the context, anyhow.
Why am I now imagining that Southpark character saying something like “you said fist…yuk,yuk, yuk”. It would help to know how old you are…lol