Women In Action (10)

To be a women in an action movie there are four rules, she must be attractive, she must be skinny, she must have big boobs, and she must wear clothes that show a lot of skin. Women have slowly become main roles in action films, but the only reason for the success of these films was the high sexualized leading women. The women do not need to be masculine to succeed in these action film roles, rather their curvy womanly frames and sexy attire are enough for these actresses to succeed. These films have to present a front to both men and women to make them successful. Why do women watch these shows? Well women watch them because they get to see women playing roles typically given to men, presenting a kind of liberation for women. Allowing women to feel strong and capable of doing what men do. Why do men watch these films? Men watch these films because the leading women are attractive, the film focuses more on the sexuality of the women, slowing down fight scenes, capturing these women in action. These action poses are often very sexual, which draw men into the film. But isn't this in a sense exploiting woman's bodies on the big screen and further putting them into a place beneath men, not actually liberating them? I would definitely have to agree. Woman are successful in this genre of movies not because of being capable, besides can woman really out fight men almost twice their weight and strength, typically not. It does not mean that women are less then men, but physical strength is not an area where women can typically dominate men.

Women's upper body strength for example in comparison with men is significantly weaker, women tend have stronger lower body strength. It does not mean then women are weak, but in a fight between a man and woman, most often the man is going to win. I will agree sometimes its enjoyable to watch an action movie with a woman as the leading role. Its entertaining to watch as she dominates in the fight scenes most often against other men. So maybe that's another reason for any success of these films in the action genre.

What Happened to Age Appropriate? (9)

Children's media is continuously evolving, advertisers and children's media producer are constantly bombarding children with more and more things, from different ways of advertising to children to presenting a world view that makes young children grow up quicker. What I mean by this is that girls are 

presented very early on this idea of feeling the need to be beautiful. Their very own toys present to them ideas that most young girl adapt into their very lives. Their dolls are a very good example of this. Dolls can be very fun toys for young girls, its allows them to use their imagination and create games with them, as well as giving them opportunity to brush their hair and change their clothes. But is this harmful? It depends on the doll and the clothes the child has, but from an early age the very dolls girls play with says a lot about what our society deems beautiful, nice hair, skinny figure, large boobs and make-up, but it doesn't stop there. You see some dolls allow young girls to remain in the fantasy of the doll, such as Disney Princesses and other fairy tale things that most young kids will come to understand is not reality. But what happens when the very clothes they have to dress up their doll with are clothes that are commonly seen being worn in public, on their parent, friends at school, in music videos etc. This way of dressing becomes real to the child a look that they themselves would like to mimic. What happens when those clothes that are seen on their dolls, friends, parents etc are highly sexy? Doesn't this take away their innocents in a way. I would say yes. Presenting a world to a young child that clothes, nice hair, skinny figure, large boobs and make-up are what makes you beautiful can be very harmful. Especially when that idea doesn't stop with their dolls, when they grow out of their dolls, their TV shows and music videos will reinforce it, then their magazines, etc. It makes it difficult for a girl to grow up without any insecurities, sometimes extreme insecurities, which can be incredibly harmful. What happen when these insecurities lead to other problems such as eating disorders, stealing clothes or make-up to fit in, depression etc. Its sad that we surround our young girls from a very early age with this idea of how important external beauty is and what young girls need to be considered beautiful. A 10 year old should not feel the need to dress sexy, a 10 year old is still very much so a child. America is making young girls grow up too fast. Many young girls are fascinated 

   

by a type of doll called BRATZ, bratz is a highly sexualized doll that is considered age appropriate at age 4. All the dolls are dolled up and wearing small amounts of clothing, with heavy make up. Would you want your daughter to desire to be like a Bratz doll? I know I would not. The problem is it doesn't stop there. The TV shows they watch, and musicians such as Miley Cyrus, continue to instill these ideas further into young girls. Young girls don't have to go far before more images of woman and the importance of being "sexy" and "externally beautiful" are put in front of them. Its sad. The problem is, it only appears to be getting worse, there does not appear to be any attempts to reverse this idea. 

Is porn healthy for the bedroom? (8)

In the title when I say is porn healthy for the bedroom, I mean does porn effect normal sexual relationships. Does porn effect sex with ones husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend. What role does porn play in these types of relationships and is it healthy? Some might argue that the effects of porn within relationships is positive, maybe some couples enjoy watching porn together and they feel like it spices things up a bit. To those people I would say to each his own. If it works in your relationship and both parties equally enjoy it, then I see nothing wrong with it. What happens though when one individual within a relationship watches porn a lot, is this healthy? According to the article "He's Just Not That Into Anyone", from New York Magazine, its not healthy. A quote from the article, 

“I used to race home to have sex with my wife. Now I leave work early so I can get home before she does and masturbate.”

This quote is from a man who used to want to get home from work early to sleep with his wife, but because of his love for porn, the excitement about coming home to his wife is not as great as his excitement to get off to porn. Another guy from the article said this, 

"It’s like all that time with these porn stars was subduing any physical desire for my girlfriend. And, in some weird way, my 

emotional need for her, too.”

Its sad to think that guys who watch porn often can become bored with their actual sexual relationships and more turned on by some fantasy world. What I don't understand is why is pleasuring oneself accompanied with pornographic images is better than the real thing? Another quote from the article,

"In order to come, though, I’ve got to resort to playing scenes in my head that I’ve seen while viewing porn. Something is lost there. I’m no longer with my wife; I’m inside my own head.”

For this guy, he literally has to watch porn in his head while having sex with his wife to orgasm or more plainly to even enjoy it.

In class we watched the documentary, The Price of Pleasure, it depicts the world of pornography The pornographic industry according to the film has more than 900 billion viewers each year, and makes more money then the NFL, NBA and major league baseball combined. With a industry such as this becoming so larger, think of the negative effects it could have on sexual relationships. If people are becoming so involved in viewing these videos and pictures, to the point were normal sex with their partner becomes boring and no longer enough. Isn't there a problem? If a world of fantasy sex, were one masturbates to different scenes, woman, etc becomes more exciting then the real thing; what real damage could this cause to real relationships, to marriages? A quote from the man who wrote the article,

"Had I just given up, things might have played out the way they often did, with shades of confused disappointment and inadequacy on the part of the woman and mumbled apologies and awkward shame from me. But that night, ingenuity struck—unable to actually get off, I found myself flying a fresh route: I faked it."

For this man porn did have negative effects on his relationship, he no longer could orgasm while having sex with his girlfriend, she was no longer enough. So he felt like he needed to fake it, bringing in another negative fact, dishonesty. It also brought feelings of shame and inadequacy. Maybe these feelings were not spun from actually watching porn but the way porn, or rather frequent masturbation to erotic images, effected his performance did bring feelings of shame. Is this really healthy? Porn can cause men to have to fake orgasms, it encourages woman that they need to fake orgasms to save her partners feelings if he not pleasing her, and it really just takes away excitement from the act of having sex itself. I am in no way saying it is this way for everyone, but if porn is causing this many problems, is it really okay that we keep letting this industry grow and grow? Is it really worth it to watch porn if the outcome is no longer enjoying real sex?

GLBT on TV (post 6)

Over the years Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual characters on television have seen a dramatic change. From hardly ever being seen, to only on reality TV that tended to mock it, to being a part of regular series. Cable TV has been known to have more GLBT character on their channels due to the fact that Cable networks don't rely on advertising to keep the show going, instead they rely on viewers who pay for their channel. HBO, has featured many shows such as the L word, Sex and the City, True Blood and many more with gay characters featured or the star. According to The Blaze, the number of GLBT characters on TV has decreased from last seasons 3.9 percent of characters to 2.9 percent. While there may be a decrease, appearances of GLBT characters on TV have become much more common and widely excepted, thus making it acceptable for network channels as well. Although network channels still have to keep within limits in order to keep advertisers supporting the series. Many shows helped pave the way making GLBT more commonly seen on TV. Shows like The Ellen show, Will and Grace, Real World and NBC's ER. ER featured Kerry, a doctor, as she came out as a lesbian and her different relationships throughout the show. In the clip above, Kerry is talking with another doctor about his brother who he found experimenting with another man. The shoe ER was just one of the earlier examples of lesbians as well as GLBT characters on prime time television.

Pimps and Hoes (7)

The hip-hop industry took this idea of a pimp and hoe and turned it into something incredibly common in the world of hip hop. They made it seem more appealing and desirable to its audience thus ridding away with any previously established ideas that it was bad. It is very common within music videos to see the this pimp and hoe idea played out, the men within the video especially the lead artist is the pimp who is surrounded by many hoes (scantily dressed woman). The video below is 50 cents P.I.M.P video, in the first scene we see 50 cent rapping while sitting in a chair surrounded by woman, in very little clothing I might add, dressing 50 cent and dancing. Portraying this idea of a pimp being a man who has a group of woman, his hoes, available to wait on him while looking sexy. 

If we look at some of the lyrics within the song, we see woman being degraded and treated as being easily replaced. Such as when 50 cent says,  "Man this hoe you can have her, when I'm done I ain't gon keep her. Man, bitches come and go, every n**** pimpin know" (from the third verse). This idea that woman are hoes and therefore easily replaced is a sad ideal to be communicating, especially to young audiences some of the primary viewers and listeners of videos such as these. 

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue"

        Today's wedding industry earns approximately 86 billion dollars per year. Most woman will go to any length to have the wedding they dreamed of. In the clip above it shows a scene from TLC's show, Say Yes To the Dress. A show that follows brides from all over the country at Kleinfeld's searching for the perfect gown. The woman looking for a dress in this video has been to numerous bridal salons in search of her dream gown and has tried on approximately 100 gowns. None of which were "the one". This clip shows just a small glimpse of the pressure and importance American brides feel toward their wedding day. They want to look there best, they feel like they need to look their best, after all its the most important day of a woman's life, right? 

       Being a recent bride myself I am aware of the pressures felt in our culture about having the big wedding. I am aware of the stress to find the "perfect gown" and the pressure felt to create the wedding of your dreams. But what I know now, only a week later, is that before my wedding I too thought my wedding day was the most important day ever, but what do you do when that day is over? What do you do when that fantasy every girl thinks about has already happened? Is there anything left to look forward too? Of course there is. While your wedding day is a big day, a new beginning and a start to a different life. Life presents many other "big days" one example being the birth of a child. The reality is I had fun at my wedding, everything was beautiful but it was one day that to be honest I can't even remember in detail a week later. After all the stress and planning, making sure every detail was finished and "perfect" I can't even remember the details. 

       Another bridal show that airs on the WE is called Bridezilla (the link will take you to a clip of one upcoming episode). The woman in this clip, Kera, is a good example of what the stress a bride feels about "her big day" and what that stress does to a bride. Now not every bride is as bad as Kera and I am sure some brides are worse, but you can see from the way she talks about her wedding such as, "if anyone tries to ruin my big day I might just have to tackle someone" that she views it as the "most important day of her life". Brides often put so much stress on this one day that is causes them to be unpleasant to be around, this is where the term bridezilla came from. I struggled with being a bit of a bridezilla myself, taking on too many tasks myself, not asking for help when I needed it and simply feeling like if it wasn't perfect the day would be ruined. And the reality is the actual day of the wedding I didn't care, I was so relaxed and happy that I wouldn't of cared if things went wrong, which they did, but it no longer mattered. I would of been happy with a lot less, but the bridal industry doesn't want you to know that. 

"Smell Like A Man, Man" -Old Spice

If your a man, did you know the type of deodorant you use will define how manly you really are? According to Old Spice their assortments of deodorants and body washes will actually make you more manly. In the commercial I have posted they show a test between regular deodorant and Old Spice, the Old Spice deodorant is more manly because it cause hair to "grow on a mans chest". Of course any viewer with common sense does not watch this commercial thinking that if they use Old Spice hair will actually grow on their chest but it does focus attention on things the viewers may associate with manliness. Such as a hairy chest, being sweaty in a locker room after playing basket ball, even the way the speaker stand reflects certain masculine characteristics persuading the viewer that Old Spice deodorant is for real man. At one point in the commercial the speaker say "If you still don't like it (Old Spice deodorant) we will buy you a stick of something that smells like wildflowers and sham."This part of the commercial serves as a challenge saying to the audience, to men, if you don't like our deodorant you must not be a real man. The commercial also talks about how Old Spice is a perfect for "real man situations such as basketball, re-con and frenching"Implying that their deodorant works great for sports, military and sexual activities. All things that in some sense can be associated with men. Old Spice uses a strong athletic looking man to sell to other viewers what it means to be manly, in hopes that viewers will want to buy their product based on the fact that most men have a need to be more masculine or to prove their real masculinity.

"Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery"

As a culture we tend to imitate what we admire, whether it be a style we find in a magazine, music video, favorite TVcharacter, as well as thousands of other examples. For some WWE wrestling is something to be admired, inspiring a sub culture of mostly teenage to young adult  boys to imitate the moves and stories seen on WWE. This sub culture is known as backyard wrestling. The question that needs to be asked is, is the WWE something that should be imitated and is this spin off of professional wrestling a good thing or is it too dangerous. While scanning You Tube for videos of young men participating in backyard wrestling I came to the conclusion imitation seems to be nothing but harmless fun. While there are definitely some people who take the whole backyard wrestling too far proving it to be dangerous for the individuals involved. More often then not everyone in these videos seem to be playing along in a manor that imitates not only the wrestling but the obvious fake and choreographed routines the professional wrestlers do. It could be argued that backyard wrestling is safer then professional wrestling. Perhaps not in the sense that the wrestlers in the WWE are professionally trained to preform stunts so no one is injured and backyard wrestlers are amateurs making the likelihood of injury greater; however, backyard wrestling seems to imitate the characters, some of the story lines and mostly just the general fun of the sport. Backyard wrestling strips away the constant mocking and scantily dressed woman. In most of the imitations I found on the internet the boys engage in the wrestling as well as some of the theatrics such as picking names and perhaps costume but backyard wrestling is more about the fun of wrestling and playing macho manly characters then it is about constant belittling, mocking of gay characters and violence toward woman. While watching videos of young men imitating wrestling it just looks like they are having fun. One aspect of the WWE that backyard wrestlers do imitate is the idea of dominant and subordinate masculinity. While watching these  clips, such as the one attached, one character is predominantly seen as the dominant male being the character who is constantly over powering the subordinate characters. The idea that even young men strive to become the dominant male can be clearly seen throughout the story lines of both the WWE and backyard wrestling. It is my opinion that backyard wrestling more often then not is a safer imitation of the WEE, providing a fun outlet for boys to express their masculinity and use their imaginations.

Are You Thirsty?

I've never been a fan of American Idol; but every time I have seen the show in passing its hard to miss those red cups, carefully placed in front of the judges each week. What is the reasoning for this placement? Naturally the reasoning is advertisement. The reason is very specific, to get viewers to buy Coca-Cola's product. American Idol is a popular series with a great deal of air time and a large quantity of viewers week after week. American Idol has proved to be a successful series and taken Coca-Cola along for the ride. 

Companies have realized that more subtle approaches to advertisement have a greater influence on consumers. One hour of prime time television contains on average 36 percent commercials (www.marketingcharts.com). I know when watching television I usually record a show first, therefore making it possible to fast forward through the commercials. If possible I will take every opportunity to avoid watching a commercial. Large companies have realized this resistance to obvious advertisement and have taken a more subtle approach, with strategic product placement. Product Placement is when a company who provides advertising dollars to a show, requires their product or logo to be placed within the show for viewers to see. Product placements sole purpose to is sell a product or make a viewer interested in a product in a subtle way. In most cases, product placement adds nothing to the story line or to the development of the characters within the series. 

Those red Coca-Cola cups are an example of product placement. Coca-Cola is hoping that viewers of American Idol will notice those Coca-Cola cups each week and in turn buy their product. So are the judges of American Idol always thirsty while on air? Maybe the answer is yes. What are they drinking? Perhaps one of the wide variety of Coca-Cola products out there, perhaps water, or maybe as controversial as it might seem even Pepsi (gasp). But that's not the point, Coca-Cola doesn't exactly care what they are drinking, as long as they are drinking from their cup, displaying to viewers that American Idol judges support Coca-Cola, and perhaps you should too. 

Picture taken from www.idolator.com