Intelligence Vs. Icon

After being criticized as a dumb blonde throughout her brief life, the truth about Marilyn Monroe and her intelligence was finally discovered. Although she did not attend a high profile university to receive a high level education, she had a desire and thirst for knowledge. She was dedicated to improving herself and learning new things to better herself. To do this she read books to teach herself things across many different fields. All the while she was acting in roles that portrayed her as a dumb blonde. Instead of reaching out and making the public aware of her intelligence, Marilyn decided to keep it to herself and let her public image remain as the dumb blonde that everyone loved. I think she kept her intelligence to herself because she was wise enough to understand that it didn't matter to her what everyone else perceived her to be, especially if it wasn't true. Also, it didn't matter how the public perceived her especially if it made her successful. I'm sure that her loved ones were well aware of how intelligent and bright she was, and that was probably the most important to her. I think that she was smart enough to know what would make her successful in her field, and chose the path to success. In the end, people found out the truth that she was in fact intelligent and bright, so Marilyn Monroe has successfully left her influential mark on our society. She was a huge influence and influential character in our society as a successful and beautiful actor, while also being the best person she could be. In her mind, she had everything she wanted, and at that point it doesn't matter how the public (who she would rarely communicate with) perceived her to be.

After some research, I have discovered that Natalie Portman is secretly a very intelligent and smart actor. Natalie graduated with a degree from Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the country. She has stared in hit films like "Star Wars" and "Black Swan", and is seen in our society as a beautiful person. Many men find her to be very attractive, and they sometimes stereotype attractiveness with a lack of intelligence. That being said, some men may think that Natalie Portman is not the intelligent woman she is. While they wouldn't think that she is dumb, they might misjudge her for who she really is. Natalie probably isn't public with her intelligence because she finds it is not important to her field of work. Natalie plays diverse roles in several different films, which portrays several different personalities. Some would think that actors like Portman would like the public to know her true identity, however it may be uncomfortable for her. Maybe she likes being ambiguous with her personality because she doesn't want too many people to know her on that deep of a level. Perhaps the roles she plays covers up her identity as an intelligent woman that people wouldn't like as much as the pretty dancer in "Black Swan". Overall, Natalie Portman is hiding her intelligence for a personal reason, whether it is because she fears the public won't like her true personality or because she doesn't care what the public thinks and doesn't want to give them access to her personal life.

Chapter 14: Hetero Barbie? Article Summary

As girls move through puberty and adulthood, they find that their popularity at school relies on their attractiveness to boys and their relationship with one particular boy. As they get further hetero sexualized, then, girls and young women face a lot of pressure to give boys and dating a lot of priority. This causes them to pay more attention to the shape and size of their bodies, the range and contents of their wardrobes, the styling of their hair, and the makeup they wear on their faces. Barbie dolls epitomize and exaggerate these female mandates. Barbie dolls set the standard for beauty in children at a very young age, showing them what body type makes them beautiful and what hair style makes them beautiful. While Barbie seems like she would display the typical heterosexual female desires, she actually does the opposite. Barbie doesn't have her heart in her relationship with Ken, and she exudes independence that deviates from the codes of mainstream heterosexual femininity. Barbie is insistently single, unmarried, and childless, which leaves her open to multiple conflicting interpretations. When looking deep into a Barbie doll, Barbie may not be heterosexual. In fact, she may not even be a woman. Some say Barbie may even be a Drag queen. She displays the ultra-feminine presence that drag queens personify. Her long legs and flat hips suggest this. Barbie's exceptionally, emphatically feminine icon has some appeal among gay men. Her shimmering gowns, heavy makeup, brilliant tiaras, and other headpieces display this exceptional feminine icon. To expand further, the world of Barbie is relatively free of hetero-centrism and heterosexism, and this holds relative appeal for non hetero-sexual people, especially gay men. Barbie's world allows for non-straight readings, just as many other "straight" cultural products do. Barbie's sexuality remains very ambiguous. She could be a lipstick lesbian, a lesbian feminist, or a lesbian closeted more tightly than most who choose not to "come out". She could be a bisexual who once cared about and pursued her relationship with Ken, but now prefers her "best friend". Barbie could also be asexual; sexy without being sexual, or attractive without being attracted. The atypical qualities Barbie represents leads us to question her ambiguous sexuality, and whether she is actually sending a heterosexual message to young children.   

 

Gendered Slang/ Language

Today's society displays a large variety of slang terms. These terms can be found on social media, used at schools, or out on the streets anywhere. People conform to these slang terms and use them in their everyday language to fit in and be "cool". Most of the words today are gender based and used to describe people and either how masculine and brave they are or how shy and afraid they are. One slang term commonly used in society today is "balls". Urban dictionary defines the word balls in several ways. The first definition talks about the true meaning of balls, which are male testicles. However, the second and third definitions are definitions society has associated with the word balls, and they are strictly male gender biased. The urban dictionary also defines balls as courage and braveness. People would use this definition when they say something like, "Wow he has balls for what he said." In this context, the person meant that the other person was brave for saying that. Urban dictionary also defines balls as manliness. Sometimes guys will say something like "wow she has balls", implying that a girl did something that should be considered manly.
On the other hand, the word pussy is the exact opposite in our society. Urban dictionary originally defines pussy as female genitals. However, the alternate meaning to pussy is cowardly. People associate femininity negatively with things like being a coward. Males will criticize each other by questioning their masculinity and calling each other pussies. When they do this, they are referring to males in a negative way by saying they display female traits. As we can see in society, slang terms are gendered and we associate different qualities with these gender terms. We consider having balls and being manly a good thing, but we consider being a pussy as being cowardly and feminine. It is not right that we associate male traits as positive traits and female traits as negative ones, but it is clear that society believes otherwise. 

Chapter 26: Image Based Culture Advertising and Pop culture Article Summary

The society we live in today is primarily based around the media and the advertising industry. Many refer to our society as a market society. A market society is guided by the principle that satisfaction should be achieved via the market place. Or in other words, through the institutions and structures who sell products to customers. With this attitude, markets think that if goods themselves aren't the focus of perceived happiness, then they need to be connected in some way to the things that are. To do this, advertising promotes images of what the audience perceives as "the good life" when advertising their product. This type of advertising works by drawing upon and rechanneling concerns that the target audience already shares. Advertising will knit a company's product into the fabric of social life and cultural significance in our society. In a sense, advertising itself has become not manipulation, but instead "partipulation", where the audience participates in their own manipulation. The article also talks about how advertising has turned into a commodity-image system. Advertising as a commodity-image system provides a particular mode of self validation that is integrally connected with what one has rather than what one is. It is so strong that commentators have said that advertising is almost a new religious system in which people construct their identities through the commodity form. They refer to commodities as almost a super magical power that makes anything possible with the purchase of a product, and these commodities play an influential mixture on the psychological, social, and physical roles in its relations with people. The advertising world propels us towards physical things as means of satisfaction, and that happiness lies at the end of every purchase. People in our society today are turning to products to make them happy rather than the life experiences that bring them true happiness. Advertisers understand this and use it to their advantage when selling their product. They now appeal to the emotional side of customers, and instead sell emotion to a consumer rather than the product. They convince the consumer that they cannot live without the product, and that the product will bring them happiness and a good life. People unconsciously believe these advertisements and purchase products for the feeling associated with the product. This method is extremely affective for companies and their profits. However, advertising has a profound effect on our society and how people value the things they have versus the people they are.

The Nuclear Family

In society today, it is expected of men to work 40 hours a week and provide their families and wives with a steady income to live on. The typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mom who watches over the kids and does house work, and the kids. This is the family society expects of people. On the contrast, the "nuclear" family is quite the opposite. In fact, the gender roles are flipped. The wife has the job with long hours to provide the family with an income to live on, while the father stays at home to watch the kids and do the housework. This defies typical gender roles that society lays out for us where the men work in the office and the women do the housework. Modern families follow more of the stereotypical families in which the father works and the mother stays home with the kids. However, a nuclear family can occur in any house sometimes because a father can lose his job and have a tough time finding a new job. In this case, a mother needs to help out by getting a job to help bring in some money for the family.

 

Because gender roles imply that men should be the ones working and bringing in money for the family, some men don't handle it to well when they don't have a job or when their wife is making more money than them. Men often go through a fragile emotional state because they feel like they have lost their masculinity. When men go through this they refuse to do housework chores because they think they need to compensate for their loss of masculinity by asserting masculine privilege in other ways, like refusing to take orders from their wife. Statistics show that unemployed women will do six hours a day of childcare and housework. On the other hand, unemployed men will only do three hours a day of childcare and housework, and instead watch four or more hours of TV in the day. Many men refuse to do this because they want their masculinity of being the man in the house to stay intact. Men believe it's a woman's job to take care of the kids and do housework. Men go through a shattered self-image and low self-esteem when they are placed in this position because they lost their job.

 

After reading this, I think the way men react to this is silly. Although it may be ego crushing to not have a job, they need to realize that their family is the most important things in their lives. That being said, they need to do whatever they can to help raise the family and keep the household in the best condition to raise kids and for a daily functional life. Sometimes parents get depressed from the switch in gender roles, some argue, and some even become disengaged from their children because of the situation. This has a negative impact on child development. Family should be the most important thing to everyone, and instead of being negative in the situation, families need to stay positive. They need to encourage their kids that everything is okay, they need to reassure the kids that it's not their fault that the family is in the situation they are in, and it could even help to ask the kids for help. Kids can help mow the lawn or things of that nature to help the family save money. At the end of the day, family is the most important thing. No matter how it runs or who has what job, as long as the family is happy and healthy, the family is in a good position to live a happy and healthy life.  

 

 

MissRepresentation Response

MissRepresentation is a powerful and eye opening documentary about the effect that the media has on women of our society today. There were a lot of things that really stood out to me when watching this video. Most of the statistics presented were hard to believe, and really opened my eyes to the pressure put on women in society today. The first thing that stood out to me was that 65% of women and girls have eating disorders. This number is astronomically high due to the way advertising photo shops women and how they portray women as only bodies and not people. These advertising firms set unrealistic expectations for women that cause them to become anorexic to try to live up to these standards to be accepted in society. To add onto that, I found it interesting that companies spent 256 billion dollars on advertising in 2009, which is higher than 80% of GDP's of all countries in the world. This statistic shows how much the United States values advertising and how often young women and girls are exposed to it. The stress from the media and advertising is having a substantial effect on women's eating habits, their cognitive function, and is causing lower GPA's among these women. Advertising is clearly having an impact on a much deeper level on the women in society than just the buying and selling of products. Television is another form of media in which women are exposed to every day. When the movie talked about television, I found it really interesting that 39% of the women in our population today are aged in their teens, 20's, and 30's. However, this group makes up for 71% of television. On the other hand, women aged 40 and older make up 47% of the population. This group of women only make up 26% of television. Television shows are showing primarily younger women, when in reality the majority of our population is aged older. This means that television is unrealistic about the world they are portraying to young women in America. Television also oversexualizes women in programs you wouldn't expect, such as the daily news channel. Journalists are criticized for what they wear on a daily basis. Also, the clothing they wear is much more revealing than in previous years. Lastly, the thing that stood out to me the most was a headline in a newspaper that said, “2-year-old girl raped at sea world." The headline disgusted me and made me question how someone could ever possibly think of something that sick. Overall, the movie opened my eyes to the pressure women face to conform to the standards media sets in order to be accepted in society. As a whole, we should challenge the media and how they portray women and the influence they have on young women. 

 

Modern Love

We live in a society that revolves around social media sites like twitter and Facebook and Instagram. As these websites grow more and more popular, more and more people are interacting and meeting online. Dating used to be an interaction that occurred by meeting someone new, face to face, and getting to know them over time through conversation and shared experiences. However, dating has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. With the uproar in social media, most people are meeting online through social media profiles and instant messaging. They get to know each other through instant messaging, and get a picture of them through their profile pictures. In todays dating world, face to face interaction is becoming a later step in a relationship. The first step in the dating process today is meeting someone online on a dating website or social media website, then messaging them to get to know them. Years ago, dating used to be a face to face interaction that happened when you met someone at a physical place.

Along with impacting the initiation of a relationship, social media has impacted relationships that are going on. Social media has become almost another imaginary version of the person we are. Relationship partners keep up with each others status updates, picture posts, and likes and comments on other peoples posts. To some it's almost as important as the physical things their partner says. Social media history has a large impact on people's opinions and judgements about you, and the posts people make while in a relationship are crucial to their partners opinion about them. The lives of people in our society today are moving online, and losing the essence of real life experiences with the ones we love.

To me, love is all about the physical experiences you share with someone you care a lot about. While everyone values different things in a relationship, I value the time I can spend together with my girlfriend and the different things we can experience together in our lives. My relationship is different than one in modern society because we don't use social media websites to communicate, instead we rely on phone calls and texts and video chats. In our society today, people often publicize their relationship on social media. I don't think that is important for dating, instead I think spending as much time as you can with the person you are about is the most important thing. The more time you can spend with your significant other allows for both of you to share more happy memories with each other, where social media doesn't allow for memories to be created.

Chapter 40: There are Bitches and Hoes Summary

Tricia Rose takes a deep look into hip hop and rap music of our society today in this chapter. Her main purpose for writing is to explain how the lyrics of the songs impact our society, specifically the black community and women. Rose opens the article by elaborating on pimp culture and how our society views pimp culture. She talks about how pimp culture's ideology and expression in pop culture are fundamentally exploitative to women by explaining how the rap music features lyrics that depict domination of prostitutes, and how street pimps use physical violence as well as emotional and psychological manipulation to control prostitutes. She dives even deeper into pimp culture and provides a "fundamental pimp attitude", which she believes is that women are bitches, and bitches are whores and prostitutes. After laying the framework of the article with information on pimp culture, Rose moves on to how hip hop and rap affect the young women in our society today.

Rap and hip hop lyrics have a tremendous impact on young women according to this article. Rose explains that rap songs encourage young women fans to emulate the behavior of bitches and hoes to get attention, to be desired, and to be considered sexy. This behavior is explained by the prominence of gangsta rappers who receive a lot of money and fame for their hip hop music. To contrast, for some women the only means of making any gains is through behaving in hyper sexual ways. All in all, rap and hip hop lyrics are causing young women to exploit themselves similar to the way rap artists exploit women.

After talking about the impact rap and hip hop have on young women, Rose shifts gear into the perspective of the rap artist. She includes quotes from artists like Snoop Dogg and many others. Some rappers try to defend themselves by saying their songs aren't about women. Snoop Dogg explains that the reason for the exploitation of women in hip hop are because of the artist's upbringings. Most of them grew up living life in tough, poor neighborhoods, which is what the songs represent. Rose doesn't offer an opinion on the matter, but continues on to explain that the rapper needs to exploit "bitches and hoes" because they add a status and value to their pimp images. She says that the process of locating, labeling, partying with, then discarding a black woman is part of enhancing their performance as gangsta and pimp style rappers. Rose concludes the article with a call to action, calling on empowered women to be in charge of their own sexual imagery and give themselves freedom to express themselves as they see fit.

Chapter 1: Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture Summary

With this article, Douglas Kellner writes to inform the reader about cultural studies and their place in society. His purpose is to inform the reader about media culture, to teach the reader how to study media culture, and to give the reader guidance on where to find media culture's impact on society. It is very clear that Kellner believes the media plays an extremely large role in our society today by teaching people to conform to the norms while also impacting peoples thoughts and behavior.  In the article, he defines the media as the radio, television, film, popular music, internet, and social networking products that provide materials out of which we forge our very identities including our sense of selfhood, our notion of what it means to be male or female, and our conception of class, ethnicity, race, nationality, and sexuality (Kellner 7). He further elaborates on his definition by explaining the impact media has on our society. Kellner talks about how the media images shape our view of the world and our society's deepest values; including what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, and good or evil. He believes the media are forms of pedagogy that teach us how to dress, look, consume, react to different social groups, how to be popular, and how to conform to the dominant system of norms, values, practices, and institutions (Kellner 7). Following his description of media culture, Kellner transitions into the components of studying media culture, offering a few things to focus on to properly and effectively engage in cultural studies. The first main topic is production and the political economy; Kellner emphasizes the importance of being aware of the global networks that produce and distribute culture in the interests of profit and corporate hegemony (Kellner 10). Secondly, Kellner requires textual analysis of the various forms of media (Kellner 12). It is required to analyze the various forms of discourses, ideological positions, and narrative strategies. He mentions that the textual analysis of cultural studies should combine formalist analysis with critique of how cultural meanings convey specific ideologies of race, gender, class, sexuality, nation, and other ideological dimensions. Kellner's third aspect of cultural studies requires attention to the reception of the audience and the use of media culture from the audience (Kellner 14). What he means by this is the study of how people respond to the media and how they use the media in their daily lives. Kellner advises cultural studies to follow those three main points; to be multi-perspective to get the perspectives of the political economy, textual analysis, and the audience reception. To conclude the article he mentions that cultural studies attack sexism, heterosexism, racism, and bias against specific social groups. After reading this article, it is clear that cultural studies can help us improve society and create a better life for ourselves.

I Tube, YouTube, We All Tube

Following Gender roles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl_q1qPnYuE

Defying Gender Roles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcN392H2jx0

 

In our society today, the male gender role is to be athletic and physically strong. In the first of the two videos, Derek Jeter and many other men are playing baseball, following the male gender role of being athletic and strong. Masculinity and strength are on full display as Derek Jeter crushes baseballs to all fields in this highlight video. Many men strive to fulfil their gender roles as physically impressive people like Derek Jeter. In the first video, Derek Jeter’s gender role is to be athletic, fit, and good at sports.

            Oppositely, a women’s gender role in our society today is to be more of a caretaker and someone who is supposed to cook dinner for the family and watch the kids. This stereotypical gender role for women is challenged by the film “A League of Their Own”. The second video is a trailer for the film and shows women defying their gender role as caretakers and being athletes. The women challenge their female gender role in society by creating their own professional baseball league. Instead of following many modern stereotypes which involve cooking dinner and other household activities, the women in “A League of Their Own” go outside of their comfort zone and gender role by challenging the assumption that women can’t play baseball and deciding to create their own baseball league to prove people wrong. In the film, the gender role they display is one of playing sports, getting dirty, and being tough.

            Lastly, "A League of Their Own" targets women and sends the message that women can play sports and compete just like men do. The film gives the impression that women are capable of playing tough sports and getting dirty just like men are expected to do. The film demolishes gender barriers and shows how men and women are not limited to what they want to do no matter what society expects them to do. Women can be just as tough if not more tough than men in some cases, and they can compete physically just like men do. The message "A League of Their Own" sends to its audience is very compelling and persuasive, convincing the audience that all people can play sports and be active, regardless of gender. I also think the video is meant to target men as well. The video places women into one of the most highly regarded sports by men. It is often unheard of for women to play baseball. “A League of Their Own” effectively proves to men that women are capable of handling the physically demanding sports that make men “manly”. All in all, the movie does a great job of proving to men that women are capable of more than they think and that girls can compete in sports just like men do.