bye bye race, gender, & the media...I will never forget you

I am not going to lie, but I am definitely sad that is my last blog. Last blog for the class, but I know that what I have learned in this class will stay with me forever. I feel like this past month has been a whirlwind. I have learned so much information in such a little amount of time, and I know that far into July and August I will still be processing that information.

I am actually kind of disappointed that this certain blog is a “wrap up” blog because I actually had something really interesting happen today, but I’m going to touch on it anyways. So, today when we were watching our “Hate.com” video they talked about the Murrah Building bombing and Timothy McVeigh. It was really ironic because my mother and I had planned on going up to see the Memorial today. We went up there and it was one of the most amazing museums I have ever been to. They have a section on the before, during, and after math of the bombing. They also have a new addition about terrorism. I believe that terrorism really pertained to this class because the people in the video that we watched today terrorize people solely because of color of their skin, and that is horrible.

But back to my wrap up. This class has made me open up my eyes to the media and stereotypes that they portray. I know for a fact that I will never be able to watch a movie, television show, or listen to music without thinking about race and gender. I really feel like this class was cut short. I would have loved to talk more about women in the media and hip hop a lot more, but I understand that this course in the summer is only four weeks.

Not only have I learned so much about race and gender in the media, I feel like I have become a better writer, too. I am a journalism major and obviously I am going to have a lot of writing in my future. The blogging and writing assignments have helped me develop skills that I feel like I did not know that I had before. I have become much more of an analytical writer, and I have this class and you, Professor Flippin Wynn, to thank for that.

I am extremely pleased that I chose to take this class in the summer because if I had no I feel like I would not have learned the things I did. I would absolutely not change one thing about this course. One thing I will not miss is my alarm going off at 8:15 every morning. Although, I have become more of a morning person J.

Legally Blonde

Unfortunately we did not get to see the movie "Legally Blonde" today, but it is a great chick flick with many gender stereotypes. The play is based on this girl who is in college and she so happens to be drop dead gorgeous. She is the most popular girl in her sorority and has many friends. She has long blonde hair and a picture perfect body. Her entire goal in life is to get engaged to her college boyfriend, Warner. In one of the first scenes he dumps her and tells her that he is going to Harvard Law School. Elle, played by Reese Witherspoon, is devastated. She is adamant about getting her boyfriend back, so she decides to apply to Harvard herself, and she just so happens to get in.

I think this is a great girl empowerment movie, but it does degrade blondes a lot. Elle's room is pink, her clothes are pink, and she even writes notes in her classes with a pink pen. Elle fits into the stereotypical cookie cutter shape of a blonde, hints the title of the movie, "Legally Blonde."

Elle's initial plan is to go to Harvard and win her ex-boyfriend back. She arrive there to find her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend, who so happens to be a brunette. His new girlfriend, Vivian, is quite frumpy. She wears long skirts, sweater vests, and headbands. This is a stereotype of a smart girl who supposedly should be attending Harvard.

Later on in the movie Elle gets a prestigious internship type thing, and later find out that the only reason she got it was because she was pretty and the professor had a crush on her. In one scene, he makes a pass at her and tells her how beautiful she is. This reminded me of what Jaclyn and Jennifer's dyad was about today. They talked about a certain Hispanic lady flirting back with the men in her workplace just so she could get a certain opportunity.

In the end, Elle prevails over every obstacle that she faces and finally graduates from Harvard at the top of her class. She gets the guy that she has been crushing on the entire movie, and he just so happens to be a college professor's assistant. Her ex-boyfriend ends up graduating without a girlfriend. Legally Blonde is a great girl power movie and it really enforces the saying that "girls rule and boys drool,” but it does degrade women just a bit.

Writing Assignment #3

I had a very hard time picking which three articles I would want to write about. All of them have great reading content, but a few of them really struck me as intriguing. The articles I chose were “Obama Sharply Assails Absent Black Fathers” by Julie Bosman, “Age Becomes the New Race and Gender” by Adam Nagourney, and “Politics and Race: History Lessons” that were letters to the editor.

In the article “Obama Sharply Assails Absent Black Fathers” Bosman reports on a speech that Obama gave to a 20,000-member Apostolic Church of God in Michigan. His main focus was that “responsibility does not end at conception.” Obama let the congregation know a few statistics such as more than half of all black children live in single-parent households. He was stressing to the congregation that a child needs to grow up with both a mother and a father. Unfortunately, Obama did not grow up with a mother and a father. His father left when he was just two years old. The concept of his speech was very good; he also said that, “Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.” I chose this article because as I searched the internet to find the actual speech itself I saw that it raised some eyebrows. In my opinion, it was very gutsy of Obama to talk about this issue in front of a church. Bringing up the issue of black fathers not being in their child’s lives is a very thin line to walk on, but I guess that is what is so great about Obama, he really doesn’t hold anything back. I enjoyed reading this article because the things that he said really did need to be addressed. I think not only black fathers, but white fathers too need to be involved in their child’s life.

In “Age Becomes a New Race and Gender,” the author talks about how the republican presidential nominee, John McCain, is so old. John McCain is 72. The article sums up the issues that are brought up with age. The article also gives statistics on the voting demographic and who will vote for whom. The article thinks that a large variation will be determined on the age of the voters. This article was interesting to me because I had not thought about “age becoming a new race and gender.” Being a teenager, I have felt discriminated against for being young and naïve. I had never thought of someone being scrutinized for being old. In my perspective, I feel like I can do anything at the age of 19, and I feel like McCain can do anything at his age of 72. I think people need to stop being so preoccupied with the outer shell. Obama is black. Hillary is a woman. McCain is old. The American people should be concentrating on what these political leaders stand for, not what they look like.

The final article I read was “Politics and Race: History Lessons” is an article comprised of 3 different letters to the editor regarding a previous article posted in the New York Times. I tried to search around the website to find the article that they are talking about, but I was unable to find it. From reading the letters I insinuated that the previous article was about how this presidential race is changing how America looks at racism. One of the letters states that “the transformation of America [has] made the presidential nomination of Barack Obama possible.” I chose this article because it really made me think of how far America has come. Just to think that hundreds of years ago black people were hated against solely for the color of their skin, and now a person of color is actually running for the president of the United States. I think that America is finally coming to the realization that everyone is equal. God made us all the same. In the second letter written in this article, a lady states that she has finally come to “accept the idea of a black president.” I believe that accepting is the first step.

All three of these articles touch on different aspects of the political campaign. All of them are things that Americans see on television each and every day. It was good to read articles written by professionals, but in the last article that were just letters written by ordinary Americans it was a good feeling. Knowing that we can let our opinions be heard is very comforting.

Race is prominently displayed in two of the articles. The third article is mostly about age, which in this political race can be in a category with race and gender. These articles touched on gender, but none of them went into great detail about that certain subject.
I have been watching the campaign off and on. From what I have seen the media frames race and gender to a tee. They make fun of Clinton for crying during a debate. They said that just because she is a female then she is extra sensitive. They concentrate on Obama’s skin color. They focus on McCain’s age. Each one of these candidates has something wrong with their outer appearance. Just as I mentioned before is that the American people need to be worried about what the candidates believe in, not what they look like.

Now that Obama has officially been elected the Democratic nominee I feel as race will have a very large effect on the 2008 presidential election. I think that people will think that black people will vote for Obama and white people will vote for McCain. I do not think that is the case at all, and American people are going to be surprised when this does not happen.

No, in the articles I chose privilege was not apparent in the content. I did read one article that did focus on privilege, but I did not choose to compare and contrast that certain article.

After reading all eight articles it was very difficult to choose which ones to write about. I chose to write about the ones that I knew and felt the most passionately about. I am so glad that I am living history right now. The 2008 presidential race is making history.

Sister, Sister

During Courtney and Katie’s wonderful dyad presentation they discussed television and advertising in the media. As Katie was discussing shows of all white casts and all black casts she mentioned the show “Sister, Sister.” That title struck me because I used to be a huge fan of the show when I was in middle and high school. Recently, ABC Family has been showing re-runs of the show. So, today while I was eating lunch I thought I would take a step into the past and watch the show.

In this particular episode the girls soon to be boyfriends were being introduced. If you haven’t watched the show “the girls” are Tia and Tamera Mowry who are twins. The main plot revolved around Tia and Tamera and their lives with their mom and dad. Lisa Landry is Tia’s adoptive mother and Ray Campbell is Tamera’s adoptive dad. They all live under the same roof, which could raise eyebrows because Ray and Lisa are not married.

In Courtney and Katie’s dyad they concentrated on how in white shows black people are always in the background, but in this particular show white people were usually always in the background. Tia, Tamera, Lisa, Ray, Jordan (Tamera’s boyfriend), and Tyreke (Tia’s boyfriend are all black. The twin’s best friend, Diavian, is also black.

This show was origianlly aired on ABC and then got cancelled for a year. After a year passed the WB picked it up and the show ran for 4 years. Why did ABC cancell the show? And is it suspecious that the WB just so happened to pick up this black sitcom?

I love that Sister, Sister has black characters, but where are the white characters. It seems that shows can either have an all black cast, or an all white cast. I feel like they really aren’t ever mixed together, and I wish they would!

Anchorman---or should it be Anchorlady?

Today while I was cleaning out some boxes from my old house I came across a box full of DVDs. As I was searching through them I came across one of the greatest comedies (in my opinion) of all time: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy. I had not seen the movie in about a year, so I started to watch it. Much to my surprise this movie is full of not only sexist remarks, but also racial ones, too.

I was unable to watch the full movie, but I got a basic plot synopsis off of imdb.com. It reads “Ron Burgundy is the top-rated anchorman in San Diego in the '70s. When feminism marches into the newsroom in the form of ambitious newswoman Veronica Corningstone, Ron is willing to play along at first-as long as Veronica stays in her place, covering cat fashion shows, cooking, and other "female" interests.”

After reading that I then remembered the entire movie. This movie is all about how newsrooms were extremely male dominated back in the 1970s. In the first 10 minutes of the movie a female is not shown. The first female is shown while all of the men are in a meeting talking about news content. A modest, thirty something lady meekly walks into the room, hands the news director a note, and quietly walks out. Barely even being seen or noticed. The next female shown is Veronica Corningstone, who is played by the gorgeous Christina Applegate. Corningstone is treated basically like a piece of meat. All of the 4 main characters, who just so happen to be men, all hit on her. They rarely look at her face when speaking to her, and jump at any chance they can to “accidentally” touch her boobs.

Although, this movie was made in 2004, it lets us take a look inside the newsrooms in the 70s. It is weird to think that women were so degraded like that in the newsroom. Corningstone expresses throughout the entire movie that it is hard to be taken seriously. She is never assigned to any of the major news stories. Just like written above, her biggest story was about a cat fashion show. When Corningstone is declared as Burgandy’s new co-anchor, the men are furious. One of them even says that the term is “Anchorman” not “Anchorlady.”

Also, in the scene where 4 news teams get in a rumble, there is a bit of racism. 3 news teams enter, all being white, and all male. The 4th news team to enter has a special entrance. First Spanish music is played, the camera then pans over to a music maker that sounds like a rattlesnake tail. The men then come out and the lead anchor, who just happens to be Ben Stiller and is not of Latino descent, says in a Spanish accent, “¿Como estan bitches?” Now that is a stereotype if I have even heard of one.

I know that Anchorman is not a good representation of how newsrooms are today. It is horrible to think that just a couple of decades ago women were treated like that in newsrooms.

Weekly Media Assignment #2-TV show analysis

NEWS
-Watched all shows on digital television
-KFOR-TV (NBC)
-Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10th @ 10 pm
-Owner and Director: Jill Fraim
-CEO: The CEO of General Electric, which owns NBC, is Jack Welch
-Anchors: Linda Cavanaugh and Meg Alexander, both white females
-Reporters: 2 of the reporters were white males, and Cherokee Ballard is a white female
-Communities discussed: Mostly OKC, and also Weleetka
-Analysis: When watching this newscast all I really saw was white people. There were white anchors, white reporters, and white people being interviewed. Actually, the only time I saw a person of color on this particular newscast was when they did a segment over a robbery. They shows footage of a hidden camera that a person had on their porch, and it showed 2 black males carrying out a television set out the front door of a persons home. I also noticed that the people that they interviewed were basically considered "white trash," but then again that is just a stereotype that I am putting on these people. In one case a man had his mobile home broken into. He was interviewed and in his interview he expressed that he wanted the robbers "knees broken and [he wanted] to chop their hands off." This particular newscast was rather boring, except for the incident in Weleetka, but due to lack of information the segment over the 2 young girls who were murdered was only about 20 seconds long.



REALITY
Girl Next Door
-Objective: To show the everyday lives of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends
-Main Characters: Hugh Hefner, Holly Madison, Bridget Marquadt, and Kendra Wilkinson
-It can be found on E!
-Demographic: Young female adults
-Producer: Kevin Burns (executive producer)
-Originated: Aug 2005
-Program following: Denise Richards: It's Complicated
-Analysis: All 3 of the girls are white, blonde, and big breasted. They are all in there 20s. All of the girls are very ditsy. Hugh and the girls live in the Playboy Mansion where they are catered to by maids, butlers, and assistants. All of the girls are very sweet and polite, but they are obviously uneducated. The images on this show portrays these girls as just absolute "eye candy." They pose for playboy magazines, their clothes barely cover their private areas, and in some cases their clothes do not even cover them. The program is based on their day to day activities which includes flying the Playboy private jet, attending extravagant parties, and basically getting paid to be beautiful.


ENTERTAINMENT
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Drama
-Main Characters: Christopher Meloni- Detective Elliot Stabbler and Mariska Hargitay- Detective Olivia Benson
-Originated: September 1999
-The program can be found on NBC and USA
-Adults usually watch this program, although I think a lot of young adults watch the show, too
-Plot: On this particular episode that I watched it was about a girl with special needs and the issue of her alleged rape. Throughout the entire episode the girl is unable to provide the detectives with information about the pervert. Also in this episode there is an issue about abortion. In the end, they find the pervert and the girl is able to keep her baby.
-Most of the characters in this episode were all white. Every detective is white, with the exception of Ice-T's character and B.D. Wong's character. Detective Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) is black and Dr. George Huang(Wong) is Asian. When I watch this show I realized that almost all of the victims are white. Most of the perpetrators are white, too. The really only time I have ever noticed a person of color on this show is when the detectives are interviewing them while they are in jail or in a rough part of a neighborhood.
-Producer: David Declerque
-It belongs to NBC, who is owned by General Electric
-The CEO of GE is Jack Welch
-The commercials that take place during this show are usually commercials that have to do with the shows played on that particular channel. Also there are movie trailers, advertising for alcohol, and medication-This particular program was followed by the show Monk.

men & indoor tanning

I have worked at the tanning salon, Sandy Beaches, for over a year now. It is a really fun job. I get to see my friends, talk to customers, and learn a lot of things about skin and the effects tanning has on it. Little did I know, this summer I would learn a lot more about tanning than I thought.

When most people think of tanning salons they automatically think of women coming in to tan. People never think of men coming in to tan. One day I was working this summer and a couple of my friends stopped by to keep me company because business is really slow during the summer. As we were taking, a male customer walked through the door. As I was getting up to help him, I turned and looked at my friends and they both had smirks on their faces. While I was asking the male customer’s information to put him in a tanning bed, I could hear my friends snickering and whispering. The man obviously could tell that they were talking about him, and just ignored it. After he walked back to the tanning bed one of my friends said, “OH MY GOSH! I can’t BELIEVE that men tan here. It’s like so weird!” At that moment I began to think of our class. Not only do we talk about race, we also talk about gender. Why was it so weird that a man was tanning at an indoor tanning salon?

I then thought back to previous instances where men would come in and tan. It really never seemed weird to me that they tanned, but obviously to someone who has never seen a man in a tanning salon it was. I began to think as to why indoor tanning should only pertain to women. It really shouldn’t. To me tanning is like any other grooming activity. Just like getting your haircut, shaving, people do go tanning, and not only women, but men, too. When you go to the beach and you see men lying in a beach chair soaking up the rays with their girlfriends or friends, it doesn’t raise eyebrows. Although, the minute a man steps foot into an indoor tanning salon it is deemed as unusual.

I wish that the norm of indoor tanning salons should go away. For once, men are being scrutinized for being male and being in a tanning salon. So, the question I raise is, were my friends being sexist towards males? It is weird to think about it, but in my opinion they were.