"Jesus Land"

I'm in the middle of reading a book called "Jesus Land" by Julia Scheeres. The book is a memoir and makes you aware of many serious issues such as racism, sexual abuse, and legalism.

Though not as serious as the previous listed issues, there's one line that stuck out to me and made me think of all the topics we discussed this semester.

The narrator, 16 years old at this point in the book, is looking through Glamour magazine and says, "The perfection of the cover model, dark-haired in a pink argyle sweater, knifes me with envy. Anyone that beautiful must be happy."

We've discussed so many times in class the effect of "ideal women" in the media has on adolescent girls. This is so sad. In the book, Julia has a terrible view of herself and is just lost trying to figure out who she is. I'm sure it definitely doesn't help that she thinks being beautiful and famous is the only way to be happy.

While writing my final paper, I have been reading numerous articles and case studies on the topic of media and body image. I have been, many times, fully engrossed in the study, anxious to know what they have discovered.

Then I noticed... all the conclusions use phrases like "perhaphs", "maybe it's the case that", "more research needs to be done about...", "we think that ___, but not a lot of research has been done", etc.

So I realized... there are no absolute truths about the way people are affected. There is no equation, right or wrong, way to solve it so we can avoid it, etc.

We can only continue to study and infer and make up our best guesses. So what is the point of researching if the ideas behind the data are already commonly known? What light does research shed on issues? Just confirmation that peole ARE affected by things?

I'd like to think that the goal is that media literacy will keep us from being affected. But this is not true. I think things are already ingrained in us. Even while reading about the society-imposed desire for women to be thin, I found myself thinking about how I was not as thin as I should be. I'd hoped that being aware of media/society's goal would make me push away those thoughts. Guess not.

Lambiase posted a link to an article about stereotypes of fathers:

http://diyfather.com/content/the-21st-century-dad-no-time-for-old-stereotypes

I liked this article and found it very interesting. The author, "Brandon", sees an ad that fuels the stereotype of father's being incompetent, "ignorant, clumsy, and incapable". He raises a lot of good questions and calls to action.

When we see advertisements and media like this, are our ideals being reinforced... or are ideas being imposed on us? I think that to an extent, it is our ideas that are being represented, but that is not okay anymore. It's come to a point (years ago actually) that this is (though it may be true for many fathers) is not or cannot be represented as the norm. I think it will negatively effect too many fathers and children.

So what Brandon does is great. We can't support this view. Whether that means not watching shows that ad to this view, or taking a bolder action. Brandon wrote the company that made this advertisement and let them know it was not appreciated or true. This is a reminder that there ARE things we can do to change stereotypes. Of course it will take time... views of fathers will not universally change because of an email Brandon sent, but he probably opened eyes to many people on staff.

Acculturation

Acculturation, as I just learned, is "the process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group."

I read an article about body image perceptions among different ethnic groups and it made me think a lot about acculturation and how it's prevalent in every area of life. As a Western country it is easy to think that our view of beautiful (tall and skinny) is the norm.

The article talked about white women being much less satisfied with their bodies than African American women. At first thought I am both impressed by this because it means they aren't consumed with being skinny and beautiful; my second thought is "but why not?". Then I read... "the standard measurements of body image may be culturally biased, failing to take into account the culturally different standards of beauty that women hold." It's not that other women don't care about being beautiful... they just have a completely different view of beauty!

Back to acculturation...

The article suggests that "the extent to which African American women identify with the dominant White culture may make them more vulnerable to body image distortions and eating disorders." This is ethnic acculturation. There is not a science to what African American women think is beauty...they don't all think that curves and shape is ideal, nor do they all strive to be thin. It all depends on how much they have let this "dominant White culture" affect them. This acculturation idea goes for all cultures and nations. The more they are overtaken with western ideas, images, and culture, the closet they get to adopting these beliefs.

This is so intersting to me. There are no norms about what beauty is. There are not even norms about what different cultures think beauty is. There is just infiltration of one culture into another. The sad thing is that when it comes to beauty, I think the results are only getting worse.

A few weeks ago we had a Disney movie night at my house. Yes, 20 something men and women watched "Sword in the Stone" and "Little Mermaid"... but that's not the point of this blog. Putting that odd fact aside, I'd like to talk about interesting stereotypes that I saw which were not noticable to me when I was young.

In "The Little Mermaid", the main character and cartoon hunk Eric is asked how he will recognize this woman that saved him when/if he sees her. He makes some remark that basically conveys the idea that when he finds her, he will know, because love is just like that- when the right person comes along, you'll know right away and it will just work out. Many comments to this effect are made throughout the movie, by both Eric, Ariel and the rest of the characters.

I wonder if these movies are a big part of why girls grow up and think that love always happens like a fairy tale. Of course Disney movies are very 'fairytale-ish' and we should be able to seperate them from reality, but it almost seems as if these casually-said lines brainwash little girls into thinking and believing these love stereotypes.

Or... maybe I'm just bitter that love isn't even close to what they describe.

Male prevalence in video games

Chapter 4 talks about the prevalence of males vs. females in video games. Around 60% of creatures in video games are males, and less that 2% are females. Of that 2%, most are "damsels in distress." The percentage of boys that play video games is much greater than women, but the book said this effects the computer literacy of boys and girls. I never would have thought about this. Apparently girls are less "computer literate" than boys and have a harder time with those skills in school. This is interesting to me. I consider it a good thing when children/young adults don't play video games as much as others, but have never thought that it might effect things such as their technology skills.

I'd like to see more statistics and studies on this. I tried to look some stuff up online but was unsuccessful.

The stereotypical runner

I read an article this morning in the New York Times about mp3 players being banned in marathon races. The following is part of the article:

“Years ago, the picture of people running marathons was these lean, mean Type-A male running machines, but today people running are your neighbors, just regular people,” said Tracy Sundlun, executive vice president for Elite Racing, which organizes marathons. “It’s a different sport now and we have to cater to these new people, not exclude them."

This is interesting to me. It's true that the stereotypical runner in the past has been a long and lean male or woman. It's encouraging that all types of people are now running marathons and choosing that as their sport. I'm sure the typical runner in someone's mind might still be someone fit and lean, but the fact that people feel comfortable making this their new sport shows that they do not feel bound to what a stereotypical runner must be. This is good news.

There are a multitude of sport-related stereotypes, all of which are commonly known. Basketball players "are tall and usually black", baseball players are "white guys who dip", etc. I don't think most people consider these to be negative stereotypes, which is why we are not bothered or feel we should change our thinking on them. What's funny to me is that, although we know they are not completely true, we still operate under them. For example, aren't we shocked that Yao Ming, a great NBA basketball player is a GIANT Asian!? (gasp!)

"Black" vs. "African-American"

I read Pepper's article about using either "black" or "African American" when referring to people. It contradicts what Lambiase said in class and leaves me a little confused.

I like to be politically correct when I speak, and so I've wondered also the best way to refer to people. I think if people truly are African American, that is, part African, part American, then it would be very PC to call them African-American. However, if they are not, and rather are many generations removed, then I almost think it ridiculous to refer to them as so. As Pepper stated, most people would rather be called "black" anyway. I think the people that get most offended by that are not even black/African American, but rather are other races that are scared to not be PC and offend people.

I guess what Lambiase said in class does make sense. She posed the question "why do we have to refer to people by their color/race/heritage anyway? Why don't we just describe them?" Interesting. Well, because it would be too difficult that way. Wrong or not, stereotypes do help us condense stories. Even when casually telling a story to friends, if we think saying the main person is black will help get the point of the story across, we'll do it. On the other hand, if the story has nothing to do with our ideas of how certain people act, we don't find it necessary to explain their race. (I'm not sure if this makes sense... I'm sort of processing it as I write it.)

All that to say, I just realized what it means when it is said that stereotyping makes things "simplex". It's very true. So the question is... is this terribly bad? I don't know that it is in every scenario, but feel free to prove me wrong.

Women in scary movies

I watched The Shining a few nights ago. There is a part when the woman is being chased by her crazy husband and she heads to the stares. "Oh great, she's gonna go UP the stairs," we all say. "Of course she is."

It's really strange that this action is so prevalent. Women in scary movies almost always run up the stairs. It's something we are all aware of (notice the fact that all my friends said the same thing and knew it was coming). If it's something the audience is expecting and sees as ridiculous, why do they keep doing it?

I also wonder what this stereotype is trying to say about women. I mean, there are obvious things like: women just aren't smart. However, that just seems a little too easy to me.

I think this may be the topic of my final project.

Objectification in ads

It's so weird how we don't notice everything that advertisements imply. Our talk about how many ads in fashion magazines have symbols of submission, objectificaton, etc. made me think of this. We so easily flip through these magazines and don't notice the subconscious messages that are being shown. That's what's cool (and important) about media literacy. Simply knowing and being aware of the way we are marketed to helps us notice it more. After we talked about it in class I really could pull out tons of ads that displayed stuff like this. Objectification, pornographic positions and symbols, etc.

Latino's in the Ken Burns documentary

I just read the article about Ken Burns' WWII documentary, and the complaints people had that Latino's weren't represented at all. I think this is ridiculous.

Sure, a big problem with stereotyping is the negative perception it creates of many people, but it has created an almost reverse effect too. Now, not only are people fighting against being viewed negatively, but they are going to the extreme's to make sure they have as many things out there that cause them to be viewed positively. In this way, they are putting themselves in a stereotype. Basically, people want to be individuals and free from stereotypes and groupings, then insist that their group is not represented well. This doesn't make sense to me.

Ken Burns was not trying to leave out Latino's, he was just telling his story like it happened. So what if a certain group wasn't acknowledged, inflated, emphasized. Not everything has to have an equal amount of "race representation". Are we always going to complain either that we are being negatively represented or not represented enough? We can't eat our cake and have it too.

Stereotypes in media's murder coverage

Lambiase's article on the the girls that were murdered in Ft. Worth (Goodlove and her friend) was very interesting and brought up good points that made me think.

One thing in general is the issue of stereotyping in this kind of media coverage. Many newspaper reporters say that in a way, stereotypind helps people get a better idea of the people involved, without knowing them fully. It seems though, that in cases that involve a death, stereotyping is just not a good idea at all. Because of their death, reporters can't even come close to understanding what the victim was like. All they know is hearsay from people that (of course) are only going to shed good light. As was seen in this case, the stereotyping they did was dangerous. The image the reporters gave of these girls was extremely good in the beginning, so when ideas were thrown out that made the girls look not so perfect(suggestions of lesbian rivalry and drug use, for example), it is a little confusing to the reader and the whole situation in general. Not only that, but in the end their assumptions of 'lesbian rivalry' and drug use ended up not being true.

The second question is: how much of this should even be covered? It seems there should be a line of what is shared and what is not. News that can protect people seems necessary. As insensitive as it sounds, stories like this are just entertainment to people. No one benefits from all the run-around of trying to figure out what realy happened.

All this to say, this article changed my outlook on reading articles like this. I don't want to become insensitive or numb, but it definitely is hard to discern truth from "white lies". I just don't want to form assumptions in my head based on what the reporter is telling me about a victim or their suspects.

This week a girl at UNT was murdered. This is terrible. I was reading the article in the NT Daily and am just confused on what to take in as truth,and in general don't want the stereotypes evident in the story to form my opinions on what happened. The thing is we probably shouldn't have opinions anyway, so why does it seem like reporters try to get us to think certain ways about things?

News if frustrating when it blurs the line between news and story-telling or entertainment.

Thoughts on disability stereotypes

This is interesting. It is true that when we think of stereotypes it is most commonly with race, gender, or personality types. I don't think I've thought much at all about the stereotyping of people with disabilities. I don't think media portrays the disabled in a bad light or contributes to a certain type of stereotype... I think they just avoid the category all together. This is probably more damaging to people because without being exposed to different kinds of disabilities, we are ignorant, scared, and intimidated.

One of the articles talked about terms used for disabled people. This is huge. This is probably a huge way we stereotype people, or put them in a box, because we say things and use words that are insensitive (whether we know it or not).

First Week

This is quite a few weeks late, but I think I was confused on what the point of creating a blog was. Then I noticed in your (Lambiase) blog that there were instructions.

I don't keep up with news or media at all nearly as much as I would like to. I don't ever watch TV and am rarely on the internet. Sometimes at work I listen to CSPAN and I am hoping to subscribe to the New York Times very soon, but other than that I'm out of the loop.

I don't have many assumptions on the way news and media in general form stereotypes. There are of course the obvious things such as news conveying blacks to be more dangerous than white people, but even that I think was only brought to my mind because of the fact that there is so much controversy. Otherwise I'm not sure that I would notice.