"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!)