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For the Sake of Fitting In

The other day I was sitting at home spending time with my dear friend Condescending Wonka. For those of you who haven't met him, he's one of the famous memes that has taken social media by storm in the last year. Condescending Wonka is super sarcastic and just about every single one of them cracks me up. The two posted below made me think of this class. 

        I feel they both pertain to branding as well as the "cool" factor we talked about earlier in the semester. Basically, branding is cool. The cool kids all wear the name brand clothes and have all the brand name appliances. For example, UGG boots, Sperrys, North Face jackets, and Apple products. I know in high school for me, it was all about the brands. When I asked for a pair of boots for Christmas and I got the Bear Claw gray knit boots that look exactly like the UGG version, but weren't the real UGGs, I freaked. I fell for the marketing ploy of branding and felt uncomfortable wearing my brand new boots. I felt this way all because of the mere fact that "UGG" wasn't printed anywhere on my boots like it was for some of the other girls walking in the halls. 

        I also remember the feeling I had when I got a North Face jacket. It's like putting it on added a certain "swagger" to my appearance, like I had finally made it into the "cool" group. When in reality the coats were made for people who need the extra thermal for hiking and more strenuous activities versus me who wore it out to go shopping.

        I'm still trying to make sense of it all because realistically I know it shouldn't matter if my coat says North Face or not and it shouldn't matter if my boots have a certain logo or not. As long as I have the items that serve their purpose of keeping me warm than what's the big deal if somethings embroidered on it or not?  I believe it's because marketing tools have made it very evident that it's all for the sake of fitting in and until you have a certain brand you aren't fitting in with the "cool" kids.

I Can't Do That Jane!

Today's class article talked about Jane McGonigal and her idea that the more gamers in society and the more time spent playing games will be beneficial to solving social issues. I see the argument we discussed in class when it was said why not go fishing where the fish are, but I just can't bring myself to agree with the big picture of it. I do agree though that we have a large chunk of our population that immerses itself in video games and inventing games that bring about social change could be a way to intelligently use that portion of the population, but I believe there is a better way.
    Most of my friends that would consider themselves gamers are those people I feel have a parasocial relationship with video games. They go to class, (most of the time), do their homework, pop in a microwavable meal, and rush back to sit in their room and play games the rest of the night. Even if they were playing a game that overlapped somehow into the real world, do we really think that's the best way to solve problems? This girl doesn't think so. In fact, I feel McGonigal's solution is creating more problems than anything else. Saying that over the next decade she wants to see the number of hours spent playing video games go from close to 6 million hours to over 20 million is disheartening. She wants change and wants to help so I give her props for that, but telling people to spend more time sitting on their butt, starring at a screen and moving only their fingers for activity, is crazy. If McGonigal's idea were to come true that would mean we'd have more lazy people in society than we are already dealing with right now.
   My biggest question is with the amount of gamers who use games to escape reality and aren't very active in society now, what makes her think creating games about society will get them motivated to go out there and make a change later? I just feel as though her idea of a better world won't be brought about by more hours of playing video games.
      If this were to be the case, and in 10 years we are playing over 20 million hours of games, I think we'll be living in a society where we yell up the stairs to our overweight son who's been sitting for hours to quit doing his homework and to play more video games because he hasn't met his quota for the week.
I'm sorry Jane, but I just can't do that.

Heteronormalizing Gay Persons on TV

Recently we talked about Ellen’s original show, Ellen, and how it allowed the portrayal of gay persons on television to be more acceptable. To say I’m Ellen’s number 1 fan would be an understatement. If I claimed to have a parasocial relationship with something, it would be Ellen hands down.

            I give Ellen props for exposing society to gay persons on TV and I feel she handled it in the best way possible. I think it is a touchy subject for the majority of the population and for her to bring up the subject using humor is frankly the best way for us as a society to handle. We react more positively through humor and I personally feel it is the best way to bring up controversial issues.

            However, Ellen was over fifteen years ago and we have not progressed from humor or the typical stereotypes. Has anyone ever noticed that the majority of gay people on TV are males? What’s even more frustrating to me is the heteronormalizing of gay men on sitcoms. Let’s talk about the ever so popular Modern Family. Cameron and Mitchell are a gay couple on the show, but are steered into stereotypical gender roles. Mitchell goes to work and Cameron stays at home. Come on!

            The topic is specifically talked about in the “Mother’s Day” episode.  The two are at the park on Mother’s Day and some others mom in the park summon Cameron to come get in the mom’s picture. Just because Cameron is more what we refer to as feminine he automatically becomes the motherly figure in the relationship. Why can’t they just be two dads?

            As a society we don’t know how to react to parents as being two dads or two moms so we categorize them into gender roles as one being more masculine and one more feminine because that is what’s more comfortable and “normal” for us.

            

“Codes” of Gender…Post turned light bulb moment

This is not the first time I’ve watched the film Codes of Gender. Being a Film and TV studies major this movie is in fact what we discuss and analyze a lot of the time! Stereotyping females and males to act, look, and dress a certain way throughout media is one of the biggest problems our society faces today.

            From a female’s standpoint I hate how there is a certain emphasis on the way I’m supposed to look physically, like every time I pose for a picture I feel the need to place my hand whimsically in the air by my face. Why? Because advertisements continuously show us that this is the way pretty women are supposed to look. Like this magazine ad for Covergirl:

I agree with an earlier post from Rob Fucela when he said, “There is nothing natural about gender identity. When I was younger I never thought about why boys wore blue and girls wore pink, it was just normal to me.” Just like I never thought about why girls were always half naked in magazines and why guys always had muscles out the crazy, it’s just what always was. Watching this movie the second time not only reinforced the ideological view we (myself included) have of what male and female should look like, but also made me take a deeper look into the issue. I’m guilty of laughing in class when I saw men positioned in what is stereotypically a female position such as this:

It was funny. It was out of the ordinary.

But then I instantly thought, that’s BRILLIANT!

What better way to break these gender “codes” then to well, break them.

This posts goes out to all of you who, like myself, are sick of succumbing to the gender roles we are being spoon fed through the media. Let’s not watch a movie like Codes of Gender, shrug our shoulders, and leave the classroom saying, “whelp that’s just the way it is” and go about our day. Let’s take what we just learned and change it.

I like to mess around with photography every now and again and for me, I decided that I am going to try my hardest to no longer take pictures of people placed in the “codes” society has set. Up until now when I took senior portraits I did use stereotypical poses for what male and females normally look like, but not anymore!

Codes of Gender had my mind going in 100 different directions of how I could make a difference with this issue or if anything I decided to do would actually change anything.  Maybe it will or maybe it won’t, but this video made me realize that it’s worth a shot to try.

I think it’s fair to say that not everyone had such a big light bulb moment after watching this film like I did, but I hope that all of you realize this is a problem we face and that maybe you’ll take a couple minutes to look into your own life and see what you can do to help change it.  Come on, I dare you!

Oh TLC, What Are You Doing To Us?!

          TLC is short for the “The Learning Channel,” but what exactly are we learning? For me, I’m not really sure I’m learning much more than the realization that I hate TV more and more every time I turn it on.

Both of these girls are under the age of 10!

            I have a huge soft spot when it comes to kids. My mom came from a family of nine, all of who married and had kids who are now having kids of their own. I’m continuously surrounded by kids at home and also here at school where I work in a nursery and at an after school program for 6 to 12 year olds. I feel sad for them when I turn on the TV knowing that they are very well watching the same shows I am at night. More specifically shows such as Toddlers and Tiaras and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Both of which are extremely problematic shows in our society right now. These shows are instilling in these kids that make-up, sparkly outfits, and big hair are what makes someone pretty. That winning a big trophy is the way to their parent’s heart. I know I wouldn’t want my child growing up thinking how he or she looks is all that really matters. I don’t want my daughter to feel like frill and jewelry are what make her a woman or my son to think that girls are only girls if they wear frill and jewelry. We’ve become so obsessed with appearances in our culture and TLC in my opinion is leading the pack. This is supposed to be a family friendly channel and the fact that shows like these are what kids are watching now is frightening. It’s no wonder we’re struggling with gender identity in our society.

            All I want to do is call up TLC and ask, “What are you doing to us?!” I haven’t lost all faith in humanity yet, but if media keeps portraying these stereotypical gender roles to children I fear for how they will react to other persons who don’t fit into this general view we have of male and female in the future.