Elizabeth Banks posted a great article on the Huffington Post yesterday. She drools over Zac Efron while simultaneously acknowledging the awesome power of the mass media and teen icons to influence public consciousness and the construction of norms. Zac Efron is hugely popular with teens (and, apparently 3?-something women, according to Banks). In the same way that Rihanna and Chris Brown are role models, so is Zac Efron.
I had a huge problem with Knocked Up! even though I had a few chuckles and, overall, I likeSeth Rogen. That film basically presents the possibility of a pregnancy as the result of a one-night stand with a loser working out and the couple falling in love. Yeah, right. 17 Again makes teen parenting seem Ok. It doesn’t take the opportunity to send a realistic message about teen parenting albeit a brief comment from Margaret Cho. Shit, I’m 36, I have a career and an incredible man that is committed to our relationship and our child and parenting is STILL hard for both of us. I can’t even imagine being a teenager in high school. Holy smokes.
I can ( and do, quite often, thanks) enjoy the (eye) candy that the popular culture churns out in the same way Banks can while acknowledging the fact that too much of it can make you sick.
Here’s the thing though — the message of the movie seemed to be (and again, I may just be reading too much into the twirling fingers thing): knocking up your high school sweetheart is A-OK! Especially if you give up that Syracuse scholarship to marry her! F College!
Now, I am all for taking responsibility. I am. Which is why I wish this flick had dealt more directly with this little situation that served as the jumping off point for a PG-13 movie (attended by lots of kids not yet in the double digits). It tries to make up for it with a scene in which Margaret Cho tells us that “abstinence is best but let’s get real: just use condoms when you’re screwing around with each other.” Now, that statement at least gets close to something: if you are going to have sex, be safe. (Question: Why didn’t Hunter Parrish also take his shirt off in this flick?)
Unfortunately, this scene would have had a lot more impact if Zac Efron’s character not only acknowledged that sex can lead to babies but also that having a kid when you’re 18 is hard, hard, hard. (Spoiler alert: he should know, see, ‘cuz that’s what got him into this crazy mess!) Also, he doesn’t want his daughter (again, born when he was 18) to have sex with her high-school sweetheart yet his most powerful argument against it — HAVING A KID WHEN YOU ARE JUST GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL IS HARD — I KNOW, I’M REALLY YOUR DAD! — never comes up. He’s just like, “fingers crossed!” Now, of course, the daughter does not have sex (totally unrealistically) and ends up lusting after Mr. Efron (totally realistically, who wouldn’t) and it’s creepy and weird.
My point here (sorry, I was looking up “image Hunter Parrish” on Google and got off-track) is that this movie pretty much glamorizes teenage parenting. It basically says: Go for it! Have a kid when you’re 18. Throw another one in for good measure right after and you’ll get a nice house, deck and hammock included, your baby mama apparently won’t need to work, your kids will eventually have iPods and get into Georgetown and the person you picked (when you were 17) is actually your soulmate! Don’t worry if the condom breaks — it’s cool! It’s totally worked out for Bristol, ya’ll! (Is it me or is Levi cute?)
The problem with this message is that, according to unreliable online sources and my own anecdotal evidence collected over my 3?-something years: this is crap. It’s a great Hollywood story (I really enjoyed this movie, did I say that?) but in reality, teenage parents (mothers, especially) face increased levels of poverty, lower education rates, and higher chances that their daughters will also end up teenage moms and their sons will end up in jail. (I would like to see Zac Efron and Hunter Parrish fight Channing Tatum in a jail flick).
In many ways, popular culture is seen as superficial, silly, stupid, “just entertainment,” and, if you critique it, you’re “too serious” and you need “to lighten up.” Well, considering the amount of romantic comedies I have ingested and ridiculous sitcoms I have thoroughly enjoyed, I’m not trying to be a stick in the mud or take away anyone’s viewing pleasure. I love romantic comedies. I’m a freakin’ sucker for them. But, I also know that these romantic comedies have had and continue to have an influence my own expectations and desires. Shit, who wouldn’t want some hot guy like Ryan Gosling wait for you for 8 years, build you a house and then make love to you in the rain. No wonder I have complained about the men in my past. That really set the bar high. A house?!
But, considering the level of mediation we are exposed to, we are foolish to dismiss the content of popular culture as irrelevant. The mass media does shape and actively construct culture. With that said, it’s irresponsible to make teen parenting seem fun considering the adverse side effects of teen parenting in 2009.
Feminism has been declared “dead” AGAIN! Yawn. Apparently, this time, it’s death was found among popular culture. Feminism has been declared as dead, unnecessary, and outdated after all the great advances feminism has brought women. After every wave of feminism, the media would report hearing feminism’s last breath.
Sojourner Truth, the tireless abolitionist and suffragette, will be honored in the U.S. Capitol. Truth’s famous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman,” examined the dynamics of race, class and gender as intersecting axes of analysis and questioned the dominant image of femininity which was limited to the most elite, white women in society at that time. She was tall, recognizable figured and a gifted orater that shook the order of the day and inspired thousands.
In the words of Truth, 1851:
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.
As Michelle Obama said:
“One could only imagine what Sojourner Truth, an outspoken, tell-it-like-it-is kind of woman — what she would have to say about this incredible gathering,” first lady Michelle Obama said at the Celebration of Truth ceremony. “We are all here because, as my husband says time and time again, we stand on the shoulders of giants like Sojourner Truth.”
I guess I should have figured. Susan Boyle, the overnight singing sensation, who has been mocked for her comment about never beuing kissed and discussed not just for her singing talent but her “frumpy” “ordinariness” has begun a make-over. The breath of fresh air she gave many people by being authentic did not last long. Afterall, she has just passed trhough the filter of the popular culture and, most things, don’t remain the same.
Some say the overnight singing sensation who rocketed to fame after a phenomenal performance on “Britain’s Got Talent” has every right to upgrade her dowdy appearance. Others fear she may lose her authenticity _ and her amazing connection with the TV audience _ if she goes too far in the image makeover department.
The change is startling. Gone is the fusty woman with graying, frizzy hair and a jowly face who joked on air that she had never been kissed, replaced by a stylish, freshly-coiffed lady in fashionable leather jacket and what looks to be a Burberry scarf. The dark, unkempt eyebrows have been shaped and colored.
Fashion experts say she’s taken years off her looks, but should think twice about making more improvements, particularly if they go beyond styling and involve artificial enhancements.
“She looks 10 years younger,” said Toni Jones, assistant fashion editor at The Sun tabloid newspaper, which featured the new look Boyle on its cover Friday.
“Compared to what she had, it’s a 200 percent improvement. But our readers think this is as far as she should go. We want her to stay one of us.”
Jones said Boyle’s decision to dye her hair brown was causing some consternation among the powers-that-be at “Britain’s Got Talent” by stoking fears that she may no longer seem real.
Another ad featuring a naked woman and a fully clothed male. This time it’s rapper Kanye West and his model girlfriend, Amber Rose. This is a tired, boring, played out theme in advertising that objectifies women and consistently portrays the female form in a state of undress or near undress. Rarely, do we see ads in which the men are nude, with or without a dressed female in the picture. It just doesn’t happen.
What are young girls and women learning about the culture’s view of the female body when all around them images of teen girls and women are scantily clad if dressed at all. Viewing this phenomenon through George Gerbner‘s lens of cultivation, the building and maintenance of a stable set of images that reinforce one another and collectively construct reality, girls grow up in a culture in which it is not uncommon and is actually expected that girls and women will be highly sexualized objects.
This doesn’t even take into account the body language in this photo that reinforces stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity. The strong, active and in-charge male with the passive female. In fact, Amber Rose doesn’t even appear human. She’s more of an accessory.
We see these themes in advertising time and time again. So, it’s not this one ad. It’s the countless ads that reinforce these themes over and over and over and over….
Yes, it is true! There is a spa for your vag! As reported in the New York Times, this spa is dedicated to the woman that seeks to “get in shape from the inside out.” “Pelvic fitness” was an idea inspired by teeth whitening. Uh, yeah.
First came the “medical spa,” or medi spa, offering dermatology services in a retail setting. The medi spa begat the dental spa, bringing tooth bleaching to storefronts nationwide. The dental spa begat the podiatry spa.
And now comes the first medi spa in Manhattan wholly dedicated to strengthening and grooming a woman’s genital area. Phit — short for pelvic health integrated techniques — is to open this month on East 58th Street.
Dr. Lauri Romanzi, a gynecologist who performs pelvic reconstruction surgery, said she came up with the idea for the spa one day while walking by an outlet of BriteSmile, the tooth-whitening chain. She liked that the stores cater to people with healthy teeth.
This makes vaginal plastic surgery seem tame. There’s just nothing off limits from the hands of the beauty industry. They’ll make you feel insecure about anything and everything to make money.
With the ubiquity of pornography, the pelvis had already become a marketable area for modification, ranging from the Brazilian bikini wax to genital surgery referred to as vaginal “rejuvenation.” Doctors have even coined a term for such genital “beautification”: cosmetogynecology or cosmogynecology.
The advent of the pelvic spa, however, takes body fixation to a new level, furthering the idea that there is no female body part that cannot be tightened, plumped, trimmed or pruned.
“Whether the marketing is pushing the women or women are pushing the marketing, I don’t think anybody knows,” Dr. Berenson said.
I say, “Leave my pussy alone!” They are not suppossed to look the same, smell the same or feel the same, damn it. With the vag spa, or PHIT (Pelvic Health Integrated Services), the aim is clearly NOT about pelvic “health” when you consider their web address: perfectphit.com. Perfect fit, huh? It’s about making all our vags the same and, I ask, who determines this sameness?
There are no medical standards for determining what constitutes normal “fitness” or how to evaluate it, said Dr. Abbey B. Berenson, a gynecologist who directs the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
“If this is being recommended to women who have no symptoms, then there are no medical organizations or literature that support that that is necessary,” Dr. Berenson said.
It’s time to reclaim our bodies for ourselves and resisting imposed beauty standards that make our heads spin, our self-esteem shrink and our pussys look like they were manufactured on an assembly line.
According to the website, Become A Player, men can learn the secret tools of the trade and “evolve” into a “real man” by becoming “a player” on this self-proclaimed “seduction mega-site.” One can learn some interesting things by browsing through this site and I am not talking about the men. I’m referring to heterosexual women. This site is the first one out of 153,000,000 that Google pops up in the organic search when you search “how to become a player.” 153,000,000! And this site is tops.
So, what does this site offer?
Tips and tricks, a rule book, products that teach men how to become an “alpha male” (“how a strange discovery by a 22 year-old virgin can hypnotically draw women to you”), how to double their dating, boost their confidence, meet women online, learn the “seduction science,” “sexual mastery,” “deep inner game,” the art of approaching, and a guide that proclaims to teach men “all about women.” The site also offers personal coaching and pick-up lines. All this in order to “double your dating” and “evolve” into a “real man,” “the alpha male” that “the most beautiful women want.” The banner at the top features a man with three women in line waiting for his attention. This is the last stage of evolution. The stage before is a man on his knees apparently begging a woman for her attention. THAT is not a real man.He’s a pathetic creep with half a dick. A real man is the cocky male that has his pick of the litter so to speak. In fact the site even offers “cocky humor” for the budding cock-to-be.
Now, while this is interesting, slightly nauseating and, in many ways, down right stupid and silly men are clicking on this site and this site is not much different than the messages boys and men receive across the culture. The main difference is that the site offers these messages in one concentrated package. And the messages, lame or gross as they might be, are similar to the messages heterosexual girls and women receive except with a twist.
Girls and women learn how to find and keep a man. How to please a man. How to find a man to have a relationship with. Heterosexual men, on the flip side of the same gender socialization coin, learn how NOT to have a relationship. Rather, they learn how to be independent, cocky players that bed multiple women at the same time or over time.
That’s why I say women have a lot to learn from this site. It helps explain why the men they are trying to “catch” or “trap” behave the way they do. All around them, these boys and men learn how to avoid a relationship, that they should avoid a relationship and seek to sleep with as many women as possible. Given these divergent and contradictory messages I can’t help but wonder how most heterosexual couples work. Oh, right, most don’t.
This is awesome! Thanks for posting this link on Facebook, Lani. There’s no doubt that the proliferation of endless streams of images that show highly polished and edited women that appear younger, thinner and more flawless than they actually are has altered our view of reality and created a perverse critique of ourselves. If only there were more regular images of women, we’d be less likely to beat ourselves up daily, over exercise, diet, fast, cleanse, endure regular colon hydrotherapy and see ourselves as the exception rather than the truth.
Here’s an excerpt:
The April issue of French Elle features eight female European celebrities–including Eva Herzigova, Monica Bellucci, Sophie Marceau, and Charlotte Rampling–all without makeup and, perhaps even more revealing, all entirely without Photoshopping or retouching of any kind. The mag’s headline “Stars Sans Fards” translates to “without rouge/makeup,” but it’s a French saying that also suggests a sense of “openness.”
Judging from the images that have been leaked so far (the entire issue hits newsstands later this week), this title could not be more apt. Model Herzigova, 36, and actresses Marceau, 42, and Bellucci, 44, all look refreshingly natural, relaxed, and vulnerable in a way American stars are seldom seen.
In fact, what might be most striking about French Elle’s pictorial is how it actually appears to embrace and celebrate the organic beauty of these famous faces (even if the lighting is super, super flattering and the women are all unbelievably gorgeous to begin with). In the U.S., when you come across a “stars without makeup” story, there’s always a GOTCHA! element, a message that says “Our gift to you: Derive pleasure from how ugly this person looks without cover-up for her zits!”
If you think about it, even our celebration of “natural beauty” is often far from natural. Consider the air-brushing scandal that surrounded last year’s Dove ads, or the countless “normal” celebs who are heralded for their curves but then, when they’re featured in a magazine, are digitally whittled down so they appear several sizes slimmer. We’re a curvy country that can’t handle looking at curvy people. It’s all kind of sad.
I came across this interesting piece in the Los Angeles Times a few days ago. It explores the reaction Michelle Obama has received for her propensity to reveal her arms. The reaction has been mixed and numerous. The debate brings about issues about femininity and the beauty norm.
Here are a few excerpts:
First Lady Michelle Obama stands tall and regal in her official portrait, a double strand of creamy pearls around her neck, her figure clad in a fitted Michael Kors dress. But there’s one aspect of this seemingly benign photograph that’s causing something of a commotion, and it lies in that exposed 10-inch-or-so stretch between her shoulder and elbow. The first lady is buff, and she’s not afraid to show it.
Her curvy biceps have become something of a lightning rod for remarks from both sexes in a larger discussion of how much female muscle constitutes too much. While some praise Obama as a role model in a world gone obese, others say she’s gone too far in displaying the fruit of her workouts. Read one online forum comment: “There is nothing uglier than manly, muscular arms on a woman. Mrs. Obama should be hiding them instead of showing them off.”
Why do we care so much? The issue speaks volumes about how men and women view the parameters of femininity and strength.
“In some ways it’s kind of an old, tired way of thinking about women and power and boundary policing — when you can display that power and when you can’t, or when it’s appropriate,” says Sarah Banet-Weiser, an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.
For Obama (who told People magazine she hits the gym almost every day), the decision to wear sleeveless designs that show off her physique sends a strong message, says Janet Lee, deputy editor of Shape magazine. “If she was at all self-conscious about her body, she wouldn’t put it out there.” And that may be intimidating and unsettling to some who are used to seeing first ladies more covered up.
From the get go, Michelle Obama has brought a new vision of femininity to the public forefront, one that is confronting and challenging to many and a sigh of welcomed relief to many others. Personally, I like it and I like her arms.
