Week 9 - Sexual Orientation

In class we had the LGBTQ team come in a do a presentation in our class. In listening to each of the speakers I learned something new and great about each and everyone of them. Too often sexual orientation goes unseen or discussed in media today. I believe sexual orientation to important factor about a person as this is their identity and who they are. During the in-class presentations about LGBTQ we learned that we dont really know much at all about sexual orientation. When the presenters were sharing personal experiences about coming out I instantly thought about every tv episode that Ive ever seen and it being a huge deal where people are hurt and rejected becuase of this moment of "coming out". I learned thats not always true and that families are sometimes not always accepting of changes but that many families are understanding as well as will to understand one another.

A statement in the reading of Dines mentions, "the promotion of gayness as a lifestyle tends to attach it to commodities rather than a practices of experssion of the self." I believe this to be an extremely true statement in regards to media now-a-days and unfourtunately I dont know if we ever look at peoples expression of oneslef and identity rather than promoting lifestyles to increase revenues.

Week 8: Social Class

There are many different aspects of looking at social class, I chose this video because there are some great definitions and quotes about the many terms that helped me understand stand social class on a new level.

In reading Dines, chapter 19 the new politics of consumption: Why Americans want so much more than they need, I found some very valuable information about Americans and social class. A point was argued about how Americans have been maipulated intp participating in a dumb-downed, artifical consumer culture, which yielded few true human satifactions. We often just assume that our true needs are all that we are trying to meet in our culture, but is that really true.

"Individuals try to keep up with the norms of the social group with which they identitfy." (Dines, 2003) This just goes to show that the social comparision and dynamic manifestation have longterm and continue to be a part of our Americanized culture.

Week 7: Videogames

Video games are a great source of fun because they include simulations, character relationships, and role-playing scenarios. One game that I played as a young girl was Tomb Raider, with Laura Croft, the only female videogame I know of. This video game uses Lara Croft as the main character and shows how females are equal to males. The video game industry has used male figures as the prominent characters for many years. When studying gender differences in video games it is important to consider stereotypes because of how society demotes one gender over another.

Because the Lara Croft's world is artificially constructed to require her particular skill set, the ability to combine traditionally female agility with traditionally masculine firepower, any claim that Tomb Raider depicts a role model for the real world is wishful thinking. Lara Croft excels at the kind of actions performed by her gender has absolutely no bearing on the jumping and shooting portions of the game. Her identity as a woman however, both as a symbol of strength and as an object of desire, are central to the fiction that defines the Tomb Raider series for its fans. While the male player is enticed by the prospect of controlling an idealized, attractive female body, the game's fiction requires the player to share Lara's motivations and act out the steps she takes to reach her goals. While the Tomb Raider series is designed to appeal to men who wish to possess Lara, the game itself persuades players to take on Lara's own values and goals, and is therefore said that this is a useful tool for combating sexism. Which I personally don’t believe or agree that it does combat sexism in any sense; it’s more of a prime example being sexist.

In listening to the presentations in class students found that today's videogames are developed almost exclusively by men. I think this can be a large reason as to why there are so many more obvious gender-biased views of women than men. As demonstrated through academic articles I read for my research project about videogames, the use of female characters is limited in video games and shows how racial the industry can be swayed one way or another.

Week 6: Race & Television

Race & Television



Until the 1980's, whiteness was consistently naturalized in the television industry. "This whiteness has not been culturally monochrome. Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles, British, French, Germans, Russians, whether as ethnic entities or national representatives, have dotted the landscape of TV drama, providing the safe spice of white life, entertaining trills and flourishes over the pattern of social whiteness." ( ) What was consistently projected was the naturalness and normalcy of social whiteness.



For too long television in the US has had slandered view of being a white nation, with some marginal ethnic masses that were at their best when they could simply be ignored, like well-trained and deferential maids and doormen. Racism can stereotype groups differently and in my opinion class is often essential here. Racism in the United States is twofold, you are either a person of color or you are not. People of mixed descent are not permitted to confuse the issue, but belong automatically to a minority group of color.

The televisual hegemony of social whiteness has been critiqued, either on television itself, or on video, or in print, it has most often tended to focus on African-American issues. Yet in reviewing racism and ethnicity in U.S. television we need not downplay four centuries of African-American experience and contribution in order to recognize as well the importance of Native American nations, Chicanos and other Latinos, and Asian-Americans in all their variety. Too often all of these races are serotyped and denounced by social biased views implemented by society.  

Source:

Downing , J. (1998). Racism, ethnicity and television. Retrieved from http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=racismethni



Week 5: Masculinity

Out of the many topics portrayed in media about masculinity I chose to talk about appearance. Sadly, some of my favorite commercials, made by Miller Lite, are sterotypical and degrading to men. In our society we have followed this in-between-the-lines, codes of gender. These ideas of whats considered feminine or masculine. The Miller Lite commercial above does a great job demonstrating these societal-biased views of gender, implying that skinny jeans are for women therefor drink a manly drink. Accroding to the readings we did in class, "masculine identity validation is through the use of their body as an instrument of power, dominance and control."(Dines, pp 351) This is commercial did a wonderful job at displaying how unmanly the male in skinnys looks, as he even acted more feminine in the use of his body langugae.

You can even look at this example from the standpoint that a man is not masculine unless he drinks Miller beer instead of other unmanly beers. In this theme of commercials Millers actualy slogan is about not being unmanly. "Stressing gender differences in the context means defining masculinity in opposition to femininity." (Dines, pp 351) What I thought was most intersting and somewhat condradicting is that commercials Ive seen in the past encourage that a masculine man does not drink light beer. Miller actually is using marketing and sales tactics to idenitify that men can drink light beer as long as its a Miller Lite in order to still appear to be more masculine or manly. Overall I think that media is really selling itself to young-working class males in a vision of masculinity that provides men of all classes with a standard in which to judge themselves and one another.

Week 4: Everyday Pornography

Week 4: Everyday Pornography

When I began to study pornography I was interested to learn about how media shapes and portrays this topic.What I didnt know is that I would be so rudely awakened at the messages that are portrayd and instilled in our identity, background, and character from pornography. "The terms pornographic, erotic, obscene, sexually arousing, and sexually explicit are used interchangeably to refer to a diverse range of materials, from nude photographs to sexual activity between consenting adults and scenes of sxualized mutilation." (Senn, 1993, p.180)

In class we conducted a research paper about pornography and the media. In preparing for this project I went to a porn store to get some insight into the types of pornogrpahic material that they sold. I was amazed at the type of material I came across.  "Material sold in pornograpyh shops for the purposes of producing sexual arousal for mostly male consumers." (Dines & Jensen, 1998, 965)

I came to final idea that I would write my paper about pornography and its effects on violence. In a class discussion about our readings from Dines the topic came up about the faliure to differentiate between how the media tells us little about consumers relationships to different forms of media and also how it serves to further obsucure the varying conditions of production. For filmed pornography to exsist  real women, men and children have to perfom sexual acts in front of camera. In written pornography, the sex is only fantasy.

Something that I read and agree with from Dines, is that the pornograpic material that people view is not only fantasy but also "re-presentation of sexual acts, authenticated by the signature shots of genitalia, penetration and ejaculation." (Dines, pg 409) This is a significant becasue this is in direct relation to to the conventions of mainstream amd pornagraphic sex and how these position consumers.

Sources:



Dines, G. (2003). Gender, race, and class in the media. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oakes London: Sage Publications.

 

Senn, Charlene. (1993) The research of women and pornograph: The many faces of harm. In Diana E. Russel (ed.), Marketing violence sexy: Feminist views on pornogrpahy (pp. 179-193). Buckingham: Open University Press.