Disney is one of the most loved franchises anywhere. Disney World was and continues to be the most visited theme parks in the world, four decades after its initial opening. The Disney Corporation has a net worth of 74.9 billion dollars. It has produced and released a whopping 558 movies for a total of $68,931,877,668 in theater profit (that’s enough to buy the New England Patriots thirty-two times over), with DVD revenues still rolling in. Frozen has generated 3.2 million dollars and the toy line remains a popular item in stores. Again, in my opinion, one of the most beloved franchises in the world.

I mean, it’s hard not to love them, right? I for one am a sucker for a sweet soundtrack, and boy, do they deliver within thirty minutes or less because otherwise they would lose the so sought after profit. Musical numbers illustrating the plague of parental misunderstandings, or the misfortune when the guy you so desperately have your set heart upon is wayyyy out of your league, or those moments in life where you are not quite sure who you are or who you want to be. You name it, Disney has a set of lyrics for it. But it is not only the tunes that reel me straight into their pocket, no, good ol’ Mickey Mouse can also serve as a two-dimensional mentor-type figure.

Disney highlights several different life lessons throughout the course of its discography. To begin with, almost all of the main characters are under the age of twenty-one or over the age of sixty. They want to provide reassurance that you are always capable of making your own decisions, no matter  how many years have been tacked onto your birth certificate. The same goes for gender, don’t relinquish your dreams simply because of what your gender implies about you. Disney has even embraced the discussion of race, creating a Chinese princess and her magical dragon and an African American woman from the bayou, both of whom reach their long awaited dreams. This reinforces the idea to love yourself and realizing that skin colors aren’t important, it’s what is inside. Finding a way out of a bad situation is the final life lesson that Disney touches upon. They tell you that there is always a chance to change a bad situation, whether it be the lack of companionship, family, or funds. Disney is actually the best and only teaches its viewers, especially young children, positive messages and lessons for life.

Wait, what? I hate to break it to you but… Disney is the producer of some blatantly distasteful material. I know I know, it’s your childhood and it can’t be, gulp, bad. But don’t you fret, I’m not going to ruin or kill your childhood, only slightly disfigure it a little. You’re still going to be able to love it when you’ve finished this essay, but you’ll think twice before introducing it at dinner parties.

Let’s get down to it then shall we? The four categories we shall be using to slowly disembowel the early part of your life are: portrayal of age, how characters of different ages behave and interact and how it is presented in remainder of the film. Portrayal of gender roles, how different genders are portrayed and how they interact and the significance of their roles in the film. Portrayal of race *gasp*, the diversity of the cast, how they are portrayed and the interactions between the different races, as well as the use of common stereotypes in this case. And social classism, the portrayal of the social class of the characters and how that influences their life and decisions. Unbelievable as it is, Disney has consistently showcased examples of these four issues. And while the main focus of this post will be on princess movies, a vast majority of Disney exhibits faults. From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 to Frozen last year, another side of Walt has seeped through the screen.

AGE

To begin, I’m going to gently ease you into the familiar realm of age portrayal. Everybody knows that the Disney princesses were all young when they appear in the films, but do you know just how young they really are? We’ll go in order from youngest to oldest: Snow White is fourteen, Jasmine is fifteen, Mulan and Ariel are sixteen, Belle is seventeen, Rapunzel and Pocahontas are eighteen, and Tiana and Cinderella are the oldest Disney princesses at nineteen. Their ages don’t seem so bad until you get a look at the decisions they were making at the time. Each and everyone, with the exception of Tiana and Mulan, (except less so Mulan as at the beginning her goal was to impress a suitor in the song “You’ll Bring Honor to Us All”) had their eyes set on their prize, true love. Which seems like a huge theme in Disney: you can’t be happy until you’re settled down with moneybags and knocked up sorry, and many times your family, friends, or culture is forcing you into it.

Another thing about age: all of the princes are in fact years older than their princesses. For Instance, John Smith is twenty-seven, Pocahontas is eighteen. That is a nine year age gap, pretty substantial in my opinion. The rest of the ages are as follows from youngest to oldest: Aladdin is eighteen (as you can see, he is already older than almost all the princesses), Prince Eric is nineteen, Prince Ferdinand is twenty, Prince Phillip is twenty-one, Prince Naveen and Prince Charming are twenty-three, Prince Adam is twenty-four, Flynn Ryder is twenty-five, and again, John Smith is a whopping twenty-seven years old. In the films, many of these men are also being pressured into marriage, but only because they evaded it for so long. The men have the option to say “no, you know what? I think I’m good for now. I think I’ll stay a bachelor for a tad bit longer.”

GENDER

Gender is another category that most people have accepted as being stereotypically portrayed by Disney. The Princesses all posses small waists, remarkably beautiful faces, silky hair, and a desire for true love. The Princes exhibit broad shoulders, chins chiseled from the finest marble, and the notion that they must be the savior of all things holy, and by holy, I mean gorgeous young women. A prime example would be the Little Mermaid, and our dear friends, Ariel, Prince Eric, King Triton, and Ursula.

The Little Mermaid focuses on just that, a little mermaid Ariel. As previously mentioned, it’s hard to remember that she is only sixteen years of age, with all her gallivanting around dreaming about men and making magic deals with underwater witches. She is the proud owner of voluptuous set of hips and a scantily clad upper half showcasing an uncovered midriff and only a purple clamshell bra hiding her lovely lady lumps from the rest of the aquatic kingdom. If creating such an effect of her body wasn’t enough, Ariel comes to the realization that Prince Eric will never be able to love her in mermaid form, which leads her to Ursula in an attempt to transform into a human. Once there, She comes to the conclusion that ” if I become human, I’ll never see my father again” to which Ursula (the large, unattractive, evil octopus witch) responds “but you’ll have your prince.” Leading us to believe that finding your man is important enough to leave your friends, family, and home behind forever.

Oh, and I forgot, GIVE YOUR BLOODY VOICE AWAY TO THE EVIL SEA WITCH WHO IS TRYING TO IMPRISION YOU FOREVER. Did I neglect to mention that? Ariel gives away her voice to the behemoth Ursula to ditch her entire future for a man she has never spoken to. Which then creates a plethora of addition problems. For one, an entire musical number encouraging our dashingly oblivious Prince Eric to attempt to make out with a cute mute girl he found wearing an old sail by the ocean earlier that day. How romantic, this simply screams men can take what they want from a woman without her consent.

CLASS

Okay, this is where things start to get a little tricky. No one ever really pays attention to the social standing of animated characters, do they? Disney didn’t make it so every Princess’ (or Prince’s) dream is to escapes the confines of her rat filled, raggedy clothes, not so luxurious life, did they? You see Cinderella with a mop, Rapunzel in a tower, Aurora living in the woods. The goal of all Disney characters is to find their dream and see it come true, at any cost. This is especially realized by Tiana, who kissed a frog to have her dream.

Tiana is my second favorite princess (only because Mulan is a friggen’ badass), at the beginning of the film she’s independent, has three jobs, and knows what she wants: to open up her own restaurant in honor and memory of her father. The only problem is, she’s not at all wealthy, not even well off. When she open her drawer to replace the image of her father’s dream restaurant, we get a glimpse of her savings: a bunch of jars filled to the tee with change, most likely her life earnings of tips. Despite the lack of funds, she manages to scrounge up enough to buy her restaurant, until the two men she’s buying from tell her it’s better for “a little woman in her situation” to stay away from purchasing anything too large. So when the opportunity arises to swap spit  with a frog who 1. claims he is a prince and 2. will help her open her restuarant, does she do it? Of course! The woman was just wishing upon a star for an opportunity like this. The only way out an unfortunate life style is to make a quick wish followed by a quick kiss in hopes your dreams really do come true. Right, Walt?

RACE

Alright, last but not least, the one nobody wants to talk about, the category that is sure to impact the way you view our fondest childhood memories, race. And how Mr. Walt Disney was, in fact, A LITTLE BIT RACIST. *dun dun duuuun* There are actually an unfortunate number of racist moments in the Disney discography. The Native Americans in Peter Pan with their pipes, headdresses, and tribal throat singing. The German and Mexican dogs with thick accents left in the pound due to their foreignness in England. Or my favorite, Fantasia.

Fantasia was my mom’s favorite movie as a kid so when I could form thoughts and words she put it on for me. It’s quite wonderful all the sorcery and cherubs and musicals talent, and oh yeah, the little black centaurette that dotes upon the dashing, white centaurettes. I feel as though a verbal description will not suffice so instead I will show you.

That’s just great isn’t it? My deepest apologies, but there is absolutely no way around this, Disney had some issues.

RECAP

So there you have it folks, the disembowelment of your fondest childhood memories, in four different ways. And although only three specific movies were mentioned, almost all movies fit into almost all the categories. So next time you take time out of your day to sit down and watch a disney flic, keep your eyes peeled for the four deadly sins of media. That’s that’s that’s all folks!

Modern Slaves in Collegiate & Professional Sports

Slavery in the United States was a perpetuating system of profit from human trafficking, exhausting labor, and denial of basic human rights. During the trimester of Media Studies, my eyes have been opened to more than I’ve ever seen before. I became an active viewer. Because I became more attentive to what I see and hear, I find myself questioning and analyzing meticulously. I’m an avid sports fan; I play and I watch. This enthusiasm ranges from basketball to soccer, to American football to boxing. With that said, I watched the NFL draft in late April and startled myself because I noticed the language used to describe these athletes was a bit disturbing. Off the top of my head I can remember one commentator during the draft state, “Yeah, this boy is going to be a huge contribution to this team. Literally! I mean, this boy is like a big, dark tornado.” He was referring to the number three overall pick Dante Fowler, Jr. who happens to be a 265 pound linebacker from Florida. He is Black. I then saw pictures of him at the NFL combine and was completely baffled. The pictures had so much resemblance to pictures of slavery. I couldn’t ignore this. So I did a little research only to find out that I’m not the only one who sees modern slavery in Division I and professional sports.

Since I am on the subject of the NFL combine, I want to examine how similarly it looks with representations of slavery. To begin, the combine consists of two major events: the weigh-in and the drills. During the weigh-in, all athletes are uncovered besides the lightweight pressure pants (which happen to be Nike which I’ll discuss further). From there the slaves—I mean athletes— wait for their turn to be carefully examined, measured, poked at, and weighed. I found ridiculously similar pictures on Google images by simply typing “slave being examined”. The athletes going through the drills also grabbed my attention because I noticed that most of the athletes were Black, while the people with the clipboards and sitting down in chairs were white. It’s funny. Most, nearly all, of the men who went out to buy slaves had white skin, and the slaves they were buying had black. I then thought about the word scouting and came to the realization that slave owners and overseers had to “scout” their slaves.

Scouting is used in nearly every sport, but it is most prominent in collegiate level sports. NCAA Division I basketball programs scout players from as early as middle school, offering children scholarships and promises for the future. NCAA basketball is a form of modern slavery more than visually, but structurally in in relation to slavery in the United States. To demonstrate the inquiry of NCAA men’s basketball being a form of slavery today, you can simply look at the many Black men involved. Specifically, look at the Harrison twins. Aaron and Andrew Harrison are two Black males playing for one of the top teams in the nation. They are essentially celebrities; big enough that if they walk into a cafe the manager will shut down all entry and exiting. But since they are NCAA’s property, they have to play by all of the NCAA’s rules. This means they are amateurs. And as amateurs, they’re requirements restrict: contracts with professional teams, salary for participating athletes, playing with professionals including tryouts and scrimmages, benefitting from an agent or prospective agent, agreeing to be represented by an agent, and finally delaying initial full time enrollment to participate in organized and / or professional sport competition. The Harrison twins, along with the other slaves—Jesus, I mean athletes—of the NCAA are not able to benefit from their labors. The system that they are under, essentially the white men in power, takes away many of their rights. The numbers don’t lie. These two guards led the University of Kentucky’s basketball team to two consecutive Final Four appearances, both appearances accumulating over eight million dollars each. The two have been featured on two Sports Illustrated magazine covers; Sports Illustrated’s magazine issues have an annual revenue of 545 million dollars. During their near-perfect 2014-2015 season, the team’s revenue totaled 24 million with a team profit of 7.5 million. Get this: the twin’s signed fan merchandise even bids for as much as five hundred dollars on Ebay. And from July 2014 to April 2015, sources say that the twins have missed zero practices. What amazes me is that the head coach, John Calipari, has a yearly salary of 6.5 million dollars. 6.5 million dollars to coach a college team. Plus bonuses. It’s a lot here that can be analyzed, for one, slavery began as an economic institution. When it’s all boiled down, these DI athletes are being used. Largely to bring money to the schools, especially the big name schools like North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, Wake Forest, and many more. These athletes are receiving none of the money that they play a huge role in making. In Andrew Cline’s The NCAA’s Slaves, he states “But if [they] collect “any remuneration for value or utility that the student-athlete may have for the employer because of the publicity, reputation, fame or personal following that he or she has obtained because of athletics ability,” he would be banned from playing college basketball. So “student-athletes” may not do a commercial for the local car dealer or endorse Gatorade. That Guitar Hero: Metallica ad with NCAA coaches Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, Bobby Knight, and Coach K dancing in their boxers? Why can’t it feature 2009 Player of the Year Blake Griffin? How would allowing him to endorse a video game make his basketball playing impure?” This quote does nothing but further the argument that the student athletes are property of the NCAA. All the names mentioned in the quote are white men.

Then you may say, “Well, these athletes are being rewarded for their play with full-ride scholarships” or “Well, the athletes have a decision to pursue these careers. There are other options.” Both are valid to an extent. First off, scholarships are able to be taken away at any point of an athlete’s career. Secondly, some of the money helped accumulated by the athletes greatly exceeds the value of a scholarship. Oh, but education is most important, right? Right. The goal of a lot of these athletes is to make it to the big leagues in order to make money for what they do. Which means prematurely exiting a university. This year alone, seven of the thirteen men dropped out of Kentucky to enter the NBA draft, including the Harrison brothers. All seven are young Black men. In fact, eleven of the thirteen players on Kentucky’s roster this year were Black. So yes, it is correct that all athletes have the choice to be athletes in college or not. But for many, typically low-income Blacks, this is one of the very few, limited, and attainable paths that can lead to a better life. Although a much broader topic, it is true to say that the only way college is affordable and realistic for some people is if they are receiving scholarships for sports. Oh and because these guys are going to go pro does not mean that they are free of the oppression and control.

Seventy-seven percent of the players in the National Basketball Association are Black. Two percent of the NBA team owners are Black. It’s Michael Jordan, he’s the two percent. Suggesting that the NBA has traits of modern slavery is easy because they are so evident. The fact that more than three-fourths of a business owned by white men is Black serves as a hint. With that said, the entire Donald Sterling incident does nothing but further elaborate this topic. Here you have a white owner making his ridiculous amount of money from the work of a basketball team. Only two white guys on this team, and of course the half-white fellow who identifies himself as a Black man. The rest of the slaves—I mean stars—make up this white owned team. The incident was basically Sterling using racial slurs to refer to his players and other nonsense involving a past player Magic Johnson, who also happens to be Black. Profit from human labor? Check. Exhausting human labor? Check. Racial discrimination? Check.

“No matter how much money Blacks make in the NBA as “workers,” they won’t be a “land owner” or permitted to build or invest in wealth they can pass down to their children. While Black ownership would be easy, don’t get excited about somebody Black buying the team. The majority of the power still rests with Whites and a single Black owner doesn’t change an institution,” said Charlene Muhammad in her article Sports, Black Athletes & Modern Slavery.

In a hypocritical conclusion, there is no way that Black athletes can ever be compared to the hardships that slaves endured in the past. These notions are simply observations, and essentially, the correct wording could be that collegiate level and professional level sports that contain predominantly Black players mirrors some aspects of slavery. There are only characteristics that are similar. At the end of the day, the college student-athletes are receiving a lot in return. And professional athletes receive more than enough for their labors. Slaves got nothing. Athletes can stop at any time because they have the right; they are able to. Slaves never had the choice to be slaves.

What it means to be a man

Everyone wants to find themselves, to have some kind of identity that makes them part of something universal.  One category of our constructed society is gender, male or female (yes there are people who identify themselves as other but everyone is born either male or female). Men are trying to figure out how they fit into society. They are getting messages from the media and despite their conscious awareness of these messages, on a subconscious level, their sense of self is still affected. As a man struggles to define himself, the media overwhelms him with contradictory and unrealistic models.  Didn’t you know men are supposed to suppress their emotions and feelings, and be a strong, athletic, tall, protective provider?  That they are gross, dirty pigs, stupid assholes, independent, macho, violent, dominant, powerful people who are better than women?

In order to gain some perspective on the topic I interviewed my peers and teachers hoping for some more insight. The first question I asked was What is the ideal man according to the media? The answers I got were pretty much the same whether the interview was old, young, male or female. The ideal physical appearance of a man is white but not pale, athletic, good looking, handsome, strong, muscular, tall, ripped and their ideal characteristics would be cool under pressure, the hero, gets along with everyone, satisfies women’s needs as well as his own, unconsciously tries to get the girl, money, and be successful. More words came up but those were the answers that came up the most. I didn’t find these answers very surprising. We are all exposed to the media’s unrealistic representation of how men should look and act.

The next question I asked was What is the kind of man you personally find attractive or idealize? I found everyone had their own opinion, which again was not surprising. Everyone has their own perception of people they find attractive, no matter how influenced these opinions are from the media or other people.  Some people like shorter guys, which goes against the tall guy represented in the media. Some people do like tall, which just happens to be the height the media says is the best. But then there are also people who like men average height. Some people like dark instead of blond hair. Some people prefer men of color versus white men. Some people want men who are genuine and understand not a douche. Some people want adventurous men. Men who are not afraid to make a fool of himself or not afraid to be emotional. There was  a range of what people’s preferences were.  Although I wonder if the answers I found would have been the same as if I had asked this question and the previous one separately. Did they just say what they thought I would want to hear? Did they subconsciously try to answer the question with contrast to what they thought the media told them?  Perhaps people were worried and ashamed to agree with the stereotypical interpretation of what it means to be a man.

Is your ideal man different from how the media depicts men? The majority people thought their personal taste and the people they idealized were different than the way media portrays the perfect man. But some did correlate with what they previously said was the media’s depiction of the ideal man. One of my favorite quotes from my interviews was, “yes, I don’t like the stereotypical hot guy, abs are scary.” To those men reading this who don’t have hot, defined abs, don’t you worry. There is hope you will find someone.  Something the media fails to tell men is that even if you do not have every physical and emotional characteristic the media tells you to have, you are in no way a failure. The media starts to push pressure on men but then the ball just keeps rolling. Eventually the men don’t have to consciously think about how they are not good enough they just believe they aren’t. This is awful.

On the upside everyone I interviewed consciously disagreed with the way men are represented in the media. For example “No [I do not agree with the way the media represents men], but it’s entertaining to see fictional performances, [media is] fun to watch but impossible to live.” Yet in the end it is not simple fun and games but actually harmful to men. Even if you consciously know “[Ideal] guys don’t spontaneously occur, it’s stupid to make that requirement”,but we do anyway.  Women expect men the way the media portrays them. Men know this and try to live up to their standards.

Everybody I interviewed seemed really consciously aware of the media and believed they were not affected or less affected than they really are.  Even though Putney people may be more aware than most people in the world outside our Putney bubble; no one is immune to media’s influence. Although we are consciously aware of the media’s corruption on society we still subconsciously find ourselves trying to make ourselves better. Why is the media’s influence so strong on the way we see ourselves? The media mirrors our society’s cultural values; whether or not we want to believe it, we feed into the roles we think society wants us to be in. I think we need to communicate more with men. Men are too dependent on the media for how to think and act. That is not their fault but they should just know there are many kinds of men. One does not have to be a perfect replica of the media’s ideal man to be liked.

To find a range of stereotypical roles guys play in the media, I decided to study how guys were depicted in the movie 10 things I hate about you. First off we have Patrick as the typical “bad boy” character who is attractive, cocky, badass, mysterious, attractive, intimidating, with an I don’t care attitude. He’s strong and independent until he is paid to take out this girl. He embodies the “hero,” so when the girl is drunk he helps her. He ends up falling in love with her. Patrick has a hard shell but he’s soft inside. He is not as badass as he is perceived to be. Common isn’t the perfect man? What girl doesn’t want a bad boy who turns sweet just for them and helps them when it is needed? Perhaps the purpose of the bad boy in the movie is to make fun of  the role of the bad boy but at the same time still promotes this stereotype.

There is also the cute romantic geeky guy, Cameron, who is more in touch with his feminine side and shows when he is hurt, unlike the bad boy. He is adorable, romantic, has a cute smile, looks nerdy, optimist, innocent, and vulnerable. Cameron  likes Bianca the second he sees her, he tries hard to act cool in an attempt to get the girl but is really nervous. He also attempts to tutor her in french not because he knows the language but because he wants to send time with her.

Then lastly there is the popular douche bag, Joey who is white, good looking, fit, has good hair as well as a  fancy watch and car. He is misogynistic, self involved, talks back, is rich, uses money to get what he wants, flaunts money. He cares deeply about appearance and just happens to be a model. Joey is embarrassed when he loses his manliness when hit and kneed in the balls by Bianca after trying to start a fight with cameron because he took Joey’s date. Joey’s only motivation to get with Bianca is  to have sex with her. Luckily karma gets him and he ends up with a black eye and no girl.

This movie reinforces certain relationships between women and men. The  women wanting the bad boy with a heart, not really interested in the nerdy kid but ends up with anyway because he is cute and has a heart unlike the popular douchebag with no heart whom in the end no one wants to be with. The media points out how to be a man, especially in relation to women. Let’s be real (in a heteronormative way). All the guys secretly want the girl no matter how “manly” they are. They are taught to put on an act for women because that is what the media teaches men that is what women want. It is harmful to both men and women. Men look at the media for how to look and act in order to get the girl. They think the media shows a realistic interpretation of what women look for in men. And if they don’t look that certain way then that hurts their confidence and lowers their self esteem. They blame themselves instead of the constructed society that worships the media.

It is time we all have a reality check because it is basically impossible to find a  man that can check off every box the media created. The majority of people are normal people that can check off a few boxes. Then there is the people who push the boundaries of gender; the more feminine man or tomboy girl with 5 brothers and mostly guy friends, the man who is not super fit and more in touch with his emotions and there are transgender people. The media says the men who push these boundaries in some way are less manly, which is ridiculous.

One can possess qualities that the media shows as right in order to be a man but in no way does that define a man. There are so many qualities and characteristics that can make a man. How does the media define an undefined thing?  A simple definition is impossible so the media just force feeds us something so our society has some kind of structure.

In the video What boys aren’t telling you, Rosalind Wilson interviews guys in high school talking about being heartbroken by breakups and other pressures of not feeling free to talk about their feelings.  This just goes to show you men have feelings too even if they are suppressed and come up in being more violent like the media has kindly taught them. I know it’s crazy, guys have feelings too. Who knew? But seriously I have learned guys are more complex than people and the media believe. We need to let men feel how they feel because that makes them more manly, not less.

 

When Will Their Reflection Show? Disney Princesses and Gender

The Disney Princesses have become a classic of childhood fantasy and entertainment. The iconic characters, their dresses and songs have become as common in culture today as if they were true movie stars. This is due not only to good marketing, movie releases that span generations and legend, but also to the fantastic power of the Disney franchise. It is nearly impossible to escape it, every child is exposed to it at some point. The Disney Princesses are their own subsidiary of the Disney world, with their own movies and stores. They are just as much a business as they are dream big sisters to thousands of little girls. What many fail to realize, or admit, about their romantic childhood idols is that, though the princesses themselves are not at fault, the Princesses (capital P) both have their own impact on childhood and are a reflection of the culture that continues to create them. Princesses feed the pink that has come to define girlhood, but has girlhood begun to mean princess? The Disney Princesses are a business that shield the fact that the princesses themselves are a reflection of what we tell our children about being a woman: that beauty is your key to a happy ending. This is not just a result of the imagination of Disney’s film makers but more so a product of our culture’s unconscious views towards women.

 

The Disney Princesses in Popular Culture:

The Disney Princesses are known in popular culture for their movies, songs and large young fan base of devoted little girls. These sparkly romantic fairy tale characters captivate young audiences and draw in nostalgic older ones. The term Disney Princess has even come to have its own meaning. Disney Princesses aren’t like other princesses. The Princesses are officially crowned and are included in a special club. Their version of their story has begun to become the original one, the one from which new spin offs will come. What makes the Princesses so appealing? Is it their catchy songs, pretty gowns or handsome male counterparts? Is the allure of being a princess enough? In either case, it is safe to say that little girls have and will continue to idolize their royal role models, donning blue dresses, singing memorized lyrics before they can read and dreaming of their fairy tale ending.

Image of Princesses

The Disney Princesses as of 2014, from left: Jasmine, Rapunzel, Snow White, Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Pocahontas, Tiana, Belle, Ariel and Merida)

What was the origin and evolution of these Princesses?

Where does the massive craze come from? After all, the Disney Princesses were originally individual characters from separate movies, unaffiliated in any way. However, as more princesses came to life they went straight to the hearts of more little girls, and Disney was not going to miss out on the opportunity. By 2000 Disney had eight individual princess movies, but their latest film, “Mulan”, hadn’t provided them with as much of an opportunity for income as they had expected. Their new marketing director was struck with inspiration when he went to the first ever “Disney on Ice” show. It was there that he saw hundreds of little girls all in princess dresses. All these dresses were generic and all bought from someplace that was not Disney and all converted to look like one of the iconic princess gowns. He watched as these devoted little Auroras, Belles and Cinderellas crowded in, and realized what an opportunity Disney was missing.

Therefore, in 2000 the princesses were packaged under one title, The Disney Princesses. To insure that they were kept in their own mysteriously unrelated worlds, images containing all eight (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, Ariel, Pocahontas and Mulan) had them all staring slightly off, never seeing one another. Disney capitalized on the creativity, and in doing so simultaneously validated the “accuracy” of the gowns and limited the imagination of the wearer. It wasn’t just gowns, however; all the marketing staff had to do was ask “What kind of ____ would a princess wear/use?” Through sales of everything from bedding to toothbrushes to snacks, sales were up $300 million between 2003-2006. More recently, Disney Princesses topped the list of best selling entertainment products, at $3 billion globally in 2012. All from little girls’ natural desire to be, as their marketing director described it in 2006, “projecting themselves into the character from classic movies.” (Orenstein, Goudreau)

This instant franchise has a massive, and very impressionable, young audience. Though many products of our childhood are backed by marketing, not all of them talk to us, or wear pretty dresses. Princesses are the strong female lead in the movie of a little girl. What, therefore, are the royal role models teaching our children (especially girls)? It is a question that has been asked since the very beginning of their creation. The movies and characters have evolved in response to the creator’s desire (especially for the first three) and then in response to the critique of the media. Each attack parallels a similar new age of feminism.

The first wave of “feminist attacks” came after the release of the first three movies (Snow White 1937, Cinderella 1950, and Sleeping Beauty 1959, movies made of Walt’s imaginings) during the 60’s and 70’s when activism became prominent (Hanes). Disney’s Princess movies were accused of showing women to be too classically submissive, fulfilling the image of patient housewife, who does all that is asked of her and is rewarded with a man. Disney listened, and the next time they made a series of Princess movies they were sure to change it up.

Ariel (The Little Mermaid 1989), Belle (Beauty and the Beast 1991) and Jasmine (Aladdin 1992) are all decidedly different rule breakers and explorers, though they do all end up with their prince. They also parallel the 1980’s, which was an era of embracing age, sexuality and female independence. The movies therefore “resurrected romance feminism threatened,” and recalled innocence. This is especially true for the 1990’s when feminism was almost more anti-feminism, as women openly embraced objectification and sexuality (Orenstein). Oddly enough, the next two movies addressed a different issue, Princesses were too white. Mulan (1998), Pocahontas (1995) and The Princess and the Frog (2009) all featured “Princesses” with different ethnicities. Still, these movies depicted women who got their happily ever after from a man. Frozen (2013) was the first movie to showcase not only a princeless heroine, but also a queen. Queen Elsa and her hit song “Let it go” became idols for little girls, and the highest grossing animated film (Stedman). Looking at Elsa it’s easy, and partially correct, to think the Princesses have come a long way. Certainly the themes of their feature films have. However, though the movies have changed the Princesses themselves remain undeniably similar.

(Looking at the posters for the movies, the Princesses and their Prince is a continuous and key feature).

What makes the potential Princesses?

What actually composes the princesses themselves, not their stories? The first three princesses (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella) all demonstrate one characteristic of princess: patience. They all wait for things to happen to them, patient and content in their situation, until they meet their prince, and then they are only content untill he comes for them, rewarding them for the patient struggle.

Not only are the princesses patient, but they also manifest, and exist in, confinement. Even Belle and Ariel (whose stories were intended to show women breaking the rules) are still initially confined by what others think of them and struggle against it throughout the movie. Jasmine, while she does explore outside the palace walls, is more content to be taken out of her confinement by a prince, who sings a whole song about being able to do that for her. Cinderella and Rapunzel also are confined physically. However, the true confinement the princesses experience is better seen in Tiana. The Princesses are women too, and when placed in real world situations (such as early 20th century New Orleans), they are thrown into the same confining social norms women experience. Tiana cannot realize her dream and struggles because of her gender in a world controlled by men of another race. In the end, the world of the princesses are opened, usually by their benevolent prince, and they are lifted, or returned, to their royal world somewhat liberated.

With confinement comes submission, the princesses always end up deferring to a prince (is this why Elsa is a Queen and not a Princess?). The Princesses submit themselves to the allure of handsome animated Princes (who can blame them?), and is it so wrong to submit yourself to allure of love? Perhaps not, but usually these Princes are not only love interests, but also an escape route. Being with a Prince means you can become a Princesses, it comes with a dashing rescue and a happily ever after. Princesses are faced with the choice to submit to their Princes, or to their situation. There is rarely the opportunity for them to make their own choice and direct their life.

The final and most obvious characteristic of a Princesses is beauty. All of the Princesses are, simply put, aesthetically pleasing. They are small waisted, big eyed, smooth skinned, have perfect nails, perfect hair, perfect lips, face and body (one could, and should ask, who deems this perfect, or who started deeming it perfect, and what message does being sexy send our young men?) Sexual dimorphism is relied upon by the filmmakers, which produces images that are not only unrealistic (Anna’s eyes are twice the size of her wrists), but also sends a much more threatening message to young children, especially girls (Cohen, Hanes). Because though the Princesses have changed and adapted to become more modern, stronger female characters, beauty, above all, remains. Even Queen Elsa  walks her sexy walk in her angsty “I don’t care” song, her body, like all Princesses, remains an attraction (see image bellow). This perpetuation leads to a sad and dangerous conclusion for any little girl who watches a movie more than once: to be a Princess I have to look like one. To be a Princess, I have to pretty. And for a six year old, Princesses might as well be CEO. The message therefore is: to succeed, you must be pretty (the standard of pretty only a Princess can make).

This rule is reinforced by the other characters in the Princess movies. The evil queens, for example, are the only female queens with major roles (the queen from Brave turns into a bear less then half way through, and as aforementioned, Elsa is a first and supports this rule with her oun appeal). They maintain their beauty, but when they are performing their evil tasks become ugly and old. Another example is that of Mother Gothel (the mother in Tangled). This woman uses the magic of a golder flower to maintain her youthful appearance, and in order to continuing doing so kidnaps and raises Rapunzel. She clings to her beauty and her age, allowing her longer life, perhaps in an attempt to secure her own happy ending. However, when she loses her youth and beauty she loses all chance of her own happily ever after and dies. Cling to your youth ladies, it flies by!

Elsa singing Let It Go

Mother Gothel from Tangeld

This is all a phase. We grow out of Princesses, don’t we?

We all have a moment when we stop believing that Peter Pan will come, that our sister is evil and Prince Charming will rescue us, or that putting on the clothes can make you the character. Certainly, we all grow out of childhood and it’s fun and games at some point. The effects of “Toxic Princess Culture”-TPC- (a culture I have not described in its entirety, but consists of lots of pampered princess places and pink palaces of playful pastime, not just the movies and their characters), manifests itself long after we’ve grown out of the tiara (Darley). Princesses (with the exception of Mulan) are not showing that pink can kick butt but that pink is the color of the gown you will wear once Prince Charming has saved you and carried you home.

There comes a point (probably the point Princesses cease to be real) that you stop being pretty and you start putting on pretty. It starts young. 50% of three to six year olds worry that they are too fat, 25% of girls 11-17 don’t play sports because they don’t think they look good doing it (read, guys might like them less if they did), one fourth of girls 14-17 years old sent naked photos in 2009 and in 2003 $1.6 million was spent on thong underwear for girls between the ages of 7 and 12. You cannot escape the TPC, even if you were one of the 57% of kids without a TV in their bedroom in 2003, Princesses are in schools, at the grocery and on the radio (Hanes). If your kid doesn’t know who they are, odds are he/she won’t have to make more than one friend to find out. Children are exposed to this so young that preschool age children “equate maleness to opportunity and and femininity with constraint” (Orenstein). This is feeding and raising a culture in which girls go from pretty pink to hot pink. It’s defining what it means to be and how to act as a woman from a very young age.

 

Club Libby Lu is one example of Princess Culture

What was once pretty pink turns into hot pink, just as costumes become sexuliazed for adults.

Who cares, why can’t girls just stop liking Princesses?

It’s not just about Princesses, but also about girls and how they define themselves as women, or better yet, how they are told to define themselves as women. We teach our girls to value their beauty above their capacity in math, to seek out the cosmetic aisle before the snacks and to value suitors over suits. To succeed you either need a man or to be sexy, and you can almost buy both. In the end, this all comes back to business, and the man watching wondering, “what are we missing out on here?” As Stephanie Hanes said, “Sexy is not about sex, but about shopping.” If sexy needs merchandise, and you need sexy, then it benifits the money makers for girls to need to be sexy. Even beauty has become a commodity, and like money, it is either something you are born with and must maintain or must fight for for the rest of your life.

Why are we still watching them then?

We can’t seem to let go of the romance, innocence, catchy songs, pretty dresses, villians and climactic kisses of Disneys movies. Disney populates the internet, drawing kids, teens and adults alike. Disney itself doesn’t sponsor all of the media either. Places like BuzzFeed or the Huffington Post have links such as “Disney Princesses with Realistic Waistlines” or “What your favorite disney princess says about your zodiac” or “Historically Accurate Disney Princesses.” Why do we click? It seems anything with “your disney princesses” in the title is guaranteed to garner mass attention. Clearly we know the movies are not entirely realistic; however, we are drawn to them, in all their forms. Why? For the same reason we revisit anything from our childhood. The Disney Princesses still feed a nostalgia. After all, isn’t that what fairy tales are for? To bring us back to a time when it was all entirely possible and it ended with “they all lived happily ever after.”

Cohen, Philip. “The Trouble with Disney’s Teeny Princesses: Disney’s Depiction of Male and Female Bodies Is Terrible for Us.” Time. Time. Web. 23 May 2015. http://time.com/3667700/frozen-brave-disney-princesses-heroes-and-sexism/.

 

Darley, Mical. “The Princess’s New Clothes.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Sept. 2014. Web. 23 May 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mical-darley/the-princesss-new-clothes_b_5788300.html.

 

Hanes, Stephanie. “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect.” The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor. Web. 23 May 2015. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0924/Little-girls-or-little-women-The-Disney-princess-effect.

 

Goudreau, Jenna. “Disney Princess Tops List Of The 20 Best-Selling Entertainment Products.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 17 Sept. 2012. Web. 26 May 2015. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/09/17/disney-princess-tops-list-of-the-20-best-selling-entertainment-products/.

 

Orenstein, Peggy. “What’s Wrong With Cinderella?” The New York Times. The New York Times, 23 Dec. 2006. Web. 22 May 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24princess.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

 

Orenstein, Peggy. Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-esteem, and the Confidence Gap. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Print.

 

Stedman, Alex. “‘Frozen’ Becomes the Highest-Grossing Animated Film Ever.” Variety. 30 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 May 2015. http://variety.com/2014/film/news/frozen-becomes-the-highest-grossing-animated-film-ever-1201150128/.

Images retrieved from Google.

Gran Torino

This essay is about Gran Torino, a movie by Clint Eastwood. It portrays all of the different themes that we covered in the class, Race, Gender, Age and Social Class.

When you look at the cast in this movie you see that it’s very diverse and without watching the movie you can see that it has characters of different ages, gender and races but when you watch the movie you find that it is also diverse in social class.

Walt Kowalski is a widower, a very stubborn, grumpy, unhappy old man who can’t get along with either his kids or his neighbor. He holds on to his past despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. He is often haunted by his past of when he killed a korean boy who had been trying to surrender him during Korean War. He owns a Gran Torino that he practically build. When his neighbor Thao, a young Hmong (are Americans of ethnic Lao Hmong descent from the Kingdom of Laos.) teenager is pressured his gang member cousin to steal his Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. ‘Drawn against his will into the life of Thao’s family, Kowalski is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood.’

In one of the scenes in the movie, it perpetuates stereotypes about how black people living in poor neighborhood act. How they stay on the streets and bully whatever that moves, especially white people. For example; Sue Lor and her white date walks into the black territory and they corner her and her date and starts to harass them. This scene gives us the idea that black people are bullies and are someone to be afraid of, someone to be avoided on the side-walk.

Through out the movie, Walt Kowalski is the only white person living in this neighborhood which proves redlining and also the only reason why Walt Kowalski lives there is because he clings to his past and also he is retired and doesn’t have a job or a better house to move into. Even in the movie they mention that white people started  moving out when minorities moved in. We see a lot of culture difference in the movie. Very often the Hmong families have festivals and rituals, they wear traditional clothes, dance on their song and eat their food. They are not ashamed of showing their culture and who they are because the whole neighborhood is diverse. In the movie they show scenes of how the different culture retreat the elderly; Walt Kowalski’s kid wants to send him to a retirement home or cast him away whereas the Hmong family still lives with their grandparents and they are still very vital to them.

Despite the fact that this neighborhood is now heavily inhabited by minorities, the one white person who lives there and is also a minority happens to be the only one who have a decent house. And there’s always a gang among the minorities. In this case the members of the gang are Hmong which just portrays that in a crappy neighborhood the trouble always finds its ways.

Age is a really big factor in this movie. They portray how a person acts depending on their age. For example; Walt Kowalski, since he was born in the 80’s he grew up in a racist time which makes it okay for him to be one.  Walt Kowalski is very racist, he doesn’t care about what people would think about him or what he say would hurt someone.

Ashley Kowalski also shows a perfect example of  a typical teenager in the movie. She has her belly button pierced and  wears crop tops and skirts for her grandma’s funeral. She smokes and complains about being with her grandfather. In one of the scene she even asks Walt who would get his Gran Torino after he dies. And when he actually does, she’s more upset about not getting the car than losing her grandfather. Where as Sue Lor is exactly the opposite. Thao’s older sister, the first of Walt Kowalski’s Hmong neighbors to befriend him. She has a streetwise, witty personality and a strong, independent spirit; She teaches Walt about the Hmong people’s history and struggles in American culture. She easily gets along with Walt despite his grumpiness and racist comments; like one time she asks him to join her for barbeques and he say’s “ Sure but keep your hands away from my dog ”  She takes it has a joke.  In the movie it also seems like she is really into reading or studying because she is always with a book.These differences between Ashley and Sue just tells us that how different a High class white girl is from a low-class asian, a person with different race.

In this movie all the Men are portrayed as strong and dominant except for tao. And the fact that he works at home and listens to what his sister and mom tells him to do, he’s being criticized and punished for it. The Hmong gang, forces him to join them and tells him to be the man of the house.

As you can see from my presentation, Gran Torino is a movie filled with stereotypes and many underlying racist and sexist themes. Although most of you have watched this movie but at that time really didn’t register all these meanings but the movie is so much more meaningful when you go deeper into it. This movie is filled with racial stereotypes but there are also some exceptions, like how Thao is not the man of the family but instead he does household works and listen to what his sister asks him to do, and Sue, she is really friendly and open and the first person to be friend him despite his racist comments and Walt Kowalski himself being White lives in a very diverse neighborhood, helps them and even gives up his life to save theirs.

Just A Song?

What is it about ideas to music that makes it so much more effective. Think of all of the tunes and jingles in our lives that we listen to in advertisements. In advertisements, for Mcdonald’s their is “Ba ba ba I’m lovin it”, even for political campaigns songs are used, like the classic “I like Ike”.  These slogans in form of song are being enough when just being used to get use to buy a product. But when we as a society accept songs tunes, and jingles to teach our children I believe we are doing a disservice to future generations. The 1970’s School House Rock series are still considered one of the most popular education videos ever made. In School House Rock usefull information about money history math and grammar are put into easy to remember fun sounding songs. But the downside to this type of education is the simplification that a two minute video creates around a real issue especially american history. The complexity and nuance of any historical event is broken down into bit sized patriotic packages without any regard for the what is being lost in the story. I believe that there are four songs encapsulate this misconstruction of american history are, Elbow Room, The Great American Melting Pot, and, I’m Just a Bill.

In School House Rock “Elbow Room” is a song that explains to children about American Expansionism. The song starts off with a positive message of the need to give people space. “One thing you will discover when you get next to one another Is everybody needs some elbow room, elbow room.” I think that we can all agree that it is important for every country to have enough space for all of their citizens to live comfortably but then the song uses this need for “elbow room” to justify the continued settling of the rest of the Continent past the thirteen colonies.

The song continues to explain how Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Pursues from Napoleon Bonaparte and to quote the song, “And so, in 1803 the Louisiana Territory was sold to us without a fuss and gave us lots of elbow room.” The idea that Louisiana Territory, land that was already inhabited by humans for centuries, was able to be sold by a nation that was half way around the world is a colonial act the Americans try not to associate with. Americans like to tell ourselves that we are better than the old colonial powers of Europe because we never colonized foreign lands. This is a story that has been cooked up by our media despite the fact the purchasing of land is practically the same thing as colonizing the land ourselves. Also the idea that we got the land “without a fuss” is an absurd statement when one thinks of the constant conflict between Native Americans and the United States in the nineteenth century. The message of this part of the song is that we were able to acquire land with no cost to any natives peoples and everything worked out swimmingly.

Latter in the song when it goes into the conquering of the west with the lines, “There were plenty of fights to win land rights, but the West was meant to be; it was our Manifest Destiny!” Manifest Destiny from the eighteen hundreds used in the United States to tell the american people that they not only could, but were destined to, stretch from coast to coast. This song implies that there was no way to stop the United States from expanding to the pacific ocean because it was meant to be, this ignores the coast in humans and cultural that were destroyed in this frenzied march west.

Finally the song ends on what I believe is an ominous note.” But if there should ever come a time when we’re crowded up together, I’m sure we’ll find some elbow room. To start off, the United states is ranked 183 in most densely populated nations, If each american were spaced out equally around the country they would each have 334,540 square feet of space. Those are some pretty big elbows if that is not enough room. But the implication that we would “find some elbow room” would suggest that we might have to invade a neighboring nation because you know how claustrophobic Americans are.

The next song I will analyze is “The Great American Melting Pot”. This song is used to encapsulate the american experience from a child of immigrants point of view. The idea of an American Melting Pot is one that has been reiterated for generations, It is a story that has been cultivated by the media so much so that the idea of assimilation is now  synonymous with America. The song starts off by with the story of two immigrants one from russia and the other from italy, “They’d heard about a country, Where life might let them win, They paid the fare to America, And there they melted in.” This assumes that for one all immigrants who have come to this nation willingly so this song discounts the estimated ten million Africans who came to the Americas as slaves. Also the idea that once you come off the boat and get on American soil you immediately “melt in” is just flat out wrong. You can look at almost any immigrant group; whether it be the Irish who faced mass discrimination by a Protestant dominated culture, or Asians who were deported from this country with the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act.  Even today anti immigrant sentiments are rampant in the United States especially towards hispanics and latinos.

Another line in the song that plays up the inclusivity that America claims to have is, “You simply melt right in, It doesn’t matter what your skin, It doesn’t matter where you’re from, Or your religion, you jump right in.” This statement is such a misconception, I do not believe I have have space in my google drive to document all the times that a person’s skin collar, heritage, or religion has impacted their social status in this country. It is obvious by all conceivable measurements that being caucasian has an enormous amount of baked in advantages in our country. According to a Social Security Administration study, immigrants from Germany and Canada earn on average three times more than immigrants from Mexico and China. When it comes to America being open to all religions I will concede that America as a whole is a quite accepting of different religions, but even so  there has been a recent anti islamic current in the United States. Just a few years ago there was a giant (yet short lived) controversy about an islamic community center being demonized as the Ground Zero Mosque. “The Great American Melting Pot” is a used to paint a picture of America as an inclusive nation despite the long history anti immigrant sentiments that has been a core of American society for a long time.

Probably the most famous song from the School House Rock series is “I’m Just a bill”. This song is still used to teach students about how a bill becomes a law. If you are to believe a song at face value, the prospect a bill becoming a law is very similar to how the media constructs the American Dream. “But I know I will be a law someday, oh yes I hope and pray that I will but today I am still just a bill.” Almost no meaningful legislation has ever passed congress on a hope and a prayer, but nonetheless this determined bill believes that one day he will be a law. What this song fails to address is how lobbyist, special interest, riders, earmarks, and cloture motions, will pick apart this bill to a point where it is barely recognizable. An example of a misleading lyric was “Well, now I’m stuck in committee, and I’ll sit here and wait, while a few key congressmen discuss and debate.” This may have true in the past, but more recently all of the power to bring or stop bills from getting to the house floor has been given to the Majority Leader. Recently when an immigration bill was sent to the house by the senate it was stalled from getting to the floor, not because it did not have the votes to pass, but because one man, Eric Cantor, decided that he did not want a vote on the bill. In response to this action, the president bypassed congress to give five million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship by fiat. This is a far cry from the professed idealism of our legislative system of government.
Some people might believe that there is no negative repercussions to teaching our children about the america we want to have rather than the america that actually exist. But this leaves out the nuance and negative truths that are important to teach every generation about. It is easy to keep lying to ourselves and just believe the positive narrative that the media tells us, but to fix the ailments plaguing this nation we can not shirk away from our less than pristine history.

Media Politics

I can’t help but notice that, in large part, much of political reporting worryingly resembles an incoherent reality TV show with each network trying to push their own storylines. The political right incessantly complains of the liberal media, while the political left uses Fox News in particular as the go-to joke, intermittently finding individuals on the right side to ridicule (see: Sarah Palin). I found it near impossible to limit myself to one specific sub-topic once I began researching for this project. My main goal is to present the information I’ve found with an attempt to make sense of it in hopes that the audience may become as interested as I have.

First, let’s consider this “liberal media” problem. With so much party bias in the major news organizations, both sides of the aisle seem to be convinced that the other side is some sort of hegemonic beast  that must be conquered in the name of justice and all which is good. Take a look at two separate organizations which share a common goal of standing as “watchdogs” of the media: the Media Research Center and Media Matters For America. I find myself rather skeptical of the supposed research carried out by each organization. The MRC tends to focus on networks like NBC, CBS and ABC. At the time of my visits to their site, I found mainly articles about ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who donated a large sum to the Clinton foundation. If the articles don’t make it obvious where the MRC’s bias lies, they spell it out rather plainly in a side-bar touting a “Don’t Believe the Liberal Media” bumper sticker and urging readers to “Stop the Obama/Media War on Faith”. Meanwhile, Media Matters focuses entirely on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and occasionally the NRA et cetera. They spell out their position more plainly in the “About” section of the “Take Action” page with the description: “Every day, Media Matters for America meticulously documents conservative misinformation in the media. Be it right-wing talking points masquerading as news, or slanted and inaccurate coverage of the issues, we’ve been there, and we’ve let you know about it.” Both sites are brimming with articles about biases in different news organizations, though I would recommend taking any information with a grain of salt. As much as both sides are convinced, I see no evidence of an overall bias towards one party.

One organization, the Columbia Journalism Review, refrains from aligning with any particular political view, especially in the case of parties. One particular bias the CJR draws attention to piques my interest much more than the left/right argument: bias towards those in power. Writing for the CJR, two resident fellows with Yale Law School’s Information Society Project analyzed articles about the NSA’s surveillance programs from four of the most-circulated newspapers. Through searching for the 30 most common pro- and anti- surveillance terms with controls, the four newspapers were found to use pro-NSA terms 36, 24, 14.1 and 11.1 percent more often than anti-NSA terms. This is particularly notable because it does not reflect public opinion; according to the authors, in an “Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 54 percent of respondents disagreed with dragnet collection of internet metadata and 71 percent disagreed with warrantless monitoring of US phone calls.” Further back, in 2009, CJR writer Dean Starkman analyzed financial reporting through the 2000s, concluding that “the business press did everything but take on the institutions that brought down the financial system.” Particularly, he found that news media ran plenty of stories on Wall Street malpractice from 2000 through 2003, after which any warning stories were far spaced and placed away from front pages until 2007 when it was too late. Rather often, journalists would simply relay PR statements rather than taking the time to look further. As Starkman reminds the reader, “it is far easier for news bureaucracies to accept ever-narrowing frames of discourse, frames forcefully pushed by industry, even if those frames marginalize and eventually exclude the business press’s own great investigative traditions.”

In a similar vein, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting performed a three-week study at the beginning of the Iraq War to determine whether cable news sources displayed any bias through their source selection. Sources were only declared pro-war if they had openly stated so or were closely affiliated with an explicitly pro-war group, and likewise for anti-war sources. In one section of their findings, FAIR noted that “nearly two thirds of all sources, 64 percent, were pro-war, while 71 percent of U.S. guests favored the war. Anti-war voices were 10 percent of all sources, but just 6 percent of non-Iraqi sources and 3 percent of U.S. sources. Thus viewers were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1.” Seeing as major news media are largely responsible for both distributing information and shaping how people interpret it, this severely unbalanced representation is certainly not negligible. FAIR elaborates further: “While the percentage of Americans opposing the war was about 10 times higher in the real world as they were on the nightly news (27 percent versus 3 percent), their proportion of the guestlist may still overstate the degree to which they were able to present their views on U.S. television. Guests with anti-war viewpoints were almost universally allowed one-sentence soundbites taken from interviews conducted on the street. Not a single show in the study conducted a sit-down interview with a person identified as being against the war.” The FAIR study speaks for itself, yet in conjunction with the two studies from the CJR, we can see a pretty strong indication of a broader pattern of power bias across media sources. From television to magazines, online publications, and newspapers, there is a demonstrable bias towards those who hold power.

Along with this power bias comes the mystery of why certain issues become incessant national arguments. By placing so much stress on things like abortion, are we entirely missing important issues which play out in the background? When I first visited the MRC site, the entire “culture” section was devoted to articles on abortion. Mike Lofgren, who worked in Congress for 28 years, reports that abortion amendments are routinely inserted into unrelated legislation such as defence bills. Even if we aren’t completely missing something, the usual talking points seem to detract from other conversations we should probably be having more. I would be willing to wager that over-talked issues present a prime opportunity to polarize voters with parties. If voter loyalty can be won by simply making a lot of noise over some specific issue or two, why bother spending time to cover less exciting but impactful legislative decisions?

The talking points may seem to cover pressing issues. Take health care as an example. Health care policy affects millions of Americans and their well being, and it certainly gets a lot of media attention. However, pundits gravitate towards generic claims about the Affordable Care Act. Much of the attitude surrounding the act seems to be in the style of “for it or against it”, and those on the political right seem to be in the business of turning people against it. Thus, pundits and most of the population have taken to calling the Affordable Care Act simply Obamacare. One doesn’t even need to cite an excerpt from the law to polarize opinions about it: support for or against the Affordable Care Act lies upon whether an individual likes Obama or not.

An American Press Institute study on the effectiveness of fact-checking organizations presents worrying data reflective of the state of public political knowledge when it comes to fact-based statements. Results were measured with subjects who had and had not read fact checking articles, tasked with rating the accuracy of different statements. In the best-case scenario, i.e. a person with high political knowledge who read the articles, 31.4% of questions were answered correctly on average. Those with low political knowledge who did not read the articles only answered 12% correctly. To answer correctly, subjects only had to rate whether a statement was closer to truth or falsity, meaning they had a 50% chance of guessing correctly with random answers. The astonishingly low rate of correct answers seems to suggest a solid measurement of widespread misinformation.

Jumping back to the 1970s, we can find the roots of the overly confrontational speaking style of politicians and political commentators. Lofgren credits Newt Gingrich, who along with two other representatives began giving special order speeches over the C-SPAN cameras between hearings. Gingrich essentially used the otherwise dead air as a free political advertisement. When the Speaker of the House ordered the cameras to pan the empty chamber while Newt was speaking, controversy erupted and began sucking up public attention. Lofgren claims that before Gingrich, there was much more cooperation between members of different parties in the House. By the time Gingrich became Speaker, however, the political world had largely adopted his style.

In overview, bias towards one party or another seems rather arbitrary. Sources on both sides carry the most dangerous bias of all: that which is blindly in favor of the already favored. Additionally, mainstream political discourse tends towards the sensational and controversial. I find myself increasingly worried that, in large part, the factors shaping the country I live in fall under the category of what we don’t know we don’t know.

 

Link Dump:

http://www.mrc.org/

http://mediamatters.org/

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/amplifying-officials-squelching-dissent/

http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/news_media_pro_surveillance_bi.php?page=all

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/power_problem.php?page=all&print=true

http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Estimating-Fact-Checkings-Effect.pdf

Also see: The Party Is Over by Mike Lofgren, Penguin Group 2012

The Relationship between Art and Media

What is the relationship between Art and Media? I think of Rothko’s painting when I face such ambiguous and complex question. I kind of know that there is a line between the two word, but when I come closer to this invisible line, what I see is this extended infinity landscape and vast empty space.          In order to figure out the relationship between Art and Media, we first have to understand or build up our own concept of Art and Media. Through out the history, philosophers and artists had constantly argued the meaning and definition of Art and Media. In this essay, I am not hoping to develop or create my own concept of Art or Media, I just want to use the theories and ideas I have now to go through the chain of thoughts of the possible relations between this two field.

Base on the Business Dictionary.com website, the definition of media is “ Communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data or promotional message are disseminated.” Base on this piece of statement, we can create a function which:

Media= Transportation + Information

          It is natural for a living species to share information and emotions. But only human can and have the desire to send information, concepts and even emotions to a mass number of population. Darius the great is the king of Persia, the very first empire in history. Because of the size of the empire, the people can no longer see their ruler all the time. Darius had to find a new way to get his power and image across to the people. Darius with the help of his artist created the image of a man with a bow in his hand, the figure represent the king Darius and the bow symbolized kingship and power. They curve this image which we call logo today on the silver coins and transport it as currency. He also curved large images and words on the side of the mountain cliff so the merchant can see when they travel pass by. The silver coins and the large curving on the maintain cliff is the very first form of media. Both of them carry basic information like images and words, and both of them are within a system which can either bring them to a far of land or expose them to mass traffic of population.          Media is not a piece of information, it is neither the way which we transport our information or data. It is the phenomenon of us using all the way we can to represent a piece of concept and transport it to a massive population. How does media work? First of all, you need to have a propose. What concepts, data, impression, emotion do you want to get across to the other person? In Darius’ example, he wants his people to know that he is powerful and can be a great ruler. Once you figure out what information you want to convey, you have to find the elements and the medium to put these elements together. For Darius and his artist, he used points, shapes and lines, the basic elements to create a image. The medium he used to brought out the quality of image is silver. Imagery is definitely not the only elements you can use, you can also use movements, sound, light, space, time ,texture, sense and so on. The last step to make media work is to put this carrier of information in some sort of system. Persia empire had the earliest model of mailing and postal system, it helped the currency move in a fast rate, also forced more people to be influenced by the message. It is a early version of hegemony.

          The process to make Media happen is complicated. It takes energy, time and power. And that is way throughout the history, only the privileged class who has the extra money, time and energy can manipulate the media and get across their message. However, technology like internet had changed the whole process of running the media. To an extent, internet solve the problem of transportation. If you know your purpose, and you know how to use and combine the elements well, people will be like honey bees, attract by you and your voice. Young youtuber are one good example. They use their words, sounds, image and visual techniques to attract viewer to listen, believe and support them. When we are writing our essay and upload it on the blog, we are combining elements of words and their means into one to express our voice at the same time share it with the rest of internet.

“The nature of art has been described by philosopher Richard Wollheim as “ one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of the human culture.” In this essay, I going to build my ideas upon Leo Tolstoy’s theory of what art is. Leo said that: “Art is anything that communicates emotion.” Be more specific; “art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs.” Based on Leo’s theory, we can create the function:

Art = anything that communicates emotion

Art = elements + certain ways of combination

         Very similar to the concept diagram of media, the process of making art start with elements too. Base on what you want to express, how you want to express, your combination of elements varies. So if you combine your elements well, you will evoke emotion. If you don’t combine them well, your piece don’t evoke emotion. Of course, there is no clear line of what is good combination, and what is not. And depend on individual’s’ taste and background, the information in the same art work evoke different emotion in different people.

“Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.” Here is an example of how art communicates emotion. This is a traditional black and white image by Sally Mann. The title is  Ponder Heart. I saw this image the summer before my freshman year. The moment I saw the image, my mind was like a piece of better, milt on the pounding heart. I can not describe what exactly emotion the image evoke in me, but the feeling is there and the feeling is strong.

Is the communication of emotions the only thing art can bring us? My answer is certainly not. Lawdy Mama is a painting by African American artist Barkley L. Hendricks. Beauty is my first impression of this painting, fowling the emotions of grace and peace, I remembered the great museum and palace I visit in my youth with my parents. I was shocked by how beautiful the woman is with the golden background even she is not a white woman as what I have always seen in the traditional western painting. I never think I am races, but this painting fix and remind my subconsciousness that all race and people can be grace and beautiful, and all people can have their own golden background. Communicating emotion is always the first stage in the relation between a piece of artwork and its audiences. But after that, emotion can bring up morieris, thoughts, question, realization and these second level of communication encourage us to think and to change.

For artist like Michelangelo Pistoletto, encourage thinking is his way of art. “ Above all, artist must not be only in art galleries or museums, they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in what ever endeavor people take on, at every level.”

Come back to the very original question. What is the relationship between Media and Art? Now we have two functions for each concept, let us bring this two function together.What we know:

Media= Transportation + Information

Art = anything that communicates emotion

Art = elements + certain ways of combination

Because we know that

Information = elements + combination

so

Media = Transportation + elements +combination

Assumption 1: if media make the combination a good combination

Media =Transportation + Elements In Certain ways of combination

so

Media = Transportation + Art

          I guess this is answer I have been looking for. This function proves that the quality of the combination determine if a piece of media is Art or not. Let’s look at an example. This is a piece of photography work by artist Rune Guneriussen. When this work is put into the system of transportation which in this case is Tv and Internet. It turn out to be the following advertisement.

Assumption 2: if media just use normal combination

Media =Transportation + Elements+ Combination

Here is a example for this: Coca Cola

        Here is my conclusion.Media and Art are very similar in their concept diagram. They are based on the relationship between elements, medium, and combination. It is possible for media to become the extension of art. For example by putting a art piece into the transportation system.

          Artist combination in the media can evoke emotion like art  but at the same time helping the media to convey specific information. Apple Ad is a great example.

Latinas: Skewed and Redefined in the Media

The movie and television industry have, for a long time, limited and constrained Latina actresses to a very small number of roles. These roles stem from the stereotypes about them, stereotypes that were formed when a comparison to America and Americans was instigated. What I mean is that, people look at the Latinas in the US and look at their jobs, their place on the attractiveness spectrum and they assume that that is all they are, but really it’s all they are in the US. The media implies that Latinas are all either maids, abuelas or bombshells but that’s only because they are being viewed through the lens of American societal norms. Their economic situations and foreign looks land them those titles. For example, if you look at the Latinas living in the US, when they are immigrants from lower socio economic backgrounds they end up with jobs like maids or cleaner jobs and their foreign body types and accent are considered attractive, because it’s not seen everyday. But that does not make it right that that’s how they are always represented? When are their realities going to be showcased? Their culture from their viewpoint? Nevertheless, it’s disregarding the culture that they have at home and only focusing on the American perception of it.

In the prominent tv series and movies, Latinas appear in very particular roles. Jennifer Lopez is a maid in Maid in Manhattan and Sofia Vergara a bombshell with a strong accent in Modern Family. Sometimes it’s not just a character displaying those stereotypes. Devious maids is a show completely centered on Latina maids working for rich white families and the drama that is apparently obviously going to ensue from that plot. These stereotypes only work in the US, because in actual Latin American countries, having an accent is normal, having curves would be considered a normal occurrence (not something regarded as an alien aspect) and being a maid wouldn’t stand out. Sofia Vergara, for example is, the joke of the show Modern Family. She’s that one minority character that doesn’t need jokes, just has to be different. Another example of this is Fez in That ‘70s show, whose origins are actually unknown as a running gag of the show but is assumed to be either Hispanic or Latino. In the show, Sofia plays Gloria who marries an older rich man, and lives with him and her son. The son’s father is absent and a gambler. These point all make her character, the sexy Latina trophy wife who married an old overweight rich man possibly for his money and her rise in class and stringed along her son, and her crazy past. But she was cast to be that way; the loud, funny Latina character who is vain and has no ambitions but to look good. She is written to have a shady past and be perceived as a gold digger (as if to suggest that when Latinas immigrate to the US, they have one goal and when they fail they become maids or succeed and marry into money.) Viewers will only register these messages if they dig deep but on the outside, we’re supposed to love her and her funny stories and overlook the damaging stereotypes constantly following her. The actress, herself, is continuously criticized for perpetuating Latina stereotypes. A good example of when she was accused of this was her stunt at the Emmys in 2014 where she stood on stage on a spinning pedestal in a curve hugging Roberto Cavalli gown while the speaker joked that he was giving the viewers “something compelling to look at.”

 

Jennifer Lopez in a Maid in Manhattan is another example of a Latina being cast to represent a culture in a negative way. Her character is a maid pursued by a rich powerful politician. The movie continuously implies the perks she’d enjoy by being with him, by highlighting him as a hero. They subtly mention that he could adjust his life for her, but again highlighting the sacrifices he’d be making, as if that happened, she wouldn’t have to make life changing alterations to her life, that marrying a rich white politician is the answer and the ultimate get. There are numerous subtle racist scenes that are overshadowed by the whole romantic feel of the movie. In one scene, she brings towels to a rich woman at the hotel, and the woman, assuming she only spoke spanish started dismissing her in Spanglish and called her Maria because she was Latina. Even young Latina actresses are given demeaning roles. Naya Rivera, in Glee, plays Santana Lopez, a mean Latina teeanger. She is cold and mean and is portrayed as strong, stern and even emotionless. She is beautiful and has the typical Latina “look”. Francia Raisa plays Adrianna in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, who is referred to as the “school slut”. She’s book smart and has the typical curvaceous Latina body. Teenage Latinas shouldn’t have to relate to these characters because they are the only ones represented.

 

All these stereotypes harm the confidence of Latinas all over the world. When your culture is increasingly making its way on TV, it’s exciting but seeing it so misrepresented and divided is not something to celebrate. From Cameron Diaz and Demi Lovato to Zoe Saldana and Gina Torres, Latinas come in different shades of skin tone and body types. What about the young Latina girls who don’t look like Rosario Dawson and don’t have Sofia Vergara’s curves? Are their stories not interesting enough? Why is it that all the Latinas portrayed on TV are the extremely beautiful ones? Gina Torres said  “When I became an actress I quickly realize that the world liked their Latinos to look Italian. Not like me. So I wasn’t going up for Latina parts. I was going up for African American parts.” The fact that certain Latinas can’t have the opportunity to represent their culture because they are not the type of Latinas Hollywood is looking for is ridiculous, and a trend that should stop. The fact that, even in the 20th century, casting crews aren’t look for authenticity in their choices, that if they have a Puerto-Rican character, the priority isn’t finding a Puerto-Rican actress but finding any actress who looks like one, is frankly disappointing. Examples of this are swarming in Hollywood, and are so subtle that you have to be looking to find them. Penelope Cruz, for example is a spanish actress who’s played many Latina roles because she has the “Latina look.” The aforementioned Gina Torres is a Dominican actress that looks for African American roles because she feels that her complexion is darker than what the movie makers are looking to cast. As Raquel Reichard, a feminist Latina grad student at NYU wrote in an article for mic.com, “Despite media portrayals of olive-skinned Latinas with curly hair and curvy bodies, Latinos can be black, with Afro-textured hair, brown, Indigenous, Asian, light-skinned and straight-up ethnically ambiguous.”

Safrina Jaffrey, an Indian American actress was cast as a Latina Chief of Staff in House of Cards. This raises many questions that all relate to racism and diminish the importance of truthfully portraying a culture. Why didn’t they cast an actual Latina? Or if they couldn’t find a Latina actress and really connected with Safrina Jaffrey, why didn’t they make the character Indian American? Maria Belen claims in her article that “Casting a non-Latina for the Chief of Staff role perpetuates the myth that capable Latina actresses aren’t available to fill complex and powerful roles.”

Another harm to the Latina image was brought to my attention by Jack Thomas, a writer for Tu Vez,. He wrote in an article in the magazine that  “When white women are prostitutes, they are usually the “hooker with a heart of gold” like in Pretty Woman. When a Latina is a whore, she’s just a slut.” It just suggests that there’s no need to go into depth when it comes to Latina characters, that their bodies and their supposed innate sexual appeal is all there is to know. The stereotype that all Latinas are fiery and uncontrollable is contradicting the roles they give them as maids and nannies. It’s as though all Latinas are the same, so whether or not they are the seductress or the maid, they will have the certain fire in them, an automatic unstoppable sexual appeal.

Latina women have a lot to say on this subject. Since it is becoming more and more recognized, articles where the discussion is on focus are increasingly available. Andie Flores said in an article on Jezebel “I just want to feel like a person with a story worth being told. It feels good to interrupt network television in any way with culture that feels so beautifully MINE. Ours.” Also on Jezebel, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd said “There’s also that constant latent fear that if they are canceled, it could be years before we see another Latina star on TV who’s not hyper-sexualized and hyper-otherized by her white counterparts, a la Vergara.” These show the struggle that tv and movie producers don’t account for when making these movies. The pain and racism Latinas have to experience because of how they are portrayed is unimportant collateral damage.

There are many reasons why I think that the way Latinas are portrayed in media is wrong and a harmful cycle. Maria Belén, who wrote an article on WordPress about House of Cards casting a non-Latina for Linda Vazquez said it perfectly when she stated; “Someone outside of the culture, unaware of the lived experiences of a marginalized group of people, is pretending to be a member of that group, while simultaneously stealing a role that doesn’t belong to them. It’s one hundred percent morally wrong and offensive, even if it’s easy to get away with it due to the racial diversity of the Latinx community.” This reminded me of when an African American person referred to Africa as their “motherland” and found myself feeling extremely territorial and feeling like they had no right to call Africa their “motherland”, when they’ve never experienced its hardships and know absolutely nothing about it. But regular Latinas are not the only ones reacting to this phenomenon. Latinas in the public eye have also made their opinions known. Zoe Saldana, for example, said that “There are very few roles for characters that are of Latin descent, and the ones that are there, are not substantial characters, or insubstantial content that I would [not] consider well representative of a culture that I belong to and am so very proud of… When art doesn’t really imitate life, as an artist, I don’t like to be a part of it.”

When movie producers read this, they should be ashamed. I don’t doubt that there are stories with rich plots that are centered around Latinos that can be made, but people know what they want to see and producers work on that basis. Once people stop feeling good about themselves when they see a Latina character and think the world is being more equal, then we can move forwards. Because it will mean that the world is starting to notice that that representation is flawed and one-sided, and that side is not the one of the culture in question but the culture with hegemony.

Mythical me

“The City That Never Sleeps,” was a song lyric I never quite understood until I experienced nightfall in New York City. The sky darkens from purple to black, but the bustling city stayed lit and crowded. I realized that regardless of the time, there were going to be people out and about, keeping the pulse of the city alive. To me this was amazing.

Just like New York City, the Internet is always alive. It was not, however, always this way. When the Internet first came out it was a place to escape. Now it is a place to remain connected. People speak about Facebook as a second world. If you do not exist on Facebook, you cease to exist.

A Facebook identity becomes the identity that it always on. Your Facebook self is more reliable and accessible than the real you. It does not function within the parameters of real time. If someone wants to find you, they can have the Facebook You at their fingertips. Sometimes people will use Facebook for more reliable interaction. People will mingle with someone one-to-one, then look them up later to get a better sense of who they are. In that situation identity in a virtual world become more real.

People transport their identities to an online world. As that world flourished it defines who they are in real life. This pattern has become a recurring theme. Identity is felt in multiple ways and accordingly people only feel “whole” through a combination of online and offline activities. We feel ourselves when we can move along different aspect of our persona. The integration of online identities have not only a big part of our lives, they have become a critical part.

 

Facebook is a Public Hang Out

Through stages of adolescence, teenagers determine how they want their identities to be portrayed in public. With the advent of the Internet, social media sites have become part of that external identity formation. Just like a park or a mall, social media sites have become a new public meeting place.

Adults of a different generation will reminisce about how they had much more physical freedom than kids today. They would play in the street and wandered around their neighborhoods, just as long as they were back for dinner. Youth’s freedom has changed. No longer is it socially acceptable for kids to wander unsupervised or be left alone for large amounts of time.

We are in an era of paranoid parents and a hyper vigilant media, which gladly blow up stories about the danger of sexual predators, the unstable nature of children and people who are out to harm children and adolescents.  Physical social spaces are on the decline. Parents fear letting their kids leaves the house because they are fearful for their children’s safety.

Kids have less public spaces for “hanging out.” While parents argue that school and after-school activities are a place for kids to socialize, kids are always drawn to the places free from the earshot and judgment of adults. As “free” unsupervised spaces have dwindled, online spaces blossomed. They present themselves as spaces that mimic the freedom of an unsupervised terrain.

As a public space, social media can act as a safe haven. Some teenagers find the support online they cannot find locally. A gay teen living in a conservative area might struggle with his or her identity. Social media is a way of expressing specialness in a more genuine way. In these instances, Facebook is a supportive place. People experiencing oppression can find communities that can give support.

Identity Play

Teenagers use Facebook as a tool for identity play. By using Facebook as an experimentation zone they can try on a variety of styles and cultures. They get feedback about what others think about these changes. Like most experimentation sites, There are pro’s and con’s to this online setting.

When you create an account on Facebook, they ask you questions. What is your name? What bands do you like? Who are your friends? They provide a template for this composition. The process of clicking through these categories brings up the bigger question. Who are you on Facebook?

In the name of authenticity, are you “the real you” online? The answer in most cases is no. As we are reborn thought a new medium, we fixate on perfection. Through Facebook, we shave off the crude parts of ourselves like stubble. No one needs to know about an obsession with gossip or incessant sweating problem. You are only whatyou post on Facebook. The real you falls into the shadows of your Facebook you.

The Facebook you is your “Internet twin”. This relationship is reciprocal. You work on your Facebook self and in return your Facebook self works for you. Back home I remember girls trying to look their best for a party because right after the event they would go home and upload the photos to Facebook. These photos were meant to show everyone that they were fun and popular. These events fed an online life.

While Facebook is supposed to reflect reality, people do not post pictures of themselves on just any day. They take pictures of themselves on their best day. Facebook shows the best part of you. It gives people the chance to receive positive feedback for their lives and appearances. This can boost self-confidence, but not always in a constructive way. Loving the “perfect you” on Facebook is very different than loving the “real you.”

                                          Fitting a Mold

The questions Facebook asks you are of a simplified nature. When Facebook asks questions in a simplified format, we are encouraged to become more simplistic in order to suit the composition. This simplified way of representation is easy to process where as people are not.  Given the choices it better to be  become bullet points and not to exist at all.

Teenagers become part of a presentation where the nature of the program is to endorse special interests. Whether you like online Scrabble or listen to the Grateful Dead in real life no one cares about your menial preferences, On Facebook, these preferences not only matter, they define you.

                                When Your Identity Becomes Part of a Competition

Showing yourself  “authentically” becomes irrelevant when push comes to shove. When everyone else’s Facebook life looks better than yours, you want to maintain a similar level of Facebook status, if you are already exerting yourself to make your profile look good, however, why stop at mediocrity?

When humans are put into a competitive environment they become competitive. This is not a generalization. This is human nature. Facebook indicates success using superficial markers (“likes” and profile complements.) Life becomes making “the best profile.” People stop focusing on genuine representation and begin to focus in on cosmetic details.

We are taught to never judge a book by its cover, how are you supposed to deal with a book of faces? When we are given a space of Internet “covers” we can’t help but to judge for superficial reasons. The act of judging, however, is loaded. You cannot judge other people without using the same marker to judge yourself.

Competition requires a certain mindset. It creates a “me versus them” attitude. When this mentality arises it further invites viewers to rationalize putting people into crude categories. Skimming profiles on Facebook is an outlet to compare your life with the lives of others.

“Facebook binging” is an activity in which one spends massive amounts of time looking at profiles on Facebook. In the end, these sprees are not for fostering interconnectedness, but jealousy and vanity. I have heard statements: “I looked at his profile and was like, wow my life sucks” or “I saw her profile and she’s gotten pretty trashy.” When Facebook is a contest, the playing field becomes real lives and the sacrifice is personal identity.

                                                           The Appeal

Teenagers put information about themselves online because it results in reciprocity.  Like Wikipedia, the culture surrounding Facebook is based upon a communal consensus. The vast Facebook community maintains a round-the-clock stability. Posting on Facebook is comforting. When someone puts a statement on Facebook the sheer number of people online assures that there will be some form of response.

When Furbies were still a popular toy, many young children expressed that they knew the Furbie was a robot. Regardless of this fact, children would give the same amount of love and compassion to a robot that they would to a living creature. When the children were additional asked if they thought the toy was alive many of the children answered back that the toy was “alive enough.”

The idea of “alive enough” reflects the way in which our generation looks at compassion. The community on Facebook does not care about us, but it “cares enough.” Sometimes knowing that there is a community out there that feel even the smallest amount of empathy is better than being in a situation where no one cares at all.

 

                          Losing a Reality Check: A World with no Feedback  

In movies, the most common “psychotherapist segment,” is a scene in which someone is lying down on a sofa, looking up at the ceiling and spilling their guts out while a therapist takes notes. The implications of this dynamic are extremely important when understanding the reasoning behind online dialogues.

Just like the patient in the psychotherapist’s office, users’ online get no direct responses for their actions.  As a consequence it is easier to say things that will receive harsh judgement. Teenagers get into the habit of composing their texts as they are thinking them. Rather than thinking first, they just express themselves. This way of acting is much easier because you cannot see anyone looking stern or disappointed at you.

Some people will express that bullying has gotten much worse with social media. This is untrue. Bullying has not gotten worse; it has merely changed its format. It is common to say things online that you would never say in person. When this form of thinking and expressing become mainstream, the blunt nature of Internet communication can turn crass.

          Facebook Forever: The Archiving of People’s Lives

The mindless free form commentary manufactured by the Internet can turn toxic. Statements only meant for a split section on Facebook can be taken out of context and be misconstrued in a new situation. When kids are applying to college the context of their social lives is often times inappropriate to share in tandem with the college applications they send out. The context in which you share information with your friends is not the same way you want to be acknowledged by an institution.

Teenagers have become over reliant on Facebook. They will do things on Facebook that normally they wouldn’t do. These act of rebelliousness and drama have become a normal part of a teenager life. Unlike in reality, however, the actions you make on Facebook are archived. Conversations, posts and photos can be brought back at any time to reminisce, blackmail or humiliate people. The world on Facebook can be cut and pasted, but it can also be cut edited and disseminated.

The world on Facebook is reshaping the way we look at ourselves. People are expressing themselves on Facebook, but their interactions reflect the person they want to be rather than who they are.  It is a new free space, but it is not as forgiving as we would like to think. Trading the negative part of ourselves for the “nuisance” of reality is tempting. We should remember, however, that this world comes with a cost.