Chapter 14 Summary

In Mary F. Rogers’ article, Hetero Barbie?, she questions Barbie’s sexual identity and evaluates her appearance as well as her users.  Barbie tends to exaggerate her woman figure by having large breasts, very skinny waist, extremely long legs, and flat hips.  This figure is an unrealistic proportionate woman figure and may seem to imitate the ideals of a drag queen.  Her wardrobe is filled with sparkling, beaded blouses, high heels, diamond headdresses, and gowns which also suggests the possibility that Barbie is a drag queen. Barbie’s social settings also suggest the opposite of a stereotypical heterosexual lifestyle.  She comes off having a single lifestyle by traveling the world, having numerous occupations, and not being married to Ken. 

Moreover, Rogers explains “Barbie is relatively free of such heterocentrism and heterosexism and thus holds relative appeal for nonheterosexual people, especially gay men” (Rogers 129). Barbie is open to nonstraight sexualities.  Barbie may be a lesbian, a bisexual woman, or asexual.  Barbie never comes out and tells its customers the true sexual identity. 

In addition, Rogers puts light onto the users of Barbie. Michael Osborne has been a Barbie doll collector since he was thirteen years old and has over 300 dolls.  One would assume Osborne is a nonheterosexual male that enjoys playing with Barbies. Barbie’s users are generally young girls but there are always exceptions. 

As a young girl, I used to enjoy playing with Barbies, and I do not believe that they acted as a bad role model for me. I did not try to base my looks off of hers and never tried to imitate her unrealistic proportionate figure.  I simply enjoyed dressing her up and playing with her in the dollhouse. Barbie allowed me to express my imagination by designing outfits and building her mansion.  I never thought about the idea of Barbie being a drag queen before reading this article, but now I am beginning to agree that she imitates this appearance and behavior.  It is interesting to think that Barbie may be a lesbian or a bisexual woman that never actually was in a relationship with Ken. 

Gendered Slang/Language

I do believe our colloquialisms in the English language are gendered.  Our language as a whole is gendered which speaks about our cultural norms and gender inequality.  Some of the gendered language has a negative connotation while some seem to have little criticism attached to the meaning. For example, when speaking to a group of people, a person of the English language may refer to the group of people as "guys." The group of people can consist of males and females and both sexes will respond to "guys."  In my opinion, this language does not hold any negative connotation to the females of the group. However, some critics believe this language reinforces the idea that men are the standard and women are subsumed into the male category.

After looking at the list of slang related to genitalia from the year 1250 to today, one can realize that gendered language is not a new idea and is part of our history. Today, people are trying to make movements to develop nonsexist English by beginning to say "first year students" rather than "freshmen" and "police officer" rather than "policeman."  This movement may be a significant move toward gender equality because the changed language will affect the behaviors of people.

In today's conversation, the terms "side bitch" and "thot" are very popular and are often brought up in pop culture. These two terms are gendered towards women and have negative connotations.  Urban Dictionary defines a "side bitch" as "a woman that is one level above a jump off but always a step below a wife, wifey, girlfriend." A side bitch has no power and is a male's sexual pleasure figure. She does not have any of the perks of a significant other and is seen as a mistress. The word "thot" is a term attributed to females that have a promiscuous lifestyle.  Although the term "thot" is referred to women, men are sometimes known for having "thot-like" behaviors.  I find it a lot easier to come up with gendered terms for women rather than men.  This might be because men are stereotyped to be superior to women and our language reflects that.  It is upsetting to me that some women are not even offended by these cruel colloquialisms and take them without any emotion.

Chapter 26 Summary- Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture

In Sut Jhally’s article, Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture, advertising is seen as “the major structuring institution of contemporary consumer society” (Jhally 246). Advertising began through the use of newspapers to transmit textual information about products. Then as color images were being produced, magazines and color photography began to display images as advertisements. Today with technology on the rise, we are submerged with advertisements on social media, television, Internet, and in Jhally’s words, “it is [in] the air that we breathe as we live our daily lives” (Jhally 247). 

After surveying a population, people seek good friendships, personal autonomy, happy family life, self-esteem, leisure time, and loving relations in order to be happy.  In other words, people are not focused on material objects in order to be happy.  Therefore, the marketplace needs to connect material objects to the social things that create happiness.  For example, food is connected with family values and bonding time.  The advertising image-system is constantly manipulating its audience into believing that happiness and satisfaction will come after a purchase. 

Music videos are also seen as a way of advertising within the music industry.  Music videos are visually pleasurable commercials for records.  It is of no surprise that music videos and commercials use sexuality in order to sell a product, service, or idea.

Another point that Jhally makes is the speedy way in which an advertisement is able to induce feeling to its audience.  Commercials on television have time slots as short as thirty seconds and directly sell feeling and emotion rather than products.  They are constructed with rapid images and music.  This speed-up concept has two consequences.  It allows its viewer to be attentive to the gratifying, rich, and complex images, sometimes sexual. The concept also allows its viewer to react with emotion and feeling rather than thinking. 

Through advertising, people can learn about pop culture and get a sense of what is happening around the world.  People see hundreds of advertisements a day and are influenced by these images throughout their daily lives.  While I scroll through my social media pages, I am encountered with dozens of ads relating to my previous searches.  This allows me to be targeted by companies, and I am always forced into buying unnecessary products from a ten second ad.

All in The Family

In the past, around the 1950's era, a nuclear family was considered the norm. The nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and generally two children, a boy and a girl.  The mother and father of a nuclear family are married without any marital issues in the past or present.  This was considered to be the perfect family.  The father took part in labor intensive work outside of the home while the mother worked in the household cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the two children.

In modern day, the nuclear family is not as common.  Society is beginning to accept same sex parents, teen parents, and divorced parents.  Children are being raised by single parents and being just as successful as children that were raised by their married parents.  The media is also adapting to these types of families.  The MTV shows, Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, allow their audience to see how teen parents raise their families with limited income. In some cases, the grandparents have to act as the caretakers for the children. With married couples having over a 50% divorce rate today, families can be made up of step parents, step siblings, and half siblings.  All of these types of families are not looked down upon because today's culture is accepting to this phenomena.

The article, Dad- Mom Role Reversals, describes a family that transitions into a working breadwinner mother and a stay at home father due to the recession.  The parents are not only financially stressed but also emotionally.  The father begins to take on cleaning and cooking and taking care of the children while the mother works longer hours.  This may shatter the father's self esteem because he is used to providing for himself rather than depending on someone else.  I understand that this is a very difficult transition, and I would definitely feel uncomfortable at first if my father was doing the laundry and making my lunch for school when I was a child.  Although it is a shock at first, I am sure that everything works out in the end and the parents are able to make it work as long as they are there for each other.

Chapter 55 Summary

Chapter 55, "Critiquing Reality-Based Televisual Black Fatherhood: A Critical Analysis of Run's House and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood," by Debra C. Smith analyzes the stereotypical beliefs of Black families and father hood.  The chapter starts by critiquing The Cosby Show, the first show with an all-Black cast that avoided stereotyping.  This show exemplified a well off black family that had happy endings, family values, stability, and good parenting.  This show contradicted what society stereotyped black families, such as having limited education,  growing up with single mothers, and living in unsafe neighborhoods.  Although The Cosby Show was fictional, the show portrayed Black families optimistically and modeled good examples for Black children and father hood.  After The Cosby Show broke the ice for the normalized black nuclear family, two other Black families have been brought to the media in the twenty-first century to act as examples for non-stereotypical images of African American families and father hood, Run's House and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood.  These two families are on reality television and give two different perceptions of Black parenting for rap music artists.  The Run's House father, Joseph Simmons, is beyond the gangster, irresponsible lifestyle and encourages his family to resolve conflicts by having family discussions as well as talking with a therapist.   Simmons embraces religion and respect in his household.  He also coaches his children through the obstacles they encounter throughout their young adult years.  The Simmons family provides a realistic upper class Black family example to the media.  On the other hand, Snoop Dogg and his family represent real day to day activity with a different parenting style than Cosby and Simmons.  Snoop is a father from the 'hood and connects to working class black cultural institutions, food, and environments.  He also does not discipline his children in an authoritative way but rather a laidback style and has his wife run the show.  Although Snoop encourages his children to be diligent in school and to respect their family history, he fails as an authoritarian.  Smith states, "despite his laidback parenting style, most viewers have a positive reaction to Father Hood" (Smith 531).  The show still brings lessons of Black family success, humor, and harmony.  I believe all of the television shows above teach a lesson and allow society to break the stereotypes of Black fathers.  Simmons, Snoop, and Cosby all demonstrate family loving values and give viewers an idea of what it is like to raise a Black family in different styles.

Music Videos Imagery and Lyrics

Girl In A Country Song - Maddie & Tae

Girls/Girls/Boys - Panic! At The Disco

The music video of "Girl in a Country Song" by Maddie and Tae uses numerous lyrical methods of transforming gender ideologies.  Maddie and Tae are explaining to the audience how girls are not getting "treated like ladies" and are being disrespected by the male population.  The artists start the song off by singing, "I hate the way this bikini top chafes, Do I really have to wear it all day?"  The stereotypical gender role of a woman in a country song is to wear skimpy clothing, act in a promiscuous way, and be the man's sexual desire.  However, in this song, Maddie and Tae want to wear comfortable, "real" clothes, and not the typical tight bikini top.  Moreover, the women are explaining to the audience that they have a name and a purpose within their lyrics.  The lyrics state, "'Cause I got a name and to you it ain't 'pretty little thing', 'hottie', or 'baby'" which challenges the gender role of the men always initiating a flirtatious comment to women.  In addition, the lyrics describe how the girls are only good for looking good for the boys and their friends on the weekend and how respect has diminished since the past.  Maddie and Tae are challenging the gender ideology of women simply just looking good for men; they want to be equals with men, wear what they want, and not be treated like a subordinate.  

            The visuals in the video challenge gender ideologies as well. Throughout the video, a girl is shown hoeing a garden like a farmer would do.  This goes against the stereotypical gender role for a woman because women are not usually seen as farmers but rather doing chores within the household.  The video zooms on a sign that says, “Role Reversal,” and then captures three boys dressed in crop tops, one of them being pink, jean short shorts, and tall leather cowboy boots.  The boys are walking in a way that would be considered a “girl walk” by walking with their hand on their hip.  Maddie and Tae are trying to challenge gender ideologies by putting the boys in the video in a girl’s perspective.  After the boys arrive to the scene, Maddie slaps one of the boys’ butts. A boy usually does the slapping of a girl’s butt because the gender role of a boy is to initiate sexual desires. Other scenes throughout the video show gender reversal, such as a boy eating a strawberry in a sexy way, three boys washing a car and rubbing bubbles on their legs to act like a woman, and a boy posing on a swing with his butt poked out to the side.  All of these visuals are reversing the gender role of women and men, because women are typically the ones to show sexuality.

            The second music video is “Girls/Girls/Boys” by Panic! At The Disco.  This music video shows gender role reversal within its lyrics and visuals as well.  The entire video captures the frontman Brendon Urie completely naked, but the camera does not go past his genitals.  Brendon Urie has a very frail, slender body, which goes against a male’s stereotypical gender role of being tough and muscular.  Urie also rubs his hands through his hair multiple times throughout the video.  Some might suggest that the hand through the hair is not portraying the gender role of a man and more towards a woman’s.  Urie sings, “Girls love girls and boys, and love is not a choice.”  This statement goes against the gender ideology of women having intimate relationships with only men.  The video suggests that Urie is open to homosexuality and bisexuality. 

Feminist and Critical Race Theories of Popular Culture Summary

            This article was very interesting to read as it sheds light on the different viewpoints of popular culture when it is linked to gender and race. It was very eye opening to see how differently people can view something as simple as a television show on TV solely due to their gender, and even what class they occupy in society. Depending on the type of television show being aired, working class women could relate more readily to some TV shows compared to the middle class, and vise versa. This was a valid point that was made in the article because depending on each individual woman’s lifestyle, they can only relate to such things that they have or have the opportunity to personally experience. This reflects on what each class has access to due to the income of their employment. As said in the article, working class women have trouble relating to soap operas because they have not experienced nor have the access to experience many scenarios that take part in such a show. They are very dramatic and usually play out the most theatrical scenarios possible, which is the main reason working class women cannot relate.

            Another interesting fact that arose was when the article mentioned the TV show, The Cosby Show which touched on the role of race when linking perspectives of popular culture. Although this show reached out more to the black society, it was popular amongst both racial groups as a middle class, black family working towards the American Dream, which can be inspirational and lure in many types of audiences. However, the article states, “In Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream, Halley and Lewis (1992:50) report that white viewers saw a black family, whereas black viewers saw a black family” (Kim 16). This was particularly noteworthy because this suggests that white people live in a world where skin color does not exactly jump out at them, compared to other races such as the black community. As the article goes on to explain, the white community does not see racism as a social issue any longer and are more likely to be what some may call, “color-blind.’ The black community on the other hand, enjoyed this show because it emphasized the black family. The focus was more on the race rather than the purpose of the show. This portrays self-blame when it comes to some race issues in society. A large reason why some of these issues still seem to exist can be linked to the fact that the black community sometimes looks for this racial stimulation, even if race wasn’t supposed to be emphasized. This article opened my mind to varying perspectives on popular culture according to race, gender, and the class in which the individual occupies.

YouTube, I Tube, We All Tube

Keith Whitley & Earl Thomas Conley - Brotherly Love

Brotherly Love by Gigi Gorgeous

Both of the YouTube links above are representations of the notion, "brotherly love." The first link is the stereotypical brotherly love video, while the second link defies the gender role of a brother.  In the first video, the two brothers are participating in activities such as bike riding and playing baseball, which are activities usually associated with the role of a young boy.  On the other hand, in the second video, the two brothers, Cory and Gigi, do not participate in the same activities.  This is because Gigi is a biological male but plays the gender role of a female.  While Cory enjoys watching television shows such as Man vs. Food and the San Diego Chargers games, Gigi enjoys watching the show America's Next Top Model.  Moreover, Gigi is dressed in the way a woman would dress.  He is wearing a black blouse with bracelets on his wrist, while Cory is wearing a plaid button down shirt with no jewelry. Gigi also wears makeup and paints his nails.  In the first video, both brothers are dressed in the same way; they are wearing baseball caps, jeans, plaid sweaters, and suits with bowties.  In the second video, the gender role of a female is represented through a biological male. Although the first video has two males that identify as males and the second video has two males that identify differently, both videos show the love that they have for each other.

The target audience for the second video is for teenagers and young adults who identify differently than stereotypical societal genders, such as the LGBTQIA community. People who are feeling vulnerable about their identities and looking for acceptance, especially in the family dynamic, would be responsive to this video. Straight males may possibly not find this video entertaining and may even feel uncomfortable.  I believe this media channel is effective in reaching that audience because YouTube is very popular among the young adult population. The target audience for the first video is for middle-aged country music fans. Middle-aged individuals may not be as active on YouTube as younger generations.

In Elena Bertozzi’s “You Play Like a Girl!” Cross- Gender Competition and the Uneven Playing Field, she addresses how there is a lack of female engagement in digital gaming and how gender stereotypes affect how males and females play the games.  The gender differences in digital play are a consequence of the genders inability to cross traditional, culturally gendered routines.  Most digital games have aggressive and heroic looking male avatars while the female avatars are not as common in the games with slender, blond, and beautiful characteristics.  Women tend to stay away from the playing field with men because of the men’s aggressive and violent behaviors.  Bertozzi suggests that the difficulties within the playing fields can be overcome if the concept of play eliminates any discrimination, bias, or advantage outside of the playing field.  She also suggests that the digital game designers should increase the number of female players and female avatars, reinforce the idea that strong, competitive, aggressive females can be sexually desirable, and normalize cross-gender play by making it common and fun. 

            Bertozzi also addresses how males and females interact toward each other during sporting activities.   The women during the games are not only concerned with how well they are playing the game but also how attractive they look while playing.  Men are more overtly competitive and their competitiveness is rewarded by status.  Women tend to show their aggression by verbal harassments and social shunning.  Women achieve status by beauty and attractiveness to males while men achieve status by their strength and physical abilities.

            In conclusion, our society today should focus more on what is in the inside of a person and not his or her physical appearances.  Women deserve to be treated equally and should not have to fear when coming in contact with a male during a competitive event.  I agree with the author that more female avatars should be placed in the digital gaming world and that the female characters should not have the stereotypical attributes of a “female.”  Moreover, females should be able to equally compete with all males whether it is a contact sport or a board game.