Case Study Blog

I have examined all of the case study's throughout our class this year and have found most of them very interesting. However, I assumed that actually performing a case study would be mindnumingly boring and extremely tedious. I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised. I did my case study over the representation of different races in magazine advertising. I knew going into it that I was going to see way more white people than anything else, but the results shocked me. I suddenly noticed how interested in it I actually was when I kept turning page after page, and putting tallymarks next to "white" as fast as I could mark them. I'm very glad that we got the opportunity to do something like this rather than sitting at a desk filling out a scantron. Thanks for a great semister!

Heineken Draftkeg Commercial

Most of the time I am in complete agreement with the things that we discuss in class or things that are brought up as being sexist, but I just don't see it with this commercial. I had seen the commercial a few times before it was brought up in class and didn't think anything of it then. Now when it comes on I try to see how it could be interpreted as sexist and I guess I'm just missing something. It just seems to me that the arguements for the commercial being sexist are reaching a little bit. I don't think Heineken was intending to make the statement that the perfect woman is a robot who serves beer.

Protesting Viacom

I just read the article about people protesting Viacom (MTV and BET) and can't say that I disagree with them. Music videos, namely rap videos, are becoming dammaging to African Americans. They create a misperception and greatly misrepresent the black community as a whole. There are always two sides to an arguement however, and I can't blame Viacom or MTV or BET for its programming either. These places are successfull because they cater to the masses. They give people what they want. And as long as people keep tuning in to see g-strings and gangsters, I don't think they'll be changing their ways.

Asian Stereotypes

I really found the abc news article about Bruce Lee and the image that he has created for Asian actors in hollywood very interesting. It's obvious that Asian actors will dominate martial arts films, but it is true that you very rarely see them playing versital roles. I had aslo never noticed that Asian actors very rarely get the girl in the end. In fact, I can't remember seeing a movie where that happens.

Male Stereotypes

I really enjoyed reading Matthew Sheffield's article about male stereotypes and the ongoing battle between men and women. One thing that really struck my interest was his comment about the smart mom/stupid dad television shows. I had never thought about it before, but there are a lot of shows where the father is the "baffoon" and the mother is the one who keeps everyone else sane. I would not say that that men are stereotyped in the media more than women, but I do think male stereotyping may be more seroius than many people think.

Video Games

While I have never believed that there is a direct correlation between video games and violence, I do think that gender and sexuality in vodeo games is something that needs to be looked at more closely. I know that there are certain games in which you literally can simulate sex. I have never seem any of these games, but I can't imagine there's much use for them. The worst sexual act i've seen in a game is in the Grand Theft Auto series. At night you can drive a car around in a bad part of town and pick up a prostitute. Then if you park in a dimly lit place, you will see the car rocking and hear squeeking sounds, followed by the exchange of money. Not as bad as actually simulating the act but unnecessary nonetheless. I agree with the conclusions of the study performed in the book that stated males were more likely to appear on video game covers than women 13-1. They projected that males were much more likely to buy and play video games than were females so the appearances on the game covers simply reflects marketing. I agree with this.

Porno Blog

First of all, I thought the youtube video of the small Alaskan town spraying the whole city was hillarious. The scary part was that I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not until about halfway in. It's crazy but I really don't think we are too far away from doing this. I would not be surprised at all to hear of some small town that no one has ever heard of trying this out within ten years. That's just how sexuallu obsessed our society has become. But on the subject of pornography, I always find it staggering that there's such a huge market for that kind of thing. I mean I understand that there will always going to be people that buy into that sort of thing but it's hard to drive 50 miles without seeing an adult video store. But I guess sex sells, and pornography is one of the most straight-forward ways to sell it.