Queer Representation in the Media

I've never thought about how much progress Queer Representation in the Media has made over the years. 

Ellen Degeneres is someone who comes to mind with this topic. She had made much progress in the media and is she a lesbian. Ellen started doing standup in New Orleans before moving to hollywood in 1986. From there her career and life in the media started. In 1997 after all of the rumors Ellen announced on Oprah that she was a lesbian. After her "outing" she got lots of backlash and lots of criticism but she never let that hold her back. Ellen has came a long way on Television and in the media. She is a cover girl, she has her own show, she has hosted awards shows and she has helped numerous amounts of people!

When Ellen came out the Media changed forever! 

Kudos to Ellen Degeneres 

Questions....

How many feel that Ellen Degeneres is a representation at a cost? explain... 

what was your reaction the first time you saw a same sex couple commercial or anywhere in the media? 

Cinderella ate my Daughter

Cinderella ate my Daughter
By: Peggy Orenstein

Extended Comment Post on Brianna Pari's Blog Post

Brianna starts off her blog with this qoute....

“She is everything I would imagine my daughter would reject, would not in fact, ever encounter or even understand if she did, let alone embrace: the passive, personality-free princess swept off by a prince (who is enchanted solely by her beauty) to live in a happily-ever-after that he ultimately controls. Yet here was my girl, somehow having learned the pot line anyway, blissfully lying in wait for loves first kiss.”

Brianna said this quote exemplifies the Snow White story and all of the other well-known fairy tales stories every child learns regardless if their parents try to stop them. I AGREE with Brianna on this comment because many parents want their child or children to grow up without being exposed to these fairy tales. Unfortunately sometimes there is no way to escape it. If your child is not exposed to it at home they could be exposed to it at school or even an after school program.
 
Like Brianna I too saw a connection from this reading to the Unlearning the Myths that Bind us by Christensen. We are all sadly blinded daily by what society is teaching us whether you are an adult, child, mother, father, cousin; you will be "sucked in". As Brianna said, you can try and do everything to protect your child from the "common stereotypes" but sadly this doesn’t always work.

As for the word princess society needs to do a better job defining this word and reconstructing what is already done. (I added the hyperlink to urban dictionary. This is a website where people can give their own definitions to words. Take a look to and see what people define princess as. It’s very interesting)  I'm glad that Disney has tried to make many different types of Princesses so maybe every young can relate to but the classics will always have that bad reputation because their stories revolved around a guy.

Before and After look of the Princess from the Disney movie Brave

 

 

Here is a picture of the Disney princesses as of 2014. Which princess would most relate to or want to associate with? The option of not choosing any is a choice.

 

 

Also, after reading Cinderella ate my Daughter, will you allow your daughter to be exposed to these princess stories?

Cellular Phones and Text Messaging

Cellular Phones and Text Messaging 




Texting While Driving 

The Dangers of Texting While Driving

Teens Sleeping with Cell Phones

Sexting Gone Viral

Teens and Texting

A Cycle of Outrage; Gilbert

A Cycle of Outrage

By: James Gilbert

Quotes

This reading was an interesting one like the last. I understand why we were assigned this reading because there was lots of history involved about teenagers. There were three quotes that stood out to me...

In a special issue devoted to explaining teenage behavior Cosmopolitan said, "We've stopped trying to teach them how to live. Instead, we're asking them how they think we should live."

This quote is very true. Teenagers are the ones that are usually always up to date. Parents do not know how it is growing up as teenagers now a day because everything has changed. So teaching teenagers how to live in THEIR world is useless Teenagers will always understand the roles of their parents but there are certain things they know parents will not understand about them. A simple question will hold the relationship between a parent and teenager together. Communication does wonders.

"But music could not be isolated, as both parents and teenagers recognized, from the seamless web of culture, centered on high schools, souped-up cars, teen magazines, and a social order of gangs, new dating customs, drive-in theaters, hair cuts, and clothes marked "inaccessible" to unsympathetic adults."

I like how they ended this sentence by saying “unsympathetic adults” because it shows how parents can be heartless when they think they are right about a certain situation or when they want to stop a teen from doing something. The media has always been apart of teenager’s lives and as we can tell parents weren’t always a fan of this. This goes to show us the media will ALWAYS effect teens or our lives one way or another. I doubt the music and social outings compare to the ones teens are exposed to today. Have you seen how “twerking” became popular once Miley Cyrus started doing it?? 

"On top of curiosity and worry came the increasing recognition that teenagers had a major impact on the shaping of American popular culture."

Teenagers will always impact the shaping of the American Culture, plain and simple. I just turned twenty- two and I am wayyy behind with what’s going on today. Do I like it? Not one bit! And I honestly find myself asking teenagers what’s the latest 411?? lol. I am quite ashamed that I have to do that but how else will I stay in the loop. So I can see why this may bother older folks. Teens will always have the power parent’s lack and this is a scary thing to them.

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The question I have for class is….

….are afraid of the power that teenagers can have?

-After reading this assignment I know that teenagers will always have the power to do many things especially right now with the amount of social networking there is. Things can go viral in minutes. We can ether fear teenagers and social networks or love them. Where do you stand?

A Tangle of Discourses: Girls Negotiating Adolescence RABY

A Tangle of Discourses: Girls Negotiating Adolescence

REBECCA C. RABY

**Quotations**  

“On the one hand, Jess accepts the definition of herself as moody and sees this as inevitable to teenagehood. Then she experiences herself being punished for it (moodiness as a social problem?). She denies the mood as ‘different’ but not necessarily bad, and links this difference to the context of starting high school and dealing with its demands. Reverting to an essentialist position, she later suggests that hormones are in fact affecting her, she is moody and angrier than usual, but then ends up drawing on a discourse of becoming, deploying it in a way that contradicts the essentialist position.”

Being moody is not a positive thing so I do not understand why Jess has to “accept the definition of herself as moody”. When the other says Jess contradicts herself I think that is not needed. Jess is young and is not sure what she is going though. I', pretty sure the way she feels today is not the way she is going to feel tomorrow. Personally I would be offended if I was described as being moody at any age. Earlier in Jess’ interview she says:

“Sometimes I’ll have had a bad day and I’ll come home in the worst mood. She’ll be all happy and I’ll be all ‘just not now, mom’ and then she’ll be ‘oh, you’re grounded’. Then I’ll get grounded for being in a bad mood or at least how it started or something. // Yeah, my mom says that ever since I’ve been in high school I’ve been in a bad mood.”

This all could have been avoided if Jess would have simply told her mom that she had not had a good day and that they would talk later but instead she choose to tell her mom in a way that did not come off as good. We as adults all have those days where we do not feel like talking to anyone. This is not something that only teenagers do. “We” need to stop blaming everything teenagers do on “hormones”. Unless we feel as though these same “hormones” are still affect us as adults.  

“Here teens are a risk to others, difficult, troublemakers and potential disrupters of households and social peace. Griffin suggests that girls are more likely to be considered at risk while boys are more likely to be treated as a social problem”

Saying that teens are a “risk to other, troublemakers, and potential disrupters of house holds and social peace” is a little inaccurate. There was lots of categorizing in this reading. All teens are not troublemakers and not all teens are disrupters of peace. There were lots of preconceived notations about teens in this reading. Is this quote we see separation of gender. Girls vs. boys. Of course girls are considered at risk and boys are more likely to be treated as a social problem. People like to overlook girls/ women but we are cable of doing what boys/ men do. I wonder when we will let these gender roles go.

I heard this song as a teen and I thought it related to my life. 

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I honestly did not enjoy this reading. I felt as though it was way too lengthy and everything that was said could have been condensed. 

My only questions for next class are....

What did everyone think about this reading all together?

Did you feel there was a bias and/ or some uneducated thoughts from the author? 

Lastly, point out one thing you could relate to from this text.

QUESTION

Does anyone remember the quote Sierra used about power? I can't remember it and didn't write it down. I thought it was a great quote!  

-Funny right???

Have a nice week and weekend :D 

Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us

Being a minority and growing up in a predominantly “white world” can be a bit confusing. I can remember being young and asking my mom why my noise wasn’t so pointy or why my hair wasn’t bone straight. These questions didn’t appear because I watched too many cartoons or because I was exposed to Disney princesses. My questions aroused because I was constantly exposed to these types of looks in my environment. I knew I wasn’t ugly, I just knew I looked “different”.

In Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us by Linda Christensen, we are introduced to a black freshman named Kenya who “scolds” her parents in an essay she has written. Kenya draws the question “A Black Cinderella?” and answers by saying, ”Give me a break." She sums up her thoughts by saying, “Women who aren’t white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the role of this princess.” By "this princess," Kenya means the role you never saw a women of color playing.

•  I will give a reflection against Kenya’s quote because I have seen a black Cinderella.  Perhaps, seeing a black Cinderella at the age of five gave me hope that women of color would not be left out.

Did you know in 1997 The Wonderful World of Disney and Whitney Houston Presented an updated version of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella? Brandy Norwood a very popular R&B and well-known actress starred as Cinderella and Whitney Houston played the Fairy Godmother character. I was in love with this version Cinderella because for once I was physically able to relate to this idol all young girls wanted to be. Although, growing up I preferred playing outside rather then being a princess and playing dress up. However, after seeing Brandy be Cinderella I believed I could too. This was a great feeling and I still remember the first time I saw the movie. 

 

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella staring Brady and Whitney Houston if you would like to watch sometime :D 

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I want everyone to think about how they would like to raise their children and what they would like them to view (or be influenced by). Now a days there are many different reality TV shows that children have unlimited access to if they are not being monitored consistently. Now, reality TV are not the only influential shows as we learned by reading the article but they air on many different TV stations. We need to start thinking about these things early because before we know it, we will be parents or may already be. We also may be older siblings, aunts, older cousins, or maybe just a mentor.