Charlie's Mysterious Angels

Watching the Charlie's Angels movie in class today, I noticed something that I didn't pick up on before. With the twisted versions of feminism the movie showcase, there is a slight hint of racism within Lucy Lou's character.

Out of the three angels, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz provide us with the two classic white girl forms of sexuality. The cute ditzy blonde, and the rebel. Cameron Diaz portays the cute ditzy blonde when we first see her and dream of becoming a dancer. Then she wakes up and continues to dance around full of positive energy in just her girl next door T-shirt and underwear. Her ditziness is confirmed seconds later when there is a knock at the door and the UPS guy is standing there to deliever his *cough* *cough* I mean a package for her. She tells him that she signed the form, so next time he can just slip the package in her slot. Obviously the writer's room was full of giggles that morning.

Next Drew Barrymore's character is portrayed as the classic rebel tough girl. The movie shows this in the intro as she flicks off the school camera while smoking a cigarette in the bathroom. The movie continues to show her as a dominate female through her relationship with "The Chad". It's made quite clear that The Chad relies on Drew's opinions on him and is completely wrapped around her little pinky.

But now to where I notices the sublte racism. This could be nothing intentional, but I felt like it was noticable enough to point out. Lucy Lui's character is the only asian girl in the group. Being the only asian girl her sexuality and personality are portrayed through some asian character stereotypes. She's the smartest of the three. She's usually doing the technical parts of the missions. Like hacking into the satelite at the end, or installing the hidden camera on breifcase, or when she takes the bomb off of the Steve Bruschemi in the beginning. She's further portrayed through an asian stereotype when it comes time for her to use her sexuality to distract.

Instead of showing a little boob like the other angel's Lucy Lui's character goes dominatrix. Crazy fetishes and sex acts have over the years become an associated stereotype of asian bussinessmen and really nerdy white guys(i.e every guy who followed Lucy Lui's character when she walked through).

This could be nothing, or could be something. Just a few subties I noticed while watching.

ACTION WOMEN!!!

How do you make an female action hero that appeals to both men and women? It sounds like it wouldn't be the most difficult thing in the world to do right? You just need the usual ingredients of a good origin story, something brave and bold about the character, and making her relateable, right? Well not so much. In today's media there's a large differenve between a male action hero and a female action hero. The male hero usually has huge muscles, and an ego that drips masculinity. On the other side of the equation the female action hero tends to have tons of sexuality instead of masculinity and are usually shown being dependant on the male action hero or the male action hero sees the female action hero as a sexual object.  

In recent years it seems like the female action hero's costume has gotten tighter and tighter. Look at a picture of Wonder Women in the 60's and compare it to a picture of her today. Her outfit has definately been "sexualized", making her breast larger along with her bottom. Let's face it, sex sells. Media companies use this knowledge to make action heros more attractive to all audiences. Is this right?

The Office is coming to an end.

I've been a big fan of The Office, ever since Ricky Gervais took the big bosses chair in the original Office series. I was weary at first about the NBC rebooting it into an American version, but to my suprise Steve Carrell pulled it off and made it better then the original.

Unfortunately there is one thing that American Office didn't learn from the British version. That is when to call it a day and finish the show. Ricky Gervais was smart about this. He ended The British version of the Office while it was considered a hit. He didn't want to watch the show fall into what the current American version has become.

After Jim and Pam's wedding, and the lose of Steve Carell, the show has completely gone down hill. NBC is trying it's best to make it work but it's time to put the show down. What was once a titan of primetime comedy is now almost painful to watch. A recent scene shows Cathrine Tate's character eating a taco in a bizzare way.

The Office introduced an interesting look into the workings of an office that had the stereotypical office workers with a twist. It has touched on many different issues in today's world and has made us have a laugh with them. From the gay latino character Oscar, to the race issues posed by Daryl, Stanley, and Kelly.

Unfortunately now it's become weak and unstable. This article goes into detail about how terrible it has become. The show's creators have tried their best to save it, but it's time to let it go.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/end-it-already-when-cancellation-is-the-best-thing,73402/

The Office will definately go down in history as one of the greater comedies in the past decade. It's time NBC finally pulled the plug. They've already announced a Dwight spin-off which will surely go down like the ever popular Joey series based on the character Joey from Friends.

You'd think NBC would learn their lesson eventually, right?

The kids are not alright.

The internet is one of the best inventions made by mankind.  It's allowed us the ability to send messages across the globe in a matter of seconds. It's allowed us to find answers to questions without having to bug a more knowledgeable person. Overall the internet has provided the world the great ability to be connected to millions of people all over the world.

As uncle Ben (Peter Parker's uncle, not the rice guy) once said "With great power comes great responsibility". With the growing popularity of social networking sites we find ourselves becoming more and more attached to the devices that allow us to stay connected to them. How many times a day do you check your Facebook? Twitter? Google+? I know I tend to check my accounts before I go out and after I get back. In class we were discussing how marketers track our cache and cookies to find out where we have been on the internet. They track what we "like" and where we visit the most. With the rise of social networking we lose a part of our privacy. Now we were among the lucky generations to watch the rise of the internet. The generations of today are being born during the "internet boom". From birth they're introduced into this interesting world were you can be connected not only physically to the world, but digitally as well. Now with this development we have to figure out when is the right age to expose a young one to this digital world. We want our kids to be as technologically savvy as possible, but on the other hand we don't want them to be exposed to the grubby advertising companies, and inappropriate dangers of the cyber world.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-11-02/tech/kids.social.networks_1_social-networking-sites-social-networking-facebook?_s=PM:TECH

I found this article to be interesting. It discusses the problem at hand as well as how much information do you let pre-teens and teens put on the internet. Personally I believe that we should nurture our children into this technology dominant world one step at a time. We should be horrendously over protective with any information they put on the internet and teach them that once it's out there it's difficult to take it back. While there are social networks designed specifically for children we have to make them aware of the subtle advertising they're being exposed to. We want the kids of tomorrow to understand the positive side and usefulness of social networking, but to also to be aware of the negatives. As well they should be aware that we still live on a planet. That there is a possibility they will be without this technology one day, and they will need to have the necessary physical, social, and communication skills to survive. 

Conker's Quest

Today in class we discussed briefly about advertising towards children. I found it interesting how much power kids really have in marketing. Its interesting to think that so long ago it was "cool" just to be able to own toys. Nowadays it's more about what brand name of toy you own that states your status of "cool". As well, some toys and cartoons have been created for more mature audiences but are still shown to youth below the proper age.

I remember walking into the local Blockbuster when I was tiny lad and picking up this game:

At a quick glance the game looks kid appropriate, right? My mom thought the same. with the Blockbuster case covering up the "ADVISORY:THIS IS NOT FOR ANYONE UNDER AGE 17" and the Mature ESRB rating, the game was soon in my N64 console.

The game was developed by Rare. This is the same company that has brought us such lovable family games as Banjo-Kazooie and Diddy Kong Racing. When first announced Conker's Bad Fur Day was going by the name of Conker's Quest. Screen shots further suggested that Rare was creating another family fun adventure game.
After the game wasn't heard about in over a year, people started to wonder if it was still coming out. in 2000 the game was finally revealed and Rare's revamp of the game was quite obvious. With the fuzzy main character still intact, The game's content was definitely meant for an older crowd. With an opera singing poo monster, and the fuzzy main character's drinking problem The game is not obviously good for children.

It was advertised in Playboy magazines, but not Nintendo Power magazines. Nintendo almost refused to acknowledge the existence of the game. Even with commercials that would advertise towards adults some young kids still got their hand on this game, like I did. It didn't ruin me by any stretch of the imagination, but it did open my eyes to some disgusting images and scatological humor without my mother being any the wiser.

A different take on a younger character.

In today's class we talked more about GLBT characters and how they're portrayed on television. As they first began to appear on television they were portrayed mostly negatively. Now years later they've been portrayed more positively. Television series have begun to show more GLBT characters and one series has decided to scramble up the gender norms completely.

The new series House of Lies has introduced a rare character. His name is Roscoe Kaan. He is young boy on the brink of puberty and he is very sure of who he is. He doesn't follow the regular gender norms at all. In many episodes he can be seen wearing what would be considered girls clothes, and rocking a unique style of accessories better than some women. While being very out going Roscoe begins to question his sexuality. He even asks his dad if it's okay that he likes girls and boys in one episode. The show takes an interesting look at what life could be like for a young boy who doesn't follow the generic "young boy" stereotype. In one episode his school charges him with sexual harassment after a little boy tells them that Roscoe kissed him. This doesn't phase Roscoe's sexuality at all, because he knows the boy was the one to initiate the kiss. It's very interesting how such a young character is portrayed as having so much confidence in himself. In the first episode Roscoe tries out for the roll of Sandy in the musical Grease. While the series has only been on for 10 episodes, they have done a great job establishing a very interesting and entertaining GLBT character. While he is used to show the more soft side of his extremely heterosexual father, if given the chance I'm sure the series will take it's audience on a roller coaster of an adventure with Roscoe's gender.

KONY 2012.

So the past couple of days you must have noticed the KONY craze that has been going all over our social media. Now in today's culture I feel like once something this big goes viral, it takes seconds for people to get annoyed with it purely because it is everywhere, but KONY is different from the mysterious brooms that stand up or anything that has taken an "arrow to the knee". For the past 8 years a few guys with a camera have been trying to show the US what's been happening to the children in Uganda. If you haven't seen Invisible Children,  I suggest you do. It's a good documentary and it tells the tragic tale of these poor children. If you have 30 minutes check out this video which has gone viral this week:

I find it amazing how much social media is changing our world. In class we discussed how only a handful of major companies own every possible media outlet in the US, except for one. Social networking sites have really opened up the opportunity for normal everyday people to release their ideas, believes, and even weekly video blogs and podcasts , most of which can be accessed by anybody who finds them interesting enough to watch. Now the big companies are still a major factor in today's world, but this rising social media gives people the option to personalize their media intake. They don't have to sit in front of a TV  and wait for their favorite program to come on. They can simply get on a computer and find it through a plethora of ways. They can also spread their favorite media to everybody they know.

Which is what allowed KONY 2012 to become so popular. It wasn't broadcast over every television station. It wasn't brought up by Oprah or any big company. Three friends went to Africa, saw what was happening, shot a documentary, and showed everybody who would watch. This year they launched their social media campaign. That video was put on the internet 3 days ago. as of now 40,781,302  people have watched it.  

Social media is as powerful as those big companies, and is growing in power each day.