Dove's Real Beauty Campaign - Extra Credit

On television this week, I saw a familiar commercial and I started to think about its impact on our culture. The commercial was one of the many ads for Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign. It consisted of women of all ages and all different sizes standing around in only a bra saying how comfortable they are in their own skin. When this campaign started a few years back, people were astonished that “non-skinny” would display themselves on television and in magazine in barely any clothing. The media usually only uses women who capture a certain beauty (tall, skinny, and a flawless appearance), but the Dove ads were so out of the ordinary that many people did not know what to think. We are used to seeing unrealistic standards of beauty which cause most women to be unhappy with their own image. Dove’s campaign is trying to expand of cultures definition of beauty. They capture “real” women in order to promote their product and help to improve the self-esteem of females in our society.

A League of Their Own

For my Summary/Analysis/Response paper, I used an article that discussed the message that sports films reflect about female athletes. The article claimed that sports films project a negative attitude towards women who participate in sports. One of the movies it used to support the claim was A League of Their Own. I decided to rewatch the movie because it had been forever since I had seen it, and it would help me be able to talk more about it in my paper. In the movie, a group of women join a baseball team to play on during the time of war. The women were not treated the same as male athletes though. Their uniforms were short pink skirts, and they were expected to look as pretty on the field as they did off. Male baseball players were not required to have sex appeal or intrigue the fans by their good looks. People had come from all around to see men play purely for their talents, but people came to watch the women as sex objects. Fans whistled and hollered at them from the stands, something they would never do towards male players.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians

During this week’s episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians, Khloe was asked by PETA to participate in their “I’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur” Campaign. For those of you who don’t know much about the Kardashain family, Kourtney and Kim are Khloe’s two older sisters. Both of them are very thin and fit. They have each modeled for several well known magazines, one of them being Playboy. Khloe has a different body type than the rest of her family. She is what some people like to call “big-boned”. She isn’t by any means fat or overweight, but compared to her sisters she is larger. For PETA’s campaign, Khloe was asked to do a nude photo shoot for their latest posters. Khloe was extremely nervous and hesitant to be involved because she wasn’t comfortable with her body image. She kept saying that no one will want to see her ad and that they will call her “Kim’s fat sister”. Khloe’s dad even sat her down after she agreed to do the campaign and told her that she should lose a few pounds first (not a good thing to tell a girl). Up until the shoot, she continued to complain about her “fat body”, but after she saw the final results of the ad, she realized how stupid she was for bringing herself down about her image. The ad turned out great and everyone told her how wonderful she looked. She realized she should be happy with how she looks because you don’t have to be super skinny to be pretty. In today’s society, many females in the media have the same thin body type. However that does not mean that they are the only ones that are pretty. Most people do not look like that, and it is good when “regular figured” women are able to show that they have no less beauty than the skinny models.

Desperate Housewives

On week days during the afternoon, old episodes of Desperate Housewives come on the Lifetime channel. Today I turned on the show halfway through the episode, but the part that I did see contained messages about gender roles. Lynette Scavo found out that her pizza restaurant’s building license was no longer accurate. She couldn’t get in touch with her husband, Tom, so she had to take manners into her own hands and get the papers signed by herself. Later that evening when she told Tom about what she had done, he was very upset. He said that he had been trying for weeks to get the building owner to sign the papers but his wife was able to do it in one day. When Lynette asked him why it was such a big deal to him, he said it was because he was the MAN. He was the one who should take charge and get things done. Tom then tells Lynette that he also can’t get an exterminator or a plumbing person to come out. And when Lynette says she will take care of it, he gets upset again. “I’m a man. I don’t want your help. I shouldn’t have to run to my wife every time I can’t do something.” Tom’s attitude towards the situation reflects how much of society views masculinity. Some believe that it is the man who should run all the business matters and that the woman is not capable of doing it. However, Lynette was much more capable of these jobs than her husband. Tom was willing to sacrifice his business instead of asking for help from his wife, who he believes is inferior to him. This episode disproves the concept that women are inferior to men.

The Bachelor

On Monday night the season finale of The Bachelor premiered, however, this was a finale like no other. The Bachelor and Bachelorette has been on the air for several years and every season is almost identical to the one before except for a new set of faces. This season Jason Mesnick was the bachelor looking for the perfect woman to be his wife. Jason warmed his way into hearts all around America with his sweet personality and sad life story. He is a single dad of a three year old, Ty, and the nation watched him as DeAnna refused his proposal during the last season of The Bachelorette. Everyone wanted to see him find his fairy tale ending. During the finale he was down to two girls and he chose Melissa to propose to. The couple looked like a match made in heaven, but within five minutes of the engagement airing, viewers watched the relationship turn sour. During the “After the Final Rose Ceremony” which was directly after The Bachelor, Jason sat on the couch with the host Chris and admitted to not being in love with Melissa. When she came onto the stage he told her that she wasn’t the one he was in love with. She was extremely upset and eventually left the stage after telling Jason how inconsiderate he was. Minutes later the runner up, Molly, came out and he told her that she was the one he wanted.
The show is mainly geared towards a female audience, but this seasons ending displayed very negative messages about females. Jason has asked Melissa to be his wife, and when he decided that she wasn’t all that he thought, he turned around and picked the other girl instead. Jason acted like the girls were his possessions and when he realized he had bought the wrong thing; he returned it for something else. But don’t worry, this message did not go unnoticed. On Tuesday the internet was buzzing with women that were extremely upset about the treatment Jason had with the girls.

Desperate Housewives

This week I watched the latest Desperate Houswives episode “ In a World where Kings are Employers”. During this episode two relationships are portrayed as female dominate. The first relationship is between Bree and Orson. Bree owns her own cookbook and catering business. Her husband, Orson, had recently gotten out of jail and was unable to find any jobs that would accept him. Bree let him work with her as a business partner. In this episode, Orson found out that Bree’s son makes more than he does. He becomes extremely jealous and mad that his wife would do that to him. He has to sneak around behind her back to find out that her son actually makes twice as much as Orson does. When he confronts her about the situation, Bree tells him that he is just “worth less”. Bree dominates every part of their marriage. Instead of working together, Bree bosses Orson around all day. The idea places a bad conception on females.

The second relationship that is female dominated is the marriage of Carlos and Gaby. Carlos has just recently gotten his sight back, and Gaby forces him to work long hours for a high paying job instead of the charity work he wants to do. In this episode, Carlos’s new boss Brad and his wife take the couple out to dinner. Brad tells Gaby and Carlos the bad news that the company is foregoing all bonuses this year. Gaby gets very upset and tells Brad that she needs the money for her new bracelet. Even though Carlos was the one to work the hard hours and who should deserve the bonus, Gaby feels like she is the one who is being let down. Later on Gaby went to tell her jeweler that she couldn’t afford the bracelet when she saw Brad kissing another girl besides his wife. She threatens him, and he bribes her $30,000 not to tell anyone. Gaby selfishly took the money and bought her bracelet. At the end of the episode, Brad and his wife come over and tell Gaby that they are pregnant. Gaby started to feel guilty about taking the money and not telling Brad’s wife about the secret. She eventually told Carlos about the incident, but she told him not to tell anyone. Gaby is the type of person who will do anything for money. Her character also displays a bad image of what femininity is. Not all women live to be pleased by others.

I have been a big fan of The Office for several years now and although I did realize that many of the shows embodied many different stereotypes, I had never really noticed how many of the episodes were sending messages about gender. This week I watched the episode called “Women’s Appreciation Day” and as you can probably already tell from the title, the show was full messages on feminism. The show started out with Phyllis telling everyone that she had just been flashed in the parking lot. When Michael heard, he just laughed and made fun of it. He even asked why the flasher did not choose to do it to Pam or Karen (the younger women in the office) instead. The attitude Michael showed towards the incident displays the common view of society that women are sex symbols. The act was demeaning for Phyllis and the guys did not care how it had affected her. They saw it as a humorous situation. Dwight however, perceived the event in a whole different manner. He sent out a memo to all of the women that said they would be sent home if they broke any of the following rules: no makeup or heals over 1inch allowed, sleeves must be down to wrist, shirts must be buttoned up to the collar and must be muted colors, and no woman is allowed to talk to strangers without written authorization by Dwight himself. The memo symbolized Dwight’s belief that men are superior to women. He thought it was okay to deny women their rights to do what they please, and that they must have his permission to do anything. Later Michael called an emergency women’s appreciation meeting. He started it off by telling everyone that movies and magazines portray women as skinny and tall goddesses. He then asked if this was true and followed it up with the response “NO... look around!” The idea that women are judged by their appearances is brought up. Michael did not mention anything about how men are also portrayed in the media in the same sense. He only wanted to point out that the women of the office are not perfect, and his way of saying it was very negative towards women. Karen then told him that he was being misogynist and he took it as a complement. In the final scene of the episode, Michael was doing a personal interview and say that “any man who says they understand women is a lie because they are un-understandable”. He also finishes up with the question explaining how to be apprecative towards women. His response was because they can try to be “illogical, flighty, unpredictable, and emotion; and then maybe they will have learned something from women after all”.

Dial Soap for Men

On TV the other day I saw a commercial that I could not help but notice the loud masculinity stereotypes. It is the commercial for Men’s Dial Body Soap. The commercial opens up with men playing tubas and singing that they are “manly manly men”. What does that mean exactly and why do they classify themselves as that? This question is never answered in the commercial. Next a man walks into the spotlight describing the Body Soap while cars are crashing all around him. He is wearing a nice suit and tie, but he has a racecar helmet on his head. Dirt is flying up all around him. The guys playing the tubas flash again on the screen and this time they are yelling “Destroy, Defeat, Defend!” The phrase has doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the soap, unless they were referring to defending against germs. The reason they used those specific words was to stress the fact that they are “manly men”. They are trying to emphasize the idea the real men destroy things, as well as defeat and defend. The next line that the main man says is “Man up your man suit with full body odor protection that smells real nice”. What is the definition of the phrase “man up”? What are they trying to apply that a man should be? The final screen shows the words “Protection from Manstink”. There is no question that this commercial and product is geared towards males.

Brookstone Commercial

On Sunday when I was watching the Superbowl, I noticed that there was a trend in the car commercials: they were all geared towards men! In today’s society women buy and own cars just as much as men do. I thought it was odd that no car related commercials were even slightly promoted females buying their product.
One Toyota commercial showed a man looking at the new Venza. The screen was flashing back and forth between the car and what looked to be a metal suit of armor like a super hero would wear. The man was looking at the face mask and then a couple seconds later at the front of the car. No objects in the commercial hinted at feminism. Everything was masculine.
A Toyota Tundra commercial was of a truck driving up a metal platform with fire surrounding it. The colors in the commercial were all dark and gray. Again feminine objects were nowhere to be found.
The third commercial I noticed was actually for Bridgestone Tire Company. It was a humorous commercial of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head driving a sport car on a windy road. Mrs. Potato Head is doing nothing but whining and complaining the entire time. Finally Mr. Potato Head had to stop suddenly because a group of sheep were blocking the road. Mrs. Potato Head’s mouth went flying off down the mountain. Mr. Potato Head just looks at her, smiles, and drives away, all while Mrs. Potato Head is putting on her angry eyes. Although both females and males find this commercial funny, it is geared towards men because they can relate. At the end of the commercial, the narrator says “For drivers who want to get the most out of their cars”.

The link for this commerical is http://www.hulu.com/watch/55725/super-bowl-xliii-ads-bridgestone-taters?c=0

The Office- "Boys and Girls"

This week I was watching a previous season of The Office and found one episode in particular that referred to the topic of gender roles. The episodes title was Boys and Girls. Jane, the corporate boss, came into the office to give a lecture on “women in the workplace”. All of the female employees were required to attend. Jane discussed how men are assertive and how females should dress. In this scene, men are implied to be mean, aggressive people and the only way for women to be respected in their eyes are to dress revealing. Later in the meeting they talk about their dreams. The dreams are suppose to be business related but all of the ladies talked about how they wanted to get married, what they wanted their houses to look like, and how many kids they wanted to have. The writers of the episode were implying that the only thing women want out of life is a family. None of the women ever said anything about being promoted or finding a better job. It was all about the dreams they have of getting a fairy tale life.
While the women are in their meeting, the men decide to create their own conference. Michael told all the men that their meeting will be in the shipping warehouse that is full of sweat and guts because it is where the “real men” work. He is implying that in order to be considered a real man, physical pain and sweat are needed. The men in the warehouse are not the men who sit around and drink coffee at work. These are the men who move heavy boxes around all day. In Michael’s eyes, that makes them “real men”.

LOST

During the season premiere of LOST, I noticed one scene included indirect stereotypes of males and females. The scene took place on the island where Rose and her husband Bernard were trying to start a fire. They did not have any lighters or matches, all they had were sticks. Bernard repeatedly tried to start the fire by rubbing two small sticks together. Even though they both had been delegated to start the fire, Rose only sat there watching Bernard. She then began yelling at him for not doing it right. She never once tried to light it herself. Bernard then began yelling back at her saying that he knew exactly what he was doing. After several minutes went by, Bernard finally got a spark and tries to blow on it to get it going. It quickly went out and Rose began yelling at him again. One stereotype that I noticed was that females only nag and complain without even trying to solve the problem. Rose never once tried to help because she was too busy yelling at her husband telling him what he did wrong. Another stereotype was that males think they are doing everything right; even if they have no idea how to do it. Bernard could have easily asked another person on the island for help, but instead he consistently said he could do it. He never did get the fire to start!