it's just a joke, okay?

In the media we find a saturation of comedy. Everything and everyone is subject to humor on tv. What I have noticed however is that this can be extremely harmful. In my research for my final paper, this became glaringly apparent. In the shows friends it is astonishing how this humor and laugh track mantra of the show is used to normalize misogyny and transphobia. When these things are expressed by characters, it is often presented as if it is normal to be this way (which it often is in this culture) and is usually followed by a laugh track. This provides the perfect set up for someone to watch the show, particularly at a young age, and have these things normalized in their mind. I can say this unfortunately from experience. Only going back after having learned a lot do I realize how terrible some of the humor is in that show. As a child watching the show, my first concept of misogyny and transphobia became normalized as that it was a joke, something to be laughed at and nothing more. So here comes the point. We have make sure that humor does not continue to be a normalization weapon of the media to convince us that thing are okay and even laughable.

The Media, its in my eyes

The media has clearly affected the things I see in the world, but my question is has it affected the way that I look at the world. In other words, ha the media prescribed a specific procedure for me on how to process the world around me. Has the media been able to condition me to look at the world and think in a way that is beneficial to their wishes. I can definitely argue yes, a lot of people in this world including me are led to believe to things make you good, no not dental hygiene and church donations, things and beauty. The media has pumped me full of thoughts that if I am one of the unfortunates that does not fit the ideal model, or if I don't have the coolest new thing, then I am not doing enough. So in that way they have programmed a huge part of the thought I have to be based on getting things and trying to look better. But my real question is it can affect the way I think about real matters, like race and gender in America. I think that maybe it can, It may not be able to change exactly how i would perceive the truth, but the media can certainly stretch and manipulate the truth to their own gain, and in turn control the way I think about a piece of news, which is actually a fairly disconcerting conclusion, but its better than lying to myself, i think enough people lying to me as it is.

PRODUCT (try an ice cold Coca Cola today!!!) PLACEMENT

Watching the Truman show is definitely a fun time. However, having seen it more than once i can say that more than few things became more clear on just how closely and accurately the movie critiques the media. In the movie their is no shortage of product placements by the actors for their sponsors in the show. The first time i watched this movie it was just something funny about how prevalent advertising is in television. This being the third time i've seen the movie, it was surprising to feel that this wasn't just some cheap gag, they were really trying to say something about the media. Though it was funny, it was also very true, advertising is as much a part of media as the stars are a part of the night sky, they always go together. It suddenly hit me that not only is the advertisers pumping their brand through media outlets, but also that the media works along with them so willingly. Then it became clear why almost instantly, money. Clearly in the movie for something like this to be possible, a lot of cash is going to be needed, and when the media need cash, who is their go to source, sponsors and advertisers. I mean, take a look at the superbowl, half the hype over it is for the commercials. We have become a society so saturated with ads that we barely even consider them a separate entity from the actual content media, like pilot fish and a shark, only the pilot fish called 40 of their friends and they are slowly devouring the shark. Looking at the Truman show in an interpretive way, I can see the public as truman, unwitting and unaware, the actors as the media, pushing truman right up against the ads and shoving it in his face, and he still remains consciously oblivious to it.

(This post was brought to you by budweiser, please drink responsibly)

Transgender and the media

It is no secret, or rather it is a secret hidden in plain sight so very well, that transgender people receive little to no recognition in the media. They are either there for comedic relief or some cruel purpose, or not there at all. This goes for fictional media like movie and television as well as in the news (Though some artists like Ray Toro have been a hopeful sign that that is changing slightly for the better). It therefore delighted me when I read a New York Times article, not buried deep in the website, featured a story about the transgender community. The story talked about president Obama's plan to attack "conversion therapy" for transgender youth at a state level to ban it. It also brought to attention a huge case of transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, who receive much less attention than she deserved for her tragic death to do a family that abused her identification as a female. The article gave me so much hope that maybe the media will really get the ball rolling on this issue and people will start to realize that as much as ethnic and racial minorities and gays and bisexuals and lesbians are mistreated by the media, transgenders are far more worse off and there needs to be significant change brought about to assure their well being, and feeling of a safe place in society, and that starts with good media representation to show those who are not transgender the real issues.

Medium and media

We talk a lot about the media and its effects on us. But which media do have the greatest effect on us? Is it balanced? I would argue that it is not, in two ways. The first being that not everybody consumes the same media an not everyone places the same value on each media. One person might place a lot of what they believe about the world from listening to music and what those artists have to say about the world. Others might religiously watch the news on t.v. and draw a lot from that. Another reason is the function of some media. Television for instance is supposed to give accurate reporting, there is supposed to be very little opinion, whereas in something like the movie industry, people are free to push their own ideas and beliefs through their work. So I would argue that the media has a lot of unequal influence on the world, some media have more freedom an influence certain people more than other media. The next question would be, why is this important? Perhaps because people owe it to themselves to broaden the scope of their media intake. If someone watches fox news all day everyday, then they will end up with a narrow perspective about what the world is like. However if they watch several new channels and they listen to a variety of music and they read lots of books and go to see lots of different movies, then they will have a much better chance at becoming more aware of what the world is like.

Represent

Before coming to college it occurred to me very little, undoubtedly due to my privilege, about representation in the media. Most of the media that I consume has to do with superheroes and the like. Of course the white straight man is well represented in this regard. So naturally I have felt well represented, even without realizing it. However when I came to college it started to be brought through my attention, by media no less, the short comings of  the media in the representation department. It also showed me how important it is. Before it had not even occurred to me, a character was just a character. Now of course I realize how important it is for people to feel their ethnicity and sexuality and religion and so on represented in the media, especially young people. I know how it feels to see people like Luke Skywalker and Peter Parker everyday and being able to identify with them. They helped me grow and heal and find out who I am, and to deprive people of that kind of basic development because they are different is not only cruel and ignorant but lazy and idiotic. People have the right to engage in media and see themselves represented. I'm both glad that I was able to broaden my knowledge and frustrated that this is an issue in the first place.

media perspective

through our discussions in class, something intrresting arose for me to blog about. Whenever we move ghrough the media, we always have to be aware about how different other people's media perspectives are, for two reasons. the first is content, when we move through the media, there is so much of it that it is impossible for everyone to move through or prefer all all of it. some people like rap and some like classic rock, some like the ny times and some like fox. This makes it impossible for everyone to have the same perspective on media. There is also the cultural perspective. I myself have undoubtedly a completrly different view of the media then someone who is black or a woman or not cisgender. These two things create an array of people with different views on the media. So when we discuss the media with other people it becomes essential to a productive conversaton that we take into account our own and others perspective and be open to other perspectives, and even be willing to change our opinions on things.