"How 'Hottest Olympian' Did in London"

I really wish I was making that headline up, but unfortunately I'm not. That is one of the headlines on Yahoo. From time to time I'll go on Yahoo and read some of the stupid and pointless articles which they seem to call "news." They obviously have a much broader definition of news than I do. This is one of the headlines for one of their top stories, and I must say, this has to be a low point in journalism, even for Yahoo.

The 'Hottest Olympian' they're referring to is javelin thrower Leryn Franco of Paraguay and she didn't do very well in these Olympic games. In fact, she finished 18th in qualifying and didn't even make the finals in her respective event. I'll repeat that again... 18TH!!!!! Why on earth are we giving coverage to someone who didn't even do well in the qualifying event and who isn't American!? This feeds into the idea that women are valued for their physical appearance (Kim et al., 2007). This woman is very attractive, but she's competing in an environment based on athletic ability, not on physical attractiveness. I have no problem with a journalist mentioning that she's pretty, but I do have a problem with an article being written about her performance only because she is beautiful. Have you ever read an article about someone from another country coming in 18th place in a qualifying event? I know I haven't.

This sends the message to young girls that all that matters is your looks. It doesn't matter if you fail or succeed in what you do, as long as you look good doing it then you have value. The Olympics are supposed to be a time when the world joins together to watch athletes from all countries compete athletically. It's not about where you come from or what you look like. It's about striving to be the best athlete you can be and showing the world what you have trained your whole life for. To write stories based solely on the attractiveness of a female athlete isn't just sexist, it's lazy journalism.

The Men Aren't Real Either!

So in class the other day we were talking about lad magazines and how they are also sending a message for guys on how to look. The look for guys is to be more muscular and toned, "Male models featured in Playgirl centerfolds have become increasingly muscular over the past three decades" (Aubrey & Taylor, 2009, p. 29).  Women are usually the ones to get the attention for the airbrushing and the unattainable bodies that are posted up on ads. Dove even made a video showing how easy it can be done and the type of transformation a woman makes with the magic of photoshop. With that being said, the bodies of men in ads are just as unattainable. Editors use photoshop to enlarge and tone areas of the male body , thus creating a modern day Greek God. I don't know about you, but I don't know a whole lot of Greek Gods walking around. Below is a clip of an evolution a male through the magic of photoshop.

Now that guy started out as a pretty normal guy. He barely had any muscle or body fat on him, but with photoshop they enlarged his shoulders, arms and his pecs while also cutting up his abs. I also found it crazy how they actually moved his nipple to give the appearance of a bigger pectoral muscle! Can't forget either about all the shading that was done to make different muscles stand out. These types of images don't help out us males self-esteem, "Male participants exposed to television commercials containing images of muscular men become more depressed and dissatisfied with their bodies" (Aubrey & Taylor, 2009, p. 30) and "Viewing photographs of physically fit muscular men decreases body satisfaction among males" (Letis et al., 2001).

These images of these muscular guys can lead to consequences dealing with substance abuse among males trying to reach that desired image. Males might workout more to achieve the muscular look, and when that's still not good enough, might turn to steroids to finally look like the muscular men they're seeing in the ads. Whether it's a male or a female, the physical attributes that ads portray are just not realistic.

Ocean's 11 - Stealing Money and Hearts

If you haven't seen Ocean's 11, I feel sorry for you and I send you my condolences. Ocean's 11 is a movie with a fantastic plot, great cast, twist ending, and the journey to win a women's heart back. I mean seriously, what's not to love? Ladies, did I mention that George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon all star in this movie? Talk about sex appeal along with a great story line! Can you WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!?

Anyway, on a more serious note, the movie is about Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his elaborate plan to rob three Las Vegas Casinos all owned by the wealthy Terry Benedict. He gets together a team of 11 other guys who will assists him in the biggest robbery of a Casino ever. The plan to rob the casino is elaborate and impossible to pull off, but they're going to try it anyway! Some good stuff happens after that and I won't give it away, you just need to watch it I guess.

In the movie there is a love interest between Danny Ocean and his ex-wife Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts). The problem is that Tess is currently with Terry Benedict, the same man Danny is trying to rob. Part of Danny's plan is to not only rob Benedict of his money, but to also rob him of Tess so that Danny can have her back.

Tess is the only prominent female character in the movie. Every other character is male. Her only role in the movie is to be a love interest and a prize for the man that can get her at the end. This type of role for Tess is consistent with Ward's (1995) findings that women are passive and that they're attracted to certain types of men. Both of the men after her are very powerful and wealthy, and she doesn't seem to have a say in which one she's going to be with. Danny tells Tess that Benedict doesn't love her the way he does, but yet, she doesn't buy it. It is up to Danny to prove to Tess that Benedict doesn't care about her as much as he cares about money and the state of his casinos. This becomes Danny's main goal in the movie and is consistent with Ward's (1995) findings that men are aggressors and that they use specific strategies to attract women.

While the movie's characters may follow stereotypical gender roles, it is still a good movie that is very well written. These gender roles are also easily explained by the time at which the script was written. Ocean's 11 was originally written and produced in 1960 and was remade in 2001. This could explain the specific gender roles for the characters.

Marriage Makers Inc.

The eighth season of the Bachelorette has come to a thrilling conclusion as Emily chose Jef (with one f) as her knight in shining armor. Jef (with one f) proposed to her when he found out he was the winner and, of course, she said YES! Tears started flowing down my face at this truly remarkable and beautiful moment. I mean, they’re going to get married and live happily ever after and never ever find themselves on the front of a tabloid with their breakup story. That never happens to the winners of these shows!

            The bachelor and bachelorette preach love and marriage throughout each season and yet very few of the “winners” have lived happily ever after. I think this has to do with the expectations of marriage that the contestants on the show have and how the media plays into them. These expectations on marriage and how a relationship works might also be transcended down to the viewing audience who actually believes that these relationships will last.

A show like the bachelorette falls in line with Segrin & Nabi’s (2002) findings that, “Viewing television programming that focuses on marriage and close relationships is associated with [idealistic expectations of marriage]” (p. 250). The bachelorette builds up an idealistic relationship that is to perfect and to good to be true. First of all, all of the contestants go into the show expecting to come out with a marriage partner at the end. I’m sorry, but any relationship where you have to propose at the 6-week mark (approximate filming length of the show) is one that is probably not going to last. Throw in that you’re always on camera and never get actual time to talk in a real-life setting and these relationships are as far from realistic as you can get.

I think the Bachelor and Bachelorette can be problematic for people who watch them and create ideas about the dating and marriage process. The contestants on the show never have to resolve conflicts with each other. Instead, if there’s ever something major, they just don’t give them a rose at the next ceremony. It also doesn’t present a relationship that takes work and isn’t always fun and games. Every date that they go on is extravagant and in exotic locations. The idea is that a relationship should be a constant vacation with no worries. This becomes a problem when people view this as how a relationship should be, and if their relationship in real life fails to be a vacation at all times, then they’ll leave t without putting any work in. Plus, there’s always someone else waiting at the next rose ceremony…

Taylor Swift and Searching for Prince Charming

So after reading that one article about music and what popular songs teach us about love (Bader 2007), I couldn’t help but think of Taylor Swift. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some T-Swift! I mean, shoot, I’ve actually been to two of her concerts! I loved them both by the way. The thing is about my girl T-Swift is that most of her songs are about the perfect guy who didn’t work out or hurt her. I mean, you have this one, and this one, and that one, and don’t forget about this one! I can’t help but think, HOW ON EARTH HAS SHE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THIS MANY GUYS!? I mean seriously, how is that possible? She’s like 21 years old and yet has 3 albums of love affairs with different guys! This is just unbelievable. This girl falls hard and falls fast.

My worry comes in when you think of her audience. We’re talking young girls aged from 6-17, and the occasional 21 year-old male (guilty!), that is the main audience she’s singing too. By looking at Bader’s (2007) article we see myths that popular songs are preaching about love. Bader admits that, "we do not know enough about the influence of popular song lyrics on our cultural understanding of love... [but] commonsense notion that 'we are what we eat'" (p. 156).  I think T-Swift’s lyrics could be detrimental to how these young girls look for guys. They may expect everyone to be prince charming, and if they’re not, then they’re jerks just waiting to hurt you.

Now I see myself as a pretty good guy, but in no way am I anywhere close to prince charming. Prince charming doesn’t exist because everyone has flaws. According to the some of Swift’s lyrics, if a guy hurts you once than he’s an asshole and you need to find someone better. I wonder how this myth will affect those males aged 6-17. I feel for them. 

Movie Analysis: Crazy, Stupid Love

For my movie analysis I watched the movie Crazy, Stupid Love (2011) that starred Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Emma Stone. The movie is about relationships and what it means to it truly means to “love.” There are two main romantic relationships that are followed throughout the film. The first romantic relationship, also the main plot, focuses on Cal and Emily Weaver (Steve Carell and Julianne Moore) as their relationship falls on tough times and they get a divorce. Cal Weaver is completely distraught and starts going to the bar to drink away his sorrows and possibly find another woman. While at the bar he notices a ladies man, Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling), who picks up any and every girl he wants. Jacob ends up taking Cal under his wing to make him more attractive to women so that he can pick them up at the bar. While Jacob is grooming Cal, he falls for the beautiful Hannah (Emma Stone) and starts a more traditional relationship with her.

I decided to analyze the relationship between Hannah and Jacob because they are the young couple that the movie focuses on. The first time Jacob sees Hannah at the bar she denies him and shows him that she wants nothing to do with him, she is turned off by his womanizer mentality. Later in the film Hannah makes the first move to get their relationship started. Hannah goes to Jacob wanting only sex but Jacob finds that Hannah is the only girl he can truly open up to. The courtship strategies for both parties change as the film progresses.

The first clip I analyzed was the first time Jacob sees Hannah at the bar. He approaches her because he finds her attractive and immediately starts dropping pickup lines. The first line he uses makes a reference how “sexy” she is. Hannah calls him out on his ridiculous pickup lines and ultimately denies his sexual advances. He proceeds to mention her physical attractiveness a couple more times and even tells her his intentions with her for the night. Hannah thinks he is completely insane and isn’t falling for his tricks. She walks straight out of the bar and doesn’t give in to any of his advances.

This scene shows a lot of how men are “supposed” to act when attempting to woo a female. Men are supposed to be open and assertive with their intentions with the relationship. This courtship strategy relates to one of the masculine courtship strategies that Kim et al. (2007) outlines in their findings. Based on this scene, men are supposed to want an attractive woman and should use strategies such as corny pickup lines to get them. Ward (1995) mentions that men select women based on their appearance and that they use specific strategies to attract women. Jacob uses the strategy of his pickup lines and his lines of his true feelings about Hannah's beauty. In this excerpt, Jacob’s approach towards the relationship with Hannah follows a stereotypical male approach.

Hannah’s role in the scene shows that women need to be passive in the relationship and set the sexual limits so that the men don’t get it too easy. Hannah is not falling for Jacob’s charm and takes a passive roll while letting Jacob dominate the conversation. This agrees with Ward’s (1995) findings on the sexual role of women and that they’re portrayed as passive and not as sexual.

The second excerpt that I analyzed was the second time that Hannah and Jacob see each other in the movie. Hannah has broken up with her boyfriend, because he wasn’t serious about her, and decides to run to the bar to sleep with Jacob to clear her head. She runs into the bar drenched in water, it’s raining outside, and find Jacob and immediately starts making out with him. She then asks him to take her home and they leave the bar.

This scene communicates messages about both men and women that are contradictory to the first scene with Jacob and Hannah. In this encounter, Hannah is the aggressive one who initiates the physical contact. She also goes to Jacob because she finds him attractive and chooses him to take her home. These are traits that are usually exhibited by males, but in this scene it is the female who plays the male role (Ward 1995). Jacob strategies change as well in this scene. He becomes the more passive partner and follows the wishes of Hannah. This is usually a characteristic that is reserved for females. Although Jacob is more passive in this scene, he still has some stereotypical male qualities. This scene drives home the point that men still want sex. Jacob doesn’t even hesitate and actually ignores the other girl he was hitting on. He realized that he had a Hannah in the bag already and decided to bring her home. This still drives home that men are supposed to want sex (Ward 1995).

The last excerpt analyzed was after the bar scene and at Jacob’s house. Jacob pulls out his entire bag of tricks that he uses to bed women while Hannah just can’t wait to get down to business. Hannah keeps making Jacob show the next trick he usually pulls because she is really nervous. Jacob plays it cool and shows the moves he pulls to get the women into bed with him. The scene ends with Jacob performing his “big move” on Hannah that ultimately gets her into the bedroom.

For men, this shows that men need to have a bag of tricks ready to use on women that will win them over and get them into bed with them. Jacob does this all the time and the fact that he beds a ton of women proves that he is a real man. Jacob never asks Hannah a personal question in the scene and he is just waiting for his sexual endeavor with Hannah. These are both ideas that Ward (1995) codes in her findings about how males view sex and that they have specific strategies to attract women.

This scene for women runs parallel with Ward’s (1995) findings as well. It shows that women are attracted to a certain type of men. This is shown by the fact that Jacob is able to bring home so many women to his house and use the same moves on all of them. Women are attracted to the “hot guy at the bar.” Even though Hannah is verbally stating that she wants to sleep with Jacob, her actions tell otherwise and show that she is more passive. She has Jacob where she wants him, yet she waits for him to pull out all of his moves. She even admits that she’s really nervous. Hannah is also setting the sexual limits of the scene. If she wants sex, she’s going to get it, but she also seems unsure about her decision to come home with Jacob. The responsibility falls on her shoulders.

Throughout the movie we get different instances where men and women pursue each other. Sometimes the men are the initiators, while other times the women are doing the initiating. The film as a whole communicates that men need to be the ultimate pursuers and fight for their women. This happens multiple times with Cal as he is the one fighting to get back Emily. Jacob also fights for Hannah and his rights to be with her, especially in the end of the movie. Cal’s son Robbie is also seen fighting for the love of an older woman. Towards the end of the movie he decides to give up but is told to never give up and to keep on fighting. Women take a passive role as the ones who sit back and wait for the men to prove their worth by fighting for them. In the end it’s not sex that men are fighting for, but they should be fighting for the heart of their one true “soul mate.”

References

Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research

Ward, L. M. (1995). Talking about sex: Common themes about sexuality in the prime-time television programs children and adolescents view most. Journal of Youth and Adolescence

  

Family Guy - Quagmire's Antics

So tonight I found myself watching an episode of Family Guy and laughing at it's dumb humor, and the character that got the loudest laugh form me was Quagmire. For those of you who don't know Quagmire's character, he is the most stereotypical male I think there is on TV. He sleeps with literally everything that moves and has never been in a long-term relationship. He is only focused on the physical features a woman possesses and rarely views women as people. Women are essentially sex toys, sex toys that he can brag about to his boys at the bar. Below is a quick montage of Quagmire clips from the series, as well as a picture with some of his quotes, so you can bring yourself up to speed on this guy.

So in the episode I was watching, I would post a link to the exact episode but according to this new thing called "copyright" I'm not allowed to (Anywho, it was season 8 episode 10 and the title is "Big Man on Hippocampus"), Peter loses his memory and doesn't remember who his wife, Lois, or family. This eventually leads to Peter and Lois taking a break in their marriage and gives Quagmire the opportunity to swoop in and sleep with Lois. I should also mention that Quagmire's dream is to sleep with Lois. Quagmire makes his move late in the episode to sleep with Lois and it got me thinking about Ward's (1995) article, Talking About Sex: Common Themes About Sexuality in the Prime-Time Television Programs Children and Adolescents View Most, and the findings about the common themes for male sexuality. Quagmire fits the male sexual role that Ward outlined to a "T." As you may recall from the reading, the 4 main sexual roles for males are valuing women for their appearance, sex is a defining act of masculinity, men will do deviant things to bed women, and men are the initiators. 

Quagmire goes after Lois because she is beautiful. If Lois weren’t easy on the eyes then she wouldn't be a target for Quagmire's sexual missile. Quagmire is also seen as the ultimate man's man because of all the women he beds. In this episode he sees Lois without her husband (he lost his memory) and feels the way to be the man in her life is to sleep with her. Being a man is correlated with a sexual conquer. Quagmire is also known for his deviant ways of getting women to bed. Throughout the show he uses all types of deviant things to bed women, like using roofies, getting them drunk, or taking advantage of their weak emotional state. In this episode he pounces on Lois's weak emotional state and invites her over for dinner to get her drunk. Two deviant things if you ask me. So we have 3 of the 4 sexual roles for Quagmire in this episode, but have no fear, the man does hit for the cycle! For those who don't know what the "cycle" is, it is a baseball term that is described here. He is also the initiator with Lois as he is the one who first pulls her onto the bed. And Quagmire goes 4 for 4! Spoiler Alert! Lois doesn't end up sleeping with him. Sorry if I ruined that for you.

While Quagmire's character is very over the top, I do feel that there could be some problems with how stereotypical he is. The Family Guy audience is largely male and Quagmire is portrayed as the ultimate male because of the amount of women he takes to bed. It doesn't help that he is a complete asshole and yet he still gets the women. This type of character reinforces to the predominately male audience of what it means to be the ultimate man. Although his character is funny, he degrades both men and women with his actions and never sees any consequences from them.