Turkey Day

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I come from a large family and as mention on my Aunt’s BlahBlahBlog we have had our fair share of thanksgiving cooking disasters. Yes, that would be my mom in the “Sauerkrat Disaster” photo sporting the awesome 90s hairdo and cotton overall ensemble (sorry mom). Minus the cooking disasters in my families past, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it is an excuse for all 16 members of my extended family to fly from California, New York, and Boston to all be together if only for just 24 hours. Every year it’s the same routine: the men play football (the fathers get hurt), my mom and aunts do the cooking, we fight over which movie to see (this year its either War Horse or The Descendents, or both) and at dinner we do that cheesy thing where we go around and say what we are thankful for. While I am not openly a fan of such cheesy things – this also includes cheers, I hate cheers. Lately I have come to look forward to hearing what everyone is thankful for, so in spirit of this holiday where thousands of turkeys are killed for people to celebrate American dominance, I thought I’d tell I’d discuss a few things I am hoping to be thankful for in the upcoming year…

I would be ever so thankful if Republicans would stop attacking Planned Parenthood. According to CNN Planned Parenthood is 90% preventative. Therefore if Rep. Mike Pence gets support in his campaign to cut federal funding of this organization because he does not support abortions, in actuality this bill would be detrimental for both “women's health and bad for the fiscal health of the country.” Regardless of ones opinions on abortions the fact that Planned Parenthood provides affordable cancer screening, birth control, treatment and testing for STD’s makes the organization important enough to keep around.

Another thing that I would be thankful for would be peace in Egypt. These protests in Tahrir Square have lasted for too long and have been without justice for the citizens of Egypt. A movement that was sparked by social media worldwide has been much more difficult than expected and the number of deaths reported in the news have been catastrophic. Most recently as the protestors make a wall around the Interior Ministry protestors have been killed as the police created a buffer zone. While the generals did offer an apology for these deaths, according to The New York Times the Egyptian Government has refused to delay elections. The disparity between the people and the government occurring in Egypt seems to be without an inevitable end or resolution and this is deeply troubling.

While I can’t help but hope for these two not so small matters to come to a favorable end in the next year I also am aware of the many blessings that exist currently in my life and in America and for that I am truly thankful. And who knows, maybe I will look back on this thanksgiving 20 years from now and make cracks about the outfit I was wearing…

What we love to hate...

Everyone has those accounts that they secretly follow on twitter – don’t try and deny it. Two of mine are Total Sorority Move (TSM) and Total Frat Move (TFM) and I began following them because I thought they were somewhat accurate and also hilarious. But lately I have just become more and more offended with the tweets appearing on TSM and TFM’s newfeed and I am seriously debating not following them anymore.

Here are just a few examples of some recent tweets that have upset me lately:

“We don’t hate you because you aren’t in a sorority. You aren’t in a sorority because we hate you. TSM”

“Getting a mass text from the Chapter President asking who has clean urine he can use. TFM.”

“If the chaser isn’t diet, I’ll take it straight. TSM.”

“Not needing a presidential bumper sticker because the Z71 package on my Tahoe tells you exactly which party I am for. TFM.”

“Totes excited to change the clocks tonight because we gain an hour of drinking. TSM.”

““Did we order a stripper” In response to a female cop knocking on our door. TFM.”

The thing that most bothers me about these twitter handles is that not only do the speak horribly about people who aren’t involved in the Greek system, but they reflect a view point that is not only so far from my own view but also so far over the line that I’m not sure where on the political spectrum these account holders fall. While everyone is entitled to freedom of speech, with the rise of the internet, freedom of speech has become accessible and viewable to everyone. The problem with TSM and TFM is that they are followed by more than just members of the Greek community. They are followed by high schoolers and even middle schoolers who probably can’t understand that the messages being broadcast on these pages are one: not reflective of the whole Greek community and two: not 100% truthful or friendly.

Greek life is about creating life long brother and sisterhoods not putting down GDI’s (god damn independents aka non-Greeks) or even the houses that are considered to be of a lower caliber. In all honestly these twitter feeds have become a new source of cyber bullying because while they aren’t directed at a specific person their messages demean and make fun of many different groups of people. Aside from being offensive, these accounts just reaffirm all the negative stereotypes that non-Greeks have about Greeks: exclusivity, cattiness, drama, and hazing – just to name a few. Even though so many successful people have been members of a Greek community, people “in the real world” don’t attribute success to being in a fraternity or a sorority because of all the negative connotations that come along with out letters. Despite, some individual’s dislike for the Greek system being in a fraternity or sorority does do some good. From traditions one learns respect, from sisterhood/brotherhood one learns the importance of family, and from ritual and scholarship one learns the about work ethic and responsibility. While these correlations may seemed farfetched once you are a part of a chapter you can seem the relationship, and while some parts of Greek life go away after college (weekly themed parties, mixers, tailgates and the like) the lessons learned during that time will never fade away.  

You're Killing me Smalls!

Ah, Smalls, not to mention, Squints, Yah-Yah, and Repeat – the classic nicknames from one of my favorite sports movies of all times: The Sandlot.

The Sandlot is just one of many films that features unforgettable nicknames. But when I think about all the great nicknames in motion picture history I find it troubling that there is a one group scarcely given nicknames: women. Maybe it the sports film genre or maybe I am being overly feminist, but why can I only remember the male nicknames. This notion has always slipped my mind until my father asked me if girls got nicknames in school, to which my brother interrupted “not like guys do dad.” My brother goes to a all-boys school where pretty much every kid has a nickname, and the majority of the time the guys don’t even know the kids real name. But what about us girls? I graduated from an all-girls high school and believe it or not must of us girls were given nicknames too.

I think the seemingly unimportant issue stems from one of my larger problems with today’s society. In a world where women are now able to hold the same positions as men, we are still considered inferior in many ways. When a male boss is a jerk in the office people pass his behavior off as being “just business” or that he is “in it to win it.” But when a woman acts the same way she is called a bitch. After all of the strides women have made in modern society, why do we still struggle in the professional world? Sure, we are successful but we are always regarded as girly or emotional.

The only solution to this problem in the short term is for women to come together in the workforce instead of fighting amongst each other to get ahead. This is not to say that women shouldn’t aspire to be the leaders of companies but we need to have a conscious attitude of who is treating us unfairly. I think women need to take some advice from comedian/ actress/ writer/ producer/ overall boss woman Tina Fey:

“So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.” 

Not only do should we not hire people who were jerks to us in the past, but we should not become jerks ourselves when awarded positions of power. 

"(It's not my) Baby"

Justin Bieber sure has been singing the “(It’s not my)baby, baby, baby” blues this week. In case you haven't hear J Biebs supposed 20-year-old baby mama is suing the pop star for impregnating and abandoning her and the three-month-old child. Sadly, while the world is facing debt, poverty, and war, this story is the one getting major media attention. While being 16 and being pregnant is a terrifying situation, thanks to the media teen pregnancy has been distorted into just another hot topic and craze for teenagers. The shock and disgust that arose when the 2008 Massachusetts pregnancy pact broke headlines has since transformed into a national obsession in this pandemic. Teen pregnancy has become “the new black” and the trend doesn’t seem to be shifting. If there is going to be a solution to this problem it is going to have to begin, not with the media, but by mandating that all public schools teach an all-encompassing sex education curriculum.

The generation affected by teenage pregnancy is perhaps the most engaged with media than all other generations and the media is the one seriously distorting this issue. Since the 2008 scandal, programs such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom came onto the air to profit from the hype. Soon after these shows arose ABC Family and Lifetime also capitalized on the trend by creating The Secret Life of the American Teenager and The Pregnancy Pact and now today, the madness of this genre has been taken to the stage in a new play called Milk Like Sugar. Regardless of the media’s intentions, the duration and popularity of these programs has created a catastrophic epidemic amongst teenagers today. While the camera tries to show (through both scripted and non scripted programming) the hardships that pregnant teens and their families go through, the fame, how ever bad the publicity may be, is enchanting to many unknowns.

The play Milk Like Sugar features a group of 16-year-old girls who according to New York Times contributor Charles Isherwood in his article Teenage Motherhood is Serious, Especially with Baby Bling at Play, claims the young girls are “a delight to watch”. When one of the girls becomes pregnant she is excited because this means that she will now have “optimal means of securing some slick designer stuff for the baby”. Isherwood, unlike the girls in the play, or the playwright for that matter, understands that teenage pregnancy is a serious problem. Furthermore Isherwood states that teen pregnancies “aren’t the result of careful planning, but its opposite, pure carelessness.”

While Isherwood claims that teenagers are careless, I believe the root of this problem lies in education, or the lack there of. On November 1^st. 2011 the Guttmacher Institute released the most up to date statistics on sex education in the United States. Their findings are as follows: only 21 states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education. 20 of those states and the District of Columbia mandate both sex education and HIV education. Further, 29 states and the District of Columbia mandate that, when provided, sex and HIV education meet these certain requirements: 13 states require that the instruction be medically accurate, 27 states and the District of Columbia require that the information be appropriate for students’ age, 9 states require material to be appropriate for a students’ cultural background, and finally, 2 states prohibit the program from promoting religion. The Guttmacher Institute also states that in 35 states and the District of Columbia parents have the right to remove their children from instruction, and in 22 of these states and the District of Columbia require that parents be notified before sex education or HIV education is provided.

But to some people, young pregnancy is engrained into their culture mindset. As seen in Milk Like Sugar only one character is able to “use her intelligence as a ladder to escape the world of poverty and limits she was born into” but this is not the case for the others, and unfortunately many teenagers in the real world suffer from the same problems. This very notion is the reason why shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom promote the wrong mindset. The women on the show try to balance pregnancy with schoolwork and usually fail because they can’t afford both or because they don’t have the time or the energy. Instead, the young women on the show fight with their parents and the boyfriends and are barely surviving. For instance, Teen Mom Jenelle Evans has been arrested twice and busted for drug use. But, her story has been seen on the cover of People, Star, and Us Weekly multiple times which gives teenagers in the same position as her the wrong idea. In reality, yes Jenelle is “famous” but she is famous for being a train wreck and her child is ultimately the one suffering. Even shows such as The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which features a more well off socioeconomic group, sends the wrong message. The lead character Amy gets pregnant at 15 and the series follows her trying to raise her baby while hooking up with different high school guys and getting into girl drama. While Amy is able to stay in school, the lack of difficulty she is able to do so with glosses over the matter of teen pregnancy and romanticizes it.

No shows on television at the moment truly illustrate the seriousness of teen pregnancy and the repercussions that come along with it. Whether girls are searching for fame and a way to make money or trying to emulate a fictional character from ABC Family, teen pregnancy isn’t going to decrease without the help of nation wide, all-encompassing sex education. While J Biebs will probably continue to be accused of fathering someone’s baby, if both young men and women are given proper sex education through school and through programs that could go out into the streets, the next generation would become more educated and more sensible when trying to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy.

tweet that

According to The New York Times author Brian Stelter in his article "Twitter and TV Get Close To Help Each Other Grow"  Twitter has become the new snail mail. In the olden days when someone would object to something on TV or want to submit an idea to producers a letter would have to suffice, and most of the time those letters would be thrown straight in the trash by the production company. But today, producers are not only embracing, but curious about the public's opinion and have turned to Twitter for help, or so it seems. 

Simon Cowell's "X Factor" has turned to Twitter to get feedback. Instead of casting your vote via phone or text one can tweet their vote and include feedback about the show. Cowell reads these tweets himself (or has someone else read and report on them) and says, "it's like having millions of producers working for you." But is Cowell's new found interest in the public for real or is it just another ploy by corporations to make money?

The chief executive of Twitter, Dick Costolo says "benefits will accrue to us" from this new relationship with TV. While Costolo refused to comment on whether or not Twitter will make an actual profit from the joint venture, it certainly seems like they will. Author Brian Stelter remarks on the venture:

"the proliferation of Twitter logos and language on news and talk shows and now “The X Factor” is not an accident; it is the product of a strategy that started nearly three years ago with the hiring of Chloe Sladden, a former vice president at Current TV, who put Twitter messages on screen during the 2008 presidential election."         

While, a venture between television and the internet seems beneficial for both the viewer and the corporation it could also be harmful. Yes, it is exciting to be able to communicate with your favorite TV shows via twitter and vice versa but the merging of these two markets also creates a monopoly. Now, not only are the things shown on TV censored by the corporations that own them - think about GE's ownership of NBC - but twitter is jumping on board as well. Can we still trust the messages being displayed on twitter or are they just another another ploy by major corporations to influence the masses?

While "The X Factor" is attempting to be technologically savvy and attract a broader audience through participation this unification could lead to something else down the road. For now, it seems safe to express ones opinion about a TV show or network via twitter, but users must remain aware that the information they receive in return might not be the truth. 

Toddlers and Television

Kiss Cookie Monster, Elmo, Oscar and Big Bird good-bye kiddos because the American Academy of Pediatrics thinks that television for toddlers should be all but banned. But is banning television for youngsters really a solution? We live in a world completely saturated by the media so rather than isolating toddlers from media all together parents should be conscious of the types of programs and advertisements they expose their toddlers to.

The Academy’s initial announcement in 1999 “called on parents of young children to all but ban television watching for children under 2,” but after receiving much criticism from parents and the entertainment industry alike, this past week the Academy reissued their original announcement. While the new policy is a lot less restrictive the Academy is still sticking to their belief that “video screen time provides no educational benefits for children under age 2”. Furthermore, studies have shown that “children learn a lot more efficiently from real interactions – with people and things – than from situations appearing on video screens.” So the question remains, how can we change parent’s attitude towards their children’s media consumption? How does one separate from the 40- 60% of households who report having the TV on in the background during the whole day to those parents who put their kids in front of the TV only while they make dinner or take a shower? The problem is that there isn’t any long-term research on this topic, so until there is said research some parents will use the TV to entertain their youngsters instead of interacting with them.

But how interactive can parents be with the degree of media saturation in America today? According to The New York Times author Benedict Carey in his recent article “Parents Urged Again to Limit TV for Youngest”, states that nowadays an average household can have 10 or more screens in it so banning children’s media access is nearly impossible. Despite the copious programs for infants and toddler, the Academy has unwaveringly stated that there is “no such thing as an educational program for such young children.” But, who determines what is educational and what isn’t? It isn't just to rule out all types of entertainment as non-educational when the media plays such an huge role in day-to-day life.

However, parents must be wary when deeming programs educational. One must pay attention to not only the content but also to the advertisements presented along with the show. While networks such as PBS Kids and Nick Jr. are non-commercial, the same cannot be said for other children’s networks such a Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney. These stations air product ads that target the interests of the youngsters who watch the shows. For example, a young girl  loves Dora the Explorer and watches it everyday. Parents think the show is harmless, even educational; it teaches kids Spanish, but they are wrong. This little girl is unknowingly becoming a consumer through the ads she is being shown. She learns how to want and need products such as the “Gourmet Cake Bakery Set” or “Swim with me Barbie.” It is scary to think that children are being treated as consumers from such an early age. While advertisements do not appear during shows for toddlers, who knows what’s next? The Academy would argue that children of such a young age do not have the capacity to understand what an advertisement is, but as soon as these toddlers learn how to form words or even just point, they are going to be pointing to what they see on the TV – and it won’t be Spanish words, it will be dolls, easy-bake ovens, and other useless products.

Despite the dangers of advertisements media should not be banned, but the content of the entire station should be evaluated. This can be done through a process known as Entertainment-Education. Entertainment education, a theory best described by author Martine Bouman in his essay "Turtles and Peacocks: Collaboration in Entertainment-Education Television". believes that media outlets and health providers can work together to promote awareness about social, cultural, and health related issues. Entertainment-Education can be seen on TV shows such as Scrubs in which they dedicate a whole episode to postpartum depression and provide contact information at the end of the episode. But can Entertainment-Education be reflected in programs for children? While the Academy would say no, the long terms love and appreciate of shows such as Sesame Street project a different answer.

Sesame Street is a program that teaches about life-long friendship, happiness, and promotes learning. While the show in a vacuum may not teach children under two these values, with reinforcement from parents, program like Sesame Street will have a positive effect on children. Media and entertainment is only growing more and more prevalent in today’s society and it is the duty of industry professionals to create more programs that stimulate young children and are free from advertisements. Do parents need to be grouchy like Oscar to get commercial free content?  He doesn’t have advertisements in his trashcan!

Interesting Reads

Here are two op-ed pieces that I think are worth looking at this week as they combine my interests in entertainment,  media, and consumer culture. The first one, Hollywood Dishonors the Bard, responds to the upcoming film "Anonymous" and how it paints Shakespeare as nothing but a fraud. The second, How we succeed by failing, talks about success of Steve Jobs and the public's dedication to Apple products despite the company's various failings. Enjoy.