Erin Brockovich, Final

Andi Zeisler describes pop culture as a being of its own kind.  It is everywhere one may turn, popping up on any type of medium like television, computers, books, and radios.  It is constantly engulfing people into the ways of the modern media and culture.  It is seen by the masses and is addicting to some.  Feminism plays a broad role in modern pop culture and women are always playing huge roles in modern times and in the media.

One film in particular, "Erin Brockovich", very well describes the struggles of women in pop culture and how difficult it is for strong females to strive.  The movie released in 2000 shows the struggles that women constantly face in that they are very underestimated and are seen by many men to not have the capabilities to be as powerful or intelligent as men in the business world.  Erin Brockovich was single mother of 3 who was unemployed and had just lost a serious personal injury case.  She then got a job from her lawyer during the case as a file clerk in his office.  This woman had little to nothing going for her except for a low-paying job and the fact that she was quite attractive as she used to compete regularly in beauty pageants and at one point was a former Miss Wichita.  Even in her tough postition Brockovich did not falter as she began snooping through documents on a gas and electric company case while working as a fileclerk.  She was able to find out that the company had actually been lying about there pollution outputs and the company had actually been poisoning a small town in California.  She eventually was able to uncover enough evidence and in the ensuing case, the gas and electric company was forced to pay $333 million dollars to over 160 plaintiffs who had been affected by the pollution and water poisoning.

Here's a trailer for those unfamiliar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TjEklyF7-E

This film goes against the old ways of thinking about women.  For example, Brockovich goes against the old-fashioned cliche of a mother.  A mother should be home at all times, tending to her home and children and raising the kids at home so that they will be well behaved for when their father returns home.  She should be dressed well and already have a meal ready for her children and her husband when he comes back to work.  Brockovich defies this dated stereotype of a mother as she is a single mother with three children.  She struggles to maintain a steady balance between her kids and her job early in the film, but eventually she finds her happy medium as she is eventually able to find a happy medium between both. 20 or 30 years prior a single mother or a divorcee would be seen as a tramp or a worthless female, but Brockovich shows that this mindset is completely untrue and that woman can raise children and maintain a steady job regardless of how many children or how difficult a job may turn out to be.



Brockovich is also able show strong feminist values as she doesn't require a male presence in order to succeed in the business world.  A single mother at a very low ranking job and three kids to feed and care for is in no way an easy feat.  She is able to not only support those children, all of which are very young thus requiring a lot of extra attention and care, but she also manages to succeed in her job.  Not only does she succeed, she figueres out a huge company is hurting thousands of people without and experience or a degree in the proper field she had been fighting for.  All of this was done without a major male influence in her life.  Erin became one of the most well known women in the country due to her strong, fiery passion and the fact she did all of this by herself, providing pride and honor to woman accross the country.

Even as Brockovich proves many stereotypes wrong about women, she is also able to use her looks and body as a tool.  In one scene she shows her cleavage to s clerk at the company she is investigating in order for him to allow Brockovich to look through some files.  This shows the idea of the idea that women understand what goes in many minds of men and that they should use their bodies and the fact that they are women to get ahead.  This movie shows that women have understandings of themselves and dumb stereotypes, such as in the scene that man was easily manipulated by use of Erin's female body and the fact that she understood that the man probably thought Erin was harmless, being that she was a woman.  This shows how women use not only their wit and intelligence but their wit in order to get ahead.

Erin Brockovich was a strong, feminist woman who proved that women are strong and underestimated and that all the objectification that goes on through modern media portraying women as nothing but sheer dolls or eye candy for men is completely incorrect and does nothing disregard the advancements of modern culture.

Citations:

Zeisler, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. California: Seal, 2008. Print.

Image 1:
http://blogs.amctv.com/movie-blog/2009/05/photos-movie-moms.php

Image 2:
http://holidays.slides.kaboose.com/143-top-ten-mother-s-day-movies/2

Lady Gaga - Final Blog

Pop culture is defined by Andi Zeisler to be “any cultural product that has a mass audience.” Pop culture is everywhere and consumes our lives, especially as college students. If we don’t see it on our computers, on signs as we walk to class, and on television, then we hear it in daily conversations with our peers. Due to the fact that there is no escaping the interaction we face with pop culture, it is constantly available and interesting to analyze. Furthermore, the topic of feminism in pop culture is even more interesting to analyze. Women make up a large amount of pop culture, but what is interesting is what they do to be in that position.

A prime example of the topic of feminism in pop culture is the music video to the song “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, shown below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw&ob=av2e

Lady Gaga is promoting feminism through her lyrics in this song. With a very fast and optimistic beat, she promotes being oneself and living life to the fullest. However, when you take a closer look at the music video, Lady Gaga is wearing a very small amount of clothing, shown in the picture below. Her clothes show off her entire body, and bones. As shown in the picture, Lady Gaga is extremely and perhaps too skinny, which may make girls feel bad about themselves. By doing this Lady Gaga is lowering herself to pop culture’s standards of having women being almost naked in order to succeed. She creates a very ironic and interesting situation by promoting and putting down feminism, all in one video.

The lyrics to “Born This Way” promote loving oneself for who you are. For example, in the chorus, Lady Gaga sings “I'm beautiful in my way, 'Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way.” By saying this she means that everyone is beautiful the way they were born. She goes on to sing that as long as you keep your head up, you will go far. Another optimistic quote in her lyrics is “In the religion of the insecure, I must be myself, respect my youth.” Lady Gaga is preaching that in today’s culture, many people are very insecure, but you must rise above and respect yourself and your peers. It will only do good if everyone lets go of insecurities and becomes who they are. These lyrics promote feminism because they are uplifting to women. They don’t put anyone down, however they encourage girls to be themselves.

By listening to “Born This Way” on the radio, a girl can feel rejuvenated and have complete confidence in herself. However, if she takes a closer look at the music video, this feeling may go away. Lady Gaga becomes a subject of the “male gaze” in her video. Male gaze is defined to be the idea that when we look at videos or images, we look at them a man might, because images are constructed to be looked at by men. The “Born This Way” video portrays Lady Gaga as very sexy. During parts of the chorus, she is shown dancing in a costume that consists of a black bra and underwear. She is also wearing chains and her tattoos are revealed. As she touches herself and bends in very flexible ways, she is saying “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I’m on the right track baby, I was born to survive.” First of all, men can look at this video and probably not hear a word she is saying because they are so focused on her almost naked body. In addition to this, they see the way she is bending and touching herself, and probably think that means they can touch women like that too. Then, the girls who watch the video feel bad about themselves for not looking like Lady Gaga. Suddenly, the song that these girls earlier heard and felt confidence from, just completely made them feel insecure.

Lady Gaga gives us a very ironic view on feminism in her music video, “Born This Way.” When hearing this song, a girl will feel great about herself, which allows Lady Gaga to sell the song, and make millions of dollars. But, when watching the video, a girl can feel horrible that she doesn’t look as sexy as Lady Gaga, or can move in the same way she can. Either way, Lady Gaga is selling her music and video by the millions, so it addresses the question of whether she cares that she is also revealing herself. By succumbing to pop culture and the male gaze, Lady Gaga unfortunately goes against her values of feminism. She becomes a hypocrite, yet very successful artist, by revealing her body to the world.

Citations:

"Celebrities, Sports, World News and More!" Momsworld.org. 31 Mar. 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. 〈=en>.

LadyGagaVEVO. "Lady Gaga - Born This Way." Youtube-Broadcast Yourself. 27 Feb. 2011. Web. 18 Sept. 2011. .

Zeisler, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. Berkeley, CA: Seal, 2008. Print.

Beyoncé (Final)

‘Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge,’ by Andrea Dworkin

When humans first showed their presence on earth, men couldn’t practice their power over women and there wasn’t any gap between sexes. The dominance of male all started out when human beings started to settle in a place and learned how to farm; men were mostly stronger than women and most works that involved a heavy power, were done by men. In result, throughout the history, almost all high class positions were composed of men, predominantly. The quote by Dworkin well describes what feminism was like in the past; women were subjected to remain inferior under the society comprised of men. Nowadays, it’s still questionable that this trend, placing men over women, remains strong in our society. To examine how women are represented in the modern society, we need to take a closer look at how they are represented in current pop culture.

First of all, what is ‘pop culture’? According to Andi Zeisler, by talking about pop culture, we mean ‘television… movies… MTV, NBC, BET, VH1… radio… fashion magazines and celebrity tabloids.’ (Zeisler, 3) So in general, the definition of pop culture is ‘part of our mass consciousness’ that leaves a huge impression on us. Pop culture is very broad and includes many types of media. How women are dressed, in movies, shows, TV, or other sorts of mass media, is included in pop culture as well. Among many media that shows how clothing of women represents feminism in pop culture, is a music video, ‘Who run the world,’ by Beyoncé, in which this blog will discuss about.

Link to ‘Who run the world’ by Beyoncé : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U&ob=av2e

Just by looking at the lyrics of the song, one can easily find out what the song is implying. The beginning part of the song describes how men have ruled for decades and women have remained in low status under men’s ‘world.’ The repeating phrase, ‘who run the world? Girls,’ emphasizes the theme, the purpose of the song. However, regardless of how well this video, or lyrics should I say, promotes superiority of women, the clothing of Beyoncé contains some ironic concepts when it comes to how women are represented in pop culture.

Image of Beyoncé in ‘Who run the world’ : http://chiconthestreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/who-run-the-world-beyonce-yellow-590ssl051911.jpg

The above image is from the music video ‘Who run the world.’ It’s clear she wears a skimpy, tight cloth in the music video. Why does her clothing matter? Skimpy clothing is one of the representative figures of ‘male gaze’. What is ‘male gaze?’ ‘Male gaze,’ according to Zeisler, is ‘the idea that when we look at images in art or on screen, we’re seeing them as a man might … because those images are constructed to be seen by men.’ (Zeisler, 7) Women wearing tight cloth in every genre of shows and movies are from a view of men thinking what women should wear, not from a view of women. Somehow the view of Beyoncé on tight cloth recalls the concept of ‘male gaze,’ and once again, leaves the viewers with men’s perspective. The music video itself, overall, seems to put its point on her clothing and dancing rather than emphasizing its point on the lyrics, the theme of the song. The video entirely focuses on no other subject than Beyoncé. So no matter what the viewer try to do, they are subjected to see her tight clothing and choreography along with it. It seems like ‘Who run the world’ focuses its point on marketing rather than the theme of how women can be superior.

Generally, the overall living of women has advanced and well developed through many feminism movements; women can hold a high position in politics and are capable of doing what people considered as male’s job in the past. However, women are still misrepresented in the modern pop culture in some way through their clothing, concept of viewing women on men’s perspective, and others. There still needs to be a change in order to correctly represent women in our pop culture.

Citations :

"Beyoncé - Run The World (Girls) - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.BeyonceVevo, 18 May 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U>.

Guillemets, Terri. "Feminism Quotes, Sayings about Women's Rights, Sexism, Gender Liberation." The Quote Garden - Quotes, Sayings, Quotations, Verses. 08 May 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2011. .

Zeisler, Andi. Feminism and Pop culture. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008. Print

Tomb Raider: Final

In today’s society, the media has a very powerful influence upon people and how they choose to lead their lives. Whether it is a fashion trend or a new music genre; media relays a message and portrays it as reality. That is very important because, more than often, the media will try to feed us information that can be very opinionated or sometimes completely false. A prime example of this is the way the media portrays women. The argument people give is basically saying that the media places women under men. It categorizes women as means of advertisement, as ‘things’ to be looked at by men (and in some cases other women). Also known as the ‘male gaze’, this idea that men control the media and how it portrays women is clearly an issue, and is noticeably present in almost all of today’s popular forms of media.

A very clear example representing this issue was in a movie called Tomb Raider. In the reading, Ziesler mentions how there are very few action movies with the girl as the lead role. For the most part this is true, but there are still a handful of action movies where a female does earn the lead part. When analyzing Angelina Jolie’s role in Tomb Raider, it is not hard to realize that her character is deeply affected by this objectification of women. In the movie, there is hardly a single scene where ‘Lara Croft’ is not wearing tight, skimpy clothing. Her general appearance and attitude is obviously appealing to the male standard. In order to attract more men, and therefore many more viewers, Jolie is thrown into this role that is very misleading and debatable.

This is a picture of one of the scenes in the movie. ‘Male gaze’ is clearly present in this scene. Zeisler defines the ‘male gaze’ as “the idea that when we look at images…we’re seeing them as a man might” (7). This scene, along with a few others, exploits the idea that Jolie is an attractive woman. Her part in the movie is surprisingly legitimate though, in my opinion. Throughout the story, she is consistently winning fights and whatnot (as most heroes do) and the fact she is a girl never really slows her down. Although she does a great job at playing the part and making a successful movie, it is apparent how the ‘male gaze’ still had it's affect.

Here is the movie poster for the film. As you can see, Jolie is wearing a very tight shirt paired with noticeably short shorts as well. It is truly a shame that one of the most seen advertisements for this film is just flaunting Jolie’s body. Especially after seeing the movie, one would have to admit that there are a decent amount of action scenes that surely could have made another trailer poster just as easily. That is, though, where the problem lies. Men will be that much more attracted to the idea of seeing the movie after seeing that poster. It is crazy what that simple change can do to help sales for the film. Honestly, that can make sense in only one way, from the advertising standpoint. Whether or not this movie were to concentrate on her body, that poster leads all that see it to believe the movie will contain a lot of emphasis on Jolie’s hot look. Unfortunately, this is the advertising angle movie producers use in hopes of raising popularity of the movie.

The idea that a lead role in an action movie should not be a woman is completely twisted. Women deserve every right to try for the part. As a head representative stated, though, movies with women as lead roles make less money. This is very important because the film industry is just that-an industry. In order for a movie to be worth filming, there must be some assurance that the movie will actually make money so that there is a profit. In order to solve this case, they could simply pay the lead role less money than a man would normally earn, to balance out the loss of money. Of course, then, the argument that women aren’t getting paid as much as men would surely be brought up and would ignite yet another debate. Regardless, women should obviously have a fair shot at trying for action movies, assuming they fit the role. Angelina Jolie was given this wonderful opportunity to make a great action movie, and she definitely capitalized on said opportunity. But, due to the way women are portrayed in pop culture, her role was compromised and was forced to subdue to the ‘male gaze’ in order to have hopes of the film finding success.

Zeisler, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. Berkeley, CA: Seal, 2008. Print.

Pictures from:

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1010/196622.1010.A.jpg

and

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5726/angelinajolietombraider.jpg

Erin Brockovich (2)

Andi Zeisler describes pop culture as a being of its own kind.  It is everywhere one may turn, popping up on any type of medium like television, computers, books, and radios.  It is constantly engulfing people into the ways of the modern media and culture.  It is seen by the masses and is addicting to some.  Feminism plays a broad role in modern pop culture and women are always playing huge roles in modern times and in the media.

One film in particular, "Erin Brockovich", very well describes the struggles of women in pop culture and how difficult it is for strong females to strive.  The movie released in 2000 shows the struggles that women constantly face in that they are very underestimated and are seen by many men to not have the capabilities to be as powerful or intelligent as men in the business world.  Erin Brockovich was single mother of 3 who was unemployed and had just lost a serious personal injury case.  She then got a job from her lawyer during the case as a file clerk in his office.  This woman had little to nothing going for her except for a low-paying job and the fact that she was quite attractive as she used to compete regularly in beauty pageants and at one point was a former Miss Wichita.  Even in her tough postition Brockovich did not falter as she began snooping through documents on a gas and electric company case while working as a fileclerk.  She was able to find out that the company had actually been lying about there pollution outputs and the company had actually been poisoning a small town in California.  She eventually was able to uncover enough evidence and in the ensuing case, the gas and electric company was forced to pay $333 million dollars to over 160 plaintiffs who had been affected by the pollution and water poisoning.

This film goes against the old ways of thinking about women.  For example, Brockovich goes against the old-fashioned cliche of a mother.  A mother should be home at all times, tending to her home and children and raising the kids at home so that they will be well behaved for when their father returns home.  She should be dressed well and already have a meal ready for her children and her husband when he comes back to work.  Brockovich defies this dated stereotype of a mother as she is a single mother with three children.  She struggles to maintain a steady balance between her kids and her job early in the film, but eventually she finds her happy medium as she is eventually able to find a happy medium between both. 20 or 30 years prior a single mother or a divorcee would be seen as a tramp or a worthless female, but Brockovich shows that this mindset is completely untrue and that woman can raise children and maintain a steady job regardless of how many children or how difficult a job may turn out to be.

Brockovich is also able show strong feminist values as she doesn't require a male presence in order to succeed in the business world.  A single mother at a very low ranking job and   The strong modern woman should be able to rely on one person if need be and that person is herself as she is able to save the lives of thousands without a true male influence.

Erin Brockovich was a strong, feminist woman who proved that women are strong and underestimated and that all the objectification that goes on through modern media portraying women as nothing but sheer dolls or eye candy for men is completely incorrect and does nothing disregard the advancements of modern culture.

Tomb Raider

In today’s society, the media has a very powerful influence upon people and how they choose to lead their lives. Whether it is a fashion trend or a new music genre; media relays a message and portrays it as reality. That is very important because quite often, the media will try to feed us information that can be very opinionated or sometimes completely false. A prime example of this is the way the media portrays women. The argument is basically saying the media places women under men. It categorizes women as means of advertisement, as “things” to be looked at by men. Also known as the "male gaze", this idea that men control the media and how it portrays women id clearly present in this movie. The "male gaze" is surely an issue, and is present in almost all of today’s popular forms of media.

A very clear example representing this issue was in a movie called Tomb Raider. In the reading, Ziesler mentions how there are very few action movies with the girl as the lead role. For the most part this is true, but there are still a handful of action movies where a female does earn the lead part. When analyzing Angelina Jolie’s role in Tomb Raider, it is not hard to realize that her character is deeply affected by this objectification of women. In the movie, there is hardly a single scene where she is not wearing tight, skimpy clothing. Her general appearance and attitude is obviously appealing to the male standard. In order to attract more men, and therefore many more viewers, Jolie is thrown into this role which is very misguiding and debatable. Her part in the movie, though, is surprisingly legitimate in my opinion. Throughout the story, she is consistently winning fights and whatnot (as most heroes do) and the fact she is a girl never really slows her down. Although she does a great job at playing the part and making a successful movie, it is apparent how the "male gaze" still had its affect.

Above is the movie poster for the film. As you can see, Jolie is wearing a very tight shirt paired with noticeably short shorts as well. It is truly a shame that one of the most seen advertisements for this film is just flaunting Jolie’s body. Especially after seeing the movie, one would have to admit that there are a decent amount of action scenes that surely could have made another trailer poster just as easily. That is, though, where the problem lies. Men will be that much more attracted to the idea of seeing the movie after seeing that poster. It is crazy what that simple change can do to help sales for the film. Honestly, that can make sense in only one way, from the advertising standpoint. Whether or not this movie were to flaunt Jolie’s body, that poster leads all that see it to believe the movie will contain a lot of emphasis on Jolie’s hot look. Unfortunately, this is the advertising angle movie producers use in hopes of raising popularity of the movie.

The idea that a lead role in an action movie should not be a woman is completely twisted. Women deserve every right to try for the part. As a head representative stated, though, movies with women as lead roles make less money. This is very important because the film industry is just that-an industry. In order for a movie to be worth filming, there must be some assurance that the movie will actually make money so that there is a profit. I guess to solve this case, they could simply pay the lead role less money than a man would normally earn, to balance out the loss of money. Of course, then, the argument that women aren’t getting paid as much as men would surely be brought up and would ignite yet another debate. Regardless, women should obviously have a fair shot at trying for action movies assuming they fit the role.

Beyonce (2)

‘Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge,’ by Andrea Dworkin

When humans first showed their presence on earth, there wasn't any gap between sexes. It all started out when human beings started to settle in a place and learned how to farm; men were mostly stronger than women and most works that involved a heavy power, were done by men. In result, throughout the history, almost all high class positions were composed of men, predominantly. The quote by Dworkin well describes what feminism was like in the past; women were subjected to remain inferior under the society comprised of men. Nowadays, it’s still questionable that this trend, placing men superior compared to women, remains strong in our society. To examine how women are represented in the modern society, we need to see how they are represented in current pop culture.

First of all, what is ‘pop culture’? According to Andi Zeisler, by talking about pop culture, we mean ‘television… movies… MTV, NBC, BET, VH1… radio… fashion magazines and celebrity tabloids.’ So in general, the definition of pop culture is ‘part of our mass consciousness’ that leaves a huge impression on us. Pop culture is very broad and includes many types of media. How women are dressed, in movies, shows, TV, or other sorts of mass media, is included in pop culture as we

ll. Among many media that shows how clothing of women represents feminism in pop culture, is a music video, ‘Who run the world,’ by Beyoncé, this blog will discuss about.

Link to ‘Who run the world’ by Beyoncé : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U&ob=av2e

Just by looking at the lyrics of the song, one can easily find out what the song is implying. The beginning part of the song describes how men have ruled for decades and women have remained under men’s ‘world.’ The repeating phrase, ‘who run the world? Girls,’ emphasizes the theme, the purpose of the song. However, regardless of how well this video, or lyrics should I say, promotes superiority of women, the clothing of Beyoncé contains some ironic concepts when it comes to how women are represented in pop culture.

Image of Beyoncé in ‘Who run the world’ : http://chiconthestreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/who-run-the-world-beyonce-yellow-590ssl051911.jpg

The above image is from the music video ‘Who run the world.’ It’s clear she wears a skimpy, tight cloth in the music video. Why does her clothing matter? Skimpy clothing is one of the representative figures of ‘male gaze’. What is ‘male gaze?’ ‘Male gaze,’ according to Zeisler, is ‘the idea that when we look at images in art or on screen, we’re seeing them as a man might … because those images are constructed to be seen by men.’ Women wearing tight cloth in every genre of shows and movies are from a view of men thinking what women should wear, not from a view of women. Somehow the view of Beyoncé on tight cloth recalls the concept of ‘male gaze,’ and once again, leaves the viewers with men’s perspective. The music video itself, overall, seems to put its point on her clothing and dancing rather than emphasizing its point on the lyrics, the theme of the song. The video entirely focuses on no other subject than Beyoncé. So no matter what the viewer try to do, they are subjected to see her tight clothing and choreography along with it. It seems like ‘Who run the world’ focuses its point on marketing rather than the theme of how women can be superior.

Generally, the overall living of women has advanced and well developed through many feminism movements; women can hold a high position in politics and are capable of doing what people considered as male’s job in the past. However, women are still misrepresented in the modern pop culture in some way through their clothing, concept of viewing women on men’s perspective, and others. There still needs to be a change in order to correctly represent women in our pop culture.

Lady Gaga - Draft 2

Pop culture is defined by Andi Zeisler to be “any cultural product that has a mass audience.” Pop culture is everywhere and consumes our lives, especially as college students. It is on our computers, on signs as we walk to class, and on television. Due to the fact that we interact with pop culture to such a high extent, it is constantly available to analyze. Furthermore, the topic of feminism in pop culture is even more interesting to analyze. Women make up a large amount of pop culture, but what is interesting is what they do to be in that position.

A prime example of the topic of feminism in pop culture is the music video to the song “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, shown below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw&ob=av2e

Lady Gaga is promoting feminism through her lyrics in this song. With a very fast and optimistic beat, she promotes being oneself and living life to the fullest. However, when you take a closer look at the music video, she is wearing a very small amount of clothing. By doing this Lady Gaga is lowering herself to pop culture’s standards of having women being almost naked in order to succeed. She creates a very ironic and interesting situation by promoting and putting down feminism, all in one video.

The lyrics to “Born This Way” promote loving oneself for who you are. For example, in the chorus, Lady Gaga sings “I'm beautiful in my way, 'Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way.” By saying this she means that everyone is beautiful the way they were born. She goes on to sing that as long as you keep your head up, you will go far. Another optimistic quote in her lyrics is “In the religion of the insecure, I must be myself, respect my youth.” Lady Gaga is preaching that in today’s culture, many people are very insecure, but you must rise above and respect yourself and your peers. It will only do good if everyone lets go of insecurities and becomes who they are. These lyrics promote feminism because they are uplifting to women. They don’t put anyone down, however they encourage girls to be themselves.

By listening to this song on the radio, a girl can feel rejuvenated and have complete confidence in herself. However, if she takes a closer look at the music video, this feeling may go away. Lady Gaga becomes a subject of the “male gaze” in her video. Male gaze is defined to be the idea that when we look at videos or images, we look at them a man might, because images are constructed to be looked at by men. The “Born This Way” video portrays Lady Gaga as very sexy. During parts of the chorus, she is shown dancing in a costume that consists of a black bra and underwear. She is also wearing chains and her tattoos are revealed. As she touches herself and bends in very flexible ways, she is saying “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I’m on the right track baby, I was born to survive.” First of all, men can look at this video and probably not hear a word she is saying because they are so focused on her almost naked body. Then, the girls who watch the video feel bad about themselves for not looking like Lady Gaga. Suddenly, the song that these girls earlier heard and felt confidence from, just put them down.

Lady Gaga gives us a very ironic view on feminism in her music video. When hearing this song, a girl will feel great about herself, which allows Lady Gaga to sell the song. But, when watching the video, a girl can feel horrible that she doesn’t look as sexy as Lady Gaga, however, this also helps Lady Gaga sell the video. By succumbing to pop culture and the male gaze, Lady Gaga unfortunately goes against her values of feminism. She becomes a hypocrite, yet very successful artist, by revealing her body to the world.

Erin Brockovich

Andi Zeisler describes pop culture as a being of its own kind.  It is everywhere one may turn, popping up on any type of medium like television, computers, books, and radios.  It is constantly engulfing people into the ways of the modern media and culture.  It is seen by the masses and is addicting to some.  Feminism plays a broad role in modern pop culture and women are always playing huge roles in modern times and in the media.


One women in particular, Erin Brockovich, very well describes the struggles of women in pop culture and how difficult it is for feminists to strive.  The movie released in 2000 called Erin Brockovich shows the struggles that women constantly face in that they are very underestimated and are seen by many men to not have the capabilities to be as powerful or intelligent as men.  Although at many points she didn't just use her intelligence and wit, she had to use her femininity thus showing that women are strong and underestimated and that all the objectification that goes on through modern media portraying women as nothing but sheer dolls or eye candy for men is completely incorrect and does nothing disregard the advancements of modern culture.

Beyonce

For long time, women have been misrepresented in our pop culture. Since human beings started to settle in a place and learned how to farm, women remained assisting men on major works. This trend has continued ever since and even in nowadays, it’s questionable to say whether the modern women are in same social position as men. Through what we define as a pop culture, a mass media which connects majority of people around the world, we can easily find out how women have been misrepresented. However, there are many ‘movements’ to change this trend: varying from political to social movement. Unfortunately, quite a lot of those movements contain ironic concepts. Beyoncé’s ‘who run the world’ is among those ironic movements.

Just by looking at the lyrics of the song, one can easily find out what the song is implying. The beginning part of the song describes how men have ruled for decades and women have remained under men’s ‘world.’ The repeating phrase, ‘who run the world? Girls,’ emphasizes the theme, the purpose of the song. However, when we look at the video clip of it, it’s clear that Beyoncé is wearing a tight skinny cloth. Why does her clothing matter? Well, we must not forget that skimpy clothing is a representative figure of ‘male gaze,’ as told by Andi Zeisler. Women wearing tight cloth in every genre of shows and movies are from a view of men thinking what women should wear, not from a view of women. Somehow the view of Beyoncé on tight cloth recalls the concept of ‘male gaze,’ and once again, leaves the viewers with men’s perspective.

Lady Gaga

Pop culture is defined by Andi Zeisler to be “any cultural product that has a mass audience.” Pop culture is everywhere and consumes our lives, especially as college students. It is on our computers, on signs as we walk to class, and on television. Due to the fact that we interact with pop culture to such a high extent, it is constantly available to analyze. Furthermore, the topic of feminism in pop culture is even more interesting to analyze. Women make up a large amount of pop culture, but what is interesting is what they do to be in that position.

A prime example of the topic of feminism in pop culture is the music video to the song “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is promoting feminism through her lyrics in this song. With a very up beat and optimistic beat, she promotes being oneself and living life to the fullest. However, when you take a closer look at the music video, she is wearing a very small amount of clothing. By doing this Lady Gaga is lowering herself to pop culture’s standards of having women being almost naked in order to succeed. She creates a very ironic and interesting situation by promoting and putting down feminism, all in one video.

Blog 1: Tomb Raider

In today’s society, the media has a very powerful influence upon people and how they choose to lead their lives. Whether it is a fashion trend and a new music genre; media relays a message and portrays it as reality. That is very important because quite often, the media will try to feed us information that can be very opinionated or sometimes even completely false. A prime example of this is the way the media portrays women. The argument is basically saying the media places women under men. It categorizes women as means of advertisement, as “things” to be looked at by men. This is definitely true and definitely an issue in almost all of today’s popular forms of media

A very clear example representing this was in a movie called Tomb Raider. In the reading, the author mentions how there are very few action movies with the girl as the lead role. For the most part this is true, but there are still a handful of action movies where a female does earn a prominent lead role. When analyzing about Angelina Jolie’s role in Tomb Raider, not hard to realize that her character is deeply affected by this objectification of women. In the movie, there is hardly a single scene where she is not wearing tight, skimpy clothing. Her general appearance and attitude is obviously appealing to the male standard. In order to attract more men, and therefore many more viewers, Jolie is thrown into this role which is very misguiding and debatable.Her part in the movie is surprisingly legitimate, in my opinion. Throughout the story, she is consistently winning fights and whatnot (as most heroes do) and the fact she is a girl never really slows her down.

The idea that a lead role in an action movie should not be a woman is completely twisted. Women deserve every right to try for the part. As a head representative stated, though, movies with women as lead roles make less money. This is very important because the film industry is just that-an industry, and a business. In order for a movie to be worth filming, there must be some assurance that the movie will actually make money so that there is a profit. I guess to solve this case, they could simply pay the lead role less money than a man would normally earn, to balance out the loss of money. Of course, then, the argument that women aren’t getting paid as much as men would surely be brought up and would ignite yet another debate. Regardless, women should obviously have a fair shot at trying for action movies assuming they fit the role.

Jagpreet (not Carmellina) Singh Ghuman

Hey everybody. Name's Jagpreet, but y'all can call me Jag.  I'm from Merrick, NY which is on Long Island.  Both my parents were born in India, but I was born and raised here in the US.  I played football and lacrosse, I wrestled and also threw shot-put in high school.  I would like to join the rugby team here at Tech is possible.  I love music and my favorite musicians are the Arctic Monkeys and Lupe Fiasco.  I'm a die hard fan of soccer, favorite team Chelsea, football, the Giants, and basketball, the Nets.  My current major is Civil Engineering and I also plan on minoring in Spanish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmZexg8sxyk&ob=av2e

Introduction

Hello, I'm Jason Kim. I'm from Washington State and it has been only about five years since I came to the US. In high school, I enjoyed playing tennis, pingpong, and many other racquet sports. One interesting thing about me is that I know how to play violin; I've played for over 10 years but I'm still not so good at playing. Lastly, I'm majoring in mechanical engineering in georgia tech! :)

InTrOdUcTiOn

Hello, my name is Matthew Zoltan Farkas. My dad was born in Hungary, so that's where my middle and last names come from. I am from Cumming (Ga) and I went to a smaller private school called Pinecrest Academy.

I really like music, a lot. Pretty much all kinds. Post-hardcore (as weird as that sounds) is probably my favorite genre. But I'll listen to anything, especially low-key no-name bands. So if its good and not very popular, fill me in because chances are I will like it.

Hi, I'm Alannah Fenerty. I'm from New Fairfield, Connecticut. In high school I played lacrosse and field hockey. Also, I was in a couple business related clubs. My major at Georgia Tech is Industrial Engineering and I'm part of Alpha Phi Sorority.