Images that "draw you in"

This is typical advertising for Axe body spray and deodorant. I am sure we have all seen the commercials on television where a man sprays on a little Axe and all of a sudden the Women come in a stampede. I believe it interpellate’s Male viewers successfully, drawing them in with the hopes this is some “magic” spray that will help them score with chicks. Obviously the image of a seemingly sex crazed jungle Woman in a bikini, and another emphasizing only breasts would appeal to the targeted audience. I suppose as a Woman my interpretation of these images differ from that of a Man, but then again it does not really matter because I am not the potential consumer. I am mostly bothered by the implication that Women are some sort of sex crazed Animals that can be seduced by this sort of magic “pimp juice” (as my Brother calls it). Claiming a spray can appeal to Women is one thing, but why is it so necessary to over sexualize everything? Why cant they advertise this spray just getting a guy a date or a phone number from a decent Woman. I do see the humor in the whole thing, but even if it can be laughed at its still degrading.

I chose this image as the Feminine beauty myth, and being Barbie, ideology as well. I will admit it was a toss up between this and 16 year old Hannah Montana dancing on a stripper pole at the opening show for her most recent tour. I chose Barbie because she has been around for generations, and is considered a “valuable” icon in American society. I believe Barbie does not represent objective truth for obvious reasons, who can really look like Barbie? Is it really healthy for our vulnerable children to be exposed to such unrealistic ideals? Girls in our society will have a hard enough time in their adolescent and adult years trying to keep up with the demand to be skinny, big breasted, and properly proportioned, yet we find it necessary to drill these images of “beauty” at such a young age. On another note, the image I produced clearly shows Barbie’s style has drastically changed over the years, not only reinforcing unrealistic ideals of beauty, but now "beautiful" is sleazy as well. Girls who live up these standards will never be taken seriously, but objectified instead. There is also bias in the Barbie world, it wasn’t until recently Mattel, the creator of Barbie, produced Barbie’s of different races. Even with such changes, the majority of shelves are full with white Barbie, and most special editions are not available in other races. Besides, everyone knows that original Barbie was of course, blonde with blue eyes.

weak vs strong story

Kristina Terry JRN 131

Upon my search for a story that should not be covered I stumbled across a recent Newsweek article. http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989 . The headline for this article read “see baby discriminate”. I was put off by the title itself, and found it sad that this is how they will get people to open and read the article. It is based on a “study” if you would call it that, to learn if multicultural storylines have any beneficial effects on children’s racial attitudes. For example Sesame Street is big on multicultural aspects and you would see children off all races, shapes, and sizes on any given episode.The article seemed to get off track and lose purpose. The biases, wording, and lack of information made it almost impossible to read from an objective standpoint.

In the study conducted only in Texas, with only Caucasian families, consisting of children ages 5-7 were split into three groups. The first two were asked to view multicultural films and discuss them, the third were given a checklist with undisclosed topics on racial equality to discuss with there children every night for 5 nights. Five families from the third group dropped out and the article criticizes them for it, in a sense labeling them as racist because they don’t want to point out these racial differences to there children. Later in the article it mentions that those families “asserted vague principles such as everyone is equal, and God made all of us” but did not want to get in depth about racial differences. In the study several questions were asked to the children, and an undisclosed percent responded as follows: Asked how many white people are mean? “Almost none”. Asked how many black people are mean? “Some”. Are these not essentially the same answer, just worded differently? When asked straight out if their parents like black people, 14 % said “no”, 38 % answered “I don’t know” and the remaining 48% were apparently not interesting enough to be mentioned. From my experience with my stepchildren, who are half Native American, I would not see a purpose in pointing out exactly why they are different. I am content with them just knowing racism is wrong, and we are all equal. The article should have just focused on the 14% of parents who are ignorant enough to teach racism in their home.


I did find an article from TIME called “Examining the No-impact life”. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1921703,00.html . I was very pleased with this article and wish more people would read it, more importantly take something from it. It is about family with a 2 year old child that took the challenge to live a “no impact life” for a full year, to make as little impact on the environment as possible.

The project restricts many things like motorized transportation, elevators, food not grown locally, caffeine, and not just T.V. but electricity all together!I find it interesting that in the end the family did not consider the project a challenge but a privilege, “what was surprising to me is instead of how hard it was to live environmentally, we discovered how joyful it was”. Both describe the benefits of more family time, exercise, weight loss, and overall heath and well being. In fact, eating a better diet consisting of only organic, local and non-processed foods had actually reversed Michelle’s (the wife) pre-diabetic condition. The project does have a few quirks if you consider what a genuinely “no impact life” is, the family still resided in a high rise apartment in New York, used local parks and pools for leisure, and spent a few bucks here and there at consignment stores and other local businesses. Following the project Colin (the husband) published a book called “the no impact man” and was accused of creating the whole “stunt” for better book sales, while distracting attention from real environmental issues. Read full argument @ http://noimpactman.typepad.com/Although there are arguments following the project I still find this article worth more attention. It is nice to see people putting their words into actions, and hopefully emphasis on this sort of alternate lifestyles will encourage people to consider a change in their own.