Female Musicians: Misrepresenting Themselves?

Lana Del Rey (left), Taylor Swift (right)

Music is one of the most popular mediums out there. Every day, different musical artists are either venting out their frustration or writing aimlessly about a variety of topics, all wrapped up in loud bases or soulful guitar chords.

On the blog, we’ve discussed the issue of men portraying women controversially in their lyrics and music videos, but what about female musicians? Have we ever stopped to deconstruct the kind of messages they’re sending, and how they’re unknowingly putting themselves in stereotypical female boxes?

           

Let’s take for example Lana Del Rey, a singer known for songs like “Summertime Sadness” and “Young and Beautiful”, the latter featured on the The Great Gatsby motion picture soundtrack. Her first album, Born to Die, has sold 5 million copies to date, and due to the success of the record, she released a follow-up called Born to Die: The Paradise Edition.

Despite all of this success and attention, I feel that some of the lyrics in her songs send a rather darker, subliminal message. Through most of her songs, like “Born to Die” and “National Anthem”, she’s constantly pining over some boy, referencing being crazy or depressed (“You like your girls insane”), and talking about all the lengths she would go to be with the one she loves (“I will love you til the end of time/I would wait a million years”). Through her music and image, she’s romanticizing serious issues like mental health and possessing another person in the name of “love”. Nothing good comes from obsessing over another human being to the point where you’ve lost your own sense of self. Is that really the type of message we want to be sending to the youth of today?

Even acclaimed singers like Taylor Swift have been criticized for her anti-feminist lyrics. From slut-shaming in songs like “Better Than Revenge” (“She’s an actress, whoa/She’s better known/For the things that she does on the mattress, whoa”) and her general way of song writing that mostly has to do with boys breaking her heart, or the fantasy of finding true love. While most of her song writing is said to be therapeutic from real-life moments, it couldn’t hurt to vent about a broader range of experiences.

These examples might not come across as that controversial, but why do these female singers feel the need to constantly present their music in such a way that makes it seem like the only thing women think about is finding “the one”? There’s nothing wrong with being a romantic or writing songs about love. The issue is that in music and the media, women are constantly being labelled a certain way and it doesn’t help when the women that are being labelled do nothing about it. Instead of paving their own road, they end up letting the media categorize them under female appropriate stereotypes. Also, by using sensual, hyperbolic lyrics in their songs and enchanting cinematography in their music videos, at times they can be found over glamorizing and misrepresenting the ideas of love and femininity.

The fact is that women need to stand together or we’ll never be taken seriously. Musical artists like Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift are in extremely powerful positions, ones that they should take more seriously, where they have such a stamp on pop culture that they affect the way women look at themselves and how men look at them. Being female themselves, it's necessary to set the tone on how they want be represented in regards to their gender, especially in the fast-paced industry of entertainment. Despite their right to freedom of expression, these women need to rethink the image and kinds of songs they choose to show the world, only because they are falling into the trap of representing ideas and stereotypes of women that are more abstract than they lead it on to be.

Questions to Ponder:

1. To the girls, do you think female artists are misrepresenting us, or simply being themselves?

      2. Do you think music artists reserve the right to write about what they want, controversial or not?

3. How often do you find that when watching a movie or listening to a song, you feel like it's a wrong representation of your race, gender, or religion?

First Impressions Based On Skin Color? You're kidding me right?

When you think of Miss America, do you picture a pretty looking, Caucasian with blonde hair wearing the crown? Are you thinking of someone like her? 

(Theresa Vail) 

Well I guess we can have a second thought about that because Nina Davulri, an Indian – American, was just recently crowned as Miss America a few months ago.  After Nina Davulri was crowned, she became the target of negative racist comments online. Such as;

“This is Miss America… Not Miss Foreign Country.”

“Asian or indian are you kiddin this is america omg."
"More like Miss Terrorist #MissAmerica." 

{Source: Twitter}

She received a lot of hateful comments about her race just because she wasn't white and she was crowned as Miss America. People thought that Theresa Vail (the girl shown above) should have won. She was the second runner-up at the Miss America Pageant and represented Kansas. Theresa Vail can relate to what people in America would want as the "real" Miss America. Over the years, the winners who were crowned as Miss America were all caucasian and with that, everyone thought that they most represented America because they were white. 

In America, people only have thought that Caucasians could represent the American culture. Let's look at Obama for example. There have been some cases where people in America have believed that since Obama is black he can't be the President only because he isn't white. So, therefore he was being misrepresented by the nation and his point of becoming President was being ignored. Or another example we can look at is the popular movie, Hunger Games. There was a certain character in the film that gained a lot of racist fans over the African - American girl that played Rue. One fan asked, "Why does Rue have to be black?" To my surprise, that in the book the author actually had described Rue as having 'dark brown skin'. The examples I had provided relates to the Indian Miss America because over the years, Americans thought that since whites are represented in the American culture, they believe that the whites can only be the 'face' of america, if you know what I mean. What they don't know is that there are so many different kinds of races that could represent one culture in a certain way. The message I want to get across here is that a lot of people get sucked into their tradition over the years that it is hard for them to come to realize that there can be more then one race that could be represented in their culture/nationality. 

Questions: 
1) What are your thoughts on an Indian American being Miss America?
2) Why do you think the Americans thought this way towards the Indian Miss America?
3) Do you think Nina Davulri deserves to be bashed on? Why or why not?
4) Why do you think the Americans act this way towards their tradition?

Sources:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-lot-of-people-are-very-upset-that-an-indian-american-woman

http://live.wsj.com/video/miss-america-evolving-looks-spark-racist-tweets/18E75882-CE24-4AB2-9DE3-332A277BAD2C.html#!18E75882-CE24-4AB2-9DE3-332A277BAD2C

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/showbiz/miss-america-racist-reactions/

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Hollywood/The-Hunger-Games-sparks-racism-row/Article1-831576.aspx

BEEP...BEEP...BEEP. Bulldozer coming through!

Americans are obese, lazy, arrogant, waste of space, alcoholics. As citizens living outside of the United States of America we see the typical middle class individual just like this. Someone who lives off of welfare, working easily from 9-5 where barely any physical or mental work is being put into their lifestyle, and coming home to rest in front of the television screen drinking beer. Well, who’s to blame? They do have a high overweight percentage (take a look at the stats). That backs up the reasoning right?

Anybody watch The Simpsons? Doesn't Homer Simpson himself fall right into this category? Better way to support our American judgment. Let’s deconstruct him. Homer Simpson is the typical American dad: fat, lazy, irresponsible, insensitive, rude, and an individual with a drinking problem. He makes no effort, has no motivation so he will always be stuck in the middle class living in the same careless conditions. The Simpsons has been around for a very long time, but it’s not 100% true.  It’s obvious there are people around the world who are just like Homer, not only Americans.

The reason why most of us may associate the United States of America with overweight people is because they are a country based on various food products. They created cheese in a can, the corn dog, s’mores, baked Alaska, Doritos, Swiss steak and Häagen-Dazs. What do all of these foods have in common? They are all sugary, salty, with a large Calorie count. So what? America is a country that likes to keep its people happy.  We have to realize that this however, is not what the majority of Americans eat on a daily basis. These foods are reserved for special occasions such as: camping, holiday dinners, festivals/fairs and parties.

Every country has obese, lazy individuals, those who are too thin as well as the ones maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  The United States of America doesn't even hold the title of the most obese country in the world. There are countries with many more overweight individuals than the U.S. A tiny Pacific island, Nauru stands in first place with the most overweight citizens based on statistics completed by World Health Organization (WHO). The United States hits position number eight. Obesity doesn't just occur in America; countries like Brazil have a pretty high overweight percentage rate too. Isn't Brazil the country with all the “gorgeous” women? Well, its citizens are mainly overweight with just the minority living a healthy lifestyle.

 We've allowed ourselves to consume a large amount of media to the point where we see Americans as lazy, arrogant, overweight citizens who seem to accept life so freely without any hard work. Media text has forced us to put them in a box, where we only judge them based on certain criteria’s. I am not an American but I’ve seen and heard how much they've been insulted about how all their citizens should be put on treadmills, and watched a documentary showing only one side of Americans; the overweight individuals. Many other Americans workout, live a healthy lifestyle -mentally and physically, and strive to achieve their goals. At the end of the day, we shouldn't allow media to take control over how we view different nations, and actually reconsider some judgments’.

A few questions to leave you with

1. Should being over-weight be accepted in any country?

2. Has anyone gone to the United States and actually witness an American living like Homer Simpson?

3. By clicking on the link above (where stats are stated), does the overweight percentage shock, concern or not surprise at all? 

Readings and documentary (trailer is below)I watched:
http://www.globalpost.com/photo-galleries/5682400/top-10-most-obese-countries-the-world-photos#8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOvrkkj_T-I

Donald's Trumped-Up Rule!

Donald's Trumped-up Rule!

"Transsexuals are Scary!".... many have said this phrase and do not have any regret what so ever. Transgender/Transsexuals are at last humans, aren't they? Then what is all the fuss about? Why do we judge them from their appearances so much? The answer is simple, we all are find stereotypes in one another. To be specific, here is another "controversy" in the world of stereotypes and sexist individuals. Donald Trump, an American real estate developer, who has a net worth of $2.9 billion is caught for criticizing and discriminating a transsexual Miss Universe contestant for being born as a male. Mr. Donald Trump's company own Miss Universe Pageants. Jenna Talackova, a transgender female contestant from Miss Universe Pageant was decided to be excluded from the show for being born as a boy. 

Before becoming a model, and getting to the platform that she is already on, Talackova faced a lot of discrimination and stereotypes. On top of that, the great businessman Donald Trump decides to give a helping hand to defame a transsexual woman. No one has a choice to decide what gender they want to be or how they are gonna look like once they are born, then why judge people based on their sexual appearance. Mr. Trump's Miss Universe Pageant attempted to eliminate Jenna out of the tournament because she was actually a male until the age of 14, and went through a hormone therapy, and at the age of 19 she had a sexual reassignment surgery to become a female. It was her passion to become a model and to look good, and that is what she followed.

First Mr. Donald took the decision to kick her out of the Pageant and now he appears on TV claiming to support her in every way and states that he would not kick her out at all, meaning that he wants to win the public's now.  Mr. Donald's "trumped-up rule" came in handy when thought about the ratings of his show! Jenna Talackova decided to sue the contest and the company for the unjust reasons for good. Her disqualification makes headlines and it should.  At last,Transsexuals are normal people who are not any different from us. 

“I want Mr. Trump to state that this rule will be eliminated because I do not want any other woman to suffer from the discrimination that I have endured", said Talackova. To bring down these stereotypes and stop discrimination, Talackova tackles this issue by sueing, Donald Trump's company to fight for the right cause. "When I was selected as a finalist, I was thrilled. I had always dreamed of being in the Miss Universe competition, and having an opportunity to represent my country, the reason they gave was unjust".

To add fuel to the fire,  Mr. Trump decides to publicize another misogynistic statement.
"I did not know that she had a lawyer and especially Gloria Allred,” Trump said today. "In fact, had I known it was Gloria Allred, I probably would not have reversed my decision because, you know, Gloria is easy to beat." A real estate billionaire try to offend an ordinary female lawyer shows how much of an anti feminist the society has become. The role of transsexuals in the society has become a joke and it is not only the business men like Donald Trump that hate them but  it is everyone in the limelight. For some it is a publicity stunt, and for others it is natural hatred and intolerance.

After all, it is our media who sets the dominant discourse of the society. The society have become so irritated with it's own community that it is now getting out of control. No one has the right to tell another individual what to do to his/her body or appearance. Gender representation is now becoming a complex issue for many of us. Individuals like Donald Trump give a bad name to all the people who are working professionals and influence today's young ones to also discriminate against the minority of Transsexuals. If we were to put ourselves in Jenna Talackova's place, we would definitely not like the reaction of the media and the public. So therefore, we need to treat people the way we would like to be treated!

Links to the source:

- http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/donald-trump-has-words-for-transgender-miss-universe-contestant/

- http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20584105,00.html

-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124309/Jenna-Talackova-Transgender-beauty-queen-allowed-compete-Miss-Universe-Canada-pageant.html



Questions:

1. What would you do, if you were at Jenna's place?

2. Have you ever had a friend or a relative that went through this sort of discrimination?

3. How would do you feel about studying with Transsexuals and people of mixed gender at school?

4. Did you ever discriminate or put down a person of a transgender, and were regretful?

 

What are really behind advertisements?

FREEZEEEEE EVERYONE CHANNING TATTUM IS FOLLOWING ME ON TWTTER! .... I wish :(... Okay, now that I got your attention, let's stop and think. Think about what you ask? Well think about a time where you seen an advertisement with a famous celebrity or even normal individuals advertising a product. Now when you think about that advertisement, think about how that ad is being advertised. 




Lets see two examples of ads. First examine ads with males. In ads, males are shown or told to be more masculine and tough. They would be shown to be less of a man if they don't act this way. They most definitely wouldn't be in the advertisement if they didn't meet the criteria of being masculine. When choosing to place a man in an ad, he should be handsome, fit, and basically be a "dream" man. Okay now let's think what these good looking men are advertising. He probably would be advertising sport related issues, cologne, male clothing and etc. 

Okay, now lets examine ads with females. When you see ads with females, the females in those ads are beautiful, fit, have flawless skin. The ads that these females are in, promote makeup, cleaning,certain types of clothes, and etc. Some skin of the females are exposed to even promote the product.

Overall, my point is that from examining these two type of ads, advertised by males and females, we see that we are placed into boxes. For example, when someone says a perfume was being advertised we quickly think that a female would be in the ad. On the other hand, when someone says a cologne we quickly think that a male would be in it. however both are the same thing right? 

Questions:

1. Do you think that if a female played a male role in an ad, the product would have the same output as the male?

2. How do you feel about the bias in the ads that are being put out?

3. When you see advertisements, what comes to your head?

Plastic Surgery = Beauty ?

What is beauty? Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), an American actress, model, and singer, and know well as the “sex symbol”, had quoted: “Boy think girl are like a book, if the cover doesn't catch their eyes, they won’t bother to read what is inside”. Nowadays, on the media, Celebrities all appeal to have flawless skin, with no wrinkle. They make average of us believe what beauty shall look like. Dominance discourse affect the way how we think about beauty. Like in Korea, plastic surgery is inspired by K Pop Stars and encourage by their culture. In order to achieve the look, most people have to go through plastic surgery.

In America, there is a plastic surgeon, who created his own perfect wife look. He asked his patient: "would you do the entire make over for free, and then married me”?  And the women said YES. Later on, they get married after she had the look he wanted. The question is: "Does he love her for who she is or he just wants to married for the look he wanted ?"    In another case, teenager mom let her child get nose surgery because she was being bullied, and teased by kids in her school for having wide nose. Ken is popular on TV show, due to his entire body and face plastic surgery. 

 In China, a man – Feng sued his wife for giving birth to an ugly child and then found out she had spent about $100,000 in plastic surgery while in South Korea, before they meet. Feng then sued his wife for false pretense, and his wife had to pay him $120,000, and the judge agreed to it.  Feng told: “I married my wife out of love, but as soon as we had our first daughter, we began having marital issues,” “Our daughter was incredibly ugly, to the point where it horrified me.” 

There is a picture of family with 5 members. Mom and Dad have double eyelid, look pretty and handsome. However their children all  have one eyes lid, don’t seem to look like their parent. This is part of an advertisement about plastic surgery in Taiwan. The explicit message: The only thing you have to worry about after plastic surgery is the explaining you will have to do with your child. And the implicit message is: “you can sign up your kid for surgery and they can look pretty as you”.

Advertisement about plastic surgery were all like to show us the picture of before and after transformation to make people desire for the look. However there is a lots of fail cases in plastic surgery. Where people have to carry on the ruin face for the rest of their life, or worst their life ended during the procedure. Media took these cases for a joke. They publish what happen to the fail surgery, but on the other side, they continue to present “picture” of how we should look.

1         1)    Do you think we need plastic surgery? And if it’s a yes, what ages do you think is appropriate?

           2)      “Our Beauty please the Eyes” “Inner Beauty captivate the Heart”. Is it true?

           3)   If a person had plastic surgery to transform their look, are they still identifying as themselves?  
L    
           Link:
              http://news.naij.com/51650.html  <Man sued his wife for giving birth to ugly child>
             http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/the-k-pop-plastic-surgery-obsession/276215/
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ijU6_L5W7M  < Plastic Surgeon Creates His Perfect Wife> 




     

Beauty, it's all that matters.

 

Dove Commercial (Girls are under pressure)

 

 



What's wrong with the commercial above?  Yes, we know Dove is showing the initiative they have put forward to letting girls know they are beautiful, even if they don't look like the females they see projected in the media. But, if you were to put aside that fact, you would see the dominant discourse the commercial is feeding to viewers. First, the whole fact  there are only girls there professing they are beautiful, no boys, is as if to say, boys are not interested in their looks or face self esteem issues from their view of how they look. Furthermore, boys aren't affected by the media and what it portrays males to look like in terms of beauty. Even more so, the commercial  says "girls are under more pressure than ever", implying females are being pressurized the most by what the media is giving, and makes it seem as if males aren't. Of course, that is untrue; as boys face pressure to fit into the manly persona. Which in fact, could be more than girls, because it's not just media, but society pressuring boys.  Second, in the commercial, it shows Dove making girls feel good about themselves by  making them believe their beautiful.

You probably thinking what's the wrong in that. Well think about this, what does beauty give a person. It doesn't make them feel happy, does it make them rich (not unless you're looking for a career in modelling and you even become a successful one), doesn't make you smart, get you a job, maybe provide you money ( but not in the most morally right way),doesn't give you good friends,  or get you loved. The only thing beauty does is nothing for the average person. So why is it so important to people? Well, this is because media has feed to us from our  youngest age, that beauty is important.  You can't be happy, loved, successful, socially accepted or even live a life unless you are beautiful. A persons goal is to strive to be beautiful, no matter what; especially for females. That is why, if you say see a female in the media who is successful, even in something unrelated to looks, she is sure to be made to look beautiful; with excessive makeup, air brushing, fashionable clothes, nice hair and Photoshop. For instance, in the Katy Perry video Roar, Katy is stuck on a deserted island and yet she still wears makeup, so she looks beautiful. When was the last time you watched any medium, like television, and you saw a female waking up in the morning and she has makeup on, she's taking a bath and she has makeup on, or she in some setting where it would be logically impossible or near to it to have makeup on and she does. Why, beauty is everything, if you're not beautiful or have something on you that makes you look close to being beautiful, then you're out of the norm, or even more so no one attempts to be out of this norm. Moreover,  what is the best compliment a typical female would want to get on average, it's not your smart, or cool, but your beautiful or pretty. That is why, it is seen  as being so offensive in the media if a person is called ugly or unattractive ( especially for females). So much so, probably the first time you have ever heard a female  called ugly is Susan Boyle.

 

By the Dove commercial showing girls feeling proud and happy, by thinking their beautiful, is  truly showing to females  beauty does matter. The whole point of the females believing I am beautiful, and the excitement they get from it implies and encourages media's perception that beauty matters, and feeling and being beautiful matters; when truly it doesn't, and shouldn't. So, the more we allow media to feed females the dominant discourse of beauty, the more we care about beauty, and the more we  provide business to the beauty companies and preoccupy ourselves with something irrelevant to our lives.

 

Questions to think about:

1. Why is beauty so important in our society?

2. Why is it people have better self esteem when they feel beautiful or at least think they would if they were beautiful?

3. What attributes should really matter about a person?

4. Why would Dove promote  better self esteem for people when they represent a industry that pushes looks as being number 1?

5. When should beauty matter to a person?

 

-Lydia