COMM 322: Final Project: The Sexualization Of Children

Brandon Reed, Josh Fern, Alexandria Larsen, Caleb Livesay, Andy Kunz, Sydney Curet, Reign Acosta

Santa was preparing us for the American Fabrication

We are living in an age of disillusionment. Disillusionment with the American fabrication, disillusionment with the honorable politician,  disillusionment with trickle-down economics, and disillusionment with the televisual wonderland created to keep us doped up on sex, action, and rock and roll. I keep expecting something to happen, but I’m not sure what. I cried when I realized Santa was some old fart that my parents made up. I was angry, but not with them. They were just trying to make me happy by telling the same lie that their parents told them. How could I be mad at my grandparents-- they were just trying to make my parents happy by shoveling the same crap their parents told them. The origins of the Santa conspiracy is almost as ambiguous as the American Dream.  I wonder if this  period of disillusionment isn't so much a zeitgeist, but a part of the natural evolution of growing up. Our parents, friends, and teachers, are all selling us this dream, but much like losing our belief in Santa, one day we wake up and realize we've been sold 50 shades of crap. What should we do when we realize that our primary purpose is to work and consume. You could argue that our primary purpose is to find love and start a family. However, I argue that we're encourage to have kids, because it ties us to this system of consumption and produces the future consumers of America. Creators and producers are the architects of our reality. Because we have such little understanding of self we define ourselves with stuff. Ask someone to tell you about themselves? They'll tell you their favorite music, there favorite movies, their favorite book, their favorite food, their favorite TV show, and so on, but that's just crap we consume. What do you do when your tired of defining yourself with crap, when your tired of living as a tool for someone else's greatness? What do you do when you wake up and realize it's all bull shit, but can't bear to wear the mask of indifference or defeat? Do you rebel? Is it even possible to truly revolt against the machine, or was Burke right when he said we are slaves to our culture. I think Frank hit the nail on the head. We are the living embodiment of the conquest of cool, any deviation from the established norm are just anomalies built into the system, to catch the strays-- to suppress even the most miniscule forms of free thought.  Occupy and Anonymous  are supposed to represent the opposition, but lately they seem more like quasi rebellions created to placate and control public discontent.The fact that they petition government to express their god giving right to an opinion is is a testament to their desire to live within the system. When people revolt I assure you they do not seek permission. The good nature rebellion does not exist. 
Seems like no matter how much we rage against the machine in our youth, our ultimate socialization is inevitable. Life is like a pond with out ripples, nothing changes, we are all just expected to go with the flow. Ambiguous metaphor check. 
Maybe we should thank God for TV magic. Anything is possible on TV, and as long as we are focused on the fictionalized superhuman feats of man our attention is diverted from the miserable failures of mankind. I wonder if a revolution is even still possible. The way that corporation embrace teenage rebellion, begs the question, what other socially orchestrated rebellions have been quietly subverted by dominate social groups?  It appears that the dominate groups within society are no longer propelling as towards greater understanding. Instead of progress they’ve intentionally frozen us at a specific moment of cultural evolution, where we are ever on the cusp of rebellion, but in no real danger of a revolution. Is it possible that "that is" the objective? Perhaps the tension between race, gender, and class are allowed to exist to reinforce what Bell Hooks call a “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” I know it sounds depressing, but really its not so bad, it's having it pointed out that sucks. Why bring it up when it will never change. So we lie. We lie to our children, we lie to our partners, and we lie to our selves, because the truth freaking sucks. So yes Santa is real and the American Dream is possible, and we are free, revolutions do still happen, and Justin Beaver [sic] is a nice guy. Right.

Tribute to Black Women

When I analyze the media depictions of Black women in our culture I vacillate between two extremes death by predictability and principled outrage.  Black women are always cast in the same stereotypical roles with different titles. You have the strong independent sex object, strong independent psycho, strong independent single mom, strong independent sisters, strong independent hair dressers, and strong independent intellectual. The media depiction of  the strong independent black woman despite the array of titles are one dimensional and Ghetto 95% of the time, regardless of the superior socioeconomic conditions of the characters. I don't deny the strength of black women for me "strong independent" simply mean free thinking. We are loud, assertive, and apathetic to the politically correct, yet possess poetic sophistication.  We are not a people pleaser, which is an unappealing trait in our user friendly world. Despite seemingly insurmountable challenges we find away. The black woman is patient and level headed with a quick wit and biting tongue. She's a mother, a bread winner, a sister, a wife, a cook, a teacher, and intellectual, yet she is constantly depicted in the opposite extremes. The media often seeks to downplay identification with Black women. The Real Housewives of Atlanta, The Bad Girls Club, Basket Ball Wives, and as a throwback I love New York and Flavor Flave (smh) are caricatures that don't begin to deconstruct the complexities of black female thought.
Violence against black women in the media is generally accepted. Ike and Tina, Bobby and Whitney, Chris and Rhianna, it’s becoming a fetish. Interestingly, rather than rallying around these battered women we turned them into spectacles and punchlines. When they return to their abusers, as many battered women do, we engaged in petty victim shaming and blaming. While real black women are turned into spectacles fictionalized black women aren't fairing much better. The movie  For Colored Girls, is the last movie a black woman should pay money to see. There depiction of the black woman and black family would have been laughable if it weren't so tragic.  It was by far one of the most degrading movies I’ve ever watched; and I saw Jango.
I no longer allow myself to become angry with these caricatures. I’ve come to understand that black women play a specific role in American culture, a role that extends to their media representation. It is because of Black women that everyone even the black man has found a seat at the table. The black woman is the most misrepresented individual in our culture. I don't get mad because everyday I am greeted by walking contradictions to these socially constructed stereotypes. Marginalized groups in society like Black women are there to provide contrast. It allow the "everyman" to be screwed over by the elite like everyone else while maintaining faith in the American Dream, because there not quite as screwed as the people at the bottom. It's like even if they’re the doorman they feel they've arrived, because their still inside the club. The black woman doesn't know how to graciously accept her diminished position, because she has the heart of warrior. Society demeans the black woman for her defiance, self reliance, and acceptance of self. The presence of the black woman allows everyone admission into the club. To earn your membership all you have to do is blend in, and adhere to the club’s creed no questions asked. However, there is no room at the table for those who made it possible for you to sit, with their endless tirade of questions. Thus one can argue that perhaps she is ostracized for her strength, she doesn't bend, she doesn't break, and she doesn't quietly accept, she just keeps moving forward on her own track. She raps to a rhythm that may seem coarse to an out side ear, but that is perfectly in line with those on her frequency. I think of Sojourner Truth--- and I know that media representation of black women is just a tactic to undermine her brilliance it just When I think that even as a "so called" slave lacking education, Sojourner had the presence of mind to challenge her position. To understand that she could never be a slave as long as she believed she was free, that she could never be less as long as she understood that she was more. She was brilliant, because of her ability to transcend moral binaries instead of passively accepting her circumstance. The brilliance of black women like Sojourner Truth lye in the  presence of mind to define and construct their own reality.    

I wish the people on T.V. would stop talking to us

That title sounds crazy, I would like to clarify I don't hear voices that aren't there lol. So I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed what I am terming the “educated wink” I also considered calling it the “your too smart for this shit wink”, but that’s not all that catchy. The educated wink is when a commercial or TV show deviates from its expected role as passive or inert tools of social influence to directly engage the viewers. I first noticed the wink when watching Conon O’Brian for the first and “regrettably” only time.  O’Brian, can only be described, as obnoxious in his desire to reveal that his show was a complete fabricated representation of a late night TV show. His parody wasn’t so much a subtle nod to the production of televisual media as tool of social control as a violent shaking. The next time I notice the educated wink was in a Chap Stick commercial that started as a traditional commercial, in which an attractive Caucasian woman talked about how much she loved a particular brand of Chap Stick as she walked through a field of flowers. Then the commercial ended, and get this “the camera kept rolling” Boom!!! Mind blown. The attractive Caucasian woman now off camera picks up her backpack, yeah that right backpack, and turns to the camera that is no longer supposed to be there applies the Chap Stick and says something like “e. The action the advertisers were going for on the surface may have been something like, wait, she’s not actually acting… she really uses this chap stick… Oh My God she put it on off camera this is no joke, but some real life shit—No…… Freaking…. Way. I feel like a popular culture student wrote those scripts to say analyze this.

Facebook Pressure

 We spend our lives in a pressure cooker. We have to dress like this, talk like that, earn our diplomas before paying for degrees, we have to have the right friends and drive the right car to find the right job, and we have to marry Mr. or Mrs. Right. Furthermore living in this results driven culture-- we have to deliver. In fact some of us are stuck in the delivery rooms, we deliver at home, we deliver at school, we deliver at work, and we deliver to our friends, our family, and sometimes even ourselves. Because guys this isn’t life it’s Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and Google-- we’re all LinkedIn to snap chat and it’s a good day to be dumb but a bad day to be sloppy. You can have off days in real world, and guess what—no one has to know.  But in virtual world where we get to be the master of our reality we have to be perfect. Otherwise you’re that guy. What guy you say? The guy who sucks at life. One wrong step, and your Justin Beaver [sic], and then you might as well just end it all. Now that corporation are intruding on our sort of public yet definitely private relationships, Myspace has becomes our resume, our friends our references, our family our credibility, and our post no longer a depiction of free expression that makes no sense, but a portfolio of our brilliance. It like dude, I know you weren’t up reading Plato’s republic at 2:30 in the morning you stole that quote from Good Reads. That the thing about our virtual selves they’re not required to know stuff, they just have to brief well. This superficial knowledge seeps into our real world at the place where our embellished and unembellished lives meld. The next thing you know you’re discussing Egyptology with one of those face book friends that you secretly despise, but pretend to like because you know all the same people. And suddenly you realize you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about because you’ve only read the first 20 pages of the book. Awkward.  Worse on Facebook with a point of reference you were an expert smh.