The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media

Last Sunday, a disturbing article found in the  

 New York Times was posted announcing that two male high school students were found guilty of raping a sixteen-year old girl. Almost all of the incriminating evidence came from YouTube videos and Facebook pictures taken by the perpetrators of the victim naked and passed out from too much alcohol. The evidence also included the boys’ text messages exclaiming that having sex with her was “like [having sex with] a dead body.” The word “dead” certainly destroys any argument that this was consensual sex.    

YouTube and Facebook sealed the boys’ fates in 2013.  In 1983, without the benefit of social media, the trial would have been the boys’ word against the girl’s and would have contained some flavor of the boys claiming the girl was looking for it.  Today, social media essentially prevented any use of the age-old defense that “the victim is to blame.”

While social media helped get justice, on the one hand, it also glamorized these boys and their victim, on the other. Once the incident went viral on YouTube and Facebook, a heinous crime became (at least temporarily) an alluring event with the parties to the act becoming reverse celebrities. Why does social media have the ability to glamorize awful events that if seen in person would cause us to look away?  

4 Pics 1 Word

 Many people have either seen, heard, or currently play the game 4 Pics 1 word. Just as the name connotes, this game portrays four images that represent a single word. While playing this game, I began to notice that each picture that contained a person was white; there were no colored people within this game. 

What are we suggesting when African-Americans are not included in these images?

A word functions as a principal carrier of meaning. As such, does this game imply African-Americans do not hold enough "substance" to represent that word?

Continuing on, in class we discussed how popular T.V. shows choose to have a majority white cast in order to please the overwhelming white audience. For this reason, is this game choosing to do the same, exclude people of color as to please the white users? Would this game still be as popular id African-Americans were in the pictures?

"(White) African Queen"

Over the past couple of days in class we have discussed how much, if any, has American society progressed in reaching equality. A majority of the class felt that while there have been signs of progress, such as an African-American becoming our president; we are definitely still not at the state of complete equality. Recently, a CNN video, posted that Numero Magazine contained an add titled “African Queen”, however, instead of an African-American modeling for this add, they hired a white 16-year old girl for the job, and painted her body with brown make up.

As you can imagine, this add received quite a lot of attention for its hypocrisy. However, one surprising comment that this article received was “Why hire a black model, when you can just paint a white one?” The use of the word “just” is very interesting because it is implying that the white model is the better choice, even though you are painting her skin to look exactly like an African-American model!

Another shocking fact is that the overwhelming majority of models are white, about 82%. While, only 6% of models are African-Americans. Models are seen as figures that society wants to copy or imitate. By choosing a white model to act as an African-American model, this magazine company is basically expressing that we should follow or be like white Americans, instead of an African-Americans. Why do you think that is? Or why choose a white model if she will just end up looking exactly like an African-American model? What do you think this add is saying about race in American society?

The lack of equality is truly being expressed within this magazine add, highlighting the fact that American society has still a lot of work ahead to reach a state of equality. 

The Accuracy of Argo

Last week Mr. O'Connor brought up an interesting fact about the movie Lincoln. O'Connor announced that Lincoln knowingly expresses misleading information. In the movie, it supposedly states that Connecticut voted against the 13th Amendment, while in reality Connecticut was in favor for it. Just as Lincoln displayed false information, the movie Argo did as well. 

According to this interview on CNN with Jimmy Carter, Carter states, "that ninety percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian, [however] the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA".

First off, I understand that directors choose to "alter" aspects of history in order to add drama, however, I wonder to what degree is it considered ok for directors to knowingly change facts of history?

To add, I also find it interesting that, as Carter mentioned above, the directors of Argo chose to give credit to the Americans, rather than the rightfully deserved Canadians. Did the directors choose to divert the attention to the American CIA for merely the affect of drama? Or are Americans not inclined to watch a film where they are not shown in the most positive light possible?

This reminds me of another discussion we had in the beginning of the year about how the government chose to only show clips of the Vietnam war that illustrated progress and success, instead of showing that there was very little progress or success actually being made. Just as the U.S. government chose to not tell the whole truth, do you think the film-makers of Argo had the right to stretch the truth in order to appeal to the audience, why? If you were the director of Argo would you have chosen to do the same thing?

The much success of "Downton Abbey"

           Over the weekend I heard about a T.V. show called "Downton Abbey", appparently a very popular show. Anyways, I asked my friends about this show and recieved many positive comments about it. Not only were my friends  hooked onto to this show, but many parents are big fans as well. One of my good friend even mentioned that her dad left a dinner party to come home and watch the finale of "Downton Abbey".  After hearing all of the commotion about this show, I started to wonder why was "Downton Abbey"so well-liked?
          From only watching one episode, I could not tell you a whole lot on what it is about. However, from this article I learned that this show contains "stories [that] are about emotional situations that everyone can understand” and "it deals with timeless themes such as, social rankings, money,  and homosexuals". 
      Many of these "timeless themes" mentioned are big themes practiced in American culture, and as such, I wonder is that why this show has become so accepted, because Americans can just connect with it? Hoever, the show does take place in the 20th century in Britian, so how much can Americans connect with it? 
      In any case, what do you think makes a T.V. show become so popular in America? What must it contain to make it well-liked? Are there any common themes between "Downton Abbey" and other popular shows like "Modern Family" or "Homeland"?

What is the Calvin Kline Commercial Really Saying?

Over the weekend, I went to my cousins house to watch the Superbowl. While I was excited to watch the game, the commercials are something I always look forward to seeing. I find the commercials to be quite amusing, however, in class today we looked at commercials more closely, and not just their entertainment value, specifically the Audi commercial. After this thoughtful discussion, I began to think of other commercials I could further analyze. The one that immediately popped into my head was the Calvin Kline commercial.

In this commercial there is a man, with the "perfect body", modeling Calvin Kline underwear. What struck me most about this commercial was that it was appealing to a woman's audience. During the Superbowl, about every other commercial was directed towards a male audience, such as, the Ram, Bud Light, and M&M commercial. My question, then was, why was Calvin Kline trying to persuade Women, and not men, to purchase Men's underwear?

The only logical explanation that I had was woman are buying the underwear for men.

As such, with this reasoning in mind, I wonder does America view women as the ones who just do the shopping? The ones who take care of all of the domestic needs, like clothing? The ones who's sole function is to take care of their husbands?

Pentagon Ban is Lifted

        Over the weekend I saw the thrilling, action packed movie, Zero Dark Thirty. As most of you know this movie is about Osama Bin Laden and how he was captured. While the whole movie was beyond intriguing, the part that struck me the most was that it was a WOMAN who discovered the locations of Bin Laden.
       While I was thrilled to learn that it was a woman who figured out the 10 year long puzzle of Bin Laden, I was skeptical to the fact on why I did not know this sooner. It could just be because of my lack of attention to the news, however, my mom, a pretty heavy news follower, did not know it was a woman until I recently told her. In that case, was it because of the lack of coverage about her?
     Whatever the case may be it reminds me of the lift of the Pentagon Ban that occurred this past week. The Pentagon Ban, "prohibited woman from serving in special operations, or fighting on the front line".  This ban limited the career options for many woman involved in helping to defend our country. And even when woman did engage in warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan the military, "did not officially count their actions as combat, and their battle field experience went unrecognized". Many woman were left with the feelings of anger, rage, or just pure disappointment.
         Clearly lifting the Pentagon Ban is heading in the right direction towards gender equality. Yet, I still wonder why the ban created in 1994 was lifted now, over 15 years later? Or why it took so long for it to be lifted? What convinced Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta  to lift it in the first place? And lastly, how do you think this change in rules, that allows woman to fight in combat and advance in their careers, will affect the military?