AWAKENING

Tanning as we all know is not the best for your skin and health, but as a pale woman the wish of a golden tan is always to be on the mind when vacation season comes around. While tanning at the local spa I took off their logo plastic sign off the bed that underneath holds free passes and informs you the bed has been sanitized. I placed the plastic mini sign on the ledge by the mirror and as I lathered myself in some golden tanning crème to prepare for my UV sun bath I read the sign. The sign said “IMAGE SUN, because image is everything,” this sign just made me realize how suckered I was as well as many teen girls to achieve a beauty that might even cause me great harm or kill me. That sign was the perfect saying for women around America and the world. Whether we are bleaching our skin, injecting it or trying to tan it we are taking great lengths to be the object of beauty. I decide after that to check online at several tanning salon sites to find out what other for women were out there. I found tons of information from HotSpot saying that tanning would make you “beautiful.” But after reading these testimonials of how tanning made people glamorous I read how tanning exposure can be negative. The lengths that we will go to be beautiful and feel good about ourselves is telling me and I hope everyone else that even girls who are writing blogs about this *hint hint* can be suckered into achieving looks that kill.

Speechless

After reading the homework reading on Cosmopolitian I had the urge to look at the magazine from a different perspective. I picked up the new issue of Cosmo for March that i received in the mail yesterday. Reading through I looked for things that Brown was saying a "normal" woman should be. Brown said in the article that a woman should be sexy, and the way to sexiness is screwing you boss and being anorexic. Reading through the magazine I came upon "Sexy Secrets Your Lover and You Have." These 50 secrets were quite graphic but I read one that left my mouth open. It said, "cheating is okay if you only do it once." It first off sounded like a high schooler had wrote the 50 secrets full of sexy escapades and sexy positions, but this quote is telling women and men that it is okay to be unfaithful. How is anyone suppose to find prince charming? Similar to my blog post about the bachelor women and men are looking for a quick fix and fast love. But if we are taught that there is always something better and it is okay to be unfaithful in your relationship how are we supposed to ever trust and be confident and comfortable in ourselves and our relationships. I hope that someday magazines can read their own writing and realize that some of their content can be disturbing and advice that should not be taken.

Reality [TV] LOVE

The Bachelor, Bachelorette and teen dating shows such as Tila Tequila have rocked our televisions and our minds with the intense drama. Our culture craves the idea of the opposite sex fighting for attention. Watching the ending of the Bachelor Jason chose Melissa, the beautiful brunette, but in the reunion show, the bachelor decides his choice was wrong and begged for the runner-up back. Same with Tila Tequila, a bisexual woman craving attention from both men and women to find her one true love. Shows like these give the American public that sense of needing more all the time. What do these shows tell the viewers? It tells the viewers that being in a monogamous relationship is not what the norm should be. The norm is to test drive it before you buy it. Women want their prince charming and men want their fun and their sexy women. It disturbs me that even I would be attracted to shows such as this and getting caught up in some of the tabloid’s most destructive relationships. These relationships off these dating shows, although seem to make a match made in heaven, in fact end up in heartbreak and high viewer ratings. Lesson learned is that REAL LOVE IS NOT FOUND ON TELEVISION.

MEAN GIRLS....got to love them and got to hate them...

Mean Girls, one of my personal favorite movies, is so incredibly close to how real girls experience real problems: the friendships they form, the jealousy they feel, the backstabbing that happens. It sounds clichéd, but high school can really be a cutthroat situation. Every girl just wants to be liked; to be pretty and popular. They want the guy they like to like them back.
In the movie, the main character Cady has a crush on a guy named Aaron. Cady’s newest friend Regina says she’ll help Cady by talking to Aaron but actually steals Aaron from Cady. Cady then plots to ruin Regina’s beauty and popularity. This might not have happened to every girl while in high school, but the underlying problem was common: girl likes boy, boy likes another girl, and the two girls lose their friendship. It’s sad, but so many friendships in high school were either fake or so easily broken.
Another thing that the movie touches on is the lack of respect girls develop for each other. One of the teachers in Mean Girls offers this pearl of wisdom, “You’ve got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call each other sluts and whores.” Girls call each other sluts and whores without hesitancy, and sure enough, guys do the same. I have been called a bitch affectionately, jokingly, and seriously, and been unfazed all the same. If it becomes the norm to call each other these kinds of names, you start to demean yourselves.

DEATH RACE

Recently in class we have been discussing how masculinity is defined in movies. After class one evening I went back home to an excited brother who wanted to watch this awesome movie called Death Race. Watching this movie completely shocked me that a fourteen year old boy thought felons, and super cars, bombs, fires, and women was awesome to watch.
In this movie there is an island where these criminals live and because there is so many of them the leader of the prison who is a woman makes some of the men race to the death and even sometimes for their freedom. Although movies like this don’t interest me much I saw the glee my little brother had for it and wondered if that’s what he thought a man was supposed to do fight to the death. Not only in the movie did the men race a lot with their cars but their cars could blow up other people and crush them. But, the woman who was in charge of the prison was able to control whatever she wanted. This gives a new spin on masculinity because a woman is controlling what these men can achieve, she can push a button and it all be over for these hunky guys. Another interesting factor was that these men had women in the cars with them who were wearing scandalous clothing, meaning pretty much nothing, and navigating these men through the course. I feel that the woman in this movie gave a new spin on masculinity it showed that men need women to control them and put them in the right direction. In the end though the men come on top and escape the prison by blowing the place up with the women helping to take the fall so the men can escape. This movie although confusing to me shows men that it is okay to have a woman there for help and to crack the whip but in the end we rule and make the final decision. Especially our youth watching these things gives them the idea that it is okay to be rebellious and dangerous because in the end the women take the fall. Let’s hope that this Death Race isn’t our reality.