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.

BEAUTY is PAIN :) (WARNING: MIGHT GIVE YOU FOOT CRAMPS!)

Women have always had conflicting feelings about looks from the earliest of times. Sitting here thinking of what to blog about I came across some pictures of Chinese women and how they used to bind their feet. This sparked interest in looking at how things have changed in style and what is sexy and what an “acceptable” woman looks like.






Back in ancient China even now women were binding their feet. Chinese women were seen as upper class, stylish, and sexy women if they bound their feet.Binding of the feet was started as soon as the girl could walk. Their ultimate goal was to get their feet as small as possible, the empresses went as far as making her feet a size 2 at the age of 30. This process involved bandages about 2 inches wide and 2 feet long and the feet were wrapped so that the top of the foot made a hill and the toes and top of the foot curled under to meet he middle of the foot. According to various sources I read about this history of binding from girls to women sleep deprivation was common unless with the assistance of narcotics, this is because women wanted their feet so small as small as possible the pain was unbearable. These women though were left with painful scars and forever walking with fancy canes got to wear their “golden lilies,” (which were special shoes that were a privilege to wear), and that is all that mattered to them. The years of binding for the smallest of feet caused lack of circulation and infection that decayed and eventually when the bandages were changed some toes would just fall off. They definitely have coined the term “beauty is pain,” because in our society we think that we are the only ones so fixated on how skinny we can be, how our hair looks, how many Botox injections we can get to look younger as we ironically get older. These women back in old China prided themselves on the size of their feet not the size of their waste no matter what the cost sometimes even death. SO the question is how far would we go for perfection?

WOMEN ONLY TRIBE

Women all around the world no matter what race seek out happiness. Searching YouTube I came upon a couple short videos of an all women’s tribe in Kenya called the Samburo tribe in Umoja. This video sparked my interest because the caption for the video said, “the village were men are forbidden.” Knowing very little about the African tribe I watched a couple of the videos. These heart wrenching videos show the reason why these women live together without men. Majority are there because of the British army rapes that happened years before but still shake the lives of the women because after the rapes the women were ostrised and looked poorly upon in their home villages. Other women were tired of the polygamy and their daughters’ being raped and forced into marriage with much older men when the women were not of age to reproduce. So one women spoke and started this village of women, her name is Lolosoli. Over three dozen women live happily in this tribe in the dry grasslands and do everything that a man can do. The men are allowed in the village to have relationships with the women as well as come to eat and reproduce without the use of sexual force but consensual. The fact that the men respect the village of these women to me sounds incredible because these women were tortured and looked down upon for something so horrific. Especially living in a society where the norm is that women obey the men and live the way the men want them to. The men were told by the local government they were not to overstep their boundaries as read in the Washington Post article of this tribe, but it is amazing to see a society where men rule that they are comfortable with giving the women the respect they deserve and letting them live the way they want to. "… Women have to demand rights, and then respect will come. But if you remain silent, no one thinks you have anything to say…” Lolosilo said to the Washington Post. These women have made such an impact on their society that people went from disrespecting them to the government being on their side to help protect them. I believe everyone can learn from this because it is a perfect example of not forgetting what you have been through, not being the victim but being an inspiration and positive advocate for others like you and a voice to change not just a village but the world.