My final multimedia project on "the angry black girl"

          Throughout the media, African American teens have been portrayed as the “angry black girl”. Usually these teens are seen in the media arguing, yelling, or fighting with another individual. Many of the films that I did see, the African American girl was always viewed as the scary, tough and rough girl that everybody was afraid of.

            The three media texts that I used are "Medea goes to jail", the movie "Friday"

, and a clip from the TV show “bad girls club” season three. In the film Medea goes to jail, the teen age girl goes to visit her mom in prison and starts to yell and disrespect her mother. In this film it also teaches us that “black girls” also are angry towards their own parents. In the movie “Friday”, the girl is portrayed as angry, because she is yelling and arguing with her boyfriend when another women is caught walking out of his house. In the last show, “The bad girls club” she is also shown angry, and the “angry black girl” stereotype is also brought up by an outside source in the clip.

            A class text that relates to my topic is “Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us”, by Linda Christensen. In the beginning of the article Christensen states, “The impact of racism begins early. Even in our preschool years, we are exposed to misinformation about people different from ourselves (p.126). This quote and the media prove that misleading information about different individuals start stereotypes and racism in young people.

            Another text that I thought related to my topic is Raby’s discourses. The two discourses that I definitely seen expressed in this topic are storm and social problem. Finally, I also can relate my topic of the “angry black girl” to the film “Save the Last Dance” that we have viewed in class. Also in that film, more than one of the characters in the film was portrayed as the “angry black girl”.

Dean, "Gays and Queers"

Extended Comments: I have chose to do my extended comment on Keisha's post. In the begining of her post she posted a comment from the article that states,“…there has been an increase in gay images, these images continue to reinforce, to a large extent, stereotypical representations of gays and lesbians as inferior or hyper-visible tokens who are reduced to their homosexuality”(Dean 364). I liked that Keisha chose this quote, because I also agreed with the author. This is obviously seen in our society but also seen in the Glee episodes. I also agree with her example of Curt being thrown in the dumpsters in "pilot", but i also thought of an example of Curt being slammed into the lockers everyday in "Never Been Kissed" because he was gay.


In her second paragraph, the argument from Dean was something that I found interesting. The example she used of the linens and thing scene is a good representation of how society and films see homosexuals as being rebellious. I couldn't really think of any examples in the two episodes that would be presented as having diseases. 


In her third paragraph I also agreed with her when she stated that in the episode "pilot", heterosexuality is seen as dominant. I found it interesting in her blog when she says that the other students thought that the Glee club was gay. This is also similar to what Dean says,"one can see that the gender binary and its accompanying hierarchy of heterosexual privilege subtly and not so subtly still mark the homosexual male as feminine, leaving the absent, unmarked heterosexual male as masculine" (p.373). Like in Glee, the Glee club is seen as gay because it is seen as feminine, but the football team and other sports are seen as straight because they are more masculine. I couldn't really make a connection with the example she got from "prom queen", because I did not get to see it yet.


Overall, I thought that Keisha's post was great and had some good examples to Deans arguments connected from the Glee episodes we watched. 

"Bad Girls" "Good Girls" / Easy A

Easy A and "Bad Girls" "Good Girls", have very similar content because in the article Tolmna and Higgens talk about how many girls are represented as being promiscuous or a "slut", if they date or have sex with multiple people. In Easy A, Olive was also seen as a "slut" because of a rumor about her being with numerous boys in her school.

In the film homosexuality is presented as being disgraceful and unacceptable. For an example, Olive's friend Brandon begged her to make up a rumor about her sleeping with him, just so that he could be popular and seen as "straight" to the other students in the school. This was also represented towards the end of the film when he came out about his sexuality to his parents by writing a letter and running away. In regards to Brandon and the father, the father told Olive that he would accept her no matter what she did. On the other hand, he continues by saying it was OK because he was once homosexual for awhile and changed, like it was some type of phase that everyone goes through.

The movies overall message about female sexuality is that girls should be innocent, pure and holy, or they are going to be judged and looked down upon as a "easy". I think that Tolman and Higgens would say that this is a good example of "keeping girls' and women's bodies and psyches filled with fear, rendering sexual desire difficult and dangerous" (p.222). In the film Easy A, when it comes to gender and sexuality boys are not seen as bad or "sluts" when they admit to sleeping with multiple girls, but when girls do the same they are "dirty" and "sluts".

The media matters because when girls just like Olive can potentially become confused about what to feel about their selves, when the media and the society is making them believe what is not always true. For an example, in Easy A the rumor about Olive grew out of control when a boy thought that she was accepting money and gift cards for sex and eventually tried to force himself onto her.

Talking points #5-"Mastering Your Johnson"

Hyperlinks: "Mastering Your Johnson"by Krassas, Blauwkamp and Wesselink, is about photographic analysis in Maxim and Stuff magazine. Many magazines including this one, uses sexuality to grab their audience and readers. In many ways they portray women as being sex symbols. When I went to check out the magazines website, the cover page is all about women. There's a column for "today's girls", "Hottest Wags", and "sexy seat cushions". In almost all of the photos the models are wearing either a swim suit, intimate wear , or barely any thing at all.
I found an article on something similar to this article that is comparing Cosmo and Maxim magazine ads. The authors question was whether there is a difference in the way women are portrayed in these magazines? Even though in women's magazines such as Cosmo the women on the covers are fully dressed, the authors of this magazine claim that the content of the magazine teach women that they need a man to take care of them and protect them when they show ads with men embracing or hovering over the women. What caught my attention the most is when they brought up the ads in Maxim magazine and how most of their ads were of women wearing almost nothing and being seductive. This is also similar to "Mastering Your Johnson","Goffman (1979, pp. 29-31) found that women were more likely than men to be touching themselves (perhaps in a sexually suggestive manner), or gently touching an object rather than putting an object to use" (pg 106).
Lastly, in the reading and in some of the research that I did, race in this magazine seems to be a problem. I found a blog online from someone referring to the lack of multiracial models in this magazine. This blog was also relevant to this article and the statistics that were found. "Finally, our measure of the race of the models indicates that more than 80% of all the pictures of men and women depicted individuals who appeared white to the coders. Less than 10% appeared black, less than 2% Asian and about 6% were non-white of a race indeterminate to the coders" (p.111).

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/08/teen-producers-project-spring-youth-media-showcase/

I chose this article on teen producers who have been producing film for about six months on influential mentors in their communities. The organization that they are in is the The Media Arts Center San Diego. The program has helped many teenagers learn important skills that they would use in the future, and to have the chance to express themselves. I thought that this article and program reminded me of the urban arts. Like the urban arts, this program also has the mentors and it also seems like a safe and welcoming place for young people to go and express themselves.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Marc Prensky

Arguement: Marc Prensky"s argues that students have changed dramatically and can no longer learn the same way as the generations before them. Prensky claims that technology is the major part of this change. The  "digital natives" are the new students who have grown up using technology including video games, computers, and the internet. Prensky describes the others as "digital immigrants" as those who did not grow up in the digital world. Prensky argues that it could be possible that the new students brains structure could have possible changed. "As we shall see in the next installment, it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed –
and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up" (Prensky, p.1). 

Prensky's second argument is that the digital immigrants are having a hard time teaching the digital natives, "It‟s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that  our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language" (Prensky, p.2). He had made a point about how students in this generation learn better through games and movie clips. he points out that if kids could remember over a hundred  Pokémon characters and their different abilities, then they can remember the different capitals in the country and other educational things. Students just have to be interested in it through technology and in a fast past, not step by step.

My questions for this article is where do we categorize the individuals who are considered digital immigrants but know just as much or more as the digital natives? And is it possible that we as knew students brains can be physically changed?

A tangle of Discourses: Girls Negotiating Adolescence by: Rebeecca C.Raby

Quotes: A Tangle of Discourses by Rebbecca is an article about some of the stereotypes presented about teenagers. Rebbecca does thirty interviews with both teenagers and their grandmothers to get two different sides and opinions on what they thought about teenagers. One of the three quotes that I thought was relevant to the text is, "Steinberg argues that the difficulty of adolescent development is exaggerated" (pg 432). The researcher Steinberg has also done some research on teenagers and how the parents are going through a harder time than the teenagers. Steinberg also agues that only a few teens are moodier and have more identity crisis than adults, because around this time adults are also going through their midlife problems. "Parents probably project their own discomfort about adolescence onto their children...as a way of avoiding facing the unrest they themselves feel about growing old" (pg 432).

Another quote that I found interesting is something a teenager thought. “In the meantime, Elizabeth finds that adolescence offers the luxury of making mistakes” (pg 434). I agree with this in many ways, because I always hear parents making excuses for their children’s actions because they are only being teenagers. This quote also means that’s some teenagers might think that they have the lead way to get away with things because they can use the excuse that they are exploring themselves. On the other hand, if an adult makes a mistake like a teenager, they are looked at differently or immature because they should have already experienced things.

The last quote that I thought was contradicting is, "While teens are often stereotyped as 'troublemakers', 'troublemakers' are also stereotyped as teens or as kids" (pg 436). My question is if this is considered true, why is being young so envied among older adults? 

Linda Christensen Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

Reflection: While reading this text I have made many connections to it personally. Reading this article I found it really interesting because when I was a child I was one of the little girls who were drawn into watching these Disney movies. I agree with the author when she states that we are being portrayed into these blueprints. Growing up as a child and reading these fairy tale stories and movies, I began to believe that when I grow up I am going to meet prince charming and live happily ever after. As a result, the negative thing about believing this when I began dating, is that my expectations of the men I were dating were really high and was devastated when I had to learn the hard way.

            Many of the stereotypes that were discussed in the text also made me think about how I felt as a young child and my outer image. As a child I did not realize how many stereotypes there were in these Disney princess movies, now when I look back and remember they are very clear. For an example, when the author  goes over how a student noticed how all the female cartons were portrayed as being “sexy”, also made me think about how Jessica the rabbit was portrayed in that film and wondering what little girls could have been learning from these characters.

            The part of the article that grabbed my attention the most is when character roles and the color of the characters were acknowledged. In many of the Disney movies that I have seen, people of color were not really shown in the films or did not have leading roles. As a result, at a young age I remember feeling like I was left out or even not pretty enough or good enough, because I did not have similar features to the princesses shown in these films. As a child being manipulated by these things could be a big part in a lot of other girls low self esteem.

            A question and point that came to mind when writing this is about the new Princess and the Frog movie with the first African American princess. Are there any stereotypes presented in this movie also, or has there been an improvement from the much older films? Also, would changing the color of a princess change the audiences mind or views about the previous stereotypes associated with the Disney movies?

Introduction

Hi my name is Jasmine Smith and my major here at RIC is Social Work. So far my summer is going preety good. Im am really excited that I have chose to take this wmst class this summer, it really seems like the perfect summer class to take.