Obese Stereotypes and the Pros and Cons of Weight Loss Shows

This week in class we discussed stereotypes. One stereotype we discussed in class was the stereotype of obesity in media, such as the weight loss show, The Biggest Loser. I have been watching the show the Biggest Loser for may years now and I can say that there are some stereotypes that are true of being obese and there are some that are false. Some stereotypes that I can say are true after watching the show is that many of the obese contestants on the show became obese because they eat unhealthy food, don't exercise, and don't care about their health. On the other hand, some of these stereotypes may also be false. Some of the reasons an individual may be obese is because of negative circumstances in their lives, such as having a low self esteem or having an eating disorder. I really enjoy this article I found online that discussed the pros and cons of reality TV's approach to weight loss.

The first part of the article spoke about how weight loss shows make stereotypes and encourage unhealthful behaviors from viewers trying to lose weight. It went on to say how weight loss shows treat weight loss like a game and how we should focus on our health, not on size or weight.  After reading this part of the article I do agree with what the writer said that we should not treat a human's weight as a game, but at the same time sometimes over weight individuals need motivation to lose weight. I also agree on what was said about how it should focus on our heath. Weight loss is a journey, it is not something that is going to be gone from one day to the next. At the end of the day our health is what keeps us living and breathing each day.

The second part of the article spoke about the positive impact a reality show can have on an individual. The article began by saying that weight-loss reality TV shows inspire people. It describes how shows such as, The Biggest Loser, "emphasizes support and competition to keep people going." It goes on to say that the trainers are really involved with the contestants on the show. It also says how they have a  huge team and are quite clear that it is not just about dieting but also about maintaining a healthful lifestyle and educating people. "They push them to exercise. They work with chefs skilled in healthful cooking. They try to get them to reach their maximum healthful potential." On the the other hand the second part of the article also spoke about how "they also recognize the possibility of failure [on the show]." After reading the rest of the article I would say that I agree the most with the second part of the article. I honestly believe that shows such as, The Biggest Loser have a positive impact not only on the individuals on the show, but for the viewers as well. From personal experience I think weight loss shows such as these encourage people who are overweight. It not only educates individuals how to lose weight ,but it also shows viewers how to cook a healthy meal at home.

Overall I would say that there will always be stereotypes, whether it be about topics we talked about in class such as Muslims, Christians, the Disabled, Men, or the Obese. At the end of the day you are the only one who can ultimately define yourself.

Link to Article:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/31/health/la-he-weight-loss-reality-shows-20110131

Misogyny & Music

I'm going to be honest before reading the assigned reading and attending Monday's class I had no idea what misogyny was. After reading the assigned reading and listening to Monday' class lecture I can honestly say that I listen to music in a different way now. When I looked up the meaning of misogyny, dictionary.com's definition was, "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women." It amazes me this still exists in our current generation. I thought we were past that and moving forward towards gender equality, but I now that I know what misogyny is I do not think we have. When I was looking for an article to write about I found many articles that spoke about unknown artists, but I wanted to find one about an artist everyone knows and has heard their music. At last I found an article on Kanye West.

The article talked about a video Kanye West had released a year ago called, "Monster." The article spoke about how at the beginning of the video Monster it states, "the following content is in now way misogynistic or negative towards any groups of people. It is an art piece and shall be taken as such." I then proceeded to watch the video.... the video consisted of dead women hanging by nooses, dead women lying in bed with Kanye, and at one point when Jay-Z was rapping there was a dead naked model in the background lying on a couch. Even after that introduction saying that the content in the video is not misogynistic, how can a women not take offense this video?! Not only is the video gruesome, but it is just downright offense. How can that be considered "art" to anyone? In my opinion, I felt like the people who gave the ideas behind this video think of women just as objects to men and that we are just around to please them. After watching the video I read some comments viewers left about the video... some said it was a great video and others said what kind of message are they trying to send. I might be biased because I have never liked hip hop or rap music, but after watching a video like Monster and reading the lyrics, I am beyond disgusted in what has become of this genre of music. I have heard people say "oh I don't listen to the words, I just like the beat of the song," in my opinion that is just an excuse. How can you not hear the words in the song? I know most artists are in the music business to make money and nothing else. They don't care about who they offend, they just want to make it big and make lots of money. At the same time I wish they would not portray us women in such an offensive light. Instead of moving forwards, its songs like these that make me feel like we are moving backwards. The only thing I can personally do is not listen to misogynistic music (such as this), buy it, or purchase tickets to their concerts.


Link to First Article:
http://www.salon.com/2011/06/06/kanye_monster_video/

Video of Kanye West's Song "Monster"

Duke University Women's Lacrosse Team Under Fire For Blackface Photo

The Duke University women's lacrosse team has come under fire after a photo was posted on a university website that showed a player in blackface. The photo was said to have taken at a Halloween party at head coach, Kerstin Kimel's house, where a group of juniors dressed up like characters from the Little Rascals movie. One player dressed as "Buckwheat" and painted her face black as part of her costume for the party. The photo from the Halloween party was posted on GoDuke.com last week along with a player's blogpost, but it was removed early Monday. According to the article, Kimmel issued a statement apologizing for the costume, "Some of our costume choices were insensitive and entirely inappropriate. No offense was intended, but that does not matter, because we should have realized how these choices would be viewed by those outside of our program," she said. "On behalf of our coaching staff and our student-athletes, we apologize to anyone we may have offended and understand (that), while we believed we were making decisions in good fun, we should have been much more sensitive to the implications of our actions."

After seeing this article earlier this week in the news I was surprised to see that things like this are still happening in our generation. I have heard the term "black face" before, but to be honest I was not completely sure what it meant. According to Merriam-Webster.com, the definition of blackface is "makeup applied to a performer playing a black person especially in a minstrel show; also : a performer wearing such makeup." Whether "blackface" may have been done out of ignorance or innocent fun, I still think it is so wrong to do something of that nature. I believe that we should educate ourselves on subjects such as these to avoid incidents like this from occurring. I believe if educate ourselves, we can make smarter decisions each day.

Link to Article
http://www.wral.com/duke-apologizes-for-player-s-insensitive-halloween-costume/11765746/

Link to Video
http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/11766051/#/vid11766051

Definition of Blackface
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blackface

Mitt Romney After The Presidential Election Loss

After the 2012 presidential election results came in late Tuesday night Mitt Romney was shocked to say the least. Mitt Romney's advisers describe his reaction to the loss as being "Shellshocked." After Mitt Romney saw that it was clear that he had lost and had to secede, his personal assistant, Garrett Jackson, called his counterpart in the Obama campaign, Marvin Nicholson, to connect the two men. CBS' Jan Greenburg wrote in her article, "Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aid said, but his wife cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly." The article included a section from the The New York Times' a tick-tock of the events that night at the Boston Intercontinental Hotel said that Bob White, a close friend and adviser, was prepared to tell the waiting crowd that Mr. Romney would not yet concede. But then, Mr. Romney quietly decided it was over. "It's not going to happen," he said." As Ann Romney cried softly, he headed down to deliver his speech, ending his second, and presumably last, bid for the White House.

As election day finally came on Tuesday I was beyond excited to see who would be our new president. In saying that I was excited to welcome Mitt Romney as our new president. When the results came in of who would be our president for the next four years... I was sad, surprised, and basically thought it was a cruel joke. I was so excited for the positive changes Mitt Romney was going to bring to America. I was hopeful that we could go back to the United States that had morals, traditions, and believed the phrase "One Nation Under God" meant truly living for God and living by the bible. I have learned with each passing year that we as a country have sadly lost all of that and have become a country that is very liberal. All I can say is that I am disappointed with America and who they voted in as our president. At this point there is nothing I can do about who we have as a president, but I know that I can pray for him and hope that he leads us in the right direction as a country.

After hearing the results I watched Mitt Romney's concession speech. I could tell by his speech that he was very disappointed with his loss. Mitt Romney ended his speech by saying," I so wish- I so wish I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction, but the nation chose another leader. And so Ann and I join you to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation."

 

Link to Article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/mitt-romney-lost-election_n_2095013.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

2012 Country Music Awards

On Thursday, November 1st the 46th Country Music Awards took place in Nashville, Tennessee. The award show was hosted by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley. The show opened up with a performance by Jason Aldean, Erich Church, and Luke Bryan.

The CMA awards had performances from various artists such as: The Eli Young Band, Hunter Hayes, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Vince Gill, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, Little Big Town, Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and the Zac Brown Band. Towards the end of the awards they paid a tribute to Willie Nelson he received an award and played a performance of "On the Road Again."

Overall it was a great award show. I really enjoyed the performances from each artist and group. I can't wait till the next awards!

A few of the winners from the awards included:

• Song of the Year: "Over You" by Miranda Lambert & Blake Shelton
• Musical Event of the Year: "Feel Like a Rockstar" by Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw
• Music Video of the Year: "Red Solo Cup" by Toby Keith
• New Artist of the Year: Hunter Hayes
• Vocal Group of the Year: Thompson Square
• Vocal Group of the Year: Little Big Town
• Single of the Year: "Pontoon" by Little Big Town
• Album of the Year: "Chief" by Eric Church
• Female Vocalist of the Year: Miranda Lambert
• Male Vocalist of the Year: Blake Shelton
• Entertainer of the Year: Blake Shelton

Link of Article
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57544127/cma-awards-2012-underwood-paisley-launch-country-musics-biggest-night/


Website Link to CMA Awards
http://www.cmaworld.com/cma-awards/home

Lack of Diversity Among Newspaper Journalist Covering The United States Critical Issues

Up to this point in the semester we have talked about various issues that are important to know as we are preparing for our future jobs. In saying that we often talk about diversity and how it is represented in the workforce. I can recall before the midterm talking about how "white, affluent males control media, which reflects their perspective." I had one of those "aha" moments when I saw this article. Before seeing this article I believed it was a valid statement ,but I think its always interesting to actually see something in writing as proof that others see it true as well.

After reading this article in the Huffington Post I learned that there is a "deep lack of racial diversity among the newspaper journalist writing about some of the biggest political issues of the 2012 campaign." In the article it also states that white reporters "wrote 98.2 percent of stories on immigration." A study conducted "found that Latinos wrote .2 percent of stories." The article also states that according to a similar study it was "found that men are overwhelmingly quoted in stories about women's issues."


Overall this article is not new information that I did not already know, but I think that it is a great resource of information. I found the results of the study to be very interesting because I got to see the numbers and the lack of diversity among newspapers journalist that cover critical issues concerning the United States.

Link to Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/racial-diversity-media-front-pages-study_n_2016081.html

Gang Violence in Chicago

Recently ABC News did a special series on "Hidden America called Don't Shoot: I Want to Grow Up." I really enjoy how ABC News tries to bring current issues that Americans are facing in this time and age. Don't Shoot: I Want to Grow up is a special in which it is interviewing "38 former and present gang members to discuss what is going on." ABC says, "there have been more than 400 murders in Chicago this year, with the murder rates four times what it is in New York."

I was watching the special yesterday and Diane Sawyer was interviewing a 7-year-old boy, named Ralph, whose grandmother was killed just standing outside her house. It broke my heart that Ralph had to go through a family loss at such a young age. In the special he was wearing a shirt that had "R.I.P. Grandma" on it. He told of memories he had with his grandma, which involved eating noodles with her and whenever his grandmother fixed him something they would share it and how he loved it. It is moments like that when individuals who participate in gang violence should think about the other individuals involved, especially children. Children are our future, they are innocent and they have the whole world in front of them to live out their dream. Sadly, due to gang violence this is sometimes taken away from them. I really enjoyed this special series and I can't wait to watch the second part of it today. 

Video shown during the special series 

Link to Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/abc-world-news-hidden-ame_n_1982264.html