Over the years, the technical evolution of media has catalyzed the growth of the pop culture to be more accessible and enjoyable to a wider audience. The influence of pop culture is undeniable. People are overwhelmed by the culture, not fully being aware of what they receive, and the society is becoming duller to the stimulus the media throws. Since the media targets a mass audience with the principle of generalization, the created images and life style in pop culture can be seen in every corner of streets and unrecognizably believed to be truth. The profitable individuals and groups such as advertisers, movie makers, composers, and various companies have implemented these generalized images and concepts to customize the audience’s view to be identical. By doing so, they could open the paradigmatic channel to sell their products effectively to a larger amount of people. Exposing either explicit or implicit images to satisfy people’s desires has been almost the axiom for the producers to gain more attention and sell more.
Consequently, woman was 
not excluded as a product to be sold and manipulated through the media. Since most of males are attracted by females’ appearance, objectified women’s body in the media was somewhat corollary as a business item. The producers didn’t discard the opportunity to gratify carnal desires of the audience in both conscious and subconscious level to get firm attention of at least the fair amount. As mentioned above, the generalization has coerced the audience or non-audience to live constrained in the images created by the media. Unfortunately, the stereotypical view on women which the pop culture has shaped is now prevailing over the modern civilized people. As the WOVEN text depicts a stereotype as "based on half-truths, misunderstandings, and hand-me-down prejudices, they can lead to intolerance, bias, and bigotry, but even positive stereotypes— for example, Jewish doctors are the best, or neutral ones, for example, college students like pizza — can hurt, for they inevitably ignore the uniqueness of an individual", the stereotype fostered by different kinds of media has powerful and often harmful connotation among the wide range of people.
Last month, Fox broadcasted the trailer of the new comedy series coming this fall “New Girl”. Zooey Deschanel’s character Jessica Day is an awkward, nerdy, dorky, quirky, girl-next-door type girl who wears nerd glasses, a hipster wardrobe (which are the elements to allude and create the stereotype of a nerd girl) and a sily smile who just broke up with her boyfriend in a bad way. The story is about the girl moving in with three men who she met on the online to cure her break up, and the guys agreed to move in and help her to get back to her life. The preview depicts the situation funny when the guys discuss if they should accept her as a roommate, and finally did so, because Jessica said her friends are all model. This discussion affirms the prevailed concept that girls have to be pretty, rather than having good personality, the extension of objectifying woman. The guys coach her how to behave like a girl who gets a date with a cute guy. When Deschanel's character is in a black dress with her hair up to go on a date, her male roommates are awed by her beauty, as if she had been ugly before. The media is setting up a stereotypical style and dress that is considered to be beautiful.
I really love how you used pictures that are similar to the flow of your post. It starts off broad and then narrows down to your specific media example, New Girl. I think this is very effective and it makes sense. I really like how you use the example of in New Girl when Zooey says all of her friends are models to get to room with the boys, but I think you can take this point even further. I think the main point of your post is to show how advertisements and media use stereotypes to sell their product. I think you need to lead into New Girl a little more smoothly because you jump for advertisements to the show a little bit fast. I also think if you elaborate more on the end point about Zooey when she wears the black dress and maybe showed a picture of her in it your post would be more visually appealing and better prove your point!
ReplyDeleteI think Casey does have a point there. The start is broad. I don't know much about New Girl. You could put in some pictures that show what she was before and what she was after in order to make your point clear. You could describe the show a little more. You could talk about a particular incident from any of the episodes to prove a point. But otherwise, it is a job well done.
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