"New Girl"

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.
It is not easy to point out for everyone without examination how the media uses certain stereotypes, since the stereotypes inputted in various shows and movies have already been believed to be normal and true in real life. Harder it gets to distinguish when we get more used to the stereotypes on the media. 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 (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 recover from her break up, and the guys agreed to move in and help her to get back to her life.

The comedy can possibly be humorous when there is a common ground for the subjects to the humor. The preview depicts the situation supposed to be 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 must be pretty, no matter of their personality, to be accepted by society, especially by guys, which is the whole extension of objectifying woman. “New Girl” implied this concept without directly insulting the majority of the audience, because the audience has already been exposed to the custom of the objectification of woman by other media, and people easily accept this code as a humor without noticing they are being insulted.

Later, 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. A black dress and a certain hair style are the frequent used items in the media to depict a beautiful woman, and definitely not the nerd glasses. Through Jessica’s roommates’ reaction, when they saw her, “New Girl” tells the audience again that girls have to wear that type of dress and hair, and then have a sexual appeal. “New Girl” is a comedy again. What it sells to the public is a humor and laugh. Because there already exist the common ground for the audience that media has formed, stimulation through the channel is possible. We are forced to buy the product.

Photograph

MassMediaWorld.jpg. 2 February 2009 Google.com http://www.acognita.com/images/uploads/MassMediaWorld.jpg

1954.marilyn-monroe.jpg. 21 September 2011. Google. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_oYIxXrTzOMF9hX9KdbrTDulTIIGhMrBFC4NXRkypoE076aiBNzNybcLH6Z1xolSBNqIyXXd-KiKcw4R3UFzsxCHZTiEcWqEbHq80u-d7LGRVTfXnHaI5rm6k9s1iZkWriim7ZW2JVxQ/s1600/1954.marilyn-monroe.jpg

orig-14353411.jpg. 20 May 2011. Google. http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/imgx/1/4/3/5/3/4/1/1/orig-14353411.jpg

vlcsnap-84746.png 14 September 2011. Google. http://signaltv.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/vlcsnap-84746.png?w=440&h=240&crop=1

Online Text

Bedford / St. Martin's. Georgia Tech's WOVEN text. http://ebooks.bfwpub.com/gatech.php