Reality Television

                It goes without saying that the women in the Kardashian family are highly feminized. Even the men, mainly Scott, aren't so called "manly men." The episode I watched was the second part of when Kim and Khloe go to Armenia, Kendall and Kylie host Billboard, the girls do their Cosmo cover photo shoot, and Kim takes Bruce's old clothes from Caitlyn's closet to give to the rest of the family. Due to watching it on TV and unable to find online for free, finding images was not easy. Also, due to the nature of the show trying to split screen time evenly between the multiple sisters, it's difficult to pick one person in the show to look at and analyze.

                The episode begins with Kim, Khloe, and Kanye entering a church in Armenia. At the church the women are instructed to cover their heads, a traditionally thing, while the men are able to wear whatever they want. This happens again when the family goes to Jerusalem to baptize North in an Armenian church, the women have to cover their heads. While still in Armenia, Kanye decides to give a free concert at night. Kim comments that she had to leave her hotel in sweats and makeup. During the concert, the camera heavily focused on Kanye and there was only a short snip of Kim in her sweats without makeup, possibly because she didn't want the camera to record her in that state. 

notice Kim's head covering

                While the Kim and Khloe are in Armenia, back in LA Kourtney and Kendall decide to go out to lunch/dinner. While there Kendall gets a cream based soup and pizza while Kourtney gets a salad, showing that Kourtney is following the gendered ideas of food (women eating light), while Kendall completely disregards them (heavy and fatty foods are normally for men). When the Billboard awards come, Kylie wears a dress and heels with long, wavy, loose hair, while Kendall wears a more masculine look, an oversized top, thigh high boots and leggings made to look like pants, slicked back hair, and strong but subtle makeup. Although she is wearing a dress and thigh high boots, the look is overwhelmingly masculine. 

 

                At the Cosmo cover photo shoot, it's a highly glamorized affair. The girls try on many different outfits, all in white, and their hair and makeup are done up to the T. They show the girls without makeup, but only for a brief moment. In this scene Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie are doing a photo with just the three of them and Khloe, in the middle, says something along the lines of "you better Photoshop me next to these skinny bitches," emphasizing women's traditional focus on being skinny. You could even say that this is a small moment of competition between the sisters. 

                During the whole episode, the woman are often seen wearing dresses or skirts, not so often seen wearing pants. Even if the girls are wearing pants or a more "manly" outfit in some pictures, the outfit is often re-feminized by dramatic feminine hair and makeup, the few contradictions being Kendall's Billboard outfit and the scene where Kylie doesn't wear makeup while talking with Kendall. Even in the Cosmo photo shoot, some of the girls are wearing pants, but they are dressed in all white, a traditionally feminine color representing purity. For all the girls, their gender is highly feminized all the time, in all aspects of their life.

                In some degree, this is all reality. I'm sure that some of the more dramatic moments may have been scripted or made more dramatic, but for the most part, it's all reality for them. Kim and Khloe really went to Armenia, they really baptized North in Jerusalem,  Kendall and Kylie really hosted the Billboard awards, and the girls really did do the Cosmo cover.

NetGirls: The Internet, Facebook, and Body Image Concern in Adolescent Girls

                It's nothing new that body dissatisfaction is documented in adolescent girls. The article says that one possible reason for this is that our sociocultural influences preach only one type of beauty ideal, often thin. The article has found that there are links between fashion magazine/television consumption and various indices of body dissatisfaction or disordered eating, which really isn't anything new. The article then discusses that even though fashion magazines and TV have a heavy influence on the body image of girls, the rising internet consumption, especially around social media, is starting to affect how young women see themselves.

                The aim of the article was to look at the relationship between Internet exposure and body image concern for young girls. They believed that the amount of Internet exposure would be positively correlated with body image concerns, as would be Facebook use. The article used 1,087 girls in year 8 or 9 of high school. The median age was 13.7 and the girls were from 18 different schools across South Australia. The schools ranged in type, private, public, rural, metropolitan, and they all varied in terms of economic status. The way the study collected data from the girls was though a questionnaire.

                The study found that 95.6% of girls had access to internet in their homes, with 43.4% having internet access in their own bedroom. The girls indicated that their average internet use was about 2 hours a day, with a mean of 2.23 hours during the week and 2.47 hours on the weekend. 46.3% of the girls reported having a Myspace and reportedly spent 34.3 minutes on Myspace per day. 75.1% of the girls had a Facebook and reportedly spent an hour and a half on Facebook every day. Most profiles, 79.3% were private, but 19.8% were public, and the average number of friends was 214.5.

                They found that internet exposure was significantly correlated with each of internalization, body surveillance, and drive for thinness. They found, as predicted, Internet exposure was associated with internalization of the thin ideal, body surveillance, and drive for thinness in this sample of adolescent girls. Their findings also confirm the Internet as an additional form of media, beyond fashion magazines and television, associated with body image concerns. consistent with current statistics for young Australians.5 The girls used the Internet for many purposes, including streaming media and visiting shopping, fashion, celebrity, and magazine websites, all likely to have an appearance focus and to promulgate thin beauty ideals, but, the most common use for the Internet was social media, particularly Facebook. Facebook users scored significantly higher on all indicators of body image concern than their non-user counterparts. It seems likely that appearance concerns are aroused as users construct their personal profile.

Boys, Girls and Toys- Oh My -

                Generally speaking, the boys side of the toy  is often filled with colors of blues and greens or other cool colors, but not purple, while the girls side of the toy store is filled with pinks and lavenders and oranges, warm colors. Again in terms of colors, the boys side often has strong vivid colors while the girls side has more muted pastels. Over time and as a result of gendering, boys toys have been guns, trucks, building blocks, superheroes, science kits, and action figures with jobs in the military or firefighting or police work while girl's toys have been teddy bears, princess dresses, craft kits, baby dolls, pretty fashionable dolls, or playhouses revolving around domesticity. The girls toy idea promotes domesticity and femininity, often through princesses, possibly teaching girls that if they act the way their toys teach them, their Prince Charming will come and take them away.  The boys toy aisle teaches boys to be active and powerful, a direct contrast to what the girls toys tells them. These gendered toys limit the child's beliefs into what he/she can do in the future. These gendered toys tell girls that it's not right for them to be a firefighter and it's not right for boys to be a stay at home dad.  Good thing is that children are picking up on the fact that they're being socialized to buy certain toys. A little girl named Riley went viral a few years ago after talking about how it's unfair that girls have to buy princess stuff while boys get to buy superheroes.  She makes it a point that boys and girls can want princess and superhero stuff, that toys shouldn't be assigned to one group. 

This ad from Walmart shows boys playing with toys that promote masculinity and violence (shield and axe and Nerf gun), as a rockstar, and with toys that promote building and critical thinking. It shows girls playing with dolls, cooking and being domestic, and doing domestic tasks dressed up like a fairy.

 

Here is a gendered crayon set. Not only are the colors of the boxes themselves gendered, but the names of the crayons and the colors of the crayons are gendered as well. The boys "Truck  Crayon Set" is blue with more vivid and dark crayons, with a lot of crayons in variations of blue. The girls "Princess Crayon Set" is pink with more pastel crayons, with a lot of the crayons being variations of pink.

Here are some gendered blocks, because obviously boys can't play with pink blocks and girls can't play with blue blocks (sarcasm if you couldn't tell).

 

Here is an ad that is pretty good at neutralizing gender norms,  having both boys and girls take part in domestic acts. But, upon further inspection you can see that girls get the pink vacuum while boys get the blue vacuum. The iron and ironing board seem to be relatively neutral.

 This whole video provides a multitude of gendered toy ads over the years. Boys ads often have violent undertones, loud music, and darker colors. Boys toys revolve around, building (0:30, Trio Batcave), violence (2:48, Battlegrounds), or critical thinking (2:32, Battleship). Girls ads are often brighter, happier, and have an overall more positive tone. Girls toys revolve around fashion (3:46, Liv Girls), beauty (3:18, Barbie Glitter Blow dryer), domesticity (5:16, Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery), and motherhood (4:17, Baby Alive).

The Kardashian Phenomenon: News Interpretation

                This article focuses on what the media calls the "Kardashian phenomenon" where their empire is everywhere and inescapable, creating spin-off after spin-off full of drama and family life. While the Kardashians started off from humble beginnings, over the years they have created and maintained pop culture dominance from their reality show, appearing on cover after cover of national and international magazines. Although, the media coverage they often receive is negative and paradoxical to their popularity, but why?

                This article mainly focuses on the Kardashian's life in 2011, the year where Kim got married and divorced, when Kourtney announced her second pregnancy, 3 different Kardashian series were on TV, the family was featured on Barbara Walter's annual Most Fascinating people special, and Rob Kardashian was on Dancing With the Stars. Khloe and her husband Lamar's show, Khloe and Lamar, garnered attention not only in pop culture media, but also drew attention in sports media and raised many questions about Lamar and his basketball playing.

                The article raises the question of why are the Kardashian's popular even though they "lack talent" and are "popular for doing nothing," phrases often found in articles talking about the Kardashians. Viewers discuss their liking of the Kardashians because their lives are real, but so lavish and extreme that watching their show is like a mix between reality TV and primetime dramas. The article then discusses how body image plays a part in the Kardashian empire. Kim herself has been praised over the years for embracing her curvy body type, which contrasts to the stick thin women we have grown used to seeing on TV. Khloe is now being praised for her curvy body, both of these women making body acceptance normalized and also a way to relate to their viewers. While their bodies are curvy and fit, they're bodies more closely resemble the bodies of other women, more so than the stick thin women. Kim has been looked up to as a role model for body acceptance and sex appeal. Over the years, Khloe has been the butt of negative comments about her weight, yet again showing their relateability to their viewers that have dealt with negative comments as well. The article discusses the Kardashians and their familial bond, which, long story short, is pretty much the same as any other family. The article then discusses how the Kardashians are moguls in the social media world and are incredibly popular in business and branding today. Their name is a brand and they raise money by being themselves and releasing products they know people will buy because they made them.

                To some, the Kardashians represent the degeneration of American society, a focus on a lavish lifestyle that people believe was handed to them, an increase in plastic surgery and beauty, and general depravity. Positive characteristics the Kardashians exhibit, like ambition, industriousness, and family, are downplayed by the press and instead portray the Kardashians as famous, fashionable, and self-obsessed. One cannot deny however, that because of their extreme popularity and ever increasing empire, the Kardashians are here to stay.

Gender and the Military

                Yes, I do know someone who has been in and/or gone into the military. The people I know I have never been close with, so I don't know exactly how gender affected their military experience. The people I know are all young men and I would imagine that their gender, them being men, had an effect on their military experience. Knowing what I know about the military, I would have to think that them being men has made their military experience less awful. The military was designed for men only and the acceptance of having women in the military has been slow and still struggling. Women often report their experiences as more negative and the rate of military rape is very high (even though military rape affects both men and women, it does affect women more). The social dynamics of all male groups and co-ed groups are completely different, especially in the military where manliness and strength are praised, and that means that group cohesion would be affected. Also men and women are physically built different. As much as we don't want to admit it, men are physiologically different and are often stronger than women. Men and women are often psychologically different which leads them to react differently in certain situations. This means that there are fewer women than men that are physically and psychologically suited to take part in combat, but it does not mean that all or almost all women are unsuitable. For these, and other reasons, I expect that the young men I know that are in the military had an easier time than if they were women.

                The media and pop culture, in my opinion, portray male and female soldiers pretty similarly. Male and female soldiers are more often than not portrayed as strong and brave. But, the media has to do this. They have to portray all soldiers as strong and brave and fighting for a good cause, or else American citizens will start to question the military. If soldiers in media and pop culture were portrayed in a negative light, the ramifications on the military would be pretty bad. Military respect would probably drop and then recruitment would probably drop as well. Media and pop culture has to portray all soldiers regardless of gender as strong and brave if we want to continue to have a strongly respected military. However, while military women are portrayed as strong, they are often highly sexualized, with the women sometimes acting as a prize to be won by the male soldiers. A strong patriotic woman was viewed as sexy, and still is.

Pussy Riot in Translation

                This article centers on the Russian feminist performance group/band Pussy Riot, specifically on their February 21, 2012 event and its aftermath.  On February 21, 2012, 5 young women in bright dressed and tights with ski masks entered the Cathedral of Christ that Savior in Moscow, Russia. The women ran to the stage type area of the altar and began performing their song that began with " Virgin Mary, Mother of God, chase Putin out." Security grabbed Yekaterina Samutsevich, out of the cathedral before she could even start her performance and the other four women were rushed out of the cathedral after about a minute of their performance.

                After a period of hiding from arrest, 3 Pussy Riot members, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and held without bail. The trial became an international sensation demonstrating the oppressive state of Russia and made Pussy Riot internationally famous. Alyokhina, Samutsevich, and Tolokonnikova received  two-year sentences for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” During the trial, the prosecution picked and chose the lyrics it repeated in court, removing the parts of the song that were about Putin and focusing on the parts about the Orthodox Church in order to prove that Pussy Riot had committed an act of “religious hatred” rather than political protest. The women were also judged for exposing their bodies in a place where their bodies should be covered.

                Thier sentence produced international outrage and criticism from people like Amnesty International, Barack Obama, Madonna, Bjork, and other international celebrities, mostly musicians. The problem was that these people didn't really know what Pussy Riot was. Are they a musical group? Are they conceptual artists? No one really knew how to view them. Madonna and Bjork offered to play performances with Pussy Riot, but they refused because Pussy Riot doesn't want to perform as part of the capitalist system.

                Pussy Riot regained their popularity when Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina reported on the terrible conditions in prison. Tolokonnikova declared a hunger strike to raise awareness for the for the outrageous conditions in prison, a hunger strike for which she was eventually hospitalized. Even with all the popularity Pussy Riot was gaining internationally, they reached little sympathy in Russia and they might have actually done Putin a favor by strengthening support from core conservatives. Their performance was followed by discussion of sexualized corporal punishment, with suggestions of instead of being put in prison, the members of Pussy Riot should be spanked, pinched, stripped naked and whipped, covered in honey and feathers, and tossed out in the cold. These ideas are just highly sexualized and violent repercussions for little girls, instead of adult artists making a serious political statements.

                The article concluded with incidents happening to members of Pussy Riot. Now that Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina have been released from jail, some of their critics have managed to realize their sadistic fantasies. In Sochi during the Olympics, someone whipped the two women, and at a McDonald’s in Nizhny Novgorod, men threw trash and green antiseptic in their faces, calling them whores and telling them to go to America. In both cases, the men who attacked them did not cover their faces even though they were being filmed, and even though they were being filmed, no arrests were made.