Cosby Controversy

I think we talked about a really important topic a couple classes ago in regards to rape and rape victims. It’s important to be cautious when dealing with rape victims and being aware of their feelings and wants when it comes to reporting rape cases. This is something relevant to the recently exploded story in regards to Bill Cosby and his past rape allegations. Cosby has been accused of drugging and then rapping many different women. Several were aspiring actors and The stories didn’t make big news until a fellow male comedian, Hannibal Buress, mentioned the several rape allegations Cosby has against him. Before this blow-up some of the claims were mentioned, however, none of the claims received charges. Until now, these stories haven’t received much attention in the media. They were swept under the rug. 

A lot of what Cosby did was shrugged off for reasons that are unknown. Was it because he was a major father-figure in America and a celebrity and someone that no one wanted to believe was a rapist? Why was it deemed almost acceptable for Cosby to rape these women with no repercussions?  

This idea is transferrable to the topic of cads and dads in Taylor’s article. I think it’s pretty clear the Cosby is a dad figure. He was the root of many life lessons for families all over the country that tuned into the Cosby Show. So how can Cosby go from being a dad to a cad so dramatically in the media? Is it possible to be both in this case, being a public dad figure and a private cad figure? 

Also, sexual health is discussed in Hust, Brown and L’Engle’s article. They discuss how the old theory of modeling from Albert Bandura is relevant to sexual behaviors as seen int he media. Because of this, can we understand Cosby’s sexual behaviors to be traced back to media content that showed violence? It’s something to look into for further research. 

Focusing on the women, how did they become the targets for Cosby. Well, for one they were younger than him, which probably made them more attractive. Second they were inferior to Cosby (being a successful older male actor), making it easy for him to obtain them and take advantage of them. It’s sad this these stories were untold for so long, and no one should have to go through such physical and mental stress over years and years. Some people have argued over Jezebel and other social media sources claiming these women should have come clean sooner and almost blames them for not doing so. What do you guys think about this whole thing? How should it be handled in the future with these kinds of situations?

Hust, S., Brown, J., L’Engle, K. (2008). "Boys will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared: An Analysis of the Rare Sexual Health Messages in Young Adolescents’ Media."

Taylor, L. D. (2008). "Cads, dads, and magazines: Women's sexual preferences and articles."  

Masculine Drinking Habits

Something I wanted to talk about in this week’s blog post was the drinking culture, especially in college and how it relates to masculinity. The video we watched in class was a real eye opener when discussing the dangers of the excessive drinking culture in college. I think especially for men binge drinking is dangerous on college campuses. There is competition between males to out-drink one another and prove their manly-hood by drinking until the point where they black-out and put their life in danger. I know a lot of people throw out the word, “black-out” like it’s funny when it happens and you don’t remember your night. But in reality, blacking-out is caused by oxygen not being able to be transported to all parts of the brain so one’s brain shuts down the memory producing part of your brain to keep you alive. So really it’s not a funny manner and is more serious than just forgetting your night. 

Something in the news that relates to this topic is the recent suspension of Greek Life at West Virginia University. At a frat party, a male student was found unconscious and later died from alcohol consumption. This relates to the video we watched in class discussing how males are pressured to drink large amounts of alcohol to prove themselves as male. Not only does the video we watched in class mirror this event but also most of the readings discussing male sexuality relate to this. Males need to be strong and the aggressors according the male scripts of Kim et al., and if they want to be desirable by females they need to exemplify Cad characteristics that may take on the “bad-boy” images displayed by binge drinking according to Taylor’s article. Since when has putting your life in danger become a way men feel they need to take part in to fit in with society?

In regards to the incident, the Dean of Students has shut down greek life for the rest of the semester. But in reality, what is this going to do? It’s not just greek life that drinks excessively and certainly wont change the way males drink in the future by shutting it down for the last two months of the semester. People will find other ways to consume alcohol whether it’s in a greek life setting or not. Something else needs to be done to the drinking culture at colleges.

I mentioned in class about a guy I went to high school with you recently passed away from excessive drinking mixed with stimulant drugs such as Adderall. His mother is working to stop this kind of behaviors at Universities. She talked about how when she went to the University of Michigan the drinking culture wasn’t nearly as excessive as it is now. Also, she mentions that the combo her son passed away from wasn’t out of the norm, this is something a lot of male students partake in to drink heavy amount of alcohol and she explains how it has to stop. Below is an article about her son and her hopes of starting a new campaign to combat these kinds of behaviors on campuses across the country. 

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/09/report_former_u-m_football_man.html

This whole epidemic of binge drinking on college campuses and students putting their lives at risk it disheartening. There needs to be changes done, but I don’t know how it is possible to change something so prominent in society. 

Kim, J. L., et al. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research.

Taylor, L. D. (2008). "Cads, dads, and magazines: Women’s sexual preferences and articles."

Kim Kardashian vs. Nick Jonas

The whole Kim Kardashian “breaking the internet” campaign is one that has blown-up plenty on entertainment news sites. Not only that but Kim has gotten a lot of backlash from viewers and celebrities for deciding to expose her naked body to the world in this odd manner. One particular celebrity who has made an effort to poke fun at Kim for her photo shoot, is singer and actor Nick Jonas. He posed exposing his greased booty in a similar stance as Kim’s. How are the two different you might ask? Aside from the totally nude photo’s of Kim, Nick and Kim share almost the exact picture in terms of exposure. So why was Kim’s so much more prevalent and popular in society? Nick Jonas had the same amount of exposure and not even close to the same amount of exposure and hype that Kim’s picture got. 

Obviously these are different circumstances because Kim’s was actually for a cover shoot while Nick’s was making fun of her for doing so. However let’s look back to when Nick Jonas did his cover ad for Flaunt Magazine. He was pictured without a shirt, exposing part of his butt and grabbing his crotch. The difference is the main reaction the public had to each photo. 

Nick’s photo’s were seen as sexy, several of my friends drooled over the star’s great abs. But no one really gave him any negative backlash over these photos. When people viewed Kim’s cover, they were mostly appalled. People rolled their eyes at the new mom for being over-exposed while a male star was pictured exposing himself in a similar manner without the negative reactions. 

When trying to relate this concept back to this class it made me think of the Kim et al article pertaining to sexuality of men and women. In heterosexual scripts, men are supposed to be the sexual initiators which Nick Jonas seems to express while grabbing his crotch in his photo with this pants pulled down around his ankles. Women are supposed to be good girls by being the sexual gate-keepers. Kim doesn’t seem to be following this script considering she is showing off her entire body without leaving anything to the imagination (Kim et al., 2007). 

This idea just goes to show the double standard of men and women when it comes to their bodies. Once women begin to cross that line of sexual gate-keepers they are looked down upon and criticized for stepping outside of the heterosexual scripts. 

Kim, J. L., et al. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research.

First Exposure to 'Sex'

The past couple of readings for class have had to do with the media being an important role in young people learning about sex. I started to think about the first time I really heard about sex on TV and I remembered a pretty vivid moment from when I was about 7 years-old. My brother, who is 5 years older than me, loved to watch Nickelodeon, so I was exposed to a lot of those shows and grew to like them. One day, I was watching TV in the family room while my mom was making dinner. I was watching the TV show ‘Doug’. I honestly don’t really remember anything about the show besides the fact that it was a cartoon. I was watching it and I remember hearing the word ‘sex’ for the first time. I then remember my mom looking over at the TV and kind of questioning what I was watching, considering I was only 7. Because I don’t remember it very clearly, it probably just went right over my head. 

I researched this episode a little to try and figure out what actually transpired in the scene. It starts off with Doug’s mom being pregnant and his dad wants to tell him where babies come from since he’s going to be a big brother. His dad takes him to the basement and pulls out a book called “How It’s Done: The Birds and Bees Story.” He then begins to read off a script to Doug from the book. “It’s important now that you’re going to be an older that you know where babies come from…” Doug then cuts him off by saying “so you want to talk to me about sex? I learned about all that stuff in school already.” They show the dad blush at his son’s knowledge on the matter, and then they fade the scene while Doug explains what he already knows about sex (without explicitly saying it). After Doug finishes sharing what he already knows about sex, his dad then says “Thanks son, that was really informative, I guess they left a few things out when I was a kid.” 

Doug: "The Talk" Clip 

I thought this was an interesting way to go about “talking” about sex in the media. First off, they don’t really talk about sex at all, they just kinda elude to the idea, so I’m confused why they just decided to throw in this mention of it. Also, this kind of mention of sex in the media can be problematic in some circumstances. If a viewer is watching this program and using it as the “super-peer,” as Brown, Halpern and Engle describe in their work with early maturing girls, then they’re not getting any real information about sex other than they will learn about it in school and that it’s okay to talk to your parents about it. I think this episode does the opposite of what ‘Friends’ accomplished in their episode educating their viewers on condoms. If they went maybe into some more detail without being too explicit (for a cartoon show), it may have had more of an effect on their viewers.

But how about parenting-wise? For instance, my mom was watching this with me, so do you think this sends the message to parents that they don’t have to worry about giving the sex talk to their kids and that they can assume they will learn all about it in school? I know I didn’t learn everything I know now about sex in school. Even when talking about this with one of my friends, she told me she had zero lessons in school about safe sex. So this episode could be potentially damaging in trying to both, teach youth about sex, and give parents a way of going about talking about sex to their children. 

Brown, J., Halpern, C., Engle, K. (2004). Mass media as a sexual super peer for early maturing girls. Journal of Adolescent Health. 

Collins, R., Elliott, M., Berry, S., Kanouse, D., Hunter, S. (2003). Entertainment Television as a Healthy Sex Educator: The Impact of Condom- Efficacy Information in an Episode of Friends.  

“How You Get the Girl”- Taylor Swift

For this weeks blog post I decided to analyze the lyrics from one of Taylor Swift’s new songs, “How You Get the Girl,” to see if what Taylor is explaining in her song coincides with what we have been reading about in class. Taylor swift usually writes songs about breaking up, however, this song talks about getting back together. So I categorized this as a love song and one that may fit the scripts written in Bader’s article, “Love Will Steer the Stars” and other improbable Feats: Media Myths in Popular Love Songs.” I matched the specific scripts with the lines of the song below:

The first verse goes:

Stand there like a ghost
Shaking from the rain, rain
She'll open up the door
And say, are you insane?
Say it's been a long six months- (1. Your perfect partner is cosmically pre-destined, so nothing/nobody can ultimately separate you)
And you were too afraid to tell her what you want (3. Your true soul mate should KNOW what you’re thinking or feelings)
And that's how it works
It's how you get the girl
And then you say

The chorus:

I want you for worse or for better
I would wait for ever and ever
Broke your heart, I'll put it back together (1. Your perfect partner is cosmically pre-destined, so nothing/nobody can ultimately separate you AND 8. Bickering and fighting a lot mean that a man and a woman really love each other passionately)
When you left her all alone
I would wait for ever and ever

And that's how it works
That's how you get the girl, girl, oh
And that's how it works
That's how you get the girl, girl

The second verse:

Remind her how it used to be, be
Yeah, yeah
With pictures in frames, of kisses on cheeks, cheeks
Tell her how you must've lost your mind (8. Bickering and fighting a lot mean that a man and a woman really love each other passionately)
When you left her all alone
And never told her why
And that's how it works
That's how you lost the girl
And now you say

The scripts I found to be most prevalent in this song with 

1. Your perfect partner is cosmically pre-destined, so nothing/nobody can ultimately separate you, 
2. Your true soul mate should KNOW what you’re thinking or feelings (without your having to tell), 
3. Bickering and fighting a lot mean that a man and a woman really love each other passionately

The song talks about how a relationship breaks off and after some time they find each other again and try to remember the love that they had before they broke up. Something interesting I found in the song lyrics was that, throughout the song the male character seems to be trying to win the girl back by just saying “I want you for worse or for better, I would wait for ever and ever, Broke your heart, I'll put it back together, When you left her all alone, I would wait for ever and ever.” This relates to the idea of the Cad vs. Dad roles talked about in Taylor’s article. I think Taylor is telling males that in order to get women back in relationships and keep them they to be dad figures as opposed to Cad figures. But, I think that in real life, girls are more attracted to cad like figures and being a dad figure doesn’t get you as far in the dating game as Taylor seems to be claiming here. What do you guys think about this matter in relation to this song? 

Bader, A. (2007). "Love will steer the stars" and other improbable feats: Media

myths in popular love songs."

Taylor, L. D. (2008). "Cads, dads, and magazines: Women’s sexual preferences and articles."

Walmart Halloween Costume Controversy

Halloween is upon us, so I decided to write about something I stumbled upon pertaining to Halloween costumes and how women are portrayed during this time of the year. 

For young girls, this is a time to dress up as someone they look up to or someone they wish to be in the future. For instance the little girl I babysit is being Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games this year for Halloween. She is a positive role model for girls, she’s strong and confident and kicks a lot of ass in the series. However, as girls get older, the dynamic of Halloween and dressing up becomes a lot different. Sam talked about in her blog post from a couple of weeks ago, how the “slutty” costumes that older girls decide to dress up like for Halloween are becoming a norm in society. When I saw her blog post I decided to do some more research on the aspect of Halloween costumes for females and I came across an offensive article revolving around Walmart. Just today, Walmart introduced a new tab under their Halloween costume category on their online website. It was titled “Fat Girl Costumes,” and I say “was” because it was taken down because of all the backlash it received (wow, so surprising because it’s not offensive at all). I guess the part I’m most confused about is why they wouldn’t just label it as “Plus Size,” that’s what every other smart company does when selling sizes for larger women.

Walmart not only offends women who are plus size but also has extremely offensive descriptions of the costumes that accentuate their seductiveness and some are even racially disrespectful. Take this example of the “Women's Indian Maiden Plus Size Costume”: 

“Make peace with the Adult Plus Size Indian Maiden Costume. This costume comes with a faux sued dress with a fringe, a bead trim belt head piece and boot tops. You'll be dancing around the tribal fires in no time with the Adult Plus Size Indian Maiden Costume - you'll be one seductive little Indian in this outfit. So expect a lot of male attention at your next Halloween party!” 

First off, I would like to know who wrote these descriptions and decided it was a great idea to label these as “fat girl costumes.” I have a hard time believe a woman would write something like this that is targeted towards other women. When I read this (and it may be because I’m a comm student and analyzing it) I doesn’t really feel like it’s morally sound to purchase a product that is so forwardly demeaning towards women. Nevertheless, this portrayal relates to scripts we read in class from Kim et al pertaining to the idea that women need to dress provocatively to gain the attention of male counterparts (Kim et al., 2007).

But now let’s look at the description of the “American Indian Woman Adult Halloween Costume”:

“The American Indian Woman costume lets wearers take on the appearance of a member of one of America's native tribes. It can be worn while attending a costume party, greeting trick-or-treaters or at other Halloween events. It includes a dress with fringe and other decoration as well as a matching headband. Other accessories such as shoes and jewelry (not included) can be added. Available in adult women's sizes, this American Indian costume is made of a poly-cotton blend.”

So wait, why is the description of the Plus-Size costume directly geared to gaining attention from males while the regular adult costume doesn’t even mention this idea? It could be that whoever is credited for writing these descriptions thinks that those who are plus-size may not be as sexually appealing to males in relation people who are not plus-size. So as a result, this costume makes them more appealing and sexual. I found this not only interesting but concerning for young women. Objectifying women’s bodies and somewhat mocking them is they are not sexually desirable is detrimental for the way women view their body image.

Taylor discussed some ways male images in the media play a part on the ideal male image that may cause males to be concerned with their own muscularity and fitness (Taylor, 2008). I’m interested to hear what you guys think about this topic and if you think that if this were to be reversed how it would be similar or how it could be different. Do you think if Walmart made a tab labeled “fat boy costumes” they would get the some reaction from their audience or is there a double standard between men and women? 

Kim, J. L., et al. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research.


Taylor, L. D. (2008). The Role of Lad Magazines in Priming Men’s Chronic and Temporary Appearance-Related Schemata: An Investigation of Longitudinal and Experimental Findings. 

Gone Girl: Controversial Scripts of Men and Women

Okay, so I just saw the movie “Gone Girl,” and I need to talk about it because it’s been on my mind all week. Not only was it super creepy and scary but it made me think differently about norms of women and especially men. Here’s a quick synopsis of the storyline. Nick and Amy meet at a party of a mutual friend’s apartment in New York City. They end up talking and dating and eventually Nick proposes to Amy. After they get married and into the first year of their relationship, things are great, they love each other more than words. But then when both of them lose their jobs, things become tougher for the couple. On top of that, Nick’s mother becomes ill and Nick makes Amy move out to Missouri to be closer to her in her time of need. Amy hasn’t made too many friends in Missouri and Nick has become distant. He opens a bar downtown and spends most of his time there instead of at home with Amy. He also spends a lot of his time going out and drinking with friends from high school. He even cheats on Amy with a much younger woman who was one of his former students that Amy finds out about. Amy urges Nick to spend more time at home with her and suggests that their relationship may get better if they have a baby. This conversation turns into an argument and ends with Nick striking Amy. Amy, scared for her own life begins planning her own revenge. On the day of their 5th anniversary Amy goes missing, and the viewer is left with the mystery of where Amy has gone and/or who has taken her. When Nick reports this to the police the media begin to portray Nick as the murderer of his own wife. 

Spoiler: 

If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want to know what happens don’t read this part: Long story short, Amy plotted her own murder and framed her husband to look like the perpetrator. She runs off with some money and stays in cheap motels while her husband is being eaten alive by fictional news broadcasters similar to Nancy Grace. But when Amy is robbed of all her money, she has no choice but to call for help. She calls an old boyfriend, Desi, who was obsessed with her in high school. He is extremely successful and has a lot of money. Since he was obsessed with her, he agrees to help hide her at his lake house. At this point, Amy just wants to go home and be happy again with her husband who she believes misses her. However, while Amy has been hiding out, Nick has pieced together Amy’s puzzle and figured out what she has done to frame him. Meanwhile, Amy kills Desi in an attempt to make it look like he was actually the one who kidnapped her from her home. She claimed that Desi had raped her and to defend herself she killed him. She returns home to Nick who knows what she has done. But the ending involves them sharing to a news team that Amy is pregnant from a sperm donation Nick made previous to Amy’s disappearance. 

Analysis:

There’s so much more that happens in this movie so I suggest seeing it yourself to get the real gist. The part that was most confusing to me was the fact that Nick stays with Amy at the end of the movie. She admits to Nick that she killed Desi, so why doesn’t he fight to prove to the police that she is dangerous. Also, why would Amy want to go back to her husband if she hated him so much to frame her own murder around him? He also cheated on her and he hit her so why is she trying to hard to make it seem like they have everything together? The whole thing is very complicated. The aspects of heterosexual scripts of men and women come into play here as well as the ideas that revolve around cads and dads. 

At the beginning of the movie I would say Amy depicts traditional female script. She is beautiful, available for sex, and passive. Nick, I would say, also fits the traditional male script. He is dominate and sexual considering he took charge in most aspects of their sexual encounters and cheated on his wife with another woman. However, by the end of the movie Amy does not fit this script. She becomes the aggressor in the relationship when she plots against her own husband and has sex with Desi while they’re technically still together. 

But what I find more interesting is the idea of how men are supposed to act life. When talking about the cads and dads themes mentioned by, Taylor, I think Amy desperately wanted Nick to be a dad figure when he was really a cad figure. When they first met he was smooth and very attractive. As they got more involved in their relationship he started to lose interest in Amy and moved onto other women displaying his “player” type characteristics that cad figures exemplify. Also, the fact that he wasn’t interested in having a family with Amy, displays characteristics of a cad. However, the normative male scripts featured by, Kim, mirror the ideals of a cad, not so much of a dad. So then how is a male supposed to act? Are they supposed to take on the normative ideals of heterosexual males and take on the role of a cad and deal with the wrath of women being upset with them for not being more dad-like? Or, are they supposed to go against the normative heterosexual roles and act more dad-like but maybe not be as attractive to women because they aren’t cads? 

Kim, J. L., et al. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research.

Taylor, D. Laramie. (2008). Cads, Dads, and Magazines: Women’s Sexual Preferences and Articles about Sex Relationships. 

“Promiscuous girl, you’re teasing me, you know what I want and I got what you need”

It’s not out of the ordinary to receive a UM Crime Alert for some kind of sexual assault that occurs somewhere on campus. But would you ever go as far to say that someone’s promiscuity (how they’re dressed, their personality traits or how much they drink) would affect the reasoning for their attack? Researchers looked into the idea of females promiscuity and if it has an effect on who’s to blame in sexual harassment scenarios. 

In Ferguson, Berline, Noles, Johnson, Reed and Sicer’s study titled, “Variation in the Application of the ‘Promiscuous Female’ Stereotype and the Nature of the Application Domain: Influences on Sexual Harassment Judgements after Exposure to the Jerry Spring Show,” they showed clips from the Jerry Springer Show to groups of participants both featuring and not featuring a promiscuous female. They then surveyed the viewers opinions on different scenarios. One of the most important findings mentioned in the study was that there is “individual variation in the application of the promiscuous female stereotype to a sexual harassment victim can mediate the influence of media-based stereotype activation on subsequent perceptions and evaluations of that victim” (Ferguson, 2005). So basically, if the female victim seemed promiscuous, the viewers blamed the victim for the sexual harassment being put on them. Which was interesting because the tone of this article suggests that women who dress provocatively and promiscuously are the ones who are to blame for rape. However, in Kim et al’s article about heterosexual scripts, they mention that a common feminine script in the media is the script of feminine courting strategies. In this description they describe that woman dress provocatively to gain power in romantic relationships (Kim, 2007). This becomes confusing, because one researcher is saying dressing provocatively could lead to a female being the person to blame for sexual harassment being put upon them and being subject to subordinate actions from males.  Then we have another researcher saying dressing provocatively could get you date and give you power in a romantic relationship. 

In the Ferguson article, I found their main finding to be interesting and disheartening as a woman in a college setting. This article made me think of an example from 2013, the Steubenville Rape Case. In this case, a 16-year-old girl was raped by a few of her high school’s football players. The girl was intoxicated and appeared “out of it”, when the boys partook in acts that involved video recording the incidents and taking pictures and posting them to social media sites. However, this particular case became widely criticized in the media. Some outlets blamed the victim for her drinking too much and putting herself in a bad situation. After surfing the internet for some articles pertaining to this case, I found a quote from Serena Williams. 

"Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don't know. I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people. She's 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn't remember? It could have been much worse. She's lucky. Obviously, I don't know, maybe she wasn't a virgin, but she shouldn't have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that's different." (Huffington Post, 2013) 

I somewhat agree with what Serena is saying about being taught about responsible drinking behaviors from parents and elders. However, there are times when people get out of control because of alcohol. I’m sure most people can say that they have been intoxicated in their lifetime. But that doesn’t mean that they did it on purpose to get raped by someone. Also, in relation to her being 16-years-old and Serena questioning why she was THAT drunk... uh yea, she was THAT drunk because she’s 16. I’m assuming she has probably only come in contact with alcohol a few times since she has barely been in high school for a year. She probably doesn’t know her limits yet and she’s just learning how her body responds to alcohol. I know when I first started drinking, I didn’t know my limits, and yeah, the first couple of times I went over-board. However, the people I was around didn’t decide to humiliate me in public and cause me mental trauma. Lastly, no, I would not consider the girl’s experience a lucky one. It’s an unfortunate one, and one that has ruined her reputation and embarrassed her.

I think the boys who did this need their full punishment and the fact that people think this incident was her fault is ridiculous to me. It’s sad to see that this kind of reaction to this event is not out of the ordinary. The study we read in class and Serena William’s comments about it, all show that people really think this way when it comes to who’s to blame for sexual harassment. 

Kim, J. L., et al. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research.

Ferguson, T., Berline, J., Noles, E., Johnson, J., Reed, W., Spicer, V. (2005). Variation in the Application of the "Promiscuous Female" Stereotype and the Nature of the Application Domain: Influences on Sexual Harassment Judgements after Exposure to the Jerry Springer Show. 

"Serena Williams Steubenville Rape Victim "Shouldn't have put herself in that position." Huffington Post. Web. 18 June 2013. 

A Shot At Love 

Romantic relationships on television programs are often a major part of the storyline. These relationships are often depicted in idealistic and dramatized forms. However, their seemingly perfect romantic relationships on television are desired by young people who have not been in a romantic/marital relationships yet. The media is one of the only ways they are exposed to seeing romantic relationships play out and develop. Even though these relationships may be scripted and fiction, cultivation theory,  suggests that the more viewers see these idealistic romantic relationships being shown on television, the more they believe these relationships to be true in the real world. 

In Lippman, Ward, and Seabrook’s study that investigates romantic relationships on television, they look at four different kinds of programming and five different romantic beliefs. RTST, Sitcom, Marriage- Themed Reality Show Exposure, and Perceived Realism were the media variables mentioned in the study while the romantic beliefs were Romantic Beliefs (full), Love Finds a Way, One and Only, Idealization, and Love at First Sight. The researchers focused on heterosexual couples in the media in their study. However, I thought it would be interesting to look at shows where homosexuality was involved in the storyline and how it was different or similar to the heterosexual storylines in the study. 

________________________________________________________________________

It’s actually really difficult to think of a show on television that marks relationship the primary storyline with a homosexual couple. When thinking about Marriage-Themed Reality Shows, I thought of one example that might be interesting to being up. MTV’s original series, Tila Tequila’s: A Shot At Love, was a classic raunchy example of MTV reality television. While shows like Flavor of Love and Rock of Love focused on finding love in a heterosexual set, A Shot At Love focused on both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Tila Tequila is a bisexual who is searching for love and does so,  through a reality show where both males and females compete for her love. 

While looking specifically at the final episode where she is choosing between a female contestant, Dani, and male contestant, Bobby, it is interesting to look at her interactions with each person. Both contestants get a solo date before she makes her decision. Both dates are somewhat similar in that they go on a romantic dinner date and provide Tila with a gift in hopes that it will sway her decision in their direction. At the elimination ceremony, Tila discusses how both of them possess characteristics of femininity and masculinity. Bobby is described as having the, “exterior of a man on outside but he's a softy on the inside.” and Dani as having the, “soft touch like a woman but can be tough like a man.” In the end Tila picks Bobby!!! 

What I found interesting is that in the finale, Tila still picked the male contestant. She may have done this because she may have felt a stronger attraction to him, or it could have more to do with the the notion of Cultivation Theory. This meaning that Tila has seen the romanticized versions of love between males and females in the media and was believing that heterosexual couples were idealistic. Also, the concept discussed in Lippman’s study, that female partner’s dissociate with homosexuality and thrive for the idealistic heterosexual relationships seen in the media may also be a contributing reason to Tila’s decision to pick the male contestant.  

Movie Analysis: The Wedding Planner (2001)

Summary

The feature film, The Wedding Planner, was released in 2001. The romantic comedy is a story about Mary Flore, played by Jennifer Lopez, who is an extremely successful wedding planner. The story starts to progress when Mary is shown walking through town when her shoe gets stuck in a sewage drain. In her attempt to release her shoe, she is almost ran over by a dumpster racing down a hill right towards her. She continues to attempt to release her shoe until the very handsome Doctor Steven Edison, played by Matthew McConaughey,  appears out of no where and saves her from the dumpster. He then takes her to the hospital where he works to make sure she is healthy from the very dangerous encounter she had with the dumpster. Her friend and co-worker, Penny, played by Judy Greer, picks her up from his office only to realize he is an attractive male and presumingly high paid doctor. Knowing that Mary has been single for a while, she insists on inviting him on a date to the movies with her and Mary. When he accepts, Penny leaves the two on the date by themselves where they get to know each other and even slow dance together. After the date Mary realizes she really likes Steve. 

The next day Mary shows up to work to meet the new couple whose wedding she is planning. To her surprise the groom of the couple is Steve. Now, Mary is put in an uncomfortable position to plan the wedding of the man she had just gone on a date with and really liked. But, because this is an romantic comedy, in the end, Mary and Steve end up getting together and he ditches his fiance on the day of their wedding. When analyzing the clips from the movie, I discovered that there are several times when the themes discussed in Janna L. Kim’s article “From Sex to Sexuality: Heterosexual Script On Primetime Network Television” are present. While this film doesn’t explicitly mention sex as the main reason for the characters to interact it still fits many of the scripts mentioned in the specific codes. 

Excerpt 1: The Doctor’s Office 

Watch The Wedding Planner Online - Doctor's Office: Scene - Zimbio

In this clip, Mary is waiting for her friend, Penny, to pick her up from the doctor’s office she has been staying at since her accident. Her friend, very frazzled, races into the office only to see the doctor, Steve. She introduces herself and vaguely asks what he is doing later. When he replies that he’s not on duty, Penny jumps on the opportunity to ask Steve to the movies with her and Mary. Mary, embarrassed by her friend’s forward-ness, asks Penny to leave him alone. 

This excerpt communicates that men are supposed to act like their not looking for a relationship. This is because Steve seemed very uninterested when Penny was introducing herself and asking if he wanted to join them at the movies. Conversely, this excerpt communicates that women are supposed to act like they don’t want a relationship unless a man actively pursues them for one. 

This scene does a good job of expressing the Female Courting Strategy. Kim describes that women wait to be asked out directly by men. She also explains that for women to attract men/receive a date from them they may partake in indirect ways to attract a man’s attention (Kim et al., 2007).  Mary doesn’t want to ask Steve out, and is waiting for him to ask her out. When he doesn’t, her friend steps in and indirectly asks him out for her. She tries to act sly by not making it seem like a date by including herself in on the movie date. However, in this specific scene Steve did not fit the script of the Masculine Courting Strategies. He did not actively and powerfully pursue Mary and display to her that he wants to be in a relationship with her, which is a main part of the Masculine Courting Strategy script. It describes men being the active pursuers in relationships (Kim et al., 2007). Although it could be argued that he could fit the script of Sex as Masculinity. This script describes men being preoccupied with sex (Kim et al., 2007). Who knows, maybe he was planning on saving Mary from the dumpster the whole time and bringing her back to his office in order to maybe have sex with her. This one is still unclear, but it is evident that these scripts can be somewhat ambiguous depending on the characters real intentions. 

Excerpt 2: Movie Date in the Park 

http://www.zimbio.com/watch/59fJQ1Z8_Xu/Park+Dance+Scene/The+Wedding+Planner

This next excerpt shows Mary and Steve on their date after Mary’s friend, Penny, bails to leave them by themselves. During an old movie being played in the park, they begin to slow dance with one another. Mary is impressed with Steve’s dancing skills and she goes on to ask where he learned to dance so well. He responds that he takes ballroom dancing classes. Instantly, Mary thinks Steve is gay because he is so attractive, seemingly single, a pediatrition, and a good dancer. Steve jokingly replies that “he’s the gayest.” And the fact that Mary believed him for even a second led him to quickly come back with the fact that he’s not gay and in fact, his mother made him take ballroom dancing lessons when he was younger. Mary is relieved to hear that her new found love interest is not gay and laughs off his sarcastic joke, understanding his explanation. 

This excerpt communicates that men are supposed to act manly and heterosexual without any instinct of homosexuality towards women. It also communicates that women are meant to act submissive because all Mary really does in this scene is laugh and brush off the fact that Steve just joked about being homosexual. 

Yet again Kim’s Heterosexual Scripts come into play during this scene. Male-Oriented Homophobia is a script that Steve takes on in this scene. Kim describes that this script has to do with men avoiding behaving in a manner that could be construed as homosexual (Kim et at., 2007). Steve’s act of quickly correcting himself and ensuring Mary that he is in fact, not homosexual is his way of fitting into this script. However, the fact he even jokingly said, “oh yeah, I’m the gayest” could be a contradiction to his script because it mentions that males will do whatever possible to deny being homosexual. In Mary’s case, she fits the script of Good Girls. She acts as the passive partner that does not expect demand or prioritize her own sexual pleasures, she just laughs at Steve sarcastically calling himself gay (Kim et al., 2007). 

Excerpt 3: Riding Horses at the Vineyard 

http://www.zimbio.com/watch/FkjPsPep2sf/Riding+Scene/The+Wedding+Planner

This scene takes place after Mary realizes that Steve is engaged and that she in planning him and his fiance’s wedding. She is currently visiting a nearby Vineyard with the couple to see if the location would work for their wedding ceremony. At the beginning of this scene Mary is actually displayed as the aggressor because she is being very forward and aggressive to Steve about his relationship with his fiance. Steve interrupts Mary to defend himself by telling her that the night of their date nothing happened, and he also said “Maybe I was just being a GUY and the opportunity presented itself.” By saying this he means that there may have been an opportunity to hook up with someone, which is why he went through with the date. But don’t worry, he backs that up with “now more than ever, I believe Fran is the one for me.” (yeah, okay) 

This scene communicates to the viewer that men do not have to be in a committed relationship, and if they are they do not have to be monogamous if “an opportunity presents itself.” Also, this scene communicates to female viewers that you can be the aggressor in a relationship but only until a male interrupts you to state his opinion. 

Kim’s scripts for this scene are a little more contradictory. For example, Mary being assertive at the beginning of the scene goes against the notion of the Good Girl  script that depicts females in relationships are passive (Kim et al., 2007). It is not until Steve puts Mary in her place that she becomes more passive to what he says. Steve fits into the script of Masculine Commitment. This is because he first admits that he was attracted to Mary while he was engaged to his fiance, which contributes to the idea that males are constantly trying to avoid monogamous relationships. However, he too contradicts this notion when he claims that he loves his fiance more than ever now (by the end he contradicts this yet again, by breaking off his monogamous relationship, then getting into another monogamous relationship with Mary at the end of the movie.) 

Conclusion

I think this is a really interesting example just because this whole movie is centered around this couple of Mary and Steve, who aren’t even a couple. Yet, they still fall into a lot of the scripts of heterosexual couples. Looking at the whole storyline of The Wedding Planner, the plot gives the viewer some mixed messages on how heterosexual couples are supposed to act and want in a relationship. Looking at some readings aside from Kim’s (even though I think her findings fit in best with this film) Ward describes how sexual socialization is formed through media to youth. He claims that women are treated as objects and are objectified by wearing provocative clothing (Ward, 1995). However, something I noticed while watching this movie is that Mary does not fit this concept. She is a beautiful woman, however her clothing is very conservative. Her tops usually have a high neckline and little skin is ever shown to preserve her professional appearance. 

Also, in Ward’s study, he suggested that in media sexual actions and attractions are usually made outside of marital relations (Ward, 1995). This was definitely true for this film considering their flirtacious acts were made to each other instead of towards their monogamous partners. Also, in Ward's study he found that the most acts of sexual actions on prime-time television were not very explicit (Ward, 1995). I also found to be true in the film. Mary and Steve had a pretty PG relationship while he was engaged. Subtly flirting was a major part of the attractions that were seen in the film. Overall, this movie both coincides and contradicts some of the scripts and findings made in the readings we have read in class. This then leads me to wonder, do these scripts mostly agree or disagree with real life situations? It would be interesting to somehow observe heterosexual couples and see how many of these scripts actually exist in relationships. 


Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L., K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From Sex to Sexuality: Exposing the Heterosexual Script on Primetime Network Television. Journal of Sex Research.

Ward, L. M. (1995). Talking About Sex: Common Themes About Sexuality in the Prime-Time Television Programs Children and Adolescents View Most. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Why is Losing Your Virginity So Awkward??

The pilot episode of Awkward is a great example of virginity loss scripts described in Maura Kelly’s Journal of Sex Research as well as the heterosexual scripts of males and females described by Kim et al. Kelly claims that there are three prevalent scripts in teen dramas. The first script Kelly describes is the Abstinence Script which depicts virginity as a gift and talks about the pleasures of virginity and the dangers of sex. The next script Kelly describes is the Management Script and displays virginity loss as a rite of passage, and emphasizes “appropriate” virginity loss with positive consequences. The last script Kelly describes is the Urgency Script which is the desperate desire young people have to partake in sexual interactions to avoid stigmas attached to being a virgin. In Kim et al’s study she describes females on primetime television to be sexual gatekeepers, passive and indirect in their attraction of men, and prioritizing their sexual relationships. Contrary, males use sex as a form of showing off their masculinity and are powerful in attracting sexual partners as well as avoidance of commitment. 

Keeping these ideas in mind, in this episode Jenna is at her last day of summer camp with the hottest guy from her high school, Matty McKibben. Jenna doesn’t know him very well besides the fact that he’s one of the most popular soccer players at her school. She usually admires him from a far. But this summer, Jenna got her braces off and her new smile caught Matty’s eye. To her surprise, Matty picked her out of everyone at the camp to hookup with on their last night at the camp. The episode makes it seem that Matty is way out of Jenna’s league and more sexually experienced than her. So when they have sex for the first time it is noticeable that Matty takes charge of the experience. This was Jenna’s first time and it was not exactly as romantic as she expected, considering it occurred in a utility closet. When breaking down Jenna’s first sexual encounter you can see she fits in to more than one script described by Kelly. 

From Jenna’s perspective, I would say her experience in loosing her virginity relates to the Management Script. I believe this because she describe that she used contraception during the loss of her virginity contributing to the “appropriate” virginity loss. I also believe she fits the Urgency Script because she was so willing to have sex with Matty even though they are not in a serious relationship. Not being in a serious relationship may be the main reason why after their first sexual encounter Matty seems very uninterested in starting anything serious with her after they have sex. He even says to her, “no one can know I like you.” 

My question here, is “why?” This is interesting to me because according to Kim et al’s study about the heterosexual script in primetime television, men are usually depicted as the sexual initiators while also avoiding commitment and relationships. So you’d think that Matty would want to boast about taking Jenna’s virginity without being in a committed relationship with her. Instead he is hiding this from his peers and avoiding Jenna. This pushes the question further why the male heterosexual script involves men to avoid commitment when they admit to liking someone. Matty seems to be okay with taking away Jenna’s virginity and at the end of the episode claims via Facebook he can’t stop thinking about her. So why can’t he talk to her and maybe start a relationship?  why isn’t that allowed? It’s also interesting because Kim et al claims in the female heterosexual script women are the sexual gatekeepers (Good Girls) which Jenna doesn’t seem to fully encompass considering she was so willing to have sex with Matty. 

So It is clear that this episode of Awkward creates some grey area between the different scripts the researchers of these studies describe. This can leave viewers of these shows to be unclear what is appropriate sexual activity between the characters when they overlap and contradict the scripts they describe. 

References 

Kelly, M. (2009). Virginity loss narratives in “teen drama” television programs. Journal of Sex Research. 

Kim et al. (2001). From Sex to Sexuality: Exploring the Heterosexual Script on Primetime Network Television.