Author Archives: mollymallin

This article: “TV Contestants: Tired, Tispy and Pushed to Brink from The New York Times (August 2nd, 2009) is about how contestants are treated mainly off camera in different reality shows. There is definitley an injustice in how people who participate in these shows are handled. They are without a doubt, according to this article, treated poorly.

In this article it says, that contestants on reality shows find themselves having long workdays and “communication blackouts” (pg.#1 of this article by Edward Wyatt). These shows have “…. evolved arguably into Hollywood’s sweatshop” (pg. #1- of this article).

Most contestants recieve either no pay at all or very little pay. Also most contestants (of most shows) do not have any union representation.

In this article: “Makeover television, governmentality and the good citizen” (by Laurie Ouelette and James Hay) they talk about programmes that try to”…. transform floundering individuals into successful self- managers” (pg. #472- of this article). Supposedly, what comes with this — as the article says, is freedom and burdens that goes into changing the person with the help of coaches, lifestyle experts and motivators.

But to what length do these shows go to to try to intervene in in another human’s life or lifestyle? If these shows are getting a bad rap for how they treat contestants on their shows– then how is this contributing to the well-being of the actual person who is a contestant?  Is it so important for them to be their own self-managers that they must endure not getting paid and working too much. All of this for an outcome that may or may not be even good for them or have longevity?

In this article from the New York Times, it talks about how certain contestants are treated by producers. The object of these producers’ goals is to get people (contestants) into a state where they are tired, stressed and emotionally vulnerable. This makes them more easily manipulated.

How is this helping people to feel good about themselves? I think it does the opposite. Does this help people get away from the State and encourage them to help themselves? Even if in some ways if it does the tactics and strategies are all wrong, in my opinion. This says something unfavorable about human nature. These shows are overly aggressive in manipulating people and their ways of getting people to participate are discouraging in many aspects.

In this article, “Having Discourse: Talk Matters in Sex and Power, Says Foucault”, the author Anastacia Mott Austin questions some of Foucault’ s beliefs. The author writes about “We Other Victorians” from volume one of Michel Foucault’s, “The History of Sexuality.

From reading Foucault, you can see that he definitley shifts away from the mainstream because he brings up things about sexuality that people don’t usually analyze. Austin talks about how Foucault’ s view is that if repression is an “”injunction to silence”” then by speaking of sex we are deliberately going against authority. Austin then states that Foucault’s point is that is what is significant is not that we as people are repressed, but what we say about it and how we say it determines our power. In “Periodization” (on pg. # 128) Foucault talks about repression and sex. He says, “…. we have too long reduced it to silence.” He is not conservative in his view points of the subject.

Austin also talks about the time of repression (post 16th century) when capitalism was coming into the world. She says, “It makes sense why sex should have to be pushed under the covers, so to speak, so that the most could be gotten out of workers, that they be productive (and reproductive) rather than gluttonous pleasure-seekers.” (pg. # 2- of this article).

I think what she is saying can be related to what we learned in class. This kind of repression may be creating a certain kind of person or product so capitalism is successful. Maybe this was a type of control of society that existed back then where sexuality needs to be secured to have more labor power. This point seems to express a time and era when repression an important subject. This influenced the world of capitalism to some degree. It is also interesting to think about Foucault’s view on power and repression.

In this article: “Children as Consumers” (from Global Issues, 2010) by Anup Shah, the author clearly makes it known how harmful advertising and marketing is on children. I focused on three points from this informative article.

First of all, there’s the effect of T.V. . The author points out and stresses how television in general is bad for children under two years of age because “…. brain development depends heavily on real human interaction.” (pg. #4).

The second point is the effect of food ads. The author discusses how over the long term, food marketing is extremely harmful and will affect a good amount of children. Not only does exposure to food ads have serious consequences on children’s health but also on their well-being.

The issue of good parenting skills verses marketing experts is also an important point of this article. Even if some children are not affected by ads because their parents have taught them good values “…. At the same time, parents are contending with many commercial entities which all have professional psychologists, sales and marketing experts as well as corporate lawyers and lobbyists to help continue such trends.” (pg. # 12).

This article seems relevant to this sociology class because of the movie we saw about children being part of consumerism. There are so many hidden facts about why ads are detrimental to children which I learned from this movie and this article. I believe everybody should be aware of these facts and truths because ads and mass marketing are part of our culture and because the way children’s minds develop should be taken seriously.

In our culture, material things and distorted values are placed on a pedestal. Ads and mass marketing does change the way young people think and probably the way they interact. There is definitly a connection between what is seen in commercials and how it is digested (and taken in by the mind). It seems there is a strong correlation between the affects ads have on children and how they process this information. So far, from the two sources I have seen (the movie and this article), the effects ads have on young people are overwhelmingly negative.

I have out from this class what PGD is and what it is used for. In this article, they present a unique reason for using it. In this news article: Embryo genetic screening controversial- and successful from USA Today, Molly Nash’s parents turned to using PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) to pick out an embryo implanted to give birth to her brother Adam, in an attempt to save Molly’s life.

The procedure with PGD involved the cord blood cells of Adam which were transplanted into Molly. Adam was picked for this because his immune system characteristics made him the perfect transplant candidate for his sister.

This definitley can give rise to some controversy on the side of the professionals regarding PGD. In the USA Today article, it says that Leon Kass, a former bioethics council chief of the American Enterprise Institute, brought up the issue of these newborns feeling unloved because of undergoing this procedure.

Other professionals worried PGD would be used on a widespread level for sex selection procedures at fertility clinics. This was stated in the article about the 2002 President’s Council on Bioethics. They were concerned about this issue.

In my opinion, this is actually a terrific procedure, (PGD and the transplant) which I think the professionals are over-reacting to. Molly Nash’s parents are not using PGD to create a designer baby. Nor are they being selfish in this situation. Their daughter, Molly was dying and she prevailed because of this great procedure. This procedure didn’t harm Adam either.

In the article we read for class: Born and Made by Sarah Franklin and Celia Roberts it says, on page 10, “At one level PGD is a technique, but it is also a choice, an experience, a threshold, a clinical specialism, a scientific achievement, and as we shall see, a place from which a particular kind of uncertainty and ambivalence is generated alongside confidence in its refinement, expansion and success”. This is true in this case, especially, with the Nash’s because success was achieved with the use of PGD and the transplant. In this way using PGD for the right reasons is necessary and in my opinion the transplant was truly a miracle.

The question of surrogacy is definitely a controversial subject. From reading this article: The Curious Lives of Surrogates from Newsweek (from the year 2008) you really get a different take on the act of women carrying babies for other people who couldn’t or wouldn’t have their own children. What I mean by a different take is that it is very different from the article and movie about surrogacy that we saw in class on the Baby M case. According to the Newsweek article, the whole process between the surrogate mother and the married couple who want a baby goes smoothly and as planned.

From reading this article, you get the notion that surrogacy is an everyday transaction and is very common in our society. The article states that in the past five years, Texas, Illinois, Utah and Florida have passed laws legalizing surrogacy. It also says that more than a dozen states, which include Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and most notably, California, not only legalize surrogacy but regulate the practice.

What I found interesting is that this has all come out because of the Baby M case. Almost all surrogacy agreements now state that the woman who carries the baby cannot also donate the egg. This seems a logical outcome to the Baby M case as there was so much turmoil and extreme emotion over that situation, because the surrogate mother wanted to keep the baby.

In looking at the positive side to surrogacy one surrogate mother from this article said, “Some people can be successful in a major career, but I thought I did not want to go through this life meaning nothing, and I want to do something substantial for someone else”. The conditions of surrogacy, seems to have changed for the better.