Persuasions: Identities, Stereotypes, & Fights

As everyone knows I am working in a group with Danielle Minch and Vicky Vien. For our digital essay we will be doing a still motion love story with Dreamers by The Terribles playing in the background. There will obviously be no words in this film, being that it is still motion. But we also didn’t want anyone speaking in this film because we want our message to be understood clearly by just the pictures. We might even go to the extent of buying one of these Barbie Basics doll. Stay tuned for a love story you’ll never forget!!

In today’s world, the media plays a large role in everyone’s life. People can be loved or shunned from society based on one single thing they do. This may not be the fairest thing, but it’s how things work in our times. People who are consistently in the eye of the public are even more vulnerable to have to deal with the effects of their actions. One of the biggest examples of how the media could affect how a person lives is Kanye West.

Kanye has been through pretty much everything you can go through as a public figure. He did so much in the rap industry and was considered one of the best of our time. He gained support and recognition all over the world. He sold millions of albums, had sold out tours, and everything anyone could want. People looked up to him and respected him. Then at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009, he changed the way most people looked at him with one action, interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. With this, he instantly lost thousands of fans. People couldn’t believe what they saw and how someone could do such a thing. The media portrayed West as a bad person. It was replayed over and over, there was no way he could change what had happened. It even made him leave the country for a while just to get away from all the negative attention. This is how the media and society can change a person’s life in literally seconds. All it took was one wrong action to change all the positive things Kanye did in his career leading up to this. Some still feel negative towards him and will never regain their respect for the rapper ever again.

For most of this year, Kanye has been back making more music and getting more in touch with the public and his fans. He’s put a lot out to the media to help salvage his image and people’s perception of him. He’s even issued a public apology to Swift acknowledging he was wrong. In my paper, I plan to show the whole rise, fall, and now rise again for Kanye West and how the media has played such a major role in it. After being put down and made out to be some type of monster by the media’s focus on one action of his, Kanye West is now using various forms of media to get his message out to society that he is a good person and deserves to be given another chance by all.

media artifact

Media Artifact

I’m a very complex guy and I’m very picky when it comes to the girls I like. I’ve come to find that I like girls that are well spoken, smart, funny, sarcastic, caring, and talkative. I like girls that I could have a conversation with about anything, the type that I can take out to dinner and not be worried that I’ll get embarrassed because of her behavior. But the sad truth is that none of these things are what I see at first. When I’m walking down the street the first thing I do is look at a girls face and if I don’t find her pretty I usually walk away, not bothering to take a second glance.
I was raised with a sister who is three years older than me and when I was a child I would sit and watch as she would take her Barbie and Ken and have them make out, and this stuck with me for quite a few years. I believed that only girls with curves, straight teeth, and long hair were attractive. Not only would I see my sister play with these dolls, I would see her sit these dolls on her bureau and fix her hair so that her and Barbie had the same exact hairstyle, and I thought to myself “If my sister looks like Barbie, then every girl should look like Barbie!”. It was not until years later that I discovered that some of the most attractive and interesting females I’ve come to encounter look nothing like Barbie.
Along with Danielle Minch and Vicky Vien I am going to make a still motion film demonstrating how people who waste their lives looking for perfection will end up alone. Our media artifact is an advertisement for a line of Barbie’s called ‘Barbie Basics’, where there are 12 Barbie’s, all of different races. The sad truth is that no real women looks like any of these twelve, so going after a human look alike is a waste of time.
In my actual paper I will write about how men are raised in a society where women are presented as meat and we are raised to believe that only certain women are attractive. I will also make it clear that there is no real Barbie out there, and that we as men ought not focus on looks only, but what lies underneath the surface. The truth of the matter is that I need a REAL woman in my life.

My Point Exactly.

At some point in every girl’s life, they have owned a Barbie. They now come in every color, with every haircut, wardrobe and career that one could imagine. If Barbie were real, her measurements would be 39-18-33. She would stand about 6′ tall and weigh roughly 100 lbs. Realistically, this is not possible. Her body would actually topple over. What kind of idea is this giving off to girls of all ages that struggle with their body image? At such young ages, we’re conditioned to believe that this is the ideal girl; Barbie is the perfect woman and this is how all girls should look like. Is Mattel sending out subliminal messages?

Eating disorders are so common nowadays because girls are trying to be something that isn’t possible or achievable; perfect. There is no such thing as perfection when it comes to physical beauty because it differs from person to person as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Who is anyone to tell another person what they should strive to be and how is Mattel any different?

Walk into any drug store and you will find concealer, blush, eyeshadow, lipstick, foundation and mascara in every color and shade imaginable. Turn on the television and nearly every commercial is advertising a product that would help you improve yourself. Walk down the street and every advertisement features a “beautiful” girl.

Personally, I also weigh about 100 lbs and only measure up to 5′ tall and for so many years, I’ve struggled with my own issues of body image. If I could, I would make it my life goal to make every girl see that they are beautiful in their own way. Our digital essay will portray two girls; one that is perfectly comfortable in her own skin and another who is constantly struggling to be perfect in the eyes of the media. Being so absorbed in her outer self, she doesn’t realize that she will never be perfect and is instead wasting her time on trying to be. With that, she ends up alone while the other girl finds love because she is not caught up with superficial things.

My paper will be about our generation of females of all ages, struggling every day to be achieve this ridiculous notion of what beauty should be, doing everything possible to achieve the impossible. We try so hard to become this new person that we completely lose ourselves in the process. I want my paper to leave readers with a new and different perspective of what being beautiful really means.

What would our world be like if everyone was comfortable in their own skin? If relationships were based purely on personality as opposed to materialism and physical beauty? These questions are only a few that Americans face every day. Little girls are tormented from the moment they are introduced to their first Barbie; the epitome of perfection. Standards of beauty are created in their minds that haunt them for the rest of their lives.

We chose a ‘Barbie Basics’ advertisement as our media artifact; a new line of Barbie’s that just came out. Not only are they more beautiful than ever but they are also clad in the most elegant of little black dresses with matching heels. Each Barbie has different facial characteristics and contrasting skin colors which is an improvement from the original blonde Barbie. Nonetheless, they are all emaciatingly skinny and far from proportionate. Some things never change.

Our digital essay will consist of a still motion film set to the music “Dreamers” by Them Terribles; a perfectly haunting yet upbeat tune. In this film, there will be two females and two males. One of the girl’s is comfortable in her skin whereas the other is obsessed with her surface appearance, constantly reapplying pounds of makeup and checking herself in the mirror several times an hour. This girl ends up alone, never measuring up to the impossible standards of the boy who is looking for perfection as well. He ends up alone too. The other girl, who is less concerned with her surface, finds love with the male counterpart who is also not out for perfection. This goes to show that the false idea of perfection influenced by the media, specifically Barbie products, will only lead to disappointment.

My paper will take a slightly different turn than that of my group mates. I plan to write specifically about the state of uncertainty in people characterized by opposite extremes using quotes and ideas from “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi as back up.  Women are expected to be physically attractive; thin and flawless. Furthermore, they are encouraged to show off these physical traits if they are lucky enough to be in this category. You are then left with a girl who is struggling to maintain this body image and appear happy when she is really a complete mess on the inside.

This past week, we had a blog due for our Freshman Seminar class. In the blog, we were supposed to answer the question, “Who do you think you are?” I think this is an extremely hard question to answer, at least for myself or it could just be that I’m over thinking it.

I really don’t know who I am. I’m not sure what I want and I don’t know where I’m going. I think college is the time when you actually figure all this out, or at least try to. I’m looking forward to these four years because I hope that by the end of it, I will be able to tell people who I think I am.
I’ve been very hard on myself lately; comparing myself to others and wondering why my drive doesn’t seem as strong as theirs when really, I’m doing just fine. I’m a full time student just trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and I wish I didn’t feel the need to justify that. These next four years are supposed to be a time when I will figure out where I am, where I want to be and where I’m actually headed. Hopefully transferring to a new school will help me out with this.

When I first got accepted to Baruch, I wasn’t too excited and I wasn’t too proud of myself. I was going to a CUNY for financial reasons and I figured it would only be school; I’d deal. I had many people tell me that I was going to hate it there and that I had made a bad decision in choosing to going to a CUNY. I didn’t think anything of it and thought all those people were overreacting. Unfortunately, after my first week at Baruch College, I was already set and ready to transfer out. I saw way too many Asian students for my taste and there was no real campus. I dreaded coming to school every day and I couldn’t wait until the day was over, let alone the week. I counted down my classes and practically flew out the school when my day was over.

As the days go on, I’m starting to like it a little more at Baruch. It’s not something I’m very proud to admit, though. I do still want to transfer to another school and get the entire “campus / college-life” experience but to be honest, I’m contemplating it a tiny bit now. I do want to see what Baruch has to offer me and see what I can make of it but a big part of me is doubtful that I will have as good of a time here as I would in a different school.

I’m hoping that after one semester here, I’ll be able to make a final decision and I hope I won’t be too late. After all, I did already buy a Baruch sweatshirt.