Lately I've been hearing stories of photo re-touching designed not to make models and actresses look thinner, but to hide their emaciation. Below is an example featuring Cameron Diaz:
The story, in the Telegraph, includes the following description of the image's manipulation:
Face: Cheeks appear filled out
Bust: Levelled
Thighs: Wider in the picture on the right
Hip: The bony definition has been smoothed away
Stomach: A fuller, more natural look
Arms: A bit more bulk in the arms and shoulders
Thomas is a female-to-male transgendered man without "bottom" surgery. He is legally a man and legally married to his wife, Nancy. He stopped taking testosterone and was artifically inseminated. He is now about six months pregnant:
I'm not sure what to make, sociologically, of the attention that Thomas' pregnancy is receiving in the mass media, but it is ripe for analysis. Below I've collected a bunch of different takes from various media outlets. I'd love to hear what ya'll think.
CNN:
Fox News:
On David Letterman:
MSNBC:
More MSNBC:
The Oprah Promo:
The Beginning of the Oprah Special:
I thought these might be useful for making explicit some current cultural trends--I think things like the focus on pregnant celebrities' bodies are more obviously absurd when they're made so apparent.
Making fun of our obsession with celebrity pregnancies:
What the male version of a teen mag might look like:
This is a nice short clip by Media Watch pointing out how women seem to be constantly "on their backs" in the mass media:
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The 30-second (or so) videos below have been interspersed with MTV's regular programming as part of Black History Month. MTV got Cornel West to be their superstar academic and expert on the Black American experience. The videos serve as the occasion for some interesting questions:
First, how do we evaluate the use of Black musicians, actors, and personalities by MTV? Is "representation" enough? Or does contemporary representation look uncomfortably like the representation of the past? (If you haven't seen it, watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled.)
Second, what does it mean that Cornel West signed on with MTV with what is, in effect, a mutual endorsement? Do we approve of Cornel West using his significant influence and importance in this way? Is this good from a reformist perspective? Problematic from a radical perspective? Did he "sell out"?
Third, how effective are these spots? I know little about the audience of MTV, but I imagine there are a lot of people who do not know who Cornel West is and are not inclined to offer him immediate respect. Cornel is idiosyncratic. Does your average MTV viewer see a gap-toothed, afro-wearing guy with odd mannerisms called "Professor" (which, we know, could mean anything) as authoritative? Or a buffoon?
Further, what do we think of the spots themselves? Is their content helpful? Do they teach us anything? Do we like what they teach us? Or is it just more empty lip-service to Black Americans?
Watch and tell us what you think (click here for a link to all the clips):
Today's New York Times fashion slide show (permalink) offers image after image demonstrating our society's bizarre infatuation with posing women looking awkward, even deformed, frightened, compromised, uncomfortable, even in pain (click through on the arrows on the upper right).
I am unsure what to make, particularly, of the interest in images in which women are in dirty and uncomfortable, even painful, places and positions (see the "Maiden Voyage" spread with women in the shipyard in the NYT slide show linked to above). I included some of those images that I've collected below. Do we hate women that much? Or is it about something else (also)?
A picture of Bush laughing with attractive, shirtless, colorfully dressed men in Ghana:
Does anyone know anything about whether the Bush administration has been good for Ghana?
Found at TMZ under the headline "African Men Like Bush."
...Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction (Superbowl 2003).
Here's the video (don't blink!):
I use this story along with this image to illustrate agenda setting. Because the media made such a huge deal about this, it was something that most people talked about with at least one other person and an issue on which most people formed an opinion. (I like the two-second video because it shows just how quick it was.) I contrast it alongside some genuinely newsworthy event that no one noticed because it didn't get covered and no one, now, remembers. (Richard mentions, by the way, that there were a ton of erectile dysfunction commercials during the superbowl that year that did not attract media outrage.)
Thanks to Ang! I stole the picture and the idea of using this issue to talk about agenda setting from her years ago.
Click here to watch a two-and-a-half minute video on CNN that addresses last year's spate of race- and ethnicity-themed parties (see here). What is perhaps most amazing about it is the unbelievably impoverished analysis of what is happening and the fact that the video for some reason decides to end on an uplifting note ("their classmates had an important lesson on the danger of stereotyping").
Thanks to Richard for this lead.
Check out this dedicated youtube channel that includes (as of today) 193 clips of young women trashing ads. It's super fun and an excellent opportunity to add voices of young people to your course. Instead of just analyzing ads yourself or asking your students to do it, you can use some of this clips. If you happen to have a less than diverse classroom, it might be especially useful to use the clips that are by people from those underrepresented groups.
Here is an introduction:
And for all of the clips, visit the 3iying website.
Hip Hop Activist Danny Hoch discusses why he walked away from a bit part on Seinfeld.
Listen to Karl Rove on Charlie Rose argue that the administration was "opposed" to the Iraq war and was pushed into it by Congress forcing a vote!
Dorotha pointed me to this interview with Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich on the Early Show. If you fast forward about halfway through, the journalists starts talking about how beautiful Elizabeth is, at which Dennis tells her that that's inappropriate and that his wife is a very accomplished woman who deserves attention for more than her looks, when the journalist turns to his wife, she just can't let it go.
This is an interesting example of the way in which powerful media companies control what gets out there. MTV refused to show ads, made by the Media Foundation to promote Buy Nothing Day, on its station. They stated that the ad "goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels."
The ads are here. Thanks to AdBusters for this tip.
Click here (and then click portfolio) for before and after photos of lots of celebrities!
This was sold on the website for "The O.C." On the show one character had a Jewish dad and a shiksa mom. He created a holiday called Chrismukkah to combine the two heritages and in one episode a friend sews a "Chrismukkah Yarmuclaus." Then they started selling them online for $16 to fans of the show.
Here is a blog dedicated to showing how graphs and charts can be misleading, either intentionally or unintentionally. The examples are all graphs actually published (most in major media outlets), and the author points out deceptive distortions in axes, etc.
