Miss Representation

Fair warning: I'm about to rant. I hope you'll bear with me; I promise to return to lighter fare soon. 

First, watch this:
                         
Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Over the weekend, I watched Miss Representation, a documentary written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom and aired on OWN (yes, that would be the Oprah Winfrey Network).  It is a powerful film, and I highly recommend setting your DVRs to record it when it airs again on November 12th at 11am. Miss Representation examines the way that women are portrayed in media today and the ways in which these media messages play out in and impact politics and our lives. To say that I was shocked by the statistics and media clips presented in the documentary would be an understatement. I found myself pausing the movie every few minutes to write down an appalling statistic or an insightful observation by one of the people Newsom interviewed. And now (lucky you), I want to talk about it. My apologies, but the nature of blogs means I get to do all the talking, at least at first. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

To understand why media is so important and why we should even stop to consider the messages it presents, it's important to realize just how omnipresent it is, which leads me to shocking statistic number one. Each week the average American teen watches television for 31 hours, listens to music for 17 hours, is online for ten hours, reads magazines for four hours, and watches movies for three hours. That adds up to ten hours and 45 minutes each day; that's more time than they spend in school or interacting with their parents. So if people are spending that much time absorbing media during a period when they are also forming possibly life-long impressions of who they are and how the world works, I'd say that those media messages are pretty damn impactful.

The film began by addressing advertising and its impact on the self-esteem and body image of girls and women.

• As a result of deregulation, advertising is everywhere. U.S. advertisers spent 235.6 billion dollars in 2009. That is more than the GDP of 80% of the countries in the world. 
• Thanks to photo retouching software, that advertising is often misleading if not outright deceptive.

{Dove Evolution Campaign}

{The U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority pulled these ads because they do not accurately represent the product's capabilities.}

• “This is the first time in human history that marketers have dictated our cultural norms and values.” - Caroline Heldman, associate professor, Occidental College
• 53% of 12 year old girls feel unhappy with their bodies, 78% of 17 year old girls feel unhappy with their bodies and 65% of women and girls have an eating disorder.
• The average American woman now spends more money pursuing the unattainable ideal presented by advertising than she does on her education.
• Americans spent $10,677,415,674 on cosmetic procedures in 2010.

The film continues with a discussion of women in entertainment, both on screen and behind the scenes.

• In feature films, only 16% of protagonists are female, and when the protagonist is a woman, she is usually concerned with getting or keeping her man. Only 7% of film directors and 10% of women.
• Between 1937 and 2005, there were only 13 female protagonists in animated films, and all of them, save one, aspired to find romance.
• In G-rated movies, the female characters are just as likely to be wearing sexually revealing clothing as in R-rated movies.

• More than 70% of women on TV are in their 20s and 30s.
• Women on "reality" TV are, almost always shown to be catty, shallow, gold-digging, and/or promiscuous.
• Study after study shows that exposure to television and film violence leads to an increase in aggressive behavior in real life. This is relevant here because television violence against women is on the rise, and one in four women will be a victim of domestic violence.

The parts of the film that I found the most surprising and the most disturbing were the segments that pointed out how the objectification and sexualization of women in advertising and entertainment has seeped into the news media.  The film showed clip after clip of newscasters and pundits talking about and evaluating the appearance of various female political figures. There was reference to Hilary Clinton as her "thighness," Sarah Palin was asked if she has breast implants and routinely called "cute" or "hot" by people who were supposed to be reporting the news and helping us evaluate her as a potential vice president. One talking head criticized Elena Kagan's appointment to the Supreme Court, not because of her record, but because of her looks saying, "Kagan he's gonna put on the Supreme Court? Isn't there such a thing about the aesthetics of the appointee? Let's put it to you this way, she's not the type of face you'd want to see on a five dollar bill." There were also a few disgusting quotes by Pat Robertson, but I think everyone pretty much agrees that he's an imbecile, so I'll leave them out.

• Only 20% of news stories are about women
• Female politicians are twice as likely to be described in emotional terms. They are said to have "complained" whereas their male counterparts "stated."
• In John Boehner's first four weeks as Speaker of the House, he was on the cover of five national magazines. In Nancy Pelosi's four years as Speaker, she appeared on exactly zero national magazine covers.

Let's not forget who is reporting all of this news. More often than not, the female anchors are beautiful young women with sex kitten hair and outfits that would not be considered appropriate business attire in most offices while their male co-hosts are older, decidedly average looking men in suits. [There are exceptions of course - Brian Williams is Clooney-esque and Diane Sawyer doesn't flash her cleavage or her booty on air.]

Finally, there's the ugly reality that while great advances have been made over the last hundred years (women now outnumber men in college), women have yet to attain true equality.

• America’s women continue to earn just 77 cents for every dollar men earn.
• Women account for 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
• Women make up 51% of the population and only 17% of Congress.
• "No wonder we are in such trouble in this country. We've been choosing our national leadership from 6% of the country. " - Gloria Steinem referring to the fact that the majority of American politicians are married white men over 35 with a college education and a professional degree.

If there were more women lawmakers, perhaps Sen. Patty Murray would have succeeded in passing a measure that would have prevented insurance companies from denying health insurance to women who have been victims of domestic violence. Unbelievably, she couldn't garner enough votes in 2006, so the measure failed and that practice continues in eight states and the District of Columbia.

• Cuba, China, Afghanistan, and Iraq have more women in government than the United States.
• “Little boys and little girls, when they’re seven years old, an equal number want to be President of the United States when they grow up, about thirty percent. But then you ask the same question when they’re fifteen and you see this massive gap emerging. We have this gendered socialization where politics is considered to be for men, leadership is considered to be a masculine pursuit and women are discouraged from pursuing ambitious positions.” - Caroline Heldman

Each of these facts and observations when taken individually may seem nitpicky, even whiny, but taken together, it's a serious problem. The fact is that the dominant message out there is that women's power and value come from their looks and their sex appeal. This message is a destructive one, and it has, frankly, made me hopping mad.

Once you stop to think about it, you see examples of this everywhere. Since it's Halloween, take costume shopping as an example. Go to the costume aisle at Target or a party store and look at the options for girls versus boys. Everyone knows that the options for adult women are basically Sexy Fill-in-the-Blank, Sexy Nurse, Sexy Cop, Sexy Pirate/Wench/Ghost/Whatever. Sadly, the little girl options are a slightly tamer version of the same thing. It's not like the guys have a wide array of choice either; their options are limited in a differnt way. Most of their costumes come with a weapon. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with us?

I am certainly guilty of watching the kind of trash TV that portrays women in a negative light, and I definitely fall prey to advertising that makes me feel all want-y and insecure. I'm not sure what the answer is but I am more conscious of the problem now, and that is a start. In any event, I apologize for the ranting, and I will be back to more light-hearted posts tomorrow sometime this week. For now, I'm off to observe the shenanigans that are West Hollywood's annual Halloween Costume Carnaval. I have a feeling that, in my hood, it will be the men who are objectified tonight, and can I just say? Daaayum. Those boys like to work on their bodies. I'll report back with photographic evidence of the craziness. If this year is anything like years previous, I'm in for quite a spectacle.

{source: Thee DOMASAN}

{source: ilmungo}

{source: PinkMafiaRadio}

obscene (adj): offensive to morality or decency, depraved

I don't agree with much of his politics, but Governor Mike Huckabee was right on the money when he tweeted (it pains me to use that verb), "Hollywood breakups get more media than 30K kids dying in Somalia? Talk about obscene." Included in his tweet was a link to a video made by ONE.org encouraging people to sign a petition that asks Congress to fully fund Feed the Future, a U.S. global hunger and food security initiative.

            

I love this video because it points out the ugly truth about what it takes to capture America's attention. We (I include myself in this) are drawn to the lurid, the sensational, the obscene. One need only glance at the headlines to confirm this. As I write, the top headlines on CNN.com are: "MJ's drugs cover court table during trial," "28 arrested as Wall St. protests grow," "Amanda Knox 'overwhelmed' in return home," "California teen to be retried in gay student murder."

I know that famine and drought in the Horn of Africa can't lead the news and dominate the headlines every day, and I know that there are plenty of people working hard to report on the immense suffering that is rampant in East Africa. But still. There is no reference to the crisis in Africa on CNN's homepage. There is a two minute video that promises to tell us how to "Relive Weinergate for Halloween." I click over to CNN's world news page, but apparently, the story doesn't warrant a mention there either. From that page, however, you can click on a story ironically titled, "'Foxy Knoxy': Sex, violence and media hysteria."

Over the summer, 30,000 children under that age of five died as the result of the famine in Somalia. UNICEF estimates that a child dies every six minutes in Somalia. On September 5th, the UN warned that upwards of 750,000 people could die in the coming months in Somalia. I don't know about you, but I find those figures to be "offensive to morality or decency." I only know these statistics because a celebrity-packed video titled the "The F Word" caught my attention and prompted me to do a little research, and that's shameful. Obscene, even. We are better than this, and we should demand better, not just of our elected officials, but of our media as well.

Click here to sign the petition.

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye...

The end has arrived; after 25 years, the final Oprah Winfrey Show has aired. I'm only half kidding when I say that I don't know what I'm going to do without regular Oprah fixes... 

Now, lest anyone accuse me of bias, let me begin by saying that I am well aware of the criticisms leveled at Ms. Winfrey. Sure, she can come across as a teensy bit self-absorbed (See figs. 1, 2, and 3), but dammit, I love Oprah.

Fig. 1

{Oprah wearing what appears to be a wedding dress to Bob Greene's wedding! For shame, O.}

Fig. 2

{Question: Who's on the cover of O this month? Answer: Oprah, Oprah plus puppies, Oprah times two.}

Fig. 3

{Did you know that she was in a little film called The Color Purple? Did you know that said film was directed by Spielberg?}

Ok, so humility may not be one of Ms. Winfrey's many virtues, but if my life were as cool as hers, I'd probably talk about it all the time too...

I realize that I sound like a total cliche cheeseball, but I really do feel that her show enriched my life. There is so much garbage on TV (I should know, I watch a decent amount of it), but the Oprah show was different. It generally operated on a higher plane, adding something to the conversation by teaching us, making us feel, or making us think. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it was pure escapism - I didn't learn shit from the Octomom episode, but I enjoyed the heck out of it. For the most part, however, Oprah and her team avoided sensationalism and rose above.

So here without further ado, in no particular order, are some of the things I have learned during the many hours of my life that I have spent with O.

1.  The world is full of amazing and inspiring people who have persevered through unimaginable challenges with smiles on their faces. (In other words, I have no business complaining about anything.)

*There was poet and peacemaker, Mattie Stepanek.

I remember my mom and I sniffling through an episode of Oprah where she was interviewing Mattie and his mother. Ms. Stepanek had muscular dystrophy and had passed it on to all four of her children, Mattie was the only one to live past age four. Despite his debilitating disease, Mattie had a palpable and contagious spirit of joy that I have always remembered. Mattie believed he was put on earth  to teach people that "we must remember to play after every storm and to celebrate the gift of life as we have it, or else life becomes a task, rather than a gift. We must always listen to the song in our heart, and share that song with others.”

*There was Monica, the mother who contracted necrotizing fasciitis after a C-section and had to have both arms and both legs amputated.

This woman was so impressive, I vividly remember when she said that she never had a why me? moment, saying only, "I did have moments of 'If God just left me one arm or one leg, life would be a little bit easier,' but that's not the way it went. You make do with what you have. I could still love my girls. The bottom line was I am still here."

*There was Tererai Trent, the Zimbabwean woman who was recently crowned Oprah's favorite guest because of her determined pursuit of an education.

This woman grew up, without running water or electricity, in a tiny village in Zimbabwe where school was a privilege reserved only for boys. By age eleven, Tererai was married to a man who beat her at the mere whisper of a desire for an education, and by age eighteen, she was a mother of three. Although the odds were stacked overwhelmingly against her, Tererai set out to achieve her dream of an American education. You can probably guess where this is going... If you have four minutes, watch the video to see how amazing her journey really is; this is now going to be required viewing in my class. If you have four more minutes, watch Oprah pull off her last big surprise.

*There was also Jacqui Saburido, survivor of a horrific accident caused by a drunk driver; Randy Pausch, the college professor who decided to live life as Tigger when everyone would have understood if he had more of an Eeyore vibe; and even Faith the two-legged dog.

Thanks, Oprah for introducing me to all of these stories that I might not otherwise have known. They have given me pause, reminded me to stay in the moment, and helped me to appreciate all I have.

2. The right bra can make you look ten pounds thinner. Also, Spanx are a gift    from God.

Ever since Oprah had the bra whisperer on, I have been obsessed with going to her store to get measured and find out if I'm wearing the right bra. Thanks to my observant and thoughtful sister, I am sitting on a gift card to Intimacy, the bra whisperer's very own bra boutique. So thanks to O and Mo on that one!

3. If you're ever attacked, you should never let them take you to a second location. 

I clearly remember watching this episode when it first aired in 1991. At that time, I was fairly certain that danger lurked around every corner (I did grow up in the tough neighborhood of Shelburne, Vermont), and I was eager for tips on how to escape death. Anyway, I have always remembered that Oprah's expert said that we must do everything we can to avoid being taken to a secondary location that is isolated and likely to become the site of our demise. When the moment of truth arrives and you are being mugged, carjacked, etc., you should throw your wallet and car keys as far as you can and run in the opposite direction. According to retired police sergeant Sanford Strong, the would-be kidnapper will be taken by surprise and will likely choose your cash and car over you. Watch out muggers, rapists, carjackers, assorted hoodlums, I've got your number.

4. Gratitude is important.

{Source: honor the gift}

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." - Oprah Winfrey

 I think that I was in high school when I first heard Oprah talk about her gratitude journal. I have always known that gratitude is important, but Oprah really drove the point home. I don't always write it down, but every night I at least make a mental list of the many things I have to be thankful for. Apparently it was Meister Eckhart who first said, "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough," but I first heard it from Oprah.

5. Education is power, and if you empower women, you can change the world.

Pretty self-explanatory...I have always admired Oprah's commitment to (and willingness to fund) schools, particularly those that serve girls. This also seems an appropriate juncture at which to give Ms. Winfrey a big shout out for her book club. On her recommendation, I have read and enjoyed: Where the Heart Is, White Oleander, The Poisonwood Bible, The Heart of a Woman, The Bluest Eye, A New Earth, Great Expectations (actually, that was more so on Mrs. Donoghues recommendation and it wasn't really a recommendation so much as it was  demand), Night, and The Secret Life of Edgar Sawtelle.

6. "When you know better, you do better."

{They were laughing at the hilarious joke I just told them. You know, because they're my best friends and we hang out all the time.}

This quote originally came from Maya, but it is one of my and O's faves.  I remind myself and my students of this idea regularly.

My Favorite

For some reason, this past week has been particularly exhausting. Maybe the Santa Anas really do hold some sort of inexplicable sway over behavior, and my students' mood swings and rowdiness can be attributed to a solar disturbance or an imbalance in the ratio of positive to negative ions in the air. Or maybe they are just teenagers who are high in energy and low in attention span. Whatever the cause, they were in rare form this week and I was off my game...never a good combination.

In any event, the fact that the last hour of my day at work was spent supervising a "spirit assembly" wherein 2600 students spend fifty minutes screaming, shouting, and pounding their feet, combined with my general state of fed-upedness with all things school related, created an intense desire to ignore all adult responsibility and enter a vegetative state to the soothing sounds of Dr. Phil immediately upon my return home. Don't judge - this week I had a student ask me,  "Which goes first, the period or the question mark?" Think on that for a minute...he wasn't aware that it was an either/or kind of situation. So, yeah...Dr. Phil taking a self-declared "spoiled princess" to task for stealing ten grand from her grandma? It was a healthier alternative to chemical mind numbing agents.

I realize this sounds like a lot of bitching for someone who is supposed to be focusing on gratitude, but the fact that I could collapse on the couch in front of mindless television secure in the knowledge that I would still eat dinner, made it very easy for me to decide what I am most thankful for today...

I have a husband who likes to cook. Yay!

{Bonus-he cooks topless!}

 

Not only does he cook, but he's also incredibly patient. He tolerated literally forty-seven underexposed, blurry, poorly composed shots like this one --

It wasn't until shot forty-eight that I got this face -

{Apparently, I avoided turning to booze, but I drove my husband to drink.}

In addition to being a talented and willing chef, Tom is also wonderfully non-judgey. Even when I am a whining, self-pitying, Dr. Phil-watching, misanthrope who takes crap photos and lives in sweatpants, he still manages to love me. Or...at least he fakes it until I get my act together. And that is obviously something to be thankful for.

Plus - he looks super handsome in old timey pictures and he writes songs for me. What more could I ask for?

Amazing how a less than stellar week can make you all the more grateful for the very bright spots in life...

Happy Hour to Blue Hour

This week I met the ladies for happy hour at C Level on Harbor Island.

After two glasses of wine, happy hour became the blue hour... I had never heard this time of day called the blue hour before someone's Flickr comment led me to a Google search which led me to itunes and a song by Pete Anderson (?) called, yep, Blue Hour. According to the song, the blue hour is when, "the sky has lost the sun and it hasn't found the stars...[and] the twilight's in your eyes and the evening's coming on." Lovely, apt, and a pretty good song too...