N-word presentation from today's class

In today's class someone talked about the use of the N-word and how it's just become so natural to some people that we don't even think of what it really meant to people 100 years ago.  While she was talking about it, I was thinking how much I hear that word everyday.  Don't freak out! My family isn't racist. My husband says it all the time, but he's black so I guess that's ok.  It's weird because I hear some people that are white just throwing that word around with their friends like it's part of their basic vocab.  I could never bring myself to say it, not even in a joking matter.  I went to Prairie View A&M University for a year and all of my friends there were black.  It's a historical black college in the Houston area.  I remember they'd be like, "Susan, you can say it."  I would always laugh and tell them no thanks.  I know if I did they wouldn't take offense but still it just wasn't something that felt natural for me to say.  Don't get me wrong, I unfortunately have the mouth of a sailor, but the N-word just seems like the ultimate disrespect and is too negative for me to say.  In society today, we have taken that word and transformed it into something completely different.  It literally meant ignorant and was used for whites to disrespect african americans, so why today do we use it as a term of endearment?  It's all over music, television, movies, you name it.  I think we've forgotten how that word really made people feel even 50 years ago.  My daughter is 1/2 black, 1/4 mexican, and 1/4 white.  She has a wide variety of cultures swimming around in her.  I hate to think that that word will come out of her mouth one day.  It is reality however that we get more and more progressive and liberal as time goes on.  Hopefully one day our generation will understand what that word really meant and the shame it carries with it.  Well that's my 2 cents, spend it wisely.  <------always wanted to say that :) 

Culture Jamming

       I unfortunately missed the class when Mr. Herndon actually talked about culture jamming and what it was about, I did get to see the movie though.  I now understand what he meant about the don't get arrested part. :)  I'm debating on what to do still.  I'm not totally clear on which direction I want to go with my topic, marriage in the media.  I liked how bold the people in the documentary were.  I don't think I'll go as far as boycotting Disney but I might go terrorize the magazine section at Walmart.  The approaches the people in the documentary took were different in a few ways.  I really liked the group that went around rearranging billboards.  They talked about how they do minimal things to change the message that make a large impact.  I liked that because they're the small things that always make the largest impact.  You wonder how many people had to see them before someone was actually called.  At least a few people got a good laugh on the way to work.  The BLF at least left a 12 pack or something for the people that had to clean up.  I also like the fact that they didn't damage anything.  The guy that was "preaching" at the Disney store kind of freaked me out, but I guess his approach did catch attention.  I thought it was funny how someone in our class asked if he had bought the Mickey he had on the cross.  Mr. Herndon said he hoped the man took it from a small child.  Made my day haha.  But I guess it was informative, I myself didn't really know the extent of the Disney sweatshop scandal stuff going on.  I buy stuff from the Disney store all the time so I might think twice about it now.  I'll definitely have a visual of Mickey on a cross everytime I walk in the store.  The most disturbing part of the movie was when that girl tried to rap.  I wanted to sink into my chair and die.  I have this thing it might be a complex, but I can't stand to watch people embarass themselves.    My husband makes fun of me bacause I always cover my face with my shirt when someone does something embarassing on TV.  Overall, I liked the movie.  It really helped me with ideas on what I was planning to do. 

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       This is kind of a late entry but better late then never right??  A few classes back we talked about how we respond to the ads we see.  One of the ads was a picture of a super skinny model and we gave our opinions of how the ad made us feel or what the company was trying to portray.  I think that we put too much thought into how we are "supposed" to look.  People are always trying to create their own sense of style but they use other people as templates.  Doesn't that defeat the purpose?  I personally have never really cared too much about what I see on TV.  I just always bought what I was comfortable in.  Although, I have to admit that I did go out to Juicy in the Galleria and buy a ridiculously expensive purse because I had seen some of my friends with them.  I like it a lot though so I guess it wasn't totally because of my friends, but mostly it was. :) I guess I'm not like most girls though.  I was always so busy with sports that between volleyball spandex, basketball shorts, and my track uniform, I didn't have time to worry about fashion.  I remember changing in the locker room after athletics, majority of the girls would take time to blow dry and straighten their hair which was followed by makeup and all the frilly things girls do.  I always took a shower, threw my hair up and went to class.  Guess I'm not the right person to be talking about fashion but the people who aren't into it are the blank slates that retailers want to reach.  I'm not swayed by all the hype though.  Some of the ads are actually kind of ridiculous.  Not just the fashion ads but other ads don't really even make sense if you think about them.  My husband and I used to joke about how the people in the herpes commercials are always skipping through a field.  Not saying that they can't or shouldn't be happy, but the people marketing it are overdoing it a bit.  The media has an amazing effect on how we as Americans live our lives.  This is supposed to be the land of the free but is it really?  Are we free or are we prisoners to vanity?  We should strive to be individuals, not saying that a little influence is terrible, but when it comes to the point when we're losing our identity and gaining a false one we should take a step back.   I think your perspective on fashion changes with your situation as well.  I have a 3 year old and if any of you have kids you know that at that age their hands are usually always dirty, or they're going to get dirty.  If my daughter runs up to hug me, I don't want to be worried about her wiping her hands or mouth on a $200 pair of jeans or a $75 shirt.  But I guess when you're younger your priorities are different.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should be who we want to be not what we're told to be.  Life is too short to worry about people judging you based on how much you spend on clothes or anything else for that matter.  Be blessed and have a nice day!!

Marriage in the Media

       Marriage is something we see everywhere.  We read about it in papers, we see it on TV, and there are even people who make a living off of showing their married life to the world.  I am unfortunately one of those people who loves drama and although I feel for the ones struggling, it wouldn't be any fun to read about people's problem free perfect marriages.  I chose to use marriage in the media as my artifact.  I believe there are many different ways this can be interpreted and presented.  You can't even turn on the TV, or flip through a magazine without hearing or reading about someone's marital problems.  I think the world eats up media like this because we look at movie stars and other wealthy people as having everything which isn't fair so of course we want to see them fail as awful as that sounds.  No one should have everything! Well that's atleast what I think anyway.  Money makes the world go around but it can also make your personal life a disaster.  One of the most current bits of gossip I read about was the new relationship between Kat Von D and Jesse James.  Apparently they're a couple, who knew right?  I thought she was married and isn't a little soon for Mr. James to be snooping around for another woman?  With all the drama he dealt with in his marriage to Sandra Bullock and the regret he showed to America, it sure didn't take too much time for him to move on.  There are also relationships that are intentionally put in front of the media and America to witness.  Take the show basketball wives for example, these women make themselves look so desperate and half of them aren't even married which defeats the purpose of the show.  The one that is married is told by numerous people that her husband doesn't care about her and she even hears it from him in some instances.  She stays with him probably because of the lifestyle he provides for her.  This is also I'm assuming one of the reasons men of wealth and power get away with what they do.  Most women would leave a man caught cheating and not want their personal life blasted to America.  When Kobe Bryant was caught cheating, he held a press conference to explain his actions and to apologize with his wife sitting at his side holding his hand.  How embarassing is that!!  There are so many different angles you can take when discussing marriage in the media and Hollywood.  Over the course of the semester I'm going to focus on how wealth and popularity in our culture influences marriage.  Women throw themselves at men in power, but if Joe the plummer walked by them they wouldn't even give him a second look.  Most women or "groupies" as I like to call them, see a married man as a challange or something they want to conquer.  This is especially the case with professional athletes.  Hopefully this will be a very interesting experience.