The Evolution of MyAmerica

Even though all of my blog posts were written by the same person (me), when you look back and read them all , it is very apparent that my writing style has changed a ton over the past 8 weeks. When I read my first couple of posts, I was shocked to see how impersonal and matter-of-fact they were. I think the reason for this is because I wasn't 100% comfortable with the idea of blogging yet and thought of it more as a paper than a journal (which is what I think of blogging as now). Over time, I ended up developing a style of writing that I enjoyed and an area of discussion I loved talking about. This topic turned out to be relating AS discussions to media and pop-culture.

Originally, I was a little nervous to cross the line of school and personal life, but once I did so I noticed a big improvement in my blog posts. When I started blogging about things like TV shows and music, I started getting more comments and enjoyed writing my posts a lot more. In fact, my favorite post, "The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism" was about a TV show, but still addressed a major idea from the class discussion of that day. I really enjoyed writing that post because it allowed me to really start thinking critically about everything around me all the time and not just when I'm in school.

About halfway through the quarter, I started seeing blog posts in everything. I even had to edit down my ideas because I would end up with 10 or 12 after one weekend because I was thinking about it all the time. My friends and I even started saying "You should write a blog about that!" whenever anyone said anything that even closely related to an AS discussion. And that's why I love having these blogs for class. It allows us to study the real America around us 24/7, which is what I really think American Studies is about.

Subliminal Spongebob & Messages from Miley

Tonight, when I logged onto AOL, the first two articles that popped up were about Miley Cyrus's new video and Spongebob Squarepants. Ordinarily, these wouldn't seem like things that would make you think of American Studies, but that's what I did immediately. For the past couple weeks, a researcher from Northwestern University has been observing our class. She is conducting a study on how media effects today's youth. Both these articles are about how kids are effected by what they watch and who they look up to. Though it's sad that young girls are watching Miley while she sets a very bad example for them, I think it's awesome that Spongebob has added some important lessons to their seamingly pointless show. Do you remember any lessons or messages you got from media when you were younger?

One Size Fits All?

This week in class, we talked a lot about how numbers effect us (mostly in a negative way) in our daily lives. The main examples used were grades, time, and prices. The other day, I realized that another stressful use of numbers is clothing sizes.

Whenever I go shopping with my friends, at least one person says something like, "I wish I could fit into the size 4 dress instead of the 6." It has always bothered me when someone says something like this, but I have just brushed it off as another unavoidable part of life. Even though many different stores have tried to remedy this problem in the past, none of their solutions have stuck. For example, even though Chicos has tried to put different names on sizes, after a few months, everyone had figured out the new system and went back to their old ways. Thinking about it, I'm not sure there can ever be a solution to naming sizes for clothes. Even if different sizes weren't named by numbers, do you think anyone could ever stop caring about their size?

Is slavery a GLEEful topic?

This weekend, when I had some time to catch up on my favorite TV show, Glee, I was excited to see that it was a Brittney Spears episode. At the same time, I was wracking my brain to think of something to write a blog post on. About 15 minutes into the show, they burst out into song, singing Brittney Spears' "I'm A Slave 4 U". Immediately, a question popped into my mind. Even though the majority of our class thinks that Americans still aren't over the emotional scars of slavery, why is it okay for pop culture to address slavery in such a non-chalant way? I am still not sure what my ideas about this are, but I just wanted to pose the question and see what others think.

Check out the video from Glee below

The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism

This week in class, we talked a lot about slavery and race. One of the ideas that came up quite a few times was 'racial tokenism'. Racial tokenism is basically when someone chooses to include people of another race just to make whatever they are including them in look diverse. I think the main place this shows up is in the media, and specifically on many TV shows. One of the programs where I have noticed this the most is called "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" on ABC Family. This is show is basically trying to capture exactly what the "real life" of a teenager is, but does so in an incredibly cheesy way. Since they are on ABC Family (which obviously has an emphasis on family programing) they have a very diverse cast. At first, this seems very nice and refreshing, but when I looked deeper than just the inclusion of different races, I noticed that they put all of the people of one race together and are very stereotypical in doing so. Even though all of the characters (no matter what their races are) are friends, they all date people of their same races. For example, the two Asian characters on the show are going out, while the two African American characters are also dating. I think it's almost worse to do this than not including diversity at all. It just seems like they are trying to send the message that all people should hang out with other people very similar to themselves. I definitely don't have a problem with a person dating another person with their same skin color, but it just annoys me that the creators of this show have put a huge effort in grouping races together. Now that I started thinking about racial tokenism in the media, I notice it everywhere and I'm sure you will too.