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Media and Sexual Content
Examples of objectification or sexualization of children in the media in August 2020
Media and Sexual Content
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In this episode of The Simpsons, Lisa disputes with the makers of the Malibu Stacy doll to make a less sexist and more of a feminist doll. When the creators of the doll won’t listen to her argument about how the dolls are changing their society to teach young girls to depend on men in their lives, because she is simply a child, Lisa gets help from Mr. Smithers. He has collected all the Malibu Stacy dolls which Lisa asks him to help find the original creator of the doll hoping the creator can help create this new doll. Lisa tracks down Miss Lovell, the creator of the doll and together they created Lisa Lionheart to try and create a doll which would positively affect the lives of young girls. The Simpsons satirize everyday life such as We start hearing about feminism in the scene where the doll speaks for the first time saying things such as, “I wish they taught shopping in school”, “Let’s bake some cookies for the boys”, and “Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl”. The effect of these dolls on societies were illustrated when Marge, who is Lisa’s mother, was speaking the same words as Malibu Stacy. This was clearly a very sexist doll which Lisa did not agree with and wanted to make a more feminist doll. There were multiple techniques of satire to show how the world has been affected by sexism, such as parody, irony, and exaggeration. The parody presented in The Simpsons was how the Malibu Stacy doll was mocking the commonly known Barbie doll and how it’s affecting our young generation of girls and how Barbie is a bad role model for these girls. The second technique was previously mentioned about Marge repeating the same phrases as the doll. This clip pointed out Marge saying that she played with the dolls when she was younger and she turned out fine, but then proceeded to repeat a Malibu Stacy saying. Lastly exaggeration was noted in the episode by how extreme the sexist phrases were because in today’s society we wouldn’t typically hear those old school phrases. In conclusion sexism and feminism was a huge part in this episode to show how sexism is still a big problem in our daily
In Marge Piercy’s, “Barbie Doll,” we see the effect that society has on the expectations of women. A woman, like the girl described in ‘Barbie Doll’, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are compared to the unrealistic life and form of the doll. The doll, throughout many years, has transformed itself from a popular toy to a role model for actual women. The extremes to which women take this role model are implicated in this short, yet truthful poem.
Feminism is evident throughout the typical gender stereotypes such as the ‘perfect’ girls are the blonde, skinny ones. When students are asked about their thoughts on ‘the plastics’ in the beginning of the movie, they tell that they are preppy and attractive. The stereotypes in this movie cause hurt feelings and discrimination towards all of the females. Girls were also viewed as sex symbols based on their looks and physical appearance, not their ability and intelligence. In the movie, most of the girls are known for copying ‘the plastics’ look which is usually short skirts and tank tops making the outfit look provocative. Another example is on Cady’s first day of highschool, she is asked if ‘her muffin is buttered’ which is a sexual question. Feminism is definitely shown throughout the female characters personalities and
The poem, "Barbie Doll," written by Marge Piercy tells the story of a young girl growing up through the adolescence stage characterized by appearances and barbarity. The author uses imagery and fluctuating tone to describe the struggles the girl is experiencing during her teenage years, and the affects that can happen. The title of this poem is a good description of how most societies expect others, especially girls to look. Constantly, people are mocked for their appearance and expected to represent a "barbie-doll"-like figure. Few are "blessed" with this description. The female gender is positioned into the stereotype that women should be thin and beautiful. With this girl, the effects were detrimental. The first stanza describes the influence that a child is placed into during early childhood. Girls are expected to play with "dolls" and "stoves and irons," the usual toys that relate to the old-fashioned duties of women. A young girl begins to learn what she should be for society and not to deviate from the norm. The tone used in this stanza is quite silent and simplistic at first,...
The Barbie is a plastic, man-made female toy, which has perfect facial symmetry, unnatural body dimensions, and perfectly unblemished white skin. In Chris Semansky’s Overview of “Barbie Doll,” he explains that the Barbie “is invented to show women have been socialized into thinking of their bodies and behavior in relation to a male-controlled idea” (Semansky). The title directly alludes to the Barbie toy, which represents a design of a man-made construction of the female image that shows an unnatural human form that could only exist inside the imagination of men. Throughout both “Barbie Doll” and “The Birthmark” you will find the female protagonists seeking an ultimately perfect form, free of the characteristics that those around them see as unworthy. It is as if they are chasing the blueprint of perfection that is present in the Barbie. The original Barbie came with three outfits a bathing suit, a tennis outfit, and a wedding dress (Semansky). Her outfits clearly symbolize restrictions forced on female privilege, identity, and autonomy, where “she embodies the ideals and values of her middle-class American community” who expect her to “spend her days at the country club and her afternoons cooking dinner for her husband” (Semansky). This is directly similar to the “outfits” those around the women in “Barbie Doll” where the girlchild is born
Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind, a classic that gives insight into the Confederate lifestyle before and after the Civil War, is known as one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story centers around a former Southern belle named Scarlett O’Hara who grows up in the heart of Georgia on her plantation named Tara. Scarlett doesn’t care about anything or anyone except for her lover, Ashley Wilkes, and finds herself heartbroken when he marries his plain Jane cousin, Melanie Hamilton. As the Yankees get closer and closer to her beloved home, destroying everything she’s ever known and forcing her to flee to Atlanta, Scarlett finds herself forced to fight for what she loves. Though
The girls feel that people need to mask their imperfections and true selves to uphold the image of how they are supposed to be. These dolls were found in a less than desirable place, such as “Lying on the street next to some tool bits ,and platform shoes with the heels all squashed, and a florescent green wicker wastebasket, and aluminum foil, and hubcaps, and a pink shag rug, and windshield wiper blades, and dusty mason jars, and a coffee can full of rusty nails”. They find another Barbie with heals in the depths of junk. They cover up the physical flaws of the burnt barbies with pretty outfits such as the “Prom Pinks” dress. One of the girls state “as long as you don't lift her dress, right? - who’s to know.” This attempt to cover up where the dolls came from and their imperfections seem to parallel their feelings about themselves and where they come from. The girls have an image of how their dolls would be if they were new. This could be the role society plays on the image of how women are supposed to be and look
In her essay, “Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema”, Claire Johnston proposed a path to creating Women's cinema to counter the numerous dominant male-oriented mainstream films. In it, she argues that you must first understand the ideology that is found in mainstream movies, and the ways that women are portrayed within it. She determined that there were two principle concepts to understand: how women are visually represented, and the effect that women have upon the creation of meaning within the film. The how refers to all the film techniques used in the creation of the image: lighting, hair, makeup, choice of lens, choice of wardrobe, and the framing of the camera shot are some examples. These are often done to increase the attractiveness of the female character, and creates a sign for the audience to accept and decode. The effect of the female character is limited to her physical traits and the impact that her presence has on the male protagonist, typically to send him off on an Oedipal journey.
At the request of many who say that Barbie gives an overly sexualized image of women to children, Barbie has undergone several breast reductions and waist-widening modifications to make her more acceptable not in the eyes of children, but in the eyes of the children’s parents. Even though her height has remained rather irrelevant through her 55 years of being alive, Barbie has been produced with several different feminine physiques and many different skin colors in an attempt to satisfy outraged people. She started out as a fashion doll that needed unrealistic proportions to help her numerous outfits fit better, but somewhere along the way her harmless journey became stained with the accusations of feminists. Even after takin...
The classic network era is one of the most easily recognizable and distinct eras in television history. Both Bewitched and I Love Lucy were huge sitcoms that took up issues of gender representation and patriarchy in their programs through the representations of the main male and female characters of their respective series. While both of these series pushed boundaries when it came to the representation of women, in the end, the costuming of these men and women, how the main characters are introduced, and the domestic environment that the atmosphere takes place in, all serve to reinforce traditional gender norms and reveals that patriarchy is dependent on maintaining dominant ideas about masculinity and femininity.
America, the country which is bonded happily by capitalism and which stresses the importance of freedom and pursuit of happiness is not as unified as most authors would agree it is. If one looks closely towards the nation, and how the various communities differ from one another, one would possible be able to assert that this country is not all uniformed. Much of the differences in identity rely on the social class and historic factors. Having equality amongst the gender has been one of the major issues that define differences. The struggles minorities and women have faced because of their oppressive social system has created the notion of feminism.
Women are expected to fit into the perfect image society has created. In “Barbie Doll, a poem by Marge Piercy, the woman is viewed by her thick legs and fat nose. Eventually the woman cannot take the standards anymore and decides to cut off her legs and nose, committing suicide. Many women today have the same issues as Piercy’s character. Scientists are trying to find the importance of beauty to humans, the workforce treats women differently, before the 20th century women were required to stay home, blacks were granted rights before women, it was not just white women it was all women, every society has a specific view for women.
In A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen criticizes the patriarchal society he lives in by using a fictional woman, Nora, to show women oppression. She begins to feel constrained by her husband, so much so that she feels the need to mask her true identity and deceive him. She feels that deceit is her only way out from the social constraints.
A tiny miniature woman will stand in front of you, only about six inches tall. Her long blonde hair accents her sparkling blue eyes and huge white smile. Her long plastic legs bend only slightly and her pointy breasts perk out of her hot pink tank top. She doesn’t look like anything a five year old would play with, but Barbie is obviously her favorite. How does a five year old relate to Barbie? She isn’t comforting to cuddle with, you can’t change her diapers and put her to sleep in her crib. Barbie is an indendent woman, standing tall over baby dolls and stuffed animals and other juevinile toys young girls display in their bedrooms.
The idea of Barbie came about when a woman named Ruth Handler was watching her daughter play with dolls. In the 1950’s, girls of all ages only had paper or cardboard dolls to play with and preferred to play with cut outs of teenagers and adult dolls. So, Ruth Handler thought to make The Teenage Fashion Doll for older girls, as a three dimensional doll, called Barbie, named after her daughter Barbara (Heppermann 2010). However, Mrs. Handler met resistance when she went to her husband with the idea, and he didn’t think her idea would work out. When they travelled to Germany, she found a doll called Bild Lilli. This doll was a strong-minded individual that would use all at her disposal to get what she wanted. Bild Lilli was adult-bodied; which represented exactly what Handler had in mind for Barbie. In 1959, Barbie made her debut at the American International Toy Fair. This was the start of a new revolution, as far as dolls were concerned because for the first time, dolls did not only consist of paper and cardboard dolls, but also a more realistic, three dimensional doll that resembles what girls would want to be like, and can physically hold. But, like many toys, Barbie’s fame was not without its challenges.
In order to explore the theme of feminism in Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, the following must be considered: the roles men and women are expected to have, what feminism is, the different ways that feminism can be shown in the play, and finally how feminism effects marriage. The roles that men and women are expected to have is a major contributor to the different ways that feminism is shown in the play, as well as how feminism effects marriage. Therefore, there must be a clear understanding as to what these expectations are so that the effects of following or rejecting these roles can be seen. In addition, there has to be knowledge of how following or rejecting these roles influences feminism in this play. Another thing that must be understood in order for there to be a clear viewpoint on what is being analyzed in Ibsen's work is what feminism is.