"THINSPIRATION"... more like "DISTORTATION"

While researching material for my final blog, I came across a website dedicated to helping anorexic girls meet their goal of becoming super skinny. While I was on the website, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was seeing girls that looked like they were about to die at any moment. Girls writing about only eating an apple for a day and cutting it into 4th's making 4 meals out of an apple. I saw pictures on google and videos on youtube that made me nauseous. Just knowing the some teenage girl is sitting at home watching the same thing as me, only her thinking that being this thin is something good, and something we should strive for.

I cannot believe that "thinspiration" sites even exist. Websites in general make thoughts and ideas much more accessible to many more people than something like word of mouth ever could, so the fact that something so negative is being spread across the world is a scary thought.

Being a teenage girl is hard enough, being so drawn to anything and everything, and being self conscious and just looking for something to fix everything. Some girls turn to drugs, cutting, and some turn to eating disorders. This website is open to anyone who can type. This is a scary idea knowing that some little girl is seeing those pictures and thinking that what she is seeing is beautiful. The "thinspiration" websites constantly are saying that people who don't like what they're doing are fat-asses and they don't know any better, and that being skinny is the best thing that could happen to them. 

These websites use pictures like the one to the right to keep the girls motivated in times when they're feeling weak (literally and figuratively). There are a collection of youtube videos that show emaciated women (ordinary and models) as a pep to keep the girls on this road of destruction.

When people are young, they are very gullible, and will do or try anything. The "thinspiration" websites tell them everything to do, from how to avoid eating with your family, to what to do when you feel like you're about to pass about because your body is too weak to function. These sites are not only damaging to the girls body's, but to their self-esteem and how they think and feel about themselves as well.

As long as there has been the media and women existing on this planet, there have been lots of issues with the body, and the way women see themselves. The media is pretty much a tell all of what is beautiful, and what is not. Not much has changed since the beginning of the media magazines and television. Skinny has always been in, and even though women with fuller figures is becoming more acceptable, there are still many women who strive to be skinny, and will go to any length to do so. 


Since the big technology era, there have been new ways that girls with these eating disorders can communicate. The girls with the eating disorders who felt alone and maybe only knew someone in rehab, now has millions of girls from all over the world who serve as a support system in their goal of being super skinny.  

More women than men have eating disorders. although they do exist with men, it is commonly found in the modeling world and anything directly related with the media. There has always been an obsession with skinny all over the world, but especially in America. 

Women have suffered with body image issues for a long time. With the start up of sites like "thinspiration", the end of all of these insecurities are far from over. 

The way society is today is a prime example of the unreachable thin women we see on television. Everywhere we look it is no wonder 1 in 4 girls have an eating disorder. barbie dolls are stick thin, beauty pageant girls' BMI is on the downward slope and range from about 22-17.5 and lower.


Many girls may use the social comparison theory which states that there is a drive within individuals to look to outside images to evaluate their own selves. What girls are seeing are making them think that being so think is obtainable and realistic. The more images in the media of thin women form standards in societies mind of what is desirable.

Sites like these have even been banned in some parts of the world. "Thinspiration" websites are aiding in the horrible disorders out there connected with food. They give you step by step information on how to get skinny, what diets to do, what to do if family becomes suspicious and much more. People (like teens) who are much more persuadable may see this website and try to model what they are learning from these websites. Although many teens have heard over and over that eating disorders are bad, to go someone if you need help with food, when websites like this exist, it makes it more accessible to them, making them more likely to start to practice what they are reading. 

These websites trick young women into thinking that they're doing something good for themselves. What they are really doing is depriving their bodies of vital nutrition. When the body is deprived of food, you will see a big drop in weight and body fat, but what you don't see is even worse. When the body is trying to find some sort of sustenance, it draws from all of the places that have the most in vital nutrition including your brain. It is crazy to believe that at one time the people out there with eating disorders were healthy, logical human beings. But now they are killing themselves on their journey to what they think is perfection. 

Examples 

"thinspration" blogs and websites:

* http://iwillbefuckinskinny.tumblr.com/

* http://ana-beauty.webs.com/quotes.htm

* http://la-fureur-d-aimer.blogvie.com/2009/06/18/thinspiration-quotes/


Vidoes like the one below are what many of the girls with eating disorders watch to keep them motivated. they like to see pictures of famous and normal people who are very skinny as motivation to stay skinny and not eat.

Meditated Sex

The movie I selected to watch was Nightmare on Elm Street (most recent one). This movie had a lot of sexuality in it. From the cast to the clothes, to the jokes that Freddy made, everything had sexual undertones. It was a very dark type of sexuality in it because the film dealt with Freddy, who was a child molester. You didn't actually see instances of the abuse going on, but there was innuendo. The movie kept people wondering whether or not this man was wrongfully killed, or if there was truth behind the accusations. There was a lot of sexuality in the way freddy interacted with the main girl in the movie, the one he caled his "favorite student". Towards the end he got a hold of her and was very sexual and forceful. She fought back and never gave in. I think that the remake of this movie is a lot different than the original. I was surprised to find so much sexuality in this movie. Everything they could make sexual they did. By the way the girl dressed before she went to bed, everything seemed a little shorter and tighter than you would usually think to wear. I feel that this was going to be a sexy-scary kind of film from the beginning and seeing the cast. Most scary movies nowadays have a sexy cast to sometimes make up for a crappy script. I was not surprised at what i saw in the movie. I knew from the commercials it was going to be kind of sexy, and even less scary. I do not think everyone should have access to these kinds of films because children and even some adults may model in some of the forceful behavior like Freddy. Some adults may see things like this movie and have more sexually aggressive behaviors, they may experience the disinhibition theory and totally become obsessed with these sexually aggressive tendencies. Like the theory of indirect or selective influences says, everyone interprets things in the media differently so there is no way of knowing the reaction to different audiences. I am glad that no one gave into the coercion because that would have made it even worse for younger viewing audiences, and older audiences as well. young children may think it is ok to go out and terrorize people as long as they don't get caught. I feel that horror films in which the bad guy dies, or is defeated but comes back is not a good message to send out there. It's like the bad guy always wins no matter how many people try to stop them, it will never work.

Content Analysis on Violence in Television

The children's programming that I watched was Pokemon. This show was all about fighting and violence. Every episdode was a different battle. Ash Katchem (the main character) has all of theses animals. Ash has the good animals, that fight the bad ones. Ash calls upon his good animals to battle the bad animals. There is a lot of hitting striking and it is made into something that is very appealing to children. Having not watched it in a long time it surprised me as to how much violence is in these shows. Ash's main animal Pikachu, is rewarded for destroying the other bad animals. It is so weird to me after reading about mediated violence how these kinds of shows are being watched by so many children. Violence is a constant variable in each episode. 
* Violence- There was a lot of hitting, slapping and things of that nature. The climax of the show was always a fight trying to destroy the enemy.
* Verbal violence- There was not a lot of verbal violence, except in the "bad guy" characters. There were little things here like egging people on and calling them stupid, but nothing too bad.

 

I also watched WWE Raw wrestling. The whole time I was watching the program was either talking about beating someone up or actually doing so. There was a lot of hitting and kicking going on. There was also a lot of verbal violence as well. The wrestlers used intimidation as well. I have never actually watched wrestling until this assignment and even though I could see how staged it was, for young children to see this is something totally different. When children see this, they may want to model the actions of the wrestlers (modeling theory). So every time they're in a situation and someone is bothering them they think they must beat them up, say mean things to them, and try to intimidate them. There was so much verbal and physical abuse going on I'm surprised shows like this are even allowed on television for entertainment purposes. 
* violence- Violence was a recurring theme during the whole half-hour span of the show
* verbal violence- The wrestlers didn't use overt curse words, but very threatening language was used.
* intimidation- This happened all the time during the show. That's what they do before they actually fight.

INTERPRETATION OF BOTH FOR DIFFERENT AGES:

I feel that young adolescents and young adults who watch Pokemon will be affected. I don't feel that they will be as negatively affected as if they were watching wrestling because wrestling is real-life people and Pokemon is much milder than the other programming. I feel that children will use modeling theory the most in both instances and be inclined to be more aggressive. The children seeing in both cases that after a fight, the winner is rewarded greatly. This makes the act of violence seem more appealing than if nothing happened or if there were consequences. i also feel that they will be so desensitized to the amount of violence that they are watching that nothing will ever seem to be violent enough for their liking because they have become so used to what they are seeing.

I feel that adults who have seen this throughout their lives will be so used to this that they will think nothing of watching these types of shows. I also believe that they will think nothing of it to introduce these types of programming to their children and the vicious circle will continue.

Arab Stereotypes

I watched you don't mess with the Zohan. I feel like the whole movie could go under all of the categories. I thought this movie was really dumb the first time I saw it, and the second time I saw it, found it to be very offensive and ignorant. 


dehumanization: The film made arab women (like the women in the fast food place with the rapper looking guy) look like they were subservient slaves to their men. This movie seemed to dehumanize mostly the women of the culture. I feel like although this did dehumanize arabs, it could have been a lot worse. I feel as though it was trying to be a comedy above all else.


villain: Phantom is the villain in this movie. Arabs weren't vilified as much as I thought there would have been. Of course there were still slight themes of this throughout the movie, this was not the main one.


terrorist: This being Zohan's first job you get to see him in action with guns, and fighting and everything like that but you never really get a real sense of the terrorist in Zohan because he is trying to start a new life. I feel like they were very light-hearted in the way they portrayed him in the film because he was seen as the good guy (even though he was a counter terrorist back in his homeland).


eroticized women: That was basically throughout the movie. Just in the opening scene alone showed women who were so turned on by the Zohan and his hak-i-sack skills. Everyone on the beach loved him, even the bird. He had a girl on his shoulders while playing tug of war, and the women spectators were in awe of him. Pouring soda on their chests, touching themselves as he played a game of hak-i-sack. When he did the women in the shop's hair, they also lusted after him, and you saw many times of them getting the special treatment behind doors, the wall shaking to the point of collapsing shelves. This was spread throughout the movie. I did not feel that it was in an offensive way, more funny than anything, but then again I could just be desensitized to what is really going on.


ignorant: The workers in the fast food restaurant had hats on and scarves under the hats to make it look like a present day turban. The taxi driver (Rob Schneider) being arab. That is a job that ignorant people associate with arabs. They put a lot of little jokes in the movie about common arab stereotypes such as the one about the cutting off the ear (was in one of the articles we had to read as well).

Portrayal of Minorities in the News

Throughout the seven days, I definitely noticed a trend in the way that the different categories were portrayed. Since it is coming close to election time, I saw that there was a lot of political coverage in the white community. Men made up most of the numbers I reported. 90% of the final number I found was of positive things regarding the white community; be it an expert coming to speak at a school, or someone being praised for their work in the community, everything was pretty normal. More-so in the "A" Section was the news regarding politics. On the metro page was where I saw more of the negative stories like the white man accused of viewing child pornography, and the mother who killed her 3 children, or the battered woman who was raped. A lot of the themes in the metro pages was crime related; not all of the time, but most. Overall, the white men and women had very few stories of anything negative, and when it was, it was not front page news or talked about in depth.

This was a different case when I looked at black men and women. Positive stories were very few and far between (mostly for the men). Most of the stories I found relating to black men and women dealt with robbery or murders. There was a little bit of politics dealing with Kendrick Meek, but only a couple of instances. The one positive story that I found regarding a black woman was about MiKyle Crockett, who was just named miss jacksonville U.S.A teen 2011. For the most part, white and black women are represented the same way. There was not much of a difference in the stories. I feel like the fact that they are women makes it easy for the media to portray them in the same way regardless of race.

* most white men in the media are portrayed as leaders, doing something to help the community. this is often the picture we have in our head when thinking of white men in the news. Of course, there will be cases of negative coverage, but far more positive than anything else.

example: white man in the media

*women in the media are either the perpetrator of a crime, or the victim, regardless of race. Regardless of the race, women are given the same treatment no matter the nature of the story.

   

* black men in the media, more often then not, are seen in a very negative way. this is a common denominator in most of the newspapers out there.

example: black man in the news

 

Theories

1. Theories of Uniform Influences- (direct influence) When members of the mass society all have an essentially similar human nature and are alike in terms of emotions and outlook. The media present messages to the members of mass society who perceive them more or less uniformly. These influence the individual's emotions and sentiments strongly.


2. Theories of Selective Influences- (indirect influence) Joseph Klapper was the chief supporter of this theory. When the media present messages to the members of mass society but those messages are received and interpreted selectively. The basis of this selectivity lies in variations in habits of perception among members of society.


3. Disinhibition Theory- (behavior theory) Throughout our lives, we have acquired a set of moral and personal ethics. Some of these moralistic ideas are ones that ethically prohibit us from engaging in certain behaviors (inhibitions). Over time, if we come into contact with mass-mediated messages that seem to condone this behavior, we may lose our inhibitions. Once we lose out inhibitions, we are more likely to engage in those behaviors that we see.

4. Desensitization Theory- Over time, heavy media use can cause people to become less sensitive to certain topics and issues. Often these are topics and issues which they have formerly displayed considerable sensitivity.


5. Sensitization Theory- (exact opposite of desensitization theory) Viewers will react so strongly to seeing certain mediated content that they will be traumatized by it and actually become more sensitive to issues and topics.


6. Modeling Theory- (social learning theory)- an individual sees a certain behavior and ties it to a certain memory similar to the one portrayed. the behavior that is portrayed is reproduced by the individual. the more the person uses this theory, the more of a habit this behavior will become in handling that type of situation. when people see something happen in a mediated message and change your actions because of what you have seen.

7. Cultivation Theory- when the news media makes it sound like what's happening is something that happens regularly (ex: crime and violence in the community) 


8.  Uses and Gratifications Theory- people have different needs. they use different outlets of media various way (ex: escapism, personal identity, relationships...)


9. Agenda-Setting Theory- "the press mat not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but what to think about" -> the news media help set set the public agenda by displaying certain stories. (ex: the koran burning)


10. Reinforcement Theory- all people possesses mental collections (schema) of possible behaviors that can be used in various situations. if they come into contact with mediated content that coincides or is similar to their schema, that schema is reinforced.

11. Schema Theory- the "pictures in our heads" or schema, gives us a way of thinking and feeling about people and certain situations, as well as giving us expectations based on past events.