Advertising

I am looking foward to the coming weeks, as the class moves toward discussion of sex in advertising. Sex in advertising is an interesting occurrence. Sex is in advertising in order to attract attention. However, with so much sex in advertising, I wonder if any attention is paid at all anymore.

Vocabulary Test Readings

I just finished reading the text for the vocabulary test. Some of the examples of pornographic advertising were a shock to me. I found the Gucci ad, which I won't describe in detail, particularly shocking. Reading this book reawakened me to the images I see and dismiss on a daily basis. It's amazing the things advertisers get away with, rather, that we let them get away with. We look at the ads, judge them, and then go buy what the ads were there to sell. We should vote with our pocket books, and not buy the goods whose ads objectify and degrade women. This is the only way anything will be done to change these images.

Disabilities

Disability stereotypes are everywhere. Many times, people with physical disabilities are assumed to have mental disabilities as well. Additionally, I feel that the news media, particularly locally, have a horrible tendancy to turn every disabled person into a pity figure. They are people, not just patients. You never hear about disabled people who successfully run their own business or take their kids to school every day. You only hear about the downtrodden, lowly disabled person, whose life is reduced to a wheelchair and their disease. Local news media are the main culprits in perpetuating these stereotypes.

Jena, LA

The news coverage of Jena, LA is interesting to me. There are two such different sides of the story, and it seems that with each passing day, something new is learned regarding the events leading up to and following the beating, arrests, and protests. I feel that in some cases, the media coverage is far too lenient on the six young men. It seems to me that if you engage in a group beating, you should be prosecuted, even if the student that was beaten was able to go to an event following the beating. Rather than use the victim's actions as a defense, why not just celebrate the fact that the six young men did not succeed in killing him. Prosecuting violent criminals should not be made into a race issue in order to lessen or eliminate their punishment.