Blog 4

                In the movie, Clueless, we see all the typical stereotypes of adolescents. The main character, Cher, is an upper class white teenage girl full of stereotypical representations.  Although many of the judgments are brought on by their own actions, the adolescents of the movie are also criticized by those around them based strictly on their age and gender. Analyzing the movie though, we can see how the adolescents challenge the verdicts put upon them.

Within the first thirty minutes of the film we see how Cher and her friends are viewed as immature, careless and clueless. During dinner conversation, her father tells her he wishes she had some direction in her life. Later, her stepbrother, who is in college and given much more responsibility and respect, chimes in and asks “don’t you want to do something good with your popularity?” The conversations at home imply Cher doesn’t know what to do with her life.
                When we see Cher at school her popularity is confirmed as she is part of the popular clique; another stereotype that all high school students are involved in cliques. In the clique is Cher’s best friend, Dee. Dee is in a relationship that Cher calls dramatic. The couple fights all the time but they continuously make up and stay together. Much like many of the high school relationships teens are involved in, they cannot be taken seriously.

Outside of school, Cher and her friends go cruising (without valid driver licenses), parties and shopping. These are very stereotypical hobbies of female teenager. When Cher says she needs a place to regain her strength from a stressful day, she goes to the mall. This implies all she is concerned about is looks and spending money.

Although the movie does an excellent job capturing all the stereotypes, the main character challenges many of them. Firstly, Cher isn’t as shallow and conceited as she seems on the outside. Although she has a computer to help her match outfits and her step brother asks her how much time she spends grooming, she also helps others. She is constantly worried about her father’s diet throughout the movie and tries to get him to eat and drink healthier. In her spare time, she doesn’t just go to the mall for herself; she helps the new girl she adopts by giving her a makeover. During the makeover she also helps her work on her vocabulary. Along with this project she helps two lonely couples at her school find love in one another.

When it comes to love for herself, Cher isn’t like her best friend Dee. Cher believes searching for love in high school is meaningless. When she is picked up by her date, Christian, her protective father scares Christian by threatening him if anything happens to her. On their second date, Cher and Christian are left alone. Cher works with Dee all day in preparing the perfect setting for the date, making everything romantic, even the lighting. Ironically, we learn that Christian is gay and Cher is actually a virgin saving herself for the right person. This challenges and redefines. It redefines the norm that female sexuality is connected with romance. However though, it challenges two norms. First, that all girls are boy crazy and in lust. The second norm being that all good girls want relationships since we saw Cher drinking and smoking at a party.  

I think the character of Cher also refutes the idea of Harris’ can-do and at-risk girls. Cher lives in Beverly Hills, California with her father who is a very successful lawyer. Cher does her own version of charity work and receives good grades in her own way. At school, Cher talks her way into good grades instead of actually studying to receive them fairly. She attends parties where she smokes and drinks illegally. And she also drives without her license. But we never see Cher in jail or in a therapy session, she is perfectly healthy.

Although this movie was released in the mid 90’s much of the stereotypes are still held today. However, I do think more people are starting to realize the gray area between the can-do girls and at-risk girls. And more often today, female sexuality is becoming less and less taboo. Although it might not be recognized by adults, adolescents are practicing it. Analyzing this film could help understand one understand the stereotypes and resist against them, helping adolescents become their own individual and not categorized. 

Blog 2

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The media allows all the types of gazes to occur by promoting their views as the model. Other types are second best and looked down upon. The gaze is a relationship of looking. It allows the viewer to identify a subject and an object of text. It is easy to depict the subject and object of a text but, evaluating can be a little more difficult.

A gendered gaze creates the image of how gendered bodies should act. Moral gaze determines a body’s worth by appearance alone. Along with moral gaze comes racialized, determining how a body should act based on ethnicity. The socialized gaze governs how the particular body should act socially. Using all of these gazes as a cornerstone is the internalized gaze. The internalized gaze is one we act put upon ourselves to make sure we are acting and looking how the media tells us to.

The way the media structures our minds to view bodies as objects. Most of the text produced by the media has a spin of sexual arousal put with them. In this Marc Jacobs ad we see a woman’s legs sticking out of a large Marc Jacobs bag. Her legs are spread wide apart. This male gendered gaze promotes a promiscuously inviting view as the object looks like she has helplessly been engulfed by the designer shopping bag.

Although attempting to take a stealth approach, the media continuously hammers the ideal body into the audiences head.  The media connects a certain body type with a certain lifestyle. This is linked to the social and moral gaze. The thin female actress is a lot of the time cast as a woman who needs a man to hold her up, while a thicker female is the single friend either with low self-esteem or a good sense of humor to get herself through the day because she is alone. The thick friend can also hold the image that she is independent and can take care of herself. The institution supports the body type clichés by the roles they play.

In this image, the woman is clearly thin, toned and tan. Three conceptions set as the perfect body type.  Bordo makes the point in her article that it’s ‘never just bodies’. Meaning, the images provide a lesson in what is valued in our culture. Idolizing these types of images is taking a toll on females. Women are obsessing and viewing fat as the devil because the bodies they are exposed to are paper thin unrealistic images. Real and ideal are undoubtedly very different when it comes to body images in our culture.

Consumerism is undeniably explicitly used as a way of means for maintaining hegemonic beauty ideals. In our culture, thin, trimmed and bronzed bodies are something for females to aspire to, while males are geared towards a muscularly fit and tan body. In our society the audience is fed countless products to help achieve the beautiful body. From make-up to diet pills consumers are willing to try anything that guarantees them to look like their idols. It is this order of hegemony that practically keeps retailers in business; someone is always looking to be better than someone else.

The hegemonic dominance gears our internalized gaze. When our minds are loaded with these types of images and there really isn’t much diversity we become almost brainwashed in our ways of thinking. Anorexics, no matter how dangerously skinny they are, see themselves as overweight. It’s a mental disease that controls their thoughts. Bordo goes into anorexia as a possible result of the images showed to us by the industry. Although I disagree as it being the only cause, it can be traced back through our cultural anxiety when related to parental issues that have been passed down.

The Marc Jacobs ad shows how much consumerism is linked to the hegemonic body. In one light it shows the extent of how badly consumerism has taken over because the female is literally taken over by the bag. In another light we can see the underlying message that even with only a pair of heels visible, the idea of wearing this designer is what the beautiful body does and one needs to wear it too to achieve the look.