Clara's Clarifications

1/24 As most teenagers do, I consume hours and hours of media every day. Between social media, watching tv shows, listening to music, and stumbling upon numerous advertisements throughout the day, I am almost never in the absence of media. Throughout the process of writing media blogs, I have become more aware of the ways this exposure affects my life.  Learning about common advertising methods and techniques has made me much more aware of the advertisement media around me. I find myself coming upon guerilla advertising everywhere I go, but I never noticed these hidden ads before beginning this assignment in class. Additionally, I notice that I automatically think about the techniques and appeals used in each ad I see. This view has made me see through the façade the different companies represented in media create. I think that, ideally, all consumers should approach media with this similar perspective and with skepticism. This is the basis of media literacy. All consumer...

1/15 About a month ago, I saw Lady Bird at Tower Theatre with two of my closest friends. We were amazed at how closely we could relate to "Lady Bird"'s character. I have now watched it three times, each time with a very different group of people, and they all loved it. Of course, I am aware that there are people that didn't fall in love with Lady Bird the way that I did...but nevertheless, I was thoroughly surprised by the overwhelming positive response to the movie across many different ages, backgrounds, and lifestyles. It recently won the Golden Globe awards of: "Best motion picture musical or comedy" as well as "Best actress in a musical or comedy motion picture". So why did it appeal to so many people? And how did it capture this attention?  My parents, aunts and uncles, a young couple I babysit for, and other high school-age students have all had a similar response to the movie.. they could relate to it. I think that this is the...

In Miss Representation , I learned that almost all women portrayed in movies are sexualized or objectified in a manner that makes them seem inferior to men. Of course, I was not surprised to hear this, but I only thought about love stories and romantic comedies. Then, one woman in the video made the remark that even women in films that are made to seem independent and powerful are ultimately objectified but in a more hidden manner. The interviewee in Miss Representation affectionately referred to this archetypal female character as the "fighting f--toy." I have always been a huge fan of Princess Leia from Star Wars, and throughout our learning about film portrayals of women, I tried to believe that, as the heroine, Leia was exempt from the sexualization and objectification of Hollywood. But when this was mentioned in Miss Representation , I recognized that she absolutely is not. Leia was shown as a sex slave for Jabba the Hut in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...

1/7 I have spent a large portion of my winter break watching Friends and growing to love every character on the show .  Today, while trying to think of something to write about, it came to me that one of the characters could be considered a mook. Though not all of his actions align with the definition of a book, I feel that much of Joey's character has been constructed to match the archetype. Many of his actions throughout the show create his lovable, but quite immature, personality: He steals and wears Rachel's lingerie, gets an uncooked Thanksgiving turkey stuck on his head, bets a man that he can fit into his cabinet and gets locked inside, bets Monica that he can eat the entire turkey by himself, talks constantly about his sex life (boasting about his favorite pick-up line "how you doing?"), lives on pizza and beer in his reclining chair, and describes his favorite acting tactics as "smell the fart acting". These actions could quickly toss Joey int...

1/7 This week, I spent a few days in Texas visiting my grandparents. Immediately after arriving the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, I noticed how everything was "all about Texas". Every gift shop was filled with Texas themed t-shirts, license plate decorations, mugs, hats, blankets, pillows, electronic chargers... Anything you could think of came with a Texas state flag printed on it. I figured this could be because we were in the airport and the idea of welcoming people to Texas from other parts of the world caused this presence of state spirit. But throughout the three days I spent there, I walked around a shopping mall and noticed the same behaviors. Texas "spirit-wear" appeared in every store. Even international chain stores were unlike their sister stores in California: they all had large numbers of products dedicated to promoting Texas... At first, I passed off this behavior simply as that of "Texan culture," but the more I saw it, the more I recogn...