"Where Is The Love?"

As a teen we might go through some challenges but nothing compared to an “adult” yet thanks to the media being a “successful/ perfect” teen has become ten times harder.  The media portrays a teens as self absorbed, materialist, perfect body humans.  Yet most of us are not. The media has done this in order to sell products or ideas. The not fully developed mind of a teen unfortunately falls in to the trap and tries to be what the media displays for them.   The media displays girls as being white and skinny.  They have perfect skin and flawless features.  They don’t dare show a girl who is darker skin unless she is wearing animal print because she is seen as “exotic”.  If this wasn’t bad enough teen girls are shown absorbed in material objects such as clothes, make up or shoes.  The worst way the media shows teen girls is as “the damsel in distress”. That we always need a guy to make everything better and to get through our day. We are seen as “a guy’s object” never as independent.  Even in songs a girls is refer to as “mine “ my baby”  or “bitch”. All these phrases are demeaning  yet have become main stream terms for teen girls.  This is upsetting. A teen girl should never have to feel like she is worthless because of something she hears or sees in the media.  This makes it very challenging to go against this message.  The media however fails to show girls as being helpful and powerful indviuals.  Many of my friends are involved in board positions in clubs or heads of volunteer clubs.  I think it’s hard for me and other teen girls to get involve and help lead activities or organizations because the media tells us “that we can’t do it right” or that the boys don’t want an independent women. I still struggle to participate in classes sometimes because of that fear of “what will they think of me” this fear you can say stems from the media’s message of teen girls.  So overall thanks to the media  many teens girls have eating disorders, become obsessed with their clothes and looks or worst of all have no self confidence. It has taught girls to not love themselves for who they are.

Even though the media can be extremely bad for the gender role of a teen girl I think that the “mother instinct” and “the care giver” stereotype can be ok for teen girls. It shows that a girls shouldn’t always think about herself but about those around her. They show most girls being teachers which is stereotypical but when you think about it the media is trusting “our future” (the children) in the hands of women or teen girls.  Even when it comes to babysitting tv shows show girls as the babysitters. This displays that girls are good caregivers and loving. 

The media has done a terrible job in teaching teens and individuals about love. How it is acceptable to show love?  Who it is acceptable to love? The media only shows heterosexual images of love.  They always show a boy and girl holding hands or kissing. Even in advertisements for products not related to relationships they will never show two girls or two boys showing signs of affection to each other. Only a boy and a girl can show the signs of affection to each other and be perceived as normal. Some ads even show a heterosexual couple in sexual poses or nudity scenes. Look at Hollister or Abrocrombi they are full of them.  Parents let their kids shop at these stores and see ads or movies with these ideas in them.  However they would never dare show their kids a homosexual couple in these same scenes in movies or even kissing.  It has come to that being homosexual you can’t show affection or love in public without being teased looked at weirdly or ridiculed. Even here at Stevenson if you see a boy and girl holding hands you don’t even take a second look.  However when I was walking down the hall and the girl in front of me saw two girls holding hands she gasped and said (in a negative tone) “look at them!”  Why do we seem to “hate” and “judge” these individuals who have done nothing wrong. They are not trying to hate one another but only to love each other yet we judge them for doing that. And we have the media to blame.  They give us the idea that being a homosexual is unusual and not appropriate and unfortunately teens carry these ideas into the schools they go to. Another image about love that the media gives to teens specifically is that it is ok to “hook up” with someone and not be emotionally attached.  They show countless tv shows such as jersey shore or the real life where the main purpose of the relationship is not to get to know someone but to have sex with them.  Even the word love has been altered by the media.  It is now referred to as a form of sex instead of an emotion. This is seen in many  pop songs such as “ I like it” “Your love is  my drug” and “ bad romance”.  As individuals in a soc  class after learning all this we have to remember that it isn’t just enough to learn it. We need to apply it. I mean we have to make sure we don’t stereotype and don’t make odd faces when we see someone who has a different sexual orientation then our selves.  We need to teach others and the future generations to accept the differences.  And to ignore the media’s message about how to love and who to love.