Tag Archives: media criticism

 
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The slow dance


Too often we take for granted our own liberty.  I am in an interracial relationship, and until certain issues come up, I often think nothing of it.

This story is one of those issues.

A small city in Georgia is finally taking steps towards desegregation of its high school's prom.

Ashburn, Georgia is located in south central Georgia and is reported to house around 4,400 people.  Sixty-five percent of those are black, and 32 percent are white, according to census data.

Historically, students who attend Turner County High say that things have "always been this way" and that this seems to be the first successful attempt to integrate dances.  All other efforts failed due to lack of student support and student turnout from both white and black groups.

It is 2007, and we are more than 50 years away from the fundamental Brown v. Board of Education decision, which effectively made academic segregation illegal based on inequality.  However, too often Brown and other paramount decisions are the only things we look at when it comes to separation of races.  Sometimes, its the legacy, not the legality, that confines us.

The harsh reality is that, in the United States, while separate but equal may be the law, affirmative action may exist ,and discrimination may be effectively illegal — hate is real and entrenched.  If a group of four high school students in Georgia can work to change it, why can't we? Furthmore, why has it taken us so long?

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Superbowl commercials sell stereotypes, not products in 07


The majority of the attention at Sunday’s Superbowl parties certainly wasn’t always on Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts.

Friends and I attended a Superbowl party at a local restaurant, and it didn’t take long before one of the truer highlights of the game – the commercials – took center stage.

A well-dressed business man walks down a hallway, talking mostly indecipherably from background chatter in the restaurant about his company. No one pays much attention and the commercial is dismissed as another ‘talker,’ clearly not expecting bouts of laughter. But when the male lead takes off his glasses and steps into the marketing room for GoDaddy.com, everything changes.

The question then became, “So what does GoDaddy.com do anyway?”

The ad, linked here, highlights well-endowed women in white logoed tanktops jumping up and down gleefully, while being rated by a number of “biker types,” clad in oversized black t-shirts. If that wasn’t enough to have the eyes of countless men in the room fixated on big screens – the waterworks would do exactly that.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but somehow, wet t-shirt contest doesn’t scream domain registry and web hosting to me. It screams sexism and objectification.

Sure, the Superbowl’s target audience is men, ranging in ages from their late teens on up to the 50-something population. But perhaps the visual was unnecessarily crass and sexualized. Scratch perhaps – that’s a definite.

The clencher: in a user poll by AOL Sports, the commercial didn’t fare that well against other, less “in-your-face” advertisements. In a poll for 2nd-quarter commercials, GoDaddy.com was trumped by the Budweiser dalmation, which came in with 31 percent of the vote. GoDaddy.com’s busty women only held the attention of 2 percent of those polled.

However, don’t let me mislead you. The stereotypes still sell.

Moving on to the Snickers kiss commercial, which painted two unmistakably ‘manly’ men meeting for an accidental kiss after sharing a Snickers bar.

Several problems emerge – the clear media construction of masculinity (who really rips hair off of their chest? Male friends at our table were polled, and apparently that takes a clear level of insanity), as well as the sounds of disgust echoing from around the room when the men’s lips met.

Even in post-Brokeback America, the general population can’t wrap its head around the idea of two men liplocking, whether on the big or small screens – or in real life.

Why is being gay, or being uncomfortable with homosexuality, so accepted in the United States? Why is homosexuality considered a threat to masculinity, as shown in the candy bar ad’s portrayal? What are advertisers selling today, their world views or their product?

Given the choice between the rest of the ads and the cute, yet safe, dalmation by St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, I’ll take the dog.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also: