I really enjoyed the topics that this course covered. Ive mentioned before that I took a women and gender studies class last quarter and I really felt like it prepped me well for this class. That class had gotten me thinking about all these topics and this class covered how those topics manifest themselves in our society. I find myself analyzing every single tv show, commercial and magazine ad I see for any type of heteronormative stereotyping.. I think everyone around me is starting to get annoyed! But being so aware really makes me feel like I am taking an active role in my life. It is important to question and criticize what we are told to do and why so we don't just mindlessly go through life accepting what is deemed "normal" without any thought.

I would sometimes forget that this was even an english class, not because we did not do a decent amount of writing, but because it seemed like so much more than that. I loved that we were given freedom to write about topics and angles that we felt passionate or strongly about. Being able to make those choices makes writing essays much easier and more interesting. I also enjoyed getting to read some of the other students' work. Given that we all come from different backgrounds and have different opinions we all had slightly different takes on each assignment. I think getting to hear these different perspectives was an important aspect of the class.

Looking back at the blogs that everyone has written, including myself, I can definitely see how it ties in with the class objectives. I think just the simple fact that every one of us had something to write about every single week shows just how infiltrated with these stereotypes our media really is. The blog assignment has obviously caused me to be much more observant and I'm sure it has had the same effect on everyone else. I hope that everyone is able to continue this analytic process and puts the things we have learned into some sort of action.

For essay number two I am doing an analysis on the popular cooking competition on Bravo, Top Chef, and hope to stick with that genre of television for my research paper. I am planning on looking at how all cooking shows represent women and men differently and definitely go along with the heteronormative stereotypes that women are supposed to be sweeter and gentler while men need to be aggressive and fierce, even in the kitchen which is usually thought of as "women's territory". I recognize that the paper guidelines suggest that we use multiple episodes from one specific show but I really think my paper would be just as strong using examples from multiple shows. I feel like just talking about the titles of all of the cooking shows on Food Network and how they reflect gender stereotypes would give me plenty of support but I obviously plan to go beyond that.

As far as sources go I think I will be able to find a lot of information regarding what roles women really do play in the restaurant industry in order to compare that to what is portrayed in these shows. I am particularly interested with the fact that women really do make up a large chunk of the industry's labor force yet they are not often seen in top spots. I hope to find research that supports that as well as maybe gives some explanation as to why.

The rewriting portion of the paper is where I am a little bit stuck. I have not been able to come up with one specific scene on Top Chef, or any other show, to focus on. Maybe I could focus again on show titles? Giving a show to a woman called Throwdown with Paula Deen or Chic and Easy with Bobby Flay I think would definitely confuse people and make them uncomfortable. This is obviously an idea that I need to explore further and definitely would appreciate feedback and other suggestions!

So I analyze pretty much every ad I see now because of this class! I don't know if anyone else has seen the commercial for Whole Grain Cheerios but the tag line is "more grains... less you". Obviously they are trying to communicate that eating whole grain foods can help you lose weight but I found the delivery pretty shocking. That statement goes right along with what Jean Kilbourne talked about in her video about how women are supposed to take up less space.

It also sort of suggests that you=your body.. which I definitely don't agree with. Everyone, not just women, are much more than just their bodies. We all obviously have personalities, feelings, goals, brains, families etc. but this commercial apparently disagrees. This idea that we are bodies represent who we are is definitely not new but is extremely dangerous. I can understand in some cases, like maybe with an athlete or bodybuilder, that our bodies do give some clues or hints as to what we are all about, but other than that there really shouldn't be a strong correlation. I think as a society we do have a lot of stereotypes about people based solely on their looks. People who are overweight are lazy and don't care about themselves, they are funny and would make a great chef for example. Skinny women are successful and motivated and clearly take good care of themselves. But what about the girls (we all know at least one!) who can eat and eat, never work out and still stay skinny? Or the overweight ones who try every diet and excercise plan they can but their bodies just can't lose weight?

It is dangerous to judge people based on any superficial attribute because you can really never know.

As a Restaurant, Hotel and Tourism major I am obviously interested in what the environment of that industry is and will be when I graduate. I have always found it interesting that although the kitchen is deemed the female's domain it is generally dominated by men in the public sphere. For my paper I would like to analyze the show Top Chef on Bravo because it is taken to be a representation of today's chefs. I have noticed however, in this and other cooking shows, that the majority of winners are men. There is also a wedding competition in one of the episodes that sparks emotion with some of the homosexual contestants that I think would be interesting to discuss.

I am critical of all reality shows because they claim to be a real life look at a specific topic but may not always be very responsible in doing so. While Top Chef definitely is not the worst offender of this I still think it is important to look at the way female chefs are represented versus male chefs as well as homosexual chefs versus heterosexual chefs.

Although I definitely still need to do some research, I am hoping to center my paper around the idea that Top Chef's heteronormative slant may portray a harmful representation of the industry to its viewers.

By doing this I hope to convince my readers to be more critical of all forms of media, especially "reality" shows but not just the trashy VH1 ones! These shows that are seemingly realistic still must be concerned with being entertaining over factual and completely truthful.

The process of writing my first essay for this class sparked a lot of questions for me. I decided to focus my paper on how heteronormativity negatively affects males, specifically how it restricts men from taking interest in and being concerned with certain things without their sexuality and manhood coming under fire. As I was thinking about all the things guys are not supposed to talk about (their feelings, their appearance, love and plenty of other things) I tried to come up with a similar list for women, but I couldn't come up with much. There are things that are definitely considered manly.. like sports and video games maybe.. but nothing actually important. Sometimes for a female to have these interests is even considered attractive to men. Although we are oppressed in many other ways, at least we are allowed to express our emotions and not feel the need to defend our womanhood at all times. Last quarter I watched a video called "Tough Guise" which suggested that a lot of violence is caused by this pressure on males to be dominant and strong and manly. So not only are the men harmed mentally and emotionally by these restrictions, it can go even further and be detrimental to others physically.

While I definitely don't think all guys are completely consumed by this need to be manly, and I certainly know plenty who really don't seem to be too concerned about it all, I think as a woman it is important to realize the affects that society has on both genders. It is easy to play the victim and blame men for all of our problems but it is naive to believe that they don't suffer consequences themselves.

Taboo

There's a show on the National Geographic channel called "Taboo" that explores a different taboo each week. The taboo featured in last week's episode was simply 'fat'. They showed a 650 pound man who can't even get out of bed, a 450 pound female model and a beauty pageant for plus size women. But the story that really caught my attention was about the women of the African country Mauritania. In Mauritania overweight women are considered to be the most attractive. The women believe that the larger they are the more space they will take up in their husband's heart. Mother's actually forcefeed their young daughters in order to make them desirable to the men. This practice has been legally outlawed but the show captured the scene of a mother actually pinching her daughters toes between two wooden rods in order to force her into drinking some mixture of milk and butter.

At one point in the segment on of the experts made a comment about how these women completely sacrifice their health in the name of beauty, which is exactly what we do in the U.S. just in the opposite way. It is frustrating to me when people truly think that these expectations of beauty are natural and just the way things are supposed to be. I think learning about other cultures and how their ideas of beauty can be completely different from ours is proof that the media and society essentially control the way we think. It's almost scary, but important, to realize that many of the ideals and beliefs that we hold as our own may not be all that original or personal but rather intentionally constructed by society.

Just be chubby!

One thing that has always bothered me is the way that actresses tend to lose weight after gaining a little bit of fame. For example, I love the show Reba :) and in the show her ex-husband's new wife goes from looking like this in the beginning of the series:

To this in the end:

Her pretty significant weight loss was even written into the story line. Another example is Sookie St. James on the show Gilmore Girls. I had a hard time finding any good pictures but she had a similar transformation. Another place that I often see this is in reality t.v. where it's clear that the girl who may not have been the skinniest on her show made it a point to lose some weight before returning to any reunion or whatever it may be.

I usually initially feel sort of proud that they had the dedication and motivation to change something that they may not have been happy about but then I think "Were they really unhappy about it or did they just not have a choice?". I wonder if maybe they were okay with the way they looked until they were put in front of millions of criticizing people and felt that they HAD to change. It's sad to me that the few women on television today who actually represent what normal people look like usually don't stay that way for long.