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.