Prompt #2: Jeffrey Jackson

            An institution that I have found to define gender and or sexuality to me is the institution of Marriage and how it is depicted in commercialism and media. Ever since I was little, it was clear to see the split divide between those two adults raising me. The gender roles of the man and the woman have been strictly decided upon and defined in my culture. If you look at the media in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, it’s very plain to see the obvious gender roles defined by commercialism. Almost every ad was based around gender roles, whether it is targeting the woman or the man, they’d target each gender through the roles that they were instructed by society to play. Such as in this ad for Drummond Sweaters.

In the ad, it states, “Men are better than women!” and that, “Indoors women are useful…On a mountain they are something of a drag.” Right away, the text establishes the man as the superior and dominant figure as he is “better” than the woman. Next, it moves on to say women are “useful” indoors, basically grouping woman in the same category as appliances much like a vacuum or a stove. Also, in the ad’s picture, you can see two men boldly standing on top of a mountain, exemplifying their physical dominance/prowess, while hanging on to a rope struggling to climb the mountain is the woman, physically weak and a bother to the men. Through media/commercial ads such as these, society came to view women as the submissive tool at the disposal of the man. These depictions drifted into the home life and marriage. As you can see in any old school sit-com, the father figure is strong, a leader, and king of the household. While the woman is automatically depicted as the submissive housewife who cooks, cleans, and does anything the man wants; she is the caregiver looking to please her husband before her own needs. Everything the woman does is to please the husband. She cooks him food because

 he’s hungry, she cleans the house so it looks presentable to him; she does everything for him and society copied this formula. However, the old school gender roles assigned in Marriage are seen as very sexist and unfair today. Movies of more recent times have even challenged the gender roles placed upon husband and wife, look at Daddy Day Care. It’s a movie where, uncommon to society, the man becomes the caregiver of the household and takes care of the children (but not without some hilarious hi-jinks). Also, Mr. Mom can be seen as a great example of society flipping gender roles, where the father unconventionally is placed in the mother’s role and what happens as a result of that. It’s not certain whether movies that flip the gender roles of marriage are meant to erase the line of gender stereotypes or to cement them as a result of what goes wrong when these gender roles are switched, but movies like Daddy Day Care and Mr. Mom do raise questions and challenge the stereotypes and gender roles that society has implemented into the institution of traditional Marriage.

Prompt #2-Connor Cross

When I was a young kid growing up, one of my favorite television shows to watch was the popular Cartoon-Network show, Scooby-Doo. The main character was a dog named Scooby, and him and his friends would drive around the world and solve mysteries together. There were many aspects of the show that contributed to my own definition of gender/sexuality, and for the most part they were conveyed through the qualities of the characters.

Scooby and his best friend Shaggy were the two goofiest characters on the show, and they almost never left each other's side. Their favorite hobby by far was eating, and they were constantly wolfing-down whatever food they could get their hands on. This shows younger boys who watch the show that it's alright to eat food and that it's really fun, and there isn't one scene in which the two female characters (Daphne and Velma) eat like Shaggy and Scooby. The other male character, Fred, is the leader of the Mystery Inc. "gang" and he's the person that gives all of the orders. He's very confident in what he does and other people latch onto him, especially girls. These attributes show younger kids that boys are supposed to be confident and be a leader in order to get the pretty girls.

There are two main female characters in the cartoon, who are named Velma and Daphne. Velma is a nerdy, glasses-wearing girl is always complaining and losing her glasses. In most of the episodes she will lose her glasses, not be able to see anything, and someone else in the group will have to save her from a perilous situation. Daphne is portrayed as pretty, fashionable, and she seems to always follow Fred in whatever he does. The qualities of the female characters tell young girls who watch the show that girls are supposed to be dependent and be more like Daphne, not Velma. The qualities of characters in cartoons are just one of many ways in which society shapes the views of gender and sexuality for young kids.

Prompt #2 - Rachel Dadas

One object that immediately came to mind that defined gender and sexuality for me as a child was Barbie. Every girl grows up playing with Barbies and every boy had their toy cars or trucks. For us girls, we were introduced to gender, sexuality, relationships, and homely aspects from playing “house” with our wide variety of Barbie dolls and accessories.

When I was a young girl it seemed as if I had every Barbie doll and every accessory known to man. For example, I had the Barbie mansion, the convertible, the Ken dolls, the little baby Barbies and much more. As a child, before all of the “working girl” Barbies hit the market, I assumed Barbie stayed home with the kids and made dinner while Ken went to work. That was how Barbie was portrayed in the commercials, on the boxes, and in media at the time. I always had Barbie cooking in the kitchen, taking care of the children, and tending to the house while Ken was out at work. In my Barbie mansion, there was always a family too. Ken was the dad, Barbie was the mom, and they had a child. At this age I vaguely knew about sex, but I knew enough to know Ken and Barbie made that child and that they were sexual beings. This was probably the first time I learned about sexuality.

The way the manufacturers created Barbie and Ken physically also contributed to the gender stereotypes and sexual appeal. Barbie was made with a tiny waist, long legs, long blonde hair, big boobs, dresses, hig h heels, and permanently painted makeup on her face. Ken was created with sculpted muscles, thick arms and legs, perfect hair, wide chin, bigger hands and feet, and a manly face. Considering this is how all of Barbie’s and Ken’s friends were created too, I thought this is what all people were supposed to look like in real life.

Another major thing that happened to me as a child with Barbie was experiencing sexuality. Barbie is clearly a sexual being, with the way she is sculpted and the way she is dressed. To me, I thought it was normal for people to wear those skimpy, glittery ensembles that were held together by only a few stitches. Barbie dolls never seemed to have full, normal clothing; it was either a small dress with heels or a bathing suit. My Barbie’s wardrobe was endless, but it occurred to me that that clothing would be considered inappropriate in daily life and that she was clearly meant to be a sexual character. Not only was my Barbie always dressed femininely, Ken also always came with a suit, dress clothes, or some type of sports outfit. These clothes both defined gender and sexuality for me at an early age.

Playing with Barbie dolls for the majority of my childhood definitely made an impact on my life when it came to gender and sexuality. I was introduced to these stereotypes at an early age, and as more various dolls came out, the more I learned about sexuality as well. There are some very risqué dolls such as a go-go dancer, tattooed and pierced Barbie, beach model, and even the almost-naked Britney Spears Barbie.

Prompt #2: Tory Adkisson

Probably the earliest memory I have of understanding that being a boy and being a girl were different centers around my desire for an Easy-Bake Oven. For those of you may not have had this growing up, the Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven made by Hasbro (the people who also make Transformers, another "media object" of my youth that taught me a lot about gender roles even though, as robots, the Autobots and Deceptacons didn't have genders!) By working toy oven, I mean it would bake small things, but in my eyes it was magical, it was the gateway I needed to begin making something before I knew how to draw, which became my next (and longer enduring) passion. Compared to the old models, the current Easy-Bake Oven is very sleek and stylish:

Compare the above to the one I had as a boy:

As you can see, the old model has a variety of pinks and purples on the basic white of the oven's body. The current model has pink too, but it's a much darker pink, making me wonder if it isn't a strategy on the part of the Hasbro folks to make the oven more gender-appropriate. As a boy, the colors didn't bother me at all--my favorite color was (and still is) purple. If anything, the color made it more attractive. I was much closer to my mother than I was with my father, and that manifested itself in a desire to be like her. I had long hair, which often braided, and even drank little sips of coffee in the morning like she did. Learning how to bake seemed like the next logical step, and the Easy-Bake Oven provided a relatively safe alternative to working with the actual oven, something my mother would've never allowed.

I was probably no older than four or five when I got my Easy-Bake Oven. As I recall my mother didn't have any problems with my wanting/having it. My mother's a character in her own right--a former biker chick who ran with the Hell's Angels up and down the California 1 (or Pacific Coast Highway) but also quite Jewish, and therefore, protective of me. As a non-traditional woman in her own right, she never had problems with my less than boyish behavior. My father, however, was furious when he found out I got the toy. He'd already tried and failed to push me into sports of various kinds: baseball, football, street hockey, and none of it took. I was a quiet, sensitive boy who liked to read and pet his cats and, even though my father himself was not very masculine, he had a complex about my masculinity. His arguments with my mother about the toy lead to him calling me a "sissy," which, at that point, was the first I ever heard that word used. That word would later be applied so frequently to me (by him, by other kids at school. even by a few teachers) I would start to think of it as a synonym to my name.

It's obvious to me now that the Easy-Bake Oven is a girl's toy, one meant to reinforce a girl's notion of her role as a domestic entity, as "the one who cooks." Though our culture not, as a whole, is not as stuck in these stereotypes as we used to be, the gender-coding of children's toys persists. It's funny, especially considering that the cooking profession is notoriously male-centric, that the desire to bake would make a boy seem so girly, never mind my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe's, or Creepy Crawlers. I'm glad my mom let me have the toy though because, despite all the grief and dysfunction the toy, and my obvious gender non-conformity caused me as a boy, I can now bake a pretty delicious cake.

Blog #2 Sara Campbell

Hey Guys!

My favorite movie growing up was Grease. My best friend and I would watch it every weekend whenever we had a sleepover. We first started watching it when our mothers took us to see the play version that our local high school was performing when we were about 10 years old. Ever since then it was our favorite movie and even today we jokingly will revisit our childhood days and watch it.

I think that movie was kind of an eye opener to me for what I thought high school relationships would be like and how girls were supposed to act around guys and guys around girls. I don't think that I ever thought much about how it's always a guy and a girl that fall in love because that's how I was raised. To me, the fact that the movie only portrayed heterosexual relationships, didn't mean anything.

When I first watched Grease it made an initial impression that the guy should always chase after the girl and the girl should just wait for him to make a move. Basically the traditional outlook on guy and girl relationships. The boys were supposed to be the ones that put in all the effort while the girls really weren't the ones showing their feelings. The ending impression, however, made me realize that the guy doesn't always have to put in 100% of the effort to make something work. Instead of him changing, maybe its the girl that needs to change or put in a little effort of her own.

The movie definitely defined gender roles and characteristics for its time era. The guys in the movie are obsessed about cars and they all freak out when they finally get one. They spend all day cleaning and fixing it up. They were doing "manly" things. The girls, however, have a sleepover and all they do is talk about boys and do their hair and play with make up. They do all the girly things that stereotypical girls would do. So this movie kind of subconsciously told me that girls only do girly things and guys only do manly things. There isn't a middle ground that is portrayed throughout the movie.

I still love to watch the movie no matter how corny it continues to become. Originally I would say that it made some lasting impressions on me about how relationships are handled and how each gender has its own roles and characteristics it has to portray but as I have grown up I have realized the many stereotypes it contains. I don't think too much of them when I am watching the movie but I am still consciously aware that they are there.

Blog #2 - Steven Scherer

When I think back to my childhood and some of the cartoons that were on, it is easy to see the gender and sexuality themes being portrayed in many of them. For now, I would like to focus on Johnny Bravo, a Cartoon Network show that ran from 1997-2004.

Johnny Bravo was a cartoon almost entirely centered on gender and sexuality themes. Johnny Bravo himself was drawn excessively muscular with a large upper torso. His exaggerated chest and arm muscles are what the show used to define him as a “masculine” man. Johnny’s skin-tight black t-shirt helped to showcase his muscles even when he was fully clothed. A pointy hairstyle that looks like a cross between Elvis and Jersey Shore and ever-present sunglasses were part of Johnny’s trademark style. His narcissistic personality left him thinking he was always handsome and a desirable object for women, even if they rejected him. Johnny Bravo was the image of the stereotypical “jock.” The show also focused on his massive lack of intelligence – another “jock” stereotype.

Johnny Bravo from Cartoon Network (left) vs. Ronnie from Jersey Shore (right)

Although he was voiced by a few different people over the course of production, Johnny Bravo’s voice was always an impersonation of Elvis Presley’s voice. His deep voice, connected with such a desirable pop culture icon as Elvis, added another dimension of masculinity for both younger and older viewers.

Aside from Johnny’s characteristics, his actions also helped create an image of a stereotypical “jock.” Each episode was centered on a different situation where Johnny Bravo was trying to get a girl. Johnny frequently went through extreme circumstances just for the chance of having a date. Many of the women he asks find him repulsive and begin beating him up.

This is a pretty interesting thing to think about for me. As a child, I certainly watched this cartoon as well as many others. However, I never was, am, or will be what is considered the stereotypical “jock.” I played baseball until the beginning of high school and the only mildly athletic “sport” I was in after that was marching band. Basically, I think the idea of the show helped form my opinion about guys who are “jocks” like Johnny Bravo. If Johnny Bravo was considered the epitome of masculinity, and such “masculine” (yet unintelligent) males were so repulsive to women, what was the point of being like Johnny Bravo if I was interested in women? Women in the show weren’t interested in narcissistic jerks, so what gave me reason to separate that from real life?

Before speculation occurs – I do not watch Jersey Shore.

Prompt #2: Alex Cameron

One institution or media object that defines gender and sexuality for is the television show "Modern Family." This ABC comedy is a melting pot of gender and sexuality in our society today. It includes characters that represent masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality, and homosexuality. The characters in this television show that represent these characteristics are Jay Pritchett, Gloria Pritchett, Phil Dunphy, Claire Dunphy, Mitchell Pritchett, and Cameron Tucker. Jay Pritchett is easily the character that best represent masculinity. Although he is old and somewhat over weight, he is the stereotypical stubborn old man who still thinks he is capable of performing the manly tasks around the house that he could do when he was younger. This happens when Jay's back gives out on a trip to Hawaii and is forced to stay in a hammock. This can relate to me because my dad continues to get physically older, but still tries to keep up with me and my brothers. He ended up hurting his hip one day when he initiated a game of basketball with me and my brothers, much like how Jay throughout his back with his son. Another character that represents both sexuality and gender is Gloria. She is the definition of a high maintenance, pretty woman. She is a Latin beauty that is married to Jay and is constantly showing off her slender body throughout the show, making her a sex icon.

Phil is married to Claire and is an anomaly because he is not what most would consider being a stereotypical father. He is constantly looked down upon by Claire’s dad, Jay, because he is not a "handy" man and isn't good at fixing things around the house. He often times acts like a kid too when he is with his children. Phil's wife Claire is a stereotypical mom that holds the entire family together. She drives the kids to school in her minivan, cooks dinner every night, and helps her children with homework. I can relate to Claire's character because when I was younger my mom did all of this for me too.
The final couple in this comedy is Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker. Mitchell is Claire's gay brother that is sometimes overlooked by his father, Jay. At times it seems like Jay overlooks his son Mitchell because he is embarrassed that his son is a homosexual. Cameron is Mitchell's husband and he is a stereotypical gay man. He is very flamboyant in almost everything he does and portrays a lot of feminine characteristics. He is very affectionate and loves Disney movies. He also loves to dress up as a clown for his daughter Lily. After having seen this TV show multiple times I always ended up laughing the hardest at the scenes Cameron and Mitchell are in because they are extremely humorous.

If you haven't seen this hilarious show, you should definitely watch at least one episode.