Selfie Surveillance

A new piece of information that came out just this past week from Edward Snowden, former N.S.A. agency contractor, was that the N.S.A. is now using collecting millions of digital images, intercepted from social media and texts and online interaction. I can relate extremely well to this, as I am a teenager living in the era of the "selfie," where many students take pictures of themselves many times a day and send them out to friends around them. There are social media sites dedicated just to posting pictures of yourself for your friends to see, phone calls are now allowing you to show your face with Apple's "Facetime"software and there are applications on the app store dedicated to the sending of your face to your friends, like "snapchat." You could say we are a generation that is obsessed with our faces.

That is why this new N.S.A. campaign will affect so many people, and with something of such great an impact, I wondered what kind of impact it will have on people like me, as I myself am an avid selfie taker. I questioned how much of this goes against my right to privacy, and as it turns out, we don't have much right to privacy at all when it comes to the sharing of digital images. According to a New York Times article, congress has largely ignored the issue, and, "unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data," as stated by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. This is too bad because although the N.S.A. has not technically done anything illegal, they have overstepped their moral bounds in my opinion, because many people have pictures of themselves that they would not like to be publicly collected by a government agency. For example, "they have intercepted Webcam images, including sexually explicit material, from Yahoo users." Although I am not a proponent of exposing yourself to others online, I do think those who do make the choice to participate in that should have the right to keep that private material private. 

It worries me that since there are no regulations at all now and the N.S.A. has already gone to the extent of taking Webcam photos, what is stopping them from trespassing even further onto private property? 

Classism Explored

We have been considering the factors and causes of class and classism in class and this made me think about how some of these factors play out in my own life. One of the influences on class is you're group of origin, and my group of origin is the North Shore suburbs of Chicago because that is where I have been growing up and my high school, New Trier High School feeds from most of the North Shore area. If you look up New Trier on Urbandictionary.com the image attached is what comes up. New Trier is stereotyped as having all designer clothing and even outfits that "cost as much as some people's monthly salaries." Of course this is a stereotype and does not apply to the general population, but it is true that it applies to some New Trier students, and what does this mean for their group of origin? This means that there are many different factors that influence their class that come from the source of their class or their group of origin (the North Shore). One of the tell-tales of your class is the cultural aspect, or what tastes you are trained to like because of your social class. The specific tastes apparently for New Trier students are, "kate spade, louis vuitton, tiffany, and range rovers." Where another group mentioned that pertains to your class is the education you receive. That is also mentioned for New Trier students as it is said that you must have, "at LEAST two friends going to ivy league schools."

Now these are obviously stereotypes, but it is interesting to see how they are described as ,"rich bitches," so the class for most of the North Shore area would be the upper class or the rich, and many the factors contributing to class, such as education, and cultural tastes, are mentioned just like we discussed in class. I would guess that this person is definitely expressing strong upper classism, or prejudice against the upper class when they describe the New Trier district as, "a rich bitch bubble...too stuck up." It is classism for sure, however, I cannot be positive it is upper classism because I don't know what class this person is in to begin with.

The College Query

As my junior year of high school is coming to a close, there is a constant buzz at my high school about what people will do after high school, because senior year is the time to prepare for whichever path you will end up taking. At my high school, the norm it seems is to go to a university after high school. So it seems most adults who I have had conversations with recently and even most other students have asked where I am looking, in terms of colleges. I just can't seem to escape that question, and even as I was browsing Facebook earlier today the question was posed for me to update my profile with that very information.

I have thought about the fact that this question is always asked many times but the fact that people focus on that so much in this area I something I did not consider until we studied social classes in my American Studies class. But one of the topics we learned about that is a source of social class is group of origin and group of aspiration, or the group that you are taught to want to be when you are older. Here in the North Shore we are raised by parents who mostly all went to college and have high paying business jobs, so that is the standard that has been set by our group of origin. Also, the group we are taught to aspire to be nowadays are high paying business men with degrees maybe even past what we the degree of our parents were so greater than a 4-year degree. I do not believe the group of origin and group of aspiration are always so similar however. For example, in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we learn that Gatsby's parents were, "shiftless and unsuccessful farm people," yet instead of aspiring to be just like them when he grew up he, "never really accepted them as his parents at all." (98) This shows that Gatsby did not have any desire to be like his parents, instead he joined the army and got as far away from home as possible, even being sent across the world, in order to pave his own path to his version of success, as an East Egger. 

It is just very interesting to think, after exploring the origins of my class, how in my area it can be so normal to hear the query about college multiple times a day, but in other neighborhoods it may not be even on the table and so therefore never mentioned. That is the difference between class in America, and it is sad because if someone does not have the option of college on the table, how are they supposed to secure a position from the ever decreasing number of jobs if they are competing against college-educated people. It would seem to me that the American dream value of mobility between classes is not nearly as simple as people would want it to be. 

Hard Work Doesn't Beat Money Even though Money Doesn't Work Hard

It has come to my attention as we read in class the Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby, that there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor in America. Fitzgerald's novel explores the high society of the rich versus lower social classes as a main theme and through this novel I have began to think about what factors determine your social class. The factors I personally believe have to do with you're social class are education, wealth of your family to begin with, neighborhood, race, and gender. Sadly, none of these factors include how hard you work, contrary to the typical American dream. Obama asserts as quoted on the Pew Research Center website that this growing gap between social classes undermines, "America's basic bargain--if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead." This "bargain" is the American dream I mentioned before, but unfortunately it seems to be just that, a dream in our modern day society. There are so many various problems that are stopping the gap from closing between the rich and the poor in our systems in America, including the fact that the better schools are in the better neighborhoods, so where you live automatically determines your level of education and therefore your future job. That leaves little room for movement if you are born into a neighborhood with a high school dropout rate of 1 in 2, which sadly is very common.

However, despite the cold hard facts that hard work just simply doesn't grant access to high society, there are many of us who are still holding on to that American dream. In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center,  "35% of Americans agreed that “hard work offers little guarantee of success” while 63% disagreed in our survey last year." Keep holding to that hope America, because maybe what is now pure imagination will become reality. 

Openly Gay NFL Player Scandal

This past week during the NFL draft something revolutionary happened to America's favorite sport, the game of football. Even though it was previously unheard of, an openly gay man was drafted into the NFL. This was arguably the biggest news story of the week and ESPN replayed it over and over again, just to be certain it was seen from sea to shining sea. The Guardian referred to it in awe as, "the kiss watched 'round the world." This is a miracle and a huge leap in a society that would leave a homosexual professional athlete with little or no endorsements if they revealed their sexuality. Michael Sam is living proof that our society has adapted and become more accepting because already as of midweek, "Sam's Rams jersey was the No2 seller among rookies at NFLShop.com." 

However, despite the fact that this is an amazing event that will change the future of professional sports in America, we can't give too much credit to the NFL for making this change happen. They are indeed a business and play to the wants of their fans in order to make a profit. One of the main reasons it would be beneficial to draft Michael Sam for the NFL is that the LGBT community is becoming a larger fan-base. Bragman, the vice-chairman of reputation.com is quoted in The Guardian, commenting on the NFL in regards to the draft of Sam, "It understands very well that LGBT fans are passionate, they have good incomes, they're concentrated in NFL cities." This means that the fanbase of this LGBT community is going to be centered around the major cities that happen to have NFL teams and the NFL wants to speak to the demand of their customer, just as would any other smart business. 

There is also room for criticism of the fact that we were bombarded with this scene of Michael Sam and his boyfriend kissing repeatedly on national television, and yes, of course I am happy for him and what this means for the future of the sport, but why this kiss in particular? I do not believe they would show a heterosexual couple kissing near as many times if at all as this couple on air, simply because a heterosexual kiss is not as "scandalous." The things we see on the news are not the every day accepted things in society, they are the scandals and out there things that people don't hear everyday. This goes to show that as a society we still have some work to do in accepting the LGBT community as nothing different from heterosexuals, because they are still the scandal and not the norm. 

Real Life Junior Theme

The other day I was on my lacrosse bus with the team driving to Notre Dame to watch a college lacrosse game and I passed some vast farm lands. I was aimlessly looking out the window when all of the sudden I spotted it, the very thing I have been studying for the past month now, a real life factory farm. It was everything I had ever read about, with the unwelcoming long metal building and the mud soaked ground with no green grass in sight. However the most shocking part was the feces reservoir which looked like a small swimming pool, yet it was full to the brim with disgusting black sewage. I knew from the many sources I had poured over that these reservoirs, aside from overflowing and causing considerable harm to the water supply, had a tendency to have a terrible odor so I braced myself. Sure enough, I only smelt it for a short minute before we put enough miles between it, yet it was putrid.

I have read so many places about the terrible affects of these factory farms on the townspeople nearby and the environment but it never became real to me that this was a problem effecting America and even effecting places only an hour from me until that moment. Suddenly all those first hand accounts about the stench that I had read in Andrew Kirby's, "Animal Factory," became so much more credible because I had experienced it first hand.

It was especially interesting to me to see the type of town that has these factory farms. There is a reason that in these lower-class rural communities they would put a foul smelling contamination like a factory farm, but in the Northshore suburbs they wouldn't dream of it. This class divide was hinted at in Michael Pollans novel, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and Kirby's. It was all the more real to me to see it in person.

Red Wood to Stainless Steel

As I have been exploring my Junior Theme on factory farming and the truth about where our food comes from in America I have begun to pay attention to more brand names and labels on the food products I consume. I was sitting at the dinner table and drinking a tall glass of milk, something I have had every single night since I can't remember, but I never thought to examine what really lies behind that nice looking label. The label portrays a green field with the bluest sky with just the right amount of cloudsI have ever seen, and the sun is shining so bright it's blinding. All of this makes the product seem natural and from the earth, as it portrays the ideal fresh green field of grass. However, the harsh reality of the food system in America is that the cow from which this milk came from will never actually see the light of day, let alone graze in the fresh green grass.

Dairy milk in our modern day food industry comes from what is called a factory farm, where the cow will spend an accelerated lifespan of just six short months. By the time the cow has finished that time though they might as well wish they were dead, because the entire time they have been standing knee high in their own feces in a pen so small they cannot move around, and constantly fed engineered corn products all hours of the day that make them sick because it is not their natural diet. There is no green grass to be seen, and no sunlight whatsoever entering through the tinted windows in the harsh metal factory.

Lehigh's marketing picture on their cartons of milk could not be farther from the truth, it is simply a tool to appeal to the customers because certainly painting the real picture of the origins of their milk product would not be pretty. In fact the way most American's see their food being made is the way they want to see it, so it is not entirely the companies fault. They want to think that their food is made in a place like this valley of lush green grass and sunlight. They don't want to know or believe that they are endorsing these cruel factories with every daily grocery purchase. The company markets to the consumer's interest, so we as American consumers need to change our standards of food production in order to make any changes to the entire system.

Narrowing Down Junior Theme

As I have narrowed down my "why" questions for Junior theme this past week, I have been going back and forth between mainly two topics. I found myself contemplating the pros and cons of doing sexual assault in America and why so much of the sexual abuse in America goes unreported, versus why factory farms are on the rise. Sexual assault seemed like a topic that could pertain very well to me because I am going to be going to college in a year and it is a very prominent issue on college campuses.

I began to look into sexual assault statistics in America in recent years and was shocked to find out that only 60% of the victims ever report their stories to the police, and even more appalling was that only 97% of the perpetrators ever are convicted. This enlightened me to the fact that this problem is so large in America and also raised the ginormous question, why was this the case that so many people could commit this horrible crime with no consequence?

However, the factory farming and the whole food industry in America interests me a lot as well because it has been in the news lately with animal rights activists taking secret footage of the horrors that occur in factory farms. In the very popular magazine, Rolling Stone, there was an article that appeared, titled , "In the Belly of the Beast." This title itself is dripping with loaded language, by comparing the food industry and factory farming to a savage, wild animal. There are many text bubbles that are enlarged quotes throughout the article, highlighted in blood red, like one from an animal rights activist, which exclaims, "Wherever you stand on eating animals, I think we agree that making their lives hell is too high a price to pay for cheap food." There are very strong activists out there who believe in this issue as one of the most prominent issues in American society today and you can see they feel very strongly towards it by their use of swear words which would normally never be allowed in a formal article. However in this case they are used to convey the very strong sentiments towards the issue.

Since so many people believe so strongly in the issue of factory farming in America today and I have found many resources available easily in the library I have chosen to pursue this topic. However, I still believe sexual assault is a prominent issue in our country today but it is not the best suitable Junior Theme topic for me.

Exploration: The Junior Theme

When I first stared at the assignment sheet for the infamous Junior Theme I had so many different thoughts and topics swirling around in my head that I had no idea where to start. Then as I remembered that I had been blogging about topics that interest me for the whole year I decided to use that as a reference. I noticed that most of my blog posts from the recent couple of months, when I finally started to find my voice as a blogger, were about women's rights and degradation of women in our America today. Being a woman, these topics interest me because they pertain to me the most and are relatable to me and my future.

One topic in particular that was a little more controversial was the topic of pornography. I came across this idea after thinking about areas where many women are degraded and sexualized but I did not want to do a topic that is too common, such as body image or eating disorders. Pornography sounded perfect because there is sexualized degradation of women at an extreme level, however, it is not a commonly covered topic at all. But because pornography isn't exactly socially acceptable and is grotesque I still wasn't sure whether there would be much debate around the issue or enough material to cover.

When I looked up statistics for the pornography industry in the past few years I was surprised how many different interesting areas there were and statistics that shocked me. With technology becoming so prominent in our life recently, I found it shocking that according to Covenant Eyes Porn Stats: Annual Report 2014, 1 in 5 mobile searches are for pornography. According to Facts and Figures, "The sex industry is the most profitable industry in the world".
There are even subtopics that range farther than just degradation of women than I could have ever imagined, such as, porn through the different age groups, how the porn industry has changed in the last century with technology, how porn affects your marriage, and even a bizarre phenomenon with christian men and women after they have watched porn.

It seems like there would be enough here to cover at Junior Theme than I had ever imagined, however, it still worries me how I would organize it. Or how I would slim down the subtopics and not stray too far away from the women involved in it themselves. Overall, I am excited to explore if not this topic, something else that sucks me in.

NSA Imperialism

Recently I learned that college is not in the plan for my cousin who is a senior in High School. I was shocked to hear this because I cannot imagine myself or any of my fellow classmates not going to college, so I wanted to learn more. I learned from my uncle that my cousin is very tech-savy and has landed an internship for a company that most 4 year college graduates would  be lucky to get. He is planning on following his dream career path in computers but his end goal is especially interesting to me. Apparently, he for people in his field the prized job is working for the NSA.

This did not surprise me because I recently studied how the NSA has expanded their surveillance of American citizens dramatically since 9/11. According to a website called Democracy Now, which you can tell from the name is probably bias towards decrease in national security, and therefore the stretch of NSA coverage, "Through a program called "Prefer," the NSA uses text messages to gather data such as travel plans, contacts and credit card information." This is an insane amount of data collection, and to what end? What can be so interesting in these millions of text messages except someone saying, "OMG! so pumped to travel to Florida this weekend!" It seems a little pointless to me to go to these extremes.

 However, they areI, and because of this I can see why they would need to hire so many new tech-savy people like my cousin. I just hope they are not totally disregarding the rights of American citizens in the process. Because in America privacy is a thing that is highly valued. Even in the Declaration it originally preached, "Life, liberty and property," as core American values. And in "property," it was specifically referencing private property because owning something that you can say belongs to you and you only is a major part of individualism, which is the backbone of American ideals. 

Labor Camps in Our Own Backyard

Hard to believe, but it appears that there are still some version of forced labor camps in our very own fifty states. The particular camp in the news as of today was mistreating mentally disabled workers, who may have been much easier targets. But just the fact that they are easier to target does not mean it is any more just to mistreat innocent people.

Henry's Turkey Service uprooted hundreds of mentally disabled Texan natives from their homes and shipped them off to labor camps in seven different states within the US. One particular camp in Iowa housed 32 of these workers, "in a dilapidated farm house," for several years, according to ABC news. No matter how many grueling hours they spent on duty, they were paid a flat rate of $65 a month and they suffered verbal and physical abuse. Because of their mental state, these innocent men were helpless and endured theses terrible conditions living in a house in ruins and for almost no compensation. It wasn't until years later when family members reported these cruelties to the state that there was any action taken against it. The camp in Iowa was shut down in 2009, but the article in ABC news today was reflecting on the fact that Henry's Turkey Service has suffered almost no repercussions since.

The Federal Justice Department ruled that the company owed $6 million in repercussions that was going to be used to help compensate for the damages suffered by those hundreds of mentally ill men. However, Henry's has somehow managed to avoid paying these dues for 3 years straight. Although the Justice Department says they are looking into how to get these funds, many people have given up on every receiving any of the money at all.

Sherri Brown, sister of a worker, said, "I have never had any illusions about us seeing one dime from all of this." Yet she believes that it is still worthwhile because even though her own brother may never receive justice she says, "We fought this case for other people, so that this sort of thing would never happen again to anyone else." 

 I believe these men from Iowa who were cruelly mistreated still deserve their money, and I am not sure if why the government has let Henry's get off so easy is because they are lazy and have moved on past the case, or for another reason. However, as much as it angers me, Sherri is right, and has an amazingly positive attitude by reminding us that in America all our court cases can set a precedent for the future so every small victory now could lead to a much larger victory later. Hopefully in the near future there will be no more labor camps on our own soil, and this is just the first step. 

Racism: does it ripen with age?

My grandpa who I don't get to see very often visited from out of town this weekend, yet there were noticeable things he would say that caught my attention as being very racist. It shocked me at first because I feel like around people my age and my parents age you would never hear something so racially bias come out of someone's mouth because it is not socially acceptable and frowned upon. As we were sitting down to dinner and one of my brothers was talking about fried chicken, my grandpa announced, "Black people make the best fried chicken." I was extremely shocked because he said it in such a casual way and to me it was clearly racist, but he did not seem to notice, to him it was a normal topic of conversation.

The question came to mind, is this common in his generation? But in reality none of my other grandparents say something that blunt, however I have noticed some much subtler things that suggest to me that they may have some similarly racist thoughts. I looked into it to see if there was any actual research to back up my hypothesis that my grandpa's generation is naturally more racist than ours. I found that just 2 months ago, Oprah Winfrey did an interview with Will Gompertz on the very subject of racism today. Oprah would agree with my hypothesis but she takes it to a whole new level that I would not entirely agree with when she proclaims, "There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die." Oprah is saying that the older generations were more exposed to racism when they grew up and by saying "they just have to die," she claims that when this generation is past this racism will vanish. 

Although I do think that the older generations, like my grandma grew up in a world where they were exposed to more racial hatred, so it would make sense that they may hold some of those views into adulthood, I do not believe that simply that generation is the problem. In our generation today there are plenty of racial jokes, for example this entire website is devoted to racial jokes, and I can assure you that the grandpa's of this generation are not the ones creating this website. We have also explored as a class the subtle racism in media today through TV Tokenism. This is not a problem we can simply scapegoat onto one generation or another, it is something we all have to face in America together. 

In a Barbie World

This week there has been some controversy over the new 2014 Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition because this year they are spicing up the issue by adding a picture of Barbie in a striped bathing suit. Critics have gone into hysterics over this because they believe that those two things are the most degrading things to women in society and to pair them together is crossing a whole new line of offensive. Feminist and media critic, Lisi Wade, speaks out against this saying, "Both Barbie and the swimsuit issue have been making women and girls feel inadequate for decades. It's a perfect partnership." 
I would have to agree with Wade on the issue because the comparison of real life woman to an inanimate object is literally objectifying them. Furthermore, this object to which they are being compared has the body that would be extremely unhealthy if Barbie were a real woman. There is research that shows that if Barbie were a real person, she would be 5'9''' and weight 110 lbs which means by her Body Mass Index of 16.24, she would be anorexic.

The cover of the magazine as you can see above features the typical looking barbie doll, however this is a limited edition that is supposed to resemble the first Barbie doll ever released on the market, who was wearing a zebra swim suit similar to this one. That is why the caption to the left of the picture says, "The doll that started it all." But what did this doll really start? An ideal beauty and body image for women that is detrimental to your health to try to achieve?
But we cannot blame the doll for all the problems with body image and objectifying women in the media frequently in America today. Barbie is just one of the many many offenders. However, it is interesting that The Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition and Barbie, some of the largest sources of media and culture that receive a lot of criticism for objectifying women, would want to band together. This "perfect partnership," as Wade puts it sarcastically, makes it 2x clearer what a problem there is in the media today in regard to the portrayal of women in America.

The Right to End Rape

An issue that has been receiving nationwide media attention lately is sexual assault, and on college campuses in particular. I have always heard that when terrible things like this occur, you have to come forward and tell someone so that the culprit cannot walk free and potentially hurt someone else in the future. After going to a self-defense class with my advisory on Thursday my eyes were opened to the truth behind how the cases actually turn out when a man is charged with sexual assault.

As you can see from the bar graph above, in reality 97% of people charged with rape will walk free, and I'm guessing a lot more than 3% of those charged are guilty. This is because of the sad fact that when many women come forward, the authorities are not able to prosecute because of insufficient evidence. This lack of evidence is caused either by the girl waiting to long after the event, or the authorities not taking the proper precautions to preserve or collect the evidence.

There have been many questionable cases at certain universities in which the authorities may have purposely with-held evidence for periods of time or even knowingly failed to collect evidence in order to help the university in some way. One of the most well-known example of this is the sexual assault charge on the Florida State quarterback, Jameis Winston, that was dropped because of the authorities collecting insufficient evidence. Some believe it was purposeful because the star quarterback was probably bringing in millions of dollars for the school and it would benefit them greatly to drop the charge. You can read more about that here.

However, a more recent example is in the news as of this week and it features the story of Joanna Espinosa, who is attempting to convict her ex boyfriend of sexual assault. The authorities have been the opposite of cooperative seeing as when she reported it to the Edinburg Police Department near her Texas-Pan American campus this is how they responded, "they told her that her case would be difficult to prove and took her phone number. She never heard back from them." The authorities couldn't be bothered to even explore the possibility of Espinosa having a case. They wouldn't give her the time of day, let alone a simple phone call. In America today 1 in 5 girls will encounter sexual assault on their college campus, yet why are they treated like the suspect instead of the victim.
This is only one of many flaws in our justice system today and the fact that the justice system values money over the well-being of innocent girls like the victim of Winston shows that the flaw stems from greed. The justice system should value for once what is right instead of what pays and start living up to their expectation of being "just" and fair like their name would suggest.

Help the Homeless in this Bitter Weather

If you've taken one step outside in the past two days I'm sure your aware too that America is experiencing record-breaking cold temperatures, none of which we have seen the likes of for two decades. Here in Chicago, it was -11 degrees yesterday with a wind chill of -42. That's crazy! So crazy that I have seen multiple you tube videos of people throwing boiling water into the air and it comes down as snow! 

I'm sitting here on my day off, not too affected by the bitter cold because I'm bundled up in many many layers, multiple pairs of socks and I have the heat blasting in my house. But I can't help to think that others aren't so lucky. 

There are currently 21,000 homeless people in the city of Chicago alone. I doubt they have many many layers and heaters blasting at all times. In this freezing cold any exposed skin will turn to frost bite in on average 7.5 minutes. After doing a little research, however, I was comforted to see that the city is aware of these dangers as well and have taken measures to help. Homeless shelters that would normally be at maximum capacity are not turning anyone away and the city buses are allowing these homeless people ride continuously (when they would normally be kicked off), even overnight if they have to. 

I was very impressed with our cities compassion and will to look out for these people in need, but then I wondered, why can't we do this all the time and not only when these people's lives are in danger? This may help them stay warm for a few nights, but in the long run their situation is not going to get any better. We need to make these kinds of commitments to their well-being all the time and search for the long-term solution as well because no one should ever have to live like that. 

Justice for Beauty

This week in one of America's most popular fashion magazines, Elle, they published four different covers featuring some of America's funniest actors. These four actors are Amy Poehler, Zooey Deschanel, Allison Williams and Mindy Kaling. You may recognize them from their features on many popular sitcoms that I enjoy as well like New Girl, The Mindy Project, and Parks and Recreation. One difference that stands out to me immediately is that they are all body shots in color except for Mindy's picture which is neck-up and black and white. Mindy also happens to be the only ethnically diverse woman here because she is American Indian and she also is not model thin like the rest of the women. 

Commenters on the Elle website like Chinyere Echewe were outraged at Mindy's shot, saying, "Hey, Elle, I know you're only a fashion magazine, but perhaps you should have done Mindy the same justice you did the other ladies." She is so outraged she even questions the legality of this shot by calling justice into question and by saying Mindy deserves the "same justice," as the other girls by letting her true ethnicity shine through. I'm with Chinyere here because it seems like the editors of Elle went to great lengths with the black and white affect to make Mindy's different color skin blend in with the background, almost as if they are ashamed to present it to the public. 

Another commenter, Aisha Mapp, said, "Way to cover up the only normal sized person." The magazine cropped the photo very differently as well as if to hide Mindy's torso from the public because it doesn't fit in with their stick thin standards. One definition of "normal" is mentally and physically healthy and by Aisha calling Mindy "normal" she the calls in to question the other models in Elle   as being abnormal. Whether Aisha meant to or not, this is also making a stab at the fact that many of the average models in Elle are probably underweight and therefore not physically and mentally healthy. 

But in all honesty, the magazines are not responsible for this. The magazines print what the average American will buy and they feature in their magazines the type of woman who they think American's will take the most liking to and want to buy their clothes. This means that the standard of American beauty is specifically a white, stick thin photo shopped woman and we cannot blame the magazines for this because that is a problem deeper en-grained in our American society than we would like to admit.  

Dr Pepper 10: 10 Manly Calories

The newest Dr. Pepper drink on the market is very controversial because all the advertisements for the drink are directed only towards me, and the "manliest" men specifically. After market research showed that men tend to regard diet sodas as not manly, advertisers went above and beyond in their campaign to make it know that this new Dr. Pepper drink has "10 manly calories." 

I became aware of this because in one sitting of TV I viewed the commercial included above for the soft drink twice and became increasingly offended each time. In this commercial you see a scruffy looking man enjoying the outdoors and doing many adventurous activities like biting off a piece of wood, carrying a huge log, climbing cliffs and crossing a roaring stream. Is it portraying the message that these are the only things that make a "manly" man and these are the kinds of men who deserve to drink Dr. Pepper 10. It is obvious that the advertisers are trying to appeal to the men consumers who they were missing before with diet sodas but I believe they are just offending both genders in the process. 

Everything about the drink screams that is it not for women. As it is well stated in an article in The Week, "The can is gunmetal gray, and an extensive campaign for the beverage boldly declares that "it's not for women." Above even the advertisements, the can itself is not the usual metallic silver, it is a "gunmetal grey" which seems to fit their "manly" theme because I'm sure these advertisers wouldn't dare think of a woman holding a gun, would they?

But these advertisements will even offend the male sex because what if a man is more into theater or music or watching the football game on his couch than going outside and hiking in the woods. To me that is perfectly fine and they shouldn't be discriminated for their interests, however according to this campaign they aren't "manly" enough, and are not worthy of drinking Dr Pepper 10. 

The commercial ends with a a screen showing the soda can and these huge bold words, "The MANLIEST low-calorie soda in the history of MANKIND."  "Manly," according to dictionary.com is "having qualities traditionally ascribed to men like strength or bravery." To me I would think that this drink would offend men by questioning their strength and bravery and also would offend woman for being excluded. However, we cannot blame the Dr. Pepper advertisers for this because they do not care about who is offended in the end, they care about the profit. They are banking on the fact that because women in today's society are more concerned about diet or "healthier" sodas, this drink will draw more male consumers and that more people will want to buy the soda than will be offended. The only way we could change the way advertisers campaign would be to as a society break these gender roles that the men are the only strong and brave ones and if we could do that the advertisers would not campaign in this manor, because the advertisers play to what we as an American society want.