Need I Remind You That It's 2010?

Need I remind you that the year is 2010? It's not 1952, it's not 1950-anything. It's 2010. So why do cleaning commercials--all of them--use the same visual material as was used in the 1950's? The beautiful women we see in commercials today, who are so rabid to get the stains out of their husbands' shirts and ties, who are so accommodating of the disastrous messes made by their lawless children, look and behave almost identically to their more-than-half-a-century-ago counterparts. The same placid smile, the same trim figure, the same cheerfully-exasperated shake of the head as her husband comes in with a new domestic clean-up job (him shrugging in a dopey way, grinning sheepishly), or as her children stampede through her sparkling living room in full soccer gear, covered with mud. The only thing that's changed is the wardrobe. ("Moms" in commercials don't wear dresses anymore after all--that would be too obvious.)

This is a problem. For so many reasons.

Most are obvious, and I will skim through them. The main problem here is the fact that, in the year 2010, women are still considered synonymous with domesticity. Despite the fact that the numbers of stay-at-home-dads and career-women are higher than ever before, Clorox and company still want us to think that women are queen of one thing only....the domicile.

Also, to bat for the men, it implies that men are utterly incapable of taking care of themselves. This implication is a double-edged sword: it skewers women by placing them in the eternal role of caretaker and mother (even to their husbands), and it characterizes men as little more than big, dumb, dirty babies. Lose-lose, right?

Additionally, these commercials are problematic in the way that they not only characterize women's roles, but women's behavior. Some (me) would call this hegemonic, but I'll keep it simple since I said I'd skim. This characterization of housewives (aka women as a whole) presents women as passive, placid, emotionless fembots who exist only to clean up after their husbands and children. It provides an illusion of power--the "super-mom" motif, you know what I'm talking about: super-mom coming to the "rescue" of her kitchen counter with the help of Brawny paper towels (her male leader....sorry, had to say it)--while also implying that the only place where women are powerful is the home.

But that's all obvious. Or it should be. The real reason these cleaning commercials and their stark similarity to 1950's commercials are so problematic is this:

If any other group of people--Blacks, Jews, Latinos, etc.--were subject to the same representation in the media as they were 60 years ago, there would be public outcry. The racist (that is, blatantly racist, because we all know most commercials depicting minorities often still have racially offensive elements) depiction of Black people, for example, has been forced to shift out of social necessity. It is unacceptable for commercials to depict Blacks using stereotypical language, dressed in stereotypical garb, etc.

Long story short, if any group were depicted now, in 2010, as they were in 1950, there would be a outcry, bans, boycotts. Yet in today's commercials, women are shown delivering almost identical lines with almost identical facial expressions, performing identical tasks, as they were in commercials 60 years ago. And I rarely hear a peep. The neglect of the stereotyping of women in America is an outrage: it shows not only a lack of awareness of female issues, but a lack of concern.

To quote a friend of mine, a college student named Julia: "They might as well just cut their costs and start showing commercials from the 50s and 60s. It's the same godd**m thing."

Skinny Girl Jogging

From my desk at my job--I am the concierge at an upscale shopping center--I witness insane amounts of absurdity on a daily basis. Whether it be here by my desk, or outside the revolving doors directly in front of me...I see and hear it all.

Today's outrageousness came in the form of a skinny-beyond-all-reason blonde young woman jogging on Michigan Avenue. Anyone who knows Chicago knows that Michigan Avenue is generally crowded any time of day: the tourists like to start early, and the wealthy people who live in the neighborhood have nothing better to do than get a prompt daily start on spending their money. So, in a nutshell.....not the best place to go for a long, uninterrupted jog. After all, the Lake path is just two blocks away: a long empty stretch populated with joggers like herself and bikers looking for solitude.

But Blondie didn't want isolation. I mean, if she was on the quiet jogging path by the lake, who would be there to witness her so-small-it's-almost-imaginary jogging outfit? Who would admire her expertly applied make-up? Who would notice her perfectly styled hair? No one: the other joggers are too busy actually jogging.

So Blondie came downtown to jog in her idea of paradise: in her fantasy, she is jogging down Michigan Avenue on her rail-thin legs, her abs (and ribs) clearly visible as she passes awestruck bystanders who are literally rendered speechless by her platinum blonde beauty.

But, wait, what's this? As Blondie glides along, her fantasy is interrupted by a sloppy, un-make-upped, unstyled, untoned hippopotamus, who, to the normal, un-blonde eye, is just your average 140lb Chicago woman walking with her boyfriend. The hippopotamus has come out of a store and is---gasp---in Blondie's way! Blondie is forced to perform an awkward side-step to avoid coming in contact with the hippopotamus, which interrupts her daydream of supermodeldom, causing her to spiral back to Earth with the unpleasant reality that sorry, kid, no one really cares about your almost-invisible designer jogging clothes or your flawless make-up, and especially not about your protruding clavicles and ribs.

This undesired collision with the real world hit Blondie hard, and in response she threw her hands up and cried, "Fat whore!" to the 140lb obstruction before attempting to regain her composure and withdraw back into her delusions. But the hippopotamus wasn't havin' it.

"Bony bitch!" she laughed.

Blondie is no longer Blondie. She is Bony Bitch. Another blow to her emaciated imaginings.

Who knows what happened next. It occurred outside of the little frame of the glass doors in front of me. But it was hilarious. And ridiculous. And also kind of sad.

Racism Today

Yesterday after leaving work, my boyfriend and I went to Chipotle--for those of you that don't know, Chipotle is a restaurant that serves Americanized Mexican food, and could probably be considered a fresher, somewhat healthier version of Taco Bell--where we stood in line to order burritos. While in line, I observed an encounter that exemplified the subtle way in which racism is operating in America.

An older white man--probably in his late 60's--carried a tray of food, heading to the back of the restaurant. A younger Latino man--probably in his mid-30's--was walking toward the front, carrying an empty cup in each hand. As they neared one another, the white man stopped the Latino man and said the following, very politely:

"Excuse me, but you're out of straws up front."

The Latino man didn't seem to hear him and just nodded, and moved on, but stopped after a step or two it registered and he turned around with his mouth open, but the white guy had already gotten to his table and was sitting down. The Latino guy looked conflicted, then just shook his head with a look on his face that said, "What do you do?"

Now, the white man meant no conscious disrespect. But does this nullify the offensive assumption behind his words? The Latino guy with the cups--who was there eating with his wife and two children--would probably say no, it does not. I would say no, it does not. But the white man would say otherwise: in his mind it is probably reasonable that an Hispanic male walking through a Mexican restaurant (albeit imitation) is an employee.

But his reasoning has holes. Big ones. The Latino guy was not wearing an apron or a beige Chipotle shirt or a chef's hat, all the things a person who I would consider reasonable would use as clues for identifying a serviceperson. The guy was wearing a black and white pinstripe collared shirt. But the logic used by the older man was much simpler--or should I say more base--and required much less thought. The only sign he needed was the younger man's apparent ethnicity: brown skin, walking through a Mexican restaurant. In his mind, this alone signifies servitude.

This is an example of one of the many ways racism operates in America in the 21st century. These are the subtle sleights and mistakes and assumptions that are enough to ruin someone's day. So many excuses can be made for them, a practice which I vehemently denounce.

"Well," one such excuser might say, "it's not like he called him a wetback! It was just a mistake!" But this is the type of logic that infuriates me nearly as much as the "mistake" itself.

The "mistake" is never just a mistake: there are seldom coincidences in racial rhetoric. By mistakenly assuming that the Latino man crossing the restaurant--no matter how nicely he was dressed--was a serviceperson, the older man reveals that his belief is that one's apparent ethnicity is enough to automatically categorize him/her as "the help."

We have a reached a point in American society where, no, black people are not being lynched and racial slurs aren't being screamed from vehicles at Latinos--oh wait, yes they are: read here--but racism clings doggedly on to the mentalities and perceptions of many Americans.

We cannot excuse this behavior. Subtle racism is the hardest to combat due to its unspecific nature, but when it can be caught, it must be dealt with. We choose our battles, but how about we start choosing more?

Here's your straw, sir.

One of the (Many) Problems With Today's Music

Here is a small example of what is wrong with today's music. And today's world, I suppose.

On BET's website's homepage, there are links to various things: music, videos, articles, etc. One of the links says "Love Songs." I clicked on "Love Songs."

It led me to a page that is entitled "Baby Making Music."

Um...no, actually, I was looking for love songs.

BET--and I'm not leaving anyone out: MTV, general media, commercials, etc.--is consistently attempting to convince us that love and sex are synonymous. "No one will notice," the thought process goes, "if we have a link that says 'love songs' leading to a page called 'baby-making music.'" And they're right: most people won't notice. But those of us that are paying attention, those of us that do notice are picking up a disturbing trend.

No wonder teenage girls are getting pregnant left and right. No wonder STDs and HIV/AIDS are at an all time high. We are being berated daily with the message that sex does not matter, it is an act that carries no meaning. Similarly, the message whispers that the act of childbirth ("baby-making") carries no meaning. Love, sex....it's all the same.

But that's a whole different argument. What I want to focus on is the simple link between "Love Songs" and "Baby-Making Music." This, simply, is propaganda. Actually, hegemony might be more appropriate. Yes, hegemony. BET.com (and thus BET) is hegemonically influencing its surfers views on what love is and what love songs should consist of.

It wasn't always sex. And it doesn't always have to be. This is getting really old.

Propaganda, Propaganda

Today I went to Yahoo!'s homepage to check my email. At the center of the screen, as usual, was some attention-catching headline with a little picture. The subject of the article that the headline links to is ordinarily inane crap, or some recycled story taken from the Associated Press or other news source. The writers of these little blurbs shouldn't even call themselves writers. There are always misspellings, personal opinions, and things that just don't make sense. Which is irritating.

But most irritating, I have found, are their tops 10 and 20 lists of things people should or shouldn't do. If only I had been logging these lists, I could make my own little list: a top 10 list of the ridiculous, propaganda-riddled lists of Yahoo!News. But I haven't started yet, so I will just use a headline that was on their homepage today: 20 Things You Should Never Buy Used.

I will give the list here, minus the asinine paragraph explaining why we should never buy these items used, but here's the link should you wish to numb your brain. Here's the list, in order:

Cribs and children's furniture, car seats, bicycle helmets, tires, laptops, software, plasma and HDTVs, DVD players, digital and video cameras, speakers and microphones, camera lenses, photo light bulbs, mattresses and bedding, swimsuits and undergarments, wetsuits, shoes, hats, make-up, pet supplies, and vacuum cleaners.

So, in summation, basically everything. You shouldn't buy anything used. I can think of things that aren't on this list, of course, but from where I'm sitting, everything that people are currently buying or are interested in buying or are told they should be interested in buying, or things that everyone buys at some point--shoes? a crib?--should never be purchased used. (I only agree with not buying a used mattress or a bathing suit/undergarments.)

The author (in their asinine little paragraph) gives a cautionary and concerned explanation for each item that will subtly frighten those easily-influenced Americans who have fled to their homes because of swine flu, etc. Those same Americans print out that list, tape it to their fridge, and run off to various corporations to purchase spanking new this's-and-that's, breathing a sigh or relief as they close the door behind their bomb shelter, "Whew...now that I have this brand new HDTV...I am safe."

What a mess. Does the author get a bonus? Oh wait, the article doesn't even have an author. No name! Just "US News." Hmm. Problematic. Because to me, that translates as: Once Corporation Getting Paid By Another Corporation To Do Some Fear Mongering While Also Insuring That Consumers Keep Buying New Stuff (aka Keep Fattening Fat Cats Wallets), Keep Throwing Away Their Old Stuff, and Stop Buying Stuff From Their Peers.

Even better is the language used in the article: risk, risky, safety, severely, hazard, "Putting your safety at risk for the sake of saving a few bucks just doesn't add up," "you can't," "you don't," compromised, damage, "mold, mites, bacteria, bodily fluids," health problems, cringe-worthy, contagions, "just say no."

"Scary."

Heidi Montag Needs to "Get Away From the Lies"

This will be short. Heidi Montag--plastic princess who recently underwent 10 cosmetic surgeries in one day--has split from her prick-of-a-husband Spencer Pratt (perfect name for him) claiming that she "had to get away from the lies" and that "it's time to concentrate on [herself]."

Heidi.

Heidi, Heidi, Heidi.

Your entire body is a lie. And all you do is concentrate on yourself.

The end.

Justin Bieber: Blue-Eyed Bummer

A few days ago I watched Saturday Night Live for the first time in ages. The guest star of the show was Justin Bieber, the teenage star whose fame has seemingly skyrocketed after being discovered on YouTube in videos of him singing, posted by his mother. Before I was forced (by pop-star-induced nausea) to turn off the television, I witnessed Bieber act in a skit with Tina Fey in which he was a sexy middle schooler the teacher had a crush on before he went on stage to perform one of his brainless songs.

Listening to Justin Bieber speak (let alone sing) is physically painful. His word choice is even worse. In the skit, when he receives his graded homework and sees that he got a C+ he says, "It's aight."

That "aight," that one tiny little word, spoken by tiny 14-year old (or whatever) lips, made me want to boil my brain in scalding hot liquid, then scoop out the remains and feed it to rabid seagulls, who would then fly to Bieber's manager's home and defecate my mangled medula all over his sportscar.

There is so much in the word "aight," and even more in the way it was spoken by this Canadian adolescent. It was so trained, so affected, so....appropriated.

I think what bothers me most about this kid is his adopted authenticity. This boy is white, Canadian, and suburban. The only contact he has had with the word "aight" is through his appropriative contact with BET and trashy movies like "Step Up," in which other white characters appropriate black language and culture to make said language and culture 1) more profitable (easier to sell a white face than a black one), and 2) more easily digested by white audiences, whose tastes are the ones that matter in this market.

In step with this logic is the production of Justin Bieber. As hip-hop becomes more and more mainstream--"pop"ular one might say, "one" being me--the money-hungry music industry sees more and more ways to not only exploit black culture, but to get even richer off that exploitation. Suiting Bieber up with a slew of "hip-hoppy" ballads and a whole new vocabulary--"'Mama,' Justin, not 'mom!'" I can hear his managers correcting--robs actual hip-hop of its authenticity while simultaneously passing little Justin off as a member of that club.

Issuing Justin Bieber with Nikes and forced-sounding slang does not, however, give the kid an automatic "culture-card." Instead, it reveals the racism of the music industry, which believes that a certain brand of shoes and the use of improper grammar encapsulate black culture and the culture of hip-hop.

Bieber and his handlers, though, are not the only ones I charge with these crimes. Kanye West is also on my Most Wanted list, along with Justin Timberlake and others.

That being said, I don't blame Bieber, really, but his handlers. He's a child, after all, and a product. (A product first and a child second, actually.) They, however, are adults and are aware of the implications when they dress Bieber in high top Nikes and instruct him to say "aight" and "mama" instead of "okay" and "mom." The fact that they are aware of the implications, though, feeds right into their abuse of Bieber: they don't care if the kid ends up with an identity crisis and a drinking problem. They'll all be rich.