Pretty Little Liars: A Person of Interest

Pretty Little Liars: A Person of Interest

http://abcfamily.go.com/watch/pretty-little-liars/SH5547476/VD55114070/a-person-of-interest

For this blog post, I decided to study the series Pretty Little Liars: A Person of Interest because the show focuses on four female high school students and the mysterious death of their friend. I have watched the show, since the pilot episode, but I have never considered the show as a representation of youth and adolescence. I think the show adds a unique observation of the youth and the relationships they have in their lives.

People have referred to the style of the show as similar to Desperate Housewives, but for teens. Clearly, the show is targeted for teens, or at least a younger generation of people. Calling it a Desperate Housewives for teens also suggests there is a certain level of adolescence and immaturity that does not allow the show to be presented to an audience of adults. I think the clothing of the female characters on the show is also interesting. The clothing is very upscale fashion forward and expensive looking, which might read as the director’s attempt to make the female high school students attractive. I think the clothing style also gives the female viewers an example of how they should dress or how they should want to dress.

At the beginning of the episode, the girls are seen in an interrogation room being questioned over a possible suspect for the death of their friend, Ian who is Spencer’s brother-in-law. After arriving home, Spencer sits down with her parents. They quickly proceed to tell Spencer that she needs to see a shrink for accusing Ian and her grieving process over her friend’s death. This points out her parents, sister, and other adults like the police did not take the girls’ accusations seriously. Spencer would be admitting that she needs help and that she still needs to be looked after like a child. Although she is still in high school, the suggestion of a shrink furthers the representation of Spencer as being too naïve and immature to really realize when she needs help from a professional. I think this kind of ties in with the Future Girl article. Throughout the show, Spencer is seen as the “can-do girl” who takes AP classes, plays tests, wins scholarships, and other activities and achievements. In this situation, her parents are willing to see a problem that Spencer may have and provide her with a resource to help her get better. “…young people can be tagged and closely observed in an attempt to keep them on track. However, these situations tend to become the only lens through which these youth are seen, and this then invites surveillance and intervention.” (Future Girl, 25) I think Spencer’s parents are tagging her because they fear if she steps one step away from perfection, she will become a troublemaker or an “at-risk” girl. The moment they ask her to see a shrink is their way of an intervention to stop the problem before it gets any worse.  The correlation between parent approval and adolescence acting out is discussed in the Kearney article. “…since adolescence is a mode of subjectivity typically defined by its opposition to adulthood and the responsibilities adult identity usually entails…” (Kearney, 291) Spencer’s parents feel she is acting out; thereby she is not an adult by disobeying their parenting. Female viewers of the show can see be actually doing the right thing sometimes that you can be punished for speaking up, especially as female adolescences.

Later in the episode, Hanna camps out with her boyfriend Caleb after a fight with her mom about Caleb staying at their house. The conversation begins with Hanna revealing to Caleb that she went to fat camp for five summers. She kept this part of herself hidden from him, because she needed to keep her appearance up with her peers that she was a girl who cared about fashion and looking beauty.  “Increasingly bombarded by countless “perfect” body images projected by TV, movies and magazines, many Americans are feeling worse and worse about the workaday bodies they actually inhabit. The people being hurt most are the ones who are the most vulnerable: adolescences.” (Bordo,457) I think adolescences are the ones being affected more because of the pressure they have from the media as well as their peers. Hanna did not want to reopen those emotions of being looked down upon for the shape of her body. I think this also draws upon the shows focus to present the female high school students as adolescences who care way too much about how they look and how to look a certain way to be popular.

For the most part, the series portrays the female high school students as adolescences lost in the world. They are confused about who they are, who they should be, and who they truly want to be. This portrayal fits into many of the common stereotypes surrounding adolescences and pressures they feel from society and the media.

Work Cited

Bordo, Susan. “Never Just Pictures.” University of California Press, 1997.

Harris, Anita. “The ‘Can-Do’ Girl Versus the ‘At-Risk’ Girl.” Future Girl. Young Women in the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge, 2004.

Kearney, Mary. “Producing Girls.” Girls Make Media. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Minoritizing vs. Universalizing: How I Met Your Mother

Minoritizing vs. Universalizing: How I Met Your Mother

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/video/?pid=w_CAa1LgH_qHcl3ZP3WovGDifVyW7ps3&vs=Default&play=true

Today, comedies like How I Met Your Mother are types of representations that portray minoritizing and universalizing discourses. As Mayne explains in her article, representations often present women in the traditional “oppressive standards of feminine behavior and to image possibilities not typically available to women” (Mayne, 163) Mayne also explains how we must analyze the time period in which the representation is presented. By doing so, we understand the “assumptions of gender are represented in similar ways in very different forms” (Mayne, 162). In other words, looking at all the various comedies on television they all still present the same themes of gender, race, and sexuality although they are presented in different types of family structures or comical situations.

How I Met Your Mother centers around the main character, Ted in the year 2030 recounting to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting their mother, which explains the title and allows for a narration in the past tense.  In the “Desperation Day” episode, the writer presents universalizing and minoritizing in relation to sexuality and gender.

In the opening scenes of this episode, Barney declares February 13^th as a new holiday, called “Desperation Day.” This made up holiday of Barney’s points to an open interpretation of universalizing a day, that supposedly people do consider their last day to score a date for Valentines Day. Barney even says “every woman wants a date on Valentines Day. That needingness climaxes on February 13^th…”

The characters’ discussion of Valentines Day also confirms the minoritizing of the holiday and the occasion with relationships on that day. There are the ideas that everyone; more specifically women have to have dates on Valentines Day to affirm societies opinions. Women have to dates on Valentines Day because it shows that they are on their way to possibly achieving the husband (also affirming heterosexuality) that everyone woman needs. Those women who are single on Valentines Day must be desperate for a man or they are ugly, troll-like women who no man would want for a date- according to Barney. The conservation also addresses the idea that all women care about Valentines Day and their relationship status on that day.

However, as Robin’s character suggests, some women want to protest Valentines Day. Robin has decided with two other co-workers to protest Valentines Day by having a girls’ night out and wearing the color purple. Valentines Day is all about wearing red and pink, so by wearing purple they are protesting the holiday. The one co-worker also mentions that the color purple stands for pride. In a universalizing view, Robin and her co-workers’ protest represents a changing view of Valentines Day. By protesting the holiday, they want to be strong, independent women who do not need men to validate their femininity or heterosexuality. Valentines Day is not just a day for lovers, but a day to celebrate friendship. It creates an open interpretation to celebrating any kind of love, friendship, etc. that a person may want to recognize on Valentines Day and not purely celebrating a heterosexual, head over heels type of love.

There is also the topic of Ted’s upcoming Valentines date night with his girlfriend (Zoey), which involves “baking cookies.” The rest of the characters suggest that “baking cookies” refers to a booty call from Zoey. They continue to suggest that man and woman have different ways or methods of reaching out for a booty call. They suggest men tend to call a girl at some odd hour in the morning, asking “whatcha ya doing?” While a female, has to make a respectable excuse to make a guy come over and have sex with them. This discussion is highly minoritzing sexuality. There is a general idea among people that men and women have different ways of approaching the each other for sex. Women have to be sneakier about the ways they ask for sex; they cannot just ask openly for sex. In the history of our society, women are thought to have moral superiority, purity, and a passionless demure. I think by picking to “bake cookies,” the writers of the show are pointing to the fact that women only want to spend their free time doing womanly things. Baking is looked at as woman’s role typically and therefore suggests Zoey is just like any other woman wanting to stay at home and perform traditional woman roles.

However, when Ted arrives at Zoey’s that night with an overnight bag because he was expecting to stay the night, she gets scared that it is too much towards committing to a serious relationship an has him leave. Later in the show, Ted realizes how freaked out he is about getting into a serious relationship. He then flies out to Minnesota, where Marshall, another character is at the present time. Ted’s flight there symbolizes his fear of commitment by running away from the problem. This is a universalizing discourse because the situation proposes that men can be scare of relationships and run away from their problems like women. Traditionally, women are seen as the ones who run away from problems and do not realize their true fear of commitment until the very last moment. At the same time, there is also a minoritizing discourse in the situation. Men are often seen as the type to never fully commitment to relationships and are scared of marriage. And women are often the ones too ready to commit and suggest the possibility of marriage before men. Nevertheless, I feel Ted’s situation is more of a universalizing discourse because throughout the show Ted has truly been looking for “the one” and a hopeless romantic at heart.  I think this situation is one of the few times that viewers see Ted’s character afraid of jumping to the next level. I also feel his scared nature comes out of the pressures of relationships surrounding Valentines Day.

Work Cited

Bays, Carter and Craig Thomas. “Desperation Day.” How I Met Your Mother. CBS. 14 February 2011.

Brown, Adriane. Refiguring Gender on the Small Screen. 2011.

Mayne, Judith. “Women, Representation, and Culture.” In Reading Women’s Lives.

A Dream World

When we turn on the radio in the car or listen to a new popular song, we did not think about the consequences the songs imagery and words have on our society. We tend to just like the song because it is catchy or a favorite artist sings it. However, songs can have a deep impact on the way we think we are suppose to act like or look like in the real world.  The song “Bad Girl” by Danity Kane and the video both portray ideas of what our society and its members have deemed as being the “norm.” To a normal everyday viewer of the video, it would seem this is just another girl pop group ready to dominate the world with their fantastic dance moves and impeccable voices. However, the video details the identities of gender and sexuality in a way that can be consequential to its viewers.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFzws_oKl9k&ob=av2el

The effects or consequences of the ways gender and sexuality are represented in the video can be the way young females think about themselves. “We have to ‘speak through’ the ideologies which are active in our society and which provide us with the ‘means of making sense’ of social relations and our place in them.” (Hall, 90) In other words, Lull suggests that through such media as a music video, young viewers see how they should be fitting and acting in society.

Through the seductive type clothing the members of Danity Kane wear, young female viewers begin to perceive that type of clothing most get the guys to be attracted to you and want you. The “comic” style of the video seems to suggest that men are automatically drawn in to the whole fantasy world, especially with a story portraying sexy women. Female viewers think they have to go out and buy clothing, from stores like Victoria Secret, that can show off your cleavage and gives you the perfect hourglass, sexy figure. “…the most potent effect of mass media is how they subtly influence their audiences to perceive social roles and routine personal activities.” (Lull, 62) For this reason, many women try to achieve the perfect figure through any meals, unhealthy lives, and possibly even death. Videos, like this one, continue to teach women that they need to be over sexual in order to win over a man and possibly marry him later.

The music videos of today show us only a representation of the world and the imaginations of how we may perceive the world to be. Every representation “provides us with stories, images, and scripts that enable us to image and practice femininities, masculinities, and sexualities.” (Brown, Lecture 1/11/11) The video for “Bad Girl” gives us a glimpse into a dream world, where girls are sweet and nice but can turn into an alternate “bad girl” with a flash of a red light. According to Mayne, analyzing a representation should take into account the time period, exchanges in gender, race, sexuality, and class, and cultural understandings and context. (162) Music videos of today for popular artists show promiscuous behavior and imply to the viewer this is a “norm” in our society. It encourages the viewer to engage in sexual behavior and its what will get you everything you want in life. It also suggests it is a “norm” for women to have this secret inner desire to have sex and fulfill the sexual fantasies of men.  In a way, the video creates a dualism or two opposing categories for each woman. There is the before woman who plays nice and acts innocent, but when the red light flashes she transforms into the hypersexual woman who provides desires for men. This is clear in the lyrical lines of  “…I can be your addiction if you wanna get hooked on me…” and “…I can be part of your deepest fantasies” that it is the “norm” for woman to be sexual and provide for their men. This may be why many teenagers feel the need to have sex in order to feel accepted among their peers, especially the male peers, and why many younger teens are becoming pregnant.

The media affects the way individuals perceive themselves and the ways in which they feel they have to act in the real world. Today, many of the “norms” for women is to be a hypersexual being that can fulfill men’s desires. Women feel they have to look tan, be skinny, and dress in skimpy clothes that highlight an hourglass shape. These views ultimately affect the younger generations of viewers into thinking that is the way the real world is and how they should be acting in the real world. Music videos, like “Bad Girl” by Danity Kane, encourages younger generations to have sex before marriage and that it is acceptable to act sexual all the time. When we turn on the radio or just dancing to the latest “it” song, we need to be reminded those images and lyrics produced by the music industry only come to life in through the imagination of a producer and they represent a dream world.

Work Cited

Brown, Adriane. You Think I’m Pretty Without Any Makeup on: Hegemonic Femininity in Popular Culture. 2010.

Hall, Stuart. "White of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media." Silver Linings: Some Strategies for the Eighties. Ed. G. Bridges and R. Brunt. London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd., 1981.

Lull, James. “Hegemony.” Media, Communitcation, Culture: A Global Approach. Columbia University Press, 1995.

Mayne, Judith. “Women, Representation, and Culture.” In Reading Women’s Lives.