Media Blog Reflection

Some of this video may not make sense to you if you do not follow John and Hank Green on Youtube (vlogbrothers) but in a nutshell, they are a community. And I being apart of that community, came across this video that they posted about three weeks ago. It basically wraps up some of the ideas that we have been learning in class. John (the guy above) discusses how in reality, ads are worth more than they cost. We normally don't look at the advertisements that are around us, especially ones in this video if you are viewing it from Youtube. We tend to think that commercials don't effect, maybe we thought that before we took this course, but there are advertisers out there that try to buy you for less than you are worth because they know of the effects they have on you. Before doing media blogs or knowing about different techniques and ways that advertisers try to catch our attention, we thought that we were not affected by the ways of the media. But now we, or maybe just me, understand the impact it has. Though this assignment didn't make me consume more or less media, it made me open my eyes to media consumption in general. There isn't a time when you are not exposed to it. Currently, I am writing this reflection at a coffee shop, Old Soul. They are advertised on their cups when you order a drink. There is a bulletin near on of the doors where people can some and put fliers of things that are happening in Sacramento. You may not notice it but it is everywhere. You can't escape it, sadly. We are especially aware of media when we are watching TV. When given this assignment, I would start to watch TV and see commercials and say out loud to my parts, "Media blog." Not only did it annoy them, but it also made me think of the different techniques and needs that the advertisers were using. And I'm not saying that as, "Oh yeah I expanded my learning horizon from the classroom to the outside world." But once I learned about the different ways of media, you can't help but to notice them. What I really noticed when doing this assignment was how we are portrayed as the product. They are more interested in making sure that the consumers are attracted to their product rather than the product itself. The question that left me after this assignment (and brought up by John Green), should we be okay in being the product?

"Who wouldn't want to see David Beckham with his shirt off?!"

I originally saw this commercial on ESPN. With David Beckham being a good soccer player and basically the icon for modern day soccer, it only makes sense that he appears on a sports channel. The target audience is directed to those males who know who Beckham is but it is also directed towards women because Beckham is used as a sex symbol in this commercial. It takes on the role of need for sex. We all want to see Beckham with his shirt off, this sex figure in this commercial. It also uses wit and humor. When the Burger King worker suggests that David Beckham takes off his shirt since it is dirty, all the women in Burger King raise their hand agreeing that his shirt needs to come off. But if you watch the commercial, there is only 6 seconds (0:03-0.09) that really describes what Burger King is trying to sell, their "fresh made" smoothies.

Title quote brought to you by Mama Hennessy

The Kids Are Ready To Die

"This isn't an anti-war song, it's an anti-going-to-die-for-no-good-­f***ing-reason" - Mikel Jollett, Lead Singer of The Airborne Toxic Event (Montreal 2011)

While trying to figure out what I should write for my media blog, The Kids Are Ready To Die by The Airborne Toxic Event came onto my Pandora. So let's analyse this. This is one of T.A.T.E.'s more emotional songs. Not only does the use of an acoustic guitar draw me in but also the story that the lyrics give. It talks about how people make one action and it can lead to another. It uses the fallacy hasty conclusion. In the beginning of the song it talks about how there is a group of kids sitting on a wall, where he got his first taste of danger, not knowing where to store all of his anger. From this event, it just got worse and worse. It then goes to when people were trying to changed and fix them, "You could burn our clothes/ you could wash out the ink and the die/ but you can't look me in the eye/ and say you don't feel like a little destruction." It is addressing how everyone has a part of anger built up in them that they cannot escape. When there is outside pressure for you to be good, it is hard because you know that the outside pressure is also experiencing some sort of anger inside of them. There is also a line later in the song (3:18) "He had a gun in his hand/ and I thought what could you say to make it ever make sense to his mother/ "well ma'am he was excitable /we were just trying to make him a man"." Not only does this address the problem of how a rebel child got worse, it also shows the assumption of men. When they are explaining to his mother that they were just trying to make him a man, like the only thing that could make him a man is a gun and the idea that he has the power and control. It also hits the need to nurture when it talks about this rebels mother. We never realize that when we hear there is another bad guy who just got locked up what his mother could possibly be thinking. No doubt she would be ashamed but she wouldn't know where her precious little innocent boy went wrong. What is also noticeable is the music video. This whole music video is shot on a stairwell in a tight space with completely dark lighting. It is acting as a parallel to the song.

Brave- the girl with amazing hair

<-- What Merida actually looks like


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   How Barbie portrays her



Pixar's new movie Brave is about a young Scottish archerist. She has this amazing crazy wild bright red hair. And like many Scottish people, she has a round face. Barbie took it upon themselves to alter Merida's image when coming out with the Barbie for her. If you notice her face on the Barbie, her face is much more narrow, her eyebrows are more defined, her eyes are tilt up, and her features are much sharper. Not to mention that her hair is not is crazy curly, it is a maintained deeper red that looks like she curls it with a curling iron every day. Barbie also made her pale Scottish skin tanner. I don't know if it is because we just watched Miss Representation and it opened my eyes but Barbie changed Merida to fit the cut out of modern day women. It is miss leading to have a heroine such as Merida to be reformed to fit what is established as okay and pretty in today's society.