Post #4 - Re: Assignment #7 - Socialization of Girls through the Media

Today, there are hundreds of shows on TV, each with their own message, their own bias, their own interpretation. The question at hand is this: do shows like Girls Next Door or America's Next Top Model have a significant impact on the socialization of girls in modern America? Needless to say, until there is an empirical study done, any speculation as to the answer to this question is pure opinion. However, speculate I shall.

In these shows, women are seen traipsing about in skimpy outfits desperately seeking the approval of their superiors or the other individuals in the show. Of course, these women are of an extremely rare minority of empty-headed bimbos that exist in this country, but some have suggested that young girls could feel pressured to look and behave in this way in order to be accepted in society. So therefore, the further question we must ask to analyze our original thesis is this: do girls really believe that shows like this set the standard in America? Proving any direct impact is just short of impossible, because the counterpoints are nearly infinite. If these shows impact the way girls dress and behave, why would they have any more impact than Gray's Anatomy or Lost?

I do not believe that it is the skimpy clothes that the women of Girls Next Door wear that influences American girls, but rather the inanely stupid behavior depicted on these shows that is the real danger. In order to create shows like these, TV executives find the pettiest, dumbest, most egocentric people in the country because those are the kind of people who will create the most drama on the show (go figure). These are individuals who are uneducated and lack any sort of culture other than the kind found growing on a loaf of old bread, and yet they are the ones that our younger generations will watch and in some cases admire. It is because of this that I believe that shows like these have a slightly negative impact -- but I would never advocate removing them from television. To do so would go against everything America stands for in terms of inherent human freedom.

The threat of our children (and even some adults) becoming dumber by watching this type of low-brow television is evident, but the biggest problem that shows like these have is their impact abroad. Individuals from nations overseas see these shows and believe that they are the standard of American behavior, and do not understand that the people in these shows are the worst of the worst that we can dredge up. That, my friends, is partially how the many American stereotypes are formed abroad - Americans are dumb, egocentric, lazy, and competitive. American men are simple and brutish, and the women are slutty and airheaded.

That sound like America to you? Sound's like VH1 to me.

Cheers.