TALKING POINT #11

I didn’t know where to start so I decided to look up “Teens talk back” into the Bing search box and I found that there were a lot of parent advising sites that help parents to control their children when they get out of hand. I find that very interesting because it gives parents pointers on how to deal with their annoying and disobedient teens etc.  I just don’t understand why everything has to be so negative when it comes to teens? I also noticed that a lot of sites are run by adults who are trying to spark up conversation within the teenage communities about dominant ideologies. But actually came across this website called teentalk.com which brings up different topics that teenagers go through and have teens talk on it. I think that this website/blog is a great opportunity for teens to really go in and express themselves and prove to the adults and everyone else that they are not annoying, disobedient, disrespectful and other negative things characteristics.  I love the fact that a teen got up the courage to start the blog, and start a youtube show that helps everyone see and understand how teens really are and also what they think about themselves. Although this is a great opportunity for teens to express themselves, this blog is not being utilized as much as it should, that is just a tab bit disappointing.  Another thing that is disappointing is out of all 10 pages that I looked at in the search I only seen about three sites that were ran by teenagers.  I feel like there should be more teens who is willing to take a stand and talk back. If we can get more teens to participate in this moment we wouldn't have all there stereotype of Teenagers. 
Question: What do you think the reason is for the non utilization of these teen blogs? 

GLEE!!!!! talking point #10

I must say that this is my first time watching Glee and I LOVE it!!!! For years my sister has been trying to get me to watch this show but I refused because for some reason I thought it was whack. I was wrong, this show is the bomb.com!!!  I was in show choir in high school and I would have loved to have a glee club, it would have made my senior year experience more enjoyable. But anyways the reason for my post, in the pilot of the show I could clearly see struggles of being a teen, many people not wanted to join the glee club because it was not the popular thing to do. Finn Hudson who was on the football team was talented and had a very beautiful voice but chose not step up and join the glee club because the pressure of feeling like he was going to be a outcast by his football teammates. Because it was not accepted  in the football community, Fin felt like he couldn't branch out and do what he loved which was sing because the boys would make fun of him and call him a wimp. But the episode that really got me was “Never been Kissed”. It brought up a very touchy subject in the teenage/high school world which is homosexuality.  Kurt was an openly gay male and that didn't sit well with one of the foot ball players (Krofsky). I later found out that this Krofsky was also gay but he seem like he was confused about it. It reminded me of the Kimmel and Mahler reading. Clearly the reason why He was bullying Fin is because he felt like he was not a man anymore since he was gay. He used force and violence to try to prove to him and others that he was masculine(tough Guise act). Poor Kurt, I felt for him because he did nothing wrong, he was a normal kid just like all the other high schoolers and for him to get bullied because Krofsky (the loser) is beside me. It’s also interesting that for a while no one paid attention to him getting bullied. They all turned the other cheek and didn't treat it how they would normally treat the situation if it was a straight student.  It hurts my heart to know that LGBTQ bullying is out there running rampid in schools. This episode definitely pushed against some of the dominant ideologies masculinity and what it is to be a “man”.

Talking point #9 Reflection on Tricia Rose

I have never really been a fan of the hip hop world. I was more of an R&B type of girl but I listened to hip hop every now and then because my older brother was a big fan of it. I believe that back in the day the quality of music was definitely a lot better and had deeper meaning than what it had now. I completely agree with Tricia Rose when she said in her interview with TIME magazine that hip hop isn’t not completely dead. We still have some great artist who are out there, granted they are not as popular as Two chains, or Kanye West but they are out there making great music. I respect the fact that people like Common (which I LOVE listening to his music),Most Def, and Talib Kweli decided not to transform their music and follow the dominate ideology of “dumbing” down their music to sell more records. They are doing their job right; they are reaching others and having a positive impact on who they reach. The ones who started to dumb down their music slowly began to change the game(and made it harder for the rap songs with substance). They set the stage for the rest of the rappers who come after them.  There is just something about listening to a song that actually has meaning, it becomes more relatable and people appreciate it more. At the end of the day the majority of artists are going to go with where the money is instead of staying true to who they really are and that in my opinion they are selling themselves short. I believe if we continue on this road in a few years hip hop will be completely dead, there will be no substance in any kind of music.

Question: why do you think people feel the need to dumb down there lyrics?

Masculinity, Homophobia and Violence...Talking point #8

This reading was very interesting to say the least, some ways it made me a little uncomfortable. Because this is a slight shift on what we were talking about the past few week, I was not expecting to read this for our reading assignment and I must say that it took me by surprise. When I first started reading this I was totally against what was being said.  The writers disagreed with experts who made very great and valid points. Points like violence stems from a violent house hold, exposing child to violent movies when younger, allowing children to play video games that involve shooting, and killing, child abuse, absent fathers etc. I was all for what experts had said until a point was made that violence and shooting was only a male problem. This made me atomically shift my thoughts, I began to think about girls who come from broken homes, who play violent video games along with the boys and whole love watching violent movies and listening to music that talk about violence.  I then began to really think. It just didn't make sense to me, there had to have been more to this. As I began to get more into the reading I started realizing certain things. There are a few quotes that I to address and add my few cents to. 

The first quote that I want to talk about is The quote of Eminem on page 1145. He says “The Lowest degrading thing you can say to a man…is to call him a faggot and try to take away his man hood”.

First of all I HATE that would It seems to me that the word “faggot has taken on a whole different meaning, it went from being bundles of twigs that was used to violently burn homosexuals, to being gay, to now stripping someone of their manhood? Can someone please tell me how that adds up? This was very upsetting to me to see how the horrible meaning of the word faggot losses its meaning REAL in slag and becomes something so different. I atomically thought about how this world is in constant evolution, it definitely shows in how the meaning of words are lost.

The next quote that I will be talking about is on page 1446 and it states: “There is much at stake for boys and, as a result, they engage in a variety of evasive strategies to make sure that no one gets the wrong idea about them (and their manhood)”

 This shows that boys would do anything to prove that they are not and have not lost their “manhood”, this includes killing people who have hurt them by, picking on them, bullying them, calling them names etc. If they feel like they are losing their “manhood” they automatically jump on defense and start plotting for ways to help them redeem this manhood of theirs, this plot most likely will be a violent one because that is what boy identify with for protection.

The last quote that I will address is on page 1450 which says “unlike girls, boys  do not lose their voice, they “gain a voice, but it is an authentic voice of constant posturing, of false bravado, of foolish risk-taking and gratuitous violence-what some have called the”boy code”, the mask of masculinity. The once warm, empathetic, communicative boy becomes, very early, a stoic, uncommunicative, armor-plated man."
This “boy code” stems from the dominate ideology that men are suppose to be hard. They can’t cry nor are can the show emotion, if they do then they are not tough and they are called a “wimp”. Any boy who is not in this bracket of what a “man” is suppose to be, ends up getting bullied and because this boy feels like they have their “manhood to prove they go off killing people.