For the last post I have yet to do GLEE and  a reflection post so i will do them now.
The personal connection that I felt to GLEE was when my brother got trash thrown at him while sitting outside. He was hanging with friends and a group of high school football boys came by and threw trash at him and called him a fag. I was enraged when i heard this. Much like Kurts dad, my mom took immediate action and called the school. My sister who is also in school with my brother had the football captian stick up for paul in the locker room. It was sad that my brother was bullied but atleast he had allies. The young man who threw the trash apperantly struggles with his own issues of fitting in much like Karosfy.
Paul came out about two years ago and went through some of the discourses Raby describes. He began his at risk period when he fell into the wrong crowd. After some guidance and love he began hanging with a better crowd and feeling more comfortable with himself. When this bullying occured I called him and asked if he was ok. He told me he felt sorry for the bully because atleast he (my brother) was happy with himself.

TEENS TALK BACK

Its funny that this is a whole lesson because this is the topic we chose to do for our final project. The whole project is about teens resisting using the spoken word. Teens resist in other ways to such as videos, blogs, social media etc... The movie Thirteen always makes me think of teens resisting because that is what the whole movie is about.

Teens like to stand up for themselves depending on the crowd. If a teen feels that they can not talk back at home they may do it to friends or other outside the home to instill in themselves a sense of confidence. After reviewing my sisters tumblr it is very clear that she loves lace and frilly things, this known by the amoung of pictures of that stuff that is on her page. When she goes out though she is in my old hamy downs because she doesnt have the money to buy the things she reposts.
Another example is music  teens love to listen to music wether it is on their video game or on the radio. The lyrics and beat allow them to feel something. Myspace pages have an option to put a music video on your page that expresses you.
Teens like any other classification of humans want to be heard and respected. I find it interesting how we teach kids to respect people when they are rarely respected. Parents and adults laugh off their mood swings and shrug at their outfit changes instead of reconizing that their teens just want to be respected.

I just wanted all of you to know that last night my dreams came true


I saw the man that changed the way i viewed music and society. BOB DYLAN.

Hip Hop Wars
After reading this article it made me think about that song by Ice T, about the cops in Cali. How that song caused such an uproar and how influential it was. That would be considered old Hip Hop, people rapping about the times and how it makes them feel. I do not know much about Hip Hop but I think for the most part we could agree that music is dead. The new wave of pop has killed what true music embodies. Baring ones soul to the world through song and standing up to the man in each verse. Now a days we just hear about the clud or how Taylor Swift got her heartbroken for the 100th time. I liked the line in her Q&A "You would have to turn off all commercial black radio. You'd have to shut down all of your children's and your own investment in MTV, BET, VH1. You would basically have to unplug from society as a whole." Society as we spoke about in class is going to constantly push against us as we try to flow up stream. But sometimes in order to resist the urge to go crazy and becomes a shut in, I think we all give in just a bit. We listen to that song that we know isnt respectful or indulge in that show that isnt very good. This keeps us sane as we resist the flow of the water. "They know you're not going to do it because that means rejecting the entire system, not just a given artist". We are not all going to detach from society to prove a point. But discussing the issues surronding societys flaws is a start to changing them.

Kimmel
I am writing this blog after our discussion in class and i know that seems like a form of cheating. I read the text and we discuessed it in class so I know it inside and out. In class we spoke about how these white males were bullied at school and made to feel less than. This being a big reason as to why the school shootings occured. The groups I was in offered great discussion and insight to this reading and allowed me to open up my mind a bit. That being said I still however feel strongly toward mental illness being the straw that broke the camels back. This idea of a tough guise has been around for sometime. Men feeling the need to insert their dominance when ever it was being threatened. The Spartans thrived on the idea of man being almost invinsible.  Being good at sports and having big muscles seems to be essential to men. Without such characteristics how are they going to be the person to fuck the most girls at the club. (excuse the cuss). This is no doubt a big issue in our world today, men should be able to embrace their sensative side without being laughed at for it. Most men get teased by their friends for a quality they lack concerning their manhood. I see it all the time, these men later get mad and feel sorry for themselves for a while. Girls also participate in this by "not sleeping with them" or
"turning them down". For some reason the amount of notches on a bed post matters. These kids however have not taken to such extremes as school shootings. While I know this is not way to teach people and should be subject to closer anaylizes, I feel that mental illness was what broke these kids down. The build up was no doubt the bullying of these men and how it chipped away slowly at their self esteem. But kids like this exsist every where and do not end up shooting people as a result. Please understand that I am not saying this is an issue that should not be dealt with, I am merely arguing with the author.

Connections
This movie/reading reminded me of other course texts that we have talked about. The first is Christensen and how she spoke of the Disney princesses. This idea that we are going to need prince charming to get through life.
In the movie Brave, the girl does not allow herself to be a victim of this cycle. She fights against the norm and makes her own path. This theme is not common in Disney movies as Orsenstein reminds us. She talks about how yonug girls get wrapped up in princess culture and how big companies make a fortune off of little girls wanting happily ever after. Christensen took the time to anaylze these flaws in movies to point out how corrupt they can be to kids. Orsentein gives a similar approach by discussing how this culture came to be. These text also relate to SCWAAMP. This idea that the princess is always white as is the prince. That wealth will help us achieve happily ever after, so we should marry a doctor. All of the characters in these films are abled bodied. So much of these films feed into what SCWAAMP is all about. God forbid they make a movie about a girl who isn't white and does not marry a prince. These ideas of grandure are unrealistic and set little girls up for heartbreak. It is ok to let little girls see these movies, but having a discussion about how life actually goes would spare them the myth of happily ever after.

For my project I chose to do prompt number one. While I thought the presentation was educational and smooth, it needed a bit more life. After reading Wesch it is clear that students today learn through media and visuals. Wesch urges teachers to give more life to education so students can benefit from their learning. By making a power point hopefully this will bring more pizzaz to Dr. Millers already awesome lesson. I am also curious to learn more about the teenagers of past and see what they went through and how they came to be named reckless or a danger to society. This being a sterotype that teenagers today still cant seem to shake. Raby spoke about discourse and how it effects the way teenagers are portrayed. There are discourses out there today that apply to teenagers who are now adults. By showing picture evidence of teenagers from the 50's then maybe some of those discourses can ab abolished. After all teenagers are not some alien life form. Parents tend to forget that as they try to raise a teenager, that they themselves were once that young. Each generation afraid of what the next will do or become. By looking back where it all began, it could be neat to see what has and has not changed.

So all I could think of when watching this is how our class is currently using a social network to connect and comment haha. Also i was on skype and looking at fb while watching it, totally feeding into the "not paying attention sterotype. This is something I think we can all connect to on our social networks have completely changed our life. I think its safe to say that most people especially teens have some form of social network. When the video of free hugs was shown it made me think of kony and how quickly that spread. I love going on twitter and updating my tweets and going on facebook to creep or post events. This class has and others like it help students learn by having them go on the computer, an object many people are familiar with. Its engaging and better then sitting in a lecture hall being talked at instead of talked to. I think Wesch wants adults and educators to learn how to reach out to kids to get them to enjoy learning and even just learn something.

Hyperlinks

This link is in reference to the part on page 21 about how teens need to have the conversation about sex with their parents.


This picture is how society sees teens today.Young, niave, and all together, judging each other and making faces that are suggestive or angry. Hines says that the teenager is paitined in societies image of them. This image being parties and unawareness of the world around them.

http://youtu.be/1Rl1TJG17Wk



Hines says that we are always becoming but never mature. Even parents have teen tendancies.
Parents with tattoos and going to parties is taboo and frowned upon, yet still common today. The balance is off Hines suggest in adults judging teens with they themselves have not yet matured.
such as the idea of talking about sex with their kids, awkard and uncomfortable, yet their the damn parent suck it up and speak.


This seems to be the attitude of teens as suggested by Hines, yet they have not perfect the not caring part. Each person young or old still yearns for acceptance.

http://youtu.be/sT0g16_LQaQ

I am using Angelas post about Raby as the center of my post for the extended comments portion of our asignment. I figured I would extend off of her post because i had a hard time with this peice. Angela broke down in her post about what discourse and adolesence meant, which i found to be helpful. Discourse being "verbal experssion or writing". She then had a picture of the word discourse being broken down to show that discourse constantly changes depending on the person. She also goes on to talk about her teenage years in a brief paragraph and how difficult it was to feel like she was always being poked at to change or conform. A feeling im sure many people have felt then and now. Angela then broke down further Rabys stages of being a teen. With each stage she comments on what the stages mean. I wish Angela had elaborated on how she felt at each stage or if she even felt she was in any of those stages at any point. Her last comment about wanting to hear about peoples teenage years i thought was cool. I think it would be fun to have a class where everyonet talks about what they have gone through and why they are here now. I know this can be personal but sharing ones story of self helps to engage others. Angelas block was easy to read and a fun read. Her break down of Raby helped me better understand what was going on in that article.

quotes
"My waist didn't dip into an hourglass: in fact, according to the novels I read my thick ankles doomed me to be cast as the peasant women reaping hay". pg 126
This quote foreshadows what the reading is about. The introduction about the authors body gives leeway to undoing media. As little girls most of us wanted to be beautiful skinny princesses and felts ashamed when our bodies did not turn out like Cinderella. The author sheds light on this fact in her opening paragraph. A subtle dig at women that most people do not see or turn a blind eye to.This small quote brings up so many issues teens face as a result of media.

"Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most influential genre "read". pg 127
The purpose of this article is presented plainly in this quote. That from a young age people are exposed to society and its influence on children. The article goes on to talk about how girls are seen as homemakers and told to be skinny, while men are seen as strong and powerful. Much like media the article does not bluntly express this, it is an underlying tone. The media is sneaky like that and makes innocent movies about princesses into making sure kids know their place when they get older. All my childhood was spent dressing like a lady and receiving easy bake ovens for presents. Small yet overwhelming acts that prove media is the puppet master.

"That we can quietly rebel in the privacy of the classroom while we practice our writing skills, but we don't really have to do anything about the problems we uncover". pg 134
The rest of the article goes on to explain the role she had her students take in regards to the media. She has them explore cartoons and educate parents on the issues surrounding the media and how it effects their children. This is something I hope we can accomplish by taking this class. She encourages and challanges her students to open their eyes and see the bigger picture. That society is running around spewing nonsense and no one is stopping it.

This article was a great idea to read in the beginning because it gets us fired up about the issues we will tackle in this class. That other people recgonize how corrupt society can be and that the media should no longer get away with this. Corrupt princesses are just the start of our problems concerning media.

That link i found to be intriguing

Argument: After reading the passages from Croteau on the topic of media and ideology it is clear that Croteau feels that media rules the way we view the world. He pulls from ideas around hegemony and Marxist. Marxists believe that media is controlled by the upper class and teaches the working class how to act and what to believe. Hegemony means that it is common sense to act the way the media dictates. This idea of hegemony is always in motion due to the fact that some images in the media are considered "not normal" and people begin to question if the "not normal" is even a bad thing. Croteau is trying to make the reader understand that even when people think the media is progressing to be more inclusive, it is always taking steps to make sure the viewer does not think those appearing inclusive are correct.The example used is having people on talk shows that are not in the main media stream. This appears to be a good thing that society is becoming excepting. Yet these people are placed on these shows to be seen as bizarre and abnormal. It is a constant battle between who is in power and those who are not. Trying to express being individuals in a world where individuality is dictated by those in power.

here is a link to the root of the word Hegemony. This is a word was one I did not fully understand so here is a link if anyone else had any trouble with it.

Hegemony »

Hegemony in Antonio Gramsci. Hegemony. "Hegemony" was most likely derived from the Greek egemonia, whose root is egemon, meaning "leader, ruler, often in the sense of a state other than his own" (Will...