Stereotypes
are included in our lives every day. The music video You Belong with Me by
Taylor Swift holds some stereotypes. Taylor Swift portrays both the protagonist
and antagonist, which she is described as “the nerd” who is going out of her
way for this guy she can’t have. And also plays the “popular” girl. In this
music video, the lyrics state that Taylor describes this “popular” girl as
horrible, scary and perfect. The stereotypes portrayed in this music video are
that this “popular” girl wears short skirts while Taylor as the “nerd” wears
tee-shirts, “She’s cheer caption and I’m in the bleachers.” This is indicating
vast amounts of stereotyping due to most characters/people in the media are
portrayed as perfect girls, with perfect boys, with the perfect life. The
stereotype in this music video is where a nerd cannot get what she wants but
the cheerleader can. The female lead is a nerd with huge glasses. She is in
love with her neighbour who is portrayed as ‘gorgeous.’Unfortunately, she does
not get the male because the cheerleader of her school is dating him. The three
of them are from the same school which sounds like a typical love triangle.
When others
have the average life (being Taylor as the “nerd” in this video) who fights for
the boy who may be way out of their league. This is showing that the guys/jocks
in these media/music videos only like the popular teenage girls due to them
being a cheerleader when generally the nice girls get left out of having a
perfect boy.
Also, the
media exposes the stereotype that cheerleaders are the most popular in the
school. In the video, the cheerleaders are most popular however this is not the
case in every school. The typical popular cheerleader that everyone wants to
date is mostly presented through the media. What goes on in real life is
normally nothing like the stereotyping that goes on television series/music
videos/movies and much more. The music video is just another example of
representation. Most media texts are made to get more viewers due to there
being drama in the media. For example Keeping up with the Kardashians is a
reality television series which most of it is scripted and mixed around to make
it seem like it has more drama all because of wanting to get more viewers. This
technique works in some cases due to people/teenagers wanting entertainment and
by watching these series it makes them hooked on these programs due to the
reality of it all being mixed around to portray more comedy and drama which is
exciting to watch.
The magazine that I studied was Cream magazine June 2013 with Taylor Swift on the cover. I think Taylor Swift was used as the cover girl for this magazine to attract young teenagers who like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is known as a sweet innocent girl who also draws people into wanting to know about her life as a singer and her relationship breakups. The colours on the front cover were pinks, whites and reds with the occasional blues. This helps attract young teenagers in buying this magazine due to it having colourful girl’s colours which portrays happiness and brightness. These colours also match what Taylor is wearing which make her the main focus of the magazine. Also the captions on the cover stated “How to be hearted, stay calm and get what you want.” This shows teenage girls that getting what you want is good when in reality getting what you want is spoilt . “New look fashion – fashion under $50– step by step DIY – style stakeout and so much more!” This is attracting teenage girls due to new fashion looks which draws them in wanting to buy these cool new trends to look good and fit in. Fashion, Makeup, advice, boys, and celebrity’s in this magazine all contribute in attracting young teenage girls (13-15) due to it being a common interest for all teens.
In this magazine most of the models were skinny, pretty, with long hair and pretty eyes, with the perfect figure. Taylor Swift comes under this stereotype as well due to her being a singer, actress, blonde hair, blue eyes, good body and comes across as a sweetheart. However, if a teenager is reading this and magazine and she isn’t happy about her looks or body, this stereotype of models could affect the way she thinks about herself which doesn’t provide a positive image on teenage girls.
In this magazine there were a lot of advice articles which can help you with relationship breakups, family issues, and friend issues. This is a positive source to the magazine due to it helping teenagers who may need some advice.
The models in these magazines are close to perfect. Every facial feature is perfect and gorgeous. Every magazine I have read or looked at there are no plus sized models in them. What I have picked up is that they don’t even have freckles on their face, this indicates to me that they are all airbrushed which makes these models fake. This doesn’t show their natural beauty. Women are often jealous of the incredible good looks of the models in magazines. Would you still be jealous if you knew that every single image you’re seeing is an illusion?
This video shows the use of photoshop in teen magazines which can cause teenagers feeling bad about their selves comparing them to these perfect models. But do they really know that these models are photoshopped from head to toe.
Noticeably the media is portraying a view of perfection
in girls in magazines and on television that is near impossible for teenage
girls to reach. By doing this the magazines are creating the teenage girls in
New Zealand and around the world to become insecure which can lead to
depression, anorexia and bulimia. Around 8 million people in America suffer
from an eating disorder; over 90% of them are women. This shows the effects of
the media on women and how it is affecting their lives. Bulimia causes 5 deaths
in every 1000 who suffer from this eating disorder. Within those 5 people, 2
deaths are from girls committing suicide.
However, teenage girls should not have to feel
stressed and under pressure by the media to have a specific style and fashion.
By having stunning models promoting expensive designer clothing makes teenage
girls who are incapable of buying the expensive designer clothing feel as
though they don't look decent or as good as they are expected too. This shows
that it is still having a strong effect on New Zealand's teenage girls.
Other than these serious statistics, the fashion in the magazines attract
teenagers due to the teenagers (being 13-15) wanting to try new styles and who
are willing to try modify their looks.
The articles advertised on the front cover involve teenage
representations for example “New fabulous looks for you!” Also another article
advertised on the front cover of Crème is: “A girl’s best friend” which is a strong indication that if you
want to be ‘cool’ girl you have to own this magazine. Most articles advertised
on the front cover are about celebrities. This indicates to us teenage girls continuously
need the celebrities to desire and look up to. Inside this crème magazine,
there are frequent articles and adverts involving clothes and make-up/beauty merchandise.
On the other hand the clothing in these articles has a very high price range
and we would expect that not many teenagers would be able to afford them. This
is encouraging girls to ask their parents or friends for money to buy these
clothing items and beauty products. This also encourages girls to think that
they need to buy these beauty products and also to need to wear expensive
clothes all to fit in and be the ‘cool’ girl.
However, the only articles in this magazine are about fashion, beauty
products, boys, girlfriends, and advice on breakups or boyfriends, friendships
and family. We see no sign of any adverts talking about world affairs and
politics. This is because if topics like this were in a magazine for teenage
girls they would not be interested in buying it due to it being about an
uninteresting topic. All teenage girls really care about is fashion, boys,
make-up and reading these magazines with sex stories, fashion articles and
information about their favourite bands. These girly articles are in there for
a reason which is to attract young girls to buy this product, they wouldn’t want
to buy it if it had “World affairs and Politics” on the front cover.
Cady Heron changes dramaticaly throughout mean girls. In the begginging when Cady had just started her first day of high school, she seemed very innocent and nice to everyone; however near the end Cady is fake just like the plastics. We see this change due to Cady wearing more make up, worrying what she looks like, and starts to wear more revealing clothing e.g. short skirts and low tops. This change of character really shows the audience how easy it is to get manipulated/transformed into someone you're not due to wanting to 'fit in.'
During
the course of the film Mean Girls, Cady experiences several personality
modifications. At the beginning of the film when we first see Cady she is
friendly, she knew who she was and she acted and looked like an average
student. Through the length of the film she is negatively influenced by Janis
and Damien who changes her views and manipulates her into hanging out with the
plastics which progressively makes Cady lose her individual personality and changes
herself in the image of Regina. Regina is also known as the “Queen Bee” of the
plastics. Cady becomes as nasty as Regina, leaving Janis and Damien in the
process. Cady is trying to form an identity which is pleasing to her and
others. She only ever identifies her true personality towards the end of Mean
Girls which then makes Cady realise how much she has changed and how much
people hate her due to the effects she has had on them. Cady’s change of
personality made her appear ignorant, rude and self-absorbed.
Along with her changing personality, Cady has different interests after all. At the beginning of the film, Cady was originally interested in Math’s, finding true friends, and spending time with family. However Cady became most interested in becoming popular, having good fashion and getting attention from this one boy in particular, Aaron Samuels. She believes that being noticed and hanging around the popular girls (The Plastics) is important. She becomes interested in hanging out with friends, going to parties and body image.
On New Year’s Eve, Troy Bolton and
Gabriella Montez are at a ski resort during winter break. Troy is known as a
popular basketball player and Gabriella is really brainy. They both get picked
to sing karaoke together on New Year’s night and afterwards they exchange numbers.
After winter break Troy goes back to school in New Mexico, where he is
surprised to discover Gabriella is a new student at his school. They become
friends quickly and decide to audition for the Winter Musical together as a
pair. They both get call-backs, which this had made ‘drama queen’ Sharpay Evans
and her brother Ryan. Sharpay and Ryan both get upset due to them always
wanting to be in the limelight with no one getting in the way of it. At their
school Sharpay and Ryan are the drama queens of the school which come across nasty
and uncaring in the film. Troy’s friend Chad also becomes upset that Troy got a
call-back for the Musical because he is afraid that Troy will become distracted
from the basketball championship coming up. Gabriella’s friend Taylor is
willing to do anything to get her on the Decathlon team. Chad and Taylor decide
to film Troy saying how Gabriella isn’t important after Char tricks him into
saying it. Ultimately Taylor shows the video to Gabriella which then makes her
refuse to do the call-backs with Troy. Meanwhile, Sharpay and Ryan manipulate
the call-backs to the same day and time as the Championship game.
Mean Girls and High School Musical have most things in common, such as they both have a new girl starting at a new school (Gabriella and Cady), they both have stereotyped groups where they sit at lunch, they have the popular people (Sharpay, then the plastics), nerdy group, and jocks etc... However the storylines aren't the same due to HSM being a musical and mean girls being a teen comedy/drama. However there is always a boy in teen movies that the main girl fall in love with which creates most teen comedy's/dramas being similar.
Most teenage movies have actors/actresses that are playing an age of 16-18, but in real life the person playing those characters are 20-25+.
Another movie which has a similar story line to Mean Girls: 'The Social Network'
An outsider goes to great lengths to make friends, alienating the ones who love him/her most in the process
The movie ‘Mean Girls’ doesn’t have a very
positive message due to an innocent girl who transformed into a mean, fake
person all because of three girls called the plastics. However, some girls who
watch this film may not pay attention to the message it is portraying because
they know that it is just a movie which isn’t based on real life. But in some
teenage girls eyes they may think that changing just to be in a popular friend
group may be the only option to gain popularity or even more friends.
This film doesn’t
have a realistic view on teen girls since not many girls pretend to be someone
they’re not all because wanting to be friends with popular people. These
stereotypical representations of teenage girls are most common in American
films. There are always popular girls, one gorgeous guy who is a jock or some type
of sportsman who gets the popular girls, nerds, and of course they all have to
end with a prom. For example another movie with similar stereotypes of teenage
girls is the movie “Easy A” which is about a clean-cut high school student relies on the
school's rumour mill to advance her social and financial standing to get
popular and known. Other groups in society after they view stereotypical movies
like mean girls and the easy a would often view teenagers as being snobby, who
want gorgeous guys, and to be popular. However in the end of these movies we
sometimes see that they made a big mistake which shows the teen viewers that
changing for someone or changing who you are just to get popularity is stupid
and you should be yourself because that’s when people will like you the most.
Cady Heron moves to a new home from Africa. She goes to a new school where she meets Janis and Damian. However they warn Cady to stay away from the Plastics. The Plastics are a popular, crude, and beautiful group at school headed by Regina George with Gretchen and Karen. When Cady meets Aaron Samuels, she discovers a massive crush on him. When Regina finds out she seeks revenge by taking Aaron back in front of Cady. This caused Cady, Janis, and Damian to bring Regina's status down. However as Cady continues to spend more time with the Plastics, she begins to become one of them.
The clip above is from the film
‘Mean Girls’ which represents all of the stereotypical groups in their high
school. The setting of this clip is in the school cafeteria which represents
where you sit, who you sit with, and what you eat. In this clip Janis goes
through all of the different stereotypical groups of teenagers such as varsity
girls, cheerleaders, girls who eat their feelings and the ‘Plastics’. By
showing us the different groups of teenagers sitting together shows us that you
can only be friends with people who are similar to you e.g. if your fat you
hang with the fat group, and if you’re pretty you hang with the pretty group.
Etc... We see from the beginning of the film that the pretty girls, ‘The
Plastics,’ are well liked and other teenage girls from the school tend to copy
them due to everyone wanting to be like them. By the media creating that trend
it is showing girls around the world that people only like you if you are
pretty or popular. This film has typical stereotypes which exaggerate them to
form opinions about who is bad or good due to when people see a group of
friends or even a just girl, they will automatically judge them on what they
look like and relate them back to movies they have seen (one being Mean Girls)
which then cause them categorise them into a particular stereotype.
A stereotype is a generalised opinion of another person based on their appearance.
How and why we stereotype:
I think people usually
stereotype and label people to describe the person themselves based on their
actions or behaviours of that person. Some stereotypes can come across as harsh
or offensive which can hurt others. A lot of stereotyping happens in high
school due to people being in different groups e.g. the nerds, black, white,
emo’s, Asians, popular people etc… I wonder if stereotyping will ever stop, will people
stop judging others through what they see or hear? For example a person might
dress in all black and wear dark make-up and you call them emo, gothic, freak
or emotional, and deep down the person just likes black and is actually not
emotional, she is a happy positive person who just gets labelled due to her appearance.
Stereotyping is covering someone’s real identity.
Why the media uses stereotypes:
There is still a large amount of media
producers that utilise stereotypes to help the audience recognize the character
more. Stereotype is used in the media to get the image across and to portray a
personality. Normally in the media people are beautiful, good-looking and slim
because it is attractive to the audience.
