Look at how diverse we are!

Today in class we started discussing about "TV Tokenism" which, for those of you who don't know, is the unofficial requirement to have an equally diverse cast of actors on any given TV show. But tokenism doesn't just appear in TV. I've noticed more "diverse" ads, magazines, and health pamphlets just with in the past 12 hours.

I decided to do some digging on the Internet to uncover more examples of clearly forced portrayals of diversity, and came across a 2001 undergraduate application for the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

The picture on the right is the original picture taken at a university football game, but the picture on the left features an African American student (far left) that was not featured in the original photograph. 

I didn't think an acclaimed university would actually alter a photograph solely to appear more diverse to perspective students, but apparently, I was wrong! According to Snopes.com, the urban myth busting website, this rumor is TRUE. The African American student shown in the university application was photo shopped in after the picture was taken. 

I'm not naive. I understand that tons of institutions stage photos to appear diverse, but why have we made the jump from being truthful about our lack of diversity to staging fake diversity? I'm sure there are students of color at the University of Wisconsin, but why go the extra mile to appear more diverse then they actually are? Now I may be over thinking this, but doesn't it seem more racist to consciously insert a minority figure than it is to just use the original photo for what it is?

Life's short. Stay awake for it.

I love coffee, tea, chocolate, cola- anything that will get me up in the morning and out the door to early bird. Many of my friends and I are huge fans of Caribou Coffee, and after drinking there for years, I just started thinking about their slogan: "Life's short. Stay awake for it."

At first read, this slogan is effective and charming by implying that because life is short, you shouldn't waste time being tired, and that Caribou Coffee will help keep you from the richness of life. Besides being a very good marketing campaign, this slogan addresses America's addiction to caffeine and fast-paced lives.
I know that I, as well as many other American Studies students, have addressed this topic before, but I'd like to give a new hypothesis as to why we consume so much caffeine.
In addition to drinking coffee as a means of staying awake, coffee drinkers have also started using their coffee cup as a status symbol; it is now a way of saying "Look at me, I have coffee in my hand because I have important things to do, and I need to stay awake for them."
According to Ronald Troyer and Gerald Markle of Drake and Western Michigan University, "coffee confers adult status, since children are not allowed to drink it" (Coffee Drinking: An Emerging Social Problem?) These two professors suggest that coffee drinkers not only drink it for a boost of energy, but also as a way to distinguish themselves between adolescent and adult.
I have to agree with this hypothesis. More and more high schoolers drink coffee, and if you ask us why, almost all of us will say it's because we're tired; we're tired because we didn't get enough sleep, and we didn't get enough sleep because of our jam-packed schedules, and tremendous amount of school work.
Don't get me wrong, I know that many highschoolers are constantly short on sleep because of our work and activities, but is it possible that we use coffee as way of not only staying awake, but also as a way of reminding the world of how we work?

Quick Fixes

Are your jeans fitting tighter? Mine are too. Like many people, I put on a few extra pounds this winter due to my laziness and addiction to Christmas cookies, and now that spring is approaching, those pounds have to got to go! But nobody likes dieting, and as millions of Americans grow fatter, we're looking for the quick fix.

Even though we've all heard from our doctors that diet and exercise is the healthiest way to lose weight, we also know how impatient Americans can be. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Americans spend $40 billion a year on weight loss products, and these products range from books and exercise equipment, to food plans, diet foods and of course- weight loss pills/ supplements.

Although so many weight loss products don't work, we still can't stand waiting, and we look for the miracle fix. 

America's impatience didn't start with weight loss. As we finish up our Southern Reconstruction unit, I couldn't help but notice that America has had an obsession with "quick fixes" long before Jenny Craig. After the South lost the Civil War, radical reconstruction started to ensue. As explained in Foner's Give Me Liberty!, Africans Americans were give full rights, Confederate leaders were barred from office and the ballot box for life, and coalitions ruled the South. All of this occurred in a matter of 10-12 years after the Civil War, and when political and power roles quickly reversed, massive segregation started to emerge.

Although the ideals of Southern Reconstruction were with good intentions, the non-gradual plan ultimately did more harm than good. Americans wanted a quick solution to the problems that had been forming for decades, but refused to wait any longer. Yes, radical change was needed, but soon so fast?

Media Will Make a MAN Out of You

Today in class we talked about how the media constructs and sways the opinions the public. With the super bowl just passing, I thought about all the commercials that send subliminal messages to TV watchers.

What I came to realize was that commercials, as well as media in general, inadvertently send a lot of gender stereotype messages through their advertisements. For example, the Old Spice commercials are very popular commercials that specifically outline what it takes to be a man.

In the Old Spice Body Wash commercials, the "Old Spice Man" is half- clothed, very muscular, and has a deep seductive voice. He then lists all the things a man could smell like if he used Old Spice Body Wash. For example, Old Spice Man addresses the "ladies" and says, "Do you want a man who smells like he can bake you a gourmet cake in the dream kitchen he built you with his own hands?"

Even though this commercial is funny, it implies that only manly men do things like build kitchens with their "own hands" and smell like "adventure" (<- later mentioned in the commercial). Whether this advertisement means to or not, it sends a message to its viewer about the ideal man. Boys across America look at this commercial and assume they have to fit this rugged outline. But we all know the media goes well beyond commercials. Action movies, models, TV shows, and other advertisements all spend millions of dollars enforcing this manly mold.

So is this what a "man" is? Or is it what Americans want men to be?