The Paparazzi Pandemonium

It's in every line, in every store. You are forced to see it as you walk through the checkout line, whether you want to or not. Titles like "Jennifer Aniston: What Angelina Jolie Did Was 'Really Uncool'" and "BREAKING NEWS: Rihanna Breaks Her Silence for First Time Since Assault" line the shelves. To some it's just another magazine littering the checkout line of Wal-Mart. To others, it's a glimpse into the magical world of Hollywood.

The idea behind the sales of magazines like US Magaine and People is that the general American loves to get the newest and juciest gossip about the celebrities. In reality, if you stop and observe people though, you will realize that this "desire" definitely doesn't stop with Hollywood. Whether or not they admit it, most people enjoy learning the gossip about their friends as well. What you have to ask yourself is if Hollywood is encouraging this trend.

The purpose for tabloids and magazines being near the checkout is for the impulse buyers that get interested in an article and decide that the extra few dollars is worth it. The publishers feed off of that inbred human need for gossip that many people experience, and make it their business to interpret Hollywood affairs in any way they see fit. Rather, in whichever way will sell more magazines. The problem is that it just fuels peoples' desire to get the "scoop" on whatever the hot situation is, and subsequently rolls into their personal life.

Along with encouraging the gossip trend, tabloids are also presenting celebrity couples in a way that makes the situations they face seem "normal." This skewed outlook that presents affairs and divorces as an everyday thing is basically saying "hey America, it's okay to have dysfunctional relationships based on nothing more than physical attraction." They are telling the young men and women what is acceptable to do in everything from dating to marriage.

What you have to ask yourself is if tabloids actually doing more than just crowding the shelves. If you can actually realize that these situations are not "normal" or in any context then there is nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, there are not many people that are able to see the bigger picture. They live by the motto that "if Brad and Jennifer can do it like that, then my friends Becca and Mike can too" and the bottom line is that it isn't right for anyone to act that way. Losing morals is not justified by placing blame on celebrities.

From Ponyboy to Potter

So I was looking through my depressingly limited collection of books the other day and ran across something that interested me. Amidst the hastily-read summer reading books from high school, I found Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton. I opened it up with memories of the failed comprehension test flooding back into my mind, and flipped through the pages. Printed on the inner back cover of the book was the "about the author" blurb. I began to read it.

"S. E. Hinton wrote her..."

I stopped.

S. E. Hinton is a girl? I thought. I mean, I was always aware that female authors some time ago wrote in pen names to be taken seriously as authors, but I definitely didn't know it was still done!

I sat on this discovery for the majority of this week until tonight when I did some research on the female pen name phenomenon. Come to find out, S. E. Hinton was persuaded by her publisher to go by S. E. because of the plot of The Outsiders, her first novel. They said that because of its basis around two rival gangs, that it would probably interest male readers more if a female name not be present on the cover. J. K. Rowling was also told to go by that name by her publisher. The first Harry Potter novel was actually slated to be released with the name Joanne Rowling on the cover, but it was changed for the same reason.

It was very interesting that modern female authors still share a degree of the same sexism that was experienced over one hundred years ago. When authors like like Mary Ann Evans wrote under aliases, it was because male readers would not have taken them seriously otherwise. When authors like J. K. Rowling write under gender-neutral names, it is also because they would find male reader appeal much more difficult without the change. Clearly things have evolved drastically in the last century, but will things ever evolve enough?

A Little Prep-Talk For Ya

Abercrombie & Fitch. Kids, teens, and young adults love it. Parents love to hate it, or at least the advertising that is. In fact, if you didn't already know, police actually confiscated two enormous promotional images from Lynnhaven Mall back in February of 2008 after receiving numerous complaints from parents. That's right, Virginia made headline news across the country with creative titles such as "Abercrombie ad too risqué in Virginia." In all honesty though, you have to ask yourself if these companies are sending the right messages to today's impressionable youngsters.

Take the above picture for example. Calm down, no you're not going insane, you are indeed looking at a pair of shirtless twins. What's more, they seem to be returning from a rousing game of baseball... wearing only their perfectly sculpted abs and a pair of signature Abercrombie & Fitch jeans.... that seem to be riding extremely low.

Now let's place this image in the middle of the store. Imagine the constant THUMP THUMP of the bass in the relentless techno as you gaze upon this picture, blown up to fill an entire wall. Oh, and by the way, you're thirteen years old. Pictures like this, and definitely worse than this, frequent the walls and shelves of every Abercrombie & Fitch store across the United States. The corporation markets to all ages (take for instance the Abercrombie Kids website), and you're hard pressed to find a time when kids under the age of fifteen are not perusing the shelves.

I'm not sitting here trying to say that Abercrombie & Fitch is a bad establishment however. I mean, they have good quality clothing... though at exorbitant prices. In that light I'd encourage anyone to shop there. But the CEOs and marketing specialists aren't stupid. They know who frequents the establishment, and they make the choice to continue forcing these photos down the throats of anyone that so much as walks past the front of the store. What is this telling kids about gender? Beyond that, what is it telling them about society's expectations of them as either males or females? And why was one store in Virginia the only one, out of the 353 locations in the United States, to find a problem with the pictures? I mean I'm sure you can spot the issue yourself if you take a look.

Pink is for Boys, Blue is for Girls... wait.

It's a well-known fact that if you are invited to a baby shower that you either find out the gender of the baby and buy the associated color, or merely buy a gender-neutral color to begin with. When this social norm was brought up in class a few days ago, it really made me wonder where the standard originated.

After a little bit of research, it is pretty clear that the whole "blue is for boys, pink is for girls" thing is actually pretty recent. In fact, it was not actually commonly practiced until about 1950, and that's just in America. Most other countries still don't adhere to this "standard". To top it all off, the baby color scheme used to be reversed.

Some argue that pink was originally considered to be a more masculine color. Blue, on the other hand, was associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian Europe, and therefore was considered to be feminine. In a Time Magazine article from only 1927, there is the passage "In Belgium, Princess Astrid, consort of the Crown Prince, gave birth a fortnight ago to a 7-lb. daughter. Said dispatches: "The cradle . . . had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the color for boys, that for a girl being blue."

The first real appearance of the color norm was in the 1868 novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. In the book, Amy ties a pink bow and a blue bow on Meg’s twins Daisy and Demi, so people will know the difference between the girl and the boy. It is then said that this is the “French style,” suggesting that France may have already had the gender specific pink and blue.

The most prominent explanation for the stereotype's appearance in America is the use of blue military uniforms both during and after World War I. That, along with the "Think Pink" 1950's marketing slogan for women, encouraging them to embrace their femininity, generally is assumed to have primarily attributed to the rise of the color scheme.

It was surprising to realize just how recently this became commonplace. I never actually thought about where the whole idea came from, and judging by the availability of information on it, not many other people have either. Don't let the picture above fool you though. The blue and pink association in other countries do not have the same gender assignment. Many colors are viewed differently. For example, in Asia, both brides and babies are more likely to be dressed in red, the color of celebration. In contrast, white is actually considered a color of mourning. The "blue is for boys, pink is for girls" tradition is truly a recent and creative Western innovation.