There's an app for THAT?

Let's play a game.

First, watch this video:



Now sit for a while. Contemplate humanity. Try not to cry, hard as it is, and we'll dive in together to see what exactly just happened to you.

No, it wasn't the apocalypse, though it was pretty close. Nope, it was just Pepsi Co.'s newest attempt to corner the you-youngins-and-your-interwebs market using the latest technology in an NC-17 app for your iPhone, called "AMP Up Before You Score". And what does the AMP Energy drink app do? It helps you do some shallow research about a certain type of girl that leads directly to you hooking up with said girl, then bragging about it to all your friends, all on your handy-dandy iPhone. To make identifying the perfect pick-up lines and hangouts best for that not-too-special somebody easy, the app breaks girls down into twenty-four neato little categories. They're fun things like Cougar, Sorority Girl, Goth Girl, Nerd, Married, Princess, Treehugger, and my personal favorite, Women's Studies Major.

It's almost worth getting the app just to find out exactly what killer lines it suggests you read awkwardly off of your iPhone to start these promising conversations, and what it suggests you do once the lucky lady learns you've categorized her based on an iPhone app's illustration and plan on tweeting all about her after you've done the deed.

So what's the problem here? There's the complete awkward mental-visual I now have of some unlucky boy coming up to me, red cup in hand, to read lines out of his iPhone and then suggest we take this conversation to my favorite organic food store or local black box theatre or whatever it is they recommend for whatever he's deemed my type to be. And of course, everybody knows what you're drinking at those killer parties on fraternity row...Pepsi products. Hells yeah.

But besides the obvious lack of practicality, what's the main issue? The categorizing of women into stereotypical categories? The way the app views sleeping with a woman as conquest? The need to brag about sexual conquest to friends via tweet or status update? The inane move of a company to target its product at only the male portion of the population? That Pepsi Co. also creates a bro-stereotype of men as seeking only to sleep with as many women as possible, which excludes even more consumers from feeling like they're part of the target audience?

Honestly, I don't know what the worst part of this app is. I couldn't tell you. I can just tell you that I find it disturbing, laughably disturbing. It's almost a farce. Hilarious if looked at in a certain light. So much so that...is it? Is it a joke?

Well, that's the main discussion going on about this app, besides initial understandable outrage. But it makes me wonder if it matters. So what if it is a joke? It's a joke in bad taste. Who would find this so funny that it would make them buy Pepsi products? Apparently there's been a lot of chatter about how this is just a joke and how people should lighten up and stop being offended. While I find it funny that people would think that making an app like this would get them anything but bad publicity, apparently people elsewhere (in the scariest of comment conversations) find it funny in a non-heartbreaking way. To me, that's the most disturbing part. Not that such a thing was even made, but that people are defending its creation and cannot see the offensive nature of the product. I mean, you see it, right?

Luckily the good folks over at Jezebel have also noticed this and their comment section is actually brimming with brilliancy instead of mourn-inducing shouting matches. One commenter provided this link to the Mountain Dew website where you can complain about the AMP Energy drink app, and which I would highly encourage. One of my favorite comments was "You'd never see RC Cola pulling this shit."

Well, after a hard day's blogging I'm just dying for a cold drink. Coke, anyone?

Oh Come On Whoopi, Not You Too!

I've found myself disgusted lately with all of this uproar among celebrities about the Roman Polanski case. I've posted here the video of Whoopi Goldberg's defense of Polanski and her odd distinction between two imagined terms: "rape" and "rape-rape".

Now, I don't watch "The View" regularly, as shocking as that might seem. I find it only makes me frustrated with people for bickering so heatedly about things I feel they rarely understand entirely, or in such a removed-from-all-logic way that I feel my head might explode. So when I heard news of Whoopi's controversial remarks about Polanski online I had to look up the video myself.

I'll be honest. I'm disappointed in Hollywood. We all know it's true that, for the most part, celebrities can pretty much get away with things us mere mortals could never be proud of. But do they really need to make it so obvious that there's a drastic difference between the rules us regular joes play by and the ones the celebrities have? I mean, all the arguments make the case the same way, in the most simple, logical and irrefutable terms.

Roman Polanski raped a child.

Now, it's not rape because she was young. It's rape because she said no repeatedly. She was given champagne and a Quaalude. No matter her age, no matter whether or not her mother said it was ok, the girl said no. And isn't that what we all learned in sex-ed was the difference between it being consensual and it being rape?

I guess some people (see video of Whoopi) didn't learn that in middle school. I guess basically everyone on that petition has really thought it over in their minds and decided that Polanski fleeing the country in fear of being reprimanded too harshly for a crime that he partially admitted to was the best possible moral decision for him at that time. I guess making movies that people like is like a free pass to commit as many crimes as you want, as long as you flee the country. I guess being a rapist is something that should be applauded by your peers if you're enough of a talented human being.

I guess the world is upside down, but at least Saturday Night Live can still give me a little bit of hope that maybe all of my favorite celebrities aren't terrible people.

Meandering Thoughts About Sexist TV

So I'm clearly not the first to notice the trends of broad gender stereotyping on basically every kind of television show a human being can access, but I still feel like part of an odd minority of American viewers who actually realize what's happening on TV.

Maybe it's sitcoms that have, for the most part, been really bothering me. I think that's due in part to my TV habits not being the world's greatest, in that I'll visually consume nearly anything that's on as long as it's...well, on. So in my youth (ok, in my last summer) I saw a lot of those shows. You know, those shows? According to Jim? King of Queens? Yes, Dear? Two and a Half Men? Those shows that people like to say "Well look, the women in these shows are smart and thin and witty! It's the men that are dumb now! Isn't that a great step for society?" about? (Well, maybe Two and a Half Men needs to be in its own group wherein it isn't even operating under the pretense that it's being genderly equal and is just blatantly offensive to me as a viewer.)

There's a great discussion going on over at Alas, a blog about sexism in modern day sitcoms that you really should check out if you know not what I type.

But, before I devolve into a discussion of the terrible problems in most sitcoms (for a little bit of hope that not everything out there is complete trash, all How I Met Your Mother fans should read this article and take a little heart, or just watch some Seinfeld and let Elaine do the healing for you) I'd like to get to my actual point in posting this odd quasi-discussion.

I've been doing a lot of blog-browsing this week and have been searching endlessly for anyone talking about the gender inequality evident in children's cartoons or TV shows geared toward children under the age of 12. As a kid who wanted to be the red ranger and didn't understand why I always had to pretend to be the lame pink ranger at recess, I feel like the shows kids watch might be equally sexist, but much more dangerous, as they are targeted towards kids who learn a lot more from TV than most people like to think. It's really just a wondering I've been throwing around ever since I read part of a weird article about the gendering of good versus evil characters in Pokemon. Ever since I've been trying to think of a female Pokemon, but all I can come up with is Jigglypuff or maybe Togepi (Misty's weird egg I used to hate from the TV show), though they may just be effeminate male creatures.

So I'll hopefully be diving in to some more research on this topic later, but will keep my eye out for more brilliant discussion going on elsewhere in the blogosphere, and will keep you posted.

Sexism? Sure, if it's Short

Those diamond store ads always bothered me. Whether it's the sentiment that "Every kiss begins with K" or that "A diamond is forever", it's just a joy to see the idea that most women prefer something glittery and brag-able than anything real or meaningful from another human being. Basically, only sparkling diamonds can stave the gnawing hunger of the she-beast, and any attempts at a connection are only valuable if you put a ring on it. Beyonce knew what she was talking about.

In some perverse way, I like commercials. The tiny snippets in between show breaks aren't my opportunity to run to the fridge, they're a chance to get a look into how companies think I think, not to sound ridiculous. But come on. Most marketing campaigns are completely transparent, and seeing the strings in the system makes me feel like some secret superhero. Or someone with too much time on her hands. So I loved this article from Cracked about TV ads that hate women. Those Yoplait ads were always grating. I also love the series of More Commercials I Can't Stand over at Appetite for Equal Rights, which is entertaining while simultaneously being terribly depressing.

So what is it about commercials that makes them so prone to sexism? Is it just that there are so many commercials out there? Are commercials a chance for people to say what they really want to say, offensive as it may be? Is it sexism that sells?

I think commercials are trying so hard to address one certain crowd that they rely on stereotypes to reach what they consider their target audience. So if I'm trying to sell laundry soap I look at the complicated mathy numbers (I'm a creative writing major, not a scientist) , and the numbers tell me that women make up a large portion of my laundry-soap-buyers are women. So I make commercials about women, for women, that will convince those women that buy laundry soap to buy my laundry soap. So it makes sense logically to target a specific audience in some commercials, but do we really need to make the lines so distinct? Do only women do laundry? If women buy the laundry soap, maybe it's women paying attention to the commercials, and maybe they don't really like being shown as a boring mom who has to do all the chores. I know I can't identify with that, and I'm as much a laundry soap purchaser as anyone.

Where God Meets Girl

Sitting down to my nightly computering, I thought to myself "Hey, I seem to like feminist blogs a lot. I wonder what other ones are out there right now, saying enlightened, meaningful things that I haven't yet heard?" My old friend google gave me a whole list of feminist blogs, and one of those little beauties is a place called Feministe, one of my favorite blogs so far.

Feministe declares itself one of the oldest feminist blogs, and this one's as much an oldie/goodie as is Doris Day. Feministe features guest bloggers of a wide variety, which makes reading it seem like a wondrous chorus of beautiful angels. Or also like a lot of people blogging. Whichever image works for you.

One of the guest bloggers that caught my eye was Aunt B, especially in her post about her personal search for a more feminist-friendly religion. She takes what may, on the surface, seem a confrontational post about her personal unhappiness with the Christian religion, and turns it into an open and honest discussion of just what about Christianity made her seek a religion elsewhere. She prefaces her whole argument with a parenthetical warning to all those who would assume she's making a personal attack. I particularly love her use of the phrase "woo-woo crap", and so loved the way in which she phrases her preface that I've posted it here for you to enjoy as well.

(I probably don’t need to do this, but let me just say that the following post is going to contain a bunch of woo-woo crap. If that’s not your thing, please don’t make a big issue about how stupid it is or how I’m going to Hell or how we all need to embrace Christianity or secular humanism or whatever. I understand that, if you’re born and raised in certain religious traditions, the kinds of stuff that may come up here can be very shocking and distressing. I also understand that, if you think that spirituality is hokum, the urge to share how stupid and deluded people with religious beliefs are can be overwhelming. I’m still going to ask y’all to treat anyone who will share openly with respect. And I will try to talk gracefully and unselfconsciously about it, myself.)

I think it's not just in her conversational tone that she conveys her very playful, yet simultaneously serious subject matter that make her extremely likeable as a guest blogger. It's this disclaimer before the post that makes me think "Hey, this lady's watching out for her audience." She comes right out of the gate ready to not offend people, but to open an honest conversation about two things that are usually touchy subjects for some people. The questions she poses to her readers at the end of her post tell me that she really does want to engage the reader in a dialogue, rather than preach at them (pun intended, but also apologized for). Her writing is flexible, fallible, and conversational, making her seem all the more honest for it.

I Can Never Ignore Buffy for Too Long

So it comes to no surprise that my first actual entry is devoted to a discussion of feminism...and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With a strong female lead and a brilliant set of supporting characters, Buffy pleads the case that all hope for the modern world is not lost. And that's not just because Buffy Summers always finds a way to save the world.

A rather insightful blog that discusses Buffy and its feminist themes is this ain't livin', a site authored by s. e. smith (penname meloukia) that covers topics from health care to Harry Potter and everything in between. smith updates her blog quite often, and most of her posts are rather lengthy, but in-depth and chock full of witty wisdom and insightful social commentary.

Recently on her blog, smith has written a series of examinations into how Joss Whedon’s shows reflect his personal claims of being a feminist, and if his work stands up as a reflection of his personal beliefs, or if his beliefs are sacrificed for the sake of plot and audience size. She warns her audience numerous times that it isn't her right in any way to judge Joss's personal beliefs or to revoke his feminist card, and I think she succeeds in never judging his beliefs on their own, just the choices he makes as a key component of the show. I cannot wait to tackle this very same topic of whether or not Buffy holds up as a feminist character.

In her article on female empowerment in Buffy, smith discusses Buffy’s relationships with Angel, Riley, and Spike, and the role that Willow and Joyce play in the series. It’s an article founded on a plethora of evidence from the show, and which requires a certain amount of background Buffy-knowledge. Her article on demons and Slayers is a follow-up to her first article, and dives into the other Slayers and Slayer-potentials and the demons that are featured each week on Buffy. These articles provide a great basis for future debate about whether or not Buffy is a good example of a feminist show, or if it’s just Joss’s personal opinions and the lens through which one looks that provide the basis for any opinions one might form.These articles provide a thorough discussion of exact particulars that would support the argument for Buffy being as feminist as some may claim, but also gives the differing side of the argument, detailing in which ways Buffy fails as an exemplar of gender equality in prime time television.

Where smith fails, however, is in giving the show some deserved wiggle room. In the end, Buffy wasn’t made in a vacuum, and had to be accepted by network executives. In terms of how progressive it is, one has to look at the culture in which it was made, and the other forces that controlled the show. Though smith recognizes that “it’s hard to be consistently on message for 7 seasons”, she also berates Joss for incorporating a character like Jenny Calendar, saying that she was used simply as a plot device and that her existence in the show “is another case of a situation in which feminism had to take a back seat to storytelling”. It’s in details like this that smith’s opinion differs from my own. While it would be nice to think that the sole purpose of Buffy would be to fight the battle for feminism, it wasn’t. Buffy had to be a compelling drama, and though I recognize that the title of “compelling drama” doesn’t give a show free reign to be as anti-feminist as possible, it’s clear that a scripted show without plot or variant characters wouldn’t last terribly long on prime-time television, even if it were spouting the most honest social theory. While smith’s articles on Whedon’s work bring up many good points and backs up those assertions with ample evidence, there are many holes in the argument made.

It is those holes that I would like to dutifully fill in my upcoming posts, and I would like to just as thoroughly dissect what it is about BtVS that makes it feminist television. this ain't livin' provides solid groundwork for the upcoming debate I would like to make in favor of Buffy being a mostly gender-equal view of life, and that Whedon’s personal beliefs do, for the most part, make it through to the final cut.