Blog Post #3

Most of the advertisements I came across were pushing beauty standards and were aimed at women in particular. In today’s society, women are constantly being force fed and influenced to pursue a certain standard or image, much like the ones they say in everyday advertisements. For instance, there was an article I came across were a woman had laid out her outfits for each day of the week.  In another, there was a woman author who wrote about how people were calling her “brave” and admiring her authenticity of herself by refusing to dye her hair and cover up the gray hairs she had. Many of the advertisements I came across were beauty products such as cologne or makeup or fashion items. There were also articles that talked about weight loss and slimming down products as well. The advertisements I came across were mostly marketed towards young women and there always seemed to be a sexual component tied in with the ad, which indicates that there is a male point of view invested in these ads as well. These ads were meant to appeal to the self confidence levels of regular, everyday women and were aimed to make them feel bad about themselves so they can go out and purchase these products.  The magazines definitely had a bias when it came to the levels of beauty and were communicating a message that says if you don’t use our specific brand of products, you are not attractive. The ads specifically used attractive spokespeople and celebrities, such as Blake Lively, to market towards their target audience. In my own opinion, I believe that having one or two of these kinds of advertisements would not have as big of an impact on the women’s target market. However, when every single ad is pushing out a specific standard of beauty, it becomes a problem. The repetition of these kinds of images on a constant basis is what’s driving these astronomical levels of beauty standards in modern society. I think articles such as the weight loss article I mentioned earlier are the kinds of ads we need in today’s world. It promoted a positive outlook on everyday body image issues and it gave its readers a sense of hope. That while, yes, they may not look like the women in the advertisements, they can still set and achieve their own goals by looking at the real life role models they read about it.

Blog Post #2

Growing up, I’ve always known the stereotypes of the native and indigenous groups before the European 
settlers. The facepaint, feathers, loud drums, and dancing around the fires late at night are all images that I’ve
seen in movies growing up. The most stereotypical scene I saw depicting Native Americans were the ones in 
the movie Peter Pan and the Indian in the Cupboard. In my opinion, the depiction of Native Americans are
not much different than how blacks and hispanics are portrayed. People living in the outdoors with minimal 
clothes on, shouting in different languages and hunting animals. I believe that these assumptions are 
where the ideology of white supremacy starts from. The ideas that Europeans have these technological 
advancements such as guns, concepts of business and formal education, clothing, and religion are used 
as evidence in support of these racist ideals.

I think the effects of these portrayals leads to the further justification of the genocide of Native Americans. 
People who view the culture of Native Americans as poor and savage may often justify the treatment of the 
tribes by saying things such as “we civilized them by bringing them the Bible” or “taught them to be apart 
of a more advanced culture.” In effect, I think this also contributes to the nonchalant attitudes when it comes
to issues affecting the Native American tribes in this day in age. For example, the North Dakota pipeline 
protests received almost no media coverage from the big news corporations until violence erupted during 
the demonstrations. If these protests were peaceful, there would be no coverage and the oil companies would 
have won out against the protestors relatively easy.

Native Americans should be seen as they truly are: people. I think the best way to start on shattering the 
media-bred stereotypes of Native Americans is to start with the education in elementary schools. Instead of 
just talking about the Trail of Tears, why not talk about famous Native American leaders and their 
accomplishments to today’s society? Why not go into depth about Native American culture? Explaining the
differences in culture for the different tribes in different parts of the culture will definitely help to get rid 
of the notion that ALL Native Americans look the same. Talking about the traditional purposes of wearing 
animal hide or what different face painting styles mean will also help to counteract against the savage
Indian stereotype.

However, the most important way to battle stereotypes of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds is 
to have face to face interactions with people that are different than your own self. Unfortunately for Native 
Americans in particular, this is definitely easier easier said than done. I propose that schools in states 
with a long history of Native American oppression should schedule field trips to historic sites so students 
can get a feel of the experiences the tribes experienced during their oppression. However, the first step 
in battling stereotypes, is to have an actual conversation with someone and get a glimpse at their 
different life experiences.