mr. roboto

I am a human being. Why does Blogger keep making me reaffirm this fact? I want to stop spam just as much as the next person, but are the insanely long and sometimes indecipherable security codes absolutely necessary? It makes me want to give up and not post comments which is sort a self defeating outcome, right? Stop accusing me of being a robot, it's getting insulting.

en francais

Familiar media can be comforting. I've been traveling in Europe and have found that American media makes me feel not so far from home. I'm staying with an American family right now and everything from American music to tv is something we all cling to. They have liked having me around to use American slang and talk about Ryan Gosling as well as the latest viral videos. The media contributes to our inherent Americanness for better, or for worse.

Swiss Miss

Yesterday I arrived in Switzerland. To put it mildly, my French is rusty. However, one of the easiest things to understand is advertisements. Advertisements are designed to be simple and easy to understand in only a few seconds. While I may not understand all the words I can usually get the main idea of the ad and recognize the product or service offered.

I am woman

In honor of Women's Day this week lets talk about some things. I'm currently an intern with an NGO called the Worldwide Organization for Women. I am what some would call a feminist, but shouldn't all women be feminists? Should we not work towards empowering one another and advocating for the rights of all women? But I digress, what I really want to talk about it art. I love art in all it's forms. I have a minor in art history and have always loved visiting museums. Last night my friend and I went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. As we wandered through an amazing exhibit of work by Picasso, Manet and Matisse I was struck by the difference of depiction of men and women. One of the rooms of the exhibit had numerous paintings of nude women. I don't generally have a problem with nudity in art, but something about these paintings bothered me. I realized that in every painting the women were shown either from behind or from an oblique side angle which obscured their faces and they did not face the viewer. The one male portrait in the room however, showed a seated man, fully clothed who confronted the viewer with his gaze, showing his face. The particular combination of artworks in that room made evident an underlying gender inequality. I had not before considered these beautiful paintings as objectifying women, but that is what they do. While the man was able to sit fully dressed and facing the viewer, the women were on display, with or without their permission, with their faces hidden. As I considered these works of art and the male gaze for which they were created I concluded that they were not so different from images still created today. The male gaze has immense power and influence in modern media, just as it had historically. Ad campaigns with sexy themes and innuendo are meant to appeal to the male viewer and his gaze. Magazines encourage women to put themselves on display for the male gaze under the guise that it will be empowering. But will it? Does putting yourself on display get a women respect and power? The answer is no. While the art I enjoyed was peaceful and not overtly sexual the women were objects, not people. Let's not try to empower ourselves by becoming objects for men to gaze on.

SNL

Remember when Saturday Night Live used to be funny? Remember when Lindsey Lohan used to be cute? I just watched this weeks episode of SNL with Lindsey Lohan and it wasn't funny at all. I don't know who is writing for the show now, but i feel like the last shreds of humor left with Tina Fey. No all the funny people are hanging out at 30 Rock and Kristin Wigg can't carry the whole show by herself. Let's bring Steve Martin and Will Ferrel and Molly Shannon back.

drive me crazy

I just watched a video online of Ryan Gosling breaking up a a street fight in New York. Remember how just 6 or 7 years ago youtube was just starting and you could only record 10 seconds of video on your phone? All I can say is that I'm glad we're putting technology to good use. and I love Ryan Gosling. I just watched Drive a couple days ago with some friends and it was life changing.


Hey girl.