Project Idea: T-Swift Inspired by Tinder

Mobile dating applications have become increasingly popular with our generation. They are conveniently accessible by one’s phone, which our generation seems to be physically attached to, and are often free. Why not kill some time by looking at people that may be interested in dating you? Not only are they convenient, but they are crazy addictive. I, myself, have the application called Tinder and have frequently found myself simply swiping left or right whenever I find down time. Half the time, I am not even actually looking for a prospective match! It is simply entertaining to see the pictures that people will post and the funny things that men come up with as their bio. For my final project, I want to find a possible answer to the following question: have mobile dating apps increased my generation’s public display or views of sexuality? To answer this question, I want to explore personal narratives about experiences people had with mobile dating apps. There have been many popular magazine articles that have featured people’s experiences with Tinder and other mobile dating apps. Upon some research, I came across an analysis done by a psychotherapist. She stated that our generation is more apt to do things that are morally vague but is also less concerned with being labeled as a slut because of the access we have to these mobile dating apps. In response to this information, I also want to analyze Taylor Swift’s popular song “Shake It Off” to expose my generation’s tendency to undervalue our peer’s criticisms of our sexuality.  Hopefully if there has been a change in our sexuality because of these technological advances for our social interactions, we can at least become aware of the change. 

Project Idea

For my project, I think I'd like to examine the differences in portrayal of men and women concerning overweight status in popular music in the last decade. I'd like to look at the differences in stigma associated with this and how these portrayals may be shifting the cultural norms concerning what is acceptable for each gender. I think it would also be interesting to examine the effects of these songs' positivity/negativity, psychologically, in response to these songs, and the coincidental prevalence of obesity in recent years and how much this form of media could be contributing to any changes in the rates.

Examples of songs that I've though of to include in this analysis as of now include "All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor, "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj, "Try" by Colbie Caillat, "Booty" by Iggy Azalea, "Red Cup" by E40, "Secrets" by Mary Lambert, "Big Girl" by MIKA "No Mediocre" by T.I., "White Dude" by Lil Dicky, and "One More Drink" by Ludacris. Obviously, I'm open to suggestions on more material to include.

I'm in the beginning stages of looking into this project, but there are some secondary sources I've found concerning psychological effects of deviating from the cultural norms (according to weight status) and perception of weight between the sexes. I've also been able to find reviews stating various opinions on both positive and negative portrayals of overweight individuals.

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas!

Diversity Symposium

Annual USD Diversity Symposium

Thursday, March 26, 2015

10:30 am -- 5:00 pm

Muenster University Center Ballroom



Check-in (10:30)

Zach Wahls, Keynote Speaker (10:45 am)

Brown Bag Lunch Dialogue (12:00 pm)

Concurrent Workshops (1:00 -- 3:45 pm)

--Islam 101

--When is Race Real and When is it Not?

--Where We have Come From and Where We Are Going: Feminism for 2015

--TRANS 101: The Transgender Community

Closing & Reception (4:00 pm)

Game of Thrones Final Project

For my final project, as I have said from day one, will be focusing on the wedding night scene between Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. Now, I love the television series and its corresponding book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, but there can be no doubt that these particular pieces of pop culture are extremely violent, sexual, and vulgar. The particular scene that I will be concentrating on occurs in the very first episode of the T.V. show and the eleventh chapter of the first novel. Essentially, it happens pretty early on in the series.

By the time of this scene, which I will argue is a rape scene in the show and not in the books, the viewer of the television show has already seen about a dozen dead bodies, a man get his head chopped off, what appears (at first glance anyway) a frozen zombie-like being, four naked women having a five-some with Tyrion, at the wedding between Daenerys and Drogo people (not the married couple) have sex openly and kill each other over sex partners and other minor insults, Daenerys herself stripped naked, basically felt up by her brother, wear a nearly see-through dress, and forced into a marriage that she absolutely fears (to say the girl’s life sucks is an unimaginable understatement).

I am pretty sure that there is enough violence and sex and combination of the two in this first episode to keep viewers interested, and all of this occurs in the books. Thus the added violence of raping Daenerys seems completely unnecessary. In the book, she does cry and try to converse and plead with her new husband that does not understand much of her language, but he is able to tell her that he does understand the word no and does not have sex with her until saying “no?” and her saying “yes.” Not rape. In the show, Drogo repeatedly says no, but there is no understanding from Daenerys, there is no tenderness, there is no yes. Instead, the strong, older, dark skinned man, who Daenerys’s own brother calls a savage, pushes the white, blonde, younger Daenerys to the ground and consummates their marriage.

I will be looking at why this marriage (which is one of the few happy and loving marriages in the series) starts off with a rape instead of the consensual act that it is in the book. In particular I will look at through the racial lens, because Khal Drogo is one of the few ethnically diverse characters in the first season (and basically the show overall). Why is it so unbelievable for his marriage to Daenerys to start off happy and consensually? Why is this rape added if not to boost ratings for the show? Those are some of the questions I hope to answer.

Final Project

For my final project,  I am interested in looking at lyrics in today's rap/hip-hop music. I want to do a comparison of female and male artists and what each commonly raps about. I believe I will get my music selection from iTunes top tracks, or maybe from the top 100 of the week or something similar. I want to pick several words and look to see how often each are used. I will analyze the overall song themes with the title itself and the lyrics. I want to see how women and men portray the opposite sex - do women rap about men having lots of money and do men rap about women having big booties? Or is there more to just those characteristics? I suppose I'm also looking at the misogyny in rap music. I think it will be important to look at a brief history of this music as well as short biographies of these artists in order to fully understand the song's context. I will have to see if any similar research has been done on this topic, which it probably has.

This topic interests me because the rap/hip-hop community have a big influence on its listeners. Women rappers especially seem to be gaining popularity. I want to see if there are underlying themes in most of the songs that are more....positive?....than sex, drugs, and money.

Voices of Discovery

I participated in the Voices of Discovery group that focused on Gender and Sexuality. On the first night, we all went around and introduced ourselves to each other and than dived right into discussing gender roles. We listed off typical male and female behavior, both good and bad, and than our facilitators had as attempt to decide where we all fell on the gender spectrum.  The point was to demonstrate that most people do not fit into those binary gender boxes, instead they fall somewhere in between, which most of us did.  Our discussion then continued to various other topics.  I remember sharing some very personal information with my group that night, which is very atypical for me as I am a very private person, but I felt extremely comfortable and felt that I could add to the discussion because of my own personal experience.

At the end of every meeting, our facilitators would hand out a form in which we could suggest topics that we wanted to discuss the next night. I really enjoyed that they were interested in letting us pick the topics, because I believe that it created an atmosphere that encouraged discussion.

Some of the topics that we discussed included: gay marriage, transgender issues, sex education, rape culture, polyamorous relationships, 50 Shades of Grey, and many others. One of my favorite discussions had to do with transgender and gender non-conforming parenting.  We talked about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s daughter Shiloh.  Shiloh was born biologically a girl, but she has made the decision to wear typical “boy” clothing and have short hair.  Angelina and Brad both have fully supported Shiloh in her decisions, and have allowed her to explore whatever gender she choses to be.  Most of our group supported their parenting style, and had no issues with allowing Shiloh wear and do things that are typically consider boy behavior.  I thought that was really cool that our generation, well at least those in my group, were completely fine with the idea of a young child exploring their identity any way they want to! We also had a guest speaker come in and lead a discussion one night.  She had gone to grad school for Gender and Sexuality, and she had some very interesting points of view on some topics and our discussion that night went to many different places.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience with Voices of Discovery.  I loved learning about so many different topics and learning other peoples opinions as well as having my own challenged.

Voices of Discovery

I'm like others in the fact that I believe that the Voices of Discovery program is an awesome concept, but is poorly executed, although I think my reasoning behind that statement is different than others'.
I was enrolled in the "Micro-Aggressions" session on Thursday evenings.  I think that my discussion leader was great about asking us questions and getting everyone to participate in discussions, ice-breakers, and activities. He was very informed, inviting, and had no trouble sharing his own thoughts and feelings on an issue- however, it felt as if others did!

As I have been for most of my life, I was the only colored/biracial/non-white person in my session. I was surrounded mainly by white females, with only a few white males at each discussion. I felt safe and comfortable enough to share my own, sometimes even brutally, honest opinions, along with my own experiences, both positive and negative. But, when it was others' turn to share, I felt as if a lot of them were not being completely honest and open. I am not trying to undermine or question anyone's thoughts or life experiences, but some just did not add up to me; I felt as if some people stated the answers that made them sounds better as people (aka less racist or prejudiced) or even just what they thought that the non-white director wanted to hear... For example, we completed an activity that was meant to enable us to identify and realize the stereotypes that we exercise in our everyday lives by having us list the first thing that popped into our mind when we heard a tagline of a fake newspaper article, such as "Two Teens Arrested in Park on Drug Related Charges." For that example, I listed the words "minorities, young men, urban area" because, as much as I hate to admit the fact that those are the first things I think of when I hear the title, I was trying to be as real as possible.
A few other people in my group wrote down similar things, but the majority of participants would write politically correct things like "wrong path in life," or "teens make bad choices", or some other fake bs like that. I only say fake bs because they had those same kinds of answers for EVERYTHING; okay, sorry, but no one is that perfect. The worst part was that those people who had claimed not to have ever used a stereotype in their entire life were the same ones who claimed not to be racist because they "had a friend who was black in high school."

What do I know- maybe they really do only think positive thoughts about people and really have never given into classifying someone or something by the stereotype that society has set, but I find that to be very unlikely. I wish that people would be more concerned about honesty and openness rather than fitting in or sounding like a good person; I believe that the only way to solve these issues about race, prejudice, or micro-aggressions is to lay them all out in the open and discuss them without feeling like you have to walk on eggshells to protect someone's feelings. Just my opinion. Other than that, I learned a lot about my topic and enjoyed the discussions!