Category Archives: Movies

Face Strip Down

Celebrities of the musical variety are using their powers for good! They’re using their talents to stand up and go public about their distaste with how the media is portraying false beauty standards, as reality. And I love it. First, Lorde took to her Twitter page by showing a side-by-side photo comparison of her in concert. Now, Colbie Caillet, the beach vibe singer is making her voice heard and her face seen through her new music video “Try.” In the video, Caillet along with several women of all ages, shapes and colors strip down. No, not stripped down like they’re starring in a rap music video. They’re stripping down their faces. One woman after another wipes off her make-up and lets down her hair in exchange for basking in her “au natural” glory! I adore this concept, and in fact it inspired me to go make-up-free all weekend. Even when I attempted to cheat and dabbed on some mascara, the wand stabbed me in the eye. Karma. Make-up is the real life Photoshop, it makes flaws disappear with the sweep of a brush or a dab of a sponge. But who said they were flaws to begin with? It’s safe to say that the media played a large role in pointing out others flaws, which then make us think, from viewing the media, “well if I look like that, then am I flawed?” We start to question, we start to hide behind who we really are in exchange for what society wants us to be. And before we realize we’re looking in the mirror not knowing who’s staring back at us. Caillet’s lyrics give beauty ideals the one-two punch. HIIIYAAH! Her lyrics zoom way in to the thought that, you know, being you is enough. She sings:

Take your make-up off Let your hair down Take a breath Look into the mirror, at yourself Don’t you like you? Cause I like you

A message that Bruno Mars can stand behind: “girl, you’re amazing just the way you are.” You just have to believe it, for everyone else to do the same.

Have you ever gone make up free? Would you? If you have, was your experience difficult or invigorating!?

Hey Internet, here’s me sans make-up. It’s freeing and really quite scary. GAH!

update: My friend and fellow blogger Jess brought my attention to John Legend’s new song You & I (Nobody in the World) that was just released this month and it sends a similar message to Caillet’s—”you don’t have to try” because being your true self, without all the glitz and glam, is the best part about you. This video speaks 1000+ words!

The Teen Movie Cocktail—Shaken Not Stirred

We’ve all watched them at sleepovers, rewatched them, and quoted them while out to lunch with friends. Teen movies were the epicenter of all things and they were relatable because the teenage years are typically a time of relationship and identity growth and struggle (#strugglebus), which is why there is a distinct recipe for many teen movies that started back in the 1950s, developed through the ‘80s and ended with what we are familiar with as “the teen movie” from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

After spending several Sundays cuddled up on my couch watching and rewatching teen movies, I forced myself to get physical, physical focused and put my analytical panties on instead of quoting every scene verbatim. I viewed two classic classic movies, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and The Breakfast Club (1985). I also viewed four teen films from the 1990s and early 2000s, She’s All That, Never Been Kissed, Mean Girls, and 10 Things I Hate About You, all of which I now consider classics (of my time) as well.

From our Teen Movie Cocktail we concocted above one of the most used ingredients was character type. So let’s plug our noses and hold our breath as we take the plunge off the diving board into a deep pool of character types.

In the beginning of 10 Things I Hate About You and Mean Girls a minor character showed the main character around explaining the rules of high school and the different cliques and stereotypes. A few of the labels mentioned in those two movies were “burnouts,” “sexually active band geeks,” “girls who eat their feelings,” “cool Asians,” and “white Rastafarians,” just to name a few. The most frequently represented cliques were the popular crew and the losers. While not all the movies I’ve seen included such a blatant introductory scene, almost all were populated by stock character types.

Pop.u.lar.—

The Queen Bee
[ leader of her pack, trend-setter, mostly aloof ]
One such character was the popular girl or “queen bee” who is wealthy, naïve, and snobby (cue hair flip). Often she was seen leaving campus in her convertible car enroute to the mall with pals. One character that screamed “queen bee,” is Regina George from the movie Mean Girls. She was the one with the silver Lexus convertible, long blonde hair, designer clothes, a room the size of a house, and rules for the lunch table— “on Wednesday’s we wear pink.” Her girl crew was appropriately given the name “The Plastics,” teen royalty. The audience knew Regina was the “queen bee” when Cady (the new girl in school) was trying to sabotage Regina’s reputation and cut two holes in her tank top showing off Regina’s bra. It wasn’t long until every girl in school was sporting this idiotic fashion “trend.” Regina is “the Barbie Doll I never had.”

The Breakfast Club. Claire the Queen Bee in pink. image from ign.com movie review.

The popular girl image hasn’t changed much from the Rebel Without a Cause and The Breakfast Club eras but its attitude has (oh snap!) from the coy, sweet and kind to the dominant “mean girl.” For example, Judy from Rebel Without a Cause came from a wealthy family, (which is safe to assume from the interior of the family home), however she was as sweet as could be. She also was a tad naïve when it came to falling in love. Claire of The Breakfast Club was the “princess.” She wore diamond earrings and brought sushi for lunch, claiming her elite status, however, through her dialogue she didn’t seem as stuck up or outspoken as Regina George in Mean Girls. One thing that separated Judy and Claire from the mean girls of the current films was the fact that they confessed their weaknesses and their dislike with their popular status. These factors humanized these characters, however, an emotional confession was never heard from the popular girls in the current films.

The Jock
[ swoon-worthy, athletic, little to no brain waves ]

Character from She’s All That sports a letterman jacket to identify his “jock” status. image from kron.buzznet.com

There was the popular boy or “jock” that was always charming, sometimes conceded, good looking and ruled the school. He was the guy who got high fives for no reason while walking through the locker-lined halls. Often times the popular boy was struggling with the future and growing out of his popularity. A prime example of this is the character, Zach, played by Freddie Prinze Jr. in She’s All That (bats eyelashes). He was always sporting his letter jacket, representing his status, and a smile that melted every girl’s heart. Though he was portrayed in this stereotypical light, he was also very intelligent as the class president and a senior that got accepted into Ivy League schools like Yale and Harvard. This was a rarity in teen films. In Mean Girls, Aaron Samuels, the hot senior boy that all “The Plastics,” wanted attention from, was a soccer player that lacked the talent it took to succeed in calculus. Too often males are portrayed with less intelligence because the more important qualities are that they are athletic all-stars and practicing courtship on the popular girls to enhance their social standing. Andy from The Breakfast Club was the typical jock, pressured to excel on the wrestling mat from his dad and coaches. He was always wearing his letter jacket and packed a hefty lunch of four sandwiches. Joey the conceded male model in 10 Things I Hate About You focused on his good looks, often catching reflections of himself in glass throughout the school day so he could fix his hair.

The Mean Girl
[ socially aggressive, revenge seeking, fake front ]

Cady cuts holes in Regina's shirt after gym class and it becomes a fashion trend around school. image from templekids2011.wikispaces.com

Cady cuts holes in Regina’s shirt after gym class and it becomes a fashion trend around school. Peer pressure dictated by high school popularity standards. image from templekids2011.wikispaces.com

If a mean girl is defined as a character who is a direct user of socially aggressive behaviors that consists of “indirect aggression to damage another’s status or self-esteem spreading rumors, silent treatment, note passing, backstabbing, public of private humiliation.” Who really is the mean girl in Mean Girls? Is it Regina, who on the surface seemed to fit the mean mold? Nope. It was Cady who used socially aggressive tactics (listed above) to sabotage Regina’s life and “queen bee” reputation. Another set of “mean girls,” they always seem to come in a set, are the trio of girls from Never Been Kissed. Similar to “The Plastics,” they were always flaunting their bodies in revealing crop tops and short skirts. They picked on the nerdy math girl, Aldys or “Alpo,” as they called her. The last scene almost caused the biggest form of public humiliation for Aldys. The popular guy, Guy, (original, ha!) asked her to dance. While twirling around on the dance floor, one of the girls took out a can of Alpo dog food from her pink purse and got one of the popular guys to help pry it open. Just when they were about to dump it on Aldys, Josie (undercover journalist turned popular) yelled and hit the can and the dog food ended up landing on the trio of mean girls. Hey Karma, how you doin’?

Next week: how Outsiders or “losers” character type become Insiders, or a member of the Popular crew, with a quick wardrobe change. I smell a makeover sequence!

Moral Panic Mode: Parents

Kid culture is a relatively new(ish) phenomena defined by adults, (yup, guilty) who often have a clouded perspective of today’s youth. Adults view kids through the lens of moral panic. A moral panic occurs “when the official or press reaction to a deviant social or cultural phenomenon is ‘out of all proportion’ to the actual threat offered” (Mazzarella, 2007, 48). In addition, it is when a group is defined as a threat to the values of society and interests (Mazzarella, 2007). The purpose of the next 4 blog posts is to define how…

1) parents, 2) marketers, 3) journalists/documentarians, and 4) researchers aid in the development of the moral panic between adult culture and kid culture.

Distribution of media like CDs and DVDs has led to parents forming groups against these dispersal tactics. Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC) came on the scene in 1985, started by high profiled wives such as Tipper Gore, (ex)wife of then-senator Al Gore. Tipper Gore was shocked when she first heard the Prince song “Darling Nikki,” because the song references masturbation (Mazzarella, 2007). Though at the time the PMRC aimed to require all music, though predominately focused on heavy metal rock, to have a warning label if it contained explicit content inappropriate for children. Their passion spread to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 1990 the RIAA adopted the “Parental Advisory/Explicit Lyrics” label that we now see when visiting record stores (Mazzarella, 2007). Though the high profiled wives and mothers were able to have their voices heard around the country, most parents don’t have the luxury. And with the popularity of online music sales through iTunes, Spotify, etc. the world of music (TV, movies, etc) is WIDE open for kids with a computer or smartphone and a wifi connection, see: EVERY kid, has access to any and all music.

Parents are forced to create their own rules for use in their household from music and television to the Internet. “One approach is through ‘restrictive mediation,’ a practice in which parents make rules about amount or time of viewing allowed, define forbidden content, and use media as part of a reward or punishment system” (Bachen, 2007, 242). The younger the child the more rules are placed on when, where and for how long use can take place. Parents of adolescents may lower their guard when it comes to displaying their favorite media characters, simply because they have more control over it in the home. By letting their children take part in “adolescent room culture,” the bedroom becomes a place where he or she “engage in identity work and investigate their future possibilities through media,” (Fisherkeller, 2007, 229). However, as parents become more familiar with the medium, particularly the Internet, rules may evolve (Bachen, 2007).

“Parents are deeply fearful about the World Wide Web’s influence on their children, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s national survey of parents in computer households in the United States” (Aikat, 2005, 3). The Internet is a main concern because of the wide-range of freedom it gives children (Stern and Willis, 2007). Yet another reason why Facebook should have never left their college niche. “Teens have more autonomy to do, say and go where they wish than they have had historically” (Stern and Willis, 2007, 217). The three ways teenagers use the Internet is for communication, information seeking, and content creation. They communicate with their friends through ~~Instant Messaging,~~ (awww RIP, AIM) Facebook Messaging and Text Messaging with the phones they now have and the ripe age of eight. Damn you societal norms. They also use the Internet to seek information for school assignments and often complete those assignments now completely online. Now, more popular than ever kids are posting photos via Instagram, tweeting tweets they shouldn’t be during school hours and maybe writing the occasional blog post. Despite these uses parents are still concerned with access to “inappropriate” content.

Having the world’s information at the thumbs of your kids is scary sure with websites that have content about “eating disorders, bomb making, alcohol, smoking, and most of all, pornography,” parents are concerned teens who are seeking information about these topics will find an overload of information easily and those teens not seeking this type of information may accidently stumble upon it (Stern and Willis, 2007, 218; Aikat, 2005). For example, whitehouse.gov is the official website of the government establishment, but an unknowing teen may accidently type in the dot com (.com) address only to find explicit content. Note: It’s no longer an explicit site like it was when I was in sixth grade, but for the sake of argument…that example will do. Right? thanks.

But I have also found in recent talks with parents (disclaimer: I’m not a parent) that the “everybody’s-doing-it syndrome” is taking over. And as a parent it’s getting more difficult to just say “no” to requests like “everyone has a cellphone, mom” which can quickly elaborate to “everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, insert all the social networking tools here.”
So as a parent…what do you do? Do you give in? What age is an appropriate age to allow your son or daughter to handle the responsibility of a cellphone and online communications. Parents, I want to hear from you! Leave a comment!

It’s So Cliche [a guest post]

Today’s guest post [very first one ya’ll!!!!] is from Janna Hall of My Beautiful Catharsis and serves as reminder to all girls and women: stop being someone you’re not despite what the media is handing you daily and start being you! Because there’s no one else in this world that is better at being well…You! I couldn’t agree more! Around here at SGS we are constantly dissecting and beating those too present stereotypes to a pulp! Thanks to Janna for sharing her thoughts, inspiration and honesty!

It’s So Cliché…but “Be yourself; everyone else is taken” is a mantra that we need to carry on throughout our life. As kids, we grow up wanting to be like the girls on TV. My best friend and I couldn’t sit through a show or a movie without shouting, “I’M HER!” every time the prettiest girl came on the screen. For us, it was Clueless. From the moment Stacey Dash hops into Cher’s Jeep, we thought of every reason to ditch who we were and immediately wanted to look like, sound like, and be Dionne. Or the pink Power Ranger. Or Beyonce. Or in my best friend’s case, Britney. From a young age, we’re almost programmed to want to be everyone else, whether it’s a Disney princess, a pop icon, or the popular girl in school. It’s so wonderful to pretend, but what happens when we’re adults and realize that we’re actually not those women, nor will we ever be them? In the midst of our fantasies, we’ve grown to hate ourselves, not because of who we are, but because of who we aren’t. We aren’t those princesses. We aren’t those girls who, with one quick, flirty glance fall in love and live happily ever after with our Prince Charming. We aren’t those celebrities who have picture perfect bodies. We aren’t them. We are who we are. I am Janna. You are you. Somewhere down the path of pretending, we’ve placed more focus on the body we don’t have than our own reality. Somewhere down that path, we’ve snapped from fantasy land and traveled down the path of self-loathing. We’re obsessed with someone else’s beauty so much so that everything we see when we look in the mirror is repulsive. We’re so obsessed with someone else’s life that our own reality, no matter how fabulous it may be, seems worthless. We wander through life wanting to be someone else, while letting the person we were created to be wither away.

It saddens me to see people hate who they are. What’s the point? You will never be anyone but who you are, and to want anything but that is setting yourself up for disappointment. Society, nor a man, nor a celebrity, can or should make you feel like the person you are isn’t effing amazing. Because you are. And there’s no one quite like you.“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than you.”

Janna Hall

Graduating in 2010 from James Madison University with a degree in English, Janna left her hometown of Richmond, Virginia and headed to New York City in search of something greater than herself. That “something,” she discovered, was the position of Editor for EvolutionaryPress Publishing, helping young writers fulfill their dreams of becoming a published author. A now 7-time published editor, Janna enjoys the thrill of making dreams come true, and continually seeks ways to reach others and make a lasting impact on lives—both young and old. After spending a summer volunteering with New York Cares helping young girls prepare for the upcoming school year, Janna realized how passionate she was about seeing young girls gain confidence in their ability to succeed in the classroom and decided to use her passion to help girls succeed in all aspects of their lives. Now, she works for Girl Scouts of the USA, running the social media channels and pushing the message of building girls of courage, confidence, and character.

Support Systems Lead To “Girl Rising”

Last Thursday my friend Jill and I went to a screening of the documentary, Girl Rising, a film by 10×10 productions telling the stories of nine girls from nine different countries and the strength they inhabit while overcoming challenges they face to get an education.

“When girls go to school and get an education, they stay healthy. They save money. They speak up. They build businesses. Then they pass it all on…and poverty declines. Challenges become opportunities; progress happens”
-Richard Robbins, the Girl Rising Director

Between Jill and I playing “name that narrator,” I found myself questioning the predefined theme of the film—“one girl with courage is a revolution.”

I’m not sure that’s quite right.

Continue reading →

Welcome To Shattered Glass Slipper!

Hey there! Welcome to my new blog. Its been a long time coming but I’ve decided 2013 is the year I quit making excuses. So I’m happy that one of my new year’s resolutions is up and running for all of you to read.

A little about me and why I created this blog. By day I’m a communications coordinator by night a dance teacher and in between a 20something woman concerned about how the media and everyday life portrays females and its affects on young girls. Why can’t girls just be girls? Probably because well…”boys will be boys.” (more on that later.) Back in college I took a youth and pop culture class and was floored by this cartoon, Winx Club, ever heard of it? Probably not. Take it from someone who had to watch episodes as research, it was terrible. But that animated cartoon staring five fairies, who saved puppies from trees in thigh high boots and plaid mini skirts and who didn’t have powers strong enough to save people from drowning, because that was for the boys to do is the reason this blog was born.