Well Past Her "Sell By" Date.

Meryl Streep is a 60 year old female actress still playing lead romantic roles in huge hit movies!! She is a strong woman fighting the idea that she is to old to be romantically involved with someone in a film. She has recently played in Momma Mia, The Devil Wears Prada, and the new movie coming to theaters, It's Complicated. In these movies she is a strong independent woman facing some romantic issues with men from her past and present. Most women her age do not play such roles. They are usually mothers or saints of some kind, but she showed Hollywood! Below is a preview to her most recent movie coming to theaters, It's Complicated. This will show you how no matter her age, she is still spunky, in action, and highly romantically involved.



This movie looks great. She plays a divorced older woman that is desired by multiple men! She is still having fun and experiencing life after what most women take as a tragedy they can not get through! Meryl Streep is a great actress and I hope she begins to set a trend for Hollywood's older women. Showing that they can still be desired in movies just as most older men are. She told the magazine Vanity Fair that she passed her "sell by" date and shocked many people in Hollywood with her recent lead romance roles. I hope she continues to shock them because this is a great positive image for women every where.

The Seven Deadly Sins on One Island...

Gilligan's Island is an old television show that played in the 1960's. Its reruns continued years after the show ended. They also made some TV movies to remake the short lived series. I was reminiscing about this show with someone the other day and they pointed out the most interesting thing I have heard in a while. The Seven Deadly Sins. He mentioned how this television show in particular, discretely had each character represent one sin. When I looked into the show more and watched some old episodes I realized he had a very good point and decided to share it with you. To refresh those of you who don't remember or who don't know, the seven sins are;


1. Pride: is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individuals recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise.

2. Envy: is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

3. Gluttony: is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

4. Lust: is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

5. Wrath: is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. Also known as Anger.

6. Greed: is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual.

7. Sloth: is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

After going through the list of characters we matched them to each sin we saw best fit to them.

Ginger represented Lust. She was the "temptress", she was always wanted by the other men and desired to be wanted by them. She was very flirtatious in the series.

Mrs. Howell a.k.a. "Lovely" represents Gluttony. She always wanted more than she could have because she was so materialistic and obsessed with power.

Mr. Howell represented Greed. He always bragged of his riches. He was known as the millionaire on the show.

Skipper represented Wrath. He was always angry and rude to mostly Gilligan through out the series.

The Professor represented Pride. He was "always right" during the show. He didn't usually take others opinions because he thought of himself as being smarter then every one else.

Gilligan represented Sloth. He was very lazy through out the series. He barely ever wanted to help do work to get them off the island.

Mary Anne represented Envy. She desired to be Ginger "a real movie star".

There is a possibility that the director of this show began to see the sins in people all around him. With the growing economy in his time period he may have began to realize how people started to change. Many people don't appreciate what they have or the opportunities they were given. I think the director was trying to show that through this series. By making a show that had a person represent each sin gave people the opportunity to compare themselves to someone on the show. When people begin comparing others to the characters in the show it allows them to see how almost everyone they know runs mainly off one sin, even themselves. Do you think this show was trying to pass a message to the public?

Being Positive and Successful Can Happen!!!

Recently in class we discussed all of the talk shows on television that are so negative, but try to say they are helping people. Shows such as Oprah, Jerry Springer, Dr. Phil, and so on. The networks say that the drama of these shows pull people in to watching it, creating their revenue of money. But, I want to point someone out that is positive on every show and still makes a very good amount of money, Ellen DeGeneres. In my opinion she is more interesting to watch opposed to all of the drama shows that discuss horrible life situations of the guests and the talk show hosts. Ellen uses a lot of comedy on each of her shows, allows of lot of children to show off their talents and interacts with her crowd a lot. She makes fun of a lot of infomercials and people doing things for attention. She points out most of the stupidity and laziness of a majority of America. For example; she had an episode where she ordered the Hawaiian Chair, it is a chair that supposedly works your abdominal muscles while you are being sedentary at work. She got someone out of the audience to ask their opinion of the chair as well and they sat in it trying to function, but had a pretty hard time doing so. She was discretely pointing out how it was a very unintelligent idea. Watch the video and see for yourself.



Another show that I watched of hers that really caught my attention was when she sang in the bathroom with the singer Pink. They were making fun of two girls that call themselves "Rin on the Rox", that started making home videos of themselves singing in the bathroom. Even though they are not bad singers, you wonder why they may be wasting their time singing in the bathroom!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK-D3CFqQlY

Even though Ellen made fun of them she eventually invited them to come on the show. My main point to this blog is to make people see that funny and non-dramatic television shows can be successful. You do not have to include negative and depressing stories on just so people will watch the show. Do you feel that drama is the only thing that attracts the audience or is it something else?

Skinny is an Insult...

Skinny means to be very thin and of a natural small frame. To a person that works out almost every day and eats healthy a vast majority of the time, skinny is an insult. You see women in the media being sexual and flaunting their seemingly perfect bodies, but some of them like Jessica Biel, Nicole Scherzinger, Jessica Alba, and more have the right because they worked for it. They show that you can have a great body as long as you put the time and effort into it. I have read articles with Jessica Biels diet and work out and she can eat quite a bit, but she does very complex work outs every day to counter the affect the food she eats may have on her. When she does eat unhealthy she will balance it out with eating good for the rest of the day and adding something to her workout, whether its an extra set of squats to ten more minutes of walking/running. If she doesn't have time to do the work out she wants she goes on walks after her meals. Nicole from the Pussy Cat Dolls (and the entire Pussy Cat Doll group) dances constantly to keep in shape. These women have the bodies to prove it. They don't look like they are skin and bone, you can see their muscle lines on their stomach, arms, legs, pretty much anywhere! Women like them should be advertised more frequently to show girls that if they work at it and stay healthy they can be of a nice fit figure.



I have talked to many women at the gym and almost all of them that have lost weight or toned muscle that get called skinny feel insulted. People make it sound like they didn't work as hard as they did to have the body they achieved. I highly encourage people to seriously analyze their diets. The obesity rate in America has increased drastically over the past few years! Being fit is hard work, if you don't work out on a regular basis, try doing it just 3 days a week for an hour each time and make it as intense as you can handle. Then eat well for a week and see how hard it is to resist delicious fattening foods and cravings of the sweets that you get. But, stop and think of how much more energetic and refreshed you feel by the end of the week that you try this. If you want to continue to eat healthy, but you are unsure of how to change your diet (not go on a diet) go to www.mypyramid.gov. You can make an account and analyze your diet based on the food guide pyramid to see what you are missing and what you are over eating in.

It is a lot of hard work to stay fit. Fighting cravings, dining out with friends, and parties! Then having to make time to get in that work out every day or every other day! But, if you do this regularly, don't you find it insulting to be called skinny instead of fit?

Politians Hit Below the Belt.

Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds are the two men running for governor of Virginia. There campaigns have been on more frequently for the past few weeks due to election day coming closer. I noticed their campaigns involved a lot of women, but personally I do not think either of them represent women in a good way. They went after our pride and spite against men to win the election. Creigh Deeds has many campaign ads accusing Bob McDonnell of making 35 bills opposing women rights, saying that working women are detrimental to the family, and he is against married women taking birth control. But, Deeds does not say any of this information himself. He gets other women to do it. He knows that we would take that better from other women, but this is a majority of his campaign ads. Attacking the fears of women, saying if they vote for McDonnell they may lose some of their rights to choose. Even if they do not have any proof of McDonnell making such bills. Below are two ads approved by Deeds so you can form your own opinion on if he is protecting women or using them.



You see that McDonnell may have a record, but you see that Deeds ends the ad with a photo of him speaking to a woman. What do you think about that?



Again, he lets the women do all the talking and ends the ad with the same photo. Personally if there is some proof that McDonnell does feel this way about women, I would not vote for him. It does slightly make me angry that he could possibly vote in such a manor and say such things about women being equal, but the point is Creigh Deeds is also guilty of doing something that can hurt women. He used them to get ahead in his campaign against McDonnell.

It doesn't stop there. Bob McDonnell came back with his own campaign ads using women to defend himself. He started putting ads up with him walking with his wife and daughters outside and getting working women to speak on his behalf. He could have just defended himself in a campaign of him speaking and explaining that these accusations came from what he wrote in a paper for his masters degree when he was 34. But, do you think what he said still matters? And do you think his way of defending him self was done right?



He does not say a word in these ads, just lets the woman talk.



This is very insulting that they used women to get ahead in their campaign ads. Even though Creigh Deeds did start the battle, McDonnell did say harmful words and has yet to properly defend himself against such harsh accusations. They both hit women below the belt with this battle. They are using them knowing that they make up a very large population of the votes. Do you think either man running for governor handled this correctly? Or could they have done it in a better way, keeping women out of their battle?

Sex Sells!!

In our most recent reading "Naked Capitalists" it talks about how pornography is the most popular media product. It makes over ten billion dollars a year! According to the reading it makes more money the N.F.L or the M.L.B(pg.49). They also say "adult industry is in many ways a mirror image of Hollywood." But, do you think it could now be the other way around? Yes, porn makes many videos that are comedy, sci-fi, horror, and so on, just like Hollywood does. Now that porn is making so much I think Hollywood and major companies are copying them. Sex has become such a huge part of our society over the past few years. Even though it is not fully accepted, it still gets larger.The music industry, magazines, movies, music videos and more are adopting the sex idea more and more. There are more rap, hip hop, rock, and even country songs that have something sexual in it. For example; Trace Adkins song 'Honky Tonk Badonkadonk'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9VzEulip9Q

The magazine industry also uses sex, especially cosmopolitan. They include funny sex stories, new ways to "attract men", and ways to have a better sex life. The cover of their magazine is always a celebrity with a side caption saying "not as innocent as she looks" or "How she is a good 'bad' girl". Whether the celebrity is looked up to for being a good figure or not.

After seeing some of these trends of sexual acts in music videos and magazines who do you think is copying who?

What is the "L" word?...

The show The L Word was about a group of women that were great friends and most of them lovers. This show tried to represent lesbian women and their daily lives. They were friends with straight people, gay men, transvestites, and cross dressers. They owned businesses and were successful at what they did. Some were married with children, but most were just in a relationship or sleeping around. But, this show represented lesbian women pretty well compared to other shows, it still over dramatized most of the characters actions.

Some of the character personalities were over dramatized, like most shows. There was Niki, a beautiful successful girl that used her good looks to get what she wanted from anyone. Which I think was targeting beautiful women, saying they use their looks to be successful instead of their knowledge. There was Shane, the "manlier" lesbian that slept around with women and didn't want a relationship like most men don't. She constantly had one night stands until the end of series. Some of the characters were just representing why some women choose same sex relationships. Possibly not just because they were truly attracted to the same sex, but they knew what they really wanted out of a relationship. But, the manlier lesbians tend to be just like actual men. They just want sex and no relationship.

http://www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=1304999811&bclid=8324659001

The video link above is a short skit of how Niki reacts after her girlfriend breaks up with her. She is over reacting like most girls do in any relationship, at least how girls are shown reacting after a break up in some form of media. I don't think all girls react like this, but it shows how lesbian and straight women are represented as over dramatic. I think, The L Word was a good show, but definitely represented lesbians as more sexual and dramatic then they really are. This is what most people think of lesbians. Just like when most people think of gays, they may relate their thought to Jack from Will and Grace.

After watching this show, I am curious... Does the L in the title of the show stand for lesbian or love? What do you think?