I found this article online yesterday about Jennifer Lopez’s
apparent nip-slip at the Academy Awards when she was presenting with Cameron
Diaz. In Enlightened Sexism, Douglas talks about Janet Jackson’s moment in
Superbowl and how the amount of attention and backlash that moment received was
incredible. Like in the Janet
Jackson case, this article talks about how the Jennifer Lopez moment was the
most viewed moment among Tivo and DVR users live and twelve hours after. Rather than watching the award for the
Best Picture or Best Director, people sat around their televisions in awe of
Jennifer Lopez’s nip-slip and even took the time to rewind and replay the
moment over and over again.
Douglas questions people’s fascination with these moments, pointing to
the fact that they exemplify the idea of sex in the media, centered around the
female body. Douglas also says
that moments like these can be considered a culture clash because families at
home complain about them, but at the end of the day, you can’t escape sex in
the media.
I believe that Laurel Gilbert’s “You’re Not the Type” points
to a similar culture clash, despite the fact that a nip-slip and a teen
pregnancy are relatively unrelated.
Gilbert discusses her experiences raising a child at the age sixteen and
the negative stigmas she received from people in her social circles. Many of them did not characterize
Gilbert as the type to be one of those teen moms. Gilbert questions what that single teen mom type is on top
of the fact that she also identifies herself as a lesbian and a feminist. In the case of Gilbert, there is a
culture clash between establishing your sexual identity at a younger age, as
Douglas suggests, and the potential consequences of having that identity at a
younger age. On MTV, there is a whole
show called Teen Mom about moms who the
people in Gilbert’s social circles would probably characterize as “the type” to
get pregnant at such a young age. Representations
of teen moms are very limited in the media, thus limiting and marginalizing moms
who do not fit that type but were taught early on about sexuality most likely
through the media. The Janet
Jackson and Jennifer Lopez moments were not that scandalous in the scheme of
all media, but because they were characterized as “not the type”, the moments
were scandalized. If the same
moment happened on the The Jersey Show, however, people probably wouldn’t second guess it, just like on the
show Teen Mom. These kind of contradictions that exist
in regards to “the type” and sex in the media further illustrate the culture
clash that is taking shape in many forms today.
Emily - Your analysis of "You're Not The Type" and the clash that takes place between how she identifies herself and the way society identifies her is well thought out. Bringing in Teen Mom as an example of setting a stereotype for the average pregnant teenager was a good display of what Gilbert is talking about. Not only is it difficult for these teenagers to deal with what is going on in their lives, but added now is an entirely new element of stereotypes that go along with it. Dealing with these take a toll on how these women think of themselves too. Tying in the J-Lo moment or the Janet Jackson nip-slip as scandalous moments of contradiction is an interesting take on the idea that the media twists the way we approach certain behaviors. The media plays such a major role in our own determination of what we believe as "right" or "wrong" or even what is scandalous that it is important to realize the context of how we watch things and the way they invoke stereotypes that we buy into.
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