The New Girl by guest blogger Sarah Mincher

New Girl

Hello my name is Sarah Mincher and I have a serious obsession with New Girl on Fox. If, for some crazy reason you have not seen New Girl 1. Read this blog and 2. Go immediately to hulu.com and catch up. Crazyface. Not only is the show smartly written, with the perfect amount of off-beat pop culture meets relatable real life drama, it seriously sheds a light on a very specific personality I totally relate to: the quirky female. Often overshadowed housewives, sluts, models, bacherlottes and other television molds females have been neatly type cast into via our television, the quirky female has been looked over for quite some time. Until now.

Meet Jess Day, played very fittingly by everyone’s favorite glasses wearing “it girl”- Zoe Deschanel. Suffering from a bad breakup with a total nutcase, our heroine in her late 20’s finds herself out of a home and moving into a loft with three, uh, grown frat men who badly need some estrogen in their life. Despite being, well extremely beautiful, Jess is a nerd at heart and the show completely embraces and highlights her goofy personality over her good looks (talk about a breath of fresh air). From wearing hats made of ribbon (Ribbon-hat. Seriously), singing songs about and to her food and actually pretending she was a sexy lumberjack during a not so hot and heavy bedroom scene with her boyfriend, Jess is a female role model for the current generation of young women. A generation who’d rather cook cupcakes for their girlfriends than a casserole for their man, would rather work on her record collection than at the gym, and who would rather steal a hug from a friend than a boyfriend.  Television and her impression young viewers have needed a “Jess” for quite some time, and I really hope Jess and her Ribbon Hat are here to stay.  

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Sarah Mincher

www.sorrydarlin.com

www.twitter.com/sarahmincher

www.twitter.com/sorrydarlin

The portrayal of the Black Women - Part 1 Reality Television

I recently read this article published by The Grio, entitled 'Should White Women and Latinas Battle Black Reality TV Stereotypes'. First off, in reading the title of this article I was a bit confused, and didn't fully understand the premise of the article until the very end. Perhaps that's because as a young black women I never think about the battle of 'black reality tv stereotypes' let alone who should stand up for them.

To sum up the article, the author makes a point to say that reality TV shows, such as Mob Wives, Basketball Wives, Shahs  of Sunset, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta, are perpetuating negative stereotypes of the black women, and women in general to the pubic. She goes on to speak with Kaolin, a member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a feminist women's group, who states that all women, in particularly black women should be outraged by the portrayal of themselves on reality television. And furthmore women of all races should stand up against it. She gives examples of the Basketball Wives and The Real Housewives of Atlanta. In Basketball Wives, the Latina character of Evelyn is far from a role model, and as I've discussed in previous blogs the Housewives from Atlanta are no where near praise worthy.

She solidifies her point however to say that the only women that has it together on The Real Housewives of Atlanta is Kim Zolkiak. Kim is the only real married house wife, who tends to avoid drama, she is portrayed 'too busy to recognize the nuance of racism', Kim is also white. The fact that the only white 'character' on the show is living the happy life is something that all women should be upset about, and Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adiche, comments on the dangers of one story, portraying African American women, she states


"When all we have is one story or one representation of us, everything we do is judged by that standard. Because there are so many representations of white women, when a single white woman does something negative, it is not representative of the entire race. We have so few stories that everything we do becomes representative of everything we are.The key is balance. We need to have more stories, more often, and in various forums so that people can begin to see the beautiful complexity that is black women. Adiche also reminds us that stereotypes aren't untrue necessarily -- it is just that they aren't all that is" 


I whole heartedly agree with the above statement. Growing up in California, going from one of ten black girls in my graduating class of 300, I always felt like I was representing not just myself, but my whole entire race. If I didn't graduate, if I didn't get good grades, if I ended up pregnant, that was not just on me, but on my entire race, because we (meaning everyone), are forever judged by the other races and people around us. Living in Atlanta now, where the black population is far from scares however I do feel like more of an individual and less of a representation, but the reality of it is, each black person, as individuals, is a representation of 'black people' to someone. But doesn't this work with other races as well? Can't I as a black girl see a white girl, and be just as close minded as anyone who buys into black stereotypes? 


Though I do agree with the article on the level of equal representation, I have to point out that in comparison with other shows on network television, that feature plenty of 'white bimbos', their point is flawed. 


The Real House Wives of Orange County, Mob Wives, Dance Mom's, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, all feature WHITE American women, that are far from perfect. That fight and act just as ignorant as any black or latin american on Basketball Wives or Real Housewives of Atlanta. As an African American women, I look at how far we have come through our portrayal on television and the media, and   for the most part I am content. The article ends with the effect shows such as House Wives is having on our youth, in particular our black youth, however I feel that that is a separate broader issue all together. 

Baby Bump Blues

With today's media and television depicting sexuality as second nature, and even worse, a selling point, it's hard to imagine a time when sex was a taboo topic. And with shows such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, it's an even harder concept to imagine a time when depicting pregnancy on television was considered 'in bad taste' because it exhibited sexuality. A perfectly natural, extremely essential part of life treated as a burden.

The first person to break this taboo topic was none other than Lucille Ball. Visibly pregnant throughout most of an entire season of I Love Lucy, the producers decided to take a stance against the norm, and write Lucy's pregnancy into the show (from the episode "Lucy Enciente"), becoming the first pregnant women depicted on television on December 8th, 1952, while never actually mentioning the word 'pregnant' on the air.

But you would think that almost 60 years later that a women being pregnant wouldn't be an issue, well in the world of television, which is all about appearance, it is definitely something to take into consideration, especially for actors and actresses in specific roles. What happens when a lead character gets pregnant in a show is at the discretion of the producers of the show. Sometimes it's accepted and cleverly written in, strategically hidden, or in the worst cases the actress is dismissed for reasons supposedly unrelated to their pregnancies. Lil Sugar, a website dedicated to pregnant women, outlines some of the situations in which television shows had to adapt to their actresses real life pregnancy, for the show. The cases the website lists are all shows in which they adapted to the situation, by using large clothing, writing the baby for the character, or using the "she got fat" scenario.

Generally here in America, we have adapted to the fact that women, yes, even the women on our tv screen get pregnant. However, in Mail Online website "The Ugly Truth About Pregnancy on TV...." Denise Van Outen, and english presenter on The Big Breakfast, has not been welcomed with open arms by her UK audience. The actress, singer, presenter was scheduled to be a judge on BBC's Over the Rainbow, was dumped from the shows because she was pregnant. Outen, who is on her forth child now was well aware of the prejudice to come in her last pregnancy. A producer once commented that her pregnancy was a 'bit icky'. And when appearing as a guest on Gloria Hunniford's After noon show, she was asked why she didn't just take time off, like other actresses, and why she insist on living such a high profile lifestyle. In Outen's defense she states that as an announcer, her job is to do interviews, and this is, or should be, unrelated to the size of her belly. Where as actresses play a character, and the size of their stomach, and being pregnant, effects the character they may be portraying.

After reading the comments attached to the 'Ugly Truth' article, I found the comments of the viewers a bit off putting as well. They were as followed :


"I do not want to see pregnant women on tv esp those wearing tight skimpy tops that do not cover their bump. They earn more than enough to take a few months off. No I am not some grumpy spinster but a mother of five who had to work throughout my pregnancies. These celebs have taken the dignity of being pregnant and made it inot something very tacky."


"It's not about how the bump looks. I for one am sick of this 'family friendly' guff that's everywhere at the moment...I'm sick of seeing little girls in men's public lavatories; sick of having to pick up the slack of work colleagues who only work two days a week; and of having my work held up because the people I need to be liaising with are at home minding children. You either have a career or a child, and I don't care how politically incorrect that sounds."


And that was just to name a few. Aside from Outen's issue being in the UK, it is surprising to me that this kind of prejudice exist on something so natural. The fact that pregnancy could be considered a 'women's issue' and comparable to a period is ridiculous. The article was written in 2010, a full 58 years after Lucy bore her baby bump. Perhaps it is a prudish Brit conception to have, either way it's appalling.  

O to a Bad Girl

Oxygen, launched on February of 2000, is an American cable network that markets to young women focusing primarily on talk and reality Tv shows for their original programming, Needless to say, although entertaining this programming can be a bit juvenile but Oxygen, makes it work, streamlining their priorities on hair battles, the life of B list celebrities, dancing, modeling and of their most popular claim to fame, the cat fight; modeled best in their hit series, The Bad Girl’s Club (BGC).

What is the Bad Girls club you ask? Well you’re either 68 years old, or have been living under a rock in a third world country….or both, if you are not acquainted with shallow, barbarism that is The Bad Girls Club . In which case, I will tell you.

The Bad Girl club is a reality tv show focused around a group of 7 girls, picked to live in a mansion located in a populated major American city, with no job or critical life goals. Their common interest? To drink, party and pick up guys … or girls(many of them aren’t picky). Oh, and also, being a self proclaimed ‘Bad Girl’.  So you could imagine what goes down in a house with seven bad divas, with nothing to keep them occupied, but partying and drinking. That’s right., pandemonium.

After the drinking and the partying, and the making out, there’s fighting, and after the fighting there’s partying, and after that more fighting, then more drinking, then more fighting. Oh yes, I forgot to throw in scheming, because a house full of Bad Girls, can’t exist without at least one of them, trying to prove they’re the “baddest bitch” 

So why does this show exist?  I hate to say it, but it’s damn entertaining. I will guiltily admit since the shows release in 2006, I have been an avid fan. They’re something about watching a girl take another girl by the hair, over an eaten granola bar, that’s just exiting television. Not necessarily, good or quality television, but entertaining and exciting. I apparently am not the only one who thinks so, considering BGC is on the taping their 9^th season, with their top viewings for Season 5 being 1,679,000.

What worries me, is what this says about me, and a million other Americans, at the fact that we take such joy in such foolery. I recently have examined the errors with this show and myself, while watching Season 8. After witnessing a girl that was in the house for less than a night, get jumped by all the other girls in the house, for no other reason, that being new, and them not liking her face, I felt like the show had gone too far. I at least like some rhyme or reason to my violence. 

Furthermore what does this say about me and the primary audience of the show that are women. This show, displaying women and childish and wild, and unable to support one another, is on a women’s network. It is being ran by a women and targeting young women, instantly making the ignorant women of the shows celebrities. 

Yes, of course you could argue that those watching it know the difference between right and wrong and they also know not to idolize the women on the show for their ignorance. You could also argue that the women on the show are well aware of their ignorance and choose to participate to become celebrities. Alright that's fine, but what does it say about us culturally as American women, that we support the ignorance? While watching the shows and reading between the lines, a majority of the BGC celebrities are women that have been hurt in the past, either physically, emotionally or both. If they haven't then they were spoiled rich girls looking for attention. Is that what we want to promote to the young women of America? That it's more acceptable to hide our pain through drugs, drinking and partying? 

Yes, I know no one wants to watch Oprah and Dr. Phil making people cry on the couch all day, but there has to be a better way to display reality than watching drunk ignorant women make a spectacle of themselves on television for sport.

Lifetime Revamped

Throughout it's life time, Lifetime, the television network that markets women, has been known  as the "Estrogen Channel".Synonymous for depicting the 'scorned women', Lifetime's dramatic made for tv movies, although the target of many jokes, has been a staple for American television.

However, the emergence of other women targeted networks such Oxygen and WEtv, Lifetime's ratings  have been dropping for a number of years.

So what's a ailing network to do? Remodel itself of course.

Lifetime is no stranger to remodeling, below are tag lines Lifetime featured for the last 30 years:

"Lifetime Medical Television" (1984-1993)

"Television for Women" (1994–2006)

"My Story is on Lifetime" (2006–2008)

"Connect. Play. Share." (2008–2012)

"Your Life. Your Time." (2012–present)

The newest remodel "Your Life. Your Time", that launched May 2nd, in my opinion, has been the biggest programming revamp since 'Medical Television' was Lifetimes focus. In attempts to get the ratings up "Your Life. Your Time." claims to target the modern women, for which managing her time, has now become the biggest issue of her day. The message struck an immediate cord with Nancy Dubuc, network CEO, and the other women managing the network. Dubuc herself, who is currently juggling multiple television networks (including Lifetime and A&E) could definitely relate.

The new “L” logo (shown at top) is not the only change Lifetime has made, remodeling it’s entire line up of shows to include more racy, fast paced shows.

Shows such as the Client List, which stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, as a masseuse, whose clients expect more than just a massage

And their new reality show staring Bristol Palin, focusing on her life from the after math of being a teenage mother, and daughter of Sarah Palin.

Big names also involved in the shows relaunch line up include Queen Latifah, Courtney Cox, Renee Zellweger and Demi Moore. The shows in their line up (aside from the out of place America’s Most Wanted) do all sound promising. I don’t exactly love the logo, logo that instead of an L, appears to be a yin-yang sign gone wrong, however I can definitely say I am excited to see how Lifetime fairs with their relaunch, especially compared to their competing networks like Oxygen, whose Bad Girl’s Club, sadly, has attributed to much of Oxygen’s success. 

Can you be a fat actress? (part 2)

Fallen Chubby Champs (continued) 

FALLEN CHUBBY CHAMPS (CONTINUED) 

So I started this "Can you be a fat actress" post, with a specific structure in mind - Name the women that have succumbed to the pressures of the media to lose weight, then name those who haven't - "The Real Chubby Champs". But alas, my blog hit a snag when I realize there are no "Real Chubby Champs".... at least not anymore. Any women in television or the media that has made a name for herself, and at one point was considered chubby, has lost weight in order to fit in with what American society expects it's celebrities to look like. 

However in the middle of writing this blog I realize that I am not being fair. All these women I've listed below are amazing, and losing weight is not an easy task. Furthermore, I commend them for stepping into a realm bias for size two women, as themselves, and prevailing as full figured women.

The fact that they later lost weight does not diminish this accomplishment in any way. It does however speak to a bigger problem -A problem not with the women themselves wanting to lose weight, however a problem with society expecting them to. 

Every women wants to lose weight, in fact I'm on a diet at right now. This isn't a random fixation that we all have, but for most a need subliminally injected into our self-conscious. It's a poison imbedded in our minds -That we have to be thinner to be attractive. I'm not going to sit here and say this is "man's" fault for objectifying us and treating us like all were good for is sex, because at some point we have to take responsibility for ourselves. We as women feel inadequate because we measure ourselves up against other women. These other, thinner women do happen to be the object of a lot of men's desires and fantasies, but we helped put them there, by one day buying into the image of a skinny woman as perfection. We make the fashion and the trends and we determine what's sexy.

The kicker of it all is that the women that we have built up in the media as pictures of perfection and aspirations actually have to live up to these ideologies ( or attempt to),  a institution that has led to some adverse effects.  Cases of eating disorders and self esteem issues are all too common in TV land.

There are women in television that have spoke out about the affects of a life in the limelight and the pressure to be perfect (and thin).

Tracy Gold, of the hit 1980s Growing Pains, and Demi Lovato, of her own popular Disney sitcom Sonny with a Chance, both admittedly battled anorexia as a direct result of the pressure they felt from being on television. 

  

I'm not sure at what point we stopped believing that full figured women like Marylyn Monroe (who was a size 14) were sexy, but they do say that everything comes back around, in this case however I believe we're too brain washed to turn back now. I just find it a bit sad that most times we as women don't love ourselves for just who we are and that is what we truly need to get back to; A sense of self love.  

Jennifer Hudson

Queen LatifahAmerica Ferrera 

Kelly OsbourneStar Jones

Kristie Alley

Oprah Winfrey

Roseanne Barr

Can you be a Fat Actress?(part 1)

It isn't a secret that in Hollywood your looks are everything. It also isn't a secret that no matter how much we say "big is beautiful" no one really believes it. Or do they?
We can claim to have an appreciation for a nice round rump, and tummy rolls, but one of the only things that sells more than sex, is skinny people (and skinny people having sex I suppose).

Admittedly, our acceptance of 'round' people in the media has come a long way in the past 20 years, but no where near as far enough to accurately depict what real Americans look like. And I guess, who wants to see real Americans?

But as a women, I at least want to see women bold enough, fierce enough, to be in their own skin and love themselves, whether that's a size 5 or size 25. I want to look at the screen and see women who look like the people in my life, who beat out the skinny bitches that were considered prettier because of their waist size, even though they were less talented. The Chubby Champions.

For every 100th skinny bimbo however, there does arise a Chubby Champion, and then America gets to them, tells them they are fat and that they don't measure up (or down...?) to their peers, subsequently they are less famous than their thinner co-stars.

FALLEN CHUBBY CHAMPS  

One of the most recently fallen chubby champs, and inspirations for this blog is the ever so lovely Raven Symoné. Admittedly one of my idols, she gained her original success as Olivia on the Cosby show, and in the early 2000s the star of her own hit television show on the disney channel, That's So Raven. I recall reading plenty of interviews from Raven, in her, That's So Raven days, as well as many interviews prior. She was constantly harrassed by the media for her weight, however she never backed down - unwaivering she praised her curves , considering herself to be "thick and fabulous". So why in the hell did she lose all the weight?
When I first saw her pictures I was disappointed.
A bit of disappointment still lingers, however after Raven shared her weight loss secrets on The Wendy Williams show, I suppose I understand. (click either for video interview)
Raven states on the Wendy Williams, that her weight loss is attributed to her lack of stress. She goes on to explain that when she was 15, and the star of her own show, she was under a great deal of pressure, having to be the star of her own show. Raven states that while "normal 15 year olds were worried about who was going to invite them to the prom I was worried about like taxes and stuff". Which of course could put anyone under stress, then the added pressure of being a fifteen year old role model for thousands of young girls, probably didn't help. It does however seem convenient that her weight loss came around the same time as her new show launch on ABC's State of Georgia. Ironically however her character Georgia Chamberlain, is cast at Raven's original size, therefore she must wear padding for the part.
Hopefully the producers will keep the concept of the 'chunky' lead and Georgia won't have a sudden miracle drop in weight. 
As for Raven she sticks to her guns. ‘I was beautiful before I lost weight. Egotistically speaking, I thought I was amazing.’This is how all curvaceous girls should feel about their bodies. Sad to say I will miss the chubby Raven as a role model for chunky girls like myself, but now I suppose I have to learn how to  love Raven for what's inside, because that's what matters, Right?