The Importance of Sports in America

So just how important are sports in America? I believe that sports are very important. Sports allow children and adults to get outside or inside, depending on the sport. Sports have a great impact on how we live our lives. The focus of sports on children can help with their self-confidence and they can learn to work as a team that will later on help them in the workforce. Sports have an impact on everyone from celebrities to the government.

In movies, (a lot of the time, it's war and crime movies), sports are use to discuss and plan what is going to happen next. The impact is mostly made on boys and how men are shown in the movie. Boys are made to believe that they can't act like 'girls', can't cry, or act hurt. The same thing is seen in sports where, like football, the players will keep playing even if they are hurt. This way, it seems that boys are being taught that they have to grow up to act like the hero of the story, either in movies or in sports. Boys are made to believe that only boys can be seen as the leader or the hero of the story. Boys who are seen as 'girls' would always get in the way.  With movies and TV shows, they always seem to be referring to some kind of sport like football or baseball.

Romance

Who doesn't love Valentine's Day? Okay. Other then Chuck Klosterman and I'm not saying that he doesn't at least enjoy it at some point but who knows since this is coming from someone who has work in a floral store during one of the most craziest times to be a florist? I can't say that I agree with Klosterman but I'm not totally disagreeing with what he has to say. He had a lot of interesting things to say and everyone is entitled to their own opinion right? So the big Heart Day come and went and I enjoyed not having to work in a floral store since returning to school. I enjoyed it but sometimes I think that some people just love the drama of working in a floral store during Valentine's Day or another busy time for them, either a wedding or several are taking place or it's Mother's Day. I'm saying that I don't like Valentine's Day, I'm saying that sometimes it can get on my nerves if I'm not working in a place that I am comfortable with.

Right. So Klosterman had good points about what he was saying in his book about love and romance. He makes good points about several things like how people want love to be like that from a movie or some book. Personally, I don't think I would like having a vampire as a boyfriend, but that is my opinion and I just happen to hate anything to do with Twilight and it's getting off subject just a little. I can say that I agree with Klosterman's idea on fake love because in a way, I use to think like that until I decided that if I do find love then I was just going to let that happen and look at that, now I'm married and very glad that I let go of that little hope of mine about getting love from like that in movies or books.

To Klosterman, it seems that the media is getting a little bit carried away. It is nearly impossible to fall in love because most of the time, it is fake love. It is normal to have people measure relationship up against people in movies or in books. Looking back at that now, I think 'thank god that I don't do that anymore'. Even if the book I'm reading has something to do with vampires or werewolves (I'm always looking for a good werewolf book and sometimes vampires are in it but I don't like the Twilight characters. They seem too fake) or something like that, I'm glad that I really don't think like that anymore. 

I totally support Heart Day because it is one of the busiest times of the year for florists, places like Olive Garden, and other places for several reasons. One, I enjoy the holiday and making Valentine cookies with my mom and sister and two, spending time with my husband. And three, hearing news about who among my friends are now engage and knowing that it is not fake love but very true romance and love.

Advertising & How It Affects Women

Stopping to think about this has always lead me to the same thought, why in the world do we as women look at one ad, either on TV or in some fashion magazine and think that we need to look more like the woman in it who looks more plastic then real? I know that I have try a few of the products but after using them I find that I wasn't truly happy with how they turn out. So anyway, back to the plastic 'beautiful' women in the magazines, on TV, or on some billboard. Nearly all of them are not real to begin with. The pictures for magazines or some billboard had been crop either the same person to make her more beautiful, or several pictures of several different women had been toss together and 'fix' together to make one more beautiful, but very unreal person. It's like taking several different puzzles pieces, throwing them altogether and trying to create a whole new but very different puzzle.

We really don't take the time to think about how advertisement has affected us. In 2008, I took a class that was for those going into retail business. This class involve having to chose two 'bad' commercials or ads, and two 'good' commercials or ads and explain why we decided on those. This lead to taking more noticed of how advertising affected the world and how to get more people's interest. Of course, this wouldn't help me out now since I'm going though a career change but it still has me thinking about it every time that I see a billboard, an ad in a favorite magazine, an ad on Facebook or some other website, and TV. I had not really pay much attention to how advertisement seem to 'cut' us women down and make us seem more like objects then people.

Why do they do it? That seems like a good question. I believe that it targets women to cause them to buy the products and tried to be more like the 'plastic' or 'computerize' women in magazines. And then there are those ads that make women appear as a beer bottle or women doing impossible things that involves some of them bending backwards or appearing as a mermaid. This also affects young girls by making them appear shy, mysterious, or having them believing that they will look like this when they grow up.

While this doesn't appear to affect the male counterparts of our world, it does. Men and boys are also lead to believe that this is how women and girls should look or behave. Many pictures of men in magazines appeared to the 'strong' and silent' type and many magazines I have seen with men in them, has many of them either shirtless and with six pack, or either with some kind of new truck or beer. In this world today, we need to take the time to think about what is real and what is not when it comes to ads as well as do we really need what they are selling to look like this?

Technology & Sexuality

After reading Ten Seconds to Love for Popular Cultures class, we discuss the ideas on how porn, technology, and sex have an impact on our way of life. Talking about it seem a little weird and it wasn't a subject that I'm totally not comfortable with discussing. I had always figure that it what was left behind close doors should stay behind close doors.  So anyway in class, we discuss ideas on how technology has change porn. Porn started out in Ancient Greece, with them creating statues and paintings of nude people. It has been around for ages and ever since the Ancient Greeks and the printing press, it has been going on. Pornography is the depiction of erotic behavior as in pictures or writing, that is intended to cause sexual excitement. In Ancient Greek, it means to write about prostitutes. Again, not a subject that I'm not totally comfortable with. So from the printing press, porn move on to magazines, film, and to the internet. It is really hard not onto the internet and search a random idea like a recipe without having something about porn just pop up there. Very annoying at times, too. I really don't care to see anything like that when I'm looking for a recipe for a taco casserole while online.

Internet seems to play a big part with porn and so do sex tapes. Having never seen a sex tape and have plans to never will, I can't tell you a lot about them, other then coming across them written about in books that I have read and hearing them talk about here and there. In Popular Cultures, we read an article called Ten Seconds to Love. It is about what the author thinks of sex, sex tapes, and technology by discussing and comparing Pam Anderson and Marilyn Monroe. He goes into detail about how different those two women are and how similar they are like who they had married, dated, or divorce. Those two women are very different, having live different lives in Hollywood and time periods.

For some reason, I pictured Marilyn Monroe as more of a down to earth type of person and Pam Anderson more of the nose in the air type but that is only because they live in two very different time periods and since they both act in different firms or TV shows, nothing about their private lives are similar. Pam Anderson is a mom and more carefree while Marilyn Monroe had an early death, but had a great career in film. And I am sure that men from Marilyn Monroe had very creative thoughts when they saw her. The same could probably be said about Pam Anderson.

So anyway, technology has change the way sex and porn is seen. From Ancient Greece to the printing press to the internet, no matter how it is seen online, in a magazine, or in a film, it is going to be around for a long time as annoying as it can be or how much those who view it can get in trouble for it. Whatever the reason, I don't support the idea of porn and stand by what I said, what is behind close doors, should stay behind close doors. I don't need to see that online but now I have a better understanding since reading the articles about it.