a connection i see between a lot of the popular music today and men/masculinity and violence is that a lot of the lyrics and videos seem to send the message that males are only masculine if they are strong enough to over power who ever they are up against. or in other words, only if they win the fight or battle. and also if they are in charge of or dominate over any woman in their life. very few songs or videos portray a man as masculine for taking care of his woman and or children in a positive way, such as taking any legitimate law abiding job they can to support the family instead of the easy and harmful consequential routes, and also treating all women in general with the same respect and admiration they command for them selves.

i think popular culture media is making us smarter, especialy the internet. My main reason for thinking this is that we need only a computer and a few minutes to find information on any topic we want to learn about in our own home or where ever we are that gets a signal. I can remember growing up without the internet, and if there was something i was even remotely interested in learning about I had to either drive, get a ride, or take a bus to the library then go through the dewy decimal index cards to find the book or topic im interested in go hunt for it then read through it. All these steps were very time consuming and cost money. There were many times that i didn't have that kind of time so I wouldnt bother with it. Yet now I can take just 5 minutes out of my day and find out exactly what it is I want to know.

another thing we have been disscussing is the impact of media violence on children. i personaly dont believe that media violence is in any way to blame for an action commited by anyone. i feel that too many people are using the media outlet as a scape goat. just because a child hears a song or sees something on t.v. doesnt mean they are going to commit a crime because of it. if in fact a child does commit a crime (as many do) statistics show the majority of the perpetraitors have behavior problems and or mental dysfunctions. also alot of behavior problems in children can be associated with problems in their familys home life. yet parents dont seem to take responsibilty for their parenting skills or lack of. they are quick to blame music and movies insted of facing the fact that they should have been more personaly involved in their childrens lives. and if they were they should have seen the early signs and worked on the issues before they became a real problem.

lately we have been talking about masculinety and sports in class. it does seem that we as a society seem to associate masculinety with a persons athletiscism and not their over all character. i dont think a persons althletiscism or muscles make a man masculine. those only make a man strong or talented in specific ways. to me a masculine man is someone who takes care of his family and friends with honor and respect, someone who stands up to a problem but does not start the problems.

1st blog entry

i liked the arguments in this weeks reading because i find it interesting how our culture seems to be fixated on sex appeal yet longs for real beauty.

i dont feel our culture is healthy in reguards to beauty for the simple fact that our media outlets seem do define beauty only as ones outward body figure. in turn alot of people go to great lengths to look like the models portrayed, often times at great risk to their health and bodys.

i think we do as a culture focus too much on physical appearance. while i do believe we need to do certain things to help keep our body and minds in good health we need to focus more on what makes us feel good as an indivdual and not what we think other people expect us to look like.