Dr. Lambiase, I have been having problems logging in. However, as of now, they appear to be solved. So now I have this backlog of posts I've been writing every week, and I'll just post them as a batch, with four now, and another batch when my hands have recovered.

Seventh Post: Dove Evolution

I think the Dove Evolution spot was pretty interesting. I’ve met models in real life (not bragging here, most of them were pretty dumb), and while they have all been really attractive, most of them bear only a passing resemblance to the photos in their portfolio. I had always assumed there was a lot of hair and makeup work that went into the process, but I had no idea how powerful Photoshop was, how completely it could change a person’s facial structure. I had heard of the spot before, but never watched it. And by the by, the issue is serious, as far as the effects advertising has on girls’ self-esteem and the expectations they place on themselves, but Slob Evolution was pretty hilarious.

Eighth Post: A Girl like Me Video

This video just made me sad. I already knew that lighter-skinned black women were preferred over darker ones in advertising, but I had no idea; I hadn’t even considered the possible effects that bias could have on young black girls. That part when the narrator asked the girl to pick the doll she thought was prettier, and she picked the white one, and then asked her to pick the one that looked like her, was probably the saddest part. The poor girl hesitantly slid the black doll over towards the narrator; she didn’t even pick it up. This video was really eye-opening.

Ninth Post: Nerds

This wasn’t really a big revelation to me, just based on what I see around campus. There is effectively no such thing as a black nerd. Sure, there are white nerds aplenty, but if a black kid dresses, acts, or talks like a nerd, he seems to be ostracized. I wonder what happens if a black kid gets really good grades, if he’s looked down on as being somehow a traitor to his race. I thought that one line from Bamboozled we heard was pretty insightful, when Pierre was on the radio show talking about how anytime a black man tries to lift himself up, all the others pull him back down, “like crabs in a bucket,” or something like that. That line paints a pretty ugly picture of the fate that awaits black nerds.

Tenth Post: Music Videos

I used to watch MTV, mostly for the music videos, back when I was in high school. I think most people nowadays do, like it’s a phase we go through. But even when I was in high school I was smart enough to tell the difference between the fiction created in the music videos and the real world. It didn’t ever occur to me that this was normal, that normal people lived like that, with the champagne and the women and so forth. I was aware at the time that the lurid images I was being shown would occur, if ever, only rarely, during the wildest excesses of the most lavish parties that only the entertainment industry elite attended. However, something else that didn’t even occur to me until recently was that a lot of people somehow don’t make that distinction; they assume if they get rich enough they can live the life they see on MTV. I don’t know what to say to those people. Just realizing that some people see this as possible is eye-opening, and has warranted some reflection on my part.