Sex And The City: Post Analysis

The traditional idea of American friendship has evolved drastically over time. In this age, no longer do you see the close group of friends chatting at the ‘Central Perk Café’ or engaging in many misadventures in the basement of Foreman’s house, such as they did in ‘That 70’s Show’. The aged image of a group of friends and their wise, perceptive teacher, Mr. Feeney, happily standing in the halls of John Quincy Adams middle school is fading out. This overused 1970’s-1990’s idea of friendship no longer applies to most American friendships today because our culture has swayed into a more modern viewpoint, due to the

Gender socialization has played a powerful behavioral control in dictating our society and social norms. The influence of mass media on gender can be seen through teenage girls reproducing stereotypical media messages within their social groups. In movies, women tend to have less significant roles than men and often portrayed in stereotypical roles, such as wives, mothers or sex symbols. The advertising industry is governing the content of our television is another example this film presents how social media is impacting our society. They create social conditions of insecurities in people so they buy their products.

When you mentioned about Victoria Woodhull stressing that women had the right to vote already during her time, but did not use it correlates with Valentin’s chapter entitled “Sex and the City Voters, My Ass.” She mentioned that women in the United states have poor participation on voting. For instance, during the 2004 elections, there were about twenty million unmarried women who did not vote. As what you stated, Foucault’s definition power is something being exercised rather than possessed. Women should increase their participation and become more active in politics in order to possess power. It is important for women to exercise their power, and not doing so, will just make them more inferior to men in our society. Women can really make a

In today’s media obsessed society, youth is greatly influenced by advertising. For example, Marketing to kids gets more savvy with technologies is how they ,“Online games like Webkinz show ads on the site draw youth to buy the product or just to look at it for ‘money’”. Because this tactic works, the ads are an excellent at make youth to talk about this and be annoyed. In Facts about Marketing to Children, it says, “Children pack 8.5 hours of media a day’, is what the Facts about Marketing to Children says.” Because children are on the media so much it is easy for marketers to advertise and get children to buy the product. “ Anne Lappe says that when her daughter grows up, and goes to a movie, the character might have a soda or fast food.”

Often times women’s studies are overshadowed by topics pertaining to other matters. Because of this, Steve Duck of University of Iowa calls women’s studies “understudied relationships”. In his book, Under-Studied Relationships: Off the Beaten Track, Steve delves into the complicated world that is friendship between women. He reveals that even the best of friendships, more often than not, will dissolve due to geographical distance, especially during the transition from high school to college. However, Duck claims that this occurrence is more detrimental to male friendships than female friendships. According to Duck, “…men’s inability to maintain distal friends may be due to a lack of awareness about and skills to utilize effective strategies that maintain a [friendship]” (184). This argument implies that men simply do not put as much emotional value into friendships as women do. While distance may seem challenging for women to overcome, they put more effort into preserving their friendship. Duck further instills this concept by explaining that “women’s same-sex friendships tend to be based more on intimate and emotional discussions than men’s…” (186). Men, Duck argues, lack the depth in their friendships that women possess and for this reason have difficulty sustaining a friendship that is met with the strain of distance.

In our world today, media and advertisements can be found anywhere. By age 18, a teenager will have seen 350,000 commercials (heartofleadership.org) People are so easily influenced by iconic people or brands. Brands like Nike, constantly have celebrities advertising their product and have millions of followers. The iconic celebrities have convinced the market that they need that product to be “cool” like them. Jim Morrison once said “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”. This quote can be seen as quite true. In our culture today, we are born predispositioned to media influence. As a child we looked up to media unknowingly, “65% say that shows like The Simpsons and Married… With Children encourage kids to disrespect parents.” (heartofleadership.org). People can have a huge effect on how people think through the media, and it becomes a powerful thing. A person like Micheal Jordan who was an endorser of Nike is given over $20,000,000 a year because of the influence he can have. Micheal Jordan isn’t the only one to have influences a large amount of people. In 1751, a Pastor names Jonathan Edwards was determined to shake the people of his time back into religious devotion. His sermon is now

Jean Kilbourne, a media specialist, raises an interesting point in one of her lectures when she states, “The average American is exposed to 3000 advertisements per day. Yet, everyone in America still feels personally exempt from the media. They say, “I don’t pay attention to ads. I just tune them out. They have no effect on me.”” She later states most of the people who have said this to her were wearing Gap™ tee-shirts. Whether people realize it or not, there is a direct correlation between the media and an individual’s identity. Along with products, the media also sells values, views, images, and concepts of normalcy. The media tells us who we are and who we should be. Unfortunately, many times the media tells us things that have a major

The three of us have then soon become close friends. Constance is from Malaysia, Jackie is born and raised in the United States while I am from Guangzhou, China. I like to consider myself as someone who is diverse and enjoy the differences. Initially, I really thought I was right about myself before taking a closer look at our friendship. The three of us grew to like each other and build strong connections over time because we have similar opinions regarding different subjects, and share interests in a lot of things. For examples, traveling and playing instruments. As a group, there are quite a lot similarities between us in terms of social characteristics. The three of us are all women, with an age difference less than 3 years. In addition, we are all major in Communication in the same school. According to the extensive research done by McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, greater differences exhibit in social characteristics would result in further distance in social networking (2001). A study conducted last year by University of Leicester and Bocconi University supported McPherson’s statement, researchers found that people would consider the establishment of bond with individuals as an costly investment when they are distanced in characteristics (Currarini et al., 2016) In other words, opposite repeals.

Gabler also expresses his thoughts on this issue in his article, "[friendships on tv] what makes this so remarkable is that it has been happening at a time when it is increasingly difficult to find this kind of deep social interaction anyplace but on TV." Granted, this sort of behavior on TV, or on social media can give us unrealistic expectations for our own lives including our interactions with our friends and family. It gives us the expectation that our friends are always around, or that we can always turn to anyone in our family which for some people is not always true. Gabler asks his readers, "How many adults do you know who manage to hang out with their friends every single day for hour after hour?" The answer to that question is simple, none do. It is almost impossible to hang out with friends every day of the week or every hour. We all have lives we need to attend to, and making time with friends can be such a mission because we are all so consumed by our daily

In closing, I would like to address something that I believe negatively affects a lot of friendships, specifically between women. There seems to be an atmosphere of cattiness, competition, and backstabbing that is prevalent in female friendships. This kind of behavior is portrayed heavily in the media and seen as normal behavior. Even though we have experienced this in other friendships, Cindy and I have always avoided these pitfalls with each other. It is not in either of our nature, and it is something we do not want to perpetrate. Although this behavior is competitive, ultimately no one wins. It is much more productive to be a good friend and surround yourself with people who want the same. In doing this, Cindy and I

Empirical research documents gender differences in the friendships of seniors. When assessing the criteria for friendship, for instance, women highlight the emotional qualities, whereas men highlight indirect, proxy indicators of friendship, such as frequency of contact or length of acquaintance (Blieszner 2000). Older adult men also are less prone than women to discuss their feelings in relation to friends with whom they desire greater closeness (Blieszner 1995). This really as well didn't shock me much due to normal male and female stereotypes. Although, these results did not really surprise me I really enjoyed knowing how even in later life we tend to pick our friendships the same way throughout all stages of life.

2. The study revealed comprehensively that in all forms of media girls and women are under represented. Research notes that although the role of women in society has changed dramatically over the years there is still a disproportion of male and female representation. The research indicates that the media climate is representative of the 1950’s versus 2010. The research leads to the question of how consumers are affected by media content. Will young females feel less important or have lower self esteem if they are not appropriately represented in the media? Another area of under representation is with respect to health related media content. This begs the question as to whether women’s risk factors relating to specific health concerns are overlooked. The study

To the point, that friendship between girls was a source of emotional investment. Winkler-Reid (2015) asserts that one of the most important things of friendship is communication. The exchange of talk that is a subtle and powerful tool to express disapproval of a friend. Cupach and Willer (2008) demonstrate by showing that girls use their intimate knowledge of friends to hurt and betray them when they are angry. Studies have shown many reason breaking said friendship but both researchers agreed that breaking a friendship due the friend affecting there appearance to their peers happens regularly (Cupach and Willer 2008; Winkler-Reid

Mass media is designed to reach large audiences with technology. Its purpose is meant to give us entertainment and information we need to act as a society. Media is everywhere; there is no escaping from it. Almost every home in America has at least one TV, the internet, and a cell phone. You cannot drive down the street without seeing billboard signs. Checking out at the grocery store can be tricky if trying to avoid magazines. There are more forms of media available today then ever before; consequently, teens are exposed to a lot of information. The media is supposed to portray what is normal; therefore, it affects what society considers normal. Teens are much more impressionable then adults. What the media tells them is normal affects

Once the attention is caught, young people then make the mistake of falling under society’s chokehold. They attempt to reinvent themselves to fit society’s new standard. Societal pressure becomes a severe issue because individuals desire to meet the media’s unattainable image. It is important that today's youth begins to open their eyes to the harmful effects media’s influence can contribute to; along with what steps can be taken to resolve this detrimental issue that has infected America.