The new sexy!

An unfortunate thing happened to me a few weeks ago....my iPod broke so I have not been able to listen to music in my car or anywhere!! As I spend most of my time in my car driving from place to place without an iPod I am stuck listening to the radio. :( To those of you who worship music like I do you understand what a tragedy this is, but one positive thing came from having to listen to countless hours of awful radio music.....I noticed a new trend in hip-hop music. More and more artists are writing songs about how sexy it is for a woman to not depend on a man for his money and status. Take this quote from Neyo's new song:

"Their Ain't Nothin thats more sexy Than the Girl Dat Wan't But Don't Need Me Young Independent Yea she work hard"

There is no need to read between the lines to figure out the message that Neyo is trying to send here. This is just one example of the types of things I have heard and trust me there have been at least 5 different songs that I have heard. I think that it is so great that hip hop artists are starting to change how they speak about the women they want around them. These lyrics are a great change from the old "big booty hoes in different area codes" that we are all accustomed to hearing. So my whole point is that if we can get more and more artists thinking this way then maybe it will spread across the whole music scene and then women will be brought back in the light in a more positive way where it should have been all along.

Barbie is 50?!?

It's really kind of weird to think that the toy that every little girl plays with at least once in her lifetime is now 50! Barbie is a vital part of American girl’s social culture, she teaches us how we can make our hair look, the cute clothes we could wear when we get old enough, and even now to keep our Earth clean. She is the "perfect" form of a woman and her hair never gets frizzy, wouldn’t that be nice for the rest of us to have. Even though Barbie has been criticized over the years for making little girls think that they are not pretty enough, she teaches a lot of good lessons to little girls now more than ever. No girl has the perfect body and it is not up to a toy to teach young girls that. Barbie has a number of different movies out now that teach little kids all about sharing, caring and friendship....all good morals that hopefully we all want our children to have. I feel that Barbie is a positive role model to children and that she keeps getting better with each year that she gets older and doesn’t physically change. We could all take a cue from her on how to make the world a better place for all, but at the same time doing that while looking really cute. And isn't that every girls dream?

Record-Setting 'Simpsons' Back For Two More Years

After 20 years on the air The Simpsons has been signed up for two more seasons, which makes it TV's longest running show ever! What is it about this crude humored cartoon that has kept Americans entertained for twenty years and counting? The show isn’t just a silly cartoon that makes people laugh and that they watch every now and then, it has earned its spot on primetime TV. The fact that it has received 24 Emmys over the years and even a Peabody (not really sure what that is though) makes it known that whatever it is that they are talking about has kept us entertained and even maybe learned some things along the way. The dad Homer in the show is the stereo-typical overweight, alcoholic buffoon that we all can relate to in some form or another. Homers antics over the years have made us laugh, but in a slightly non obvious way make us learn little tiny life lessons here and there. The Simpsons may be a fictitious cartoon family but it seems as though Americans can see themselves in this show more than they can in other primetime series that have been canceled and why is that? Why is it that after twenty years most of us can still relate to this stereotypical family that doesn’t seem to be evolving in its ideals about family?

Japanese Humping Animal Banks

So as I was surfing the net looking for different things I could write about in this blog I came across this lovely little CHILDS piggy bank. Now I'm not too sure about the rest of you but this is not a toy I would ever let my child have, if I had a kid. This is supposed to be a piggy bank to teach kids how to learn to save money, and apparently learn how to do it up the butt too. This piggy bank is just outrageous in that it is showing these animals mid thrust with expressions in their eyes and mouths wide open, and is not appropriate for children. Part of the caption underneath the picture reads "Add a coin and watch two porkers making bacon." Now I’m just guessing but I’m pretty sure that if you put a coin in then these animals will have sex. The fact that this is supposed to be a kids toy is harmful to society because there are studies that show that our children are being sexualized younger and younger each year, and then you are going to give them a toy that shows them how to have sex? that just does not make much sense to me.

"Changes" by Tupac. Was he our modern day MLK jr?

Even though he is not alive any more, when he was Tupac was one of the most influential rappers of his time. His raps weren't all just about drugs, violence and women; he spoke about the real struggles facing america that most people look the other way at. Tupac preached about the poverty that a big portion of our country deals with, struggles that women go through, and the major race issue that we all still deal with today.

"We gotta make a change...It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes. Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live and let's change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to dowhat we gotta do, to survive."

He realized that there is still big racial struggles for everyone not just blacks, and that it was up to everyone to make the change not just one person. Our skin color has nothing to do with the way we all turn out as people yet for some reason in america it makes some feel they are better than others and Tupac didnt just see black people as his fans, he apperciated every single one, black, white, mexican, or asain it was all the same to him. Even though he is no longer living Tupac saw what was and is still happening all over our country and spoke out to try and make change for everyone and I feel that that is something we all should try to do so that maybe one day people wont judge others just based on what color their skin is or how much money they have.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=184457305
that is a link to the actual song on myspace for anyone who wants to hear it.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/2pac/changes.html
and that is a link for a copy of the entire song so that everyone can see the different issues that he disscusses and how we could go about bettering our country for all of us.

"Onslaugt"

While I was looking through different web sites and blogs trying to get and idea for my blog I came across Jean Kilbournes article on the video "Onslaught" released by Dove.

"As the soundtrack plays "Here It Comes," the camera cuts to a rapid succession of images she and all of us are bombarded with daily: model-thin women in underwear; women with unnatural curves; women weighing themselves; women shrinking and expanding as they diet and purge and nip and tuck; body parts scored with black marker indicating where they will be carved for cosmetic surgery; needles being plunged into skin to plump and smooth it; food portions, large and small; women being told how to become "younger, taller, lighter, firmer, thinner, softer."

I have put in a link to Jean's article on this video. http://www.jeankilbourne.com/articles.html and a link for the actual video its self. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I

This video shows its viewers all of the different images thrown at girls of all ages by the media everyday on how their appearence should be. Constantley girls are being told that they are too big or too small and that they need to fit into this microscope sized ideal of what women are actually suppose to look like; when in all reality only like 2% of women look this way. Some girls or women may say that the media does not influence how they feel about their own bodies. Well most of those same women are the ones that are dying their hair because they found a few gray ones and feel that that makes them look older. There is nothing wrong with men getting gray hair of having a few extra pounds on them, but the media makes it seem like it is the end of the world if a woman had these same issues.