PLAYBOY

Today, in class, when we were watching The Girls Next Door I was thinking about how much the porn industry has really sky rocketed over the past years. There are so many different websites and magazines out there that provide different ways to access porn. Anyone who has access to the internet can get all types of porn. People can now access porn from the privacy of their own homes so there is no shame in watching porn; this is unlike it used to be. People used to be scared to purchase porn for the fear that they would be seen by others around their community. In order to see porn you would either have to rent it from the local video store, or go to a theater and watch it. However, now we have the opportunity to buy porn on Pay Per View on our televisions or watch porn on websites on our computers. Because of this new technology that allows the public to access pornographic material so easily, it is becoming more popular because people no longer find it as awkward as it used to be. People are finding themselves becoming more comfortable with their sexuality and the sexuality of others. I believe there is a major contributor to this new found comfort: Playboy.

Playboy has been around since 1953 and was founded in Chicago by Hugh Hefner. Marilyn Monroe was the very first centerfold and she was a sex icon during that time, for both men and women. Many different celebrities were centerfolds for Playboy; singers, actresses, models and of course, playmates. Playboy allowed women and men to explore their sexuality. Women would see this women as idols, people they looked up to and people they wanted to look like. They looked at these women and realized this is what men find attractive. Men looked at these women and were aroused by them; they find these women sexually attractive. Playboy was a revolutionary gateway to pornography and it is extremely profitable to those who sold it.

Jerry Springer: Real or Fake?

Have you ever watched Jerry Springer? After watching it once, have you never watched it again? Jerry Springer is one of those shows that people talk about really badly, but yet some people find it extremely entertaining and watch it every morning at 12. Most of the shows have the same type of theme. They almost always revolve around cheating relationships and almost always involve some sort of fighting. There is a question as to whether the show is scripted just for public entertainment and whether the people on the show actually do fight or not. On the show they have a bell that is signaled in real boxing matches and then the people who are in a fight start punching each other and pulling each other's hair. It gets pretty violent and the security guards have to step in and minimize the fighting that goes on. Sometimes wigs go flying and people really go at each other with the cruelest intentions. Here is an episode called "Bad Boys Breaking Hearts" and it is about guys who are breaking up with their girlfriends because they have cheated on them:

                            I have to wonder though, if these stories are real or if they are just made up for entertaining purposes. Do the people really fight each other or do they just do that for the show? What are your thoughts?

Emasculating Commercials

Today in class, when the guest speaker was showing us all those different commercials, I was thinking to myself if there were any other commercials that I have seen that emasculate men? Then I thought about male products that advertisers try to sell. Advertisers main goal is to get men to see that they will be a "real man" if they use the product they are advertising. On the other hand, if they don't buy this product, then they will be a girly man until they decide to change their mind and buy whatever it is that is being advertised. I found a commercial that is advertising Old Spice body wash.

In this commercial the man persuading viewers to buy this body wash is an extremely muscular and built man. He has the physique of a "real man" which is why I think it has a more effective argument as to why the men viewing should buy this product. If he was a scrawny, weak man, I don't think it would have the same effect. In the commercial the man even says things like: "anything is possible when you're man smells like Old Spice and not a lady." By this quote he is implying that if you are a man and you aren't using Old Spice body wash than you aren't a real man and you smell like a girl. This type of implication can be very insulting to a man, especially one that takes pride in his manliness. There are many commercials out there that emasculate men; this just happens to be one of the many. 

SCRUBS

The television show, Scrubs, displays both perspectives of masculinity, dominant and subordinate. The dominant male in the show is Dr. Cox and subordinate male in the story is J.D. Dorian. Dr. Cox marks his own masculinity throughout the show by doing and say things that question Dorian's masculinity. For my masculinity paper I focused on the one episode called "Our Drunken Friend." There are so many times during that episode when Dr. Cox shows his dominance by intimidating many students in the Sacred Heart teaching hospital. A primary target of Dr. Cox just happens to be J.D. Since J.D. looks up to Dr. Cox he doesn't care how mean he is to him sometimes; he is still loyal to him and listens to every form of criticism he gives him. Here is the first part of the episode I focused on:

During this episode, the opening scene is very telling. It is already portraying which man is the dominant one in this show and which man is the subordinate one. Dr. Cox acts like J.D. doesn't even exist and is rather rude to him when J.D. tries to have a conversation with him. Then when he encounters the student he calls, #1, J.D. is extremely jealous of him because he wants to be recognized like that by Dr. Cox, but he never is. Not only does Dr. Cox mark his masculinity in the presence of J.D. but he also shows his dominance when talking to an intern, Lucy. She tries to hide from him, but he finds her anyway and gives her unecessary work that he wants done and also gives her a lesson on not getting involved with patients.

J.D.'s masculinity is questioned greatly when they show him up in the tree teaching his class and him needing his fellow doctor to come rescue him. He cannot get down by himself and is is caught like a baby when they shake the tree to get him down. No man wants to be called a baby.

I believe that Scrubs is a great example of dominant and subordinate masculinity and that is shown just in the first part of this episode. There are many more examples of marking masculinity later in the episode. I recommend checking it out!