Chapter 6 Protest Letter: Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, & Cha Cha Divas
As a huge industry in society, the media plays a serious role. They offer us a description about who we are as a nation and they reinforce the standards provided. With that said, it is known that women have fought many battles to be acknowledged today. Women, especially women of color aim to be seen as confident, intelligent, and independent. This is a challenging task when women of different ethnicities endure stereotyping and psychological abuse. I believe that these problems exist today because the media displays them so passionately in order to trigger scandalous arguments.
Stereotyping is demeaning and dehumanizing, and has been shown in America’s Next Top Model. For example, on cycle 3 the model Kelle Jacob stated, “It’s like I have a protruding mouth. You know what I mean? I almost feel like I have a monkey mouth. I guess [it] can look really, I don’t know, primitive” (p 205.) Tyra Banks responded by calling her Curious George instead of making this a teaching moment in order to raise awareness of the historic dehumanization of black women starting with imagery during slavery and progressing to contemporary ads that depict women as exotic, primal animals (p 205.)
The scars from psychological abuse can be very deep and many times do not fade away. The methods used on the show may be devised to break most models’ spirits for our viewing pleasure (p 196) but it seems the judges are eager to tear them down. When a contestant is confident and bold, they are often broken down so that confidence ceases to exist. Women go on the show in hopes of gaining such confidence that can be embraced and shown to the world.
It is possible to change the way these two problems. The first is to set guidelines before women appear on the show. That way the producers have an understanding on how these women (or men) want to be portrayed to the viewers, whether it means allowing these women to be stereotyped or not. The second is to suggest to production companies on starting a military boot camp style reality show that can break down women to their core.
A level of understanding needs to be brought in before any changes can happen. If it is possible to have an open mind then anything can be done. We hope that these recommendations can be taken into consideration.
Mrs. Riedel’s T/H 10 a.m. English 1A
