No more fairy tale movies?

There was an interesting article I found on Yahoo the other day.  The article said that Tangled will be the last princess movie that Disney will be making for awhile.  The two reasons were because of changing expectations and demographics of sorts among Disney's viewers.  The first reason is "because the studio is fearful of alienating young boys, who supposedly won't see something like last year's The Princess and the Frog." The article later says that nowadays, Disney's main competition is movies such as Iron Man and Transformers, which are now attracting elementary school age kids, despite their PG-13 ratings.  The main reason for girls is that "young girls consider themselves too cool to want to be princesses."  Dafna Lemish, a movie critic who has previously written on media's influence on children says "By the time they're 5 or 6, [girls are] not interested in being princesses. They're interested in being hot, in being cool. Clearly, they see this is what society values."  What does it mean that girls are no longer valuing being a princess but rather being hot?  I find it amazing that girls are wanting to be hot, rather than princesses.  And I would wonder what that would mean for boys? When I was a kid, I wanted to be a police officer, a firefighter, or a professional athlete, but what do boys nowadays want to be when they grow up? I mean, I guess a professional athlete could be considered a girls equivalent of "hot", but would a police officer or firefighter count? Or would they want to be iron man or a transformer? Or something that society values more now, maybe they just aim to just be rich or powerful.  But my main question is if girls now want to be "hot," what will another 30 years bring?

Here is the link to the article, in case anyone wants to read it...
http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/177-disney-will-stop-making-princess-movies-because-boys-think-theyre-icky

Mixed Messages

Russ brought up something interesting in class the other day.  If the media has enough power to influence kids sexually, such as influencing kids to lose their virginity earlier by showing sex scenes in the movies and stuff, why are people obese considering that the media shows so many skinny women. If media has such a strong affect on how people act, shouldnt people be trying to get skinny?  One of the opposing arguments that was brought up is that some people are just "big boned" and even if they were to diet or even starve themselves, they still would not be able to look like the girls on TV.  Now, I can buy that. It's true that some people have bigger bone structures. But I feel like that was in part caused by our culture. People started getting fat, and from an evolutionary standpoint, their bone structures got larger to support more weight. I dunno if there's any data or anything to back that up... But thats my theory.  The other opposing theory was that we it tends to be the poor people who cant afford to eat organic chips instead of regular lays, doritos, etc. This is what I find to be ridiculous. Organic vs regular chips? Chips are what got us into this trouble in the first place! The reason that americans are so much fatter than the rest of the world is (in part) because we snack all the time.  I read a statistic once from some yahoo article that said that the national past time of the US should be eating. The article said that the average american eats 3 meals a day... And also eat when theyre bored. The articles stated that americans tend to eat when theyre bored, even if theyre not hungry at all. And people wonder why were fat... Anyways so I went Italy this summer. It was amazing. There were babes everywhere. I have never seen so many sexy girls in one place. And part of the reason is that they dont eat between meals, they dont drink soda, they dont snack. They eat breakfast lunch and dinner, and nothing else. I went to Italy, ate more per meal than I do here, but came back 10 pounds lighter. It's the stuff in between that makes people fat. BUT the media makes that happen. The media influences us to buy the snacks, the mcdonalds, the unhealthy food. It's a mixed message. Eat unhealthy and all the time, but be skinny. If america wants to get healthier, they just need to cut out the chips altogether. 

Whores

So my roommates and I had some people over to our room this weekend. And this one girl told me that she was a whore when she got drunk. I found that kind of funny. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, right? And the way she said made it seem almost like she was proud of that. Is that really something to be proud of? I mean, in class, we were talking about how our "hook up" culture was going to dissapear in the future, but with girls acting like that? It doesnt seem likely. I know guys enjoy sex, and so do girls. So shouldnt that, to some extent, explain why we have this hook up culture? Because it's enjoyable... for both parties. Now granted, not everyone enjoys sex (I guess... I dont really understand why someone wouldnt but I understand that it's possible) and even among those that do like sex not all of them enjoy a "hook up." But doesnt enjoyment factor in to this hook up culture somehow? It's not something we've talked about, but that's just my two cents.

Kids

So we talked about this in class today. I would rather have a lesbian daughter than a gay son. The same with my brother or sister. I'd rather have a lesbian sister than a gay brother. I guess it mostly just has to do with how I relate to them and my expectations of the relationship. With my brother/son, I'd want to do things like play video games, play play sports, just stuff like that in general. Manly stuff. But I'd feel more like doing that stuff with a lesbian sister/daughter. Now granted, I guess my gay son/brother could still be manly and do manly things with me, or my daughter/sister could be a really girly. But at that point, I almost wouldnt think of them as being gay without the stereotypical traits.

Sex Trafficking

The Jessica Valenti article for this week discussed feminism. Jessica Valenti argued that even if they wont admit it, they are hardcore feminists. But she also argues that what feminism actually is is NOT the same as societies idea of feminism. She argues that, contrary to popular belief, feminists are not the same ugly, fat women that everyone believes. Not all feminists are the "crazy radical feminists" that create the stereotype.
One thing that I thought was interesting was when she talked about how feminism isnt for all women. I definitely agree that feminism isnt for anyone. But what I didnt like is that she seemed to me to almost disapprove of the fact that some women werent feminist. Or at least that the ones that werent she didnt want them to be anyways, because they arent "quality women." Yeah sure, there are some "racist, classist, homophobic" women, but not everyone is. To go back to her original statement, I dont believe everyone is a hardcore feminist.