In today’s class we talked about America’s Next Top Model and Family Guy. I think both of these shows say very different things about gender in today’s society. I believe America’s Next Top Model is an extremely hypocritical television show. It likes to flaunt it’s promotion of “diversity” because they have several African American women and one Indian woman. They like to parade the fact that this season they had two plus size models; 2 out of sixteen contestants, both size 8s, both were told to lose weight, and both are already out of the show. Tyra likes to talk about healthy body images and healthy lifestyles but will routinely tell very skinny girls that they need to lose some weight and in practice is doing nothing to change the fashion industry that she is so quick to criticize. I think they show is entertaining, as most reality/competition shows are, but does nothing but help further the Beauty Myth.

Family Guy on the other hand I actually enjoy. Like South Park, I believe the show aims to make politically incorrect situations appear so extreme and outrageous that it points out the absurdity of those ideas to begin with. For example, in the clips that were shown today the dad say’s something like “well it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s not like women are people and are just here for our amusement.” This is of course something that people in the real world would not outwardly say, but the underlying sentiments of sexism are often present within people in our society. By making him say such an outrageous comment it blows the idea of sexism out into the open, points out that people actually are sexist, but satirizes and points out the absurdity of those sentiments.