Essay On Popular Culture

Movies, magazines, the music industry, and television culture present us with images that communicate ideologies, such as societal position and class, to those that consume them. Popular culture also influences individuals and their perceptions of people of events while also playing an important role in the lives of the modern woman. African American and Latina women are two of the main groups of women that the media not only appeals to, but represents. These ethnic women have become the means to entertain the masses. For women of color, their role according to most people, is to be sexualized and seen as an object of someone’s desire. Their bodies are for the consumption of others and to be taken advantage of. Unlike white women and other

The show tries to also erase some stereotypes by showing that not all Latina women work low end jobs like a maid or a gardner. Jane is a recent college graduate and a graduate student who worked as wait staff in a hotel and as a teacher in a local Catholic school. However, on the show, Jane is the daughter of a single mother who had her at the age of 16. Jane’s father does not come back into the picture until she is 21. Jane’s mother can be seen as overly sexualized because she wears short skirts and dresses, with cleavage showing. Another stereotype is also the fact that all Latinas love to sing, shown in Jane’s mother pursuing a singing career. Her family, especially her grandmother, is an extremely devout Catholic, yet another stereotype. One last stereotype is that Jane’s grandmother lives with Jane and her mother and is an illegal immigrant who does not speak

In regards to rape and women of color, the media presents two explanations for what has happened. They believe that either the woman is lying in order to get money, as in the case of Tawana Brawley and the Duke University case, or it is because of the nature of the man of color, as in the 1989 Central Park Jogger case. Rape and women of color in the media are depicted as either overly sexual women who were just asking for it, or as an innocent woman who needs protection from the men around her. In this stereotypical way, the question is not why the man raped her, but what she did to provoke the rape? These women of color are not allowed to tell their side of the story, and when they do, nobody believes them. Instead, white sexuality is viewed as the good and ideal sexuality, and because these rape victims are not white, chances are they will try their best not to convict anyone for the case. The white sexuality, because it is the respectable sexuality, will be the means for everything else to be compared