George W.Bush Addressing 911 Attacks & Terrorism

George W. Bush’s speech addressing the event of 911 is what showed the American people that the United States was in serious threat by terrorism. In his speech bush opened up and told the American people everything that had to be said. Some things that were previously not spoken about also came out in this speech.

In this speech there was a clear line that bush draws between the American people and the terrorists. A good analogy would be the good guys and the bad guys, or the civilized and the barbarians. Bush refers to us as the United States citizens, and to them as the terrorists. Through his speech, Bush created a sense of nationalism among all the people of the United States. He brought together all the people of the United States to unite over and fight for the same issue and the same goal. The goal was to preserve and restore the prosperity of the country and its people. In his speech he created this image of the terrorists to the Americans as people who were dangerous threat to the United State’s and its people’s freedom. They were considered especially as a threat to the American democratic government. In one point Bush says that “they” are the enemies of freedom. He really stresses on the importance of freedom and that it is very important for the American people. America is a free nation and that cannot be threatened. This was a way of uniting all the people since no one wants to not have freedom. In one point of his speech Bush breaks it down as explains that he means when he says terrorists are a threat to our freedom. He says, “they hate our freedom, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote, assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments. This once again shows how much he is connecting freedom to threat. Throughout his speech, he also refers to them as barbarians. At one point bush says, “Al Qaeda is to terror as mafia is to crime”. He is really trying to make the people understand what terrorism really is and that something has to be done quickly to stop it. He says that Taliban is committing murder. This creates an image of them being very barbaric and wild people and that the American people need to come together, be the heroes and fight for their country’s freedom. Bush towards the end of the speech says that we need to go to war against them. And that only war had the potential to save us and protect the American people. He says “every nation, in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorist. This once again shows the distinct line that was drawn between the American people and the terrorist.

America is a diverse and free country. People of all different religions, all different races and all different nationalities and all different backgrounds live in peace together. Bush’s speech brings together all these different people of these different backgrounds and unites them under one common problem, which was to fight for freedom. It breaks the difference among the different races and genders and brings everyone together. 

The Beauty Myth

Fair and lovely is a special cream that is meant to lighten people’s skin tone. This product is very popular in India where having fair skin is considered to be very beautiful characteristic for a woman. This commercial portrays the beauty myth of fair skin beauty. It shows that lighter the skin a woman has the more beautiful, appealing and attractive the woman is. The commercial starts out with image of  a pretty woman who has a tanned skin tone. She and her friend are walking on a street when the woman sees the guy that she likes. The friend tries to introduce the woman to the guy but the guy says that he is in a hurry and does noeem very interested in even saying hello to the woman. The woman gets very upset because the guy ignored her and walks away with a very depressed look on her face. She goes back to her room at home and looks at her self in the mirror attached to the dressing table as she sits on the chair in front of it convinced that she was ignored because she had dark skin. She says to her self, “Why wasn’t I born with light skin?” This is when her friend walks into her room and we see the mirror image of the both of them as the friend tells her “do not worry, we have fair and lovely” and hand the woman a bottle a box of the fair and lovely cream. The woman takes the cream and uses it over a period of several weeks and the commercial shows her skin getting lighter and lighter every time she uses the cream. By the end of the tenth week the woman is shown as having beautiful milky fair smooth skin. This time she is again walking on that same street when she comes face to face with the guy she likes again. This time she walks by the guy she likes. This time the guy turns around and looks at her because she is so beautiful. The only thing that is different between the first time he saw her and now is that she has lighter skin. This clearly shows that the lighter a woman’s skin color is, the more “beautiful” she is. The woman is now also smiling a lot more than she was in the beginning. She has a lot more confidence now about her appearance cause she has lighter skin. 

The beauty Myth says that woman are supposed to want to embody feminine beauty and woman are supposed to want to possess them. The beauty myth also talks a lot about sexual selection, and that men and woman pick their mates based on their appearance so that their off springs would have good traits. The man in this commercial is attracted to the woman now because she has lighter skin which psychologically be said that he might consider having children with her so that their children will also have light skin. This commercial also brings up the many facets of social identity. The most obvious one would as said before would be the facet of sexuality. There is heterosexual love interest shown in this commercial. The romantic interest is what drives the commercial forward. The girl changes her appearance in order to become more attractive and for the guy to like him back. When the girl finally does be come more “beautiful” with lighter skin, the guy is finally attracted to her. This sends a message that the fair and lovely cream product will help woman become more sexually appealing to men. The other facet of social identity would be gender and this notion of femininity and masculinity. The woman in this commercial is very feminine. She is wearing a pink outfit, has long straight hair and is wearing make-up and has nails done with pink nail polish. She represents the feminine beauty while the guy in this commercial is wearing a shirt and wearing blue jeans and is seen with a very stern expression in the commercial. This shows the difference in masculinity and femininity. In terms of class the commercial shows them as belonging to the middle class. They don’t have a very big or luxurious house, which sends the message that this product is available to everyone. The issue of race becomes very important here. This commercial basically sees someone with a darker skin as someone who will never be beautiful and as though something that needs to be fixed. The commercial clearly discriminates and dark skinned people. Overall this commercial displays the beauty myth that having light skin tone makes a woman more beautiful and that men would be more attracted to them than someone who has a darker skin tone. 

Carry Out

The "carry out" video shows the myth of the player. It shows special emphasis on heterosexuality and class. A player is usually seen as someone who has casual sexual relationships with a lot of women. In this video Justin Timberlake and Timbaland are shown as the players. They have multiple  sexy looking women surrounded by them. The women in the video are wearing very revealing clothes and are making very sensual expressions thought the video. The kind of dancing they do is also very sexual. The women are strippers and are dancing very sexually near which shows femininity, compared to the women in the video them men are more stiff and are not doing as many dance moves which shows more of their masculine side. This video also shows class. The guys are wearing very expensive suits and jackets. Justin is wearing a white suite and Timbaland is wearing a black one. This can be interpreted as them showing race of white and black. Also most of the black girls were seen with justin and most of the white ones were with Timbaland. This might be to show the mix of different races. The old muscle car can be seen as showing the high class that justin and Timbaland belong to. The fact that the muscle are is vintage is what makes it become a symbol of higher class.

Beside the image of the video it is also equally important to note the lyrics and the meaning behind the lyrics as well. It can be said that all the lyrics of this song is all supposed to have a double meaning. The lyrics use a lot of command words. It can been seen as the men in the video demanding the women to please and satisfy them. It is almost like the men are controlling the women in the video. This shows masculinity. The women in the video are also bring the men food and drinks. The fact that they are serving them shows the social definition of womanhood. This music video shows overall shows the myth of the player. Someone who is rich, very masculine gets a lot of girls. The song shows this by emphasizing on gender, heterosexuality and class. 

Social Racial Identity

     Racial stereotyping has always been a major social issue. Racism is now always overtly present in society. In fact most racism is very implicitly stated, especially in the media. No matter how much we say we aren't racist, every individual has some deep rooted racial or stereotypical views that shape the way we see the world we live in.

      Negative racist stereotypes usually arise from some act of violence that has happen in the past. Once something violent and negative happens and people get affected in a bad way, they start associating that negative violent event with the people that might have caused the violence. Even though we all know that it is rationally impossible for every individual of muslim decent to be a terrorist, we do start generalizing. We assume that every muslim hates America and wants to harm the country and its people. Now days we not only associate terrorism with muslims, but anyone that appears to be of muslim or Arab descent. This usually entails anyone with brown skin.

     We have created a stereotype of a terrorist to be a foreigner of a muslim descent, having tanned or brown skin with a long beard and a turban. We have this stereotyped image of a muslim or arab man after the event of september eleventh 2001. This was the event that lead to the world shaping the way we view muslim culture and practices. This violent event was given the face of Osama Bin-laden since he was the master mind behind plotting this terrible event.
     The media kept flashing images of Osama Bin-laden on all the news channels. They kept saying very bad things about him and unified Americans in despising Bin-laden. This shows how the media shapes our views on different events. If the media says that we all have to hate something we do it and if we dont comply we get accused of either beloning to the "bad" guy's side or that we are very anti-American.
     Most people however, just go with the majority's view and agree with what their neighbors are saying. This is how the stereotype gets formed. All American's together with the influence of the media have created a stereotypical image of a terrorist. That is why today, it would be so much harder for a man of brown skin to get through security check at an airport. They are usually the ones that are being inspected and watched more carefully than how they inspect a white man. Its not just the brown skin, even if a person wears a turban he is not considered as a terrorist even if he may not even be a muslim.
     The turban can be considered as a cultural artifact that has immense value given by the people who do wear it. But its important to remember that its not just muslims that wear a turban. People from indian of Sikh and punjabi descent also wear a turban as a symbol of respect and devotion to their religion and to their almighty God.
     However, since we are all people it is inevitable to stop generalizing and stereotyping people into groups. It is just humanly instincts to categorize people based on our beliefs and our views of the world.  In this case a cultural artifact fact for the islamic culture and the Sikh culture and the Punjabi culture would be the turban.
     One example of this stereotype would be the mass shooting that took place at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The shooter was racist against muslims because of the twin tower terrorist attacks and he associated the turbans they wear and the long beards that they have to terrorists. In this case a whole group of people (sikhs and punjabis) are reffered to as also being terrorists and anti-america just because of the turban they wear on their heads, the dark colored skin they have and the long beards they have.

     Once again, it is also important to remember that not all muslims are terrorists either. Just because their outer appearance resembles one, it doest means their inner beliefs are of terror and anti-america. No one should be judged by the kind of clothing they wear or the way they look. Stereotypes will continue to exist in the years to come, and we need to be aware about the real facts and stop generalizing a set of facts and ignorant beliefs to a larger grop of people.
   

Advertisements and Gender Stereotypes

In the society we live today, there are very obvious gender stereotypes that exists. No matter how much we say that men and women are equal, there is still a very clear distinction between the two. As Aaron Devor talks about in his article, "Gender role behaviors and attitudes", the stereotype is that men need to show more aggression and dominance while women are supposed to be more passive and submissive with neither characteristics of the gender being better than the other. He also says that one gender will not be able to perform well in tasks that are meant for the opposite gender.
This advertisement for example clearly conveys this idea of femininity that Devor was talking about in his article. He stresses upon femininity having an image of submissiveness and passivity. The girl in this advertisement is not making any eye contact with he audience and her hair is covering part of her face which clearly gives her an expression or image of shyness and unassertiveness. The expression of the woman in this advertisement is very crucial in showing the stereotypical idea of femininity.
Secondly the dress of the woman is worth noting. The kind of clothing worn plays a great role in the social definition of masculinity and femininity. Devor in his article states that one of the ways femininity is expressed is "though modes of dress, movement, speech and action which show weakness, dependency, ineffectualness, availability for sexual or emotional service, sensitivity to the needs of others." The expression of the woman in this advertisement clearly shows weakness and submissiveness which is a stereotypical view of women.  He also stresses on the fact that Women need to dress for men in a way that is more appealing and attractive to men. In this advertisement, the woman is wearing an elegant outfit that is very feminine and is also showing a lot of skin. Devor talks about showing skin as being a very important part of conveying femininity. This again gives the advertisement a very feminine charm. According to Devor, body postures that communicate subordinate status and vulnerability appear to be very feminine. Smiling for example sends a very pleasing and calm appearance which sends across a very feminine personality.

Devor also talks about the women being very compact and closed in compared to a men who tend to spread out them selves more and be more adventurous. This advertisement is very compact and tight which conveys the notion of the feminine appeal.
The target audience of this advertisement is other women. It manifests the stereotypical notion of femininity which would appeal to other women who want to also embrace that feminine appeal  and essentially would attract a woman to the product itself.

Cultural artifacts shape social identity

In today's society its hard to avoid getting judged based on one's culture, class, gender and sexual orientation. This is where the idea of social identity comes in. Some might incorrectly assume that the word "social identity" means one's identity of themselves and how they would like to be recognized by society. However, one's social identity is an identity given to an individual by the society based on a certain group (ethnicity, religion etc) that individual might belong to. A person himself does not have control over their social identity.
So this leads us to a broad question, what groups people? Answers to this question might include religion, language, geographical location, cultural practices, sexual preferences and even accents. These are just some superficial factors. When you look deeper; art, music, food and clothing are some of the factors or "cultural artifacts" that differentiates or even stigmatize different groups of people in today's society. However, it should be said that its not these artifacts or items themselves that stigmatize people, but its the way they are perceived and spread (ex: the media) is what creates social myths and stereotypes.
Lopez in his memoir gave great importance to clothing by describing them in detail several times. Wearing "baggy" clothing and dressing like a surfer seemed to get him attention. He also wanted to own the expensive Lenny Muelich surfboard.  He felt that inorder to be a surfer it was very important to look the part. Lopez says that he gave higher importance to surfing than race and therefore it can be said that he was trying to have an identity of a surfer before a Mexican. He felt a need to fit into the group of surfers. But when confronted by a fellow mexican stranger on the street inorder to prevent a hostile situation he says "I'm Mexican". This time he identified himself as a Mexican and by doing so he was protecting himself from getting fought and formed somewhat of a cordial common bond between himself and the stranger.

Being of Mexican decent in East LA and desiring to be a surfer was a far reach for Lopez but non the less by understanding his social identity and embracing it, Lopez did get the "best of both worlds".