Blog
Danni Colello
my blog will show you the mind of a young developing writer.
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Maya Angelou
my blog will show you the mind of a young developing writer.
Before actually beginning this project, I was absolutely freakin scared. It seemed so intimidating and I hadn’t done one in years. I used to feel like I was so behind and like I lost all of creative writing abilities. There is so much that goes into a research project from coming up with your thesis statement. From doing the actual research to figuring out your position. From structuring your paper correctly to all the grammatical errors it seems like there is an infinite amount of different elements that goes into it when you first look at it.
Once I started to figure out what message was really resonating with me the rest honestly just started to fall into place. I KNEW immediately what position I had on the subject. I did struggle with figuring out what my research question was going to be. I originally was just subliminally writing an informational paper. But through sabatino’s guidance and brainstorming I realized what argument I wanted to make. Now that I’ve written it I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job but I really want (by the end of the year) to hand in a draft to sabatino and him have absolutely nothing to say improvement wise. Now i know that probably isn’t realistic but I see the growth I’ve made in this class as a writer, and I just want to keep challenging myself. I know my spelling and grammar is atrocious, but it’ll eventually get there I’m not too worried about it. As long as I know what message I want to get across in content. I think this class has been so positive for me not only for my education, but for my personal growth. I honestly can only hope to have another teacher and class that has been as impactful as this one. Going forward with English classes and hopefully a side career of writing articles. I know now what I will need to do in order to produce pieces that can make people think and feel. I think I found my voice in writing. That feels amazing. I feel like one day I’ll really be able to connect people through my writings.
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I’m going to share my introduction for the research project and maybe you guys can give me some idea’s of how to develop it a bit more. I would appreciate any feedback.
This is America. This is the land of the free. This is what I’m told to look like and dress like. This is how I’m told to respond to men. This is the role I’m supposed to play. Growing up as a young girl in America the media has become a part of everyday life. We are constantly on some form of media. Weather that be social media, TV, the radio, or images young women are always being bombarded with structuralizing views that come from men. There are so many shows and movies that little girls are basically addicted to that subliminally are teaching them what behavior is and is not acceptable in Americas society. The media glorifies abusive/ toxic friendships to create a social norm for young girls. I feel that the rest of my project is pretty well written. I use two examples of media to show how young girls are subliminally shown what’s socially acceptable between friends. I feel that I should probably add in that although the friends reconcile and apologize to each other they still are tolerating this toxic behavior. Also, in real life it doesn’t always work out like in the movies. Just so I can show that I do have the knowledge that the movie and sitcom do try to show some sort of healthy way of dealing with the situations. Although they do, the lengths that the girls go to just to “take each other down” or to be “queen bee” is toxic and completely unhealthy. I think there is a lot of importance that goes into this issue. The friendships and relationships that we build are so crucial to our mental health. We can learn to accept toxic behavior or we can learn how to stand up to it and not allow it in your life. If you’ve ever removed a toxic person from your life your probably know how different the mental state becomes. You are not currently in fight or flight mode, so you are in a way calmer, content state. I think the media really needs to monitor what messages they are sending to little girls. Especially subliminally. These young girls are so influential, so promote healthy relationships between women. Promote women lifting each other up. because I ‘ll say this, I’m twenty three and I've never before this class had any guidance in learning about women empowerment. It has only been from my personal experiences with other women and realizing that women are not currently in a competition. We can all love each other and coexist. We also should recognize if any habits we might have may potentially be toxic behavior. We are able to infinitely grow as beings, so we should not be scared to. I think these are all things we should be teaching young children, and more importantly the media also. The media has so much power, it needs to be used wiser. This blog post is touching on what my research project is going to be about. We watched two documentaries that my research project is going to be relating to and referencing throughout called Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In.
My research project is going to be about abusive/ toxic friendships I believe this is a very important very relevant issue pertaining to today’s society and also relating to both documentaries, Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In. These films discuss huge struggles little boys and girls are faced with every day growing up and I think even in these films, abusive friendships weren’t talked about enough. It’s the nurture part of life, these kids are not being properly nurtured in life to the point where they feel compelled to constantly compare themselves to each other and see each other as competition. They need to put on their masks every day and prepare their masks for what they feel is appropriate to show the world. If they are a boy, they are expected to be tough, not cry, etc. If it’s a girl, they are expected to wear makeup and a cute little dress and look perfect. So, these inadvertently become the things that we grow up basing our entire worth and value over and its such a “social norm” we don’t even recognize were conforming to what the media, what the old white powerful men in charge want us to conform to. But this issue is magnified by our friends and peers when we are challenged on the playground to behave a certain way. I mean these friendships are so common and underrated and not discussed nearly enough and we glorify it through media as well, in the hit movie, ”Mean Girls” the entire movie is about a girl pretending to be some popular girl’s friend who is abusive toward her which perpetuates this behavior for other young girls because they see this as “cool” and “the norm” when its completely not. Meanwhile the entire movie this girl is plotting against the abusive popular girl to take her down and is discreetly abusive towards her as well. The protagonist and the antagonist are doing essentially the same thing to each other in different ways and this creates a sense of community for young influential girls that this behavior is what “friends” do. There are so many people that do not even know that a friendship can be abusive. Any relationship can be abusive it must be nurtured and there must be mutual respect and love. Saying “kids will be kids.” Is not any type of excuse these children need to be shown how to properly interact with each other in a healthy way because if we just say, ”That’s kids.” Were perpetuating their future relationships of any kind to tolerate toxic behavior. The change starts with us. For this blog post I will be reviewing/ discussing the documentary, “Miss Representation”. Which is essentially a film from 2015 that discusses how women are still not treated equal to men, we are portrayed in the media as objects or less powerful than men. This happens to the most powerful women in America by media and if they can be viewed/portrayed so horribly to a point where they are discredited and not taken seriously, what does that say about how any women is viewed in society and media.
This film makes me feel like there’s so much more I can/ we can be doing in our society today for women. Women’s rights were a huge movement prior to the new millennium, and although we have come pretty far we have obviously not come far enough. Because this movie is a few years older it talks inaccurately about how women now a days treat each other. I think when your young (as a girl) you are subliminally taught to compare yourself to women which makes women see each other as better than or less than like it’s a competition. Although this has been a norm for girls in the early 2000’s and even older girls branching all the way to grown women, I feel like this “competition” aspect has begun to change. Women are beginning to support each other and empower each other unlike anything before. I truly believe this could be the start to something so much bigger than we can even imagine. Because there is an expectation of what beauty is in our society, we feel like we have to live up to this completely unrealistic expectation of what beauty is, so we feel like we are valued or like we have worth. These are not the things that make up your worth as a woman or for anyone. This film made me want to be someone who does play a part in equal rights, who is a voice for the silent, I want to stand up to this bigotry and maybe make a small difference for women as a whole. This film has impacted how I think about the media. I mean I always obviously knew they only portray a certain picture to us and not the whole picture. But I think learning how extreme the media is now a day’s kind of really put it into perspective for me. I didn’t know there was 1-4 women compared to 10+ men for broadcasting system officials. I didn’t really ever notice how sexist the media is to female politicians or any women in office. The film was absolutely correct in saying that if the media can discredit and objectify women of high power, what does that say about how they view all women. The film was very powerful to watch. I feel like after watching this I want to stand up even more to sexism and misogynistic views. I want to play some role in standing for women’s rights. I mean its beyond ridiculous that it’s 2019 and we are STILL fighting for equal rights. The media needs to change. The way we receive information needs to change. I, going to stand up to bigotry going forward and not allow my voice to be silent any longer regarding any degrading sexual comments or content going forward. |
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April 2019
CategoriesAll Identity Narrative Reflection Research Project Writing Process |