Mtvs 16 & Pregnant Glorifies Teen Pregnancy Essay Example for Free

Mtvs 16 Pregnant Glorifies Teen Pregnancy Essay According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of mothers who give birth out-of-wedlock are teenagers. MTV’s show â€Å"16 Pregnant,† which has only been on air since June 2009, is already reflecting the rapid boom in teenage pregnancy across various cities in America. Since the early eighties MTV has been considered somewhat of a cultural phenomenon for American adolescents and its depiction of gender has a strong impact that continues to this day (Holtzman 2000). Created by Morgan J.  Freeman (director of teen shows Dawson’s Creek and Laguna Beach), the show â€Å"16 Pregnant† has been said to be guilty of exacerbating, normalizing and even glorifying teen pregnancy. Perhaps, it’s just reflecting a current social dilemma occurring amongst female youth. Each week a new episode revolves around a different girl struggling with the challenges of teenage pregnancy. The network presents these characters as â€Å"real†, plucked from the grips of reality, validated and â€Å"chosen† to represent some sort of normalized or otherwise glamorized middle-class identity of teenage motherhood. The show depicts women’s roles that are often typified to include traditional gendered norms of heterosexual relationships, marriage, motherhood and femininity. â€Å"16 Pregnant† serves as a platform to broadcast what is seen as a stereotypical American culture that is now engulfing teen girls everywhere. The social identities MTV presents reinforces those of traditional female roles and gender norms and attempts to establish a new model for pregnant teens in a modern age. Just by airing the show, MTV is assimilating new ideas of teen pregnancy into American society. Historically, there has always been some sort of unspoken Christian tradition that has governed American women’s birth rights; that one should not get pregnant out-of-wedlock. Today, however, teenage pregnancy is so rampant that families are forced to deal with the situation in a positive manner, often honoring the decision the child has made in regards to keeping and raising the newborn child (Gallagher 2009). In a 2004 survey, the Parents Television Council reported that MTV is the most watched program for those between the ages of 12 and 19. Studies showed watching MTV created a more liberal attitude toward pre-martial sex. Teenagers who watch MTV receive messages about sex that are likely to sway their own behavior. MTV is shaping the identity of the â€Å"teenage mom,† a pregnant 16 year old high school student whose uncertainty about motherhood is due to the fact that she views her pregnancy as the consequence of a selfish action that was ultimately unavoidable. 16 Pregnant† normalizes sexual behavior that eventually forces teenage girls into the traditional gender role of the â€Å"grieving mother†, one who is forced to take care of a baby while struggling to support herself (Schmidt 2009). The first episode of â€Å"16 Pregnant† takes place in Chattanooga, Tennessee and documents the life of Maci who gets pregnant by her first boyfriend, Ryan. For Maci, adoption and abortion were never an option, she figured she made the decision to have unprotected sex so now she must deal with the consequences. At one point during an argument in the show, Ryan yells out, â€Å"If we didn‘t have a kid, we wouldn’t be together,† and it’s clear from watching the that the two are still just teens. Maci struggles to take care of her newborn child, who, once born, requires constant attention and deals with the turmoil of trying to get Ryan involved in the relationship of fatherhood. The â€Å"teen mom† is now a stable identity offered up on the MTV network to heterosexual female youth; a child who is forced to mature and deal with adult realities as an accepted way of life. The show is sending a message that it is normal for teenage girls to deal with such serious issues as: birth control, adoption, abortion, marriage, and finances, further cementing these issues into the female identity at a young age. Maci symbolizes that it is now acceptable for a sixteen year old girl to be a dedicated mother in America. Episode two introduces Farrah, a cheerleader from Council Bluffs, Iowa who juggles school, work and cheer practice. Her life becomes a lot more complicated when she finds out she is pregnant. Farrah’s best friend turns on her spreading nasty rumors, forcing Farrah to finish school online. Farrahs ex-boyfriend, also the babys father, begins to harass her after he finds out she is pregnant which leads her to change her number. â€Å"I would have never lost my virginity to someone I believed would treat me like this,† Farrah exclaims about her ex-boyfriend. Farrah struggles with single motherhood and has to deal with a judgmental parent who looks down upon her decisions. Episode two again reinforces traditional American cultural eliefs of female gender roles by portraying the woman as the single mother, ultimately responsible for the child, showing the girl dealing with emotional problems while trying to hold the family together, tasks and situations often associated with femininity. These images become engrained on a young viewers minds and being sixteen and pregnant becomes just another fad for young girls to consider. â€Å"MTV has a long history of reflecting the lives of our viewers with compelling reality stories, says Tony DiSanto, MTVs president of programming. The program’s featured girls come from rural Mid-Western or Southern states, usually from small, working-class towns, in attempt to appeal to teenage girls of the same background. The implicit message at the center of the series’ class prejudice implies that working-class girls from middle America, should opt to have a child because it’s as good a road to character development as working on the high school yearbook (Bellafante 2009). The show reinforces the stereotype that a woman is at least a good mother, if not anything else and displaces the identity of â€Å"teen mom† onto middle American teenage girls. 16 and Pregnant† seems to, above all, incite viewers to working-class voyeurism, given how many cliches of lower-income American life are exploited. It could be possible that other MTV shows, are themselves, responsible for increases in teenage pregnancy. Shows such as â€Å"The Hills† and â€Å"The Real World† both portray the loose sexual morals of a younger generation, which eventually leads to an adoption of those ideals from the show’s younger viewers. Researchers at the Rand Corp. say they have documented for the first time how such exposure to sexual content on TV can influence teen pregnancy rates. They found that teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV are twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age twenty. This means that if teenagers think having sex is the â€Å"norm† they will continue to engage in it. â€Å"The relationship between exposure of this kind of content on TV and the risk of later pregnancy is fairly strong, says Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist. â€Å"Even if it were diminished by other contributing factors, the association still holds† (Bellafante 2009). So, is it in fact MTV who is esponsible for the abundance of pregnant teens it is helping to exploit? One thing for sure is that such a program like â€Å"16 Pregnant† is endorsing and sanctioning teenage girls as hyper-sexed individuals. So, why does a television show have such an immense impact on the female identity? Sociologist Chris Barker’s study of British Asian girls’ television viewing practices in the U. K. suggest that soap operas provide young women with resources to discuss issues that may not be sanctioned within some of the religious and cultural spaces they inhabit (NK 2008). Nayak and Kehily, authors of Gender Youth Culture (2008), would argue that this theory could be applied to teenage girls and reality television shows in the U. S. By watching these shows the conceptualization of â€Å"appropriate femininities† are derived. These shows allow young girls to make moral and ethical judgments about what they see and refashion gender values to suit their own identities (NK 2008). The girls in â€Å"16 Pregnant† largely conform to the values of normative femininity in their search for romance, marriage, and long term happiness with a male partner In the end, MTV is glamorizing the life of a teen mother and cementing its identity in a society where sex at a younger and younger age is already becoming the norm. â€Å"16 Pregnant† is perpetuating the normalization of traditional gender roles by portraying young girls who have already been forced to take on such general notions of femininity and female identity. The young, unwed mom has now become a new identity for young girls to aspire to. Popular culture and the ways in which it is consumed forms a key site for the learning of gender identities, and MTV is the designated teacher.

Song Analysis of Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional Essay -- Music

â€Å"Hands Down† By: Dashboard Confessional Song Analysis Everyone has that one song they can listen to over and over again. There are various reasons people press the repeat button, whether it be the sound of the singer’s voice, the quality of their musicianship, or their heartfelt lyrics and the story they tell. The song â€Å"Hands Down†, by Dashboard Confessional tells the story of a day-in-the-life of lead singer, Chris Carrabba, in high school. Carrabba has said that this song is about the best day he has ever had, and introduces it as such at concerts. Dashboard Confessional effectively uses paradox, irony, imagery, and repetition, to enable the listener to create a visual and experience emotions felt by the writer. â€Å"Hands Down† is an acoustic and emotional song about a teenage boy who has fallen in love with a girl. The setting that is established is a series of events on a significant and passionate night in their relationship. â€Å"Hands Down†, was written to express the feelings and hopes the boy has for their relationship. The song is speaking to the girl he is in love with, and to anyone and everyone who has felt the way he feels in this stage of a relationship. Dashboard Confessional uses the literary device of paradox multiple times throughout the song. Paradoxes seem to contradict themselves, which makes its use so effective when writing about the feelings of a teenage relationship. â€Å"This night is wild, so calm and dull. These hearts, they race from self-control† This line, from the beginning of the song, relates to the anxious and nervous feelings both the boy and girl were feeling. It is describing the anticipation the couple was experiencing about the events to come. Another example of paradox that... ... The repetition used clearly shows the sincerity and meaningfulness of the girl’s kiss. The boy knew that she was sincere in her actions and wasn’t just doing it because it was expected. On the contrary, the night was very special and meant something to her and she expressed her feelings through a kiss. Here, both the boy and the listener realize that she sincerely loves him. Thus, the story is comes to an end, the boy gets what he sought out from the beginning: a real kiss. In conclusion, â€Å"Hands Down†, explains the expectations of our generation and how we, as teenagers react to them. Dashboard Confessional has exceptional talent when it comes to writing relatable lyrics and engaging their fans. This song is a rare example of a boy who is not focused just on â€Å"getting some†, rather he has his sights set on getting the girls’ heart before he gets into her pants.

Falling in Love

Falling in Love â€Å"Hey, hellooo, man what is wrong with you? You have been acting strange lately and I think it has something to do with you falling in love. † Nicole said. â€Å"Yea, falling in love has some weird effects on me. † Kendall responded. The two girls continue to chatter about the effects of falling in love. Falling in love can have a variety of devastating and enjoyable effects such as always have a companion, getting a major increase in self-esteem, and last but no least losing focus in school and schoolwork.One of the most serene effects of falling in love is always having a companion. My friend Kendall used to feel lonely all of the time. You see she was the only one in our clique that had yet to experience falling in love with someone. All of that changed the day she fell in love with her now permant lover. Now Kendall never feels lonely. For example, every single day Kendall’s lover stops by her house just to spend a little time with her. Ke ndall is now in love and not a single day goes by that Kendal even thinks about being lonely.When I finally fall in love I hope to be like Kendall and have a great effect of falling in love like having a companion. â€Å"Man, do you know that I got a D- in Mr. Merjetski’s class? I went and asked him about it and he told me that if I wasn’t so busy falling in love with you and got busy with my schoolwork that I could’ve and would’ve done better. † Falling in love at times can have a negative effect such as losing focus in school and your schoolwork. A few of my friends are in love and their schoolwork is starting to become affected.They spend most of their class time focusing on their lovers instead of their schoolwork. Statistics show that when a high school teenager is in love that their grades in school seem to drop. Falling in love takes a lot of focus and most teens lose focus in school just to focus on falling in love. Self-esteem is self-resp ect. The dictionary defines self-esteem as confidence in your own merit as an individual person. Falling in love can have a very optimistic effect like getting a major increase in self-esteem.Most of my friends that are falling in love or have fallen in love are now more confident in themselves. For example, Rachael had very little to none self-esteem. When she fell in love with her current lover he complimented her everyday for different stuff. He complimented her hair, style, and one time he even complimented the color of the nail polish she had on. After receiving all those compliments Rachael’s confidence of herself slowly but surely began to buildup. Like most of my friends after falling in love my confidence too began to intensify.Falling in love can be an incredible experience with excellent effects like getting a boost of self-esteem, and having a companion. With every good there comes a bad. Falling in love can have some unpleasant effects such as losing focus on sch ool and schoolwork. These are the three effects that my friends have experience in falling in love. So my advice to you is to fall in love, and experience it just as my friends have. Even though falling in love has its ups and downs it is still worth a shot.

The American Dream By Lorraine Hansberry - 1373 Words

Nothing in this world comes easily to anybody s hand, it is earned by one s own will to keep moving forward; therefore, the future can look much brighter and better.The American Dream can be successfully be accomplished if people take hard hits in life and are able to stand up and take up other challenges. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, the Younger family, during the the time period of 1959, have to face discrimination because of their skin color. They also face losing of money and finding the true meaning in the American dream. Therefore, the family realizes they need to suffer in order to succeed and how life threw the struggle can affect their cultural view or even make a big change. Author Lorraine Hansberry displays through the Younger family that the American dream can be attained by hard work. Hansberry shows that from the exterior they have similar opportunities to reach the American Dream but when you zoom in closer each person in the household has a different perspective of how the American Dream and it affects their cultural identity. The whole Younger family is the personification of pride and prestige to keep on moving for the aspiring future.The whole Younger family are full of pride in what they do and fully happy for being part of a good family. Ruth declares â€Å"You know what you should do, Miss Lena? You Should take yourself a trip somewhere. To Europe or South America or someplace--† (Hansberry 43). Mama has a different view what to do with the moneyShow MoreRelatedThe American Dream By Lorraine Hansberry1741 Words   |  7 PagesThe American Dream From the first day that we can walk, talk, and think for ourselves, we are dreamers. These dreams can be nothing more than an illusion, or the foundations to the very lives we live daily. The American Dream is no exception to this, shaping the lives of millions of Americans each and every day, as it has done so for decades. We can see this through the works of many notable authors and their works. Some examples of these people are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lorraine Hansberry, ThomasRead MoreThe American Dream By Lorraine Hansberry1570 Words   |  7 Pagesability to receive an education, and having freedom and equality. Is this American Dream really attainable for everyone? Some groups of American citizens seem less likely to ever achieve this dream even if they work hard. Society and their circumstances are against them either because of their race, gender or class. Women, minorities, immigrants and the poor are left out of the American Dream. They may strive for the dream, sometimes e ven for a number of generations, but they will only get so farRead MoreThe American Dream By Lorraine Hansberry1837 Words   |  8 PagesThe concept of the American Dream has always been that everyone wants something in life, no matter if it is wealth, education, financial stability, safety, or a decent standard of living. However, everyone will try to strive to get what they want. The American Dream, is said to be that everyone should try and get what they hope they can get in life. In the play â€Å"A Raisin in the Sun† the author Lorraine Hansberry brought to us is about a family where each has an American Dream. The question is willRead More The American Dream in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry1020 Words   |  5 Pages â€Å"Check coming today?† The Life Insurance check that Mama will soon be receiving is the source of all the dreams in the Younger family. A major argument that Lorraine Hansberry makes in her play A Raisin in the Sun is the importance of dreams. Dreams are what each member of the Younger family is driven by. Mama wants to have her own home in a nice part of town; she does not want her children growing up in a place with rats. Walter wants to have a successful business so he can surpass the povertyRead MoreAmerican Dream in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry827 Words   |  3 Pagesnice house with a white picket fence. This was the cliche American dream. It is what most people think of when they think of the American Dream. The definition of American dream is the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every american. Well does it exist? If people work hard enough towards the dream yes, it does still exist. Moving on from the big picture, two contributions of the American dream are personal happiness and material comfort. For exampleRead MoreChasing the American Dream in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry972 Words   |  4 Pages Chasing the American Dream in A Raisin in the Sun A Raisin in the Sun is a play about an African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. This family is going through many struggles, both within the family and financially. The family is awaiting an insurance check. The story focuses on the individual dreams of each family member and what they want to do with the money. The family struggles to mend their family issues along with deciding what they will do with the money.Read MoreThe American Dream Not Ending Perfectly By Lorraine Hansberry, It s One Of Her Realistic Masterpieces961 Words   |  4 Pages A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, it s one of her realistic masterpieces. The play expresses an African American family stand out in their respective to chase the American dream by experiencing contradictions and conflicts. Although in the play, the American dream not ending perfectly, the dramatis personae in the play, particularly mother Lena Younger, did not show any improvement by moving into a w hite neighborhood. To have a better understanding of Lena, I am going to interpret herRead MoreCompare And Contrast The Ways In Which The American Dream Is Presented Through Walter Younger In Lorraine Hansberry1711 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Compare and contrast the ways in which the American Dream is presented through Walter Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘ A Raisin in the Sun’ and Willy Lehman in Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of the Salesman’ The American Dream is something many Americans desire. The desire to the mind – set or belief that anyone can be successful if they worked hard for what they’ve been yearning. It is considered to be a ‘perfect life’; it can be full of money, contentedness or even love. There are many divergent opinionsRead MoreRacial Segregation, By Lorraine Hansberry1248 Words   |  5 Pagesbut dreams – but He did give us children to make the dreams seem worthwhile,† once stated by Lorraine Hansberry. Racial segregation has been a huge topic in our society. Believe it or not, just a few decades ago African American people did not have the basic equality rights that white citizens were given. Something as simple as having a dream to become an author seemed out of reach; even impossible some might have said. Living in this kind of a world was unfortunately a reality for Lorraine HansberryRead MoreEssay on Compare Contrast a Raisin in the Sun1026 Words   |  5 PagesSun Essay In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, and 1961 movie written by Lorraine Hansberry and presented by Columbia pictures, one of the most important themes is the American Dream. Many of the characters have hopes and dreams. They all strive towards their goals throughout. However, many of the characters have different dreams that clash with each other. Problems seem to arise when different people’s dreams conflict with one another.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another theme is racism. Racism