Blurred Lines - Blurred Morality?

Why so Issued?

http://thisislavie.com/videos/
robin-thicke-ft-t-i-pharrell-blurred-lines-video

If you get some attention to the news, you would know that Robin Thicke's song, 'Blurred Lines' has been a big issue among some critics. 'Blurred Lines' by Robin Thicke has been remaining the top place in the Billboards. The song has grabbed the attention of the people by its provocative lyrics which actually brought a lot of controversies about it. The song is all about a man addressing woman to be sexually active, and encouraging woman to have sex with man. If Robin Thicke expressed these things indirectly, it would not be that issued. However, 'Blurred Lines' has so much direct lyrics that mainly degrade and objectify women. When I listen to the song without looking at the lyrics, I actually liked the song because of the melody. However, when I looked at the lyrics, I could not listen to this song again. 

Blurred Lines 

Here's the music video of the song. Even the music video is as provocative as the lyrics, and contains the concept of objectification of women by dressing up as almost naked, and by acting rude.(Pulling their hair, breathing the smoke towards the face of the woman) I could not understand the intend of this music video. It just ruined my feelings while looking at it. 

Problems with 'Blurred Lines'

http://rapgenius.com/
Robin-thicke-blurred-lines-lyrics#note-1644843

The main problem with 'Blurred Lines' is the lyrics obviously. Robin Thicke uses 'bitches', 'you are an animal', or 'good girl' which show both the degradation of women and the superior side of the men. The lyrics of the song totally insults the women by assuming all women want to have sex with him, but are hiding their feelings. Also, he is saying that all good girls have some bad parts which are just covered by the blurred lines. Is it true that ALL women are so excited to have sex in their deep insight? Who would agree with this preposterous logic? Not only degrading women, but 'Blurred Lines' also expresses sex very lightly. I am not saying that sex should be somewhat deep topic, but it cannot be something light. What if young teenagers listen to this song and think that sex is something that they can easily do? Even the song is kinda 'rapey', which can strongly affect the audiences by growing the thought that all girls want sex in their deep insight, which is absolutely wrong. Even Edinburgh University in UK, banned this song by the reason of 'rapey' lyrics.( https://ed.edim.co/8003714/edinburgh_university_student_union_bans_robin_thicke_s_blurred_lines_because_it_trivialis.)

Why Do These Problems Matter?

http://www.123rf.com/
photo_12352581_press-and-mass-media-concepts.html

Some people say that the song is just the song, and banning it is an over reaction towards not that serious problem. However, today, world communicates through internet. Almost everyone access to internet and get a lot of information. But some information can affect people in bad ways, especially the teenagers who cannot filter what is wrong or right. Therefore, a song such as 'Blurred Lines' can strongly affect the teenagers to begin to have a wrong thought about women and sex. Any teenagers nowadays can access to the song very easily. The adults should be the one who should teach children good things and stop them from learning wrong things. However, now the adult is the one who is addressing the wrong idea to the young ones. 

Masculinity - Stereotypes that block teenager boy's healthy growth

Masculinity: Is this a Real COOL stuff?

http://www.catholic.org/
hf/faith/story.php?id=48985

I am sure that not all of men are born to be a real masculine men with strong hearts which never feel pain or sorrow. No one knows from when men were forced to act masculine. Masculinity can be defined as quality that has traditionally ascribed to men, or an appropriated image of a man. But who decides the appropriate image for men? Society has always put pressure to men to be a real man, and portrayed man as what they expect, which are, "Hide your emotions, do not cry, do not be scared of anything, do this because you are man". However, is hiding emotions and pretending to be cool masculine? I don't think so. 

"The Mask you Live in"

https://www.facebook.com/MyStrength

The video "The Mask you Live in" is filmed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a director of documentary films and a miss representative. This video was made by the concern of Jennifer to the young boys who are forced to be masculine, which can be called, a boy crisis. What I really liked about this video is that it really looked at the deep insight of the boys, who had to hide their emotions, just by the reason that they need to be a real man. According to the film, masculinity stops boys to be emotional, sensitive and warm men, but makes them as disconnected, cold, and lonely men by the stereotypes of the masculinity that society has made. Actually, a lot of boys were affected by the forces of the society to be masculine, be a man. I began to think that masculinity can lead the boys into acting violently because of the stereotype that men always should be strong. Boys then accept the concept of being cool, as being strong in a inappropriate ways. Such as beating up their friends. Also, the boys are always forced to hide their feelings. All men should not cry anytime, and always act manly. Again, who chooses what is it to be 'manly'? Do real men really not cry and always have 'coolness'(which also is difficult to define)?. No. Hiding emotions, can be thought as being boring. When the boys go to high school, they all are adapted to the masculinity and do what others do. As a result, they get no one to talk with about serious topics like their concerns, because a 'cool' man does not ask for help to others, showing his emotions. Actually, I can see many boys in high school who try to be cool but have many personal concerns. It is a serious problem that teenage boys, who have a lot of personal concerns during that time, cannot express them to anyone, because of the stereotype that the society has made. So if the teenager boys cannot express their feelings to anyone, then how can their stress and concerned be solved? During the video, when Ashanti Branch, the educator and youth adviser, told the boys to write the things that they do not want to show others, most of them wrote, pain, anger, those emotions that masculinity denies. This kind of coercion can bring desperate end to men who feel suppression by the stereotype that the society has made. Actually, a lot of people are getting interested in this topic, 'Forced Masculinity'. If you want to see more opinions from other people, you can go to this site, and read the posts. (http://masculinityu.com/blog/)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jensiebelnewsom/the-mask-you-live-in

Here is the video about masculinity. 

My Thoughts...

Masculinity is something that should not be forced to any of the boys. Everyone has different perceptions of what a real cool man is. For me, expressing violence, and hiding true emotion do not actually look cool. During researching about masculinity, I found a blog that posted about the reality of masculinity. (http://reclaimingmasculinity.tumblr.com/) In this blog, it addresses really well about what it means to be a man.  Forced masculinity problems are happening not only in America, but also in Korea. Korean society forces boys to be always powerful so that they can protect the women. This concept has been progressed more by the military program, which strongly forces the concept of masculinity. This kind of thoughts has already affected teenage boys in Korea. Most of the Korean boys accept cigarettes as a symbol of masculinity. Because it looks cool teenagers try once and then be addicted to the cigar. Masculinity can affect and is affecting teenagers in bad ways and is leading to the desperate ends. Therefore the society must stop forcing boys to be a real man with stereotyped masculinity. 

Mena Trott- A Real Blogger!

START of the Blog

http://www.collegefashion.net/beauty-and-hair/
the-7-best-mac-cosmetics-collaborations-of-all-time/ 

This is my first time to have my own blog excluding CAS blog. At first, when I thought of blog, I could think about some beauty blogs from Korea that I usually track into, and enjoy looking at them. However, I had no interest to other blogs such as blogs about analyzing the situation happening in economy, or something about science. Also, I thought that beauty blog was the only interesting blog to look at. However, it wasn't! After I heard to the presentation of Mena Trott, I now have different view towards the various blogs of different people, from various places. 

What Changed my View

http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Mena_Grabowski_Trott

Mena, in her presentation about blog, continuously emphasizes that to her, blog is not a tool to make her famous, but to write her stories and feel empathy with the people who visit her blog and write comments, being curious about her, and sometimes also concerning about her. This 
strongly hit my mind, because I always thought that it would be really boring if there are only few visitors in my blog. I could not think that only few visitors are also important to some bloggers.  As Mena said, "Blog is who you are", I learned that even the boring topics I mentioned, such as economy or science blogs, they are all interest topics to someone else, and there are people who enjoy them as I enjoy the beauty blog. Also, I found out that blogs have not only distinct subject, but also just daily life pictures or writings. During Mena's presentation, she gave several examples of blogs, including hers, that just upload daily life pictures, or even selfies of the bloggers. Through blog, we can remember any moment again by looking at the post we posted before. Like how we felt that day, and what we did. For example, during the presentation, Mena mentioned about a father who took a picture of his baby who was born with so light weight that he had danger to be dead. However, the father uploaded his pictures everyday, showing how he is getting better. I think to the readers, this kind of records can be a very interesting and touching post. 

Mena's Speech 

Here is the speech from Mena Trott

My thoughts..

I really liked the presentation of Mena, because I was able to learn a lot about why people write a blog and the main objectives of most of the bloggers, which are to record their daily lives, and share them to the people online. The daily lives can include anything, even researches, because it is their lives. I also want to make my blog, as somewhere I can always write my thoughts, opinion, even only few reads them. If you want to know more about her, or if you are interested on her blog, visit her twitter! (https://twitter.com/dollarshort)