Media Writing Lab

By Sydney Secuskie Popular culture plays a strong role in the way teens develop and respond to their sexuality. It helps young adults develop a way to interact with their counterparts and helps them get a sense of sexuality and sexual experiences that they may experience in their young lives. However, what happens to this development when the sexuality an individual identifies with is rarely portrayed in popular films and television series? Heterosexuality is normalized within numerous popular television series, making young teens of the LGBTQ+ community struggle to find a character to resonate with. Callie Torres, a bisexual character in the TV hit show Grey’s Anatomy , exemplifies the struggles that many individuals in the LGBTQ+ community face when trying to identify their sexuality. Callie begins the first season as a straight, married female; however, she eventually falls in love with a female doctor after her divorce with her husband. Callie constantly denied her bisexual...

By Ryan Smith The increasing popularity of superhero movies, such as those produced by Marvel Studios, is undeniable. It seems that each new film released breaks multiple box office records. With Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War grossing over $2 billion worldwide (Box Office Mojo, 2018), the genre of superhero movies has amassed a vast following. Many of these films, however, depict very few female heroes, and when they do, these characters are often much weaker than their male counterparts. Currently, one of the most popular female superheroes actually has no superpower at all. Black Widow, of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is a highly trained and highly intelligent spy. She has exceptional combat skills and leadership qualities but she lacks real knockout punch type firepower. She often times needs a male hero like Hulk or Thor — both of whom are incredibly powerful and masculine — to step in and save the day. Pennell and Behm-Morawitz (2015) point out in their article that...

Disney Princesses: A System of Commodities?  By Katharine McLean Growing up I loved all Disney Princesses, but Cinderella was my favorite by far. I envied her long blonde hair, admired her gorgeous gown, and wished for the day that my Prince Charming would show up on my doorstep with the glass slipper that would turn me into a princess. Now, at the age of nineteen, I cannot help but look back and wonder. . . have the Disney Princesses I’ve grown up with caused me harm? I argue that the stereotypical gender norms found in Disney Princess media and the capitalist nature of popular culture leads to a narrow-minded view of femininity. In Dustin Kidd’s book, Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media and Society , he defines popular culture in a myriad of ways, but one that stuck out to me was the idea of popular culture as a system of commodities. Kidd (2014) states, “popular culture is art, transformed into commodity, working double time as advertisement” (p. 69). This d...