Thoughs and musings
DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING POST IS ENTIRELY AN EXPRESSION OF MY PERSONAL VIEWS AND IS IN NO WAY INTENDED TO PERSUADE ANYONE TO FOLLOW ANY PARTICULAR POLITICAL OR PERSONAL IDEOLOGY. DISCUSSION IS WELCOME, BUT NOT FLAMING. FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS SUPPORTED IN AMERICA. WARNINGS FOR MINOR CURSING.
In terms of songs that would be representative of our time . . . more accurately, music videos . . .
Lady Gaga's Bad Romance seems like a pretty good candidate to represent how sexified America has become.
Personally, I lost faith in commericalism when I saw the ad which managed to sexify cereal. CEREAL. Breakfast food. I understand the need to sexify certain food items - things like certain types of chocolate and caramel tend to fall into that stereotype - but healthy, whole-grain CEREAL? THAT does NOT need to be sexified. I'm more likely to buy it if you DON'T have a woman basically humping a guy's leg, thank you very much.
Then there's songs like the All-American Reject's Gives You Hell. They're broadcast on the radio, uncensored (is 'hell' even a curse word? For the record, I'm counting it as one), free and open for anyone to listen to regardless of age. It's up to the parents to decide if they're comfortable letting their children to listen to those songs - if they even know what's in the songs. I'm in college, and I'm STILL uncomfortable hearing the song on the radio. (Then again, I'm the rare teen who waited to get their driver's license, so take that how you will.)
There's that, and then there's movies like Kick-Ass. Movie trailers broadcast on TV - albeit infrequently, or at least in Riverside, California they are - advertising the movie's title. Foul language/whatever your personal preference/cursing/etc used in public. (I'm not sure when it was broadcast, though - for all I remember, it could have been midnight California time). And Hot Tub Time Machine - one of the more frequent trailers for the movie features a man freaking out over the fact that Michael Jackson is black. Granted, that shock can be overlooked by the fact that time travel has been established via this question, but it seems to be emphasizing ethnicity as a means of differentiating people.
And the political ads. I could probably write a whole freaking ten-page essay rant on what I think of political ads, but I really don't feel like discovering that I actually CAN and also have to finish my other actual school-assigned essays first. Home life does NOT need to be brought into a political campaign, though demonstrating that they're being unfaithful to someone who's supposed to be important to them would hint that the person or persons in question would be less likely to keep their word in office (not written with any specific event(s) in mind; just a generic example).
Overall, just . . . aaagh. I really don't want to have to think about this any more except as potential future fanfic plot points, given that it's dealing with giant alien robots. I blame the long rambling rant on finals-week stress.
END DISCLAIMER.
(Also, apologies for the caps lock spam.)
In terms of songs that would be representative of our time . . . more accurately, music videos . . .
Lady Gaga's Bad Romance seems like a pretty good candidate to represent how sexified America has become.
Personally, I lost faith in commericalism when I saw the ad which managed to sexify cereal. CEREAL. Breakfast food. I understand the need to sexify certain food items - things like certain types of chocolate and caramel tend to fall into that stereotype - but healthy, whole-grain CEREAL? THAT does NOT need to be sexified. I'm more likely to buy it if you DON'T have a woman basically humping a guy's leg, thank you very much.
Then there's songs like the All-American Reject's Gives You Hell. They're broadcast on the radio, uncensored (is 'hell' even a curse word? For the record, I'm counting it as one), free and open for anyone to listen to regardless of age. It's up to the parents to decide if they're comfortable letting their children to listen to those songs - if they even know what's in the songs. I'm in college, and I'm STILL uncomfortable hearing the song on the radio. (Then again, I'm the rare teen who waited to get their driver's license, so take that how you will.)
There's that, and then there's movies like Kick-Ass. Movie trailers broadcast on TV - albeit infrequently, or at least in Riverside, California they are - advertising the movie's title. Foul language/whatever your personal preference/cursing/etc used in public. (I'm not sure when it was broadcast, though - for all I remember, it could have been midnight California time). And Hot Tub Time Machine - one of the more frequent trailers for the movie features a man freaking out over the fact that Michael Jackson is black. Granted, that shock can be overlooked by the fact that time travel has been established via this question, but it seems to be emphasizing ethnicity as a means of differentiating people.
And the political ads. I could probably write a whole freaking ten-page essay rant on what I think of political ads, but I really don't feel like discovering that I actually CAN and also have to finish my other actual school-assigned essays first. Home life does NOT need to be brought into a political campaign, though demonstrating that they're being unfaithful to someone who's supposed to be important to them would hint that the person or persons in question would be less likely to keep their word in office (not written with any specific event(s) in mind; just a generic example).
Overall, just . . . aaagh. I really don't want to have to think about this any more except as potential future fanfic plot points, given that it's dealing with giant alien robots. I blame the long rambling rant on finals-week stress.
END DISCLAIMER.
(Also, apologies for the caps lock spam.)