Keeping up with the Kilche Kommercials and the Kardashians

My mom, who is on top of pop culture like a tween on Twitter, recently told me that she started watching “Keeping up with the Kardashians”, a hit reality TV show of the E! channel. Like all reality TV shows, there is no plot and has no contribution to society; however, it does have a really rich family that fights about absolutely nothing and one of the daughters made a sex tape back in 2005... of course it’s popular! 

From a corporate marketing stand point, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” was a brilliant idea for a reality TV show: The Brady Bunch of Hollywood. There was strategy behind promoting the show that can be understood if compared to theories of media analysis. 

Here’s the breakdown: reality shows are popular, in my opinion, because they feature representations of “real people.” As social psychologist Sandra Jovchelovitch coined: “the reality of the human world is in its entirety made up of representation.” With that knowledge taken into account regarding the entertainment world, it makes a lot of sense. People look to entertainment and relatable images in the media for example of how to live their lives. Different people see themselves (based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, ect.) represented in the media in particular contexts or situations. (This is where stereotypes stem from, but we’ll get to that later.) It has come to be, according to Jovchelovitch, that every human interaction, everything in human reality, is a result of representation. I have a hard time arguing with her, and this comparison of the theory to the phenomena of the reality television show is one of my reasons. 

For a television show to be a success there must be a bait used for audiences to tune in every week. The creators of the show, one of them being reality TV mogul Jonathan Murray, used the “big, rich family living in Hollywood” angle as the bait for audiences. In television, and in popular culture as a whole, the fascination with the lifestyles of the rich and fabulous has been trend on the high rise. The Kardashians were the perfect family to fit this mold. The late father of the four Kardashian children, Robert Kardashian, was one of the attorneys that got O.J. Simpson acquitted so they come from family wealth. The mother re-marries Olympic Gold medalist Bruce Jenner. To top it all off, one of the children, Kim, was known for her association with Paris Hilton and for making a majorly distributed sex tape. All of this made the association with fame and money still a factor in the family. 

The next step of the strategy focused on captivating a particular audience, also known as a target audience. The goal demographic for a television show is women ages 18-34, according to Nielsen Media Source. To make this demographic loyal the show focused on the relationship between the three sisters: Kourtney, Khloe, and Kim Kardashian. Here is where the theory of social representation comes in-- the audience watches the show about a rich family because of the money, mansions, and materials that “normal folk” cannot afford. [Audiences cannot relate but they still are fascinated.] Then the audience is captivated by the relationship between the three fun, frivolous, and fabulous sisters. Within this captivation there are two initial ingredients that keep the audience watching: family appeal and sex appeal. 

Tight knit families on television are pleasing to watch because it is relatable. This family appeal is the original reason why my mother started watching the show. No matter how rich [or ridiculous] the Kardashians may be, they are still a family that displays the importance of being together. 

Contradicting that ideological set of “family values” completely is the sex appeal reflected in the show. Kim Kardashian, the most famous of the sisters, provides a focal point of the sex appeal. Kim is absolutely beautiful and, according to Murray, “is the whole package that appeals to both genders.” She has a sexuality that appeals to men and a personality appeals to women. 

Her two sisters compliment her rising star by with their personalities. Kim is the “beautiful, popular one,” Kourtney is the “logical, collected one,” and Khloe is the “wild, misunderstood one.” These characteristics the sisters display are an example of a social representation because they all fill stereotypes of women ages 18-34-- the exact demographic the show is targeting. The audience, then, is fascinated with their glamorous lifestyle, intrigued by the “plot lines” of the family, allured by the sexual appeal of Kim and the sisters, and all the while is under the impression that these Kardashian characters are just like them. The sum of all those strategic factors + four seasons grossing an average of 3.1 million viewers per episode + the pop culture machine = a hit reality TV show.

Okay so now that I’ve deconstructed the strategic makings of a reality TV series, I’m going to focus on why the target demographic and loyal fans of the Kardashians SHOULD NOT see them as a representation of “real women.” First of all Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe (does ANYBODY else think that they changed the spelling of their names for the show?) stood out to the public as being “normal” looking young women. They weren’t platinum blondes who were disgustingly skinny, but rather voluptuous brunettes.  On a handful of episodes they talk about their issues with their bodies, pressures of being in the spotlight constantly, and not feeling comfortable in their skin. 

INSTEAD of taking a positive approach to their body issues by stating that they love themselves for who they are, two of the three Kardashian ladies become the spokes models for the TrimQuick dietary supplement. (Tagline: Live the Dream!) AND Kim Kardashian has a new Carls Jr. commercial about a salad. This commercial looks like an ad for phone sex. 

Due to their growing fame, and unflattering photoshopped pictures in the tabloids, the Kardashian ladies constantly spoke about their bodies as a project that constantly needs to be worked on. Not only that but on the show they talk about...hmm...nothing. All they talk about is losing weight, sleeping with different men, and petty problems within their family. I know it’s a scripted and heavily edited “reality” show about a rich and beautiful family, but the Kardahsians have quickly become household names. 

This show, and these Kardashian women, should not be role models for women who watch the show because they are a poor representation of real women. When they argue they sound uneducated and when they talk they sound vapid and stupid. The popular culture machine has taken this family and made them into an empire of women who display immoral values and a terrible example for how women treat themselves. 

Above is a link from YouTube.com

Dead Give Away

[Disclaimer: the following is an exaggerated version of a story VERY loosely based on a real life experience. VERY loosely...

When one is in high school, one tends to think “I know everything there is to know. I am so enlightened. I am so entitled. I don’t really know my rights, BUT I know I have to have them! Yeah...I know everything. I’m set.” It is what older and sexier wise folk call the Case of the Green Teen. 

And for those of you who are tilting their heads in confusion, don’t be coy. Remember when you used to speak your opinions before you even knew how to form an opinion? Remember when you felt like you had to rebel against everything to make the best of everything? Remember when you first “fell in love” but it turned out to be the realization that you always want what you can’t have? And, of course, remember the first time you had sex and you thought it was THE BEST SEX EVER?!?!?

Yeah if you responded “yes” to any of those questions, chances are, you, yes you too, were once a Green Teen. ]

"Dead Give Away" by Anonymous 

I’ve been having sex since I was fifteen. I lost it to my first boyfriend, Leslie, and no one knew about it. Not my best friend, not his best friend, not my dog and DEFINITELY neither of our parents. The reason for this was the fact that Leslie Cullivan, of the Reverend Fred Cullivan family, was a die hard Christian. I’m talking born-again-every-single-day type Christian. I grew up Catholic so I completely understood the need for discretion. 

But I was also a fifteen year old girl who just had sex for the first time with her first boyfriend.... it was EXCRUCIATING to keep it quiet about it!! Every time one of my girlfriends even mentioned something about a cute boy, I wanted to describe the shape of Leslie’s dick. Every time my mom asked me how Leslie was I wanted to ask her if she'll put me on birth control. And every time one of my girlfriends said something about how she was playing hard to get, I wanted to retaliate with “Girl just get it, ‘cause when you do you can still play hard and it feels SOOOO good!” 

One boring school night Leslie and I made it less boring by having sex in my car for the first time. I had just turned sixteen and gotten my license so it was a pretty big deal. After a solid two and a half hours of practically flattening the tires of my convertible, I saw that the time was 11:45. The library closed forty five minutes ago and both of our parents knew that. With my bra undone, jeans with no panties, and his shirt unevenly buttoned over my tank top, I rushed Leslie home as quick as I could. I didn’t even bother to wave to his mother’s curious face from the window. Hauling ass home I made the eight minute drive a three minute one, and curled the corner into my driveway. The house was dark... phew. The door was unlocked... even better. I was upstairs in my room, I was home free, I was--

“Where the hell have you been?!” I was fucked.

I turned around to my mother’s scorpion look... you know that look. The kind that stings, burns, and scares you all in one. Only mothers can give that look. Before I could even start the planned speech of bullshit I had prepared--

“And what the FUCK is that?!” she pointed to my left pant leg. 

Let’s retract a little bit here. Envision this: a sixteen year old with flushed cheeks, messy hair, her boyfriends unevenly buttoned shirt on, and no shoes. Not to mention I had a HUGE hickey on my collarbone. That’s bad enough.... 

Oh wait!... it got worse. 

I look down to see the CONDOM WRAPPER in the cuff of my right pant leg. I panicked. I started spewing out a fresh batch of bullshit, while wondering how she saw the wrapper IN the cuff of the pant....and she pointed to my left leg...something wasn’t adding up.

“Oh my god....is that...is that seam-... is it already used?!?” she shrieked again. What the fuck is she talking about? A used what-- oh...

Holy. Fucking. Shit. 

There it was, dangling off the outter denim seem line of my jeans, it looked like a shriveled up tea bag. The condom that Leslie and I had used ....dead give away. 

What could I have said at that point? What on the fucking earth could I possibly have said? I couldn't deny it. I couldn't translate the situation in my native tongue of bullshit. She was fluent in that language. 

There was only one thing to say....

"Well....ya know, at least we're safe."

WAV = World According to Vagina

Okay... we got a LOT to go over. I have not updated in awhile because there was just so much going on in my world last week. And no I am not referring to the season premier of The Bad Girls Club on Oxygen or the CIA catching the third most powerful figure in the Taliban in Pakistan. No no no. I’m talking about something much bigger... I’m talking about the WAV: the World According to Vaginas.

Vaginas had the best week ever last week! The awareness and celebration of VDAY was a great success on this campus, as well as numerous campuses around the country, the performance of the Vagina Monologues was a sleeper hit, and it seemed that every vagina had something to say. 

“Fabulous!”

“Hey girl hey!”

“Always looking fly!”

“I want attention!”

“Feed me”

“Oh yeah...”

“Let’s talk politics”

Those were just a handful of phrases written on the “What would your vagina say?” poster boards on display at the Vagina Monologues performances. The thing I love most about VDAY every year is the space it creates for humor, activism, and awareness of female sexuality.... three of my favorite things in the world! For those of you who are not really up to date on the mission of VDAY, it is a global feminist and human rights movement created by Eve Ensler (also known in WAV as Goddess o Mecca!) who also wrote the Vagina Monologues. VDAY brings awareness to violence committed against women and girls around the world. The V stands for violence, victory, and (of course) vagina. 

Because I am a big advocate for VDAY and everything is represents, my vagina was talking QUITE a bit last week. Mostly I think it was my period that was doing most of the talking (which I do not find coincidental, by the way.) Everyone in my life from my professors to the three men I live with heard my vagina speak. My vagina started making raptor noises, my vagina started writing poetry, my vagina was craving pancakes, AND my vagina even enjoyed reality television (IT’S FOR RESEARCH! And I’ll post about that subject later...)

Seeing as how my vagina was up for casual chit chat or heart to heart convo, I decided to do my own little Vagina Monologue social experiment. I wanted my vagina to have conversations with other vaginas. After a lot of women told me “I don’t know what my vagina would say” or just give me an awkward laugh, I finally got something to work with. I had a conversation with a dear friend. A shy young lady who she feels that her vagina has a it’s own personality:

“I love vanilla ice cream, my vagina loves chocolate. I’m a vegetarian and my vagina is a carnivore,” [I don’t know if she understood the pun she made with that metaphor because she said it with a straight face...I found it hilarious!] “I’m very quiet, but my vagina is loud as shit! I don’t usually talk about sex or express a keen interest in the matter, but when I am horny or sexually aroused....woah. There is no ‘IF my vagina could talk’ because it DOES talk. Every vagina talks very loudly... once a month. It’s called our periods.” 

Science may claim that the connection between menstruation and mood swings is hormones, but we know better. It’s our vaginas talking.

Does you vagina speak louder than your words could? Let me know....

That is Funny

Fat. It was a word I commonly heard growing up in rigid rich-town. Father, a man who is supposed to show his daughter that if baby girls have baby fat they still are beautiful and loved, conditioned me otherwise-- to believe that beauty has to be worked for and not what we’re made of. Poking my innocent rolls along my waistline, trying to carbon copy me, thinking it’ll all turn out fine. Unwanted and uncalled for phrases vocalizing that I must BE THIN to be wanted and called upon, and that just being yourself was not easy. Giggling laughter followed by fat jokes. It wasn’t funny.

Slut. It was a word I commonly heard growing up in high school hell. Nameless boyfriend, started off as a boy meets girl romantic comedy plot line, shriveled me up in a tortuous turn of events. Dangling a torn little picture over my head, maliciously he distorted, crumpled up my body, and fed me to the fiery demons of insecurities. Too bad Daddy dearest spent his time trying to transform me, and not pointing out the boys, the men, the testosterone driven scum who routinely continued to exploit me, MY BODY, MY INNOCENCE. Venom spitting out the up turned corners of society’s mouth struck me down, blinded me, dizzied up my mind. Everything got dark. The only thing I saw was the malevolent laughter. It wasn’t funny.

Lost. It was a word I commonly heard growing up in an image oriented world. Spiraling into bed with anyone who messed with my head, gaining nothing but immediate gratification, I was convinced that I had to always fight to make it far. A fighter is someone who always pushes the boundaries without any knowledge to what the boundaries are, and won’t let anyone explain. I pushed, perpetuated the exploitation of my own temple, in efforts to feel something further than pain. Played for a fool by a heartless boy, used like a tool, abused like a toy, really did leave its mark on my body by default because there was no man in this daughter’s life to make me believe none of it was her fault. To solve this, I rebelled against the grain of society for not being appreciated, and yelled at myself in blame, disdain, as I slowly deteriorated. The laughter was distant, but ever present. It wasn’t funny.

Strength. It is a word that must be heard growing up as a girl, as distractions of impossible perfection are embedded into our media motivated world. Those three little words have had lifelong impact, but my body, beautiful as ever, stands tall. I stand to give the finger to society’s distorted definition of beauty. I stand to remind everybody that they’re fucking perfect, no matter what details may suggest otherwise. I stand because I must, we must, play our instruments until the music synchs up with our hearts’ direction; to see beauty in the scars, marks, and mistakes is to recognize the strength it takes to love a mirror’s reflection. My strength makes me stand. My flaws make me smile. This time the laughter is familiar…now who’s laughing? Now that is funny.

Written April 2006

Beauty Tip Vloggers on YouTube.com

Perusing through the mystic land of popular culture this evening, I stumbled upon (not website) this channel on YouTube.com called "Beauty Tip #1: Smile". My first reaction was

"Oh! A YouTube channel title with a positive message. Super corny but probably geared towards younger teenage girls... perhaps it is a vlog channel that promotes healthy body image for young girls. Maybe it is something that LUST would be down with..."

*click*frown*

My rambling thoughts were quickly discarded when I found yet another one of those make-up tutorial viral videos. I say another because they are all over YouTube.com.... I mean all over. This one channel with the deceivingly positive title is only ONE of these idiotic channels. We're talking different celebrity looks, eye shadowing based on the holiday, there's even a whole collection of videos of how to do the "Snooki Bump It" hair do (Snooki is a "real girl" from MTV's Jersey Shore...and I know I've made more than one Jersey Shore reference so just you wait when I post my rants about that shit. Vomit.)

[And when one person came up with the "genius" idea to intersect YouTube.com and the beauty industry, a bunch of other bimbos thought "OMG! I wanna be, like, a YouTube sensation! I can go into modeling....fuck yeah!" That is why they call it viral videos....like a fucking virus...almost as bad as Chlamydia on the UC Santa Barbara campus....]

At any rate, my question here people, why....DEAR FUCKING LORD, WHHHHHY are these videos getting more than 50,000 hits each...EACH! Not just the channel, but each ten minute video! This one video entitled "Valentines Day Smokey Eye" has over 75,000 hits and it's only the first of the month! In the related video section there was a whole slew of Valentines makeup tutorials by the same girl - Valentines Bedroom Eyes, Valentines Kiss Me Lips, Valentines Curly Up Do, Valentines Bed Head Hair, Valentines Glittery Purple Eye......

You get the point.

My main retaliation to that is if you have a Valetine, a sweetheart, a person you are guaranteed to have sex with on the evening of February 14th... why do you feel the need to floss yourself up when it's all just going to sweat down your face when the clock strikes midnight?

Breakdown: Who is on YouTube.com the most? Internet savvy youth. The younger you are, the more internet savvy and obsessed you are. So who do you think are making up a majority of those views? The primitive target audience: pre-teen girls. Does the average American pre-teen girl have positive body image? No. They are the ones using their computers more than they use their reflection to put on make up.

And also, don't get me wrong.... all of us ladies are guilty of putting on make up. There are times when I CAKE on the make up, usually when I'm feeling shitty about myself (go figure). But that claim right there furthers my point- I put on make up when I'm having a bad day or don't feel good about the way I look, which is the exact attitude the beauty industry is targeting towards. The internet is an interactive media-to-self tool and has become intensely essential to the beauty industry. Now the beauty industry can sell you the look, the product, and with the help of these viral videos even show a detailed how-to explanation of how-to make yourself look "perfect..."

So I just wanted to express my views and explore your reactions of this internet phenomena known as make up vloggers. (for those of you who do not know internet slang, vlog = video blog) Below is the link to the channel I first mentioned, and I also included some up in the video clip reel.

Notice how different her eyes look BEFORE the makeup goes on

Why I love Margaret Cho....

If you have not seen anything by Margaret Cho, watch this!!! It is the inspiration of LUST 

Okay now that you've watched that, and hopefully have been swayed by this amazing revolutionary woman, here is what I think about Margaret Cho and how her humor and use of satire is a vehicle for social change. (I wrote the below entry for a Satire class I took last May...and it was glorious!) 

When I think about satire in a person, I always think of stand up comedians. I love stand up... it takes guts and balls. I’d do it, but I have neither of those things…(…sometimes…) Anyway, comics rely on their humor to entertain, and their tact to make the material relevant. As we said in class, if the material does not ring true to an appropriated audience, it is not funny—it is actually performance suicide. For a satire and/or a parody to be successfully humorous, it must speak a certain truth that responds to something. [Discourse responding to discourse] It must be outlandish, it must be blunt, and it must be appropriated within spaces and audiences. For a stand up comedian to have this on their shoulders as a profession is quite intimidating. But there is one comedian who comes to my mind that combines the razor bluntness of satire and the outrageous exaggerations of parody: Margaret Cho.

For those of you who have not yet had the privilege to feverishly laugh at her stand up, Margaret Cho is an Asian-American, bi-sexual, gay culture loving, George W. Bush hating, liberal feminist activist….who coincidentally happens to be funny for a living. There really is no way to describe her…she’s on YouTube. [Duh.] Look her up…best fifteen minutes you’ll ever spend.

Her ability to make a mockery of herself as a minority speaks to a specific truth about empowering herself. We’ve discussed how satire is a strong tool for empowerment in our culture, especially in the entertainment world. But what Margaret does is awesome because she not only speaks the truth about self empowerment, but she gives voices to communities that need empowerment: the Asian-American community looks up to her because she is not afraid to make blunt comments on the responses to Asian stereotypes…the gay community worships her because she always cracks these vulgar jokes about gay people while still singing the praises of gay culture…(irony much?) She exaggerates many elements of these sub-cultures, sometimes out of proportion, but always knows her audience. Margaret makes a parody out of her own life on stage, with a voice that is drenched in satire. I see her more than a stand up comic, I see her as a performance activist, which is incredibly refreshing to have in mainstream entertainment. She is a loud, provocative, and satirical voice of counter culture in America.

Yes…I know this is only my opinion. Disagree with me please…I LOVE confrontation. But part of my passion is to speak to audiences about cultural issues while making them laugh. I feel like it is my art to speak out to certain issues. The function of art is to comment on culture (Margaret Cho said that and I whole heartedly agree!) That is why I am enrolled in this class, that is why I say the things that I say, and that is also why I am so honest with myself. I will yield my ramblings and conclude with this statement: I still do not understand satire, irony, or parody to the extent of which many people may. But I do understand that it is crucial to be critical of the hypocritical behaviors and actions that exist in our carbon copy society.