I flipped through a few channels last night. Other than American Idol (our local guy, Colton Swon, didn’t make it!) there wasn’t much to watch.
I tried a couple of shows I normally don’t view and I got angry. Really angry. Because a couple of the shows aimed right at the people I really care about — teen girls - were showing girls in a pretty bad light. They portrayed girls with sexual character. They portrayed girls without ethical character. They highlighted girls who look for glam and glitz over character.
It made me angry because adults are sitting in the boardroom making these shows. They do it because they make a dollar or a million off of advertising. They aren’t portraying girls in this way because they care about them, or because they really believe that they aren’t capable of more, but because they’ve painted a big target that puts dollar bills in their bank account.
One of the problems with adult-driven media is that teens might start to believe that this is the norm. “This is my culture, so maybe I’m out of the loop if I don’t fit in that box”.
But many of the girls I meet through the Women of Vision are intelligent, forward-thinking, hopeful about their future, and bright. Maybe we need to tell the adults who create the “norm” that it isn’t really all that normal after all.
My two cents,
Suzie
