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Tweencom Girls analyzes the different ways character tropes are
portrayed in media targeted at eight- to twelve-year-olds,
particularly female characters, over the last twenty-five years.
The book focuses particularly on sitcoms produced by the cable
giants Disney Channel and Nickelodeon because of their popularity
and ubiquity. It provides extensive examples and alternative
interpretations of the shows' tropes and themes, particularly for
those who are unfamiliar with the genre. The first section explores
common tweencom tropes, focusing on different themes that are
prevalent throughout the series. The second section includes a
discussion of the big picture of how tropes and themes give insight
into the female characters portrayed in the popular tweencom
programming, as well as advice to parents and educators.
The numerous anti-bullying programmes in schools across the United
States have done little to reduce the number of reported bullying
instances. One major flaw in a majority of the programs and other
books on bullying is that little attention has been paid to the
role of the media and popular culture in adolescents' bullying and
mean girl behaviour. This book addresses media role models in
television, film, picture books, and the Internet in the realm of
bullying and relational aggression. It highlights a significant
number of portrayals with unproductive strategies that lead to poor
resolutions or no resolution at all. Young viewers may learn
ineffective, even dangerous, ways of handling aggressive
situations. Victims may feel discouraged when they are unable to
handle the situation as easily as in media portrayals. They may
also feel their experiences are trivialised by comic portrayals.
Entertainment programming, aimed particularly at adolescents, often
portray adults as incompetent or uncaring and include mean spirited
teasing. In addition, overuse of the term ""bully"" and defining
all bad behavior as ""bullying"" may dilute the term and begin to
trivialise the problem.
Instead of advancing women's social and professional empowerment,
popular culture trends appear to be backsliding into the blatant
sexual exploitation of women and girls at younger and younger ages.
This study investigates the effects of mass marketed sexual images
and cultural trends on the behaviors and attitudes of young girls
and describes many ways in which young girls are increasingly
taught to go to outrageous lengths in seeking male attention.The
topics include the powerful effects of cultural phenomena such as
revealing fashions, plastic surgery, and beauty pageants in
influencing teen and preteen girls to willingly participate in and
promote their own sexualization. These chapters also explore other
cultural factors contributing to this early sexualization of young
girls, including absentee parenting and material overindulgence.
Later chapters focus on the sexual representations of females in
the mass entertainment media, focusing specifically on how popular
magazines, television programs, films, and the Internet prey upon,
promote, and reinforce young girls' physical and sexual
insecurities.
Professional wrestling revels in its exaggeration of masculinity.
This hyper-masculinity is evident in the physical appearance of
wrestlers, the sexuality-charged and violent moves used in and out
of the ring, the role assigned to women and the extensive use of
weapons such as chains, barbed wire and steel folding chairs. This
study explores the link between watching televised wrestling
matches and increases in verbal aggression, rebellion and
propensity toward violence and retaliation. Wrestling is placed
within the larger context of popular culture and other
hyper-masculine entertainment. The book begins with a brief history
of professional wrestling, a summary of the criticisms of the
sport, and a discussion of the author's research methods. One
chapter discusses how gender socialization plays a part in the
effects of wrestling on its viewers, arguing that wrestling goes
beyond the image of physically violent acts to models of
interpersonal behavior. The expansion of wrestling into storylines
outside the ring includes problem situations involving class, race,
homophobia and nationality, to which violence is often presented as
a solution. The book concludes with an investigation of the
attractiveness of wrestling and its ability to lure fans back year
after year.
This book focuses on the "dark side" of stand-up comedy, initially
inspired by speculations surrounding the death of comedian Robin
Williams. Contributors, those who study humor as well as those who
perform comedy, join together to contemplate the paradoxical
relationship between tragedy and comedy and expose
over-generalizations about comic performers' troubled childhoods,
addictions, and mental illnesses. The book is divided into two
sections. First, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore
comedians' onstage performances, their offstage lives, and the
relationship between the two. The second half of the book focuses
on amateur and lesser-known professional comedians who reveal the
struggles they face as they attempt to hone successful comedy acts
and likable comic personae. The goal of this collection is to move
beyond the hackneyed stereotype of the sad clown in order to reveal
how stand-up comedy can transform both personal and collective
tragedies by providing catharsis through humor.
Banet-Weiser (2004) marked the debut of Clarissa Explains it All in
1991 as a crucial turning point for recognition of girls as
"important empowered subjects in the social world." The current
study of tweencoms focuses on the different ways character tropes
are portrayed in media targeted to 8-12 year olds, particularly
female characters, over the last 25 years. The focus is limited to
the cable giants Disney Channel and Nickelodeon because of their
popularity and high concentration of original programming targeted
to tweens that airs nearly round-the-clock. This book employs a
thematic analysis approach, similar to the one adopted by Riggs
(2011) in his identification of the ways in which particular groups
of characters are represented and the implications such
representations might have for viewers. It incorporates cultivation
theory (Gerbner 1998), which is based on media consumption's
influence on distorted perceptions of reality, and social cognitive
theory (Bandura 1986), which explains the relationship between
vicarious exposure to specific behaviors and imitation of those
behaviors. This book provides extensive examples and alternative
interpretations of the shows' tropes and themes, particularly for
those who are unfamiliar with the genre. Past research has shown
that media and popular culture portrayals are influential for young
viewers and yet live-action, cable comedies targeted to adolescents
have gone relatively unnoticed. Much of the previous research has
focused on very young girls and princess culture. The book is
broken up into two sections. The first section explores common
tweencom tropes. Subsequent chapters focusing on different themes
that are prevalent throughout the series. The concluding chapter
includes a discussion of the big picture of how the tropes and
themes give insight into the female characters portrayed in the
popular tweencom programming. The final chapter will also include
advice to parents and educators.
This book focuses on the "dark side" of stand-up comedy, initially
inspired by speculations surrounding the death of comedian Robin
Williams. Contributors, those who study humor as well as those who
perform comedy, join together to contemplate the paradoxical
relationship between tragedy and comedy and expose
over-generalizations about comic performers' troubled childhoods,
addictions, and mental illnesses. The book is divided into two
sections. First, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore
comedians' onstage performances, their offstage lives, and the
relationship between the two. The second half of the book focuses
on amateur and lesser-known professional comedians who reveal the
struggles they face as they attempt to hone successful comedy acts
and likable comic personae. The goal of this collection is to move
beyond the hackneyed stereotype of the sad clown in order to reveal
how stand-up comedy can transform both personal and collective
tragedies by providing catharsis through humor.
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