Merchants o' Cool

The video of Frontline we saw, "Merchants of Cool," explained to us how the marketing campaigns target and get to kids. Two of the important things is the "Mook" and the "Midriff." Both of which are basically the mindset of the two genders, male and female.

The mook was described as a man who is not grown up, or someone who is immature. One of the first people I thought of when this was said was Adam Sandler who is probably the king of the mooks. He is a grown man who stars in movies where he is typically a sort of immature man who resorts to crude humor and complains a lot. This was the description more from a decade at least ago. Today, I see the mook as more of someone who is "punk." Like the 20+ year olds you see who have tattoos, gauges, probably smoke, probably ride a skateboard, or probably sing/play the guitar. They live the party lifestyle that certain teens want and want the freedom of adolescence to still be relevant in their lives. I feel like this is because they just aren't ready or weren't taught to be ready for life and the challenges that are in it.

Now the midriff. This is certainly a fun one, ironically. Today, it is one of the most prevalent things within our society. Looking back a few years, we saw Miley Cyrus who became one of the more "exposed" peoples of today. But she did give us a very compelling and good argument. Basically the midriff is like the premature sexualization of girls, at least that's what I got from class. I basically just see it as anyone who is showing off their body prematurely and without seeing all of the consequences in doing so. For Miley, it's different because I can kind of respect her decision because she wanted to make an image, and the media reacted poorly to it. But there is one thing that really bothers me. Toddlers and Tiaras. This show seriously just makes me dislike humanity. The parents of this show and anyone who watches it is okay with the parading of their daughters in dresses, makeup, etc. basically selling their bodies to the judges. To make matters simple, it basically just disgusts me. What's even worse is that I feel the parents are actually ruining their daughters' lives because the daughters don't seem to have much of a say and were force fed this idea that they want to look beautiful on the outside. But maybe it's just a cover up for the ugliness that the parents have inside of themselves.

One last response to the Toddlers and Tiaras thing is the episode of South Park, Raising the Bar, where Honey Boo Boo, one of the well known children from Toddlers and Tiaras comes to fight an obese Cartman who finds himself entitled to a scooter. James Cameron comes to save the day by raising the metaphorical but physical, in the show, bar that raises standards to more appropriate levels because everyone finds the fight between Cartman and Honey Boo Boo to be perfectly fine and entertaining. After raising the bar, the people watching on the White House lawn begin to realize, hey, this is messed up.

This leads to my point that the media actually is trying to force feed us this information to choose who we should be. When we can set standards for ourselves, we also let the media control what we think and like and use the rationalization, even if subconsciously, "It's okay if everyone is doing it," to allow ourselves to indulge in this behavior that, without the media, would seem shameful.

A quote from Green Day's American Idiot;

Don't want to be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It's calling out to idiot America.