Paying College Athletes

Comm322 Video Project


Shannon Grosenbacher, Carly Poor, Terry Lee Miller, Vic Scotland, Corey Bell, & Aaron Strombeck

Media framing of Matthew Shepard

With the case of Matthew Shepard it was such a big deal because he was an openly gay man who was killed for the fact that he was gay and beaten to the point where he could not be recognized . To me if you’re an openly gay man in the 90’s then you had to be very brave because even just 15 years ago you were discriminated against even worse than openly gay people today. So for the whole nation to get behind Matthew was a great thing when he was a live but after he passed and the trials of his assailants, people went back to the old ways. With the law that would make it a hate crime to abuse gay people was supposed to be passed after Matthews’s death but was dropped by congress. It seems like we toke a giant step back from where we were in support of Shepard 2 years prior. Where Was the support to pass this law. It just goes to show people how fast the media can get ahold of us and makes us feel for someone in need but then after words we just turn our back on the story after it got old. So when the media gets a hold of a story like Shepard’s they would use key words to catch our attention and keep us intrigued in the story. Most of the headlines didn’t mention that Shepard was gay it used the words to describe how he was found. We use his story more or less for sympathy and the way he was treated should have been a big red flag for the passing of hate crimes against openly gay people. Instead in went tin the opposite direction where we backed off of the completely. Much of the nation is still against the thought of same sex couples. Hopefully times have changed in 2013 and allow for the law of same sex marriage to pass and we as a nation aren’t as not stubborn and old fashion and we should be more accepting.

Funny Women?

There are women out there who are very funny like Melissa Mccarthy, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolphand many others are very funny and can make me laugh just as hard as anyone. It seems like the women who are funny are famous or just standup comedians. In some of my experiences some women that I have huge out with are sometimes funny and but most of the time they kind of re not funny. But this could all be because we all have different sense of humors. The average women can be funny but most women I feel are too sensitive serious to be funny. Most women either take offence to what some people think is funny. I’ve seen not only around campus but my whole life growing up with guys who are hysterical  but the girl always seem to find something that is wrong with the joke and take offence to that. There are women out there who do have good sense of humors to the point where anything goes. There is a fine line though those guys are sensitive to like if a women is too funny we feel like less of a man and that’s really the only thing we have to impress a girl. So if a woman is funny we feel threated by it. There are times I feel like there is acceptations to the rule that guys hold is if the girl is just a friend or seen as one of your guy friends. This way man feel more comfortable around it and not as threated by it because they are not trying to impress them and or pick them up. Its always good though to have that girl that you like or love to say something funny to make you laugh.

Video games and War

I remember when these war video games came out and everyone was buying them just after the 9/11 attacks. It just seems like overnight everyone was buying these games for the reason every one want to feel like they were fighting termism.  I remember having a few of these games and seeing the ones that the military had on their recruitment tables at my high school. Playing those games made me feel like I was more patriotic, like I might have felt for everyone else who played those games. The military was smart to put out these games to help with games to put recruitment and to make a simple teen ager or young adult feel like they could actually be in combat. I think they made these video games not only to get people to join up but in case if America was ever attacked we could have a citizen militia. Either way these video games were just for some peoples entertainment but for others it was a calling to have them join the military. Also they wanted us to think of war as like a game so we wouldn’t feel bad about our actual military killing real and innocent people overseas. Then there were the rumors about how the controller and controls in the video game will be Identical to the new helicopters and tanks that were being built and could be power without anyone in them.  SO that we could have drone war machines and not risk losing and soldiers.

Hyper-Masculinity Of Hip-Hop

I can see with 2Pac how he gave off this hard core image just because if his background and where he came from.  The same goes for the other hip hop artist of today they give off this image like I’m so hard core and come from the hood. They make it seem like they are in these dangerous gangs. In reality they really aren’t involved with any of it. Yes most of them did come from hard neighborhoods but what they won’t reveal is that they are actually educated and know how to act. They just sell their music on their image of being hard cored, gangster, and hood.  The thing with that image is that it allows for young intercity teens to think that it’s ok to portray this image, that these young people think I have to be hard and bad ass to show how manly they are. Then with the image comes the thought if I act thug I could get all the girls and have the best reputation. So they give into that type of life style and before you know it these young kids are joining gangs. Once they join these gangs they are considered family and are accepted in that family. When in all reality the reason they joined that gang in the first place is to find a father like figure or a place to feel like they are one and accepted for who they are. Most of these young kids do grow up in broken homes and without a father so they look up to the old people who are mixed up in the wrong crowd and the gang life style. Mostly because of the hip hop artist who give off this hyper masculine image and life style.

It doesn’t only affect the intercity teens it braches out to other places as well. Like in the suburbs when I grew up there would be white kids who would act like they were thug and hard core when they grew up in the nicest houses in our town. I think hip hop masculinity affect s suburban teen as a way to escape how they were brought up and want to be like that thug kid that came from a broken home. I think they just want a taste of that life  and want to feel like they are from that type of background.

This Is Not Natural

After Caster Semenya  won gold in the 800 meters in the 2009 world chapionship she was in question about her gender just because of how she dominated in that particular race. I think questioning someone’s gender just because they excited expectations and because they may have masculine features is wrong and humiliating to the women athlete. To me if she beat the world record by 2 seconds I would just question if she was using performance enhancing drugs not if she was a man. Semenya is a female because she entered into a female race for the world championship and I think that the world championship committee would know through physical and other types of measures would know if she was a man. Plus if she was a man and got by the worked championship board would fell pretty foolish.  To me she is a woman because she does show female characteristics and she could have developed the body she has just by the way she trains and her diet. For the news to make assumptions about this women being a man was wrong and humiliating to her. They just made an assumption based on looks and not true facts. It’s not like she broke the world record by 2 seconds all she did was beat the fastest time set for that year. The media and the other athletes who ran against her were just looking for a scape goat saying she’s a man just because she dominated the field on that day. They didn’t take in consideration that maybe she just trained hard and work hard every day to get into the best possible shape to compete. I would be embarrassed for calling someone a man when they clearly are women. Just because a woman has a muscular body type doesn’t mean she’s a man, she just has a muscular body type. 

I think that when Semenya after the fact that they proved she was a woman kind of sold out when she went on the cover of  You and received a makeover. I think she should have embraced the way she looked instead of letting people making her look more womanly.  At the same time it showed that she was willing to make a change to show she was a woman  which is fine but she should have said this is the way I look and I’m fine with it.