TV Shows and Gender

Yesterday I was outside with my mom trying to teach my three year old nephew how to play baseball. He's not very good at it, but he didn't want help from us either. My mom says to him, "Miller, you're a boy so you're supposed to be able to play baseball!" I got a little offended and told my mom that he doesn't have to be good at sports just because he's a boy. She agreed, but also pointed out that on basically every TV show or movie, boys are always supposed to be good at sports or else they a considered weird, nerdy, etc... Of course, this got me thinking and I realized that (duh) she's right. On basically every TV show that I watch, the post popular guys are the ones who play sports. For example, on One Tree Hill, both Nathan and Lucas are star basketball players and now their lives are just so perfect. On The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Jack is always wearing his letterman's jacket, which is a big part of athletics. On Greek the Omega Chi's and the Lambda Sig's are the top fraternities on campus, and athletics are really important to them, even if it just an intramural sport. I could go on and on, but this just goes to show that TV shows are always reinforcing gender stereotypes. Boys are supposed to play sports. The girls are supposed to cheer them on. I've never really thought about it, but the majority of TV shows that I watch have these same gender roles. It's very rare when gender roles are reversed, and when they are it's usually for some kind of comedic benefit.

Kidnapped Chicagoan

I've noticed ads about a "Kidnapped Chicagoan" for awhile now, and they kind of freaked me out just a little bit. There I was sitting on a mostly empty train after my night class, looking up at the ads so I don't have to make any awkward eye contact when all I notice the "Kidnapped Chicagoan" ads. The first one I saw says something along the lines of, "He was last seen reading ads on the train." My eyes widen and I look around for any suspicious people. I definitely don't want to disappear on the train! Of course, there's not just one ad, there are many. All of them tell me to visit http://www.kidnappedchicagoan.com/ for more information. Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me and I went to the website. That's when I find out that the whole campaign is really to get people to come to St. Louis. There is a Kidnap Kam, tweets from the "kidnapped" guy, and Foursquare updates. All of these things show the viewer a little more about St. Louis. I thought this was brilliant. The campaign has a clear target audience (Chicagoans using public transportation), and the mystery behind the ads brings people to the site. I was looking at other blogs and they said that site traffic is way up during prime commuting hours. That's pretty cool. It's definitely a fun and interesting way to get people to a website.