Media Letter

To whom it is concerned,,

I was very disappointed in the movie that was produced, entitled Pitch Perfect.  I have also seen that there might be a sequel coming out for that movie.  To me, the movie seemed geared towards college-aged girls (many of whom are not twenty-one years of age yet).  A main message that I got from the movie was that drinking alcohol as a freshman in college – usually ages eighteen or nineteen – was acceptable and even expected.  The scene where the dad professor walked into the dorm room yelling to “hide the drinks”, but his tone and gestures showed he was kidding, demonstrates this point that drinking as a freshman is expected.  I do not think that including that content was appropriate for the movie. 

If there is to be a sequel, then I would highly encourage you to not include illegal acts that are portrayed as normal and accepted by parents and peers, especially when they don’t have consequences.  Yes, it is common for under aged students to drink while they are at college, but I feel like the reason for that is because the media has told them that it is acceptable.  The media is telling them that it is okay to break the law.  This movie was showing late adolescents that drinking is normal for their age, which is not okay.

            I propose that any sequels demonstrate good values for the appropriate age group.   Other than the inappropriate content and negative portrayals of morals, the musical aspect and comic side of the movie was very enjoyable.  I think a sequel would be wonderful if you took these insights into consideration.

Sincerely,

Gabrielle Davis

Memes

Media can uplift us, even if it isn't in a super spiritual way.  And, because everything is being due in all of our classes at the same time now... here are some memes I got from the BYU facebook page to put a smile on your face :)

My favorite

(They should have put only 10 chocolate chips on top...)

Laziness

Because of the internet, I have become the laziest person every.

--I don't go to the library to look up books (sadly I don't even know how to find books at the library - how sad is that!?), I just go to the hbll website.
--I feel like I tend to spend more time reading about exercise and health from an online magazine than I actually spend putting them into practice. 
--Instead of getting off the couch and walking around a store to window shop, I just sit on my bum on the couch and do it online.
--and several other things, which I am too lazy to use my precious brain power to think of.

In sum, the media is making us fat because we just sit down and use our little fingers to exercise, rather than our whole bodies.

Alarms

I'll be honest.  I don't know what I would do without the alarm on my phone.  I think that is one of the most useful forms of technology that I have.  I remember growing up with a clock radio that would turn on at the previously selected time each morning.  Now that we live in a tiny apartment, it is nice having a little 5x2inch portable alarm - aka my phone.  So, when we go on road trips, I have an alarm with me.  So nice.

ESPN March Madness

Today I officially filled out my bracket for the basketball games.  I never watch any of the games, but last year I filled out the bracket and it was really fun competing against my husband even though I had no idea which teams were good or not.......

I feel like this is a positive game for couples to play because you will always win at least a few of your brackets, and it can be a fun way for us and our husbands to connect.

By the way -  I'm totally going to win this year! (cross fingers, ya right...) But, I have Gonzaga winning (are they even good? Someone ranked them as #1, so I'm just going with that!)

America's Spring Trends

I'm not a trendy person at all.  I still wear the same clothes that I wore in high school... So, I decided to look up online what the world says the trends are for Spring 2013.  Google took me to Glamour Fashion, so that is where I got this picture from.

When this popped up as the first picture I had a few thoughts...

1,) Hey! They're all modest!
2.) Those models are too skinny (like what we learned about in class today)
3.) None of them are smiling or look happy, which makes them look less attractive.
4.) I wore jean shorts like the one on the right when I was growing up, so that must mean in a few more years the clothes I am wearing now will finally be fashionable!
5.) Do people actually wear what the middle girl is wearing?

The media tells us what is in and what isn't. whether it is good or bad.  We need to be aware that the media can influence how we dress and appear in front of others.  But, this time I'm glad at least it's modest!

kids-in-mind.com

I love this website!  Here is their description of what the website is and does:

"We enable adults to determine whether a movie is appropriate for them or their children, according to their own criteria. Unlike the MPAA we do not assign an inscrutable rating based on age but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE & PROFANITY, on a scale of 0 to 10, and we explain in detail why a film rates high or low in a specific category; we also include instances of SUBSTANCE USE, a thorough list of DISCUSSION TOPICS that may elicit questions from children, and the MESSAGE the film conveys. Since our system is based on objective standards, not the viewer's age or the artistic merits of a film, we enable adults to determine whether a movie is appropriate for their own children..."

However, because it is user rated, sometimes it isn't rated as harshly as it should be, or is too harsh.  I do like how they tell you every single instance of sex/nudity.  It's really funny sometimes, like "a guy kisses a girl on the cheek" (OH NO! someone shield my eyes!!!) lol.

I highly recommend this website!

Mommy/Baby Forums

I love reading forums on sites for moms with babies (such as babycenter).  It is really comforting if I have a question about my child to be able to look for similar questions that have been asked and find out what real moms have said about it.

One of my recent searches was for babies with Failure to Thrive.  This refers to children whose current weight or rate of weight gain is significantly lower than that of other children of similar age and gender.  My daughter's doctor said she might have that, so it was so comforting to read about other women who have gone through the same thing with their children.  I feel like I am more prepared to go to future appointments with a special pediatrician and dietitian to solve this problem.  Now if we have to go to a dietitian and they say to pour whipping cream and melted butter in all of her food, I won't think they are nuts because other moms are doing that to their kids too.

Media isn't always a bad thing.  It can bring people together that need a support group.  I just love babycenter too :)  Check out the website!  babycenter.com

Pitch Perfect

We finally saw the movie Pitch Perfect.  My husband and I were laughing at all of the little side comments that were said.  I loved the music, but because of this class I had a different view of the movie.  There was a lot of relational aggression, sex, inappropriate messages for the intended audience, etc.

If I were watching this movie through the eyes of a freshman non-LDS girl going to college, these are the things I would learn from the movie:

1.) Upper classmen are allowed to bully underclassman.
2.) It's perfectly normal to have sex in the dorm showers.  In fact, its perfectly normal to just be naked in front of people.
3.) Drinking is normal, and even if you are under 21, if you are at college, it is ok to drink.  (They drank in 3-4 scenes of the movie!)
4.) Parents are okay with freshman drinking (the scene where the dad is about to walk into the dorm and says to put the wine bottles away or something)
5.) You are figuring out life right now and your identity, so it is normal to shut people away, as long as you come back to them later on.
6.) In a group of 10 girls, at least 1 of them will be lesbian.
7.) If you room with someone you don't know, they will hate you or will be really weird (or both).
8.) Its okay to show off your womanly curves in an inappropriately suggestive way to get guys to sleep with you.

The media is sending very wrong messages about what life should be like, in my opinion.  But, maybe that's my naive BYU self

8-Week Health Challenge

Yesterday on Facebook, a friend of mine announced that she was going to do an 8-week health challenge, and asked all of her friends if we wanted to join her.  Here is the challenge:

You have ten "tasks" a day for 8 weeks with one free day a week. The tasks are:
1. 7 hours of sleep
2. Drink 64oz of water
3. 45 minutes of exercise
4. Write in your journal
5. 15 minutes of inspirational reading
6. Random act of kindness
7. No eating after 8pm
8. No white flour
9. No sugar, fast food, or junk food
10. 2 servings fruit & 2 servings vegetables

Here are my thoughts:
1. I have a baby who doesn't sleep through the night, so I get 7 hours most nights, but definitely not in a row!
2. I don't really like drinking water, so I will feel like I'm drowning myself.
3. I exercise really intensely for 1 1/2-3hrs 3x/week because I'm on the BYU women's ultimate frisbee team, but those are the only days I exercise.
4. I am terrible at remembering to write in my journal!  But, it is already a goal of mine to do better at.
5. CHECK! This is the only one I am already doing!  Haven't missed a day of reading 2 chapters in the Book of Mormon every night for 2 years and 7 1/2 months!
6. Maybe I already do this? I don't know, I'm not very random...
7. Ha! Half the time we don't get around to eating dinner until after 8pm.
8. Wheat flour is so expensive! That's all I have to say about that one.
9. I hate to admit it, but we go out to eat AT LEAST once a week.  We don't eat junk food though! But those counter act each other...
10.  I love fruit, but it is so time consuming.  I don't know why, but it just sounds more appealing to eat a granola bar than to wash an apple and then eat it.  Definitely need to do better at this one.

So, after reading the 10 things and deciding whether or not it was possible to do this for 8 weeks, I decided I can't do it.  Lame, I know.  BUT, I have decided to do each item on the list for 5 straight days before adding in another one.  I  figure that will be better than nothing.  So, to start with #1: 7 hours of sleep.  Have fun getting up with the baby, my sweet husband!  Then on Sunday I will add in the water.  Wish me luck!

It is nice to know that other people are doing the challenge, and that if I did end up deciding to join in full-swing that I would have support on Facebook from my friends.  The media is such a great motivator sometimes! Or... a demotivate when I decide to sit idle using my computer.... but for this post, we'll call it a motivator!

scriptures.lds.org

It's that simple.  All you do is type in that web address and you have instant access to the scriptures!  It is so nice not having to carry the (lovely) quad to school if I want to read my scriptures.  All I have to do is go to a computer lab.  I really like how the church hasn't been scared to use the media for its good.  I feel like that has helped many many people to strengthen their testimonies because spiritual and uplifting material is literally at their finger tips.  But, I must say, if I had to choose I would probably still go with my hard copy as long as I don't have to haul it around during the school day!

Facebook

Since we are talking about it in class tomorrow, I thought I would share some of my thoughts here, inspired by the reading:

Why I use it: To stay in contact with friends and family.

How many times per day:  Depends on the day.  Anywhere from 1-10x

How long am I on FB each session: anywhere from 30 seconds to 5-10min.

When did I get facebook:  Apparently August 6, 2007.  Shortly after I turned 16.

Why?: Because it was the cool thing to do?  And as a family rule I couldn't get one until I was 16.  But looking back, it looks like I only used it every couple of days.

First "friend": my older sister, Danielle

First profile picture: 

Number of "friends": 319

Number of pictures: 307


What about you?

Jokester App

Apps on phones and other devices are becoming a huge form of media.  My husband loves making apps for the Android phone, so this post is about one of his more recent apps he has made: Jokester.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=davis.jokes

He was tired of the joke apps that have all of that inappropriate junk on it, so he decided to make a clean joke app!  I think this is a great way to turn the negative media into a positive form.  He does have a "dirty" section on the app, simply because it is near impossible to monitor everything by yourself.  This way if you come across an inappropriate joke, you can flag it to get it moved to the dirty section.  With this method, only the people that want to read dirty jokes have to.  I really like this app because you can get a good laugh without worrying about reading inappropriate content.  Check it out!

Downton Abbey

We watched the first episode of Downton Abbey a little while ago because it was highly recommended by several people.  But, we couldn't figure out why it is so popular!  Our review of it was that it was:

• slow
• plot wasn't too exciting
• slow
• a little boring
• and, slow.

I don't know if it was just me, but in that first episode it seemed like they spent half the time just cleaning or cooking.  They were picking on a cripple, which was sad, but not all that exciting.  We find out one of the characters is gender confused.  That really is all that I remember from that episode.  Should we try for episode 2 and see if it gets better?  Do you like the show? Why?

Henry and Mudge

 

My favorite books as a child were the Henry and Mudge books.  The books are geared towards those in early elementary school.  The main characters are a little boy (Henry), and his best friend and dog (Mudge).  The stories are about their adventures together, and Henry also learns life lesson about loyalty and love.  My favorite book was Henry and Mudge in Puddle Trouble.  I even still have it at my home.  That story is about how it rains and there are puddles everywhere, so they two buddies go and splash around in the puddles and get all wet and dirty.  They also find a beautiful spring flower.  I love the simple water color drawings in all of the books.  It has been a while since I have read the books, but I always looked forward to checking more out from the library, and I hope my daughter will too.

This book series was my favorite growing up for several reasons.  The first was that I wanted a dog, and through reading this book I kind of felt like Mudge was my own dog that I went on adventures with.  Another reason is that I was a tomboy and I could relate with Henry when I was a little kid.  He would go on adventures and get into trouble, and that was how my life was, so it felt like we had a connection.  I remember being sad when I had read all of the books in the series, because that meant our adventures together were over.  The impact that these books had on my life was that they got me to read.  I wasn’t a huge fan of reading, but I really loved these books.  I don’t think I would have read as much when I was little if I didn’t have these books.  It created a greater love of reading, I suppose.

 

Sharing

It's only the beginning of February and I am already running out of things to talk about... So I went onto good old Facebook to see what people were posting.   My cousin had "shared" this photo, so I thought I would share it here:

There are many things I like and don't like about Facebook.  One of the things I do like is the positive messages that make you take a step back and reflect.  The media can bring such a positive light into our lives that makes us think about the more important things in life.

Total Recall

The movie we redboxed this week was Total Recall.

I liked the plot of the movie a lot.  It reminded me of the movie Inception, but this plot was easier to follow and less confusing.  The movie is essentially about a guy who finds out he is really a spy after he goes to this place that puts memories in your brain called Rekall.  He then fights to free his country from an invasion from Britain and to figure out who he really is. 

The main thing about this movie that I didn't like was the swearing.  I would have liked it a lot more if there wasn't a bad word every few minutes.  Since the media has such a big impact on our lives, I wonder what the language of society would be like if they removed even half the swear words in movies.  Would their be less foul language that people speak?  I would love it if Hollywood tried it out.

Smoking in Children's Books

Last week I checked out a book from the library to read to my 8 month-old daughter.  It was about a carrot seed that a boy planted and was watching to see if it would grow.  His family members would walk by him and say that it wouldn't grow. I was shocked when I turned a page and found this:

Yes, I may be overreacting a bit since the book was published in 1945 and smoking was a part of family life then.  But I still wasn't expecting it in a children's book! I hope my baby doesn't take any bad messages away from this boring exciting children's book.

...and in case you were just dying to know the ending, the carrot did eventually come up :)

Call Me...Baby?

I was on campus the other day, obviously, since I'm in school.  And, this girl was walking around singing Call Me Maybe.  Because of that, the song has been stuck in my head!  It is amazing how much media can impact our lives.  I heard the song.  I looked it up.  I had to look at advertisements everywhere on youtube, etc.  Whenever we look at one aspect of media (such as a song), we usually find another media (advertisements).  So, I present this lovely youtube find of a parody of the song.  Who doesn't love babies with crushes?!?

Poker

My husband went down to Arizona last weekend for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament.  I usually go with him, but my mom was coming into town, so I just stayed in Provo and hung out with her and my sisters.  To make a long story short, the tournament ended up being canceled due to rain after they drove 10+ hours down there.  So, Saturday night I called my husband and asked what he did all day since their tournament got canceled.  His response: "We played poker for like 6 hours" (he and his teammates at the persons house they were staying at.)

I didn't know he had ever played poker before!  My thoughts on that later... I was in total shock because this is what I was envisioning (plus a few more bottles of beer and those funny visors):

This is what the media shows us a Poker-Night-With the Guys looks like.  In reality last weekend, there was no smoking, drinking, betting of actual money... and these were all LDS RM guys!  But because I had seen this on TV, I just assumed that they were doing all of this bad stuff because they were playing poker.

I must admit though, when he got back from his trip I had him teach me how to play poker.  We used the little white and red pieces from the game Battleship as our "chips".  It is such a fun game!  I am disappointed that the media portrays poker as something dark you do in the basement, because it can be an enjoyable game that you can play.  This is just an example of how the media can turn a fun card game (assuming you don't do the betting part) into something that I'm not proud to say I know how to play.

Bedtime Reads

The story that I read my daughter tonight before bed was called 5 Busy Ducklings.

Readings to baby's is so important for helping their vocabulary to grow, plus they love to be read too!  Summing up the book would be...odd... considering their are only a few words in the actual book.  So, here are the words in the book:

1 busy duckling walks all around (turn page)
2 busy ducklings peck at the ground (turn page)
3 busy ducklings look right at you <quack> (turn page)
4 busy ducklings see the color blue (turn page)
5 busy ducklings kick their feet. Mommy quacks, "It's time to eat!" (turn page)
5 busy ducklings are on the go. 5 busy ducklings all in a row.

Even though the words are few and simple, it is the perfect length of a book for a baby to have before they get bored of the book for the night.  This book is great because it helps with learning numbers, has rhyming, and has simple pictures.  On each page there is usually just green grass and a picture of the number of ducks listed.  We talked in class about how busy the spider-man show was, and I think this book is the exact opposite.  It is so simple and easy for young children to follow along with.

The Sum of All Fears

My husband is usually the one that picks the movies we watch, so on Netflix last week we watched The Sum of All Fears.

It is an action/political thriller movie about a nuclear bomb and attacks on the US from Russia.  Basically, the US originally tried to bomb a place in the Middle East back in the 1970s, but the plane carrying it got shot down, and the bomb was never detonated.  30 years later someone discovers it, then sells it to an Austrian neo-nazi who bombs the US with it.  His goal was to have the US think that Russia bombed them, so then that would start a war between Russia and the US.  However, with the smart thinking of CIA analyst Jack Ryan, the US concludes that Russia didn't plant and detonate the bomb, and therefore eliminating the need for war between them.  And, as typical of most movies, the bad guy is killed at the end.

I felt like the movie did a good job portraying that not everyone in the world is out to get you.  The US thought their "friends", the Russians, did something horrible to them, but it was just a giant misunderstanding.  We can learn from this that we need to get all of the facts straight before we can judge someone or punish them.  This reminded me of the West Wing a little bit because the President was having to make decisions fairly quickly with deciding to attack or not.  I know that this movie had a negative affect on me because I had a nightmare that night after watching it.  However, I do think of other countries in higher light now, and know that not everyone is bad or trying to hurt us.  So, basically it did a good job at trying to eliminate the Bad World Syndrome that we might have.

Billboards

Only in Utah would you find a billboard that says "Your Body is a Temple.  Hydrate it."  It was advertising vitamin water and can be seen off of the freeway driving to Salt Lake.  I think it is interesting how companies target groups that are going to see their product.  If they were to have put that slogan up on a billboard in LA, I don't think people would remember it very much because they wouldn't get it.  Billboards seem like media to me because they can be used for advertisement, which is media.

The content on the billboard was very good because it was clean and humorous at the same time.  I wonder if the Church had anything to say about it because it touches on religion, and makes it seem like we sponsor the company.  I have always remembered this billboard more than anything mainly because it just seemed ridiculously funny to see that off of the freeway.  What other funny billboards have you seen?

Blogs

I love to read blogs and I have my own personal blog for my little family.  I would say I'm slightly addicted to reading blogs because I do it several times a day.  I feel like blogs are a great way for people to stay connected with other family members and friends that they no longer live close to.  BYU did a study on blogs and new mothers a while ago and I feel like their findings really held true for me.  I am more confident as a mother because I was able to read about the experiences of others and really connect with them.  The only bad things about blogs for me is that I read them too much!  Here's a video of my daughter that I posted on my family blog so my parents and in-laws could see it: