HIR

double standards within already marginalized peoples

No race, creed or religion should endure the ridicule faced by Native Americans today.

- National Congress of American Indians.

Millionaire Matchmaker

The biggest vice I have discovered in one of my roommates is her disgusting taste in television. Save for a couple programs, the current line-up for Bravo Network, is almost entirely a series of (grotesque) reality shows that never escape my living room. I hate none of them more than "The Millionaire Matchmaker". Its premise is exactly as it sounds, one woman, Patti Sanger, has started a business with the sole goal of matchmaking single millionaires (almost exclusively white men) with the woman of their dreams. Hundreds of women sign up, volunteer to be questioned, measured, and examined by Sanger's crew. From the size of their busts, to the
So many aspects of the show makes me squirm in my seat, quietly grimacing from my seat beside my roommate. This program blatantly objectifies the female contestants and idolizes the bachelor. He chooses between them, he has the power. They are questioned and examined, tailored to meet his desires. I have never seen anything more blatantly objectifying and patriarchal.
But above all else, what I often find more upsetting than the objectifying and nature of the program itself, is my roommate's common reaction, and I mean no criticism of her character, but of the media's, for using their platform to make such a charade, a common and acceptable concept. Making women commodities.

Gender Binaries XTR3ME

If cued to 3:01, there is a moment where the children ask there father about their new born sibling and his answer is perfect:

"Is it a boy? Is it a girl?"
"Its an Addams!"

Too often the identity of a person, particularly that of an infant, is defined by their physical sex. Boys in blue, girls in pink, gender binaries define our lives from birth. My family, mother in particular believed strongly in the god given differences between boys and girls. I was not allowed to watch power rangers, play with action figures, or wear baseball caps. She wanted me to dance and I wanted to run around outside. When I was watching this Addams Family movie, I got so excited when I heard the father divert his childrens' questions about their new sibling's gender but show rather, that the baby had an identity beyond it. Too often we don't leave room for the people who don't fit within the binary, there is no black and white, good and bad, boy and girl.