James Pallotto SOC 397: Sex and Gender in Society, Senior Year

“Miss Representation” through the eyes of a Cisgender Man

As a self-described member of the enemy in the current climate of today’s culture, heterosexual white upper middle class man, speaking on the representation of women in an medium especially the media can lead to backlash not only from those in the minority but also other straight white men. For that reason it becomes difficult for someone like me to realize or speak out about some of the bad that I see in the media not only for women but also for men, even though I plan to become apart of the media after graduation I still have trepidation over speaking my mind on the subject. However, now having watched the documentary Miss Representation I was exposed to much of what I already knew about with how women are treated in the media and also some things I had not been made aware of. The one flaw I saw in the film was the lack of looking at the opposite gender and how that has become more of a problem for men as well, the Adonis Complex is not going anywhere but many are afraid to talk about it because men have been in power for so long and will be attacked for trying to shift attention away from the misogyny that has recently been catapulted to the forefront of social consciousness. For this paper I will aim to have commentary on the problems brought to light in Miss Representation as well as try to see how we can create a media-space where neither gender is pressured into anything for the betterment of society as a whole.

“  I was watching it once and Megyn Kelly was on, and she was on with Bill O’Reilly. They were right next to each other, so I assumed they were in the same climate. But Bill O’Reilly was dressed like there was a chill in the air. He had a jacket on, a shirt, a tie, and pants. And Megyn Kelly was wearing what would best be described as a vagina curtain.” Though the last quote was taken from a stand up comedy special performed by Joe Rogan in 2018, the commentary told behind the punchline is the essence of what was being argued in a good portion of Miss Representation. Women in order to be put on the news, no matter what kind, have to dress well and be aesthetically pleasing or they will never see the red light of the camera. In a historically patriarchal society especially in the conglomerates that have dominated the television and advertising industries it is hard to decipher exactly when the precedent for the “beautiful” newscaster but as Rogan’s joke suggests society may not be moving away from this as a standard, in fact I think #metoo is farther perpetuating it. I will preface the next statement because it could be used against me in the current social climate, but I think #metoo is not trying to change how women are shown in the media but regulate how people must see and react to them. In my head the feminist in favor of #metoo would justify Megyn Kelly’s lack of clothing on tv in this way, “Why shouldn’t she be allowed to dress like that? She is a grown woman and it is not her fault men can’t control themselves from objectifying her.” This statement, though seemingly pro woman’s power, perpetuates the idea that women have to be sexy to be seen on tv and that it is the individual man’s fault for objectifying her. For both of those unintentional consequences the root of the evil so to say is the media that we are bombarded with daily creating some sort of messed up cycle. When a young boy, who already is at a disadvantage with brain development not completing until around 25 years old, sees Megyn Kelly on the news then looks in a magazine or scrolls through youtube or even turns to play video games it normalizes sexy women to him and it starts at such a young age it will be more difficult down the line for him to be able to change. If that is the way Megyn Kelly decides to dress, which any knowledge of tv producers or executives will tell you it’s not, there is nothing wrong with that personally but the rates of boys objectifying women and the rates of girls judging themselves for that matter will stay steady or possibly continue to increase no matter how much women try to “change things”. 

One argument for the misogynistic tendencies of the media which I had not considered was brought to light about midway through the film, and that was asking the question: is the current media climate just  reaction to women gaining more rights? A kin to the reason toxic masculinity is still prevalent and why retrosexuality continues to exist explored in the article read earlier in the semester Caveman Masculinity: Finding Manhood in Evolutionary Science, men feel attacked by the loss of privilege and importance with the more status women have gained since the inception of the women’s rights movement. Both arguments have a basis in habitus first explained by Pierre Bourdieu, in that our interpretation and actions in the world are created by learning from the current world around us. The men that decide what goes on tv and how Megyn Kelly is to dress for her news show had their habitus formed in a time where men were the breadwinners and provided and were essential for American life, so in a time where being masculine is now demonized and the importance of men has diminished to the point that women are now able to live fulfilling lives without men present causes those men to swing back even harder and now that they are in the dominant position once again. This does not justify the way they portray women in the media just like caveman masculinity isn’t justified but it offers an explanation of their behavior.

This paper is just scratching the surface of the problems in the media and how that affects society as a whole, in order to tackle all of the problems would take a doctoral dissertation. Some ways that progress could be made in this area however, are having the current generation of producers and executives die off and hand over power to people who understand the meaning of gender equality. I think that this is a little ideological to happen in real life because human nature I believe would cause for the new generation to overcorrect and place men in the position of women. The other way I think the problem of media being fixed would be changing the narrative as kids grow up, it would be left to my generation and the generation of parents after us to show our kids that media and the personalities in it are not the way they appear and beauty is not the key to happiness. It will take a lot of effort and for the amount of change that has taken place we still have a long way to go.

References

Mcaughey, Martha, “The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates over Sex, 

Violence, and Science (New York: Rutledge, 2008)

Anon. 2017. Netflix. Retrieved November 28, 2019 (https://www.netflix.com/title/70167128). 

James Pallotto PHIL 397: Existentialism, Sophomore Year (Written from the perspective of my younger brother Dominick in his senior year of high school)

Alone in the Dark

I pulled into the parking lot early Friday morning, some of the remnants of the last winter storm of the season melt away in the surprising humidity for a late March day in Colorado. I felt like I floated across the blacktop still trying to wipe the sleep out of my eyes, I didn’t have class for another couple hours but I decided to get in some training before school. It had been a rough couple of weeks since we had learned of the pain Mandy felt just before we saw her for the last time. The community took it pretty hard and was still figuring out how someone who made so many others happy could suddenly make the final decision of her life; suicide in general is mysterious but in the mind of a seventeen year old kid youth adds more layers to something that I’m not sure I can grasp. I reached for the door and made my final peace with the last bit of sleep leaving and get ready for my day, this meant there was about five more weeks left in my high school career then off to basic training at the Air Force academy where I would play football before I serve my country.

Ninety minutes later I was stepping out of the shower and started to hear some of the normal buzz that only 4,000 students can make. I pulled my new shirt over my head and gave myself a quick glance in the mirror before heading to my first class. I walked into Mr. Foster’s Senior Seminar first period and a new energy filled the room. The normally energetic and outgoing teacher stood leaning against his desk, he was wearing his normal Friday t-shirt and a blank stare towards the floor. The bell rang, he straightened up and delivered the news that a second student had taken her own life. With the news almost tangible he gave the final detail, her name was Paige Mooney. The name slapped me in the face and I suddenly couldn’t hear any words just a din of noise I knew was there.

The rest of the day was filled with disbelief from some and tears from others Paige just like Mandy was outwardly happy, she was on our national champion dance team and had more friends than anyone would know what to do with. I got in my car at the end of the day and placed the key in the ignition but couldn’t turn the engine over, I had known her since we were both trying to survive the horrible time that is middle school. She was one of my first real friends since I moved into the district a few years before that, not many people knew but I had a major crush on her at the beginning of high school. I was sad because we had drifted apart since as was normal for a school of our size. I wanted answers I wanted to know what was hurting her so bad that she would decide this was the best decision for her. I called my older brother who was in his third year of college at the time and knew quite a bit about things that could make someone feel this was their only choice. He was studying communication and sociology but also had found a new passion in the form of philosophy. The problem I had a lot of the time with situations in my life was I searched for a logical answer in all areas and aspects of life. He answered my call and it didn’t take long for me to realize he had heard the news from the day.

I explained that both Paige and Mandy seemed really happy to be around everyone and that the hardest part for me to deal with was not knowing the reason why they had done what they had. He said that’s the hardest part for everyone who was connected to a victim of suicide, it was normal that I would almost feel empty because you think that there would be some way you could have helped them from hurting. He talked about a guy named Albert Camus who thought that there was one true question of life that made any sense and that was the question of suicide, people have to decide if they believe life is worth living or if it simply easier to just commit suicide. He said Camus asked this question in response to the absurdity of life, as in human life is absurd because it is constantly searching for meaning in ana existence in which there is no true meaning. I asked if he was trying to bum me out further because if that's what he was trying to do he was succeeding and his response was simple, existence is a depressing topic to think of. We were all born into something that is short and that there are very few certain things ever in life, he said he knew this wasn’t gonna be an answer I enjoyed hearing but it would give me a different way to maybe find an answer that could satisfy the questions I had.

It took a couple weeks as I continued to think about what was and wasn’t important for someone to be happy. It was so depressing to think in the way that there was no real meaning in life, you could make your own but it could still lead to feeling lost almost. I realized that I actually had a real problem with Camus and his “philosophy”. Who was he to try and tell me no matter what I did it didn’t matter and I don’t have a way to justify not committing suicide. I wasn’t sure if I was understanding him correctly and I was probably letting my grief cloud my judgement so I decided to read his book The Stranger. After reading about Mercot and his struggle being in jail and not knowing exactly how a person is supposed to feel I weirdly connected with him. It was different in situation he wasn’t sure just how to be a normal person and I wasn’t sure how to feel after losing a person in my life to suicide. 

Mercot ultimately also struggled with being alone, which I found ironic that a person who struggles with being around people still craved interaction. It was in thinking about this fact that I was able to create my own way of thinking about this suicide question Camus raised. The fundamental question is not that people inherently are born to commit suicide, people are born craving a community but are the only creatures who can feel alone in a room full of people. And that was why this was so hard to write because to know that was the pain two girls in my community felt and no one was able to realize this.

End

James Pallotto COM 305: Storytelling, Junior Year

Storytelling Midterm Paper

When story and narrative are analyzed at a broad spectrum it is surprisingly simple how many stories we hear, see, and read play off of the same types of characters and same situations. These situations have been dubbed “The Hero’s Journey” and Hollywood has used the works of scholars like Joseph Campbell to somehow regurgitate similar stories in different packages to fit all demographics. One of the more underused archetypes in telling the hero’s journey is that of sports cinema, more specifically the football movie. Being one of the most popular sports in the country this could be seen as a missed opportunity, but there is a reason for the lack of hero’s journey football movies and that is the aspect that football is a team game. Normally no one wants to focus on one single person since the collective is more important to the actual game. The Replacements uses the Hero’s Journey tropes to get the audience's attention, keep their attention, and also connect us to the pro athlete community by showing us regular people can accomplish great things.

This is where the 2000 cult hit The Replacements enters the fray. In this gridiron extravaganza the lives of a rag tag group of replacement professional football players are displayed out in front of the audience. The concept may seem out there but the story took it’s inspiration from the real life 1982 Washington Redskins, where a players strike forced teams to either find replacement players or risk not having an NFL season (Adam Schefter, NFL.com). Most teams from across the league went and bought out semi-pro rosters, but the Redskins believed they could be successful with players who no one had really heard of, or had their shot in the pros before being cut. Now a good portion of the movie revolves around the antics of the team, writer Vince McKewin places a special concentration on the movies most important character, the quarterback Shane Falco.

The film begins at the start of a professional football strike starting with four games left in the season. The Washington Sentinels, based out of the nation’s capital, have just lost the last game their high paid professionals will play. The owner of the team then brings in a former coach, Jimmy McGinty, an unconventional coach for this unconventional situation. The situation for the season is if Washington can win three of their final four games they will make the playoffs. McGinty agrees to take the job and begins searching for the players he intends to use. This sequence of the film is intended to introduce some of the secondary and tertiary characters that will play into different aspects of the film. Finally McGinty proclaims he intends to use former college quarterback, and the main protagonist of the film Shane Falco. The coach then finds Shane at his current job, scraping the boats that reside in the same marina as he does. McGinty offers Falco his job and Shane is hesitant to accept at first, then comes to the practice field a few days later. Now that the team is in place  they begin to prepare for their first game of the final four of the season (Deutch Howard, The Replacements).

The Sentinels take the field for the first time as a team and the results are less than stellar, none of the players were truly ready to play at that level. Despite a late comeback effort they fall short, thus upping the ante making the final three games must win in order to move on. The team starts to come together and they win the next two games, but now they must contend with adversity. Falco loses his spot due to the professional quarterback of the Sentinels crosses the picket line, and for the final game to get into the playoffs is the defending champions of the league.

The final game begins rough as the replacement players don’t have the respect for the professional quarterback that they had for Falco. The team goes into halftime down three scores, during the break Shane returns and he and his teammates throw the pro from their locker room and begin on the final part of their quest. The second half is filled with intensity and drama, coming down the the final play where Falco steps up and makes the final play to win the game and send the replacements home victorious in their last opportunity before the strike ends.

The story of the Washington Sentinels, one can argue, has two main protagonists. Jimmy McGinty and Shane Falco depending on perception can be classified as the “hero”. For the purposes of this essay Shane will be the hero. The journey begins in the hero’s ordinary world, (Wartes, Slide 3) for Shane that is in the marina he calls home on his houseboat. Here he is not unsuccessful, he has a good job, he is just not performing to the best of his abilities and doing what he was born to do and that is play quarterback. Falco draws the attention of the audience by being the focus of the sequence of credits where he is shown mimicking playing football beneath the boats he is supposed to clean (Deutch Howard, The Replacements). By introducing him this way he becomes relatable and just another person lost in the crowd. It is not known what yet but it can be assumed he has had a great disappointment in his past making him nervous about leaving this life.

The mentor character in coach Jimmy McGinty then brings forth the call to action (Wartes, Slide 4). The call is simple to see, come be the quarterback for the replacement team. Falco refuses and it is discovered despite being immensely talented in college his final game was an embarrassment and cost him his first shot in the pros. Jimmy reminds him as he’s leaving that the only thing that separates winners from losers is the is the willingness to get back up after being knocked down.

Shane’s first threshold comes from the first game back with the Sentinels, it is a rough endeavor and they end up losing because of lack of faith in himself(Wartes, Slide 4). At this point the audience is drawn back in based on wondering whether or not the hero can find out how to find his edge and accomplish the goal. At this point of the movie the “fun and games” portion plays through in the second and third games which they win but it is clear that Falco has yet to completely trust himself in his role. This most notably takes place when the audience is told that Shane almost lost the third of their four games. Though he is struggling the hero is taking steps toward finding his confidence.

Then we reach the ordeal and crisis of faith, Falco losing his spot to the professional he was brought in to replace. At the point he was in having his spot and importance ripped from him this brings Shane to find his lowest point, not believing he is good enough to have earned the respect of his peers he becomes recluse again on his houseboat. After watching the first half of the final game on tv he decides to take action and goes back to the stadium. Here his feelings of confidence are affirmed by the support his teammates give when he reappears(Deutch Howard, The Replacements). Throughout the second half the audience is shown what self confidence does to the performance of the hero as now that he believes in himself he plays to the caliber his mentor hinted he could during his initial call to action speech. “I look at you and I see two men. The man you are, and the man you ought to be. Someday those two men will meet. It should make for a hell of a football player” (Gene Hackman, The Replacements).

The reward of the sword then comes in the final moments of the game, the Sentinels are within a score of winning and pulling off the exact thing no one thought they could. In the huddle Shane now decisively choses how to lead the team to victory and throws the game winning touchdown pass bringing the reward not just to him but his teammates as well. 

The hero’s journey experienced in this film connects the common person to that of a professional athlete. Just based off the premise of the story, regular people taking the place of pro athletes, the audience is elevated to that status as well. The triumph of seeing someone who is just like the common man become all he can be and the hero he had within himself the entire time. Shows the audience that everyone is capable of something great.

Through the narrative of the Hero’s journey of Shane Falco The Replacements gets the attention of the audience, keep it throughout, and then connects them to the characters on the screen.  

Works Cited

Deutch, Howard, director. The Replacements. Warner Brothers, 2000

Wartes, Allan. “The Hero’s Journey.” COM 305. COM 305, 20 Sept. 2018, Gunnison Western

Colorado University.