The 'progressive' towns constantly listed as our best role models also lack racial diversity, finds Aaron Renn. Why has no one called them on it?
Among the media and academia and within planning circles, there's a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and midsize cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis and Denver.
In particular, Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture and a pro-density policy. These cities are frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are found wanting, often even by locals, as "cool" urban places.
But look closely at these exemplars, and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles – places no one expects the average U.S. city to be able to imitate – you will find that the "progressive" cities aren't red or blue, but another color entirely: white.
In fact, not one of these "progressive" cities even reaches the national average for percentage of African-Americans in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.
The progressive paragon of Portland is the whitest on the list, with an African-American population less than half the national average. It is America's ultimate White City. The contrast with other, supposedly less advanced cities is stark.
It is not just a regional thing, either. Even look just within the state of Texas, where Austin is held up as a bastion of right thinking urbanism next to sprawlvilles like Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.
While Austin is far more diverse than a place like Portland, it is still much whiter than other major Texas cities, comparable only to Fort Worth. And while its African-American population lags the national average, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston both exceed it.
This raises troubling questions about these cities.
In a car park not so far away ... It is a big brother experiment like no other, an experiment which will boldly go where few have gone - or probably wanted to go - before.
Six apparently fearless volunteers are to take part in a unique test by being locked up in what amounts to a series of small steel tins off a parking lot in Moscow for 105 days as scientists simulate a space rocket ride to Mars.
On Tuesday the team will step into a chain of cramped metal capsules, connected by cables and corrugated metal pipes, in a hangar at the back of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) in the Russian capital, swing close the hatch and "blast off".
The idea is for the 550 cubic-metre "ground exploration complex" (GEC) to recreate as closely as possible the atmosphere of a spacecraft racing through the solar system, bombarded by cosmic radiation. Any return flight to Mars - at least 34 million miles from our planet - would take between 18 months and three years, including landing and exploration.
The volunteers - four Russians, a French airline pilot and a German army engineer - will be kept under constant camera surveillance to record the physical and psychological impact of their time in the isolation chamber.
They will eat packaged rations, wash with damp tissues and spend several hours each day conducting experiments, just as astronauts would on a real space flight. They will use the same toilet as crew on the international space station, which has fans to propel waste into a "sanitary receptacle". They will eat together, work out in a tiny gym - and may even get in to the odd punch-up.
Mark Belokovksy of the IMBP admitted the psychological pressure of living in close quarters with five other human beings could crack even the toughest guinea pigs.
"Tension is inevitable," he said candidly. The fact the 105-day "flight" will be a single-sex trip on this occasion may be a blessing. During a similar experiment in 1999 the participants were given vodka to celebrate New Year's Eve: two members then got in a fist fight after one tried to kiss a female volunteer from Canada.
The capsules have no windows and the explorers' only contact with the outside world will be via an internal email system and a delayed radio link to the "control centre" positioned alongside the GEC.
Each member of the team has a narrow bed and only three cubic metres of personal space. They can take one bag with books and DVDs with them, but will have no access to television or the internet.
"Just like cosmonauts we will have eight hours sleep, eight hours work and eight hours for personal matters - intake of food, physical exercise and free time," said Sergei Ryazansky, 34, a space research expert, who will lead the crew.
Crew members are expected to deal with all but the severest medical emergencies themselves - one of the Russian volunteers is a doctor - although each maintains the right to quit the project at any moment without giving a reason.
While the virtual journey cannot recreate weightlessness - without going into space that is only possible for brief periods in an aircraft - separate tests may be used to simulate the long-term effects of zero gravity. Head-down bed-rest tests, where a volunteer stays for weeks or months in a bed that slopes by six to eight degrees towards the head, recreate the redistribution of blood in the body without gravity.
Other experiments will monitor microbiological contamination using an "electronic nose" and examine the effect of long periods of restricted activity on the bones of the crew members.
Since the Apollo flights of the late 1960s and early 1970s there have been no manned flights beyond Earth's orbit. While a flight to Mars is thought to be 20 to 30 years away, Belokovsky said conducting such experiments brought the date ever closer. "The knowledge gleaned from the experiment will be invaluable in planning for such a trip," he said.
Volunteers on the 105-day stint will receive a payment of €15,000 (£14,000), but Belokovksy said money was not the main motivating factor. "They are driven by the chance to take part in an experiment of international significance," he said.In a car park not so far away ... It is a big brother experiment like no other, an... more
Although often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one's self-representation, or avatar, in a virtual environment can affect the user's thoughts, according to research by a University of Texas at Austin communication professor.
In the first study to use avatars to prime negative responses in a desktop virtual setting, Jorge Peña, assistant professor in the College of Communication, demonstrated that the subtext of an avatar's appearance can simultaneously prime negative (or anti-social) thoughts and inhibit positive (or pro-social) thoughts inconsistent with the avatar's appearance. All of this while study participants remained unaware they had been primed. The study, co-written with Cornell University Professor Jeffrey T. Hancock and University of Texas at Austin graduate student Nicholas A. Merola, appears in the December 2009 issue of Communication Research.
In two separate experiments, research participants were randomly assigned a dark- or white-cloaked avatar, or to avatars wearing physician or Ku Klux Klan-like uniforms or a transparent avatar. The participants were assigned tasks including writing a story about a picture, or playing a video game on a virtual team and then coming to consensus on how to deal with infractions.
Consistently, participants represented by an avatar in a dark cloak or a KKK-like uniform demonstrated negative or anti-social behavior in team situations and in individual writing assignments.
Previous studies have demonstrated these uniform types to have negative effects on people's behaviors in face-to-face interactions. For example, Cornell researchers Mark Frank and Tom Gilovich showed that dark uniforms influence professional sports teams to play more aggressively on the playing field and in the laboratory. Peña's research demonstrates how these effects operate in desktop-based video games, and sheds light on the automatic cognitive processes that explain this effect.
"When you step into a virtual environment, you can potentially become 'Mario' or whatever other character you are portraying," said Peña, who studies how humans think, behave and feel online. "Oftentimes, the connotations of our own virtual character will subtly remind us of common stereotypes, such as 'bad guys wear black or dress up in hooded robes.' This association may surreptitiously steer users to think and behave more antisocially, but also inhibit more pro-social thoughts and responses in a virtual environment."
According to Peña, these findings can be particularly useful to video game and combat simulation developers.
"By manipulating the appearance of the avatar, you can augment the probability of people thinking and behaving in predictable ways without raising suspicion," said Peña. "Thus, you can automatically make a virtual encounter more competitive or cooperative by simply changing the connotations of one's avatar."
Cootchie-coo behavior used to be reserved for private moments in the home. But now, with the Internet’s help, people feel free to wallow in cuteness en masse, in the company of strangers. The serious political blog Daily Kos, for instance, is awash in cute pictures of kittens and panda bears. The Web site Cute Overload, which gets 100,000 visits a day, is all photographs and videos of puppies (“puppehs” in the site’s own particular argot), kittens (“kittehs”), and baby rabbits (“bun-buns”), who are said to go nom-nom-nom as they munch their little meals.
“It’s part of our DNA to react to cute things,” says Meg Frost, who founded Cute Overload in 2005. “What makes me post certain pictures is if I have an audible reaction—a squeal—when I see the picture. I’m kind of annoyed at myself for having no control over thinking these things are so cute. It’s like ‘Oh, why don’t you just kill us with your fur?’”
The popularity of Cute Overload (and the more than 150 other cute-animal sites catalogued by the recommendation engine StumbleUpon, including Stuff on My Cat, Cute Things Falling Asleep, Kittenwar, and I Can Has Cheezburger) reflects a growing self-infantilization that is also in evidence at the social-networking site Facebook, where countless subscribers have posted photos of themselves as babies on their profile.Cootchie-coo behavior used to be reserved for private moments in the home. But now,... more
dance, dance, wherever you may be
for I am the lord of the dance
said hehttp://www.wherethehellismatt.com/
I LIKE MATT-THE CULT OF DANCE
dance, dance,... more
Serial murderers are distorted reflections of society's own values, according to new research. Traditionally the behavior of serial killers has been viewed through a psychological framework, blaming customary factors like bad parenting, maladjusted brain chemistry or past abuse. But Kevin Haggerty, a University of Alberta sociologist and criminologist, argues that society -- not psychology -- is responsible.
(Clark, J., 2009, October 26, par.1-2)Serial murderers are distorted reflections of society's own values, according to new... more
Anyone who read Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s bestselling Freakonomics and came away still wondering what the hell freakonomics was supposed to be, will gain some reassurance from its sequel. As the authors admit in their introduction, they didn’t know either. The title was dreamed up in a moment of desperation – their publishers hated it – and all they were really saying, they insist, was that people respond to incentives.
The fun part, though, came from the way in which they applied economic theory to areas where you’d never expect to find it – sumo wrestling, crack-dealing and so on. Essentially, Superfreakonomics consists of more of the same. This might get wearying were it not for the fact that Levitt and Dubner’s zeal for statistical anomalies is as undimmed as their eye for a good story.Anyone who read Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s bestselling Freakonomics and came... more
Us women are more egocentric and narcissistic than we ever used to be, according to extensive research by two leading psychologists.
More of us have huge expectations of ourselves, our lives and everyone in them. We think the universe resolves around us, with a deluded sense of our own fabulousness, and believe we are cleverer, more talented and more attractive than we actually are.
We have trouble accepting criticism and extending empathy because we are so preoccupied with ourselves.
Actresses Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis on location for the new movie 'Sex and the City 2'
Got it all: Actresses Kim Cattrall (left to right), Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis on location for the new movie 'Sex and the City 2'
Am I making you angry by telling you this? It figures. Narcissistic or egotistical women do have an overwhelming sense of entitlement and arrogance.
Of course, I joke, but researchers say there is growing evidence of an epidemic of ego-itis everywhere.
Once a traditionally male syndrome, narcissism generally begins at home and in schools, where children are praised excessively, often spoiled rotten and given the relentless message that they are 'special'.
Psychology professors Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell analysed studies on 37,000 college students in 2006.
In a survey, 30 per cent of them said they believed they should get good grades simply for turning up.
And it's not just about how intelligent they think they are. In the workplace, in friendships, even in motherhood, the pervading culture seems to have become one of competitiveness, superiority and one-upmanship.
But the sphere in which the signs of self-obsession are perhaps most obvious, and the consequences most immediately felt, is the dating one.
In a recent magazine article, four women in their late 20s and 30s shared their thoughts about why they were still single. A 39-year-old beauty director claimed to be too independent for a relationship.
A 38-year-old music agent attributed her single status to the fact she was an alpha female - independent, feisty, strong-minded, high-achieving and intimidating.
Graphic of a woman looking at her reflection in a heart-shaped pond
She pointed out that she owned a gorgeous flat with gorgeous things in it, had a nice car, was a member of a fancy gym and wore designer dresses. 'I do what I like, when I like,' she said.
She'd been told, and appears to believe, that she's too successful and too well-educated for most men.
The third woman, a 30-year- old arts writer and curator, has been having too much fun to settle down.
Another, a 29-year-old, said she was too picky. She was looking for a guy who is (just) tall enough. And (just about) good-looking enough (but not too good-looking so that she'd play second fiddle).
He needs to be successful, solvent and driven. He must also be long on genuinely good jokes, with a decent sideline in bad ones that only she finds funny.
He needs to 'speak good restaurant', to have no special dietary requirements and to always be discerning without ever being fussy.
A businesswoman sits on a chair with a sheet of paper in her hand
He needs to be clever without ever making her feel stupid. He needs to 'get' but not 'know' fashion...and so the list went on.
She concluded that she would rather eat wasps than share her Sunday with anyone who fails to measure up to her idea of Mr Perfect.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with having high expectations. But being delusional and having a totally unrealistic blueprint are an altogether different matter.
And they often go hand in hand with acute ego-itis. AUs women are more egocentric and narcissistic than we ever used to be, according to... more
On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will “cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.” Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions
Although the questionnaire does not ask for name, address, or “any information specifically identifying the patient,” as Feminists for Choice points out, these eight questions could easily be used to identify a woman in a small community. “They’re really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions,” Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, said. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law, arguing that “it violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it ‘covers more than one subject’ — a challenge that previously worked to strike down an abortion ultrasound law.On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details... more
Buskers è il Racconto del mondo di alcuni musicisti che scelgono la strada come palco, chi per necessità economica in attesa di un lavoro “normale”, chi per vera scelta di vita professionale. Allo stesso tempo, racconta anche la percezione che i nostri personaggi suscitano nei passanti, analizzandone le dinamiche socio-antropologiche grazie alle parole di un sociologo-musicologo (Federico del Sordo, Università La Sapienza e Accademia Santa Cecilia) tratte da un testo da lui pubblicato.
I personaggi e loro storie:
- C’è il sassofonista tedesco di mezza età, un pò cialtrone ma dai modi aristocratici, innamorato dell’Italia, che nella vita vorrebbe fare il pittore ma per mangiare vende cravatte da collezione e suona il sax per strada.
- Una coppia di chitarristi, un binomio dove l’uno è l’opposto dell’altro: un messicano passionale dalla tecnica musicale spontanea (è autodidatta) ed un siciliano timido, razionale e dalla grande accuratezza stilistica, un virtuoso.
- Il popolo dei musicisti romeni specializzati nella professione da secoli, costretti a venire a suonare in Italia perchè ormai la Romania si è piegata all’influenza occidentale “pop”.
- Ad esempio Florin, che dice di venire a Roma per “cambiare il ritmo”.
- Il mondo sotterraneo della metro – nei tunnel - ci offre altri 2 chitarristi, un berbero e un algerino che suonano con un misto di gioia e malinconia, felici di poter rallegrare ed alleggerire il percorso dei passeggeri.
I luoghi e il suono d’ambiente della strada :
Il centro storico Romano ma anche la lieve decadenza della Metro, la luce e l’ombra, il silenzio di un vicolo dove s’insinua il suono di un violino, l’acqua della fontana di Piazza Navona sotto ad una chitarra classica o anche il caos di un tunnel della Metro e l’interno di un vagone all’ora di punta
La qualità musicale e la grande diversità:
Jazz, Latina, Classica, Rom tradizionale, Blues, insieme ai repertori “commerciali” di alcuni Rom che si adattano ai gusti del pubblico più popolare.
La non interferenza autoriale:
Abbiamo cercato di far scorrere il racconto facendolo portare avanti dalle parole dei protagonisti, come a non voler dare interpretazioni ma lasciandole allo spettatore, cercando di far arrivare storie e musica con meno filtri possibili.
Il tutto lasciando che ogni spettatore instauri un proprio rapporto col musicista perchè ognuno ha i propri gusti musicali...
Buona visione!Buskers è il Racconto del mondo di alcuni musicisti che scelgono la strada come... more
Think Twitter is a complete crock? A nusance to true human connection? Here's a good Popmatters article about the up and downside of Twitter and the impact of social media on the "personal brand":
"Twitter is less about disseminating information than it is about subjects trying to make themselves feel more real..."Think Twitter is a complete crock? A nusance to true human connection? Here's a good... more
In a recent article published in the American Sociological Review, Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann reported their findings, on how atheists are perceived, based on data from a national survey. To the question, "This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society," [...] By far, the most "detested" group were the atheists.
To the question, "I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group," [...] Again, the least desired group were the atheists.
--
How do you feel about these findings? Do they seem accurate to you or do you think it's an exaggeration? Have you or someone you know is an atheist suffered discrimination or mistrust due to their lack of religious faith?
As an atheist myself, I can definitely see where this would be a fairly accurate finding, as many people I've disclosed my atheism to seem much more wary of me than they did before learning of it. I feel that the writer of this particular article dramatizes it more than I would have, but the core message is the same. Why are so many Americans so vehemently opposed to atheism?In a recent article published in the American Sociological Review, Penny Edgell,... more
People have read so many fairy tales that we feel we need drama in our lives. Excellent explanation with graphs!People have read so many fairy tales that we feel we need drama in our lives.... more
The survey findings would seem to confirm the old saw that you’re never too old to feel young. In fact, it shows that the older people get, the younger they feel–relatively speaking. Among 18 to 29 year-olds, about half say they feel their age, while about quarter say they feel older than their age and another quarter say they feel younger. By contrast, among adults 65 and older, fully 60% say they feel younger than their age, compared with 32% who say they feel exactly their age and just 3% who say they feel older than their age.
Moreover, the gap in years between actual age and “felt age” widens as people grow older. Nearly half of all survey respondents ages 50 and older say they feel at least 10 years younger than their chronological age. Among respondents ages 65 to 74, a third say they feel 10 to 19 years younger than their age, and one-in-six say they feel at least 20 years younger than their actual age.Grow Older, Feel Younger
The survey findings would seem to confirm the old saw that... more
"As exaggerated as many popular depictions of psychopaths often are, many nevertheless do pose a genuine danger to others. So what makes psychopaths the way they are?
Scientists are now working toward uncovering the roots of this disorder in the brain. Their research could lead to ways to intervene against the disorder and hopefully prevent it from manifesting.
But answers remain elusive, in part because it's no easy (or safe) task to study the brain of the typical psychopath.
"Psychopaths are often big trouble for those around them," said clinical psychologist Joseph Newman at the University of Wisconsin. "If we can find out what underlies their problems, we might be able to identify what kinds of interventions might be able to work for them."
"Criminal psychopaths are about three times more likely to commit violence than other offenders and about two-and-a-half times more likely to commit other antisocial acts such as lying and sexual exploitation," Newman explained.
"Although not all psychopaths are violent, their kind of behavior is very destructive socially, and hurts our trust of other people," he added. "And many people in prison who might otherwise be treated sympathetically aren't given the chance they deserve because people have trouble distinguishing them from true psychopaths."
Scientists investigating the disorder commonly agree that psychopaths are often marked by the following traits:
* Lack of empathy, guilt, conscience or remorse
* Shallow experiences of feelings or emotions
* Impulsivity and a weak ability to defer gratification and control behavior
* Superficial charm and glibness
* Irresponsibility and a failure to accept responsibility for their actions
* A grandiose sense of their own worth
"There are people who are impulsive, at high risk of substance abuse, who are high in emotionality, whom many people call psychopaths, but that is more what we'd call an externalizing syndrome," Newman said. Many scientists researching psychopathy see it as an emotionally cold disorder.
Past research, including studies with twins, suggest there is a genetic predisposition to psychopathy. Still, it remains uncertain how much their environment influences the development of the disorder. "Just because one has a predisposition doesn't mean that they have to end up behaving that way," Newman said.
It remains hard to get to the root of psychopathy, since the most recognizable group of psychopaths are criminals, "and bringing prisoners out to get their brains scanned puts a lot of people in risk, so it's very complicated to do," Newman said.
Still, understanding the roots of psychopathy in the brain hopefully will lead "to an ability to identify and negate the problem,," Newman said. "By finding out what predisposes someone toward psychopathy and how these vulnerabilities interact with the environment to give rise to a full-blown case of the disorder, I believe one might be able to prevent the unfortunate development of psychopathy.""As exaggerated as many popular depictions of psychopaths often are, many nevertheless... more
"Nothing makes people more excessive than talking about excess. We tend to become either extremely disapproving or unusually enthusiastic and excited about the most recently reported celebrity orgy, or managing director's pay rise. No one can be indifferent to binge drinking, or the amount of pornography on the internet: everyone knows someone now who has a so-called "eating disorder", and everyone knows about the huge numbers of people in the world who are starving. Excess is everywhere now - excesses of wealth and of poverty, of sex and greed, of violence and of religious belief. If the 20th century was, in the title of Eric Hobsbawm's book, the Age of Extremes, then the 21st century looks like being the Age of Excess.
Nothing makes us more disapproving, disgusted, punitive - not to mention fascinated, exhilarated and amazed - than other people's extravagant appetite for food, or alcohol, or money, or drugs, or violence; nothing makes us more frightened, more furious, more despairing than other people's extreme commitment to political ideals or religious beliefs. Other people's excesses disturb us, get us worked up, because they reveal something important to us about ourselves, about our own fears and longings. Indeed other people's excesses might reveal to us, at its most minimal, that we are, or have become, the excessive animals - the animals for whom excessive behaviour is the rule rather than the exception.
Our reactions to other people's excesses reveals to us what our conflicts are. I don't want to be a suicide bomber, but I may want to have something in my life that is so important to me that I would risk my life for it; or I may more simply want to be aggressive enough to be able to protect the people I love. The excesses of other people, and of ourselves, can make us think, rather than merely react. Indeed something as powerful as excess might - if we can suspend our fear - allow us to have thoughts we have never had before. After all, inspiration, falling in love, conversion experiences - the most radical transformations that can occur in a life - are traditionally overwhelming, excessive experiences.""Nothing makes people more excessive than talking about excess. We tend to become... more
Living happily ever after needn't only be for fairy tales. Australian researchers have identified what it takes to keep a couple together, and it's a lot more than just being in love.
A couple's age, previous relationships and even whether they smoke or not are factors that influence whether their marriage is going to last, according to a study by researchers from the Australian National University.
The study, entitled "What's Love Got to Do With It", tracked nearly 2,500 couples -- married or living together -- from 2001 to 2007 to identify factors associated with those who remained together compared with those who divorced or separated.
It found that a husband who is nine or more years older than his wife is twice as likely to get divorced, as are husbands who get married before they turn 25.
Children also influence the longevity of a marriage or relationship, with one-fifth of couples who have kids before marriage -- either from a previous relationship or in the same relationship -- having separated compared to just nine percent of couples without children born before marriage.
Women who want children much more than their partners are also more likely to get a divorce.
A couple's parents also have a role to play in their own relationship, with the study showing some 16 percent of men and women whose parents ever separated or divorced experienced marital separation themselves compared to 10 percent for those whose parents did not separate.
Also, partners who are on their second or third marriage are 90 percent more likely to separate than spouses who are both in their first marriage.
Not surprisingly, money also plays a role, with up to 16 percent of respondents who indicated they were poor or where the husband -- not the wife -- was unemployed saying they had separated, compared with only nine percent of couples with healthy finances.
And couples where one partner, and not the other, smokes are also more likely to have a relationship that ends in failure.
Factors found to not significantly affect separation risk included the number and age of children born to a married couple, the wife's employment status and the number of years the couple had been employed.
The study was jointly written by Dr Rebecca Kippen and Professor Bruce Chapman from The Australian National University, and Dr Peng Yu from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.Living happily ever after needn't only be for fairy tales. Australian researchers have... more
new day theory - that deep sleep fundamentally alters you, even if only incrementally
positive people - is being positive and cheery always the best thing? how do you expect to connect with people who arent feeling as good as you are if you dont come down from your Cloud 9?
We've all read the Missed Connections and Casual Encounters sections on Craigslist for one reason or another (yes you have, stop lyin'). Whether it was to find someone or just for a laugh, did you ever think about who was typing out that little offer too meet? Most of us never actually put a face or body to the words of the ads, but photographer Mark Andrew did just that. He created a series of poignant and telling portraits of human desire.
Click the link to see the shots.
Enjoy.We've all read the Missed Connections and Casual Encounters sections on Craigslist for... more
A paper submitted to Gender and Society by two University of Michigan sociologists report that Disney films:
"…depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape," despite the assumption that children's media are free of sexual content. The movies repeatedly mark relationships between opposite sex lead characters as special and magical.
"Characters in love are surrounded by music, flowers, candles, magic, fire, balloons, fancy dresses, dim lights, dancing and elaborate dinners," the researchers observed. "Fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, wind and the beauty and power of nature often provide the setting for-and a link to the naturalness of-hetero-romantic love."
The researchers based their conclusions on imaged of bodies, touching, romance, jokes, dating, love and pregnancy.
This study is interesting as it suggests you cannot assume sexually neutral landscapes when it comes to children's entertainment. When you consider that children get a lot of their cues about what is and is not normal from TV and the pervasiveness of Disney in the realm of children's entertainment... well, maybe they're right.
Whatever, the genie in Aladdin was totally gay.A paper submitted to Gender and Society by two University of Michigan sociologists... more
