Jeremy Lin Stereotype-Buster

If you keep up with basketball, you have heard about Jeremy Lin. Jeremy Lin is an Asian American who graduated from Harvard. He played in the D-league and played for the Golden State Warriors and Huston Rockets before playing for the Knicks. Society stereo types Asian Americans men as being smart and hardworking. In movies and TV shows the Asians Americans are shown as intelligent and geeky but never athletic. The media is going crazy over Jeremy Lin because he graduated from an Ivy League school. Lin has been the starting point guard for the New York Knicks for less than a month and already has been featured on the cover of Sport Illustrated twice. Shirts that say “Linsanity” has been printed and sold which he got trademarked.

The reason why he is getting all of the media attention is because he makes a great underdog story and also his race. Lin is a breakthrough because the Asian American male has always lagged behind in cultural visibility and acceptance. Asian Americans men never dominated professional sports. Most Asians athletes are from Asia like Yao Ming, Ichiro, and Hideki Matsui or are not identified as Asian like Tiger Woods. Jeremy Lin said fans, and players would often say racist things to him but ignored them. Why is everyone so obsessed about Jeremy Lin? We as Americans haven’t seen an Asian American dominated basketball ever. This is a huge step for Asian Americans in the sports world and he has a huge fan base.

Jeremy Lin shatters the stereo type of Asian’s not being athletic. ESPN got in trouble when a writer posted an article with a racist tittle and the writer was fired. Saturday Night Live opens up the show with a skit using Asian stereo type jokes with Lin puns. Even if Linsanity doesn’t last, Jeremy Lin made a huge impact on the Asian American community.

Do Real Men Fight?

Is it alright for a man to cry in public? The media’s representation of masculinity says that real men don’t cry. Instead they show their emotions through fighting. In the movie fight club the narrator (no name given), is trying to find his masculinity that society took away from him. The narrator has a boring office job, wears the same gray suit every day, and goes back to his apartment filled with Ikea furniture. The narrator has Insomnia and he goes to the doctors to see if anything is wrong. The doctor said nothing was wrong with him other than the Insomnia. The doctor tells the narrator about a testicular cancer support group to see what real men look like that is suffering. At the support group the men were crying and telling the group about their emotions. Male support groups allow men to keep masculinity because they are remaining men together. Men do not normally go to support groups to talk about their emotional problems since they do not like to us words. After attending the support group Joe could finally sleep.

The narrator has an imaginary friend named Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) and he is Joe’s alter ego. Tyler is everything that narrator wanted to be, and rejects consumerism and materialistic lifestyle. The narrator and Tyler team up to create Fight Club. Fight Club allows men to relieve their tension and stress the proper way, fist not words. If a group of men do that too then it can appear normal and socially acceptable. The men can prove their masculinity by fighting another member of the club. The men are not fighting because they are angry at each other; they are fighting to find self-discovery, “We’re designed to be hunters and we are in a society of shopping”. When the men fight, they are not being violent; they are challenging each other to be all we can be. “When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved.” At Fight Club the men can release the stress that society and the work place has put on them. “After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down. “

Fight Club shows many men who are desperate to break free from the prison of modern life and all they need is a way out. The film is arguing that men are growing more feminine and losing touch with their former instinctive selves. They created Fight Club to get back their manhood that society does not accept.

Sexism In The Super Bowl

Did you know the Super Bowl is the most watched television event in America? Last year, a record breaking of 111 million viewers watched the Super Bowl. Half of the viewers were women. Even if you do not like football, you watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. For a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl the cost $3.5 million.

Football is a very physical sport, so the commercials mimic it using masculine products like beer and cars. When you will see a women during the Super Bowl, they are a Cheerleader or in a commercial just to get the men’s attention. A prime example for this are the Go Daddy commercials. A Go Daddy commercial consist of beautiful women promoting the website. To get a lot of traffic to their website, the commercials entice their audience to visit their site to see more glamorous women - godaddy.com.

If a women does not like football, she is watching the Super Bowl for the commercials. Why are there not more (or any commercials) for women? Studies show that women make up a large percentage of household item purchases. It would be smart for advertisers to make more commercials for women during the most watched television event in America. If you are on twitter look for #notbuyingit to see what other people have to say about the sexist commercials.