Why was there bacon in the soap?

Nudity, Normativity and Advertising

Thu May 7, 2009 1:42 PM EDT

From sex to birth, bathing to changing clothes, nudity is an inescapable human experience. Even more, in the United States we are inundated by advertisements with sexual content, depicting nude models who sell everything from phones to chairs.

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politics, celebrity, advertising, homosexuality, nude, feminism, nudity, heterosexism, heterosexuality, masculinity

Men are silly

Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:11 PM EDT

I'm almost done with this project and I just realized that I haven't really dealt with men in advertising. Part of this is because so few of the ads I've been dealing with have had men in them.

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politics, advertising, peta, nude, sociology, feminism, nudity, gender-studies, male-nudes, female-nudes

Nudity and Social Causes: PETA and Women

Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:13 PM EDT

The ever critical internet, and probably an academic study or two, yields no shortage of criticisms aimed at PETA. Take a look at their media center and you can probably see (if not understand) that much of this criticism surrounds PETA's use of women.

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race, politics, age, peta, beauty, sociology, feminism, gender-studies

You're such an ass

Wed Apr 8, 2009 8:20 PM EDT

Shakesville (apparently my favorite blog!) has a great series of posts, called Today in Disembodied Things, chronicling media and products that excise not only the identities of women (and perhaps men, I'm not sure) from their bodies, but also cut away other, what I presume adver …

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women, politics, advertising, rape, domestic-violence, sociology, feminism, accessories, sexuality, gender-studies

Telos: Marriage

Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:21 AM EDT

As part of the broadening of my popular culture viewing I decided to pay attention to an episode of Friends that was on today. It certainly was inspiring.

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entertainment, marriage, love, celebration, sociology

A Fair(er) Perspective

Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:08 PM EDT

Mother-Son talk (an admittedly poor response to A Fair Perspective):

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taxes, politics, corporations, sociology, capitalism, bad-parables, a-fair-perspective

The (failed) Role Model, Palin

Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:35 AM EDT

She may not be Hillary, but Sarah Palin is still influential. All eyes are on her as she comes so close to the presidency (I'm working under the assumption that McCain will die in office).

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election, politics, john-mccain, sexism, gender, fox-news, beauty, sociology, feminism, newsweek

Breaking: McCain amends answer to a debate question

Thu Oct 9, 2008 1:33 PM EDT

Days after the debate, John McCain spoke to a crowd of supporters about his performance at Tuesday's event.

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debate, election, politics, president, mccain, obama, satire, sociology, pow, amend

Lou Dobbs' Xenophobia: "Medical"

Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:19 PM EDT

Thousands surrounded the man, if you can believe it. He was just like on CNN. Charismatic. Bold. Mavericky, like McCain. I was drawn so much to the entire lecture that I didn't take the time to look around me. What was so exaggerated about this place? I looked around again, hard.

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immigration, election, politics, mccain, obama, cnn, satire, homosexuality, lou-dobbs, xenophobia

Google configures new browser with Freud in mind

Mon Sep 8, 2008 10:41 AM EDT

With Google Chrome released to beta many tech savvy web surfers, Diggers and Google fanatics are perpetuating the constant buzz about, well, something on the internet. And though Google may have again started something wonderful, there's still much to be disappointed about.

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google, technology, satire, browsers, sexuality, freud, chrome, google-chrome, parapraxis

McCain and Peace

Sun Sep 7, 2008 1:35 PM EDT

I try to stay away from writing serious articles, especially about serious subjects. I do enough of it for my professors, and I'm generally pretty bad at it. But I'm not so sure I can stay silent any longer about how afraid I am of McCain.

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iraq, election, 2008, peace, politics, war, mccain, john-mccain, republican, sociology

Corporations turn on conservatives over abortion

Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:37 PM EDT

The once congenital relationship between corporate entities and their conservative masters has dissipated recently, leaving an unsettling hostility between the two.

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abortion, conservatives, politics, satire, corporations, pro-life, pro-choice, reproductive-rights, anti-choice, gender-studies

What is Sexy?

Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:57 AM EDT

A Victoria's Secret logo fades to a distance shot of a woman's figure. There's a white sheet covering her lower back, her butt, and one of her legs. Another leg, long and toned, juts out from behind the sheet and angles down, planting a high heel on the floor.

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media, politics, culture, gender, beauty, sociology, victorias-secret, critical-thinking, cultural-criticism, victorian-beauty

Politics, Hypocrisy and Voters

Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:51 AM EDT

Already this year we've had Spitzer. Last year we had Senator Craig. I'm sure anyone could find examples of hypocrisy in government (or any major organization).

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spitzer, election, politics, scandal, vote, craig, democracy, sociology, hypocrisy

Wal-Mart Falls for GPI, Makes Employees Volunteer

Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:11 AM EDT

In an unexpected and rather boring press conference, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced Wal-Mart's official acceptance of the GPI.

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business, wal-mart, environment, satire, gpi, greenwashing, redefining-progress

Are we all really "just a little racist"?

Sat Dec 22, 2007 7:16 PM EST

I suppose posing it as a question was a bit misleading, because I'm just going to be straightforward and say that the answer is, "no, no we're not." (But you can answer the question if you want, anwyay).I've seen assertions in several places on Newsvine implicating everyone in ra …

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race, politics, racism, sociology, philosophy, social-criticism, ethnicity

Coalition of indie bands promises music that is "less annoying"

Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:48 PM EST

Several indie bands gathered during the week to discuss the formation and policies of a coalition of musicians (which has not yet been named) intending to make music better.

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entertainment, music, indie, satire, radiohead, the-arcade-fire, indie-music, modest-mouse

Google Buys the Patriot Act: skeptics wonder if it's a canary in the coal mine

Sun Dec 16, 2007 6:05 PM EST

Today President Bush verified rumors when he announced his sale of the Patriot Act to Google. The rumors began when astute buyers on Amazon noticed "H.R 3162" for sale on the President's online store.

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google, bush, patriot-act, politics, president, social-networking, satire, facebook

The Army Broke My Politics

Fri Jul 7, 2006 1:33 AM EDT

The summer's intrinsic acceptance of my usual up-after-3 am-ness fortuitously shoved me, bored and glaze eyed, into the middle of the 600 unread messages that automatically get filtered into my e-mail's trash.

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army, politics, government, satire