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How media has shaped my expectations of happiness

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As someone that writes frequently in both an extracurricular and personal context, I think a lot about how media affects our worldviews. Our human existence is a tapestry of our experiences, and the media helps shape how we perceive those experiences: our attitudes and mindsets naturally inhabit the attitudes and mindsets that are present in the media we consume. I grew up on Disney. I grew up with the idea that happily ever afters were inextricably intertwined with being in a heterosexual relationship and having a grand, old wedding. My expectations of happiness were most definitely warped by these representations of happiness, especially in Disney films. When I was watching these Disney films, I resonated more with the princesses than any other boy characters. This was a difficult dilemma for me, because growing up as a boy, I wanted to relate to male characters; however, I always exhibited feminine traits and interests. That being said, my ideas of happiness were inextricably linke...
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The Unpopular Opinion

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Movie sequels tend to be.... subpar. When I first watched Mulan at the age of five, I was entranced by the movie's rich display of Chinese culture and the mesmerizing glory of Li Shang. When I proceeded to watch the sequel of Mulan, "Mulan 2," I was dumbfounded: there were random, irrelevant new love interests and several of the characters had lost their original nuance. That being said, "Frozen II" was a pleasant surprise. The movie was brilliantly executed– its playlist is catchy, its animation is stellar, and Elsa serves us some model-esque looks with her transformation. But that being said, "Frozen" is one of my favorite Disney movies— so it's hard to live up to that standard. Through my own perspectives as a (very) biased movie critic, I assert that "Frozen" is *slightly* better of a movie than "Frozen 2"— my own connection with the first movie, as well as the character conflict and music in the original, provide a stronger...
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The Larger Conversation

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 A common mantra of mine is that men are trash. The men we see on movie screens typically embody toxic masculinity , embedding themselves into the narrative as aggressive and aggressively misogynistic whether it's through their comments about women or their massively inflated egos. Toxic masculinity upholds this unique cultural ideal of masculinity: that men shouldn't openly express their feelings, that men shouldn't be vulnerable, that men should use physical violence to confront their problems, that men should be the breadwinners.  So watching "Frozen II" was a pleasant surprise: as Jessica Mason writes in her article "Kristoff in Frozen 2 is a Paragon of Non-Toxic Masculinity," his character development — constructed through the performance of his own song, "Lost in the Woods," as well as his heartfelt interactions with Anna — is a powerful, impactful representation of a new masculinity that is vulnerable, authentic and feminist. In the art...
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Hans Christian Andersen: Misunderstood Storyteller?

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Hans Christian Andersen: Misunderstood Storyteller? Popular perceptions of Hans Christian Andersen paint him out to be the subject of a fairy tale: escaping from a life of poverty, we are told that Andersen was an ugly duckling that forged his path in the world of writing, living his life out through the art of the written word and implanting insightful, morally correct themes into childrens' fairy tales. But — as is the case with many celebrities we think lead perfect lives  (see: Armie Hammer and his cannibalistic tendencies) – Andersen's public image was carefully curated to support his romanticized status as a writer of fairy tales.  In fact, there's an entire book about how abnormal his life was, and how it differed from these glossed-over perceptions of Anderson in pop culture: in Hans Christian Andersen: the Misunderstood Storyteller , Jack Zipes traces the rise of the writer to his egocentric pursuit towards fame and his complicated relationship with sexuality. A...
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On "Boys" and Toxic Masculinity

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  For my final project, I’m taking a look at Charli XCX’s viral music video for her hyperpop song “Boys.”  The music video itself was original, but many aspects of it were borrowed from ongoing trends in celebrity, color choice and masculinity.  The instant virality of “Boys” can be attributed to — quite obviously —the boys in the music video. Or more so, what they’re doing: yes, they’re objectively hot, but they’re also poking fun at gender roles. Sculpted, shirtless boys are depicted holding chainsaws and biting into pancakes— but they do so with a hint of wholesomeness, a grin emerging from their face. In this aspect, part of “Boys” digital popularity is due to its nuanced, almost parodic representation of masculinity and male happiness; the music video, released in 2017, came at a time when our systems of patriarchy were being reckoned with as the MeToo movement gained traction and conversations around toxic masculinity started happening.  Thus, we can look to th...
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On Cultural Experiences and Perspectives

A hallmark of the gay youth experience is downloading Grindr, a hookup app used mostly by gay men. At a young age, gay men have been taught to reduce each other to numbers and statistics and pictures on Grindr: for instance, checking the app right now, I know that there's a 5'8 white "stocky" "otter" that's one mile away from me. This, in and of itself, provided an avenue for insecurity and hyper-sexualization at a young age.  But what happens when you factor race into it? The gay male experience is uniquely nuanced: on one hand, our civil rights movement seems to be transitioning to the mainstream; on the other, our community is often torn apart and segregated by race and pertinent issues of gender expression— a common mantra on dating and hookup apps is "no fats, no femmes, no Asians." As a queer person of color, my experiences on dating and hookup apps have provided me with a unique cultural mindset with which to analyze how race and sexuali...
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On Coping with Pandemic Stress

I've recently started reflecting on the media I consumed over quarantine, and how it speaks to larger truths about how we use media to cope with stress or anxiety. In the past few months, my cinematic preferences have been all over the place: Queens Gambit; Parasite; Too Hot to Handle ; Bridgerton; Animal Crossing . All of these are forms of escapism in their own ways: in Too Hot to Handle , contestants are brought onto an island resort, and, tempted by the fake tans and hourglass figures of the other contestants, they are told not to engage in any sexual activity if they want to win the show; this show, albeit functioning on a very foolish premise, was a playful escape into a tropical universe where their only worldly worry was not having sex. Perhaps one of my favorite forms of escapism— particularly when it was released in March through the end of summer — was Animal Crossing: New Horizons . Growing up, I had played the other Animal Crossing  games, so this was a welcome retreat...
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