TEENAGE GIRLS STEREOTYPED
                             IN THE MEDIA

In our media assignment we had to choose a music video or ad that represented teenage girls in the media. I chose to do Pinks music video 'Stupid Girls' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4yQFZK9YM  because I think it had some good stereotypes of teenage girls In it, its a positive and negative representation of teenage girls stereotyping the dumb, skanky girl and the smart, ambitious girl. It had good lyrics, camera shots, costume, layout and language in it to represent teenage girls in the media.


In pink's music video the layout of it is stereotyping teenage girls in the media today. The first important scene I thought that was representing teenage girls, was when it starts with the little girl maybe 10 years old sitting on the couch. Her costume shows us she is confused with what she wants to be because she is wearing a rugby jersey but is holding a Barbie doll in her hand, and on the left and right side of the couch that she is sitting on there is a rugby ball and on the other side more Barbie dolls. I think this was a good example of the representation of what little girls want to grow up to be when they are teenagers. If they want to be interested in sports or rugby, or interested in Barbie dolls and fashion it shows us the stereotypical image of society thinking we are either being a 'tom boy' or a 'girly girl' and that society can judge us on that. It also shows that you can't be both a 'tom boy' and 'girly girl' which is the medias representation of teenage girls; that we can only be one big stereotype. This representation affects teenage girls negatively because they think that if they are a 'girly girl' they have to wear pink and be into ballet etc. and if they are a 'tom boy' they have to be into sports and can't wear pink etc. because that would change their representation. On each side of her there is an 'angel' and 'devil' the angel is the one who is trying to influence the girl into being more ambitious and confident. The devil is the one who is trying to influence the little girl into being dumb, skinny, skanky and pretty which the media represents all girls to be. "Baby if I act like that, flipping my blond hair back push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl." This shows society's attitudes towards girls with boys using teenage girls just for 'sex' because they put themselves out there like that, instead of respecting themselves and getting into a proper relationship. This is a negative attitude from society and a negative representation for teenage girls.



The second scene shows the little girl she is watching these different stereotypes and how they act on TV the 'devil' is showing her this. The devil girl is showing the little girl the videos of the stereotypical pretty, dumb girl and the angel is showing the smart girls who stand up for themselves. The first scene that the devil shows the girl is these girls who are in an olden day school and being taught by a teacher how to flick their hair and act all lady like. A girl in the front row goes to bite her fingernails and gets told off by the teacher. The teacher is mouthing the lyrics that is playing "Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls."  I think this is a negative representation on teenage girls because its saying to be a proper lady we pretty much have to be perfect to be lady like or else we are a stupid girl. This shows society's attitude of teenage girls having to have all these perfect traits in order to be respected and treated like a lady.  The second scene shows another girl who looks like she is very rich her costume is big massive sunglasses, short dress on, big handbag and lots of necklaces. She walks into the door and you immediately stereotype her to be dumb, she goes into a pet store and buys a Chihuahua which makes me think of Paris Hilton and how she puts her little dog in her handbag and wears the same sort of costume as the girl in the music video. The lyrics in this scene is "They travel in packs of two or three, with their itsy bitsy dogs and their teenie weenie tees." which is talking about cliques, cliques are stereotyped a lot in the media by being in a specific group and can have a negative representation on teenage girls because if they are not in a clique they are stereotyped as an 'outcast' or 'loner' by society.

The camera angles also can let us see how teenage girls are represented in the media by in the scene when the supposedly 'stupid Girl' is on a bowling date with her boyfriend and he is more interested in this other girl who has got a low cut top on and is skipping around acting dumb, there is a close up shot of the girl getting jealous so she pulls this tag and you see her boobs get way bigger. I think this is a really bad representation of teenage girls because it is saying that when we don't get the attention from other guys we will put out our body parts out and get labelled 'easy' just so we can have some attention it makes us be stereotyped as 'sluts'. This shows society's attitude again of boys not respecting teenage girls and just using them for 'sex' because this is how they are stereotyped so society thinks it is alright to treat teenage girls like this. In one of the scenes the 'angel' (smart, ambitious one) shows the little girl a scene where there is a female president who is saying "what happened to the dream of a girl president, she's dancing in a video next to 50 cent." and "where oh where have all the smart people gone." Its saying how Girls have given in to medias ways of stereotyping teenage girls and are just used for show "dancing in the video with 50 cent"  not actually being ambitious and smart and having an opinion "where oh where have all the smart people gone."




I think that Pinks music video is a positive and negative representation for teenage girls because she is trying to tell girls that they don't have to spray tan themselves and act dumb just to be pretty and liked, but the message I also got from her video is you can either be "smart" or "sexy." You can't be both which I think is a negative representation for teenage girls and isn't actually reality because you can be both and society knows that. At the end of the music video it shows the two stereotypes of this old lady who's costume is all in pink and has gotten plastic surgery, she is represented as a cougar kind of women. It is showing us that is not the way we want to portray ourselves as women growing up. At the end of the video the girl goes up and picks up the rugby ball and decides to listen to what the angel says not the devil she is immediately stereotyped as choosing to be the 'tomboy', not the 'girly girl.'