Research Proposal Essay #3

For the past couple weeks throughout my daily routine I have seen several things that I thought would make a good topic for the research paper. Now that I'm sitting here trying to work on it I can't remember a single of those things! Go figure...I thought about sticking with the Dolce & Gabbana advertisements that I am writing my 2nd essay on, but I don't think I will have enough to write. Therefore, I believe I am going to stick with my blog topic from last week - the movie Legally Blonde. I am throwing around the idea of including the sequel, but as of now I am only going to focus on the first.

I think it will be interesting to research this movie and some of the stereotypes and challenges it presents. I secretly love this movie, and now I realize that it is full of the ideas that we've been discussing in this class. I am curious about further analyzing the stereotypes of our society that this movie reinforces. I am not sure on what I'm going to revise yet. I think it would be interesting to revise it that she doesn't get into law school..it would also be interesting to change the ending. The ending, as it is, has Warner wanting Elle back now that she is a successful law student, and she declines - basically throwing his words back at him (from when he broke up with her). What if she took him back? This would just further those stereotypes while at the same time challenges ideas that "men are the providers". I still need to decide this...

My intended audience of this is going to depend on which revision I decide to go with, but will still be aimed mostly at Females. I am worried that the hardest part of this is going to be finding the sources. In doing this research I hope to show just how prevalent stereotypes towards women are in our society.

Are you "Legally Blonde"?

I'm not sure why, but I had a hard time coming up with something to blog about this week. I looked around my apartment - through my iTunes and my DVDs. I saw the movie Legally Blonde, and a bunch of ideas popped into my head.
For help, I went to IMDB and the first few lines made me laugh out loud (which made people laugh at me since I'm sitting at a table alone in the Front Room). "Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) has it all. She's the president of her sorority, a Hawaiian Tropic girl, Miss June in her campus calendar, and, above all, a natural blonde. She dates the cutest fraternity boy on campus and wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Warner Huntington III". Are you kidding me? Apparently "all" consists of popularity and looks and lets not forget a man to complete the package! This is the message that we are sending to teenage girls these days.
However, there is a silver-lining. If you've never seen the movie, Elle expects a proposal from Warner, but instead he dumps her because he is going off to Law school, with many high goals and Elle is "too blonde" for him. She then decides to follow Warner to Harvard for Law School. Elle overcomes all the stereotypes against her, and ends up become a very successful lawyer. This is a wonderful message sent to girls - that no matter who or what you are, you can achieve your goals.

Dolce & Gabbana

I originally planned on picking a television show as the topic of my second essay, but was having trouble picking one. I turned to Google. I typed in "Ad Campaigns", and it auto completed it with "that degrade women". I thought - how fitting! The first thing that came up, was a Dolce and Gabbana advertisement. I'll be honest I don't think I've ever even seen one of their ads until now. The further I looked into their ad campaigns, the more surprised I was. I had no idea that their ads were so controversial, and they have even had legal problems with some of them.
Therefore, I am going to write my second essay on Dolce & Gabbana. Instead of focusing on one single ad campaign, I am going to pick and choose a few from different campaigns. The thing that I find interesting is that D&G does not stick to one form of ads. Their ads explore all angles of sexuality. However they do still degrade both men and women. At first I was appalled, but now I'm curious and excited to learn more about their stance on their ads.
I will need to work on furthering this, but to begin...I believe my thesis to be "Dolce and Gabbana ads challenge heteronormativity and at the same time strengthen the violence that it ensues." Through my analysis of Dolce & Gabbana's ads, I hope to show my audience that although their ads are bold and futuristic, they are still harmful.