So I am liking this class already. Below I will post one of my journal entries that is an assignment I am still working on for class.
Journal 1, News Video Clip from Gossip Blog Perez Hilton titled “When Crazy Bitches Attack”
I am somewhat ashamed to admit that reading Perez Hilton’s website has become a daily work week guilty pleasure of mine. My co-worker and I joke around by asking each other, “Hey, have you checked the pH levels today?”
This website was something I got into when I was taking a PR class because it fascinated me to try and figure out if these particular celebrities being covered were doing whatever insane stunt for media attention or simply for uncontrolled psychological reasons. Now, two years later my interest in the website is less than scholarly and just an addiction. It has become a way to entertain me in the office or at home.
This website has lots of material for this class. One would hope that Mr. Hilton would be a bit more sympathetic to other minority groups as he is a gay, Latin, and once an over weight man. No such luck. Today when browsing the site I came upon a clip that I could hardly believe. Was it real? Was it a joke? And if so would that make it worse?
The 33 second clip depicted a poor black woman attacking a news crew. The anchor woman commenting in the news room seemed amused as if this were some funny crazy black woman, what more can you expect from her type? I felt bad for thinking it was funny at first glance but then when I got to thinking it seemed wrong, it was an obvious laugh at the stereo type of a poor loud black woman. I began looking at the comments below the video to see if anyone felt the same way and no one seemed upset from this video.
One person even commented
“LOL is that the guard dog?”
Another commented,
“SEE, THIS IS WUT A GUILTY GHETTO PERSON LOOKS LIKE. EVERYONE ELSE CAN FIGHT IT OUT ON SPRINGER. NUFF SAID.”
The worst part of this is not Mr. Hilton himself for posting the video, his website is trash and I take it for what it is. The worst part about this is that this video clip was a part of a local news broadcast. This segment of the media is supposed to be respectable and respectful. It becomes mockery with comments by the female news anchor, “Grandma and a ho . . . . You see what I’m talking about. She’s angry at camera crews for taking her picture when she told them not to. . . She’s mad.” Then the male news anchor chimes in, “Boy! I would run for my life there.” There was no true value to this news segment.
This woman in the clip was not the initial story but rather her granddaughter was the first news maker. It was wrong of the grandmother to attack the news crew; I’m not defending her actions, I’m just questioning the news coverage. I did some looking around the Internet and found coverage of the attack but in a less mocking way.
In the end I think the news anchors from Fox made this clip more offensive than needed and had they not acted like amused teens and more like professionals the stereotype would have been less obvious.
