Final Thoughts on Radical Romance

Throughout this semester I truly feel I have been enlighted to what is really liberating for men and women. When looking at the portrayl of a man or woman in mass media I never really looked in depth to what society's message of the relationships of males and females. Shows like "Sex and the City," movies such as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and books like "Breakfast at Tiffany's" were personally watched simply for entertainment value. But, I learned that these sort of movies, shows and books are channels for society to establish roles and standards for men and women. Mass media has an hidden agenda to keep society in it's norms which function to serve American capitalistic society. The main thing that opened up my eyes to a caplitalistic agenda, especially since I am a woman, is the portrayl of women in media. The idealized "slender body" as described in Cultural Studies by Chris Barker is pushed into the American audiences face through mass media. Women in today's American culture strive for the perfection society generalizes. Television shows, movies, books and otherwise seem to put out an idea of a radicial romance but I think that there really is no such thing in current day American culture. The ideals of a woman staying home, man going to work, male being dominate and female being subordinate are just enstilled in American minds by so-called radical romance depicted by mass media. The roles men and woman play in daily life help to serve the American capitalist machine and to keep men and women in place media performs reverse phychology by making fun of the norms men and women would like to break and then again enstilling these same norms in a subtle undertone. Radical Romance? Maybe to some, but not to me.