"Football High" : Is it worth your life

In class we watched a documentary called "Football high". It gave you the real insight on football and how over time it has became a huge sport to high school kids. According to Chuck Klosterman, football would be considered a part of intimidation culture in the sense that we recognize peoples failures and it is a very competitive sport. While watching this I was horrified that people would really play this sport and how dangerous it really was.

Important issues brought up in the documentary was the dangers in football. Two players from an Arkansas high school passed out from heat stroke, both of them were hospitalized. One of the boys who was a 16 year old boy ended up dying due to his kidneys shutting down and going into renal failure. The other boy was lucky enough to make it to see another day, but even after the life threatening experience he continued to play football. They would have the players training in heat conditions as high as 112 degrees on the heat index. There was another case were four high school boys were hospitalized for the same reasons. The death rise in football in the last 10-20years is highly increasing. There is no policy about the kids practicing in such high conditions, only recommendations. If a child dies from heat stroke no one has any repercussions.

Football is becoming such a huge deal that in Shiloh high school, they train excessively and hire private couches to train with the kids and help them with speed, strength and agility, along with other things. They would have around 6 couches to train 40 kids. Parents would take their kids out of the school they are currently attending to put them in a school were the football teams are highly ranked. They would even move homes or rent apartments so their kids can be eligible to play for that specific school. The high school kids would be marketed so that more people would like them. High school American football is even beginning to get a lot of exposure, the kids are doing major press conferences, have to meet a specific fan base and ranked by scouts. The documentary also talked about how the size of footballers has changed over time, before being over 200 pounds was seen a bad thing, now they have players over 250 pounds and the bigger you are the more your cut out for the sport. The kids do weight training and nowadays it is so easy for kids to gain weight and work out to turn that into muscle.

Another issue that was brought up was kids playing football are often getting concussions, which could lead to brain damage. The high school kids are suffering from head trauma and one which was addressed was CTE. CTE was found in the brains of many football players, which was deterioration of the brain. A 21 year old who played football died from committing suicide, but never had any concussions, yet they found CTE in his brain. At least one child in every game is likely to get a concussion. There is no penalty for sending a child back on the field who already had a concussion during that game but there's one for telling him he can't get back in the game until he sees a doctor

The sad thing about this is people are aware of what playing football can do to them and how it can lower their life span. Football is so violent. You have couches telling the kids things like "I'm going to hurt you if you coward down, that not who you are". These boys aren't scared to get injured of hurt, they just want to play. They are told to get back up even if they are hurt, beat peoples brains out. People need to think about is a game more important than your childs life. Why are there helmets if they aren't used to protect them from concussions. Kids are dying every year from this game and again everyone knows what outcome could possibly happen, yet no one cares because its football and in football its okay to beat people down, this is how you prove your manhood, is it really worth it though? All this money being spent to build bigger fields, hire better couches, and get recognition. It's high school, most of these kids wont even live to play in college, let alone have a dream of going to the NFL.

Fake Love

In the reading "This is Emo" Chuck Klosterman explains how the media, music, television (Hollywood) gives people an unrealistic version of what love is. He calls this fake love, he explains how people have such high standard of what love is supposed to be. Klosterman says "no woman will ever satisfy me... but this is okay because I will never satisfy a woman, either". People base their relationships on fictional events. He explains how we measure our relationships against the prospect of fake love and if our relationship isn't how we view them on movies or hear them in songs, then we aren't happy because we believe were not really in love.

In the movie "Maid in Manhattan" long story short, there's a high profile politician who falls in love with a maid who is just getting by financially taking care of her son. He doesn't know she is a maid at first because he sees her wearing a guests clothes that is staying at the hotel she works at. The man eventually finds out shes a maid and that doesn't bother him. They get married and raise her son together and live happily ever after. People will look at this and it would give them hope that they can have nothing and find a wealthy man who will love and give them everything they desired. People who are in similar situations may believe that everything will be perfect from there on out and there will be no arguing, fights or anything. When reality hits, life isn't like the movies and their relationships aren't perfect.

In the movie "Friends with benefits" makes it seem that two people having only a sexual relationship with each other can't just be friends. In the end everything will work out and once again they will end up together and live happily ever after. This movie is based on fake love but many people will compare their lives to this and feel this is how it should be when in reality someone who your strictly having a sexual relationship with isn't bound to be your soul mate.

What are we trying to sell?

Jean Kilbourn from the video "Killing Us Softly 4" would object to an advertisement like this. This add is supposed to selling a bra but in reality it is selling sex. It says "I can't cook but who cares" It objectifies women and basically tells us it doesn't matter if we can't cook, as long as you have big breasts and look a specific way then your okay. It says that this is the one and only wonder bra, is it a wonder becasue it can get you man or make you look like how she looks. When a man looks at this he isn't looking at the bra they're selling, but the woman wearing it and how she looks all promiscuous with her mouth open like shes telling you to come get her. A woman will see how men pay attention to this and want to go out and buy a bra like that thinking that will have men drolling over them like they would the woman in this image. The woman is in a setting by herself and holding the straps of the bra like she could take it of anytime. This add also feeds into the typical stereotype of how women should be the ones doing the cooking, but now it doesn't really matter because something else is for dinner. The add has no information about this bra but if you read inbetween the lines and open your eyes like Jean Kilbourn, you will see that as women we are just sex objects in the media.

Sexiness In Society

Sexiness plays a huge role in our culture today, just as much as it did many years ago. In the 60's, Marilyn Monroe was a major sex symbol and Pamela Anderson was seen as a major sex symbol in the late 90's and onwards. In class we talked about how Marilyn Monroe for her time represented how "new" women were becoming successful, but yet she played dumb. That's what drew men to her as well as her beauty and how she used that beauty to date the greatest men. Were as Pamela Anderson represented a time were sex was much more talked about and acted in a way were she kept nothing private, not even her sex life to date celebrities who try to stay famous. These women were made to be so much more than they were by the media, which led other women to think not so highly of themselves because they thought they couldn't compare to these women.

The saying "Sex sells" is true, sex does sell weather we want to believe it or not. Look at Miley Cyrus for instance on the award show previously. Dancing provocative and being "over sexy" everyone started talking, tweeting and writing about it, people hated it but still commented on it. Everyone had something to say. When we watch movies, 9/10 were watching them because who's in them, rather than what the movie about. The advertisements they post on billboards, TV, newspapers, basically all over the media proves this. You see commercials of these victoria secret models and how they look so flawless and we want to be like them. We see how much attention guys pay their images and want to buy the underwear there wearing because we feel it will make us look beautiful or a guy will look at us that way. We see these celebrities and the way the media makes them look like they are the prettiest people on earth. I feel the more sex a celebrity seems to have, the more famous they become, all these woman are portrayed by the media to be so sexy and we all look up to them and fantasize on being just like them. In reality though, they are all human just like we are and under all that make up and clothing, they have issues just like the rest of us.