Review of Vanessa's sex and media blog.

Vanessa Elridge is most well known for her influential combination of major works presented in an upper division class at PSU, Sex and Media, and the reality of the media and popular culture. She exposes how dangerously over-excessive sexualizing is within the mainstream, which can be found anywhere from the lyrical content of Brittney Spears and Rihanna, to Burger King ads and single’s websites such as dateacougar.com. Even the smaller, more seemingly innocent nuances seen in fringe media, such as the “hot girls” comment stated in Portlandia’s theme song doesn’t get by unscathed without her critical application of feminist, gender, and sex studies. I was impressed Vanessa’s depiction of Miley Cyrus’s evolution within popular culture, and how her nascence as a young adult is immediately sexualized. She may be getting too old for childrens' shows now, but is definitely young blood for the mainstream market which emphasizes sexuality over almost any other theme. Much of Vanessa’s synthesis of critical theories and studies with mediated images and artifacts was spot on, and intriguing. She has inspired me to pay attention more to popular culture, to suspend my apprehension, and see the way we depict our culture within this institution. Vanessa’s blog has opened my eyes and ears to the myriad mediums of popular culture, and through the use of a crucial lexicon one may acquire in such a class as Sex and Media, to deconstruct the messages that are reflected and being said to both us, and more importantly, to our younger generations. Therein, maybe through an active approach, we could enlighten ourselves and hopefully even others to critically read through the blurred lines, to see the ubiquity of pornography and patriarchy within media and popular culture, and how it affects sex and gender identity, ethnicity, and classism. Vanessa is clearly a brilliant provocateur and her blog is only a small extension of her magnitude as an empowered critical thinker and observer.