Social Acceptance: More than Just Labels by Kaley Beck

One of the most important things that is easily forgotten today is social acceptance. There are thousands of different types of people in the world, and yet we tend to find the ones that fit a certain criteria most appealing. This is shown in nearly every type of pop culture out there: movies, books, music videos, magazine covers, etc. The question is why, in today's times, where we are more culturally diverse than ever, do we continue to separate each person from one another? Why do we continue to put people into diminutive boxes with enormous labels over them to limit the person's depth and character?

We see this every day.  The cheerleader becomes simply the cheerleader, the member of the school band is labeled as just that, and even those who do not belong to a category get put into one. In movies, the popular football player goes for the shy girl. While this creates a misconception that producers are defying stereotypes, it is actually doing the exact opposite. Viewers have already put these characters into their labeled boxes, which is why we love it when the couple ends up together. This applies to gender stereotypes as well, even in things as small and insignificant as colors and hair styles. Most of the time in movies and books, the females are thin with long hair and typical beauty features. These are the stories that appeal the most to viewers because they are seen as ideal. Whether we notice we are doing it or not, we are playing into the stereotypes and labels.

Imagine this: A couple falls in love, but plot twist: they are just an ordinary couple. This could be a boy and a girl, a girl and a girl, or a boy and a boy, but it doesn't matter. The author/movie producer chooses to focus on their personalities, stories, and connection as opposed to the stereotypes that they are somehow (but not really) defying. Instead of focusing on labels, the book/movie completely ignores them, making the characters into people with more depth than one or two labels.

This could cause either nothing or everything, but both would be extraordinary. The reader/viewer could possibly not react at all, and maybe even feel as if they have wasted a fraction of their life watching/reading.  Or another possibility: they could  relate to the beauty of the piece simply because they were able to experience a genuine story. In this scenario, you learn to love the characters, and not because they defied the stereotypes that they were introduced as. You learn to love them for their humor, kindness, and wit. You are able to look at them as more than a label and as an authentic human being. If more pop culture did this, then maybe in real life people could adjust to seeing each other as human beings as well. Insignificant characteristics such as sexual orientation, appearance, and gender roles could become... well, insignificant as they should be.
 

My personal favorite examples of pop culture that overlook labels are books written by Ellen Hopkins. Hopkins writes in the form of free-verse poetry; the books revolve around controversial issues of realistic teenagers, which are utterly and completely beautiful. Many of her books show several points of view from a wide spectrum of characters. Examples of these are Impulse, Perfect Tricks, Tilt, and Identical. Within these novels, readers hear the stories of people of different sexual orientations, social groups, races, religions, upbringings, and personalities. In each book, the characters have immense depth, showing them as truly human. Despite their uniqueness, one thing that each character has in common is that they all carry struggles and baggage, just as every person does. That is one of the only aspects of life that every human being can relate to. In these books, the characters always intertwine into each other's stories, showing their humanity in comparison. The teenager struggling with her sexuality and identity is shown with equal significance to the female pageant queen. The "perfect," sporty boy struggles just as much as the girl with a broken family who self harms. The girl who comes from a conservative, religious family has a hidden story just like the girl with the drug addiction. Despite their differences, the characters are all represented as equally important, and the reader grows to love and connect with each of their stories. The reader has the view that each character is more than the stereotypes that tear them down; this is achieved because Hopkins writes in such a way that allows the reader to forget the stereotype all-together, rather than drawing attention to it.

Diversity is what makes up humanity, and our society would be much less divided if we stopped dividing it by things that do not define a person. We are each so much more than one single adjective. If we started accepting our differences rather than pointing them out, people would have freedom to be themselves without fear of feeling persecuted and unaccepted. If pop culture did not focus so much on peoples' differences and focused more on their positive qualities, people could have the ability to do this as well. Ultimately, the world would be a better place if we could all accept that our differences are what collectively make us human beings; we should start using words of sensitivity that do not degrade each other of worth or depth.

  For a similar book review about Ellen Hopkins' IMPULSE, go here.

Harry Potter by Branum G

       J.K. Rowling wrote the marvelous, seven-book series that appeals to many young adults. Through this series the reader can immerse themselves in the life of Harry Potter, the main character. Harry starts out as  a young kid who is raised by his none-magic family after his parents were maliciously murdered by Lord Voldemort, the main antagonist (to be covered later on). When Harry gets a letter from Hogwarts, the school for young wizards and witches, his whole life changes. He becomes friends with a boy named Ron and a girl name Hermione. Harry relies on the two to help him through his many adventures. Ron, who is a loyal friend, and Hermione, who is quite smart, become like family to Harry, and the reader gets to enjoy that throughout the series. This trifecta of friends faces off against the evil that seeks to control the wizarding world. All the threats originate from a dark wizard named Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents. He also attempted to kill Harry, but inadvertently harmed himself, making Harry his only true rival. Lord Voldemort is a dark wizard with seemingly unfathomable power that he uses to terrorize and control the wizarding world. Voldemort is so powerful that his name is even feared to be said, deeming him “He who shall not be named”. Harry, Ron, and Hermione use their strong bond to fight back against the opposing threat, while making friends along the way. Harry, who’s family is dead except for his non-magic aunt and uncle, makes a family of his own through his friends, which gives him the will to fight.

       In the last book, the battle between good and evil truly takes shape as Harry and Voldemort are forced to face off against one another. Like most all books Harry, being the hero, emerges victorious after defeating Voldemort and sending the few remaining dark wizards running. With the fear of tyrant rule gone, the magical world finds peace and happiness, as does Harry. He is naturally referred to as a hero, as he should be, and creates a good prosperous life for himself.

      These books contain much more excitement and many great qualities that appeal to both younger and older audiences. As the saying goes, “Do not judge a book by its cover.” However, even if one was to judge the book by the cover, it still seems enticing. 

For more on Harry Potter go here: https://www.pottermore.com/

Repeat My Name: The Female Protagonists of Today's Stories by Kayley Boddy

With the latest feminism craze on the rise, it's not surprising to see our YA books and blockbuster films sporting fresh-faced teenage girls as the protagonists. In the last four years, movies and novels such as The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Mortal Instruments have all bought into the female protagonist genre. It's actually what we've come to expect- a shy, small-town girl, caught up in a love triangle, suddenly faced with a war or an apocalypse and being turned into a fighter. And while our books and our films have delved into this female spotlight and shown us that females can be strong too, we're still missing something. We've forgotten how to make our characters diverse. We've instead turned our potentially multi-layered female protagonists into bland, stereotypical, worn-out heroes. Where did the originality go?



Think of it this way: out of every story with a female protagonist you've heard of in the past few years, it's more than likely that they all seem to be speaking the same message, in the same way. They live in the same situations: they come from a small town, they're shy, they have low self-confidence, and they're even white (which, of course, is another issue). Bonus points if there's a love triangle or if they're fighting for a boy they're in love with: Katniss Everdeen had Gale and Peeta, Tris Prior had Four, Cassie Sullivan had Ben and Evan, Sadie Kane had Anubis and Walt. Even Princess Leia had her trip-ups in the realm of love, with Luke and Han. Usually, they all possess the same flaws and actions as well. Hermione Granger, Katniss, and Bella Swan flirted to obtain what they desired. Cassie and Tris fight to keep their families together as their worlds tumble down around them. The closest of all female protagonists seem to be Katniss and Tris: both rebel against their governments for freedom. All of these characters live in a half-life, not yet fully complex and human, but only the shell of a fleshed-out character on a page. It seems to be that our mighty female protagonists are still being shaped into a stereotype we have developed in regards to our literature. Instead of Jane Eyre and Janie Starks, we're left with females from an English class character development sheet. And why do we do this?

The answer's simple. From our novels, we expect the characters we're familiar with, and therefore our writers build them accordingly and leave it at that. Nothing new is added because unfamiliarity doesn't sell novels. No new depths are added to our female protagonists because the only female protagonists we know are two-dimensional ones. We see shy, feminine characters because they reflect us, and we like being exposed to their strength because we feel as though we have that same strength inside us. We watch them fall in love amidst world crises because we hope we can find love amidst our own life crises. We were intrigued to see Tris Prior in such a fearless faction yet so weak around Four because it satisfied the craving we had for a strong female character; that satisfaction blinded us from the fact that the rest of her character is built upon a hopelessly-in-love stereotype. As long as writers include these few small traits that define the YA female protagonist, they satisfy our expectations. Females in our novels sell because they're simply female, and as long as they fit into the expectation we have for them, writers can neglect their full potentials. Our female protagonists are beginning to lack the character development and complexity they need because the only aspect readers are currently focused on is the fact that they are female.


We're missing the entire purpose of writing when we have these female protagonists. Nowadays, novels compete for the most dramatic love triangle or the most fragile-yet-unbreakable character. They compete to sell, and they sell by advertising females on their front covers; YA readers devour female protagonists because they play into the equal-representation-of-women-in-novels idea we work for. And the saddest part about it is that it's working. Why is it that in a time where females are being pushed to have the same complexity and ability as men, their representation in writing is still weak and worn out? And what does that say about our true ambitions? We're missing our female protagonists; we're receiving sugarcoated female stereotypes.


I cannot say that female protagonists in novels have always been this way, however, and I cannot say that I haven't found my own females sinking into this stereotype. Just as mentioned earlier, there are fabulous examples of female characters in novels out there, even though most of them still develop their stories through falling in love. Jane Eyre and Janie Starks strive for self-fulfillment, put love second, and are truly confident with themselves. Jo March broke the female stereotype of the nineteenth century and proved that females don't have to first be weak in order to find their strength. Lisbeth Salander is so creatively complex and intriguing that it's hard not to call her one of the greatest female protagonists in literature. All of these females are not just females, but real, complex humans with their own diverse ambitions. It's not just a man or the quest for love that drives them on and helps them discover themselves, but the traits and qualities they've developed separately, the lack of which has sunk our female protagonists into so deep of a hole. Our literary females have to thicken.

When it comes down to it, the way our writers develop the female protagonists of their novels needs to change. We're trading the character essentials every masterpiece novel has for the satisfaction of a female-character demand. Once this demand dies out, all we will have left to show for the literature of our generation is the repeated story of the same girl in the same relationships. And that's not something to be proud of. The female protagonists in our YA novels need humanity. Our females need diversity; they need complexity; they need originality. We cannot repeat and recycle her name any longer. Instead, we must introduce her.

For similar content, check out this post: http://bust.com/feminism/10251-female-protagonists-are-on-the-rise-diversity-isnt.html