I'm not completely sure of my idea/if I can support it well with evidence, but I was thinking about a culture essay along the lines of racism and our treatment of foreigners; very often in TV shows, foreigners are portrayed as almost "clueless," badly educated people who speak little English. Because it's so common--- George Lopez being a popular TV show and primary example--- this clearly affects the way we look at foreigners, and establishes a certain prejudice. I'm really interested in the topic, but once again I'm not sure if I can really support it well with evidence or produce the essay without including stereotypes; I'm also not sure if this is a correct (?) topic.

I think I'm going to write about how the media's portrayal of relationships and marriage affect relationships and marriage in real life. I'm not sure if I should pick a specific movie or show to write about or something a bit broader, like romantic comedies in general. The articles I found were kind of contradictory. Some said that romantic comedies give people unrealistic expectations of relationships, which makes it harder for people to have successful relationships, and other articles said that Hollywood promotes a hook-up culture, which also hurts marriage rates and relationships. I guess these are related because they result in similar outcomes, but they seem like two different issues.

I have been switching between a few topics, but the one that I think I am going to go with is about how modern romance movies teach women to be subordinate in relationships. Because the media has begun to target teens and young girls who might not yet be aware of the media’s influence, these stereotypes have become ingrained into our culture. The women in these films or would not have realized their full potential without the men in the movie. This teaches girls that they are dependent on men to find success or meaning in life, which hardly encourages them to be self-sufficient.

I want to write about the portrayal of reality in recent movies. The movies I'm thinking about in particular are Inception and Pan's Labyrinth (the latter should count if the Beatles count as part of American pop culture, right?) but I am entirely unsure if I can find any evidence on this topic, since my searches so far have proved utterly fruitless.

I'm writing about our current grading system and how it is ultimately a system of bribery and does not promote an intrinsic love of learning. I have a lot of evidence just from articles I have read but I'm having more of a problem finding examples from the media (TV shows, movies, etc.). I have one or two but I think I need a few more.

I'm hoping to write about the history or rap music and its social impact. I want to also write about the evolution of rap music from how it gave commentary on social situations to how it became about bragging. American culture is defined by the indulgences of its youth and for a very long time, rap music was the biggest indulgence. I still don't know if rap music had any monumental impacts. I know that it affected random street protests and caused a couple of riots in LA but i don't know if it had big impacts.

I found a book called Huck's Raft that is all about the history of childhood in this country that should be helpful.

I think I want to write about the commercialization of religion, and how it is affecting our society. Recently, I've noticed a lot of shows and advertisements that are either exploiting the stereotypes of each religion (GCB or All-American Muslim), or advertisements that provide biased and uninformative views on a certain religion, that seem kind of like they are trying to indoctrinate people in a strange way. (I Am a Mormon ads).

What are you hoping to write about? What don't you know yet?
The topic I want to write about is television, with a focus on reality TV. I want to explore reality television's effects on America's youth and hopefully use this as a gateway into exploring why parent's and adults resent reality television. I'm not positive what my lens is going to be, though. (Could how America's youth is shaped by the shows on TV be a lens?) I found a couple sources that will definitely be useful, but a lot of them are saying different things, some promoting reality television and others condemning it. Do I need to pick one side to discuss, or can I write about both?

For my culture essay i was hoping to look at the issue (or non-issue as the case may be) of extrinsic rewards/motivation. While obviously grading systems in schools are a big component and example of extrinsic rewards, I wanted to look more at how it applies to the world outside of schools. Looking at how prevalent extrinsic motivation can be in the workplace, social groups, etc. Also, in order to better understand why extrinsic motivation has gained such power in our lives I am planning on looking at how its influenced has developed over time which perhaps I could use different movies spread across eras for? I'm not so sure as to what my lens will be, so that aspect I still need to brainstorm more on.

I'm still not certain what I want to write about, but I think I have an idea. At first I thought I wanted to write about the way the economic climate affects the optimism of the pop culture of that time period, but I think now I want to say something about the American Dream and the way American culture is centered around money, regardless of the way the money is made. I want to say something about how people define their success by their material wealth, not on their happiness and unfortunately in many situations, people spend money trying to keep up the appearance of having money. I think I want to look at this issue through the TV show "Weeds" a show about a family in the suburbs whose father/breadwinner dies and the mother is forced to keep up the family's upper-middle class lifestyle through dealing drugs. I feel like there are a lot of cultural references in the show that reflect the mentalities of the public.