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How Hit 90s Sitcom 'Friends' is More Woke Than We Give Credit.

Sit down, grab a coffee, and let's talk about the most iconic group of 'Friends' on television. This group of six has been making us laugh since 1994. Phoebe, Monica, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Ross all have their own funny, unique personalities as well as going through things in their lives that make us feel a little more normal.

Friends is one of my absolute favorite shows, it's hilarious, sad, dramatic, all the things you could ask for in a show. In recent years, many have announced how they think Friends is actually problematic for the things they wrote into the show however, in my eyes I find this show to be somewhat progressive for the time period is was aired in. Throughout this blog I will touch on their woke moments, and not so woke moments!

Let's start with a few progressive instances in the show. For starters, gay characters actually made quite a few appearances throughout the show. Ross' first ex-wife, Carol, left him as she was a lesbian, and we get to see Carol and her wife's relationship a bit throughout the entire show. While Friends wasn't the first show to have gay people on it, it is the first show to ever script and record a lesbian wedding, which I find very progressive for the 90's. While they do poke fun and joke around about their friends, peers, etc. being gay, we always have to understand it was a completely different time period than it is today, almost 30 years difference. Despite the jokes, we see a lot of representation for gay people due to it being in the 90's.

Something I truly find progressive in all ways, was how each of the three girls had children. While people still judge single mothers, teen moms, infertile women, etc. I find that we have come so many steps forward from how taboo certain pregnancies used to be years ago. Phoebe was a surrogate for her brother and his wife, and she gave birth to triplets. This was actually written into the show for her as this was when she was pregnant in real life with her son! Rachel had a fling with Ross and became pregnant, while she would not technically be a single mother as Ross wanted to co-parent, she was not married and did do so much with her baby alone, so many see this as single mother representation. Monica also wanted to become pregnant herself, only to find out her and Chandler could not have children. The series ends with Chandler and Monica adopting two twin babies! Some women feel the need to shame others if their pregnancies or ways of having children aren't the same as their personal experiences, but Friends shows us three different ways for women to go through pregnancies or adopting children. Surrogacy, single motherhood, and adopting all are such important things to talk about as any mother who went through this for their children are just as much as a mother as someone who birthed their baby themselves!

While I find so many good things about Friends that are so progressive for the time period it premiered in, there are a few things that make me cringe. My absolute LEAST favorite thing in this series is when Ross dates his student. While her age is legal, it still is so creepy to think of a grown 30 year old man dating a 20 year old girl. This is just a bad group of episodes, as it went on for around 5 episodes. Something else I tend to hate is how Joey does constantly refer to women as objects, but when he starts to like Rachel, he begins to feel what love is and kind of sees a woman differently for once. However, this does end and he does go back to regular Joey, but once again the time period really speaks for itself. Another joke that was on going that seemed a bit overused and offensive was joking about Monica used to be fat. They make her seem like she is morbidly obese, when in reality fat Monica is not even fat. She is thicker, but I have seen many people her size be super healthy and love fitness, this all deals with the fatphobia that has been pushed on us throughout many Hollywood films.

Despite these controversial moments in the show, I can watch this show with confidence and say that this was probably one of the most progressive TV shows premiering on cable during that time. (Along with Will & Grace!) My mother actually watched the new episodes each week and she even talked about how woke this show was for the 90's. So, next time you're watching a 90's sitcom, always remember the progression we have made now from then when you hear a joke or comment that wouldn't really be made today.

#friends #friends tv #entertainment #news and trends #television #rachel green #ross geller #woke #progressive #controversy #lgbtq #body positive

[peachentertainment]

How Rupaul's Drag Race Influences Their Queen's to Become a Marketing Genius!

I’ve been obsessed with RuPaul’s Drag Race since around the time season 7 aired. However, I didn’t watch it when it premiered real time, so even though season 7 was premiering, I was just starting season 4. Since RuPaul has his content on different conduits, like Hulu and Paramount+, I was able to consume his content without having the channel it regularly streams on. Not only this but because it's on a streaming platform, I can consume Drag Race anywhere I go! This creates such a bigger audience by having accessible content. And this is good marketing on RuPauls behalf! Speaking of marketing, let's get into how his show creates a fun space for queens to practice their marketing skills.

The drag queens compete in a sequence of challenges like sewing, acting, and my favorite portion, commercial marketing! RuPaul always reminds the girls to brand themselves and take what is unique about you and put it into a product and create an ad. They might have to make commercial selling a product or service, or even creating political ads promoting themselves as the nominee. Let's talk about what exactly has made some of these moments iconic!

GIF by lipsyncforyourlife

I have two videos to reference, Commercials from All Stars 2, and a compilation of commercials from multiple seasons. Go watch and come back!

When creating these commercials, RuPaul always comes around as the girls are working and checks on how their marketing is coming along. In some instances he will even bring a professional marketer around to aid the girls in their ideas. In one case, Katya Zamolodchikova, in All Stars 2 created a relaxing mist to sell called Krisis Kontrol. The marketer told her that her idea wasn't good, and that selling a feeling in mist isn't going to sell anywhere. Luckily Katya stuck to her guns and created her spray to reduce anxiousness. While the product itself might have not been the best, it's always the delivery that pulls through for these products. When someone watches a commercial they want to be entertained, no matter how silly the product may be, if someone becomes interested in the ad, it creates a feeling around the brand now. RuPaul always tells the girls to brand everything they can about themselves, and it will sell. Since Katya has always announced her mental health has never been the best, this product matches her personality perfectly. This is definitely why she won this challenge along side of Alaska. (There are two winners each challenge on this All Star season.) While marketing on Drag Race is a bit different from the real world, it gives these girls an idea of how they will be advertising themselves as their new journey of fame rises after being on the show.

GIF by katyascult

Another drag queen, who is actually one of my favorites, took their commercial by storm, Heidi 'N' Closet. Now her product is high end, luxury moisturizing lotion, but if you know Heidi, you know she is a country girl who lives with more chickens than people. However, when we see the commercial, it totally works! When creating her mock up for the product she has her product named "Heidi's Multi-Purpose Lotion", RuPaul makes jokes and asks her why she didn't think of Hydrating Heidi. After having that one-on-one with Ru, Heidi knew she needed to take his advice, and changed the product name to "Heidi's Hydrates". This is exactly what people learn being around RuPaul! He points out some obviously branding and marketing skills that most of the time these girls aren't familiar with. With his help, he shapes these legendary queens who then come out of the experience ready to create a bigger name for themselves.

In the commercial, Heidi uses her gap to whistle the product's catchphrase, she makes silly jokes about side effects from the lotion, and just all in all captures the audience and says, "Hey! Look at me!". This is what a lot of brands need to market their products, a fun loud commercial that grabs people's attention. I think we might need to have more drag queens in commercials! Haha.

GIF by fuckyeahdragrace

I chose this show to talk about their marketing aspect because this is one of the swaying factors that made me choose marketing as a career path. I found the episodes with commercials, queens creating a brand around themselves, and having to mock up products very interesting to me. Not only that but the queens are always so funny and fierce. Also being able to listen to RuPaul talk about ways to market efficiently not only aids the queens, but aids me as a marketing student. Some of the queens have skyrocketed to fame due to taking Ru's marketing advice. Taking in information from any successful marketer will make you grow as a student and as a worker.

#rupuals drag race #entertainment #news and trends #katya zamolodchikova #heidi n closet #lgbtq #reality #marketing #branding #television #commercial

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New Jeffery Dahmer Netflix Series: How Should We Continue True Crime Entertainment?

Well-known director named Ryan Murphy, known for popular television series American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and Glee, creates a new television series, Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story, over the serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, played by Evan Peters, and the stories of what went wrong.

Close family and friends of Dahmer's victims have stepped forward to announce their discomfort of having the relieve the real life tragedy all over again. Just as soon as they may put the past behind them, another documentary, movie, or TV series is being made about him again. How long do we have to continue to make entertainment dealing with the very real, brutal murders of many people of color.

While I am a guilty person, as I watched this new series, I just want to point out how this series does a better job at showing not what Dahmer did, but why he became the way he did due to his upbringing and how police failed multiple victims due to not doing their job to equally protect people of color and gay men. Without this series some may have never known exactly how those particular events went down. Many just hear Dahmer’s name and think, “Oh, the crazy cannibal from years ago?”. Now, people can associate this string of killings to things that can improve in law enforcement and how lack of attention from parents can mentally affect a child.

Dahmer’s parents weren’t ideal. His mother and father fought constantly. His father left for long weekends, a lot of times after a fight and not giving young Jeff a loving goodbye, leaving his son feeling abandoned. While his father is gone, his mother isn’t the best either. She was addicted to pills during and after her pregnancy. As a child, Jeffery even walked in to find his mother close to death after an overdose. With a home life that shows no affection and has a lot of violence in the home, it’s sure the affect a child’s brain as it’s developing. His father was even the one who introduced him to his hobby of finding roadkill and dissecting them. All of these situations leads to something disastrous.

As Dahmer got older and began his crimes, many along the way could have been saved or Dahmer could have been caught in action if only the police would listen to the people of color that pleaded for them to do something. One case deals with a 14 year old boy named Konerak Sinthasomphone, he was drugged in Dahmer’s home but found a way out while Jeff was gone, and tried his hardest to communicate help to anyone. Neighbors found him naked and covered in blood. They called the police as they said they found a young boy in trouble. The police came around the same time as Dahmer. Dahmer told the police Konerak was his boyfriend and he just drank too much, the neighbors pleaded with the police to just check the boys ID, since he looked much younger than 18, or just take him somewhere else to get better. Police refused to listen to them and actually made sure the boy was back in the apartment, where he would later be killed. If the police did their job and check ID and did a background check, they would see the boy is underage and Dahmer had already been charged with sexual assault of a minor. This charge also happened to be Konerak’s older brother. So much is wrong with this scenario, that little boy could have been saved if the police just took their time to listen to someone other than a white man.

Evan Peters himself did an interview about the show, and even said that this show isn’t about Dahmer, it’s about the tragedies that could’ve been stopped by police but didn’t because of racism and homophobia. While true crime series will never stop being made, I think it’s up to directors to create something that educates people on why the crimes happened, and how they could’ve been stopped so that police and bystanders can learn from it and do better. (The bystanders in these crimes did try, this can just be an example for other people to step forward.) Another problem is since everything is public information, productions don’t necessarily need to ask permission from the victims family’s. However, we need to take into account how they would feel as this is something they actually lived through and not just a story for a television show.

#netflix #jeffery dahmer #entertainment #news and trends #blogs #monster the jeffrey dahmer story #evan peters #ryan murphy #american horror story #television

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Disney's Past with Racism in their Films Resurfaces due to The Little Mermaid. How They are Overcoming Those Barriers.

A new Disney film adaptation is coming to full screen next year, so exciting! Or is it bringing up something from the past that Disney wishes hadn't?

Throughout Disney's history we have seen mainly white princesses or characters, and if we did see any other person of color (POC) their characteristics were made sure to be blown out of proportion in a mocking way, have stereotypical connotations around them, or even become something non-human. This mainly seems to happen with the black community. An example of that could be in the 1940 production of Fantasia, here I have attached a YouTube link to show how they portrayed the black centaur compared to the white centaurs. However, the final cut on DVD edited her out of the movie completely. While the next example is not using black characters, but racist connotations, we have a movie about a elephant, named Dumbo, who is made fun of for being different. Dumbo comes across a group of crows, and all seems normal until we find out one of the crows is named Jim Crow. This is in reference to laws that legally segregated African Americans and white people. Black people have had to deal with the humiliation of being made fun of in Disney films since the beginning of the company. Black people are not the only minority group to be affected, as Native Americans have been stereotyped in the 1953 Disney film, Peter Pan. In the movie of Peter Pan and Wendy, the group of kids come across Native Americans. The Native's mannerisms and characteristics are harmful stereotypes, as they made them smoke heavily and speak in gibberish. Not only that, but all the Native's skin were red, and they happily sang about why their skin is red, even when Native Americans had voiced their opinions of their dislike of that description. People always bring up the fact that this was a different time period. These movies described were made before the Civil Rights Act was signed into the law in 1964. Despite this, I still believe that we need to acknowledge how we can grow as people when portraying people of color.

Something that has been pointed out by many is the fact that black people in Disney animated films always end up becoming something non-human.

In 2009, Disney released Princess and The Frog, their first movie to have a black princess. Her named is Tiana. Little girls all over the world of course are so happy to have representation, as they should, only to find out that Tiana transforms into a frog for the majority of the movie. This isn't the last film to do this. The new movie Soul follows an African American band teacher, Joe, trying to live out his jazz musician dreams. He "dies" early on and is brought back as a cat. Once again not continuing the movie as a human. This continue's as the movie Blue Skys: Spies in Disguise has Will Smith voice the lead of the movie. An African-American agent named Lance Sterling, eventually turns into a pigeon for the majority of a movie. It is clear there is a huge problem with representation for black people in Disney movies.

It seems now, Disney may finally be headed in the right direction. While older fans are stuck in the past.

In the year 2023, the new live action Little Mermaid movie, starring Halle Bailey as Ariel, is releasing. This is one of the most trending topics right now as Halle Bailey is a black woman who is "replacing" the former white mermaid, Ariel. Many people are enraged that the once white Disney princess is now a black princess. They claim it is not historically accurate to the original, and even go as far as to say scientifically she wouldn't be black as her skin would not be touched by the sun. I find this funny people are concerned with accuracy when mermaids and singing crabs are not historically accurate to begin with.

Halle Bailey auditioned for the lead just like everyone else. Her voice was perfect for the role and got the part fairly. Many are protesting the movie and even going as far to send threats to Halle Bailey.

How can we be surprised by the actions of these people? These people are the same ones who grew up with the racism in old Disney movies. We only have the past to blame that continued the cycle of lack of accurate representation of people of color. Now, we can only move forward, and it seems that is exactly what is happening.

As times have changed we have gotten more diversity in Disney movies, from CoCo, Turning Red, Encanto, Moana, and more. (Despite Turning Red having Mei turn into a red panda, she changes from time to time and doesn't stay this way the whole film.) This is thanks to people of those movies cultures and races working as writers, animators, and directors. Having someone there who can red flag racist stereotypes is key in creating good, accurate representations of POC, and just better films all together.

While Disney's past can never go away, they can learn much from their mistakes and create a better movie world for children and adults to enjoy.

#disney plus #disney #entertainment #social justice #diversity #movie news #news and trends #little mermaid #halle bailey

[peachentertainment]

How the television show, SpongeBob Squarepants, has shaped multiple generations.

Hello Bubble Buddies!

Let’s gather around the campfire and discuss our favorite sponge! He’s super F.U.N and cool and has given my generation (Gen Z), and more, the best memories possible. So, how exactly has SpongeBob taken over the deep sea? 

Since 1999 SpongeBob has been flipping patties and making us laugh. The show has multiple characters all bringing a different personality and likeness to the table. While the show was catered to kids, it is definitely made for all ages. My parents were obsessed with the show when my older brothers and myself wanted to watch it. So not only do my millennial brothers obsess but my generation X parents enjoy it too! 

The element of the silly characters and wild animations really brought in the love from children watching this show, but while I enjoyed this show as a kid, I still love it today, if not more than I use to! We all know that sometimes kid movies and shows can put slight adult humor in it, and most of the time the jokes don’t make any sense to us while our parents giggle while watching with us. This is the beauty of SpongeBob, many of the jokes are not only a sly adult joke, but just jokes that are appealing to kids and adults. One of my personal favorite lines from SpongeBob is the Bubble Buddy episode, I have attached a link for you all to watch. I remember hearing all of those reasons to pop Bubble Buddy and thinking, “What is he saying?”. As I watch it as an adult, I think it’s really funny! 

A character that caters well to the adults is Squidward Tentacles! As a child I always thought, “Wow, Squidward is pretty grumpy! How can he be so grumpy when he has such fun neighbors?”. As I grew up and continued to watch the show, I realized how much I related to Squidward. Sometimes you just want to sit in your house and play the clarinet while not listening to your neighbors laugh and giggle all day! His iconic character brings such a crude humor to the show, and here are some of Squiddy’s most iconic moments.

Another element of the show people tend to love is the animation. The vibrant sea colors and the play on words for certain buildings create such a fun show to watch. The fun flowers in the sky that are supposed to be clouds, the beautiful green grass of jellyfish fields, all the characters crazy colors and more! Other things like their buildings are fun to learn about as well. The Krusty Krab is actually a crab trap, I wonder how Mr. Krabs feels about that! The buildings the town fish live in are actually car mufflers, people say this is supposed to be about pollution in our oceans. The Chum Buckets is supposed to be an actual bucket of chum. Chum is chopped up fish used in fishing to lure in bigger fish, and now we know that’s why fish don’t like Plankton’s food! All these tiny details in animation bring fun sea puns to the show. 

If you haven’t seen any episodes of SpongeBob Squarepants, you might be living under a rock with Patrick, but that’s not the only way the characters make an appearance in your life. The Internet has been swarmed with memes of our Bikini Bottom gang, so even if you don’t watch the show, you are definitely still influenced by the show! Here’s a link that goes through some of the most iconic memes to come out of SpongeBob, see if you have used any!

It’s clear that SpongeBob has turned many of us into forever goofy goobers from the show, but even if someone isn’t extremely familiar with our yellow sponge, they all know the impact that Bikini Bottom has had on people of all ages. This show will go down in history as one of the best animated television shows of all time! 

#spongebob #spongebob squarepants #television #blog