What makes me...me

The media portrays products and images to us that give false images about who we are and who we should be and the collage I have created to portray myself shows that I am not part of the media’s portrayal. Some of the images in my picture include a laptop, me as a football player, music, billiards, my shot glass collection, and a magic set. I enjoy doing all of these things that are represented in the picture and if the media was to create an ideal image of what I should look like I highly doubt it would look like my collage. Even though I have a video game system in my collage, the media would probably put some kind of violent video games on the collage for all men because of the way that they portray to us. The media shows any violent thing possible to men as Katz says “The appeal of violent behavior for men, including its rewards, is coded into mainstream advertising in numerous ways: from violent male icons overtly threatening consumers to buy products to ads that exploit men’s feelings of not being big, strong, or violent enough by promising to provide them with products that will enhance those qualities.” A picture that is in my collage is of a football player because I play football. The media uses football players to show off products and make them look strong, tough, and sexy and are usually surrounded by women. Katz also discusses that “In Abercrombie and Fitch mall stores, a dramatically enlarged version of this photo greets customers as they enter the store. Abercrombie and Fitch does not sell football equipment.” My picture involves a football player because it’s what I do, not because I am trying to sell my body in order to sell clothes. In the end, I’m not the normal portrayal of men in the media and find myself to be very unique.

References:
All Images taken from www.google.images.com and can be found through the site.
All quotes taken from the book "Gender,Race, and Class in media", edited by Dines and Humez.