Dream Worlds 3 Response - Meg DeJong

One moment that really stuck out for me in Dream Worlds 3 was when they compared the attacks in Central Park to clips from different music videos. What was so striking is that the way the men in Central Park were harassing the women was mimicking the actions of men in the music videos. However, there is one very important difference: the women in the music videos were portrayed as enjoying the men’s demeaning behavior toward them, while the women in Central Park clearly did not. Often times, I think people downplay the effects media can have on people. However, Dream Worlds 3 shows how media, particularly music videos, can have a dramatic impact on people’s actions.
Another scene in Dream Worlds 3 that caught my attention was when they were showing women being harassed on the streets. I think almost every women has experienced this, no matter what they were wearing or what time of day it was. Most of the time, women just shrug it off or take it as a compliment. This past summer, I studied abroad in London. One Saturday night, me and two of my girl friends were out. We had never been bothered while out before, but we had always been with our guy friends as well. However, things were dramatically different when we were out without them. It was only a couple of minutes before we started having inappropriate things shouted at us. We ignored them and kept walking. It wasn’t until a strange man behind us groped my friend that we started to feel both very uncomfortable and unsafe. After that, we quickly found our guy friends and that was the last time we every went out at night without them because we were worried about our safety. Thinking back on that incident, I can see how the media could have played a role in the men’s actions. Music videos and other forms of media tell men that women like to be objectified, sexualized and sought after. If a man in a music video douses a woman with beer and soaks her shirt, the women enjoys it and becomes attracted to him. However, that’s probably not going to be the case in real life. Yet men see these images and think that it’s okay to treat women that way. In fact, some men probably think that women like being treated that way. In reality, when men treat women like that, they cause them to feel uncomfortable and unsafe.