On Tuesday, January fifth, my group and I went to The Paley Center for Media to attend a class called ‘Girl’s Body Image in Media’, which is exactly related to our topic of the way that women and girls are being portrayed in magazines, . When we got to the building where we were supposed to be, it turned out to be locked! After a minute of looking around, we were noticed and let inside of the building because it’s closed to the public during the week days. We were welcomed inside and the sweetest doorman offered to take our picture for us in front of this huge panel with The Paley Center’s logo printed all over it. We got out pictures taken and soon after we’re met by Caroline Falivena, the teacher of the class we were to attend. She introduced herself to us, and led us up through the elevator and into a theatre at looked like it seated about one hundred people. We took a seat in the front row right next to a small stage with a television posted onto the wall. Caroline began to speak about the museum, which includes a room with plenteous televisions and a data base in which you can choose any show to watch, whether that being educational or for pure entertainment. She described how women were portrayed in television throughout the years, and how their roles in different shows have changed. After giving us a basic overview of what we were about to watch, she dimmed the lights and started to play a series of clips that included mostly teenage girls that acted catty and talked only about boys, makeup and the way that they looked. These clips varied from the early 70’s to shows that came out last year. After we finished watching the video, we were all shocked about how we had never noticed the sexualization of female figures in shows we had grown up watching. For example, in the show Powerpuff Girls, the theme song included the phrase: “sugar, spice, and everything nice makes the perfect girl” as if ‘the perfect girl’ was something that you could create in a science lab, not the person that you are inside. We talked about how girls were considered objects, and not legitimate person with opinions. In an episode of the show Gidget, which first aired in 1965, the main character, Gidget, went to the beach with her friend, Larue, who wanted to join up with some boys who were in her guitar class with her to play. The boys end up giving all of their attention to  Gidget, who was wearing nothing but a bikini, instead of Larue, who was wearing a ridiculous (and fully modest) outfit, and turned out very upset that her name was forgotten when she said goodbye. We saw some other clips of shows such as That’s So Raven, which included Raven winning a fashion contest, but noticing that her body had been edited in the magazine that it was published in. She went to the magazine headquarters only to find out that she would not be showing her dress in the fashion show, a size two model would. The episode ends with Raven barging into the fashion show and walking down the runway with the model, showing that all body types are amazing. This was one of the more empowering clips compared to some of the other things that we watched. Overall, the experience of coming to the Paley Center really opened our eyes and showed us what we had never noticed before. Because of taking that class that we did, I will now be more observant of the shows that I watch and careful that I am not influenced by them in any way. We loved this class so much that we will soon be taking our entire grade to understand what we are raising awareness for, and so that they can understand that these are issues that can’t be passed by.