It could be said that today's generation is the most sensitive generation there ever was. Reform and social activism is all around us, mostly sparked with the use of social media. Most would say this is a good thing, but are we, (as a generation), taking things too far?
Recently, I happened to watch a video protesting about how women in sport commercials like Gatorade, or Nike are not portrayed to be sweating, as opposed to men sweating a considerable amount. After watching this, I thought about if they had any sort of a point. Does portraying women as not sweating on TV (as opposed to men) say something about gender inequality? That is for you to decide, but the point I am arriving to is that it seems that almost anything can offend anyone.
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People want quality entertainment and media content while still picking apart any piece of content that could symbolize some form of activism. Like I said before, I am all for activism especially when it sparks positive change but not everything needs to be looked at so sensitively. It almost feels like having to walk on egg shells in creating any form of media to avoid offending someone.
There is a far bigger difference between a sexist male talking about than a director that decides to have a women look more sleek and beautiful in a commercial as opposed to hot and sweaty. Just because this choice was made, likely does not mean that the director is trying to say that women are not allowed to be as hot sweaty as a man would be, it is just his choice as the director. I find more and more people almost looking for things to get offended by and it gets to be redundant, to say the least.
This leads into making assumptions and judgments. When you hear the word "judge" what is the first thing that comes to mind? Most people associate judging and assuming with a negative connotation. But judging and assuming happen every day, more often than we realize and news flash, in a lot of ways not only is judging a positive function, its a necessary function.
If you went into an important job interview and dressed in a tank top and basketball shorts, the man across the table more likely than not will make a lot of prejudgments about you before even beginning your interview. Is this wrong? Is it wrong for an employer to look at a man who dressed very casually for a job interview and make assumptions that maybe the man applying might not take the job seriously, or that the man is not qualified, or even that the man is not even worth the interview? I would argue that that employer has all the right to do so because of how the other man presented himself. Were these judgments about the man in the tank top true? Maybe not, but that does not matter because how you present yourself affects what people assume about you as a person, and people have all the right to do so. If I walk around with a Pokémon shirt on, are people going to assume that I like Pokémon? Why wouldn't they? This is the same concept that applies to almost everything you do in life.
This matters because it can obviously be used as a positive feature and adds a lot to what people would call "common sense." Today's generation acts as if every form of judgment is negative and should be shunned upon. You should be allowed to assume without being shunned and told that you are offending an entire group of people, but at the same time people need to know that you have to be aware and open minded that assumptions can be wrong, and that's okay. Assumptions are wrong only when you are not open minded enough to accept that the assumption may not be true.
Certain things are worth protesting when it is clear that something wrong and offensive is being said, but when you have to dig deeper to find something offensive in a form of media, you are more likely than not being overly sensitive.
