Looking Deeper in The Hot Chick

The mainstream media is an extremely powerful tool that is used to inform the thoughts and actions of our society at large. It is infamous for it's role in shaping our spending habits, but it has controversial aspects as well. For example, Miley Cyrus' wardrobe and dance moves have been a source of debate amongst adults because her fan base is comprised of young girls and preteens. If you're interested in learning more about the ideas that the mainstream media projects, Sociological Images is a haven of examples.

As much as media can be used to propagate images that reinforce a narrow idea of what is normal and what are natural behaviours and ideals, I also believe it can be used to introduce new, inclusive ideas to a not always receptive audience. Finding these examples can be challenging; but today, I found one in The Hot Chick.


A 2002 Rob Schneider flick about a teenage girl named Jessica who swaps bodies with a 30 year-old criminal and her misadventures while trying to get her body back. Hidden within the physical gags are two story lines I was surprised to find. The first is about Ling Ling, Jessica's friend, and the second is about Booger, Jessica's younger brother.

First Impressions: Lichen by Alice Munro

Reader beware: I go into detail about the content of the story after the cut.
 
I read this story in Penguin's anthology of eleven of Munro's short stories about love, entitled "The Progress of Love."

Lichen, which takes place in a small town by Lake Huron, is about a divorced couple, David and Stella. They have been divorced for eight years at the start of the story, although they were married for much longer than that; they're probably in their mid- to late-forties. David, with his girlfriend Catherine, is visiting Stella at her cottage home, as he does every year for his father-in-law's birthday. Together, they visit the senior's home where David gives the 90-year old the same gift he always does: a bottle of Scotch whiskey.