Dress and the Columbine Shootings: Media Interpretations

Dress and the Columbine Shootings: Media Interpretations

At Columbine High school on April 20, 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took the lives of twelve students, one teacher, and themselves in the worst school shooting in the US to this day.

Major newspapers in Colorado published over 1,000 articles about the massive school shooting. The media made substantial links between the Columbine shootings and appearance cues including appearances and dress of the victims and the gunman. Out of all of these articles, approximately 12% focused upon dress of the gunman and the victims.

Appearance had quickly become a factor in the media's interpretation of the incident, associating dress with actions, linking violence to appearance.

Gunman Appearances

Sophomore Amanda Stair explained, "We hid under different tables. Two guys in black trench coats walked in. They said get up or they would shoot us." (Anton, 1999).

Much of the media was associated the gunman's black trench coats with the popular movie The Matrix. In the film, Keanu Reeves wears a black trench coat and battles the forces of evil with his gun. The gunman called himself the "Trench Coat Mafia" resulting that the film is likely influence for the 2 gunmen, as they carried weapons wearing long black trench coats, enforcing power.

Within the first week of the incident, the media switched over from what the gunmen and victims were wearing, to why they were wearing it and how it could have contributed to the violence.

Victims Appearances

"The masked shooters targeted specific victims, especially ethnic minorities and athletes then randomly sprayed the school hallways about 11:30am with bullets and shotgun blasts, witness said. The bloody rampage spanned four hours." (Obmascik 1999).

Targeting Jocks

Several students were quoted saying that the gunman had targeted jocks and athletes on their shooting spree by associating jocks with sports hats or jerseys.

Student Brittany Bollerud quoted, "They yelled, "This is revenge. They asked people if they were wearing a sports hat, they would shoot them." (Obmascik 1999).

Targeting Minorities

Ethnicity appearance also played a major role in which the gunman targeted. The shooters targeted ethnic minorities.

"They shot a black kid. They called him a nigger. They said they didn't like niggers, so they shot him in the face." (Obmascik 1999.)

Possible Solutions For Prevention

By constructing the Columbine shootings as an appearance-related problem and proposing appearance based solutions, they media may have shortchanged am opportunity for real social change to prevent future shootings.

It may help to steer away from dress and physical appearance by forcing school districts to consider implementation of dress code and uniform policies. This way, there are not extreme subculture groups formed for other people to judge or target.

Symbols in School

Symbols in School

Symbols in School focuses on schools having regulations on expression of speech. Such as T-shirts and things that symbolize regional or ethnic pride. The article uses an example of previous court case where teens are penalized for wearing racist shirts such as the confederate flag. The Southern Resource Center has made massive efforts to stress the need of more regulations within school systems and freedom of speech. In the Castorina example two Kentucky students were suspended after sporting T-shirts of the confederate flag and the slogan "Southern Thunder". The Castorina case a decision was ruled that the suspension was erred and flawed due to the fact that the school had no previous racism problems. In another example a boy came to school wearing a shirt with the slogan "Not only am I perfect, but I am a redneck too". This term redneck has been very controversial, so much so that he was suspended after being to remove the shirt. Ten days after the school enacted a new policy of prohibiting "racially diverse" clothing. Referring back to the Southern Resource Center these efforts to prohibit freedom of speech is being argued to violate the rights of the first amendment. 

After reading this article a lot of different emotions come into play. On one hand we believe that one should not condone racism or criticism of any individual due to their ethnicity. On the other hand being an American our rights are very important and it is agreed that the first amendment has allowed us the power of freedom of speech.  All and all the article shows the power of self expression and verbal communication within personal style. In any means if something can be taken offensive it should not be worn within a place such as school or for that matter at all.

Young and Chubby

Young and Chubby

The article Young and Chubby elaborates on the uprising amount of obese adolescents flaunting their bodies in tight clothing, and feeling very confident about it. Author Gina Bellfante explains, "Teenage girls unabashedly show their bellies, even when they have actual bellies to show." (Bellafante 2005).

In a celebrity driven hyped up world, with stick thin ideals, it is easy to be brainwashed in thinking you must look or dress a certain way. However, notable magazines like Teen Vogue are turning the tables, pushing fuller figures to be the "beautiful" more socially accepted figure.

A recent Teen Vogue issue has a bold cover stating, "Making it big; How curvy girls are changing Hollywood's stick thin standard."

Editor of Cosmo Girl, Atoosa Rubenstein expresses by using plus sized models, teenage readers are less obsessed with dieting and exercise to reach the traditional model thin ideal.

Plus size chain stores like Torrid are excessively promoting overweight women to flaunt their bodies in skin right clothing. Is this contributing to obesity in America? According to the article, "14 percent of American adolescents are already overweight-triple the rate two decades ago- the danger is an increased acceptance of bigness is that young people will balloon to perilously greater proportions, threatening their health."

So they question remains, is there a difference between a round body and overweight one? In my opinion I believe there is a difference depending on height and age. I would like to propose using the word athletic, curvy, or muscular instead of the word round. A woman can have a naturally more muscular, big boned body, while an overweight woman is considered obese.

There are many celebrities such as Beyonce and Kim Kardashian that embody a muscular, curvy woman. These women are not stick thin, but they are also not overweight.

I feel that the media should stop focusing on "big is in" because it could be translated into, eat whatever you want and look like Beyonce because she has a fuller figure. It is important to live a healthy lifestyle while not overeating, nor starving yourself. A healthy balance is what all media should be promoting. 

-Kelsey & Kirstin