The episode shows aesthetic post modernism through Kyle’s efforts to understand what the n word feels like to Token. White people always claim that they know what it “feels” like and that if black people say it, why is it such a big deal when white people do. Continuing to the critical, the episode critiques The process that people who use racial slurs on mass media have to go through to be “cleared.” Kyle’s dad has to go and apologize to Jackson because, in the show at least, he is the emperor of black people. Kyle’s dad also tries many forms of “black culture.” It is also critical when the red necks have their rant about accepting and understanding. The episode moves to the ontological when the “nigger guys” invite Kyle’s dad to their group. They then go to get the words made illegal. A plight that has been entertained by many prominent “black leaders.”
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Question 12
Question 13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HvWL1XNZek&NR=1
The first wave of feminism focuses on quantitative advancements. 1st wavers fight for suffrage and abortions. First wavers want rights. The short comings of the first wave addressed by the second wave is that where the first wave stops at gaining rights, the second wave wants those rights to count and for, in the instance of voting, for their opinion to count. 2nd wavers fight the glass ceiling and the illusion of equality on the work place. 2nd wavers fight for qualitative advancements. The first and second waves approach sexuality in a slightly hypodermic model. The 3rd wave builds and advances feminism into empowerment. The third wave recognizes that women can choose to use their sexuality and the conditioning of men to their advantage. IN the case of this Vitoria’s secret ad, the first wave would claim that it objectified women. The second wave would agree that it did and continue on to say that women should not have to be thin and model-esq to be Beautiful. The third wave would assert that those women who do look like that can take advantage of it and sexualize themselves, but it is still degrading and demeaning.
Question 11
Texts: Why Can’t Johnny Dissent, The New Politics of Consumption
Ad: Land Rover Go Beyond
In my second paper I discussed the ideal of a retirement utopia being constructed. Each gender had starkly different utopias set up. The male utopia centered on escaping responsibility and family. In all the ads with this utopia, there are no signs of civilization and the man is alone. “Why Johnny Can’t Dissent” makes a tie for the man trying to escape back to the “real world.” Although the ideal is alone and cut off from technology, there are still “needs” that you could have. Big business wants you to go out there so it can create a market of products for you. These products tie you back to your family. It ties you back to the real world. You are still a consumer, having not escaped from anything, just moved.
“The New Politics of Consumption” discusses striving for luxury. It is no longer an unachievable goal. In fact it is becoming the primary goal. Luxury obviously will cost more than normalcy. So when a breadwinner for a family is purchasing the best toys or household goods, the money has to come up short somewhere. It builds upon the idea of it is just planning and if someone gets too caught up in getting to the utopia, in this case surrounding ones self with luxurious things, you will fail in social realms of life.
The ad from Land Rover reaffirms this male utopia of escaping. With 3 quarters of the earth being ocean, places to drive and escape are pretty limited. If the world were reversed into water being land and visa-versa, there would be more possible destinations to escape to and explore. The copy also sets this version of Earth as a utopia. Of course this could never happen, but it doesn’t stop men, and Land Rover, from dreaming about it.
Question 10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHB3BAGpTLY&feature=related
texts- The precession of simulacra, Con-fusing’ Exotica: Producing India in U.S. Advertising”, and “Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context”
The video in terms of the first article brings up intertextuality. These dances and these prisoners are referencing other texts. They are referring to the music videos and movies of other people doing the dance moves. However, on a select few dances that the prisoners are famous for, the simulation outlives the “real.” The song will stop being associated with the actual music video and more with the prisoners. Also the texts the video is referring to are all ideological. Each music video has its own construct of gender roles and what it mans to be masculine and feminine.
This referencing of different texts would be pretty standard for it not be that the prisoners are Philippians and the music is all very American music. This leads to the next reading on globalization and the construction of the exotic. The reason these videos had such success was because it looked funny to see a presumed distant, Asian jail have these dancing inmates. Not only were they dancing, but dancing to an iconic American song in “Thriller” and also a very popular song at the time in “Crank Dat.” Without forms of mass media and the speed of information, this would have never happened. The videos first had to get to the islands and ten get back. This is no small feat. Globalization aided in this speed and wide spreading of both the videos going and coming from.
With globalization comes an almost hegemonic spread of a dominant culture. This spread causes identities and ideologies to be questioned. One reading that stuck out as relating to this video was the women who read romance novels selection. This dancing is all about escaping the fact that these guys are in jail. There is not escape, but they can have a dandy time learning the new moves.
Each article related to the video gives a different focal point for cultural studies. In identity and ideology it is the culture that is being impressed on sub cultures, globalization focuses on the spread and affects o that culture internationally. The simulation is the referencing that the hegemonized ideologies reference as hyper real and how to define a disappearing “reality.” All of the articles in the course of the year moved focal points to different sects of cultural studies.
Question 9
Onion News Story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRoVFK2XkN0&feature=related
Real News Story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IetZuu_seb8
As discussed in class, photos form 9/11 were controlled and censored. The only picture that news outlets had for weeks after the attack was the now iconic image of the smoking towers. The real newscast had the somber day of attack stories. Images of the flag for long periods of time and only a few shots of the building were shown. Tying the day with strong patriotic feelings set an agenda to tie any actins in response to this attack as patriotic and for America. This made it hard to oppose any wars that started against Terrorism, read Islam and the Middle East. Also with the control of images comes the gate keeping. Once outlets were censored it became easy to make any image the iconic 9/11 image. It could have been any number of pictures. That was selected. The Onion network video is the ontological anniversary text. Instead of patriotism, it inserts masturbation as the focal act and idea of 9/11. The onion breaks down the key signifiers of a stereotyped 9/11 anniversary broadcast. It shows the vigils being held, the close ups on random people crying or having deep emotions, it shows the flag being raised at the attack site, and as all include a shot of fire fighters. It uses real footage spliced with mock interviews about masturbation. A normal anniversary newscast has people describing their feeling or where they were on “that day.” The discourse comes with making this fake newscast about something totally inappropriate and unrelated to the events and emotions of the attack day. The re-evaluation is the changing of signifiers and inserting these masturbation references. It is very similar to Baym’s Daily Show example of the imitation “now this” of many news broadcasts. Like real newscasts, Stewart switches rapidly form story to story. Also in Baym’s article the idea of splicing and misrepresenting given texts is brought up. I am sure if the clips of the people mourning were shown to them after the video was made, they would not be so happy.
Question 8
Cultural Studies- studies culture. Cultural studies focuses on consumption and how society forms and reaffirms stereotypes. It looks at how society forms culture and words with capitol letters like Boy, Girl, Class, Wealth, and so on. Grossberg says that cultural studies cannot define its future. He also repeats how Granham, and political economists, recognize class as a distinction, but fail to recognize race and gender as distinguishers and race and gender in said classes.
Political Economy- The study of the politics of the economy, political economy studies production of goods and buying and selling said goods. Theorists relate production in terms of government and politics. Grossberg says that a flaw with political economy is that it constructs society as “cultural dupes.” This suggests the hypodermic model of communication. He also asserts that culture is ignored completely by political economists. He states that Garnham ignores identity and the construct of class.
The slight irony of both factions is that a base theorist for each is Marx.
Mouse Trapped 2010 is a superb example of an approach of cultural studies. The movie focuses on Disney’s transition into post modernism. The company no longer makes products; they make products to sell their image. Disney is purely an image now. Almost all of the workers interviewed said that they were hooked on the “Disney magic” and that they were the ones who maid the “magic” happen. The video showed the association with Disney and being the happiest place on Earth. These workers were being paid barely minimum wage, but they wouldn’t leave because they loved making the magic. This is a good example of the pipe not being a pipe. In this case, and ironically in the pipe too, the actually dennotated object is harmful to the user or worker. However the workers will not leave because of the image. Mickey Mouse Monopoly also has good examples for the cultural studies theory of semiotics, ideology, and hegemony. The video shows how Disney’s image is so innocent that they can use it as a veil to hegemonically reaffirm sexist and racist thoughts. Since the innocence is there no one really questions the content. The man who wrote the book talked about the power of Disney over all forms of media and the importance to question such a gatekeeper. These are all fundamentals of cultural studies.
Both videos also exemplify political economy. In Mouse Trapped they briefly discuss Disney’s reasoning for screwing over their workers, the very people who make the company, their bottom line. Disney is one of the most lucrative companies. The video talks about contract negotiations and the definition of competitive wages and the politics with Disney. It also briefly touches on the center of Central Florida’s economy, the tourism industry. Mickey Mouse Monopoly was a slightly better example because it discussed Disney’s political weight in the production and use in production of its iconic images. This relates back to politics of production. If a company can control so many facets of media that it can pick and choose how it is produced it reaffirms, a cultural studies pillar, it’s image.
Question 7
The video appropriates and satires the early pornographic male. The man in this video is completely ridiculous. All the 70’s signifiers of sexuality for men are present the mustache and the cut offs are the most prevalent. The man lifts weights though briefly in the video too. The video appropriates these signifiers and makes them satirical. Even the man’s name, Hank Rugburn, is a satire on the ridiculous porn star names. The video also appropriates the sexed up kissing movements of early male gaze. It again satirizes these techniques and images into ridiculousness. When the female is throwing seeds to herself and is overly sexualizing the action, the video has appropriated that shot. Also the shots of the woman doing the exercises and making faces at the camera with her hair blowing back are overly sexualized. The video takes it over the top and even shows another girl who does not look pleased, holding the fan that is blowing the woman’s hair.
The video reappropriates a lot of images and techniques as well. The work outs to make women’s boob’s bigger is reappropriated from women with big boobs. A sub culture of small chested women now has power to “fight back.” Also the over the top sexualization of the whole video is a reappropriation. The video is reappropriating the set up of early pornographies. The rampant sexual innuendo, a paradigm example is the radiator “problems.” Also reappropriating gender roles in porn, the woman, after all this trouble, says no to Hank.