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.