Question 13

13) Discuss how the three waves of feminism are each trying to build on, and address shortcomings in, the earlier waves’ treatment of gender politics. In the first wave, in other words, what are they trying to fix about society? In the second, what are they trying to add to and fix in the first wave? In the third, what are they trying to add to and fix in the first and second waves? Discuss this through an image or video you find online. (150-200 words).



First Wave Feminists are fighting for women’s rights (like civil and human rights. They are fighting for the quantity of rights. They are fighting for things like making laws to promote equality (this would include women’s suffrage).



Second Wave feminists agree with the First Wavers, but want to take it further. Second Wavers fight for the quality of rights, instead of fighting for there to be more rights. They are more interested in interpellations. They are fighting against things like silencing of discourse, the office place “glass ceiling,” and sexual harassment. These feminists are fighting against the way women have been constructed.



Third Wave Feminists agree with the first two wavers, but are arguing more for the empowerment of women. They are embracing the articulation of the construction of women. Though they would agree with first and second wavers about frowning about things like women stripping or partaking in porn, they would argue that women should have the right to do what they want. It’s the idea that by saying you can’t do something, you are giving that thing power.

Question 12

12) Discuss the South Park episode “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” (S11E01) in terms of its construction of race, particularly, as with the Chappelle Show episode (S1E01) we watched in class, in terms of whiteness. What elements of this critique come from the aesthetic, critical, and ontological modes of postmodernism (be specific about each) (150-200 words).



Postmodernism can be separated into three categories: the aesthetic, the critical, and the ontological. The aesthetic is the allusion to something, or the flattening of signifiers. The critical is when you not only allude to something, but also make a critical statement about it. The ontological is when there is a critique on the construction in its purest, symbolic form. It is the breakdown of the absurd and actually inhabiting, consciously, a stereotype.

South Park makes many references to the aesthetic in this episode. Examples include referencing Wheel of Fortune and youtube. It also references when Kramer (aka Michael Richards) made slanderous racist remarks at one of his comedy shoes. Also, the father was picked on for saying “nigger,” being called “nigger guy” and referencing the fact that there are slanderous terms used about black people. When the “nigger guys” get together, they reference the fact that people are racist all the time when they tak about the guys that used the word “nigger” in an office joke.

Most of the references to race were made in the realm of the critical. South Park is in the critical of the post modern when the only black kid in the kid’s school is named “Token.” It is obvious that he is the only black kid, but by calling him “Token” (as both his name and the boy) they are referencing the fact that they are “racially accepting,” which they obviously aren’t. Also, they make a critical statement about how “rednecks” are often racist towards black people by instead making them “racist” against “nigger guys.” By making this unexpected twist it makes a statement about the absurdity of said racism. The “laugh factory” (the stage looks almost identical to the one in the scandal) comedy show turns the earlier reference to Kramer critical, because instead of a white man being racist to black people (Kramer), it is a black person being “racist” to the nigger guy, even though he claims its “okay” (much like Kramer did). When they propose a bill to have the term “nigger guy” banned, it is making a critical statement about the banning of the term “nigger.” They say “for the first time in American history a word is banned from use,” and yet the word “nigger” itself is not banned.

South park moves into the ontological when the white man is inhabiting the stereotypical feeling a black man has when he is called a “nigger,” and then tells a group of actually black people that “they don’t know what it feels like.”

Question 11

11) Find two critical texts from the semester (at least two weeks apart), and discuss how they relate to or expand the argument of your overall topic for the semester, drawing on a specific advertisement you did NOT discuss in your papers (250-300 words).



In my papers I discuss how the media constructs the idea of “Woman,” emphasizing the hair featured in a Diesel advertisement and how that constructs women in my first paper and discussing how women are constructed through the advertisements featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine and Nylon in my second paper.

In “Inventing the Cosmo Girl” by Laurie Ouellette (Week 7) it discusses how Helen Brown created the “Cosmo Girl.” It says that the Cosmo Girl is “the fictionalized woman she (Brown) invented to characterize the magazines 18- to 34-year-old female reader.” So, from the very beginning, we see women constructing themselves through the eyes of the Other (aka Cosmo Girl). Cosmopolitan magazine is said to be the “girl-style American Dream that promises transcendence from class roles as well as sexual ones.” In regards to escaping sexual roles Ouellette discusses Brown’s book that supplement the magazine that was for “the girl who doesn’t have anything going for her…who’s not pretty, who maybe didn’t go to college and who may not even have a decent family background.” So, clearly we see the construction of women created. Woman was from here constructed through Cosmopolitan magazine as a strong, independent woman who has sexual freedom. Cosmo has a similar message to many of the magazines that followed it, like Nylon. Though Nylon isn’t as clearly sexual as Cosmopolitan, it does have sexual elements and emphasizes female empowerment throughout its pages.

In Radway’s “Women Read the Romance,” we also see an element of female liberation. Radway says, “When asked why they read romances, the Smithonian women overwhelmingly cite escape or relaxation as their goal. They use the word “escape,” however, both literally and figuratively” and that “the cultural value attached to books permits them to overcome the guilt they feel about avoiding their responsibilities. They believe that reading of any kind is, by nature, educational.” So, just as these women read romance novels to “escape,” the said could be said about reading a magazine. To me, Radway’s most important discussion is when she talks about how “women have been taught to believe that men must be their sole source of pleasure.” This shows that both of these texts discuss mediums for a woman’s liberation and independence.

This video “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child directly correlates to this idea of female independence. The first words of the song are “Now that you are out of my life, I'm so much better. You thought that I'd be weak without ya, but I'm stronger…” showing new-found self-reliance. The images in the video are highly sexualized, strutting mid-rift exposing outfits and belly button piercings, even featuring a “bay watch” like run at the end. This symbolizes their sexuality, separate from their men (who, by the way aren’t in the video at all with the exception of the back-up dancers). This connects to the arguments of my papers because I argue that these magazines construct a highly sexualized, independent woman.

Question 10

10) Using a video or image you find online, apply three critical texts we read during the semester (each at least two weeks apart), and discuss how they relate to and build on one another, giving us different but related perspectives on critical media and cultural studies (250-300 words).



It is no surprise to anyone to hear that there are McDonalds restaurants all over the world. In fact, it has such an international presence that one could use “globalization” and “McDonaldization” interchangeably. McDonalds helps spread “America.” For example, in this Egyptian McDonalds commercial, the song lyrics are in English and the names of the McDonalds sandwiches are still in English. You couldn’t even fully understand the commercial unless you spoke English, because you wouldn’t understand how the song connected to the video if you didn’t.

Canada is one of the leaders in the struggle against Americanization, considering that they have only an “imagined community,” where the single unifying factor is the reliance on American media. Bodroghkozy states, “If, after a century of attempts to carve out a space of cultural sovereignty, the bulk of Canadian citizens still prefer to engage with high "jpm" American dreams rather than sedate northern greyness for their entertainment, is it possible to speak of a "Canadian popular culture?" Or is that term the ultimate oxymoron? Has American cultural imperialism so colonized Canadians’ collective imagination that we no longer have (if we ever had) the narrational tools to conceive of a uniquely Canadian community? In a postmodern landscape characterized by heterogeneity multiple and fluid identities, blurred boundaries, and the globalization of culture, is it useful even to ask such questions about specific national configurations?” (As Canadian As Possible by Aniko Bodroghkozy, Week 2) This is one example of Americanization and it having negative repercussions.

American media permeates to places all over the world, including commercials for American companies. Like the Cosby Show, McDonalds and its’ commercials have traveled to countries all over the world. In discussing the globalization of the Cosby Show Havens says, “Matters of race have figured prominently in discussions of international media flows and consumption practices. Race is seen as a transnational identity that can bind together audiences across national lines. Given ‘the dual tendency toward globalization and localization of image spaces’ (Robins, 1989: 156) in international television, homogeneous national identities are increasingly ineffective for drawing audiences. Instead, audiences coalesce around various transnational identities such as gender, ethnicity and race.” (‘The Biggest Show in the World’: Race and the Global Popularity of The Cosby Show by Timothy Havens, Week 8) The export of American television to other countries is a prime example of globalization, or in this case, what manly Europeans would call “Americanization.” Specifically the exportation of The Cosby Show shows the “American dream” is lived out in this “classic American family,” but they’re Black. This shows that minorities can equally partake in being stereotypical “American.” The exploration of these sitcoms imperializes other countries through the ideals that they present. The same can be said for McDonalds. Considering that McDonalds is an American company, people over seas can enjoy a small part of the “American Dream” by eating McDonalds.

Oppositional Politics and the Internet by Kahn and Kellner also discusses globalization, but in regards to the Internet and the spread of ideas through that medium. Americanism was better facilitated with the invention of the Internet, allowing American ideas to flow at a faster rate. McDonalds even has a website, though their product has nothing to do with the Internet. On their website there are obviously going to be promotions that are directly as such, but McDonalds also has a function in which you can find a McDonalds near you by imputing your zip code, further allowing McDonalds to manifest by making it possible to find a McDonalds where ever you are. The article says, “Like Hardt and Negri, we see globalization as a complex process that involves a multidimensional mixture of expansions of the global economy and capitalist market system, new technologies and media, expanded judicial and legal modes of governance, and emergent modes of power, sovereignty, and resistance.” (Kahn and Kellner – “Oppositional Politics and the Internet”, Week 12) From this we can see that globalization has many good points besides the hypodermic needle injection of American way of life.

Question 9

9) Find a “news” story from the Onion News Network, and compare it to a contemporary news story or clip from a “real” news source (a TV channel, newspaper, etc.). Discuss them both in terms of gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions, as well as the breakdown and reevaluation of discourse that Baym talks about in his article. Citing Baym will help (100-150 words).

Gate-keeping and agenda setting are both things that are associated with Critical (or Responsive) Post-Modernism. When you examine something for Critical Post-Modernism, you see that the media examined is making a critical statement about the aesthetic. So, instead of just mentioning or alluding to the aesthetic (like intertexuality), you actually make a statement about it in a critical light. Gate keeping and agenda setting are two very similar approaches that are used to filter the news. Gate keeping is when a news station lets some things enter the news, but keeps others out. Agenda setting is when the news picks and chooses what they want to talk about, dictating what news you hear and thus what you can worry or think about.

Geoffrey Baym, in his article about the Daily Show, discusses the concept of discourse. He says, “This is not simply the move toward “infotainment,” although the fundamental blurring of news and entertainment- a conflation that cuts both ways- certainly is a constituent element. Rather, it is a more profound phenomenon of discursive integration, a way of speaking about, understanding, and acting within the world defined by the permeability of form and the fluidity of content. Discourses of news, politics, entertainment, and marketing have grown deeply inseparable: the languages and practices of each have lost their distinctiveness and are being melded into previously unimagined combinations. Although some may see this as a dangerous turn in the realm of political communication, it can be seen as a rethinking of discursive styles and standards that may be opening spaces for significant innovation.” (Page 262) From this I gather that Baym is making a statement about how the Daily Show (and other “fake” news sources) not only alludes to different discourses (like news, entertainment, etc.) through the style in which the content is displayed, but does so in a way that is critical of both the form and the content itself. He argues that the Daily Show isn’t more comedy than news, but rather both discourses are “complimentary arrangements” (262) of each other, that it is both a late-night talk show and a nightly newscast simultaneously.

Baym discusses the Daily Show’s use of gate keeping, that because they constitute themselves as a “fake” news station, they can pick and choose sound bites in order to manipulate them to make the point they are arguing. He says, “Drawing on live broadcast coverage of public statements and government proceedings, the content of The Daily Show resembles much of the mainstream news media. Empowered by the title of “fake news,” however, The Daily Show routinely violates journalistic conventions in important ways. For one, while it covers the same raw material as does the mainstream news, its choices of sound bites turn contemporary conventions on their head.” (264)



Police Seize More Than $50 In Wire From Nation's Wealthiest Crystal Meth Dealer


The Onion uses a few of the discourses that Baym describes. The very opening scene is an obvious allusion to a news channel, panning and focusing on a pretty news anchor with a camera station background and the “news” logo in the bottom right hand corner. It also makes an allusion to a mode of discourse like a documentary with the “King of Meth” title and the various scenes of the man. Gate keeping is obviously used here when the policeman is giving his speech and when they pull out news headlines as to have you only read the title, not the content of the article. There was also a reference to the discourse of television shows, ending the newscast about the “King of Meth” with a very similar sound to that used on Law and Order. It then ends with an incorporation to the discourse of daytime talk shows, discussing a new dating website.



This news clip has many of the same elements as the other “fake” news source, which I guess is the point of the fake news clip in the first place. This ABC news clip also has the logo in the bottom right hand corner with a strong anchor voice in the background. This video also has elements of gate keeping, where the anchor speaks over some “less important” phrases and then is silent for other. This allows the news station to splice audio to better address the video’s argument. We also see the element of day-time talk show discourse where the doctors are sitting in chairs to the left of the news anchor, making it more like a conversation. With video film that was created for this newscast, like the sepia toned school scene, this clip has elements similar to documentaries, just like the “fake” news source.

Question 8

8) Watch the first part (at least) of Mouse Trapped 2010 and Mickey Mouse Monopoly, and explain USING SPECIFIC ELEMENTS FROM THE FILMS how they are good examples of the different approaches of political economy and cultural studies. Define each approach briefly, and CITE GROSSBERG’S ARTICLE IN YOUR RESPONSE. (100-150 words)





Political Economy is the study of how politics and economics connect and relate. It is the idea that economy drives society. Cultural studies is the study that suggests that culture drives the economy. One way to look at how they are different is to look at Grossberg’s quote, “But cultural studies and political economy were never so intimate…First, because cultural studies ignores the institutions of cultural production, it celebrates popular culture and gives up any oppositional role; second, because cultural studies ignores economics, it is incapable of understanding the real structures of power, domination, and oppression in the contemporary world.” (Grossberg, page 626)

Grossberg was very specific and outright about the differences between political economy and cultural studies. Grossberg first presents a point of view that is also held by scholars like Karl Marx. Grossberg is explaining that because cultural studies just studies “popular culture” and doesn’t look at where it comes from, there’s no way for “unpopular culture” to argue with what is popular. There are no different points of view other than the popular, which is definitely different than politics (with all the different beliefs and parties) and economics (when there are other way in which our economy could function, like with a socialist of a communist structure for example). Grossberg says flat out that “cultural studies ignores economics,” which I’d venture to say is a large part of political economy. This statement implies that because cultural studies can’t factor in how the economic status of the world plays into popular culture, it can’t understand the factors that play into what people buy, which Grossberg says are the concepts of “power, domination, and oppression.”

Grossberg also says, “For the fact of the matter is, that for political economy, in every instance, in every context, somehow, almost magically, the economic appears to be the bottom line, the final and real solution to the problem, the thing that holds everything together and makes everything what it is… cultural studies argues that interest are themselves culturally produced, that part of what is involved in political struggles is the articulation of particular subject groups (particular identities) to particular interests. There are no originary and authentic interests, immediately and unproblematically defined by economic position, capable of linking the base to the superstructure.” (Grossberg 654) Here what Grossberg is saying is simple, where as cultural studies does not contain the idea that “political struggle” leads to popular culture, where as political economy contains an idea that money and the economy are the bottom line for everything. Political economy is based on that the economy drives society, but cultural studies are based on an array of factors. An example of this idea would be as follows: a Burberry raincoat doesn’t sell out of stores at a cost of $500 a pop because the economy is going well, it sells because people are willing to pay $500 for that raincoat in general.


Mouse Trapped makes an obvious statement about political economy in regards to culture. This documentary makes the statement that for one of the biggest (and most popular) entertainment companies; they pay their employees the least. One employee says, “The numbers say it all. I mean with the amount of money that the company makes, that Disney makes, as a whole, it’s hard to believe that we get paid this. After three years, I’m not even at eight dollars.” This movie would be making the argument of political economists, that economy, and money, drives society.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly makes a statement about cultural studies in regards to culture. Much like Karl Marx would argue that as a society we are disconnected from the use-value of our products, this documentary would argue that we have disconnected from the underlying arguments that are made by Disney films. The argument here is that people love Disney because culture loves Disney, that because Disney is a good corporation that makes good products and provides good services, it is popular. Additionally, Mickey Mouse Monopoly makes a statement about political economy when it discusses the media conglomerate that Disney has created. The documentary says, “Disney is a tran-national media conglomerate; owning T.V. and radio networks, cable systems, Internet sites, music studios, media productions companies, magazines, sports teams, theatres, and theme parks. As a result, Disney exerts a tremendous influence on nation and international culture,” and “Media conglomeration raises fundamental concerns about its impact on democracy. Because enormous conglomerates like Disney own so much of the media, they exercise unprecedented control over the images and messages we’re exposed to. The result is that we’re presented with a very limited world view; skewed and dominated by corporate interests.” The argument here is that Disney is popular because it owns the media that we see, conditioning us to have a certain view of Disney and the corporation that it represents.

Question 7

7) Explain how the following video is both an appropriation and reappropriation of sexual signifiers, and discuss the implications of the film from both perspectives (i.e., the appropriation and reappropriation of sexual signifiers from early pornography) (100-150 words).


Underwear:
How To Make Your Breasts Look Bigger


Appropriation is when a group takes a trait or a trend from the dominant. Reappropriation is when the dominant group takes that trait back, but in doing so the trait is different than it was before.

This video is appropriating the scenarios that a pornographic film would use (like the plumber or the electrician coming over to be easily seduced by the lonely housewife), but then that element is reappropriated back to an actual scene of a housewife needing an electrician, denying the worker.

Additionally, the dirty talk (where they are saying something that would have the denotation of innocence, but the connotation of something very sexual) was appropriated into the scene from pornography on the side of the housewife, but then reappropriated by the plumber because he was talking in the same manner, but without having sexual connotations. Then, once the sexual connotations were realized (by her body, absent of speech), it is reappropriated back into a real life scenario.