Pre class 12/10

“The transnational movement of the martial arts, particularly through Asia, as mediated by the Hollywood and Hong Kong film industries (Zarilli 1995) is a rich illustration of the ways in which long-standing martial arts traditions, reformulated to meet the fantasies of contemporary (sometimes lumpen) youth populations, create new cultures of masculinity and violence, which are in turn the fuel for increased violence in national and international politics.”

Hollywood and China’s relationship is especially fascinating in the time of big budget superhero movies where studios will pay careful attention to the content of their movies so that they sell well overseas, even if they’re not necessarily successful in America. Movies will often incorporate Chinese movie stars with American ones and have product placement of both American and Chinese brands. This leaves American viewers puzzled because they do not recognize most, if any, of the Chinese elements of the movies. Conversely, Chinese viewers likely recognize both because of the global proliferation of American pop culture. Movie stars like Tom Cruise are well past their heyday in the American mind, and we have moved on to the stars in recent superhero movies. Overseas, these action heroes of old are still able to net a large audience because they are seen as synonymous with American action films. The American viewer may wonder why these worthless big budget action movies continue to be churned out despite how badly they do in America, but they fail to recognize the power of the international market. Movies that may have flopped in their home turf are still able to break even through global ticket sales, which shows that there is indeed an audience for them. These movies then are no longer made for Americans, but for the Chinese instead. This prospect scares Americans because of how villainized China is in our culture, leading to the slippery slope that China will eventually take over all of American cultural output, but I think this is unlikely. If Americans were never interested in these movies in the first place, then I hardly call that a cultural takeover. The film studios are simply playing with the cards that are dealt to them, and if vapid special effects extravaganzas are all it takes to make profit overseas, then why not continue to make them?

Evie 12/8

 “Is there some commonality among ‘women’ that preexists their oppression?"

I found our discussion on men and women’s fashion today very interesting. I would like to use this blog post to elaborate more on my example of pockets. When we examine women’s pockets today, they are either too small to hold anything of significance or fake, simply existing for style. The podcast that brought this idea into my head was “Articles of Interest,” created and hosted by Avery Trufelman. Trufelman examined the phenomenon of pockets by first traveling to a police supply store. She found that women have to wear men’s uniforms because the pockets on the women’s uniforms are too small!! That is something we as a society would never think out. However, that police supply store hardly has any women uniforms because they are inefficient and rarely bought by women. Pockets give us a sense of security, they allow us to move comfortably in public. They are secretive and internal, as opposed to bags that are exposed and able to be stolen. When something is in your pocket, you forget about it and your belongings become a part of you. Having pockets is an incredible advantage. One woman noted in the podcast that her son is better equipped than her daughter when they go out in public simply because of the security of his pockets. Women are exposed in several ways in our society and not having pockets furthers their exposure. The podcast noted that pockets are a metaphor for privilege “not only because they are so easily taken for granted by the people who have them, but also because, like the categories of race and gender themselves, pocket disparity is construct” (Trufelman, 2018). I found this metaphor to be fascinating, there is no real reason women should not have sufficient pockets.

Here is a link to the podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/aoi/

I highly recommend checking it out, it is very relevant to our class!

Jane Denson, Cixous & Butler, and Irigaray

"Woman finds pleasure more in touch than in sight and her entrance into a dominant scopic economy signifies, once again, her relegation to passivity: she will be the beautiful object" (Irigaray, 1985, p. 255).

        This quote has so many layers to unpack and appears to be a heavy critique of the social construction of gender. While reading Irigaray's work, I found her argument to center around the disconnection from masculinity's reign over sexuality and suggest that there is an independence within female sexuality. What immediately comes to mind when perusing this specific section of her writing is Laura Mulvey's commentary on the male gaze [in cinema] and how that relates, rather prominently, to Irigaray's overarching theoretical insights surrounding the objectification of women. Both of them indicate that there is scopophilia, or pleasure in looking, that continues to cement itself in masculinity. Furthermore, the male sexuality's dominion over society shapes the perspectives of the texts that comprise our culture, like film and television. Usually, stories [from said types of texts] are told from a male point of view and exclude women in such a manner that essentially pushes them into passivity. In other words, women are often portrayed as spectacles and only serve the purpose of pleasing a man. I cannot count how many times I have seen a film, typically one from the 20th century, depict women as two-dimensional objects who are silenced into submission by their male counterpart. It is truly appalling and shows how far we, as a society, have come. However, there is still a great deal of work to be done and this theorist is cognizant of this. Her analysis alludes to the notion that femininity possesses its own unique depth that is significantly more than physical splendor. She also insinuates that women are held to different expectations than men and that female needs are neglected because they are believed to be negative when compared to their male counterpart. Finally, this quotation captures the larger idea that women are stripped of their agency as a subject, which is crucial to understand before any change can be made.

Jane Denson, 12/3

        Last class' discussion of Foucault and the Panopticon got me thinking about ways we, as citizens, are being surveilled on a daily basis. I feel like it crosses into the conspiracy theory realm, but many seem to believe that we are kept tabs on by the government, mainly through technological helpers (e.g. Alexa, Google Home, Siri, etc.). It is certainly a scary thought and makes sense because advertisers always know what to show us just by listening to what we say. For example, I know people who purposely talked about their favorite soda in the presence of their phone and eventually received ads for said soda product. I think Foucault raises many interesting points surrounding the notion of an invasion of privacy when it comes to surveillance and simultaneously suggests that people fall in line, thus permitting power to function without anyone [physically] being there. Yes, power structures can allow for government officials to protect us from danger, but the question of ethics never disappears from the overarching conversation. Personally, I feel like I am being watched, which does not mix well with my mental health issues. It simply makes feel uneasy knowing that facial recognition is so prominent in our society to extent that we can be tracked and monitored. What is perhaps most horrifying is that Foucault's ideas insinuate that surveillance is insidious, but also acknowledged, yet ignored at the same time. We know we might be getting "spied on," but we continue our normal routines without resistance. Furthermore, pop culture likes to expand upon Foucault's theoretical analysis and make references to his work quite frequently. There is even a television show called Big Brother that acts as the embodiment of Foucault's insights on the matter. Not only that, but it is incredibly common for pop culture, especially film, to display its subjects [obsessively] surveilling their surroundings. Recently, I watched Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) and Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) where these notions manifested in some form or another. In Chaplin's film, there was a scene where the factory's corporation president was observed to be flipping through a camera feed of the building where he was monitoring the employees. As for Hitchcock's film, Foucault's thoughts are littered throughout it. With the pandemic still surging across the globe, I wonder how surveillance will continue to factor into people's lives.

Post Class 12/3

We are quick to say that propaganda proliferates more easily on social media, but there is some work being done to counter it. Like we discussed in class, information on the BLM protests over the summer was heavily shared on all social media platforms. Many posts promoted protestor safety, shared donation links, and accounts offering radio relay for various protest hot spots appeared. There were also many contradictory accounts of the events, as news outlets wanted to break the stories as fast as possible. One of the top sources of these stories were police departments themselves. Details were often warped and misreported, usually at the hands of the victim narrative the police wanted to send. Protestors were framed as aggressors and rioters, while the police were victims of the protestors’ violence. On social media, police departments would also post out of context footage of the protests, but users who witnessed these events themselves and recorded them would often reply with their own videos. The videos from these eagle-eyed protestors would usually show the incident from different camera angles as the police video and also show some events shortly before and after what was shown in the police department’s video. These videos unveiled the true intentions of police departs and showed that the videos reported by police departments were often highly staged and edited in such a way that removes the involvement of the police at all. These users act as alternative news sources, and it is much harder to repress social media posts because of the visibility offered by social media platforms. If one post is taken down, multitudes of reposts will appear in its place, putting evidence of doctored videos in front of more users eyes. The spread of ideas on social media is faster than ever, but this is not always a bad thing. 

12/8 Pre Class Blog- Irigaray and Female Sexuality

 “For women, it is traditionally used-value for men, exchange-value among men… This makes her the guardian of matters whose price will be determined by “subjects”; workers, tradesmen, consumers, according to the standard of their work and their need-desire. Women are marked phallically by their fathers, husbands, procurers.” (Irigaray)

Luce Irigaray’s essay “The Sex Which Is Not One,”  which discusses the plurality of female sexuality, is an interesting one. Though I struggled to grasp what Irigaray was arguing at several points, her point still rings across clearly: female sexuality (which is vastly different from male sexuality according to Irigaray) has been limited to what men consider sexuality. Women’s thoughts are not captured by the current philosophical teachings about female sexuality and women in general. Though Irigaray discusses primarily female sex and sexuality in this essay, the conclusion she reaches is applicable to the female experience in general. In general, people have observed the difference in leadership styles. Women tend to be more pluralist in the way they approach leadership skills, using more democratic means to get the group to work. Men, in general, are more goal-driven and take singular control in a leadership role. Though Irigirary talks in binaries (male vs. female) and some of her assertions could be considered outdated due to our modern gender politics, I still argue that she makes compelling points in terms of how women function in our society.

Even within film, there is a specific lens of criticism in film called the “male gaze” theory. In this lens of critique, critics will look at films and see how the camera's frame women. With filmmakers like Michael Bay, the way that women are filmed makes them look at how a traditional heterosexual male would look at women. For me, this is reminiscent of the different world view that men and women can have in our world (the singular view vs. the pluralist view).

12/3 Post Class Blog- Hooks and "The Sheik"

“The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream culture” (Hooks)

Michael brought up in class the connection to Cinema and Modernism last semester with primitivism and “otherness.” This made me think of the paper I wrote about the film The Sheik. In this romantic film, Rudolph Valentino (the sex-icon of his day) plays an Arab bandit who captures an English woman who travels to the desert for a journey one day. The film effectively “others” Arabs and other ethnic groups coming from the Middle East and Africa through its portrayal of the titular character and the other bandits in the film. Though Rudolph Valentino is the main love interest of the film, he only becomes desirable when it is revealed that he has been European all along. When he acts horribly (almost raping Diana or forcing her to wear revealing clothing), he is still identified as an Arab man. However, when he starts to become more humanized and Diana starts to fall in love with him, he is revealed to be European all along. In construct, the bandit that steals Diana from The Sheik and almost rapes her is still an Arab man. In the subtext of the film, a European-descended man is saving an English woman from the “other” Arab bandit.  In essence, the character of The Sheik is a perfect combination of “mainstream white culture” with an ethnicity that adds “spice.” That’s what made him such a popular and romantic figure in the 1920s. Though I argue that the representation of ethnic groups has gotten better since the 1920s, The Sheik still offers an interesting insight into the “otherness” we still see in contemporary times.

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A picture from the Sheik, with Rudolph Valentino

Post Class Blog 12/3

   Today in class we discussed the idea of the Panopticon. The Panopticon is an architectural design in which there is a guard chamber surrounded by the prison cells. It is unknown whether there is actually a guard in the tower, but the paranoia around there being a guard in the chamber is enough to make the prisoners fall in line. I have learned about the idea in the past and the first thing that came to mind for me is the idea of Santa Claus. Children from an early age understand there to be a Santa Claus or a jolly old man who gives presents to good little boys and girls. The reason I thought of Santa is because when I was little my mom and dad would remind me throughout the year that Santa is always watching and marking down whether I was a good little girl or not. As a child, I believed that Santa always had eyes on me even if I couldn’t necessarily understand or see how. I was told he was watching and believed it. This is similar to the Panopticon because Santa is like the guard who may or may not be there. By being told you are being watched and that your Christmas presents are on the line for if you are good or not instils a paranoia in one’s self. This paranoia then encourages children to “fall in line” or to act a certain way because they will then be rewarded with presents. Children then act as if they are being watched all the time even if they are not because they are so paranoid that they are being watched. I thought this was an interesting example of the panopticon at work in young children’s lives. I had never really thought about Santa being compared to a prison guard before but it is true that children like the prisoners always believe they are being watched and act a certain way whether they see the guard or Santa in real life.

Post Class Blog 12/2

 “Only other bureaucracies can satisfy the input needs of a news bureaucracy”

A bureaucracy is a government system which is controlled by state officials rather than elected representatives. This quote is saying that our news is not controlled by the general population, but rather controlled by a bureaucracy. It is filtered to be what the government wants us to see. This idea is played out in many blockbuster films today. A great example of this notion that comes to mind is the government that is portrayed in the Hunger Games trilogy series. There are twelve districts in the society with one capital. The capital and the president control the districts. It is key to mention that the president and capital officials were not elected by the people. One thing in particular they controlled was the news outlet. The people only saw what the government wanted them to see. The people thought that there was no world outside of the districts because that is what the government showed them. They also thought that none of the other districts were suffering because the news outlet only showed people happy and content with their lives. The president controlled the people because he controlled what they believed. He made them think that the way he was ruling their society was the best possible way. This is what Herman and Chomsky were getting at when they made this point about the news being bureaucracy and controlled by bureaucracies. While we do not live in the Hunger Games community, we do have news that is filtered. When the government wants us to turn our attention away from a topic, it races to discredit a source and make it seem fake when in actuality it is not fake. We need to recognize this is happening in our world, so we can pay attention to the news that does not get as much attention because that news could be real. I am not saying to believe everything we hear, but am saying we should be more cautious of what we believe to be true because the main sources of our media are controlled by the government and what they want us to see.

12/1 Pre Class Blog- Bourdieu and News

 “Our news anchors, our talk show hosts, and our sports announcers have turned into two-bit spiritual guides, representatives of middle-class morality. They are always telling us what we ‘should think’ about what they call ‘social prob” (Bourdieu)

This quote was the most impactful to me as I read through Bourdieu’s deconstruction of our media landscape. Though Bordieu wrote in a time before social media, many of his conclusions are still applicable to our modern media landscape. In this quote specifically, Bourdieu discusses how the masses only care about/ talk about the issues made aware to them by the media. I would take it one step further than what Bourdieu writes and say the news organizations itself. Depending on the program, news anchors, sports announcers, and talk show hosts don’t have control over what they talk about; the writers and producers do. I do agree that late-night Talk show hosts like Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, and Lily Singh have more control over the material that they talk about. However, a normal news anchor does not have as much control over what they talk about.

Bourdieu’s idea connects back to Marx and Engels, who writes “Each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is compelled…to present its interest as the common interest of all the members of society… it has to give its ideas the form of universality (Marx and Engels). The news anchors, talk shows hosts, and sports announcers want us to be worried about what they are worried about. For example, American news stations will focus highly on American politics. Left-wing sources like CNN will focus on the problems/ corruptions in the Republican party and right-wing sources like Fox News will focus on corruption in the Democratic party. However, few news sources have covered the persecution and imprisonment of Uyghur Muslims and Christians in China. This issue is just as important (arguably more important) than some of the petty political squabbles occurring in the United States. But, we don’t talk about it BECAUSE our news anchors, talk show hosts, and sports announcers do not.

Picture of the "re-education" camps in China

Jane Denson, 11/19

        Last week's discussion of nostalgia, as mentioned by Jameson, got me thinking about the notion that we have nostalgia for not only the past, but also the present. In other words, we are missing something from our present, which would explain how pop culture texts from today draw upon the past. This sense of longing for what we used to have and attempting to recreate it in a way that fits into the mold of the present manifests almost everywhere. From my experience, I have seen this primarily through music and television. To add on to what talked about in class, I have observed this phenomenon in pop music the most, specifically from artists like Meghan Trainor and Lady Gaga. Trainor is often credited with a retro-futuristic style and sound, usually utilizing brassy horns (that are reminiscent of old jazz music) and fusing that sound with modern pop rhythms to produce what we know as "All About That Bass," for example. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, just released an album earlier this year called Chromatica, which appears to be nostalgic of the '80s with its electro-pop dance tracks, most notably "Stupid Love" and "Rain On Me." However, Jameson's ideas surrounding this topic are not limited to artists' music, since they even seep into their aesthetics too. Look at Ariana Grande for instance. I've noticed that some of her music videos, fragrance ads, social media posts, etc. appear to emulate or reflect the aesthetics of the 1940s-60s or late 1990s, which is so fascinating because I know she has nostalgia for pop culture during those eras and comes from a Broadway background where they were heavily appreciated. After observing all of the nods and homages to the past in practically every form of media, it becomes clear that we, as humans, tend to experience nostalgia rather naturally. Jameson's perspective on this matter certainly indicates that we indeed encounter present nostalgia, since it is so common to feel like a piece of the current moment is missing, which is never directly addressed by anyone.

Post Class Blog 11/19/20

     Today in class during our discussion of Fredric Jameson, we talked about the term “nostalgia.” We started out by defining nostalgia as a wishful longing for the past. This is the dictionary definition of nostalgia and what most people think of when they think of nostalgia. Jameson has a different approach to nostalgia and creates the idea of “present nostalgia.” Present nostalgia means that a person feels as if something is missing in the present. They are nostalgic for the thing that is missing. When thinking of the common definition of nostalgia, the media can create nostalgia for past places even if they have not been experienced by someone personally. An example that I brought up during class was Little House on the Prairie. When I was younger, I watched the show and read all of the books. I wished to be able to experience living back then. I was nostalgic for a past time period that I had not personally experienced, but wished to. The media creates nostalgia for the past, but also for the present. The media can make people nostalgic for the present by showing people what is missing from their lives. This is especially true of social media influencers. They present their lives as being perfect because of the material things they promote online. They come across as saying that if people just wear this or have this thing then their lives will improve. They make people think that material things are missing from their present lives and make them nostalgic for these material objects said to improve their lives. I have definitely had experiences where I think my life will improve if I mirror the lifestyle of an influencer. I believe what most people do not understand is that social media influencers only show us what they want us to see. They are not perfect because of the material objects they promote. We need to recognize this and not continuously become nostalgic for their lifestyles. We need to learn to be present without always wishing for something more or believing something is missing. It is okay to be nostalgic every once in a while, but it should not be a daily occurrence or people will never enjoy life.

post class blog 11/12

 The discussion of the democracy of the radio in class was really interesting to me. Radio held an important role in my grandparents or even my parents life. But in my current social circle most people that I know have abandoned the radio for the sake of Apple CarPlay where they can play whatever music they desire in the moment. It makes me wonder if the younger generations who are losing the importance of the radio are also losing the impact of that democratized reverent for a more individualized view on music.

Which then begs the question of where meaning comes from for the music if the community creates meaning and a community is no longer sharing the experience of radio play of songs? I'm not sure if I know the answer yet but it's an interesting line of thought.