So, we've finally reached the end of the semester and now it is time for the last post. While going through topics to talk about I was not really sure how to end this blog or what would even be a good end topic.
Looking back over the course we've learned a lot of different things and expressed a lot of different ideas. It's important to create this open dialogue and it's important to try and see where people are coming from. This class has been informative and important in the discussion of how media affects our lives and what role the media should have in our own private lives and that of the public.
I would like to end this semester by talking about:
Lady Gaga
Now some of you may be wondering why I have chosen Lady Gaga and that's a good question! I picked Lady Gaga because not only is she a strong female performer but she is the optimality of what we have been discussion. If there is one thing we have learned in class is that mass media is everywhere and that mass media is swirling into one large object that dictates our lives, our ideals, and the way we communicate.
Lady Gaga burst out onto the scene in a flurry of glitter and in your face viral pop. Playing off aspects of Queen, Bowie, and Madonna she quickly picked up a number one hit with "Just Dance" and released a number of viral videos shot in French expressionist style as she created her "House Of Gaga" in which she played with Gay and Lesbian subcultures where groups of outcast would live in "house" with a mother as the head.
Example:
Now why is this important to mass media? Sure Lady Gaga isn't a diplomat, and no she isn't a politician but she got us talking and for that I respect her. She has played with and exploited this new face of media where to get famous there has to be a gimmick, a show, a full frontal assault on all of our senses. Now the media has to work its way into every aspect of our lives and it has. Now it no longer means anything to have talent (though she has it), but the way you package. We found this out when we pitched our cartoon creation since we had to make a kid friendly cartoon yet, we also have to think about pitches and marketing.
By being outrageous and over the top Gaga has created that "IT" factor as a performer that we look for. By spreading rumors and being crazy she has created a persona that makes us want more. Yet, she also keeps herself at arms length for rumor magazines, by controlling this tight knit image she makes it hard to really spread anything or everyone would believe it, thus making it hard to damage her career.
Thankfully Gaga has found the special ingredient for making it in the American pop scene and that to always keep them guessing. I hope when you see artist like Lady Gaga you think about mass media and the effect it has and that by manipulating it you can raise to stardom too.
Now, I know I talk a lot about ad's and that we've moved on from advertising and how advertisers prey on women's insecurities to sell products, yet, I wanna talk about a certain commercial that just gets me heated.
Recently Reebok had put out a series of commercial that advertises for their new shoe line, easytone. Now the purpose of the shoe is that it is suppose to tighten and tone your hamstrings and improve the way your butt looks. I get it. What women wouldn't want her butt to look nice and sexy as she tries to impress everyone else around her~! Yet, what does this say? That it conveniently fits into our easy and instant gratification culture to just walk around and look fabulous? What does it show to young women who see these commercials and think that this is the way that their bodies have to look?
It would be easy to understand if Reebok appealed to women who wish to look "sexy" but these commercials don't even try to hide the fact that they are objectifying women bodies! They use "voyeuristic" frames to stare at the women and never come in to focus on faces, giving the feel that the womens individuality is not important, just her body. They do not focus on health and fitness but vanity and that being slim is more important than improving your health and that by being slim you are instantly better than other people.
Here are the three commercials produced for line so you can see for yourself:
Maybe it might be a bit crazy to get so upset over something so "harmless" and to not see where the advertisers are coming from but it is hard to over look the messages that they are sending. It also is important to note the messages that are being sent about being sexy and the importance on sexuality in the foundation of "you". That without being sexy you really are not worth anything. It's horrifying to know that advertisers now a days are so brazen in their attempts to sell shoes that they are not even masking the sex anymore.
For last week and this week reading, both articles focused on the effects of TV, specifically children programming, on creative childhood play and classroom dynamics.
The first article, entitled The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reflected on the harmful effect of the TV show Power Rangers, and what teachers felt of the show and the consequences that they had personally witnessed from the shows impact on younger viewers. The article is very one sided in its representation of the show and sides with the teachers growing concerns that the Power Rangers promotes children to play violently and that it stunts their creativity in play by giving them a force script. The authors even go on to act like teachers know everything there is to do with children and their well being, stating that "As the Power Rangers have entered the lives of children, families, and schools, we are seeing the voices of teachers continue to go unheeded." (p. 364)
Yet, the second article we read Lay Theories of Media Effects uses a very smart and sophisticated way of look at schools and the effect TV has on them. By looking at class and socio-economics of the three schools, the author Ellen Seiter presents a much clear picture of how TV shows and film media are now entering schools and public/private daycare centers. By not just looking at the larger picture, Seiter is able to look at different factors that make up the children’s backgrounds and level of educational funding.
Children in the higher socio-economic class had been denied TV media and most film media but only because the teacher was afraid of this new media threatening her status in the class as the leader and the rule enforcer. Yet, children in the lower socio-economic classrooms had been allowed to bring in TV media and choose from a larger library of films their teacher already had. Why is this? It may be because the lower socio-economic teacher was use to dealing with these new forms of media because children in her daycare parents could not afford “higher material” and so she became forced to confront TV.
By TV becoming a dominant persistence in every day homes, she is forced to confront these shows head on and evaluate their educational merit and purpose unlike the other teacher at the Montessori Pre-school, whose children parents, could afford them “educated” items. There now is a debate over this class status of what is “educational” and not and certain items become “high culture” and “low culture” even in the classroom because of this social class divide presented in the comparison of the Montessori Pre-school, which uses “high brow” material, and Gloria’s Family Daycare, which uses “low brown” material.
TV should not be seen as “educational” or “non-educational” but for what it is: entertainment. TV is to entertain and provide an escape from real world problems, just like with movies that grew in popularity in the Great Depression because they were a way to get people’s minds off the state of the economy. TV should not be presented as educational in my opinion because when you claim TV is “educational” it then is deemed to prosecution in the argument of whether it is appropriate or not or is “high brow” or “low brow”. If TV was “educational” than more studies would come out about this “good media” and its effect on the growth and development of children, like stated in class, the Baby Einstein line is being recalled because it serves no educational purpose. If we look at TV as pure entertainment than I believe, it be easier for parents to regulate the amount of TV children watch and what kind of entertainment their children watch. By labeling TV “educational” it makes it easier for TV to become a bigger presence in younger children lives, thus allow them to be a bigger marketing target to advertisers. Though I will admit that if there is any TB that I have found to be “educational” it be the use of Sesame Street, which was revolutionary for its time and helped in providing educational PBS programming.
So where does this leave The Power Rangers?
I think the issue with the Power Rangers has to be one that should be looked at culturally, for too long have we worried about race, class, and gender when studying media but we forget a crucial aspect, which is culture. Our culture makes up who we are, and the things we find social acceptable.
The Power Rangers is actually a cross over hit that was imported from Japan and remade with American actors. While not all of it is, but most of its action footage was made with Japanese stunt actors. This is not something that was ever mentioned in the top two articles nor something taken into account in my opinion as teachers were voicing concerns or different groups were doing different studies. If we forget that something is of a different culture than we forget to look at its broader social impact that transverses the globe and makes impact globally.
The genre that Power Rangers falls in is what is known as Tokusatsu, which literally means "special effects" when translated. The genre of tokusatsu is known for its use of superheroes and special effects as it pits good versus evil. A popular version of this is the well known Godzilla film franchise that uses this over the top spectacular type of filming to create dramatic effects and explores this dichotomy of good versus evil.
The Power Ranger was originally known as Super Sentai in Japan which literally refers to the use of what is known as Mecha (machines or robots in Japanese culture) and sentai which means task force. The series actually starts out with a group of people gaining magical powers that allow them to transform into magical super heroes. Each super sentai then became its own season, which would include a new cast and a new story line. The first series of this sentai franchise was Himitsu Sentai Goranger in 1974. The original story plot was that when world peace is threatened by the emergence of an international secret society of evil called the "Kuro Juujigun" (Black Cross Army/Black Crusaders), the United Nations sets up an "EAGLE" (EArth Guard LEague) (Kokusaiteki Heiwa Soushiki Iiguru) to combat the threat. This special army is distributed to various parts of the world (designated as "Blocks"). One of the largest "Blocks" is Japan and as this secret society goes about destroying its "targets" a group of individual rise up and fight for the cause.
Now this story plot relies heavily on Japanese mentality and culture. In Japan it is more popular to work for the good of the group. This group mentality is reflected in its social norms and accepted behavior so it is easy to see why this type of show would be popular in Japan yet, how does this relate to America and the U.S. cultural norms? Why would we miss the point of the group dynamic and focus in on the violence?
I want to show an example of both shows by featuring a clip of the Japanese version compared to the English U.S. version. Can you see differences? Or does it look similar?
So, if there doesn't seem to be much difference in the structure of the show than why all the uproar? Because these shows use live actors to film some of the stunts?
I think instead of just blaming the power rangers for "violent" play we should look at cultural and structural issues that cause these problems. Even if we just banned Power Rangers would the problem solve itself? Or would something else just take its place? If we regulate children TV and marketing to children under the age of 17 I think a lot of these problems would start to solve themselves. By marketing to children we create these structure play be it from the Power Rangers to "educational" material like Sleeping Beauty. It's all in the eye of the beholder.
Or maybe it's just because I grew up with Power Rangers and never experienced this kind of play. Who knows? Maybe it's me just being a grumpy old grandma trying to protect the things she grew up with.
It is not surprising to find politicians often use fear as a tactic to win political campaigns. Fear has always been a strategic tactic in convincing others to follow you, which can be seen in examples like WWII, the American occupation of Iraq, and the Cold War to name a few. Fear is such an important emotion to humans and crucial in our need for survival and order; it is no wonder that political parties would use it for their own gain.
Recently women’s health has become a battleground for conflicting ideologies between political parties. By using scare tactics, they can play on the fear of women who face such life altering diseases like cancer and their survival to sway voter’s opinions about issues like health care and health care reform.
This happened recently with an ad ran by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a nonprofit organization that considered themselves both conservative and Republican. This group recently ran an ad that uses fear tactics to try and sway women to vote differently on the health care reform bill. By using a breast cancer survivor as their spokesperson they comment that if Washington offers a federally ran health program then thousand of women will die from diseases like breast cancer. They also comment that countries like England, which has a public health care option, has a higher death rate than the United States, which is irresponsible and false.
Looking at factchecker.org (link refdirects to original article), a project of the Annenberg public policy center, they actually spoke to an epidemiologist with the cancer society told us that the way the figures used in the ads were calculated "really faulty” and
In addition, they stated:
-The ad uses outdated survival rate statistics. More recent numbers show England’s survival rate to be closing the gap with that of the United States.
-Experts with the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute told us that mortality rates provide a much more accurate comparison.
-And the mortality rates for breast cancer for the two countries are similar.
Here is the ad in question:
Now why do you think they would use women as a way to win votes? Also do you think it is fair for political parties to use ads like these to push their own agenda? In fact who are we really hurting with ads like these? We hurt the thousand of women who battle breast cancer and the programs that would help in finding a cure. it's horrible that they would use such a serious issue as a way to end the health reform bill.
For this semester, I am currently taking a film class and as our semester carries on our coursework has moved into films from the 1960s and the "counter culture" that questioned the so called "establishment". The films that were produced during this area have been nicked named "The Youth Pic" which usually had at its center a rebel anti-hero who doesn't play by assumed norms presented by society.
Yet, something else took shape during this time period that would alter the way women in films were created. This shift came after the rating system was put in place in Hollywood, this rating system basically allowed films of different types and genres to be made, unlike the 1940s for example, where films had to pass a certain code before they could be shown.
This change that occurred was the overt sexual contextualization of females in films. During the 1960s the second wave of feminism was given birth and as women gained rights in things like abortions and birth control, these rights were quickly switched into that of the Sexual Revolution and a masculine tone in films. This in my opinion is basically what started this objectification of women in modern films.
While I love the film, Barbarella would be a classic example of this:
The story is about a young female assigned by the President of the United States to retrieve Doctor Durand-Durand from the planet SoGo. Sadly, the rest of the film is basically loosely scripted so that the character can be placed in erotic situations and that's it. So while they are showing a strong woman they are also still putting her into this overly sexual context. The display of the body now became the tone of the woman's liberation movement.
This has happened to almost all women in film where the audience is treated to sneak peaks of their bodies, or they are shown as just a sexual object to the male protagonist and in his ability to access the power he is shown to naturally have with him (think comic books).
This still happens today with the genre of films known as "animal comedies" which include such titles as American Pie, Porky's, Fast times at Ridgemont High, and Bachelor Party to name a few.
Why do you think these films still exist today? I believe that objectifying women has become a common theme in our society because of our behavior towards women and the human body. By casting these things as 'dirty' and 'obscene' we only fuel the fire that centers around the need to be 'perfect' and 'attractive' that creates the emotional projects and discourse that we see now in today's culture.
This year former Saturday Night Live performer and actor Al Franken was sworn in as the Senator of Minnesota. This liberal Democrat then went on to tackle his first big political hurtle of his new career. You may be wondering what this is?
His Anti-rape Bill.
In simple terms this bill would make it so that the government would no longer provide federal funding to federal contractors and civilian contractors that used arbitration as a way to cover up sexual and physical abuse cases involving employees.
Now arbitration's is when a employee signs away the rights to sue a certain company, this would allow the company to settle the manner out of courts and hide away the fact that they ever had a problem in the first place.
Here is Al Franken's speech to congress about the bill:
So this should totally be a no brainier? There could possible be no way that anyone could argue against it! I mean come on, there could not be anyone who would actually think that companies have the right to settle rape clauses privately so no legal repercussions could come to these corporate rapist....
....wait a second. In fact 30 different Republican senators voted against the bill. I present to you the list of the 30 men who thought that an anti-rape bill was pointless and a waste of time. Now this is not to just bash republicans but it is ironic that not only was this protested against the more conservative side but a group of all males who more than likely will never face the cruel realities of rape in their lifetimes.
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Richard Shelby (R-AL) Jon Kyl (R-AZ) John McCain (R-AZ) Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Mike Crapo (R-ID) James Risch (R-ID) Sam Brownback (R-KS) Pat Roberts (R-KS) Jim Bunning (R-KY) Mitch McConnell (R-KY) David Vitter (R-LA) Thad Cochran (R-MS) Roger Wicker (R-MS) Kit Bond (R-MO) Mike Johanns (R-NE) John Ensign (R-NV) Judd Gregg (R-NH) Richard Burr (R-NC) Tom Coburn (R-OK) Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Jim DeMint (R-SC) Lindsey Graham (R-SC) John Thune (R-SD) Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Bob Corker (R-TN) John Cornyn (R-TX) John Barrasso (R-WY) Mike Enzi (R-WY)
I think it is important to mention this because not only is it pathetic that someone would vote for protecting big business rather than rape victims but do so because it helps protect the "free market" and big business rights.
There are also local examples of this happening, in Maryland it was until the Governor's Gun Violence Act of 1996 that domestic violence offenders were legally required to give up their fire arms. For a long time it was seen that the 2nd amendment right to bear arms was more important than removing guns from violent offenders because it was more crucial to a person's "personal freedoms". While there's nothing wrong with owning your gun but if you are a violent offender why should you be able to purchase a gun? There should be no brainier about have violent convicted offenders give up dangerous weapons that could potentially kill another human being.
In our society we downplay the value of personal freedoms sexuality and up play the need for "free market" and the need to make a buck. Instead of caring about people who are victimized, we value the money that we could be making and saving face as a large corporation. What does this say to women? That they should not go to the authority? That it doesn't matter if they are raped or not? To hide in fear and shame of what someone else put her through? I think these issues reflect the change that is needed.
Now that this disgusting show of patriarchy in our federal government I bring you a bit of satire to help lighten the mood:
Senator Thad Cochran and defending himself as to why he voted no against the bill
To be completely honest, I must confess, as a woman I am completely fascinated by the pornography industry. Now, not to be confused, I am not so interested or fascinated with porn itself but the industry and how porn has become one of the most openly candid taboos of our society and what it says about us, as a society.
Every year the porn industry makes billions of dollars in America (in 2006, the US reportedly made $13.33 Billion dollars in revenue compared to China's $27.40 billion. For more info please refer to this website to see statistics of the United States pornography industry and other countries) But why does this industry come out on top every year? What makes pornography materials one of the best businesses to be apart of?
Even with the growing use of the internet as a source to find adult materials,porn seems to grow every year with hundreds of titles being churned out, each one catering to all sorts of fetishes and interest. Now one only needs to go down to their local video store to find stacks and stacks of porn that is available for purchase. No longer is it the days of Pussycat Cinema that use to be the only place that one could find a "XXX" rated film. Yet, we still treat sex as a taboo in our society. So why would mass media crave for sex yet scorn those who chose to make their living from it?
An interesting example of this is pop cultures fascination with the adult actress Jenna Jameson, born Jenna Marie Massoli, who is a top grossing porn industry player. This women began her journey as a stripper who then turned to porn which sky rocketed her to stardom. Through the porn industry Jenna was able to create ClubJenna in 2000, a production company of hers that creates not only a number of porn titles but also host numerous websites that rake in millions of dollars. Jenna has been features on TV and in movies and even has a best selling book yet, how? After all she is a porn star and when we think of porn stars we think of women being degraded by men for money and that the women in porn as being "weak".
This is a problem that has plagued the porn industry in my opinion. Many of the women in the industry now are very independent especially when it comes to their careers. Sure when they are first starting out they may face problems or do films that they would not normally do for the money. Does that make it wrong? No. After all they have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies and rights for women have expanded in the porn industry. Now women are becoming producers and CEO's of production companies.
I'd also like to make a reference to Pirates, one of the top grossing porno's of all time made by production companies Adam & Eve and Digital Playground. Like the title states this porno plays off the hugely successful Pirates of the Caribbean title by Disney and it supposedly had a budget of 1 million dollars to make the film, reinforcing that today Silicone Valley and Hollywood have in fact started to mesh together as a reflections of each other like the article Naked Capitalist that we read for class which comments on the dichotomy of the two.
The plot is simple yet refine, "In 1763, Captain Edward Reynolds is hunting pirates, or at least trying to do so. He does not consider himself a great commander, and neither do most of his crew. Only his first officer Jules believes in him. When they save a young woman named Isabella from drowning, she tells them that her husband's ship has been destroyed by the feared Captain Victor Stagnetti and his crew of cutthroat pirates.
Reynolds and his crew go hunting for Stagnetti, who tries to find a map that leads to a powerful secret on an island somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. Stagnetti finds the secret "staff" unlocked by Isabella's husband Manuel.
After the crew escapes the spawn of darkness summoned by Stagnetti, their ship engages Stagnetti's in battle, ending Stagnetti's reign as a pirate."
Which allows a bit of dialogue but doesn't require any technique training in acting which has always been the basic design of porn even from it's early days of "Deep Throat" and "Debbie Does Dallas", which are considered classic porn's.
An example of the film here:
(Side note: It also turned out that a small group at University of Maryland had planned to show the piece in a student union room but the event was pulled when a Senator planned to pull funds for the school if they went through with the event. I know personally that this is true because I was apart of UMBC's solidarity group, when I was attending there, which had been e-mailed to ask ways we thought we could support the groups first amendment right to show the piece. For more info please check out this article.)
I'd also like to address the film that we watched in class, The Price of Pleasure.
First, this is an opinion and I feel like I must state that very clearly because what I have to say may offend some people. This is after all just an opinion piece and I do not try to offend anyone or what they personally thing, but with that saying this blog may have adult materials regarding sex and sexuality. If these sort of things offend you then you may want to turn around now. I do plan to be frank and honest with how I see the pornography industry. Second, I am not trying to say pornography is right or push a pro-pornography agenda but I do plan to take the side that porn is normal, healthy, and is not as evil as everyone says it is but sadly it is like any business and has evil people in it.
In this documentary we watched the film makers tried to show the negative or evil side of pornography and the adult industry. They first interviewed people who had watched porn at a young age. Yet, is it porn's fault for these people being exposed to it at a young age? I don't want this to sound like a shouting match or that I'm being ignorant but it bothered me to show people who were exposed to porn at a young age because it's not really porn's fault for some of the problem that they later encountered. Really it is the person who owned the porn's fault for being careless to leave those materials out.
Porn is like anything else that is meant to be for adults, locked away. Like anyone who owns a gun or alcohol, if you are of age to own it, it is your responsibility to make sure someone young can't get to it.
I remember as a child that my dad would sometimes borrow dvd's from my Grandmother and they would be a set of special uncensored episodes of the show Cops or Jerry Springer. While, this might embarrass him for me writing about it but if there was one thing I can remember it's that I could never find them. I knew he would have them and I was curious because I was 13 and when you're that age you just wonder about things. There isn't anything wrong with that and I respect the fact that I could never find those dvd's because it was not wrong that my dad to watch them but it would be wrong of him to allow me to see them. As parents it is your job to teach your child from right and wrong and no one else. By socializing your child and installing morals in them you set them up for failure or success. TV can't teach them that. It's up to you to teach your child about sexuality and to be frank and honest with them, too long have we been white washing sex to young adults and expecting them not to engage in it.
I think it is easy for people to pick out porn because it has the taboo factor of it, in our society we are taught that we have sex for reproduction yet never because it is enjoyable for us as humans. Sex has been linked to relieving stress and releasing toxins that store up. Sex is natural and useful to us as humans yet we live in a society that tells us not to enjoy sex or that only one type of sex is the right way to have sex. For years Maryland had laws against oral sex and anal sex in place which discriminated against homosexual couples from housing, child care and job positions. Sex, that deemed "vanilla", is only common because we are told that this is the only sex we should be having. Most couples practice missionary because it's the standard set for what positions we should be having sex in. There is nothing unnatural about wanting something different and porn capitalizes on this in a capitalist economy.
I think porn should be seen as another area of revenue and a personal choice. I think that while there are disgusting pornographic material out there, pornography itself is not harmful or degrading to females and that as a society we should work on changing stereotypes and concepts about sexuality and the human body.
This is a blog created for AACC's WMS/AMS 211 Gender and Mass Media's class. The intention of this blog is to create, brain storm, and inform outside viewers and visitors different concepts about mass media and how gender accompanies it.
It's important to understand that these constructive criticism are of one person and their own personal opinion.
