Watch this before FCC takes it down!

Skin Deep: Finding Love Underneath in Fashion and Film (Final paper)

April Boyd

Steven Wexler

12-13-10        

English 313 (Popular culture)

I am fascinated by our desire to find completeness from material things; how our culture is hypnotized by fancy jeweled watches that are constantly being dangled just out of reach. The society we are so immeshed in has tantalized us with notions of love through material gain. We fight for our freedom to buy in a way that is more radical than most wars fought in past times. This cannot be coincidental.  Philosopher, Gramscian, has great insight to this dilemma: " For example, early work on advertising was cast within the problematic of ideology and hegemony. Textual and ideological analysis of advertising stressed the selling not just of commodities but of ways of looking at the world." (Barker, 69). Advertising -- originating from manufacturer and consumer -- is the new language of this world.  As we ingest hours and hours of advertisements, we start becoming what we eat and growing into a whole new world order. 

Advertising preys on the human drive for acceptance. We strive to improve the outer shell of our humanity (our cars, clothes, bodies) in a constant search for approval.  We radically love the self to have an identity others will approve.  We strive and toil and purchase so we can subdue feelings of inadequacy.  Yet, ironically, the places Americans go for healing is actually the cause of the problem:  ad-driven media outlets.  Their unstated objective is to make the view or reader feel simultaneously included and excluded.  This bizarre dichotomy is exemplified in the texts of the magazines Cosmopolitan and GQ along with two romantic comedies "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Maid in Manhattan". 

Searching "Cosmos"'s online version for what the their writers and editors deem as "love", the topics of sex, desirability, and how to speak 'dude' language seem interchangeable for love.  It appears if you are good at sex, attractive, and can communicate with men... you are lovable.  If not, the reader must continue to purchase the magazine and the products advertised within if they wish to be loved because the implicit in every sex/health/fashion article is that you are inadequate.  Furthermore, the explicit message of the articles -- as shown by their brazen titles -- is that women need to be sexy, dress sexy, act sexy and you will finally meet your soul mate (i.e.: you will be loved).  


If Cosmopolitan and similar magazines are correct in their proclamation that one needs to be sexy in order to be loved, it begs the question:  Where do women learn how to be sexy? Unfortunately, for the greater part of the past century, it is from fashion magazines.  This is not just freedom of expression  / post-feminist rights movement, but an ideology created by the those who espouse it.  The rhetoric  chants "Women must be fashionable, sexy (in shape), and possess all knowledge of flirting".  In essence, woman become this image of perfect feminineness by shaping ourselves into the image they have created.  Women might not consciously know this is what we strive to be, but it is evident in the products we purchase for ourselves, friends, and daughters.  We glue fake eyelashes to our face, soak our hair in bleach, and near stop signing up for diet fads. We are trying to be Malibu Barbie -- in the idea of perfection we were sold as little girls.  We are kept in a dissatisfied state that keeps the cycle perpetuating.  Gramscian views this as the job of advertisers, the goal of creating “an 'identity' for a product amid the bombardment of competing images by associating the brand with desirable human values. Buying a brand was not only about buying a product. It was also about buying a lifestyles and values".  As Winship argues: "A woman is nothing more that the commodities she wears: the lipstick, the tights, the clothes and so on are “women"( Winship, 1981: 218) ( Barker, 2008 : 69).

This is a personal issue for me because I have struggled with thoughts and feelings of inadequacy. I never felt I could fit in with other children. I did not know then that I was not buying into the identity the others had so frequently been fed from the womb. I would put on mascara and borrow my older sister's cute clothes, but I still felt unappealing, unwanted by my peers. The dissatisfaction came from a place I thought was an inner ugliness. I assumed the rejection I felt was because I was undesirable. However, the truth was I was not up on the popular, manufactured ideal of feminine beauty. My family did not have a television, therefore I was doomed to be an outcast.  It was almost as if I was growing up in a different society with differing understandings of reality.  Of course, I had some form of shaping from the other culture.  I was exposed to billboards, movies, and Barbie. These things became the image I longed for and sought after with a vengeance when I turned fourteen. I would not leave the house without my eyelashes looking perfect. Sometimes, I would sit in front of the mirror for forty-five minutes applying mascara. I wanted every lash to be dark and lush like everyone else's lashes. Or, just like the image Maybelline sold me. This was extremely difficult because I have blonde eye lashes. This may seem vain to some, but I needed to reshape my image to that of another to feel accepted.  I too was vicariously  indoctrinated by the advertising industry.  Yet, amusingly, I already possessed the natural blonde hair and blue eyes they were selling.  

My personal experience illuminates how peculiar a woman's predicament is. We are told to look a certain way and that look is theoretically obtainable. We just need to change the parts of us that do not fit.  For me it was my blonde eyelashes that needed to be changed, for others it maybe a nose, or hair that needs changing. In Susan Bordo’s "Material Girl: The Postmodern Effacements of Postmodern Culture" she states: "Looking at the pursuit of beauty as normalizing discipline, it is clear that not all body-transformations are “the same”. The general tyranny of fashion-perpetual, elusive, and instruction the female body in a pedagogy of personal inadequacy and lack- is a powerful discipline for the normalization of all women in this culture.”  We must first desire change and to have this desire we must see ourselves as lacking. This “programmed” voice is the one we listen as we drive to the gym, hair salon, and department stores.  It is informing us who to be. According to Bordo, the ‘tape’ has been hijacked by those in power, the people who benefit from our insecurities.  Bordo goes on to write, “But even as we are all normalized to the requirements of appropriate feminine insecurity and preoccupation with appearance, more specific requirements emerge in different cultural and historical contexts, and for different groups. When Bo Derek put her hair in corn rows she was engaging in normalizing feminine practice. But when Oprah Winfrey admitted on her show that all her life she desperately longed to have 'hair that swings from side to side' when she shakes her head, she revealed the power of racial as well a gender normalization, normalization not only as 'femininity', but to the Caucasian standards of beauty that still dominate on television, in movies, and in popular magazines”.

Men have a similar rhetoric that is found in GQ magazine.  Wikipedia states, "GQ (originally Gentlemen’s Quarterly) is a monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books."  The magazine strives to show readers what type of man is accepted in today’s society.  The masculine image men are peer-pressured into becoming is one that has snazzy clothes, an easy smile, and well cut hair. This is a legitimate problem for the masculine persona. In the past men did not have to worry about what to wear or how to do their hair. All they needed to do was work hard and protect their country in times of war. This has all changed after the industrial revolution.  The industrial revolution took men from outside and placed them indoors behind a desk or in front of a board meeting.  Faludi, in Baker's text calls this a change to "ornamental culture". He states this "signaled the end of a utilitarian role for men. Ornamental culture is a culture of celebrity, image, entertainment and marketing all underpinned by consumerism. In this context, masculinity becomes a matter of personal display rather than the demonstration of the internal qualities of inner strength, confidence and purpose. Masculinity has become a performance game to be won at the marketplace.” (305-306)

How does a man join in this new game and transition in to a ornamental culture?  According to GQ,  a man goes out and buys a new a suit, purchases a nice BMW, and runs down to Super Cuts.  It is a new gospel to men, but one that has been preached to women for years.  All one has to do is look perfect and be confident.  However, the problem is the rules of perfection keep changing (by GQ and similar advertising sponsored outlets).  The institution selling the needed products are the ones constantly changing the rules of what is needed to be loved.  One day skinny ties are in, the next day their out.  The only way you can find out is continual participating in the materialistic culture and, of course, by purchasing the magazine.  By subscribing to these mind games that are perpetuated in all aspects of American society (and nicely displayed in Cosmo and GQ), people will never be able to attain the love of other human beings we seek after.  The only love that is produced is a love of goods.  The desire for love of others has turned into the consumption of goods.

Mainstream, studio romantic comedies feed the consumerist ideology to both males and females.  Two examples of films that package the same ideas as GQ and Cosmopolitan are "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Maid in Manhattan".  Both of these movies exploit the idea of woman and men enjoying material culture and struggling to be perfect. "Sweet Home Alabama" plays with this idea by telling a story of a average Alabama women who runs away from her average husband so she can reinvent herself as a rich New Yorker .

This is a perfect example of what is expected of us in order to be worthy of love. She ditches her husband for a more sophisticated man. A man who wears all the right stuff and can sway any board meeting. All the actors that live in New York are well groomed and sophisticated while the hicks in Alabama are lacking. This becomes the criteria we base our romantic relationships on. If you don’t fit the mold created by ad-based media, then you don’t deserve love.  Without realizing it we digest this like it’s a spoon full of sugar, not realizing we have now been poisoned with a medicine that will taint our identity. The other movie that bluntly states in a picturesque way that if we can conform we will find happiness is "Maid in Manhattan".  IMBD explains the plot as “A senatorial candidate falls for a hotel maid, thinking she is a socialite when he sees her trying on a wealthy woman's dress.” Even this description gives away the ulterior motive. She is lovable "if".  This is the same Cinderella story women are fed since childhood.  The maid needs to pretend to be rich and wear nice things, so that prince charming will sweep her off her feet.

Ultimately, what we are learning from these advertising sponsored media is that we must look and act like the products they are selling. We are taught that we have the tools to become better, to improve our appearance, but all we need to do is start trying and buying. This is a fallacy, a false worldview they promote. The people they show us are cartoons, they do not exist in real life. They have been altered by plastic surgery, make up, and Photoshop. It is given not to help us, but to help further a consumerist society, all in the name of American freedom of capitalism.  We are damaging ourselves and the people we claim to love. The commercial industry has been giving us our identity and taking away the real radical love we desire from other people. 

Baker, Chris. Cultural Studies  Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2008
Bordo, Susan. Material girl: The Effacements Of Postmodern Culture 

Digital media culture

Welcome back,

We are discussing the new digital world that we find ourselves in. The internet is inescapable for our generation and those to come. We socialize, work, research, and study here in this cyber world. To name a few of the many things we accomplish via the world wide web.Although, we certainty are no where near what our grandparents assumed technologically . We don't have flying cars or robots cooking our dinners every night.However, we do have this magnificent resource sitting in our living room. Is this knew digital culture an Utopian society that will bring about a revolution, or is there  a darker side yet to be examined? Lets take a look at how it is a Utopian or a dystopian.

First lets examine three good things the web had given us.  We now have free speech that reaches all over the wold. With a single click of " publish post" and our voice/ opinions can be downloaded. This is without the control of the government or armed forces. Telling us we're out of line or throwing us in jail for disrupting the peace. We are connected to other cultures and places we might never experience without Googles assistance. 

Now lets take a quick look at the dark side of the world wide web. Since, most people are not being monitored by an outside legitimate source people are free to write any thing that pops into their head. Everyone becomes an expert in this world. Even if we want to admit it or not we are being monitored by someone. Take Facebook or myspace Tom gets to see everyones comments and pictures. If he doesn't like something we post he has the power to take it down. Also, the major web browsers (yahoo, Google, etc.) are really controlling where we go and what we see. Through, paid advertisement we are propelled by these big sites towards different website they want us to visit.  Barker, states in Cultural studies theory and practice (pg 356) " By building huge information portals and having an interest in a range of online activities including news, e-mail, chat rooms, and video streams, the big players can direct traffic through the web. We might think we are surfing freely through the web but actually we are being channeled into the limited options chosen by powerful commercial interest." This may not come as a surprise to many of us, but for those of us who have not thought through these knew cultural issues we should continue to look at both sides.

George Costanza Does The Opposite

(This blog is going to be short due to injury from a recent car accident.)

The in class group presentation regarding Seinfeld was really good. They asked some really deep interesting questions about the language used in the show. At least that's what intrigued my the most. The way Seinfeld verbalizes what most of us are thinking.

Also, how it speaks to us about gender, capitalist, and postmodern ideologies. 

 




 In,  GlenGarry Glen Ross , we are privy to the strain of  the working class. The men that are seen as slackers or worthless because they are not bringing in the big bucks. How does this scene represent american capitalism and the working class? 


One could say the way Alec Baldwin dangles his BMW and expensive watch as a picture of his power over them is a capitalistic way. What does he belongings have to do with his value? Also, that it is set in an office building and they are trying to push a certain product (houses). Both these ideologies make it a part of our american identity, more importantly the product they are selling (land), from an office located in a major city. Is the biggest representation of capitalism. The fact that they are not actually producing any goods to sell they have to shift around things already produced. The land/ properties are the goods. Most of us don't build houses or make things , but we are all apart of the mass push of goods. This is why David Harvey shows how capitalism shapes our everyday lives. Barker suggests " The city is said to be the site of a class struggle engendered by capitalism. This is marked by contestation over the control of space and distribution of resources, for example the conflicts over the cutting of welfare spending during the restructuring of capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s."   Our value is wrapped up in how much we can produce and how fast we can sell it. The production of goods goes beyond just the value of that product, but it becomes who we are. I am no longer have value all alone, my value lays in the product. 


I am still working through these heavy issues of capitalism and how it affects us. However, it is a very prominent theme that continually shows itself. I will be revisiting this thought later....  
   

Welcome back,

I tried to find the full article for your reading enjoyment, but you need a password to get to it on moodle ( online teaching website) & I can't seem to find it anywhere else. Well worth reading if you can get your hands on it.Anyways...
In reading the philoshor Susan's Bordo's : "Material Girl" :  The effacements of postmodern culture. I was appalled to realize I was one of the postmodern women she refers to. I have tried to "control" my image by getting perms, wearing make-up, and working out.  She suggest In a culture in which organ transplants, life-extension machinery, microsurgery and artificial organs have entered everyday medicine, we seem on the verge of practical realization of the seventeenth-century imagination of the body as machine. (1099)  
In controlling our bodies and viewing them as machines that can be tampered and changed. Changed into whatever popular image that is "in" at the time. We have become free to do whatever we want with our image.  All women experiment with their look. We all want to look our best and feel beautiful. Bordo, suggests there is a deeper meaning behind those fake eye lashes or brand new hairdos. Our culture is saturated with the " ideal" feminine beauty. She is tall, thin, blonde, and perfect. This ideal haunts us until we are totally and utterly dissatisfied with what we look like. We are all lacking and trying to cover up our flaws. We are  a dissatisfy race. However, the beauty industry has pounced on us postmodern women and using culture against us. The "innocents" of getting a new hairdo has morphed into: an innocent nose job or a breast enhancement. We have become like gods creating images in the likeness of a beautiful actress:

Neo-Traditional Romcom

To have a better understanding of romantic comedies I viewed the film 'Did you hear about the Morgans?'. It has elements of Neo- traditional Rom Coms because of its conservative ending and how it relies on the audience to feel sorry for the characters. As McDonald states in her book 'Romantc Comedy: Boy Meets girl meets genre'  (Pg. 85) " These films, therefore, while close to Annie Hall in their visual elements, adopt a much more conservative and traditional ending".  By traditional ending she means( pg.86) "boy meets girl, boy losses girl, boy gets girl back" unlike the radical romantic movies Woody Allen writes. Where the two people we are following throughout the film do not end up together, but split up or end up with the other guy/ girl in the film. We will never experience this in a neo-traditional RomCom because it does not fit in the mold. Also, "Did you hear about the Morgan's?" relies on our ability to feel for there situation. During the movie the couple has to outwit a hired gun man, forgive each other of infidelity, and learn to love one another again in a foreign atmosphere, the charming, quaint, modern 'old west' town they are hiding out in . This McDonald's says is " The works they reference, however, come not from the ranks if screwball or sex comedies, but from romantic dramas, and it is from this type of film that the newer romantic comedy draws its increased emphasis on the importance of tears". Although, I shed no tears while viewing this film I was compelled to feel sorry for the situation they were "forced" into.Ultimately we as the audience have to buy into their sad situation so that we  root for them to be reunited at the end.

The pigs are sleeping in our beds (Paper)

April Boyd

Steven Wexler

10-21-10         

English 313 (Popular culture) 

Most of the time when we think of love or romance the first situation that pops into our mind is boy meets girl, they fall in love, and live happily ever after.  It doesn’t first occur to us that there are other displays of romantic love that are not between two people in romantic relationship.  There’s the romantic love of a child with idea of Christmas, or the housewife’s romantic love of the white picket fenced house, or the romance between an artist and their place in history.  Similar to this non-human to human romances, George Orwell’s Animal Farm explores the love of a bunch of farm animals to the idea of a utopian society.  As with most developing love, the farm animals’ affection is displayed in actions, songs, and writings.  However, their romance with the idea of a perfect farm becomes radical romance when they begin to resemble Oxford American Dictionary’s definition of “radical” by performing drastic, thorough, and extreme actions to obtain their love.

Romance is defined by McDonald as a romantic situation that involves people “ falling” in love, a romance becomes a radical when it stretches beyond this definition and into an area where most lovers don’t travel.  Radical love is demonstrated in Animal Farm when two of the main characters move beyond what the rest of animals will do for their love.   Napoleon (a pig / dictatorial leader) and Boxer (a horse / field worker) voluntarily do what the others would not do for their love; Napoleon oppresses the other animals that are supposed equals and Boxer works himself to death for his love of a utopian society.  They commit radical, extreme, and uncommon actions in an effort to obtain love.

One of the many interesting things about Napoleon and Boxer’s efforts at love is that they both loved the same thing but went about obtaining it in different ways.  Radical love in Animal Farm – and in life – doesn’t have a static definition.  It is something that is generated out of an individual and their cultural training. Like our discussions in class touched on, someone’s actions are formed by their culture.  People are trained by their surroundings to know normal or abnormal behavior or the difference between love and radical love.  For Napoleon, his pig culture was rude and assertive, so it made sense that his display of radical love would be violent.  For Boxer, his culture was primarily worker, therefore it made sense that his showing of radical love by committing himself until the completion of the windmill, which would lead to his death.

This idea of two people with the same object of their love being strived for in different ways is also illustrated in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  The two aspiring matriarchs -- May and Maggie – fight for Big Daddy’s estate in different ways.  Mae, a mother of too many children flaunts her offspring as her proof that her man should take it over.  Maggie, childless but filled with Southern charm, appeals to common sense and Big Daddy’s love of his second born, Brick, as to why they should inherit everything.  Yet, in the end, they both exhibit radical love by exceeding the expectations of what anyone thought they would do.  Maggie lies about giving big Daddy an heir, Mae becomes ruthless by spreading rumors about Brick.  In these demonstrations of love for what they desire, they are radical in their context.

In both of these stories the ideology that drives the characters is fueled by the culture they were born into.  Maggie and Mae are taught that obtaining money and privilege equals security. So, they radically go after this ideal life in the same way that Napoleon and Boxer feel that by obtaining this utopian, ideal lifestyle they too will have security. What none of these characters realized during their quest to obtain their dreams is we are all, as Chris Barker refers to in Cultural Studies: Theory & Practice, socially constructed people and, when going about making a decision, we cannot separate ourselves from our environment.  

From the class discussions and the assigned readings, radical loves seems to be an action that transcends normal love behavior and is shaped by our cultural context.  It is a following after an object of desire in a way that is abnormal, extreme, and done with more passion than those around you.  From this place, the actions of the animals in Animal Farm demonstrate radical love because they exceeded the boundaries of love set by their farm culture.

                                          
Work Cited

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. A signet classic New York: Harcourt  Inc. 1956

Sula presentation

Good Morning all,

This past week I participated in leading our class in a discussion with seven fellow students. In the  weeks prior to the assignment I studied the material, Sula; written by Toni Morrison, thoughtfully. Trying to find the rich meaning I knew lay underneath the characters in the book.

The ways I participated helping form our class discussion are: meeting after class, chatting on gmail , and email. Here's two of the most important emails I wrote :
" Hello all,
Some of my thoughts: What stuck  out for me when reading  Saussure was
his description of  the game of chess  and how it relates to language.
How when one chess piece is moved during the game their is a natural
repercussion on the whole system. And... how the players ( us, the
town of Bottom) cannot see or understand the effect that move will
have.

 This reminded me of national suicide day.How the "move" Shadrack
makes effects the whole town (p.15).Also, on p. 115 Sula's "move" when
she started sleeping with married men and tossing them aside when she
was finished caused the wives to love their husbands more.
Until...Sula's death changed things and once again and the women no
longer felt the need to be better mothers or wives. As Morrison says "
The tension was gone and so was the reason the effort they had made".



We can ask the class something like this : What binaries are we
unaware of in our society? How do other peoples actions " moves" get a
reaction from us?

Just a thought. I'm still working through the whole binaries thing.
I'm fine with whatever we end up doing. Maybe, we can give a few
examples of binary relationships from the book and then throw out a
few lead questions....Like Jenni and Mary have been suggesting, or we
can some how put the two ideas together.

Anyways, look forward to chatting with you all soon :)"

 Also,"Hey Kathy,

I found where the binary's are in the book.

Pg. These pages talk about why the townspeople change their behavior
117-118, 114, and  after she dies the town goes back to being
neglectful to their kids,husbands, houses ,etc.153-154

I'm in the middle of something right now and don't have time to write
'em all out. However, they relate to what you wrote. I think we should
try to stay simple. Focusing on good/ evil and how the towns people
know how to be good because... they see the way Sula is "evil". I
wrote it down and I can show you tomorrow. Lets try and meet up before
class to go over our part :)

Don't worry about not being a good public speaker either am I. I think
it's going to be alright as long as we say something interesting :)"

The day of our presentation I was super nervous, however I think my question came out clearly and stirred some interesting class discussion. I enjoyed hearing the thoughts and opinion of the class. Also, my group was amazing. I have never worked with such an organized smart group of people before. We really came together and made this project great. 

Conform or be sentenced to life without bail...

Welcome back, 

My thoughts from this week's readings have to do with consumerism and the grand scheme to get us to conform to "the norm". 

Why are we judged by what we wear, what we drive, and where we live? How much of our identity is entwined within the products we buy? Perhaps, we have been strategically spoon fed by advertising companies that we have become unaware that we have digested a whole cake.

This is becoming even more clear to me after moving to LA. As I started to assimilate into the community of West Hollywood while walking to Trader Joe's or the gym, I had feelings of inadequacy.  Every time my husband encouraged me to go hang out at the local coffee shop my first thought was "I can't, I'm not apart of them", "I don't fit in.", or  "I don't measure up." Why did these thoughts persistently plague me?  Well, it was because I felt I didn't have the right clothing outfit to sip coffee at the local watering whole.  You may snark at this revelation. Thinking of me as shallow or small minded, but could it be that you too have these thoughts programmed within? I believe so.

Thinking about what you wear to the super market is a much deeper issue than we might want to admit. We learn how to interact by interacting, we learn what not to say when we receive a negative response from another, we also know what to wear by watching what others are wearing. We are constantly being taught a "Code".

In discussing "Code", Jean Baudrillard states "Within 'consumer society' the notion of status, as the criterion which defines social being, tends increasingly to simplify and to coincide with the notion of 'social standing'. Yet 'social standing' is also measured in relation to power, authority, and responsibility. But in fact: There is no real responsibility without a Rolex watch! Advertising refers explicitly to the object as a necessary criterion: You will be judged on... An elegant women is recognized by... etc. Undoubtedly objects have always constituted a system of reference (reperage)" and "Obviously this code is more or less determinant given the social and economic level; nevertheless the collective function of advertising is to convert us all to the code. Since it is sanctioned by the group the code is moral, and every infraction is more or less charged with guilt."

From Baudrillard's theory, I was reluctant to go to the coffee shop because I was feeling condemnation from a code I didn't intellectually know existed, but I felt it. Felt the judgmental eyes from a panel of jurors that had found me guilty for breaking a law I was unaware off.

Ethnography

Walking into Barney’s Beanery feels more like I’m visiting a friend’s house than going to a bar. I climb the three or four steps onto an old wood porch and walk into what could have once been a small house in the Twenties. A fun, loud, energetic crowd beckons me in. Glancing to the right I notice a line of bar stools full of men and women sipping ice-cold beers. Looking ahead and to the left there are people sitting in multi-color booths chatting away with friends or watching the football game on one of the huge flat screens broadcasting in HD. Small red glass lights are hanging from the low ceiling and in white letters reads “Coors Light”. Antique license plates, rock 'n roll memorabilia, and posters of bikini-clad women cover the walls and ceiling. In the back corner of the room, I grab a table covered with cut out pictures of celebrities. If I walked to the back of the bar next the restrooms I could play Mrs. Pac Man and other games of a by-gone era.

The crowd feels comfortable in their surroundings, slightly intoxicated, and ready to flirt. Most of the guests are white, upper middle class in their 30s to mid 40s. The men seem dressed ready to relax and drink a few beers in their jerseys and shorts. The women on the other hand are dressed to impress in stereotypical “pick me up” outfits, perfect make-up, stylish heels, and without a hair misplaced. Smiles, laughter, and a bit of perfume drift out the windows into a pleasant Sunday evening..

I first notice an older hippie / 1980s rocker character standing near the pool tables chatting with anyone who pretends to listen. One blonde women in tight jeans and high heels -- 20 years his junior -- walks up with a pool stick and they start playing a game. It doesn’t seem to last long and she returns to her table and sits between two sophisticated looking gentlemen.

Right after she rejoined her clique, another group gets up to play pool. This crew is comprised of the same hippie dude, two slick young men, and a Latino blonde woman gather around the pool table to discuss who will be on whose team. The alpha male and the hippie start to argue about who gets to have the female on their team. I overhear the young man say “Look man, we all wanna to get laid tonight!” He ends up getting the girl in a tube top and mini skirt on his team. The smiles and touches are hard to miss throughout the game and up till the girl's victory.

While this was all unfolding, the table next to me is talking about the hot male television star of "Dancing With The Stars" which just walked in.  The men are putting him down while the women ooze compliments about his hair and muscles.

The last romance I witnessed was an older couple.  I hadn't previously spotted them, but noticed them when they stood up to leave holding hands. They were both well groomed probably close to being seventy, drunk, and intoxicated with beer and one another.

What do these observed interactions mean for our quest to define radical love?  Potential radical lovers have been tricked.

They all dressed, acted, and talked with the same fluidity I would expect if watching “How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days” or “Hitched”. It almost made me sad to realize my society has fallen in love with an image offered by media hypnotists.  We have been spooned fed a formula on how we should act in order to get “Love”. McDonald suggests “While most romantic comedies do not want to hint that the whole edifice of true romance might be as mythical as Santa, we as audience members, consumers, and film scholars need to remember that big business relies on our urge to make ourselves loveable through the consumptions of goods (make-up, shoes, underwear, grooming products, mood music, seductive dinners, and films). Hollywood is just one of this big businesses, and if we can accept that product placement in a film operates to sell more Coca-Cola and Nike products, why not also view the fantasy of romantic love as a product being no more subtly endorsed?” (p.15)

So, if the radical love that Hollywood movies are trying to push is just to sell products and help continue capitalism, then what is “radical romance”?

I recently read an article in “Yoga Journal” about a young engaged couple who in lieu of registering at the mall for gifts they encouraged their guests to give to a nonprofit school in Sarnath, India.  They raised five-thousand dollars and traveled there to serve the children on their honeymoon at this school that educates children who were once called the untouchable caste.  That's an radical romance.  To live our lives thinking about other people as more important than objects we desire.

                                              
                                                  Work Cited

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. 2007. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Genre. London
and New York: Wallflower.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Welcome,

I recently read Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and watched Brook's film adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.  This is a great play and a great motion picture. The play has many cracks that we could peer into about love, gender roles, and culture, but I would like to take a peek into gender roles.

The character that pulled my attention and left me wondering what Williams was saying about gender roles was Brick. He was by far the saddest cat stuck on the roof. He may have been the quietest,but he suffered the most. In his apathetic answers and his refills of whiskey, he gives us a unique peek into the burden of masculinity. He is asked( p. 108) why he drinks and his answer is "mendacity", referring to lying and liars.

What if one of the things he's tired of lying about is not his sexual preference, but his masculinity? There are a lot of pressures put on men. A lot of roles that are not always spoken of, but are expected. Societal groups do not let men off easily in this city or in the South.  Men are responsible for taking care of their families, expected to get the next big promotion, "make a name for themselves",  they cannot show fear,  be good at sports, and fight for our country in war.  This was all before the feminist movement.

Now, men also need to be supportive of their wives, good listeners, understanding, compassionate, know how to cook & clean, change diapers, and be sensitive. It's no wonder our boys have trouble becoming "men". The pressure they must endure is exhaustive.

In this book, Brick was expected to be the best. He was the best looking and a football hero until he got sick and lost his best friend. This is one of the norms he's tired of: the mendacity of southern societal assumptions. He's tired of living up to this impossible person. So, he drinks until he hears "the click"; the click that helps him not think of all the things he cannot be.

 In Barker's "Cultural Studies: Theory & Practice" (our other text) he points out that, "Giddens argues that addictions -- as compulsive behavior -- are narcotic-like 'time-outs' that blunt the pain and anxiety of other needs or longings that cannot be directly controlled. Addiction is the 'other side' of the choice and responsibility that go with the autonomous development of a self-narrative (or identity). In circumstances in which traditional guidance (for example about what it is to be a man) has collapsed, these lifestyle decisions become a potentiality 'dread-full process of making oneself'". I wonder if Tennessee was grappling with some of these thoughts when he wrote Brick's character.

I leave you to think about the men in your lives. Your friends, boyfriends, husbands, dads, uncles, and cousins. What societal norms are we pressuring them into? What mendacity do they have to live with?





.

Free agency.

Welcome back,

I got ahead of myself in my last blog. I forgot to introduce myself and give you insight as to why I am here writing every week.

My name is April, I am in an English class taught at CSUN, and it is part of our curriculum to explore  our readings, class discussions, and different media sources presented in class, on a blog. As it pertains to popular culture. If you stumble upon any of my writings feel free to leave  any helpful comments or questions.Since, most of the things I will be exploring are new ideas, I would love to hear your thoughts.


Today we our thinking through the 'concept of agency'.Here's the list that Chris Barker gives us from his book 'Culture studies': "The concept of agency has commonly been associated with notions of:"
-Freedom;
-free will;
-action;
-creativity;
-originality;
-the very possibility of change through the actions of free agents;


  I'm going to focus this blog on creativity and originality because I think that's what my generation is most plagued by. We all want to control our own image to show others we are original and special. We do this by spending our time on sites like facebook, myspace, and twitter. These popular websites give us the power to control how others view us,  with the pictures we post of us in Hawaii; perfectly tan and happy , and the comments we post. It has given my culture/ generation the illusion that we can create a unique self without the help of an outside Source.  But,can we? Do we have the power to step outside of our culture, our up-bringing,  and language to create ourselves?  I don't think we can.Most of the ideas we post on FB come from an outside source like our parents, friends, or teachers. Whatever cool thing we did this weekend already existed before we put it up on our page. Think about that. Any idea you have comes from somewhere else. 

Here are a few things that would have to happen, for me to be a free agency: 

-Never communicate;

-No media;

-No outside idea/ ideologies;

-No parenting;

-No friends;

-Be God; 

-Create myself;

Try it if you want. What ideas, thoughts, actions have you had/done today that are shaped by language, history, or others around you? I tried to come up with one original thought that came from scratch. 


I couldn't. Most of my thoughts about reality our shaped by my faith and up bringing. Mostly, my identity is shaped by Jesus's teachings.


However, I do think that each of us are unique because no two people have lived the same life.   Our readings this last week explain it perfectly (p.236 ) " That is, while we are subject to the 'impress of history', the particular form that we take , the specific arrangements of discursive elements, is unique to each individual. We have all had unique patterns of family relations, of friends, of work and of access to discursive resources." 


On that note I leave you to ponder these thoughts. I myself will continue to analyze this particular concept for years.

First blog entry ( 8/30)

Modern times he's crazy
Uploaded by dictys. - Discover more animation and arts videos.


In this clip from 'Modern Times" Charlie is seen as  going against the grain, resisting the normal way one "should" behave at work. This is a great demonstration of our readings and class discussions this last week because it shows us a humorous image of the average lower class worker's struggle against "The Machine". He has no other option but to work in a factory, yielding to those that are in authority over him. This leads first towards his insanity and later his termination due to him stepping outside the norm; being radical in his rebellion against society norms.

 I have throughly enjoyed thinking about these concepts / ideologies this weekend. After reading chapter two and 'Introduction: "The Politics of Culture", this ideology from our hand out grabbed my
 attention; "Culture is both a means of domination, of assuring the rule of one class or group over another,and a means of resistance to such domination, a way articulating oppositional points of view to those in dominance." This is what inspired me to use Charlie Chaplin's clip and is something that I will continue to dwell on in the coming weeks. Also, the clip is a good picture of the 'above' people who have the power to dominate the ones 'below'.

The other point I would like to discuss from our text (p.66); "For Gramsci, hegemony implies a situation where a 'historical bloc' of ruling-class factions exercise social authority  and leadership over the subordinate classes. This is archived through a combination of force and , more importantly, consent."  The idea in hegemony that those 'below'  have to give consent to the ones 'above' for the culture to live and succeed is interesting. I have to choose to do as the forces 'above' me tell me to, or the culture as we know it might collapse. For example, if we choose not to eat at McDonald's and cooked our meals at home then the whole chain of Mickey D's would have to change their approach. They might have to give us better quality of food, or more choices. Instead we as a culture "consent" by purchasing their product.