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: