Last week was so not hunky dory because we got out of class early and I was like “YES! Survivor special whoot” but it wasn’t on. Survivor wasn’t on at all last week. And it might be on tonight but jeez am I ticked.
Interesting that you get Bowie popping up if you google image search “hunky dory”
Just so everyone knows March 21, 2007
Zzzap! Zzzap! March 20, 2007
Indeed, most media images of the minority are being produced by the majority.
Well, the Ingham article turned me off when she wrote ’site’ instead of ‘cite’ and my attention was particularly caught by the Horsley article. However, being a liberal with an ‘everyone’s great’ paradigm, it is really difficult for me to discuss ignorance and intolerance because I would rather like to think that it doesn’t happen. But it does, and very much so in the media.
It’s interesting because the article talks back and forth as to whether or not all homosexual people should be grouped into one main category of ‘gay culture’ or whether they should be viewed without such a classification. In favour of the category argument, Foucault is cited as having discussed the historical moment when homosexuality started being seen as a “type of life”. Without taking the extra step and railroading the phrase into “way of life” as the author has done, I believe what Foucault was saying could be viewed as pertaining to individual types of life and in no sense does he allude to a larger cultural formation. After all, Dr. Malacrida who is a huge Foucault fan, told me a while ago that despite the fact that he was gay, he was intensely suspicious of the gay rights movement (since I don’t know the specific reason why, I won’t go further with that but perhaps you can ask Dr. Malacrida if you see her). Therefore, Foucault may not have exactly been in favour of the classification of gay culture, especially since he did not hold the same glorifying view of scientific methods (with their binaries) that the general population does.
But I digress. In order to humour this gay culture argument, I thought about how one would characterize heterosexual culture, which is all around us. Would it be through similar clothes that all aim to seduce the opposite sex? Highly sexual music lyrics directed at the opposite sex (i.e. “I’m Fergalicious, I put all the boys on rock rock…” ugh)? Movies about performing heterosexual acts (i.e. American Pie)? Or the constant adherence by males and females to their gender binaries in order to enact the masculine and feminine, which have built in heterosexual characteristics? But not everyone buys into all of that, not every heterosexual person embodies these characteristics all the time; they too have been created by the majority as dumbed-down heterosexual culture. Just like not everyone is gay in the feminized way homosexual men are shown in the Simpsons clip. Not every homosexual could be on the cast of Will & Grace or Queer Eye!
On the other side of the argument is the non-classification premise, which is hugely supported by queer theory. Now, since we’re all attending class at a university in a small city in an ultra-conservative province, you (like me) might need a refresher as to what this is. “Queer Theory – an approach to issues of sex and gender which has primarily arisen out of postmodernist thought. In emphasizing the ‘performative’ aspects of gender and sexuality, Queer theory emphasizes their unnaturalness. From this perspective, there are no fundamental identities underlying maleness or femaleness, homosexuality or heterosexuality.” (Courtesy of Jary & Jary’s Sociological Dictionary, NOT copied and pasted from Wiki).
Now this fine, except that it leaves me in the same place the most postmodernism does, without anything to work with. If there is no gender or sexuality, then why do we even have an article about it? Why do we have hegemonic heterosexual culture? Postmodernist thought often leaves me feeling powerless because if none of this really exists, but we still enact it, there is nothing that can be done by simply stating that it’s not real! And that, in itself, is really why I cannot draw a conclusion about this article. I don’t believe that all homosexual people are the same and I think that any boundaries our society could draw around a term like ‘gay culture’ would just be too narrow to acknowledge all the different people out there and may only add to stereotypes and prejudices. On the other hand, people’s lives, whether they include homosexual or heterosexual relationships, still embody something real and that must be recognized and not devalued. Therefore, rather than listen to experts on this topic, or even myself and my opinion, I guess I would need to do some research into how homosexual people view themselves before concluding what the media should portray in order for America to view people who are gay.
Here’s the trailer for a movie that the article views as a “wider range” of homosexual media portrayal:
Live Blogging – Survivor February 15, 2007
Well, I stole this idea from someone who live blogged “Lost” last week. I thought it’s probably pretty fun and it’ll help me get another entry on here before the reading week craziness (you know I actually HAFTA read this year since I have so much work for my classes) starts.
However, my reception is starting to go…how bad is that, not only do I have four channels, when it’s windy I hardly get all four.
Alright, so you guys may know that this time they’ve split everyone into 2 tribes: one has everything to make it a vacation (shelter, food, comfortable furniture, etc) and the other has a knife and … I dunno a bucket. So one tribe is happy and one is miserable.
Eww the happy tribe is full of gross and annoying people, I think, someone just farted.
But the island is full of fruit, what are the guys with the knife complaining about? My mom just came in and interrupted me (yes I live at home and it’s great).
Rocky is really funny, he’s got that Boston type accent. I wonder if people like that are the equivalent of urban hicks. Oh, I shouldn’t label, that’s what the people who did the screening want me to do.
A guy just slashed his hand.. and then my reception went. Oh he’s the same guy who has the eye infection, man, he needs to go home. I wonder what kind of waiver these people need to sign before going on this show, how hurt can you really get before the TV crew has to interfere? Ah, I can’t believe this guy has gotten this hurt and he’s on the tribe that has everything provided.
Ahh, my dad came in and interrupted me, ok so living at home has it’s… yeah whatever. So now they’re trying to start a fire with glasses, come on, if that worked people would be combusting on sunny days while walking down the street.
Excellent, that guy went looking everywhere and then the woman just found a batch of pineapples! Awesome, who knew they grew together like that.
Wow what’s with all these products in the commercials coming with free movie coupons? Heh, did they figure out no one can afford to see movies anymore?
lol, yes of course they want to win for revenge. Duh. Argh, I dislike Sylvia just as must as the rest of them, how do they put up with her?
I enjoy Jeff’s cowboy hat, he has the best job in the world. The immunity idol looks so freaky this time.What’s with all the puzzles in these games? phphfft, brains, who needs em? Hah, I knew it, the underdogs are going to win… (Wait, why is one of the guys wearing a toque on a tropical island?) OH MAN! Moto, the guys what have been pampered won. GEEZ. Sylvia is going home…. goin home… yup, they picked Earl to go to exile island, Sylvia is gone.
Wow.. my hair can look like Chantel Kraviatzuk’s if I get that shampoo..
Look at this guy, throwing his knife at a “highly poisonous sea snake” … can they REALLY put people in this much danger without getting sued?
“If you have laundry just bring it to us” Really?! Sylvia just said this to one of the guys, way to enact gender roles. Jeez, I was wrong about the voting, they’re getting rid of Erika instead of Sylvia now because Erkia got all nervous and yelled a lot during the challenge. Dude, I learned that stress increases people’s neurotransmitters that make them fall in love and feel lovey feelings for others, I think this tribe is experiencing that. The people who want to vote off Sylvia are like “We were fine before she came, we went through stuff she didn’t go through, we’re tight, yo”
Tribal Counsel:
I wonder if Jeff has a background in counseling. Youman kicks ass, he’s basically the yoda of the island. Immunity idols are for wussies. … Does Sylvia have eyebrows? … Wow this voing process takes so long. Hmm they’re divided, I think it’ll be Sylvia still, she so crazy. She wants to lead. I love how Jeff has to tally the votes after like two have been read. OH MY GOSH, it was Erika, she totally didn’t need that, dude, like that was all Rocky’s fault, how could that happen? Stupid Sylvia, she’s the weakest link and I bet that’s why they kept her. Dude that tribe is screwed.
Whew, that’s the end of it, thank goodness, I felt like my brain was melting. But I like Survivor: it was one of the original Reality TV shows, therefore to me it sort of is the apitamy of the Reality TV genre, which I love/hate and might want to do my grad thesis on. But by the time I get to grad school maybe no one will be interested in it anymore. Also, Survivor’s pretty simple, it’s longstanding, and there are still people who watch it religiously so I can banter with them about it.
YESS! Deal or No Deal – Go Howie Go!!!!!!!
Sensationalism February 14, 2007
NOTE: This post is pertaining to what we discussed a couple of classes ago and has been sitting in my “drafts” file because I ran out of time to finish it. If you’re looking for something more relevant to this week, keep going to the next post. Thanks!
Alright, well I’ve been meaning to get around to this all week but…you know how it goes. Here’s my post about that “To Catch a Predator” episode I heard about.
Just some background: Having grown up in Lethbridge, I am very familiar with the radio stations. I am also a very light sleeper and cannot think of anything more painful to start my day with than the BLEEP BLEEEP BLEEP of an alarm clock. So I set it to the radio and first I was waking up to Celine Dion all the time (courtesy of the River) then Nickelback (Rock 106) and Shakira (the Bee) and I did not even try stomaching the country station. So I have set the dial to CBC as one last, desparate attempt. This has had a strange byproduct. The morning show on CBC is The Current where they usually talk about very relevant, interesting issues. So now, instead of waking up and hitting snooze as fast as I can, I wake up and end up listing to the radio for 15+ minutes until I can drag myself out of bed. Sometimes this backfires; once I was in a deep sleep and woke up to a report on that serial killer guy in BC, no matter how fast I got to the snooze button, the next ten minute of my sleep was pretty gory! ugh. So yes, the day I heard this report on Dateline, my alarm had just gone off…
So the version I heard was that “To Catch a Predator” was tracking this guy who was the head of police in some city in the states. However, they only had records of inappropriate conversations that had been happen with someone using the computer in his house. So, since the show hadn’t really made any progress, they decided to actually come to this guy’s house and confront him there (let it be noted that at this point he had not physically done anything and all they had were records of his internet activity). When he wouldn’t come to the door, they called a SWAT team who broke into his house and just as they did, he shot himself.
There are two hypotheses: One is that he was really guilty of horrible things and could not stand being caught so he ended it. The other, proposed by his sister and other people who personally knew him, was that he was such an upstanding citizen he could not stand to have his good name tarnished like this.
Either way, two points were brought up on the radio show. One was that a show like this that makes such a spectacle violates the premise that somone is innocent until proven guilty. And the other was that, even if these people are guilty, such a sensationalized way of catching them really leaves no room for the possibility of rehabilitation.
Here is a news version of the story.
Here is a more involved and interesting article on the whole case and different factors.
Wrestling in France?! February 4, 2007
Barthes’ article is an interesting one. Especially since my boyfriend and I were having a romantic dinner at a restaurant the other day only to become distracted from each other by the TV in the corner blaring WWE clips. A conversation about homophobia and models of maleness ensued. Barthes article caught me off guard simply because… Wrestling was like that even back in 1957?! And it was popular up till or into the 90s? Wow, that is one long-enduring form of entertainment.
Personally I hate wrestling. Probably because when I watched it as a little kid it was pretty scary. And then when I got older I thought it was cool but only boys were allowed to be into it (I got into Backstreet Boys instead) so I gradually did not watching it anymore. Barthes highlights the one thing I do wrong when I watch it these days and recoil with complete disgust: I forget that it is a “spectacle”, a performance, and actually expect everyone to play fair.
However, perhaps mainstream wrestling has eroded since Barthes took a look at it. Maybe now the small spectacles don’t do it anymore and people have to become more grotesque to be the “model bastard”. Even so, I think Barthes was right on about the “make him pay” justice mentality. I mean, why ever else would Austin 3:16 be so popular for laying the smack down (the Bible verse reference is a clear give-away). 
(Is it just me or does Austin seem to be lacking underwear in this poster? Maybe he’s just wearing a belt! Hence the theorizing about wrestling’s love/hate relationship with homoerotica and homophobia)
Alright, so Barthes explains wrestling pretty well, as far as I am concerned. But how about when he talks about characters as archetypes, like that “Thauvin” guy being the complete symbol of a bastard, is that not rampantly present in TV shows? Like the “Merchants of Cool” talked about, such archetypes like the “moog” (was it moog?) and the “midriff” symbolize the typical MTV style teenagers. Homer Simpson symbolizes the all-American dad, or maybe now it’s Peter from the Family Guy. Julie Cooper from the O.C. is the model of a conniving bitch (hey, if Barthes can say bastard, I can say bitch). And, just like in wrestling, TV shows take short cuts through giving the characters specific appearances to get these points across, such as too much make-up or a jiggly beer belly.
Perhaps the grandiosity and unreservedness of wrestling in the 50s led the way for television to introduce more extreme characters for the sake of entertainment. Who knows? I have a pet theory about reality TV leading the way for some of the fictional television trends we are seeing now but I will divulge it later and then all of you can steal my masters thesis idea.
Well, I was going to glean you all a gory clip of WWE off Youtube but I searched “French wrestling” and came up with these much more entertaining teens (and I think they are better than some of the creepy wrestlers):
It’s a long video though so I’d only watch it for a few minutes, gets repetitive.
Thank you News-vertisers January 29, 2007
Alright, so I’ve used that ‘infotainment’ conversation to death but I wanted to mention one simple thing tonight. I have been watching the news for the last two days and hearing about the Conservative Party’s attack ads against the Liberals. With each broadcast, they the news program also shows one of the commercials… Like this:
And so I wonder if the news programs, which are supposed to be unbiased, understand that they are basically getting these ads more viewers since people like me who hardly watch any television generally watch the news (especially since it is the only thing on my 4 channels during dinner time). Soon after this segment was a typical 10-minute filler about hockey fans, this was not in the ’sports’ section but rather a great, breaking story about fans’ dedication to the NHL… hrm, Flames make money, yes?
Well, I am not quite so dumb as to not realize that I have just put up the Conservative ad and thus, while talking about it, somewhat advertising for them. That is not my intention, I think I might as well give you all a sample since I am not a news company and it is not my duty to try and produce unbiased news. In fact, it is my opinion that attack ads are not the Canadian way; all they indicate is the fear held by the party that is producing them. I believe they are low blows and probably any politician (any person) could be caught with his/her pants down sometime and be humiliated by having that put on television. I also posted that video because, wow, in searching for an attack ad sample I found this one posted by a user that claims to be the Conservative Party of Canada, added 4 days ago. So there, I guess that is your newsflash, Canadian political parties now spreading through Youtube (if I am late to discover this and it is old news, sorry!).
In other news, Dr. Todd on the Miracle Channel believes God cares so much about my financial situation that if I give $100 to Dr. Todd, I will be superbly blessed for the next 100+ days. Dude. I guess if I am watching this, I really may want to think about getting satellite out here in the country. Heh, actually it is pretty fun that I never know what I will find on this channel. Meh, it could happen or it could not, I am not trying to make fun of anyone, just be aware.
That’s Dr. Todd, boy is he hardcore, this is from his webpage:
“Imagine being saved, healed of ADHD, and preaching your first message at the age of ten, that’s exactly what happened to Dr. Todd Coontz. He started preaching on a consistent basis at the age of fifteen and attended Bible College just after turning nineteen. One year later he began full time evangelistic ministry.”
And here’s a link to a report that associates Dr. Todd with a different church guy that has been accused of shady financial dealings (note – you do need to look a bit to find his name in the article).
People, Places and Things January 28, 2007
Okay, now back to my standard, insightful blogging. A couple of things to remark on today…
I read “The Significance of Online Communities” by Karen Evans (the links to the other two readings do not seem to be working for me, does anyone else have this problem?) and found it somewhat interesting even though the end result of the article seemed to be sometimes online communities are like this and this, sometimes they are not. Even so, it did get me thinking about my past experience with online communities and, since Paul has encouraged us to write about our lived experience with the media, I will discuss a bit of it.
As a preteen I had a lot more time to spend surfing the internet, which is important because we did have a 56K modem back then. My first online community experience was on a local bulletin board service (BBS) where the only thing to do, in DOS-like prompts, was play an RPG called L.O.R.D. (Legend of the Red Dragon) 
I was maybe 10, told most people I was 14, and did pretty well at the game. A couple years later, when the hormones started raging, I remember it was the ‘in’ thing for my friends to see how many guys in the chat room they could tease with the idea of cybersex and then just log off. Pretty immature, I know, but teens will be teens.
These were interesting stints in chatrooms, which taught me a bit about the malleability of personal identity on the internet (sort of making me less vulnerable and more wise to tricks other people might decide to play over the internet, I think – it was better than having been sheltered) and added to my sex education. However, my experience with online communities was never (and has never been since) so essential as when I went through a 4-year fundamentalist Christian stage latter in my teens. I had sort of jumped into Pentecostal-ism/Protestant-ism and was finding it difficult to learn much. At church, the sermons did not start from the beginning (presumably because churchgoers already know the basics) and small talk with people afterwards was awkward, no one wanted to talk about religion itself in their spare time. It seemed like now that I was in the church, the rest of my progress or knowledge was optional. My close friends were still living in the secular world so I found it difficult talking to them too.
So I went online, where no one knew I was a fresh convert and only in grade nine. Despite the periodic occurrence of someone entering the chat room to say “F*** you Xtians” (it seems no matter where you are in cyberspace, there is always someone willing to say “F*** you” about anything), it was pretty much a good outlet to ask the questions I needed to ask. In this way, it was the kind of ’safe place’ discussed in the article and I felt that the conversation was enhanced by people making the conscious decision (’self-selecting’ as talked about by Evans) to discuss religious matters instead of maybe all the other reasons that drag people to church on a Sunday.
The only thing I wish I would have been more aware of back then is the fallibility of authorities, real and online. However, the information I obtained from chatting never hurt me, it could always be compared and contrasted with what I was told outside of cyberspace. I believe that most people who are careful about identity and able to filter information will not have very adverse experiences in chat rooms.
So yeah, I hope my above anecdote was on topic as far as lived experience goes.
The other thing I wanted to comment on was… In the video we watched on Wednesday, there was a scene with teens dancing and when they realize that the camera is on them, they start dancing as if for the camera people. The narrator said something like, it was as though they were selling back to us what we had sold to them, and he went on to talk about the feedback loop of media. Even before this class, I often found instances where I could ask myself, is it television that imitates real life or do we, in real life, sometimes imitate television. I bet you know what I am talking about, the instances where family-time makes it seem like you are on a sitcom or if something intense happens it is like being on one of those night-time dramas. However, isn’t TV supposed to be made after us, so that people can identify with it, isn’t that the appeal of reality TV (and the narcissism talked about in the lecture)? Or does TV (and the rest of the media) sometimes influence our reactions to life and direct us how to act? I guess the answer is both, however it is a little unnerving.
I’m gonna open a can of whoop-… January 21, 2007
So I was driving today and listening to the CBC. Indeed, I would like to state that I do not dislike radio in its entirety since it is one of the only contacts with mass media I have had this weekend. When I tuned in, the announcer (who was prone to interrupting everyone) was talking about violence in the media.
First I will get my frustrations of the way. It was a call-in show, where anyone could voice their opinions. I guess I am a little unsympathetic with people’s innate desire to be heard but I absolutely cannot stand that 75% of people who call in act like experts and say nothing edifying. It is like listening to the one kid in lecture classes (you know they always pop up) who seems to have a comment for everything and needs to voice it to the prof and the whole class. However, instances like that make me think “I am not paying $500 for you to try and teach this class buddy” whereas public, free radio is a bit different. So yes, I will give people a chance, I mean them voicing their opinions is no different than the rush I get from having a personal blog that is pretty centered on my own viewpoints.
Now, more to the point, the announcer (whom we will call Bill) seemed to think that media violence although it is an age-old issue should be reviewed because it is much more far-reaching these days. Of particular concern was the ability of youth the access all sorts of violent images on the internet. I am sure there are a lot, in fact they are probably a lot more accessible than pornography because I have never heard of someone having to sign up to a website with violent content before they can view it though, I understand, many porn websites take this precaution to ward off minors. The thing about the internet is, what can you do? Should it be regulated? Should all parents have filters that function as panopticons on their children/teen’s surfing? What does that do to family trust? And it is not just children who are affected by violence, these images do impact the rest of us. Many people said that it is inevitable that children will come across violence in the media, therefore it is important how we educate them about media literacy and how to negotiate and distinguish these images from reality. I agree with this. Many of us saw some pretty raunchy stuff on television while we were growing up but had to learn how to deal with it. I really cannot go any further in this direction because the internet and its continual expansion truly stumps me in terms of whether and how it should be controlled.
On to the textbook, and I realize this is a reading from last week but let’s humour CBC and talk about things that have been talked about before (note that I missed Wednesday’s class, out of necessity though I wish I had not, and if we talked about any of this I am sorry if I am naively reiterating it). So we have AVGOT and it says…
a) Only violence essential to the plot is allowed. Okay, so what about shows where violence a central focus of the plot? CBC brought up the issues of the Sopranos, which perhaps can be argued to have other components than violence but what about shows like Jackass? Where people just do violent junk to each other for the heck of it:
b) Violence cannot be the central theme in cartoons. Does this include cartoons geared toward adults? Such as South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad… etc. I’m not sure but I would sure like to know! However, most of these DO show after 9:00pm so that is alright…though parents sure should not give anyone younger than 16 a TV in his/her room. I had a friend that, at the age of 12, would stay up almost all night every weekend watching Showcase religiously. A more focused thought pattern is that on CBC they were talking about how many of the shows/movies that are out there just for people to get kicks off of violence (like kung fu stuff or Terminator) are very cartoonish in a Bugs Bunny kind of way because there are the heroes and the one-dimensional characters that nobody cares if they get blown up or not. So how do regulations deal with shows that are not cartoons but treat the characters as people who are as disposable as animations?
So the other points of AGVOT are in our text and I will not exhaustively pick them apart but I do not think they are followed very closely BUT my TV watching is limited, what I can say is that I watch a ton of movies and if most of them were subjected to this criteria, they would not pass. It always baffles me that the movie ratings are stricter in the USA, did you know that? So something the Americans have rated R is usually only 14A here. I think that is crazy and it has led to my parents renting quite a few movies, thinking they are in for something 14A-ish and then we watch the movie as a family and are subjected to sex scenes that are just downright uncomfortable when you are with your parents!! Boy did they learn quickly!
Another phone-in to CBC did mention the news and how horrid some of the footage can be. I was once watching The National, thinking I am doing my civil duty by being informed, and there was a clip of dead bodies on a beach that had been accidentally bombed in Iraq. The clip was long enough to include screaming and weeping of family members over their dead children. I could NOT watch the news for a very long time after that. Every time there is a school shooting and they show footage I also loose sleep over the violent graphics. This causes me to think about how certain things are condoned in the name of certain causes or in certain spheres. Obviously, violence in the news is permissible because it is real and it is an issue. I went to an art exhibit this weekend and there were many sexual references in a lot of the artwork. That did not bother me but some people had brought their children out and I saw these kids, maybe 5 or 6 years old, staring at the pictures and the parents condoned it in the name of art. Bill, CBC guy, told someone who called in that the difference between senseless killing in entertainment and violence that is alright that some of the violence is artistic.
All in all, I am not greatly offended by small amounts of violence, sometimes it is essential for the plot. I do agree with the desensitization theory in that I am able to watch something gruesome and not really be affected. However, massive amounts of grotesque violence are out there, and probably accessible through the net, so we do need to give some thought to that.
