Just Looking ...

First of all, I want to say that I enjoyed learning about how social theorists argue and interpret the relationship between popular culture and symbolic system. The symbolic system definitely governs us and affects our everyday life. How about stereotypes? Is it popular culture to make stereotypes? Does symbolic order want us to make stereotypes? Stereotypes are socially constructed ideas and they are passed down from one generation to the next. The social system often incorporates stereotypes to serve political-economic purpose. They are fixed, shallow and closed view of looking at things. It is absolutely silly to make any decision with oversimplified conception. Sadly, people have stereotypes about everything. We learned a lot about ethnic stereotypes in the past week. We looked at how stereotypes have historical background and how they function to maintain cultural boundaries. Stereotypes do occur at micro level as well, for instance, among family members and friends. I feel that we incorporate stereotypes to express what we stand for and what we do not stand for. For example, you get stereotyped on your characteristics or lifestyles based on being skinny vs. fat, pretty vs. ugly, flat chest vs. DD, short vs. tall, smoker vs. non-smoker, wine drinker vs. beer drinker, soccer fans vs. hockey fans, dog lover vs. cat lover… The list goes on and on. It will be nice to stop making boundaries and judgments. It will be great to acknowledge our differences and individualities. Yet, it is not happening. So I guess it is popular culture to be stereotypical……