Just Looking ...

Kazakh National Anthem?

2009-04-13T19:28:00.002-04:00

I was just listening to the national anthem of the USSR in my kitchen, and my roommate said to me in disgust, "Dan, what is this?? It sounds like the Kazakh national anthem from Borat!"

video games and popular culture

2009-04-01T04:37:00.002-04:00

these days it seems like anything can be the theme of a video game. with the wii and other video simulatory technologies, fantasies are easily realistic. I was at my younger cousin's house the other night when he asked me if I knew how to play Wii. Honestly it was my first time and knowing it was a vitual simulation of what wanted to learn about was pretty crazy without the physical materials there in front of me. I tried the game Tennis for Wii and it was almost as if i was in a different world. I was amazed by the realism and accuracy the virtual tennis game was to the real thing. I was baffled and thought, was this the future of gaming? a hyperreality of virtual/ real? amazing...

Ali G

2009-03-31T23:20:00.003-04:00

My favourite Sacha Baron Cohen character has got to be Ali G. I find his ignorance and play on words hilarious.
This is a video of him interviewing medical experts discussing euthanasia and confusing it with the 'youth in asia'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya_uJHdOtdc

Freegan Phenomenon

2009-03-31T22:53:00.004-04:00

Given the current state of the economy, magazines have been featuring various articles dealing with “money- saving techniques” or offering advice on living off of the smallest expenditure of income. As soon as I stumbled across an article that described a lifestyle where you could essentially live sustainably with all the essential resources but without having paid a cent for them, I was definitely curious.

The lifestyle that I’m discussing is called “freeganism.” Obviously being a play on “veganism,” the article described them as a group of urban foraging eco- extremists. According to the official “freegan website”, they define themselves as “people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources.”

Going back to the article, it chronicles the lives of two twenty-somethings that are practising freegans in Manhattan. In both cases, they lived in apartments and their rent is the only thing that they pay for. They also meet with a group of other local freegans and go “dumpster diving”, which is where most of them find their furniture and fresh food that has been thrown out by restaurants, bakeries and grocery stores.

An interesting element in the article was the stress that the freegans placed upon their opposition to the captialist system and materialism. However, it can be argued that the only way these freegans can live a sustainable lifestyle is through the materialism of others. It is also interesting that the article mentions that a large population of freegans live in such a large city as New York. This is ironic in a sense since this would be the area where one can have access to the most waste. With that being said, it brings a whole new meaning to the saying: “don't bite the hand that feeds you.”

Freegan Website:
http://freegan.info/

Freegan Article:
http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/latest/freegan-lifestyle-trash#comments

Satirical or Discriminatory?

2009-03-31T20:47:00.004-04:00

After watching the clip of Bamboozled in class, I thought of the film, Tropic Thunder. In this movie, Robert Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, an Oscar-winning actor who is cast to play Sgt. Osiris—a character that was originally written as black. Rather than recasting the role, Lazarus decides to dye his skin and play Sgt. Osiris. Many critics reacted negatively to Downey’s “blackface”, positing that it was racist. In addition, disability groups were outraged by the film's repeated use of the term “retarded” to refer to a character, Simple Jack, with a mental disability.

new age takes over...

2009-03-31T16:16:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX3ws6OnGuE

I thought this was hilariously funny and sadly true...

The Idealized Female Body

2009-03-31T13:58:00.002-04:00

As a female in contemporary Western culture I have been exposed to an ideal image of what represents “true” female beauty—i .e. a thin figure—and found myself fairly surprised at the implications of this ad. The idealized “truth” of beauty is fuelled by continuous female expose to media discourse which facilitates the creation of such a high standard for the prototypical female body. Although I am well aware of the effect of the media I had not really felt how such exposure has truly effected my conception of reality (as reflected in the surprise I felt when I read this ad). I guess I never really considered that my “reality”, what I understand as true female beauty, is perhaps quite different from the male “reality”. It seems what the media hails females to idealize does not accurately reflect the opposing male reality and that which they hold as desirable and beautiful (at least according to this ad).

Reflecting on what pictures want it appears that the “desire” of the female models presented in media discourse are not directed towards the male gaze but instead are solely focused on interpolating females to recognize themselves in their female image, calling upon them to attend to any flaws they may have. It seems the effect of such female imagery is not directed towards males and thus does not effect their perceptions of reality as much as it does females. It was interesting to see that what pictures in advertisements call upon females to desire is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the desires of those whose adoration they imply will be received as a reward (i.e., male adoration).

Re: Belated observations about 'objet petit a'

2009-03-31T10:32:00.002-04:00

Rusak's post reminded me of my own reservations with the concept. I don't know about you, but I know many people who can't pick out the different tastes of herbs in their food. I cook gourmet food for a variety of people and frequently there's a reaction of 'that something I can't put my finger on'. If the objet petit a is simply something that stands outside our symbolic system, there ought to be near-unlimited amounts of these objet. From fractals to different geological configurations on planets in different solar systems to... the emergent tastes of different herb combinations. While the concept may help us draw attention to the limits of our own symbolic systems, that seems to be all it is. Though I note that this may be an erroneous perception as I am no expert in Zizek/Lacan.

Ethnic Food

2009-03-31T09:15:00.002-04:00

In class we discussed what is considered "ethnic" food and came up with a list of foods that, in Canada or Toronto, we considered to be termed "ethnic". Linking this to previous terms of cultural capital discussed in the first term, I venture to suggest that through our consumption of these ethnic foods (which were discussed as being Indian or Japanese on the North American context) we acquire cultural capital. Because every one on this planet eats food we use the different types we eat as a signifying system to communicate something about our tastes or cultural identity on what we choose to consume. This idea can also be connected with the idea learned in class of and imagined national identity where a persons "nationality" is based on their cultural differences such as the food they consume, which prof. Kalmar says to be based on a conception of a nation tied together by history. The idea of "ethnic" food as holding a cultural identity on the basis of how it is cooked and consumed (which creates the differences between different cultural foods) can be seen in this light as being purely symbolic and if we take the leap in connecting ethnic foods with the concept of an imagined national identity can be viewed as having no real basis in reality. So, is the idea of ethnic food purely imagined?

An American in Canada

2009-03-31T03:18:00.005-04:00

Fox News is a joke. Canada can do better. Lobby your government to fund CBC.

Yet another response to the Red Eye issue....

2009-03-31T01:15:00.003-04:00

This post is kind of a flow up to the one posted on March 25 about the Fox News comedy show (Red Eye)...as I feel there is more to be discussed.

I agree that it was offensive to the Canadian Military, and wouldn't downplay that. But what I fail to see is any sort of reaction to the nature of the attack - they chose to insult Canada by feminizing our military, and that strikes me as extremely insulting....to us women ovah' here (are we really a bunch of weaklings? Does this idea of feminization really render them so useless?). I'm bringing this up also because I hear all to often that "feminism is dead", there's really no need for it, equality has been achieved, now they're just going to far...and so on (Infact, this argument was made in the National Post just last week). And yet, big strong man America is saying that silly lady-boy Canada isn't as good at fighting (or that he fights like a girl) and I'm not supposed to be offended by this sexist characterization?

It's the all to familiar appeal to the idea of nation as a feminine entity. It must be protected by military might, a specifically male endeavor, because a real country of real men knows how to fight. Their attack drew on familiar stereotypes or images of idle female leisure (capri pants on the beach, landscape painting and horse back riding).

Of course, it was all a joke. I guess.

But if you go beyond it simply being an attack on Canada's military, it reeks of gendered nationalistic ways of understanding how we relate to each other globally. They point out that they could "invade" us at any point with their military. This harkens back to the relationship of colonized to colonizer, a highly sexualized relationship where the defeated country is emasculated by their invaders, and their women taken (dominated sexually). I've read accounts of American Soldiers in South Korea (during the Korean War) calling out from their vehicles indiscriminately for young Korean women, to indicated their power to strike directly at the symbol of "traditional purity" (women)....because Korean men have proven themselves not man enough to protect their women. It's a humiliation tactic in which women are made the hapless symbolic representations.

I could care less if they think they're better than us as a nation...what bugs me is when they use language that goes back a hundred years as though underneath it all, we haven't moved forward an inch.

a death in the family

2009-03-31T00:53:00.002-04:00

does all this mean anything? i think the populous is right to leave pop culture behind. andy warhol was naive. soon there will be no need to publish anything.

Milking the Golden Calf

2009-03-31T00:01:00.002-04:00

While spending some valuable browsing http://www.cuteoverload.com/ I stumbled across this add for Cyclone Dairy: Perfect Cows, Perfect Milk (http://www.cyclonedairy.com/). Their motto is " Old Fashioned Dairy, The New Fashioned Way".

A quick internet search resulted in numerous blogs debating who is behind the ad campaign and the website and what the point of the whole thing is. Some are also discussing cloning and "what if scenarios". Most however, tend to critique the ad campaign.
I have to admit though, that the first time I went to website I thought "holy cow! that is freaky!". I'm not very technologically savvy and I don't quite follow the news (I mostly learned about Dolly the sheep through this class), so I thought that hey! Maybe they CAN clone cows. (I skipped their scientific explanation). Now (I think) I know better.

So now, I'm left with all the other bloggers wondering what this Cyclone Milk add campaign is about. Is this some sort of faux-Dolly? Some of sort of warning: oh, look what can/may/could/will happen if we let science get out of hand while it disguises itself as a nice company looking out for us? A flashing golden calf?

Whatever it is - it isn't very good. I mean, we've had so many movies, comic books, novels, short stories, etc. with the same sort of approach - what if we're fooled by big scientific coorporations etc. But MAYBE it's not like that at all - MAYBE they can REALLY clone cows now. I don't know it fooled me.

On a side note, what the hell is up with that new show Gimme Sugar (Much More Music seems to be on the LGBTQ bandwagon, eh?) ?! Aside from the fact that none of those girls seem able to form proper sentences, I was kind of irked by the fact that the only two girls who "got game" were the whorish and the masculine/androgynous lesbians. It seems like the only way that women can be sexually promiscuous is within the whore and the masculine identities. And that is not cool.

Will Racism Disappear in the 21st Century?

2009-03-30T23:50:00.003-04:00

I seriously doubt it. Can it ever really disappear? Of course, all around us we can see positive change in this area, because we are lucky enough to live in Toronto. It is easy to be optimistic here. But what about in places like Israel, Sri Lanka, or countless other nations, towns, streets and homes around the world where ancient tensions are continually renewed? Obviously it will take longer than a century for such a disappearance to occur, if it ever does. It is all we can do to make the individual choice to accept millennia of human vice and violence, put our differences aside and work for a good life together. This does not mean we are not racist. Racism runs deeper than what we say, think and do; it is inscribed in hegemony, and in our subconscious, collectively and individually. But this does mean that we have made the choice to improve, and for me, this is enough. Perhaps on the day that we have all made this choice an entire generation will be raised in an environment untainted by racist ideas and activities. Then we can begin to talk realistically of an end to racism.

“I am Canadian” or should I say “I am not American"

2009-03-30T23:47:00.003-04:00

Most of us can remember the “I am Canadian” commercials which aired throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s for the Beer company Molson. These commercials became hugely popular in Canada on the basis of promoting Canadian nationalism. In the commercials, Joe the average Canadian takes the stage to define what it is to be a true cunuck. However, his rant does not define Canadians by what they are, but on the basis of what they are not in comparison to Americans.

In this commercial specifically, Joe attempts to distinguish himself from American stereotypes about Canadians. In his speech he contends that he is not “a lumber jack or a fur trader” and that he does not “live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dog sled.” He also goes on to make more direct comparisons by stating that he has “a prime minister not a president” and he speaks “English and French, not American.”

The commercial’s intent is to define identity on negative Canadian discourses. Negative meaning that Canada is identified as whatever the United States is not. The final irony about these commercials is that they were brought to a halt after the American beer company Coors purchased Molson in the mid 2000s.

I’ve posted a link below for anyone who has not yet seen the commercial or wants to re-watch it. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg

Bamboozled and Chappelle's Show

2009-03-30T23:19:00.004-04:00

After watching Bamboozled I began to find similarities between the fictional new millennium minstrel show and Dave Chappelle's Comedy Central show which ended after two seasons. The show is offensive to all. But the majority is based on black contrasted with white stereotypes in the United States. Having sketches based on a variety of different issues. The sketches always work with contrasting the (default) white against (coloured) non-white, often placing the colourful persona in the shoes of being default. This often is what makes the premises of the sketches and it worked. This was great until Chapelle began to have second thoughts about his creation like Pierre Delacroix does in Bamboozled. The masses love both shows and for Chapelle the appeal of his show did the opposite of what he envisioned. It was a way to critique the absurdity of racism but this was overshadowed by the acceptability of its characters and sketches as ok. Both shows became an uncontrollable monster for their creators.

Images of the Other- in popular culture

2009-03-30T23:11:00.005-04:00

I know we didn't get to cover the Orientalism- the Arab and the Jew this year, but I couldn't resist sharing a couple youtube clips I found.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS4v_kj9rw4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw4uUTlutto
The first video is a MADtv Parody on Al Jazeera- and its obvious the one thing all Arabs/Muslims have in common is there insidious hatred for the west- more specifically America.
The Last video is combination of images used to portray Arabs in Hollywood movies and T.V shows-which also demonstrate some of the key characteristic we used in class to identify and represent the Other as - "belonging to a different time, and inhabit lands which are fixed/ or stuck in the past..."
Have look at the videos!

Flight of the Conchords vs. Borat

2009-03-30T13:44:00.008-04:00

In our recent discussions of Borat, I couldn't help but think of Flight of the Conchords

Flight of the Conchords is an HBO show about a folk-comedy musical duo from New Zealand trying to make it big in New York City. Though Borat and Conchords are different in tone and narrative, they both rely on the use of absurd stereotypes in their comedy.

Stereotypes about New Zealand are not as widespread as those of Eastern Europe, but Conchords relies on the same principle as Borat in assuming that most viewers really have no idea what the 'culture' or 'identity' of its characters might actually be like.

Through its references to Lord of the Rings, sheep, and sheep lawyers, Conchords makes us laugh while also reminding us how little we know about New Zealand (but also possibly reinforcing those stereotypes that do exist). One hilarious example is when the characters mention New Zealand's national sheep, Gary. They speak of Gary as if he’s a national hero, and make a bigger deal about him attending the opening of 'New Zealandtown' than of New Zealand's Prime Minister. The funny thing is that while it seems obvious to me that the idea of a 'national sheep' is a joke, it wouldn't really surprise me if New Zealand has such a thing, and that's the point.

Another example of Conchords playing on our ignorance is its depiction of the characters from New Zealand as being relatively simple-minded and naïve. The duo's band manager, Murray, suggests that they wear reflector vests and hats with a map of the U.S. embedded, so as to be safe and also 'fit in' in Manhattan. The notion is obviously quite silly, but it also draws on certain stereotypes of New Zealand and its people as being simple-minded, rural people in a foreign, urban setting, just like Borat. Conchords is certainly not as provocative, and doesn’t pretend to demonize anyone as Borat does (except maybe Australians – who the main characters insist have an ‘evil version’ of the New Zealand accent), but its certainly worth a comparison, and is definitely good for a laugh.

The walls are talking

2009-03-30T08:22:00.007-04:00

I've been repeatedly encountering this image on Toronto walls for the past few weeks, at first completely oblivious to it.

Now, I can't help but wonder who the infamous "Running Shoe" artist is, and why they felt compelled to cover the city walls with their message (whatever that message may be).

In fact, I've been encountering more and more street art like this one that make me stop and think, when I'm usually prone to ignoring graffiti altogether.
I will be the first to admit, this post, in terms of class topics is incredibly belated, but Spring has me out exploring the city again and I keep encountering more and more of these.

I'm happy to see more "art" like this emerging on Toronto streets. If anything, I'm happy it's engaging me with the city. Images like this one are characteristic of the emergent "street art" scene that has become increasingly popular over the past decade, originating in cities such as London and Berlin. Not only has street art taken over city walls worldwide, it is also being exhibited in galleries, or the outside of galleries as was the case for the Tate Modern Gallery in London this summer.

Though in this case, I think their outside exhibition is highly appropriate.

It is difficult for me to imagine now that when these images started to appear, executed by artists such as London-based Banksy (who is now internationally famous), they were still often negatively connected in people's imaginations with crime, gangs, territorial graffiti, etc. Which is perhaps why the Tate chose this decidedly controversial image of a black man holding a gun to exhibit as an example of street art for the side of it's building.

All of it though does call into question that ultimate divide between high and low culture. Although the Tate Gallery is known for showing avante garde and controversial work, it is above all, an art gallery. Yet, street art seemed to and does seem to have a place in it - despite it's origins in graffiti and often people's reluctance to qualify it as "art". Afterall, officials in London for example still continue to remove works of famous street artists from the city walls, claiming they are acts of vandalism.

The works are still "offensive" images to a degree, a "high" image (art) presented in a "low" way (that is, on the streets). For many people, the great difficulty in their mind lies in distinguishing street "art" from graffiti. Whether not this distinction should even be made is another matter altogether; the questions are nothing new to the art world - what is art? who decides what is art? - Where do we draw the line, if anywhere?

In Berlin this summer, the streets were covered with street art and after living there for 6 weeks I began to realize the street art and graffiti was part of the city. It told stories and mapped the city's history (as cliche as that may sound), or grabbed out at you from an alleyway engaging you with every corner of the city. It was creative and beautiful, and for that I have no reluctance in qualifying it as art.

However, I can at the same time understand people's reluctance. Like my own reluctance to accept "ready-made" art such as Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" - ie urinal.
Hopefully in the time being more street artists will start filling Toronto's walls with images like the "Running Shoe" (as silly as comical as it may seem).

Until then....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Modern
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

** After posting this blog, I clicked on the Toronto link on our blog page which brought me to the Torontoist website. Coincidentally enough they have an article on Toronto street artist "Anser", which is interesting and reflects some of the things I've been saying. The reader's comments on the article in response to Anser are also interesting, reflecting just how controversial street art can be.

http://torontoist.com/2009/02/tall_poppy_interview_anser.php

Robotic Love?

2009-03-30T02:07:00.003-04:00

(Credit: AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

I just came across this - Fashion Robot to hit Japan catwalk - which reminded me of our lectures on clones and robots. Japan has long been on the cutting edge of robot technology, and has pretty much developed robots for every use imaginable from the catwalk to acting to helping the elderly/disabled. Interestingly, when it comes to the fear of robots or clones, I never really felt any kind of long-lasting fear of robots taking over the world from watching shows such as the Terminator series. In fact, the eerily humanoid robots (or androids) Japan continues to create is more deeply unsettling: they are perhaps the perfect embodiment what Freud terms (and what we discussed last semester) as the "uncanny", something familiar and yet foreign. And maybe my fear stems from this very fact that they remind me of myself, and that one day I could be replaced by these better immortal versions of myself and no one would be the wiser.

And when it comes to Japan versus America on the issue of robots, I also find it fascinating that these are 2 vastly different attitudes held towards robots. While Japan has tended to make robots in the vision of robots as friends (and as such, have robots which look like humans or pets, and serve a certain social function), America, on the other hand, has produced robots in the vision of robots as tools (such as military robots). And while both countries continuously challenge the boundaries of robotics, I feel that (or at least, to my ignorance about America's advances in robotics) there is still seemingly a very cautionary tone adopted by America when it comes to creating robots. Certainly, popular culture in America often reflect this fear in movies or television, although one may argue that movies such as Wall-E are starting to change this attitude held towards robots in general. Japan seems to be far less cautionary and in fact, continuously challenge these limitations as to what humans can re-create; popular culture in Japan, in turn, reflects this. How did these differences come about? For a start, I think these might be useful in revealing the fundamental differences in which we approach robots and clones, and what it says about us:

Loving the Machine
In Japan, Robots are People Too
Loving the Machine: the Arts and Science of Japanese Robots

Fox News...

2009-03-30T00:19:00.002-04:00

Recently in the news there has been a lot of discussion over the comments that were made on Fox news about the Canadian military. The especially appalling comment "I didnt even know they were in the war. I though [Canada] is where you go when you dont want to fight" brought back some of the ideas that were discussed in our lecture about Canadian identity. Although there have been many different opinions on the incident - from its insensitive nature to 'who gives a damn about fox' news, the general idea of the controversy reveals some of the ways that Canadian identity is structured by 'our difference from the US'. If you want to read more you can check out : http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canadians+proud+their+military+history/1429829/story.html

Belated reservations about 'objet petit a'

2009-03-29T19:26:00.004-04:00

There hasn't been much talk about the objet petit a in class in the last bunch of weeks, but previous to that I was finding it a little troubling how easily applied the concept could be. It seemed as though anything we're typically attracted to or afraid of or interested in could be labeled an objet petit a. But if the application of the concept really is that unconstrained, then it's not a very useful concept at all; it can't possibly be telling you very much (beyond that the thing is something we fear/want/are interested in).

I feel like the concept picks out a really interesting and important sort of existential/psychological issue—but left as loosely specified as it is, it seems too unconstrained to really tell you much about the world. My biggest problem with theorists like Zizek is that they paint a very pretty picture and do lots of engaging interpretation, but it's never made clear how their notions could be disproved, or what the limits on their theoretical scheme are. If Zizek could use his theory to provide an artful explanation for the fact that X occurred, but could provide an equally artful explanation of ~X, then his theory is too unconstrained in that case to tell you anything about X, or perhaps is better looked at as a sort of literary device. (In our reading, at least, he seems to dither indecisively between trying to show how reality itself reflects his scheme, and showing that our perceptions of reality fit into it.)

This would only not be a problem (and I'm in no position to say if it really is or isn't for Zizek) if the theoretical scheme was, under the surface, very precise about how exactly the Real behaves, how to show something isn't a manifestation of it, etc.

My feeling is that human psychology must unavoidably be more complex than one single overarching conceptual scheme like this could capture, however appealing the general scheme is on the broad scale.

Thoughts From The "X-Files": The Golem, Aliens

2009-03-29T18:12:00.003-04:00

Watching an episode of the “X-Files” recently, I became interested when it involved the Golem, a Jewish mythological creature. In the episode, some anti-Semitic teenagers killed a Jewish man named Isaac, who was then apparently summoned back to life as a Golem by his widow to seek revenge and kill the teenagers. It turns out, as a user pointed out on TV.com, that the show did not accurately portray the Golem outside of the fact that a Golem does indeed traditionally seek revenge. The episode review notes the error in having Isaac, a deceased human, as a Golem since, in fact, a Golem is traditionally composed of inanimate material such as mud or clay. Other miscues the review identifies are how the Golem was defeated by erasing the Hebrew word for truth from its hand instead of its forehead, and that the Golem was summoned by the widow instead of a Rabbi. I found this all very interesting.

The “X-Files” usually features stories of the extraterrestrial or aliens. Countless other movies and media do this as well. Perhaps aliens can be a candidate for “the prime fantasy of our time”. There seems to a distinct culture and way of talking among “believers” and “abductees” Prof. Kalmar had suggested time travel as “the prime fantasy of our time”. Interestingly, alien abduction is often said to involve time loss. Just something to consider.

Wikipedia Entry on the Golem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

TV.com review of the "X-Files" episode "Kaddish":
http://www.tv.com/the-x-files/kaddish/episode/578/summary.html?tag=ep_guide;ep_title;14

Fashion adverts and the "default" race

2009-03-28T14:29:00.003-04:00

Flipping through this month's issue of Vogue UK, I was struck by Aquascutum's advertisement for their spring 2009 campaign, The Blue Collection. The image really jumped out at me, and after searching online for other reactions it seems to be that the general consensus is that the campaign is highly effective despite its simplicity.
I really began to question exactly what it was about this image that resonated, and what came to mind was Prof. Kalmar's lecture on the universal and particular. In this lecture we discussed how in ordinary thought, white is the default race; it is rational and predictable. We extended this default theory to Hollywood movies, noting that romantic comedies are overwhelmingly about white couples, because otherwise it is no longer just a romantic comedy, it is a romantic comedy about a black couple, or latino couple, etc. Whiteness in Hollywood is the default race, for it does not detract or distract from ordinary plot lines.
I find this notion of whiteness as the default to be an even more useful conept in fashion advertisements. Of course advertisements are reflecting socially constructed values of beauty, what beauty looks like, and how to achieve beauty. However, it is crucial to remember that fashion is ultimately an industry and so what is of utmost importance - of commercial importance - is the product. The clothing must stand out above all in a fashion shoot, and Aquascutum's depiction of heteronormative romantic love between white couples is testament to this reality.

Race with no end in sight

2009-03-28T12:02:00.003-04:00

Though the cessation of racism is an admirable goal, I find that I'm fairly pessimistic that it is attainable in the 21st century, or perhaps ever. Ultimately, tacit forms of racism that I observe, and sometimes unthinkingly subscribe to myself, are too productive to be simply ceded. As long as race/ethnicity function as meaningful axes of social identity, it is unhelpful, or even detrimental to suggest that we have entered an era free of racism.

I am wary of claims that race is, or should be a non-issue. We have discussed in class and tutorial the consequences of depoliticizing issues such as gender/sex or ethnicity/race; in rendering them as merely cultural differences indexing primordial natural categories, they become reified and incontestable, power dynamics and historicity are obfuscated, and everyone is assumed to have equal opportunity. At a family gathering this past Christmas, one of the members of my extended family expressed contempt for those Blacks who "just buy beer and Nikes with their welfare cheques." Her general feeling was that since white people have historically been able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so too should black people, and any inability to do so now is construed as simple laziness or irresponsible behaviour on their part. "Black culture" is here positioned as inferior to "normative Western(white) culture," and judged as somehow uncivilized/immature/irrational. Regardless, the fault lies squarely on the individual who refuses to enact a bourgeois neoliberal subjectivity, eliding any contextual factors that may exist as a result of social inequality.

Culture and religion are also frequently invoked in place of race as a means of critiquing the Other. A common theme that I have seen in various municipal and national magazines (Toronto Life, Mark Steyn in Macleans) is the overly tolerant nature of Canadian multiculturalism. However, culture is frequently essentialized in these contexts, and portrayed as immutable. In particular, Muslim culture in all its variety and ambiguity is condensed into a unified whole; thoroughly misogynistic, uncritical, emotionally volatile, and pathological. To me, this is essentially racism in the form of "ethnicism." Thusly, "Islamo-fascist"(as opposed to brown-skinned) hordes are pouring onto our pristine shores, where they are breeding like rabbits, with the express desire to take over our governmental apparatus, replacing our "civilization" with their own base "culture." Please hear the sarcasm in that last sentence! Here, cultural difference is polarized and made irreconcilable, and so Muslims are seen as something less than full citizens. Perhaps as less than fully human as well - if they are unthinking zealots, then it is that much easier to "neutralize" them.

Ultimately, I hear lip service paid to the mitigation of racism, but for the so-called Western world, we have far too much staked on structural or global inequality to actually work to end it. As long as race/ethnicity and socio-economic class are so intricately confounded with one another, maintenance of the status quo necessitates ideologies that hierarchize and stigmatize on the basis of culture, at least covertly.

Ugh! I didn't intend to make this post so depressing. Maybe I just read too much trashy fear-mongering tripe to know how people actually feel about these issues.

blackened bodies in Japanese Hip Hop

2009-03-27T12:00:00.005-04:00

Japan is the second largest market for popular music consumption in the world. The proliferation of music has been accelerated throughout the last two decades by globalization and the transnational flow of ideas, people and commodities. The 1980s in Japan was a time of economic growth and was labeled the “decade of internationalization (kokusaika)” . Theories of “Japaneseness” (Nihonjinron) throughout the post-war period have characterized Japan as having the unique ability to soak up and assimilate other cultures while remaining unchanged and distinctly Japanese. This nationalist construction of a superior and unchanging Japanese identity affects the way culture is negotiated across borders. The flow of culture from one locality to another entails negotiation of meanings in the construction of Japanese identities.

What parts of Hip Hop culture are shared and what is redefined, altered or erased? Japan’s domestication and indigenization of Hip Hop culture must be critically examined in terms of what aspects of culture are shifted when they are brought into the Japanese context. This is not to say that an essentialized category of what constitutes “Hip Hop culture”, “American culture” or “Japanese culture” may be clearly defined and then used to analyze how the three relate to one another; But in examining the historical context we may identify different ways parts of that culture are diffused domesticated, assimilated and indigenized, and what this process entails for the construction of Japanese identities relating to class, ethnicity and race.

For example, during the 1990’s Japanese kids began heading to the salon to dread their hair and tan their skin, physically imitating African American hip hoppers:

“a friend who was visiting Japan entered a dance hall which to his surprise appeared to be peopled almost exclusively by black youths. Upon closer scrutiny he realized that the “black” young men were Asian: Japanese with darkened faces, some with dreadlocks and some with fades, performing hip hop dance steps and breaking to rap music” (Cornyetz 1994:113).

This “blackening” of Japanese bodies became so popular that many salons in downtown Tokyo began to specialize in “dreading” straight Japanese hair (doreddo hea) and tanning light Japanese bodies until they were brown. The signs in salons may be even more telling: in Japanese the construction “to tan” can be glossed “to become black” (kuroku naru).

In my view, by physically turning themselves "black", Japanese youths may be creating a new identity for themselves that is not so much trying to imitate African Americans as it is trying to resist the Japanese homogeneous racial identities (Nihonjinron)that the heavy-handed nation-state has forced upon them.

By Juliana Vegh

Fox News & Canadian Identity

2009-03-25T18:45:00.002-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVKlFT58Zwc

This short clip from Red Eye with Greg Gufeld offends me in so many ways I don’t even know where to start… I’m not even going to go into the blatant American-centric arrogance and the embarrassingly one-sidedness of the debate. (To be fair, the panel never claimed to be credible – made up of mostly comedians and a late night host appealing to a 3am audience). I focus on the clear image of “Canada” that emerges out of their discussion. They set the tone immediately by mocking the effeminate nature of the Canadian Lieutenant General’s name: “Andrew Leslie… an unusual name for a man…” (chuckle)

“So the Canadian military wants to take a breather… to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white Capri pants…get manicures and pedicures” – allusions to homosexuality, nature…

There are numerable phrases which illuminate the American attitude towards Canada as a non-entity, not worthy of respect: “Doug… this is a very important question, I want you to take it seriously” – as in, ‘Even though we’re talking about Canada which is not to be taken seriously’ Further: “Isn’t this the perfect time to invade this ridiculous country?”

Epitomizing the American-invented stereotypical “Canadian” the panel goes on…“Does this surprise any of us? We have police officers and they have Mounties. Our cops ride heavily armored cars, they ride horses. We have bullet-proof vests, they have wonderful little red jackets that can be seen a mile away… This is not a smart culture, Greg”

At one point the one woman chimes in. I’m hopeful she’ll provide some kind of sanity in this egregious discussion of Canada, but she only adds insult to injury: “Yes, but to be fair to the Canadians, they’re up there where it’s frigid, very cold, they’re a hearty people…”

It’s hard to be too offended when we Canadians use virtually the same features in our long history of Canadian identity – constructed in the shadow of the United States. We just don’t like it when they point it out. (…or when they present their information via a one-way medium claiming to be a credible news source)

What's up with all this "Sluttery"?

2009-03-24T22:27:00.008-04:00

The objectification of women, more specifically, of the female body, is a prominent feature prevalent in today’s media. Ads, television, movies, and commercials are all mediums that are highly saturated with sexually explicit images, innuendos, and connotations. Is it merely a marketing strategy, or is there more to it?
The phrase, “Sex Sells” is something that we often hear from our experts in the media. It is a phrase that we do not put much thought into, but simply accepting it as inevitable due to the high content of sexually explicit images that are portrayed through the media. Is it simply a marketing scheme? And if so, what are the detriments that women face in being hyper-sexualized in the media?According to Laura Mulvey and her theory on “The (Male) Gaze,” she asserts that it is the fixing, the objectification, and the aestheticization of females, where the viewer is put into the male, heteronormative lens. She notes that here are two distinctive features in this argument: The Voyeuristic Gaze (a way of seeing women as whores or highly sexualized), and The Fetishistic Gaze (seeing women as “Madonnas” or goddesses).
Depictions of women in the media attempt to simultaneously elevate women, and degrade them. But in doing so, the result or the effect of this is the latter. Are women subconsciously aware of this “Male Gaze” and conforming to patriarchal ideals of feminine beauty, and are therefore subservient to the viewers? Or are women aware of this “Gaze,” and are using it to their advantage to attain power and/or agency? I’ll leave that up to you.
Personally, I believe that there is no definitive answer to this question. There is a definite interplay between the two positions, where men create this “gaze”, and women fulfill it either to conform to this male, heteronormative perspective, and/or in order to claim power over men. Either way, women are being subjects of objectification. Whether their intents are to attain power over the men through the performance of their bodies, the simple fact that men are the “watchers” or the “voyeurs” of such sexually explicit images and acts, the “seer” is in fact the
holder of the power, not the “doer.”

Check out this link: http://perezhilton.com/2009-03-23-sexy-steamy-sizzlin

images of the monstrous in contemporary culture

2009-03-22T20:25:00.001-04:00

I have been very interested in Mitchell’s theory of images and have been more aware of how and why images appear in during ordinary, daily life. I recently came across a powerful article written by Rosemary Garland-Thomas who explores the “politics of staring” in popular culture. More specifically, Garland Thomas gives an historical overview and analysis of “visual rhetoric of disability in Popular Photography” and discusses the images of disabled and differently bodied people who worked in carnival side shows. According to the author, our visual fascination with people considered to be ‘freaks and monsters’ is more complex than based on mere curiosity but, is in fact what Garland Thomas labels “a choreographed relation between spectator and spectacle.” With the rise of bourgeois culture, side shows and displays of deformity became an affront to ‘middle class decorum’ and the non-normative were removed from the realm of the carnivalesque and interned in medical institutions and long term sanitoriums. According to Garland Thomas, however, the spectacle of the image continued under a new guise of the medical examination and scientific investigation. The author discusses the re-emergence of the monstrous and the power diad between norm-normative and mainstream society in popular culture, and the way that corporations now utilize sentimentalized images . More specifically, Garland Thomas discusses the use of the ‘disabled’ in advertising campaigns and public relations publications that are designed to communicate that companies such as Bennetton (which features an image of a developmentally delayed child in material that highlights the company’s ‘gift of ‘ love’…otherwise known as financial support the company donates to a school for ‘mentally challenged children.” According to Garland Thomas, this is meant to communicate the obvious message of ‘benevolence’ but, concomitantly (and more subtly) communicates a power relationship between the corporation, viewer, and the object of interest, (in this case, the image of the fashionably dressed young boy with Down’s syndrome) that is featured on the cover brochure. Garland Thomas provides compelling images and examples of how the image of the monstrous continues to fascinate viewers, and thus, be exploited for profit by powerful corporations. An especially striking example is of the sports star, model and double amputee Aimee Mullins who is featured in a high-fashion magazine layout dressed in a metal-cage skirt that is shot from below, thereby highlighting her prosthetic legs as a stylish accessory. I encourage you to check out Garland Thomas’s writing-she is a Disability Studies scholar and an astute analyst of visual culture and the powerful complexities of the image in popular culture.

2009-03-19T21:48:00.002-04:00

In our lecture on Feb. 10th about biopower, it has inclined me to think about fertility treatments and clinics that are so popular in our Western societies right now. Although in Canada, these clinics are not necessarily monopolized by the government, we, as a population, has been socialized by society to value individualism and free choice -- and part of this includes having the right to children (or our own biological children). However, is this, in and of itself, a source of social control?

Although at the surface, it seems that such treatments like IVF and surrogate pregnancies give an alternative way for infertile couples to have children of their own, they can easily embrace a sort of systemic inequality that manifest into social control. First and foremost, such treatments are very expensive and are not covered or subsidized by the government. This means that only infertile couples who are affluent and well-off can afford this alternative -- poorer infertile couples may not be so lucky. Secondly, there are numerous screenings involved before the couple can undergo these treatments. That is, there are rigorous checkings and interview to ensure that the couple has met the requirements. And such requirements are often very trivial to whether or not they make "good parents". They often include: employment/income, sexual orientation, past diseases/current health, etc. None of these requirements are overlooked by the government -- and thus all of them are controlled at the discretion of these fertility clinics and their boards. In effect, this allows for the middle/upper-class people to have a second chance at reproduction, while subtly denying those of the lower class to do the same. Indeed, with these fertility treatments, there is more at issue than just "infertility". With biopower comes an entirely new consideration on bioethics that must be included in the administration of such reproductive technologies.

The Ideal Barbie

2009-03-19T21:19:00.003-04:00

As a child, I loved Barbie and I had a huge collection of them. I liked how she looked and how I can change her clothing and I had just about everything else associated with Barbie -- her cars, her house, her kids, and of course, Ken.

In our lecture about ethnicity (Mar. 10th), Professor Kalmar talked about how being white is the default and is universal. He mentionned how the white Barbie is always just called Barbie, but Barbies of all other ethnicities are called the "Chinese Barbie", or "Persian Barbie" or "Black Barbie". I think this is an excellent example of the notion of white being the default.

Barbie, in and of itself, is a feminine ideal that is unachievable. It is horrifying to me now to think how this little doll can cause us to unconsciously embrace such an unrealistic feminine ideal. I remember seeing a program once about Barbie and its influence on society and girls in particular, and it talked about how Barbie, if it were translated into real life size, would be very unproportional. Courtesy to this website "http://people.bu.edu/kwysocki/versus.html", it says that if Barbie were life size:

"Barbie's height would be 7'2"
Her weight would be 101 lbs.
She would wear a size 4 dress
Her bust would be 39" (FF cup)
Her waist would be 19" (same as her head)
Her hips would be 33"
Her shoe size would be a 5"

Despite these unrealistic and undesirable proportions, many girls still idolize Barbie and want to be just like her. And in addition to that, she is young, white, upper-middle class and has a white, handsome boyfriend (Ken). This is a very bourgeoisie ideal in which it is impossible for anyone, even the bourgeoisie themselves, to achieve. Now that I look back at my collection of Barbies (I have almost 120 different Barbies), I realize that all the ones I bought when I was a child were white Barbies. I remember there being Barbies of other skin colours, but I think I was naturally inclined to get the white one because she was "prettier" and "better" -- and I thought this without even knowing it! My collection of Barbies were all white, rich and pretty. It is very fortunate for me to realize this now. I think when I grow up and my daughter wants Barbies, I will have to encourage her to buy them from a variety of backgrounds. After all....we do live in Canada! :) haha

Here are some pictures of the very non-typical Barbies:

Chinese Barbie

Black Barbie

Indian Barbie

old Barbie

HIPHOP in Korea

2009-03-18T00:02:00.005-04:00

In the early 1990s, a number of Korean hiphop groups and rappers debuted in South Korea, and hiphop music and its culture quickly gained popularity amongst the young generations in Korea. Deux and Seo Taiji and Boys were the two groups known to have initiated this hiphop movement in Korean contemporary popular music. The picture on the left is the hiphop duo Deux (pronounced 'Deuce') in the early 90s. Here is one of the music videos of them from 1995 (I apologize for the bad quality of the video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUfJyX1ejpI

Soon, not only hiphop music but also its fashion as well as that of "Ghetto Culture" became extremely popular in Korea.

Here are some other classic examples that represent the hiphop music of Korea in the 1990s.

*hiphop duo Jinusean's music video (late 1990s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPChIFTopRY

*hiphop duo Drunken Tiger's song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPMD79xu-CA&feature=PlayList&p=E91964BBC2348B7F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6

*Group Roo'Ra's Album cover in 1996:

Brother Ali

2009-03-17T17:38:00.002-04:00

Here's the Hip Hop artist, Brother Ali, that I mentioned in class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Ali

Favorite song by him:
Forest Whitaker

White is Right, right?

2009-03-17T00:04:00.006-04:00

In following up with our discussion on race and ethnicity, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8C5ZnQA08c&feature=PlayList&p=B1D294AC97A3AAFE&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=37

Societies today in general have more or less moved away from racist ideologies of past times. This is not to say that racial issues have been resolved, but rather, we are now more open-minded to the acceptance of all races, and ethnicities, for their culture and physical appearance, and the like. It must be very liberating indeed for all ethnicities and all races.
Black Power. Asian Pride. All people indulge in the food and music of non-white cultures. Ahh, liberating.
Why then, do some Asian women feel they would be more attractive to have larger looking eyes? Why do some women of colour bleach their skin in order to be “lighter”? (Another Tyra segment. Find it on YouTube). Tyra herself in the video admits to wearing a weave. I myself have seen many proud-to-be- Asian women with bleach blond hair, and wearing blue coloured contacts.
It seems society is conflicted. On the one hand, our ethnic differences are celebrated. On the other hand, the celebrations stop when you begin to look less and less … white..(?) Or perhaps, what is celebrated in society is not articulated by popular film and TV, so that every time we watch The Hills, we take a couple of cultural steps back (?) Or maybe regardless of social movements, individual psychologies will always be in a state of conflict with Eurocentric ideologies (?)

.... and i think the most pressing question: do we all have a little bit of M.J. in us??

do we critque racism too much?

2009-03-16T19:07:00.002-04:00

I would like to raise a question about the racism we talked about in class. It is so easily to find racism in many cultural products: Lord of the Ring, King Kong, Crusoe, Tintin...I knew that racism in history have caused holocaust and genocide, so racism is dangerous and has to be get rid of people's mind. However, for those mild and subtle racist residues, what attitude should I have? Is the racism critique going to far?

To clarify, by mild racism, I mean the subtle implication of the superiority of the West and the inferiority of others, as indicated in the films we mentioned in class.

It is very often that those being racialized are unaware of racialization. My elder sister told me that Tintin was quite popular in China as cartoon books in the 1980s, although there are some chapters about Tibet and China, the readers did not protest against it. Instead they liked it very much. According to Fiske, people make meaning for themselves about popular culture. They did not interpret the way the Western audience did. Actually, the Chinese readers easily identified themselves as Tintin, or any other good people in the film. therefore, no problem at all. Another example, I have never heard Chinese or Mongol saying Tolkein's a racist against the Mongol. Or anyone question why the elves all look white instead of yellow.

It is interesting that while the West is self-criticizing racism but those "victims" did not care. Maybe one of the reasons is that they are not sensitive or "educated" enough, and too obsorbed in the plot of the movies. But honestly, who cares? I found out that despite the racist criticism, Robinson Crusoe is still being made into movie in 1997 (Germany) and TV show in 2008 (NBC). I did not watch the whole thing, but I scanned the video on youtube, I did see the portrayal of the primitive Friday.

Many country authorities are wary of imported Hollywood movies because they are seen as cultural imperialism, promoting American value and lifestyle to the world. However, in the individual level, many believe that the supriority of the America over those countries is a fact, especially technologically, and audience naturally gravitate towards the more advanced. Take China as an example again (I grew up in China), the Chinese audience do not think anything wrong about the Hollywood films. Why bother to think about racism since the movies are more pleasurable to watch and more imaginative? If the non-West do not care (I assume), why would the West care about it?

Hindsight Bias Behind Time Travel Plots

2009-03-16T00:16:00.000-04:00

When we discussed the message behind plots where people travel back in time to fix the present but don’t succeed, I got the impression that we settled on an attitude of pessimism as the message. As a class, we seemed to agree that this pessimism stemmed from our recognition that our human race is able to commit extreme atrocities, such as those committed in wars, and hence hope for the future seems bleak. On further thought, I came to an alternate explanation for the message behind such seemingly pessimistic time travel plots. I’m not sure if this is a very psychological take on the issue, but I believe that the notion of “hindsight bias” is responsible for such plots.

Hindsight bias as was defined by Baruch Fischhoff is “an unjustified increase in the perceived probability of an event due to outcome knowledge”. The rationale behind the occurrence of this bias is that once we are aware of an outcome, we settle on causal routes that led to that outcome rather than actively explore alternate routes. In the case of atrocities committed during wars, it is advantageous to our psychological well-being to endorse this bias because it is easier to look back on an unpleasant past thinking it was inevitable rather than thinking we could have done something to prevent it. On the other hand, the creeping in of the hindsight bias may prevent us from recognizing our mistakes (since we perceive the outcome as having been inevitable) and thus lead to the repetition of such mistakes in the future. Therefore, it is wise to be aware of our susceptibility to the hindsight bias to be able to prevent it. The plot lines of many time travel movies seemed to have endorsed this bias. It makes sense given that this line of thinking is appealing to the masses.

Multiculturalism: Colouring Racial Stereotypes on TV

2009-03-04T20:33:00.008-05:00

The question of race has come up in quite a few lectures this semester. Professor Kalmar mentioned that the representation of mixed race people in the media is an expression of the social desire for more race representation. While I do agree with this statement I have yet to resolve the other stronger images of race and racial stereotypes that are found in popular television shows. For me the evident exclusion of people of colour or "ethnic minorities" is more evident than their inclusions. This is particularly obvious in extremely popular shows that depict youth of higher socio-economic status who live care-free lavish lifestyles. There is a multitude of these shows which not only segregate races but also create a false ideal for youth that surrounds money and material possession. I have painstakingly, scounted the websites of shows such as The Hills, The City, 90210, Priviledged, Gossip Girl and The OC and not suprisingly have found that the main characters portrayed in these shows are all white adolescents with the exception of Tristan Wildes from 90210 who is black. To me this suggests that while Eva Longoria does live on Wysteria Lane, a 'white neighbourhood' in Desperate Housewives it seems there is still an interest in portraying white people as the pinacle of superiority, wealth and envy to aspire to. What seems more interesting is how these shows maintain their popularity without any overt criticism in this respect. I can hardly imagine how anyone watching these programs does not notice the under-respresentation of race. Professor Kalmar aptly noted in last weeks lecture that Canadians have not necessarily resolved racial issues but remain polite about them. I strongly believe that racial stereotypes are more than aparent in the media and shows such as the ones noted above continue to reify them. Please share your insights!

Is Multiculturalism Dead in Canada?

2009-03-03T22:47:00.002-05:00

As I was sitting in class today I couldn't help but recall an article that I read in November in the National Post (spare me - I can remember a newspaper article from 4 months ago and yet I can't remember what my chemistry prof was saying tonight in lecture....). Anyways, it's pretty interesting in relation to what we were talking about i.e. what is multiculturalism etc. The author of this article is arguing that multiculturalism is effectively dead in Canada thanks to *drum roll* President Obama of all people.
It's a really quick read and quite thought provoking....

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/11/11/noah-richler-look-to-first-nations-for-canada-s-obama.aspx

Chinese time travel sitcom

2009-03-03T21:37:00.000-05:00

I remember a few years back there was a Chinese sitcom that aired. It takes place around the year 2000 and a man regrets losing his girlfriend/love of his life, who is now married to another man. He was offered a strange job from one of the richest men in Hong Kong. The job was to be sent back in time to take a photo of a famous war, which led to the rise of the Dragon Emperor in the Chin dynasty. The payment was supposed to be that he would get sent back in time before his girlfriend left him so that he could fix his mistakes. Sounds easy right? On the night of the time travel, the machine malfunctioned and he was sent several years back further then intended and his device to carry him back through the time warp was malfunctioning. Thus, he had to live there in ancient times. During his stay he encountered many odd and difficult events, and he became mixed up in royal feuds and in the end helped the Dragon Emperor rise to his throne. When he had the chance to travel through another time warp portal he decided to stay instead because he had fallen in love and decided to live out his life there. This turned out to be actually the way history was supposed to have been played out. The rich man had chosen him precisely because they had unearthed a statue from the Dragon Emperor’s tomb in his exact likeness. It was seen as written in fate that he was suppose to travel back in time to trigger the events and the rise of the Dragon Emperor, the burning of the scrolls and scholars (Chinese historical event) and in the end give birth to the man that would later on over throw the Chin Dynasty (fictional). Thus time travel was depicted as fate and that man cannot control time because it will ultimately fix itself. Time can be seen as a loop that is infinite and flexible ∞, and any changes made in time travel can be described as fate.

Hip-Hop and Rap from the 'Hood to Malibu

2009-02-28T11:27:00.028-05:00

Myer and Kleck's conclusion that Rap and Hip-Hop lyrics changed after indie labels were swallowed up by four dominant corporate media conglomerates is correct. However, their belief that Rap and Hip-Hop music suffers when lyrics featuring profanity, violence, and the glorification of criminal elements in the 'Hood are cleaned up for mass consumption is more complicated. Suggesting yet another example of the corporatization of culture, Myer and Kleck voice disappointment that Rap artists such as 50, Kanye, and Diddy are no longer Rapping obsenities and degrading women in their lyrics, but is this really the genre to be waging war against the evils of capitalism? What about the impact of Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton on the music industry - the former on music in general and the latter on anyone with ears, including animals? While it is true that censorship and its effects on civil liberties in a democracy are of great concern, the implications for corporate Rap and Hip-Hop moguls and their massified lyrics, on the contrary, appear only positive. Consider the economic spinoffs from Diddy's new cologne "I Am King", or Rapper T.I.'s contribution to gun control awareness, having recently missed the BET Awards Show after being arrested on machine gun charges. Ludacris, between downing bottles of champagne and chasing it with cognac at the MTV Music Awards after-party, was quoted as saying "if it wasn't for white people, I wouldn't be selling 2-3 million records."

The commercial success of Diddy inspired a generation of Rap and Hip-Hop artists, many of who were fortunate enough to make the successful transition to corporate mogul as well. Myer and Kleck may also have included the fact that the industry has experienced an influx of new Rappers inspired by the corporate successes of Diddy, 50, and Kayne. The fans who abandoned the new Rap and Hip-Hop moguls for losing street cred only open up space for struggling artists desparate to follow Diddy's path and escape life in the 'Hood. In fact, guys like Diddy have inspired far more Rap artists to dawn shades, a backward ball cap, and some bling for a shot at a corporate record deal. The fact that less than 1% will ever make it still leaves an influx of Rap and Hip-Hop artists into the genre that may never see the inside of an EMI corporate office, but will nonetheless more than satisfy fans seeking songs banned from airplanes and elevators.

However, the issue is not only Rap and Hip-Hop lyrics, but also society as a whole. While it is unlikely that Myer and Kleck reside in the 'Hood, the opportunity for Rap and Hip-Hop artists to be successful any way possible can literally be a matter of life and death. Signing with a corporate music label and cleaning up their lyrics may be for many the only option to not only escape the ghetto, but also for some, a revolving door of crime and incarceration. Every Rapper in the 'Hood has already decided the path they would like to take if given the opportunity. Cleaning up a few nasty lyrics is also a gift to the parents, who can now blast their son's or daughter's music for friends and neighbors. However, the real motivation is collecting a corporate windfall and living the American Dream, not in the 'Hood but in Malibu.

Chasing the Sun

2009-02-14T12:49:00.052-05:00

The American media's insistence that Barack Obama is a clone of Abraham Lincoln will nonetheless inspire more Americans than any other politician since Roosevelt. In fact, Obama's first Address to Congress ended with a crush of autograph-seeking congressmen acting like kids at a Miley Cyrus concert. The most significant sound bite from the Obama speech, however, was his promise to hold Wall Street accountable for their actions. Captain "Sulley" Sullenberger, who many consider a biocybernetic reproduction for landing an airliner on the Hudson River, is even more incredible considering how many financial high flyers, having steamrolled the world economy into the ground, are falling out of the sky over Manhattan. Like pengiuns on an iceburg heading for Maui, millions of investors simply baked in the sun and enjoyed the ride while it lasted.

With the economy in free fall, take the recent example of the hedge fund manager who, after defrauding investors of hundreds of millions and revealed only by a collapsing stock market, set his plane on autopilot and parachuted out in a bid to fake his own death and continue the fraud in another country.

Citigroup received 45 billion in taxpayer bailout money and like out of control lottery winners, went out and bought a 50 million dollar corporate jet. Citi people say the money will not be coming out of government bailout money, but rather shareholder funds now accessible because of government bailout money. Not surprisingly, the CEOs of the Big Three automakers are complaining the loudest, having been forced to trade in their corporate jets for domestic cars.

Consider the CEO of Merrill Lynch, who was handing out billions in bonuses to employees, while at the same time telling the U.S. government that he required an additional 20 billion of federal bailout money to stay afloat. Four billion in bonuses were given out in 2007, and his compensation package alone was worth 83 million for the year. Nonetheless, he still billed the company 1.2 million for renovations to his office while the company was losing billions and laying off thousands of employees.

The CEO of Leyman Brothers, under investigation for fraud and insider trading, "sold" his 50 million dollar Palm Beach mansion to his wife for one dollar to keep it out of the hands of regulators.

In light of the successful landing on the Hudson River, the CEO of American Airlines recently announced that he will equip aircraft flying over water with enough life rafts for all 236 passengers on board. This is up from the 228 they were previously able to accomodate. The CEO decided that in the case of a water landing, too much time would be taken up arguing over which of the 8 extra passengers end up going down with the plane.

Whether historical amnesia or deja vu, ten years from now another stimulus package surpassing the 787 billion of '09 will be chasing another iceburg full of penguins, baking in the sun and heading for Maui. Obama will no longer be in office to rescue colonies but according to the American media, there's always Lincoln.

Paris' BFF Show

2009-02-10T23:34:00.003-05:00

Mtv's fresh reality show where Paris will select from a group of good looking girls, her new BFF! It's fun to see a group of strangers are competing for Paris' adoration. The contestants worship the ground Paris walks on, clearly a true BFF friendship cannot develop from such a relationship. This reminds me of Prof. Kalmar's lecture on celebrity and their auras. I do not believe these girls genuinely want to be Paris' friend if she was not a celebrity (perhaps I'm biased but it seems so). Paris possesses an upper-class aura and lives a glamorous lifestyle and these girls are attracted to that.

Full episodes here:
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/parisbff/videos-full-episodes.jhtml

The Age of Biocybernetics

2009-02-10T01:51:00.006-05:00

In his chapter on biocybernetics, Mitchel links his notion of biocybernetics to Benjamin's mechanical reproduction through his proposition that the former replaces the latter . This triggered some questions for me. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamins contends that mechanical reproductions lack the 'aura' possessed by the original. So, working with Mitchel's proposition, do biocybernetic reproductions really have an aura considering they only look like and sound like the 'original'? Does the reproduction become its own original given its unique posssession of both the characteristics of the orignial and improvements? Perhaps, this latter questions gives rise to the pause/hesitation/consternation in answer to Professor Kalmar's question about whether we would clone ourselves. And, what are the implications of genetic engineering on the politics of recognition and rights. I realize that these question aren't novel. But, if we have actually moved beyond imagining and fantasy and are in fact, as Mitchel claims, in the age of biocybernetics during which we are (re)producing life forms or ways of life/being, for me, these questions move from the philosophical and ethical realm to the realm of immediate empirical relevance.

Ty

Robots and Clones in Battlestar Galactica

2009-02-09T08:39:00.006-05:00

In the Battlestar Galatica (2004) TV series, there are Cylon robots that have been created by humans and have in time evolved into more humanoid biomechanical beings. Of these robots, there are twelve models that multiple Cylons are clones of (for example, the picture below exhibits three different Cylons each modeled number Eight), though it can’t really be said that there is an “original copy”. When any of their bodies are destroyed (or killed), their consciousness can be “downloaded” into another identical looking body, the possibility of which has been imagined and discussed in class, except that they are not humans.

Their very humanistic evolution, however, complicates the suggestion that “in the popular imagination human-like clones and robots represent the limitation of humans as creators of life, in comparison with God or Nature.” This idea is developed in an interesting way with the Cylons’ interest in monotheistic religion. Particularly showcasing this is their attempt to reach the next stage of evolution: God’s notion ‘to be fruitful and multiply’; in other words, to procreate.

The Cylons experiment, but fail. They decide that this is due to the lack of love (‘God is love’) involved, meaning in order to procreate, one of the participants must be human and in love. They manage to get a human to fall in love with one of them, he believing her to be a human woman (she’s actually a Cylon) that he previously knew and is friends with (she’s actually a different model). Remarkably, this female Cylon falls in love with him as well, or at least says what she thinks she feels is “real”. Other humans react negatively to this union at first, but gradually accept her as one of their own. She eventually has (gives birth to? produces?) a human-Cylon hybrid baby whose existence complicates human-Cylon relations and interests within the show. The situation also brings up the abstract ideas of free will and emotion previously thought to distinguish between humans and any of their limited creations. In this case, not only do the physical and non-physical boundaries become blurred, but they are intersected with the birth of this hybrid baby.

I’m not doing enough justice to the complexity of the Cylon-human history and development in Battlestar Galactica, but it’s one that questions and explores species identity, the significance of the image, and the relation between human lives and human arts/technology (the link between creator and creation) as discussed in Mitchell’s chapter on biocybernetic reproduction.

Personal Identity, Clones, etc.

2009-02-06T21:07:00.002-05:00

For anyone who found the question of whether you would let yourself be vaporized in order to have a superior copy of yourself come into being as continually perplexing and intriguing as I do, Daniel Dennett's "Where Am I?" succeeds at making it still more perplexing: http://www.newbanner.com/SecHumSCM/WhereAmI.html

"Couple Loves Cloned Best Friend"

2009-02-06T20:00:00.002-05:00

The discussion in class over the past couple of days about clones has been somewhat mind boggling to me. Not because I don't get it...I do (especially coming from a science background) but the proposal that Prof Kalmar presents us with (would you get a clone if you had to die immediately after it was made) doesn't appeal to me...and I don't see how it can appeal to anyone else. What did we just spend all last semester discussing? The art of replication, the 'aura', the Other, the Real etc. Well if you have a clone, no matter how much it looks like you and represents you, it's not you. The aura about you as a person is gone. Maybe others around you wouldn't know the difference but you would - subconciously, consciously, whatever...you would know. This replication of you has destroyed the aura, intruded on the Real and created an Other. The scary part is, as was mentioned in class, is what if we are all clones. What if we are being manipulated by some Other...but now we have to get into the idea of life on other planets, in other galaxies etc and to me, THAT is more frightening then clones.

Anyways, during my ultramode of procrastination I came accross this article from CNN which was published today about a couple who spent over $150,000 bucks to have their DOG cloned! (yes, there are SIX figures there) The best part of the article is the name of the pooch. Lancelot was the name of their old dog...lancelot ENCORE is the name of the clone. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. However, aside from the name, that's where this story ends in brilliance (and of course the science but that's unimportant right now). They say they got their beloved yellow lab cloned (they had his DNA extracted five years ago when they found out this could be a possibility...great, give the dog a death timeline). So when lancelot died, a San Fran biotech company cloned their dog's DNA (in Korea). "Lancy" as they "affectionately" call him is apparently everything like lancy sr. Well except for the fact that he is a CLONE! How can you look at something that you know is not the real thing and pretend like it is?! When I read this story this is what it elicits in my mind.... lancy=clone=fake=robot=aluminum dog with controls, wires, short circuits, computer parts etc.

I just don't get it, do you? thoughts?...check it out for yourself. (The $150,000 still blows my mind)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/06/cloned.puppy/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

High and Low vs. North and South

2009-02-06T19:16:00.004-05:00

The compass in Chinese is pronounced zhi nan zhen. It literally means "a needle that points south". Not a big deal, I suppose: any straight rod that points North at one end would naturally point South at the other.

But it got me thinking. We follow European tradition with map-drawing: on two dimentional paper, North is "up" by default and South "down. Today we still say to travel "up North" or "down South". So if we extend the High and Low viewpoint to the world map, North is high, and South is low. With respect to Europe, pretty much every single country is south of them, and more south means nearer to the Equator. It is a sad fact that even today, the darker your skin is, the more racial prejudice you encounter.
Of course, it's not an excuse for racism. Katherine Hepburn puts it best in the classic 1967 film Guess Who's Coming for Dinner?

"We told her it was wrong to believe that white people were somehow essentially superior to black people. Or the brown or the red or the yellow ones, for that matter. People who thought that way were wrong to think that way. Sometimes hateful, usually stupid, but always wrong."

Post-modernism and the Penis

2009-02-02T19:34:00.003-05:00

All this talk about the erect penis! I just couldn't help myself but to respond. I kid, but in all seriousness, I do have some thoughts. I'd have to disagree partially to what the previous blog writer has said (no offense) in that the erect penis is always pornography and not art. I do agree with pushing the envelope and making ourselves question what we consider to be art or porn, but isn't the gray area simply to broad to distinguish? I took an Ethnomusicology class on my abroad program in NZ. The professor, the first day, made us distinguish between what we considered was music or noise. The answer we came to was, it's all relative. If there is anything I have learned about being an Anthropology major is that some things are true some of the time and more over, cultural relativity plays a significant role in matters such as these. What one considers to be noise could very well be music to another. This goes for art as well. As someone once said (forgive me for I forget who), "the only difference between erotica and porn is the lighting." In a society such as ours, that of liberal capitalist, the omniprescent phallus need not prove its importance.

I also want to extend this to the fact that an image of the erect penis is the exact opposite of post-modern art or post-modern advertising. This image is anything but all encompassing or absorbing leaving no room for analysis or critique. It is a very explicit image that signifies anything but passivity- it is de facto active. There are no questions about what an erect penis means or why one is viewing it in such a way. It is obvious, harsh, anything but subtle. Regardless of one views of the erect penis as art or porn one cannot deny what it is that is being bought/sold, communicated/advertised, etc. Maybe this is also a reason as to why this kind of image is simply not applicable to the post-modern era.

Offensive Images and Offensive Art.

2009-02-01T12:56:00.003-05:00

I feel this post would have been better placed directly following the lecture on offensive images as it relates directly to the lecture and a thought provoked by it. Alas, time is rarely on my side it seems. So here it is now...

When it comes to what we find most offensive (the penis) I think that Prof. Kalmar is probably quite close to the truth. The truth it seems rests in mass culture as was discussed. The Erect penis is almost completely absent, except for it seems in art. And this brings me to my thoughts from class. I felt that though I agree in theory that the penis is offensive in popular culture the representation of this in class was lacking. I undertstand why showing true pornography is perhaps uncomfortable for some, but I think when the alternative is works of "art" the impact of said offensive phallocentric object is lost on the audience.

Looking at Mapplethorpe's Penis/Gun piece I see only a work of art, especially because I have been told it is a work of art. I feel that as soon as we are told something is art it is normalized and more readily processed by our brains. The offensiveness of the erect penis and gun is washed away and we are left simply with "artistic" objects. One might argue that to some the image of the penis is "gross" or "repulsive" but I'm not so sure these characterizations necessarily coincide with "offensive".. a different gut reaction is produced. Repulsion can create a need to turn away because of fear though I think this is ultimately a temporary or a gut insitinct. I use this piece by H.R Giger (the famed artist responsible for the "alien" of hollywood notoriety) to illustrate that point (refer to image at the top). I have a feeling though this point may raise some arguments. "Offensive" images remain offensive in my thinking, particularly because offensive sexual images remind us of our own baser instincts that have no place in civilized society. But again the art object is different! It implies a different way of SEEING.

One needs only to look at the success of Nuit Blanche in Toronto to see the effect of calling something "art" and resituating its status. Duchamp knew this, Andy Warhol knew this too. I have seen this in my own personal experience as an artist/musician... the "band" robocopp (my "band") performs horrendous shows or performances where the subtle line between what is offensive or good and bad abject and horrible is tested all the while making use of a whole range of popular culture items. This is achieved both visually and sonically through gore and violence and horrible sounding music. But fundamentally at the end of a performance no matter how bad we've been we receive applause and kudos for performing such seemingly groundbreaking of an artistic endeavor.

So I'm suggesting here that to get a real appreciation for the shocking effect of the Penis Erect one needs to witness it as pornography, because pornography cannot seem to create itself as art, at least not without some undesired ironic effect. However I'd argue that in a hypothetical sitiuation an artist could remove pornography from its context through pastiche, as Duchamp removed the urinal, and make it art. Haven't seen this yet but I expect at some point it will happen, if it hasn't already.

A few more thoughts on taboo…

2009-02-01T10:57:00.004-05:00

I am still a bit perplexed as to our understanding of why the penis is so taboo in western societies, why it is not to be represented. To be fair, Professor Kalmar makes the argument that it is not seen in soft porn, and although my repertoire of viewed soft porn is somewhat limited (I swear), I'm pretty sure that soft porn does not show outright images of vaginas or anuses, either. It was that thought led me to another: in a way, the penis is a organ that crosses the line between external and internal – it is just there, out in the open. We don't need a 'close up' to see it as we would with the analogous female organs.

Is this transgression part of the root of the penis taboo? I am taking a structuralist perpective here, one that follows a line of argument by Edmund Leach (expanding on a hypothesis by Mary Douglas). Leach notes than humans not only create classificatory systems involving, at the root, binary oppositions, but that we also avoid or taboo those things that fall on the boundaries between categories or names. In essence, we taboo those things that remain ambiguous and, I suppose, threaten the efficacy of our symbolic order.

Leach illustrates his point by noting Western taboos of meat consumption – that we don’t eat animals that cross various boundaries (reptiles and amphibians: land-sea, most birds that also swim: land-air-sea etc). This takes me to my point: the penis, in western culture, transgresses all kinds of common binary oppositions; it simultanously attracts and repels, elicits fear and fascination. I don’t disagree with the interpretation provided in class, that part of the erotic attraction/repulsion derives from the projections of upper class notions upon the lower body and its connection to the lower class, but I wonder if thinking in terms of the key oppositions embedded in the penis as sign might provide a complemetary understanding: it not only transgresses the external/internal, but life/death (gives life/takes life), benevolant/malevolent, nature/agency, drive/desire, and so on.

This view of taboo might also provide an understanding of why other items, specifically excrement, urine, mentrual blood, and saliva, are tabooed: they cross that line between belonging to the self/not the self. Perhaps the penis also can fit in the gradient between the self/not self category, as, in a way, it tends to 'have a mind of its own'.

Alright, that's enough penis talk for me today. Any thoughts?

Romance: Something Classic or Something Created?

2009-01-24T23:27:00.006-05:00

In a world where we are given a multitude of choice including, but limited to; how we want our coffee at Starbucks, a cereal isle filled with everything from Lucky Charms to organic, no sugar added granola, to the time of day we want to watch a T.V. show or movie (thanks to TiVo), how is it possible to define romance as being classic?

Romance is so subjective that some people may gag at the thought of roses and a candlelit dinner, while others may swoon. Looking at romance novels, it is certain that there are some common themes in the fictional world of romance. Is this what defines classic romance? Sexual interactions that, in the real world, would be considered rape. Men consistently exerting their physical power over women. The desire to "tame" someone. In a realm outside of the romance novel, these things would be seen as misogynistic and archaic. How is it then, that romance novels are so popular? They are a way in which to live vicariously, free from the constraints that are put upon us by society.

The idea of romance seems to be something that has been created and perpetuated in society. We don't need romance to survive, it is not crucial to our being. You can have love without romance, but being romantic is what seems to help someone fall in love. It is still not a need. I don't think our ancestors were worried about being romantic when they were still living in caves, yet the species seems to have survived.

The question of classic romance being alive today cannot truly be answered. If romance is an idea which has been created, can it be considered classic? Is classic romance like that found in Casablanca? Rick puts Isla on the plane and then leaves her. That's not very "romantic", but this film has been dubbed a romantic classic. Or is classic romance the kind that is seen in Romeo and Juliet? All consuming, worth giving up everything to the point where they both end up dead. Yet another unhappy ending for the "greatest love story of all time".

Perhaps romance means avoiding looking at the end result. I imagine that everyone has experienced romance in a relationship, but we've also had those same relationships end. If not, we'd all still be with the first person who seemed to fit our personal idea of being romantic. Romance does still exist today, but whether or not it is classic romance is left to the discretion of the person being wooed.

Classic Romance: No page with that title exists.

2009-01-16T23:34:00.000-05:00

"Is the classic romance still alive today?"
What IS classic romance? This is what I found myself asking as I read this weeks blog topic. I actually couldn't come up with my own definition or understanding of 'classic romance'. So, naturally, off I went to search it up on good ol' wiki...wikipedia that is. I typed in 'classic romance' hit search and this is the message I get, "We're sorry, but no page with that title exists". Now I'm stumped. How does one define classic romance? How does one define romance - period? Doesn't romance mean something different to every person? What's romantic to me definitely isn't romantic to past boyfriends (key word: past). So if wikipedia can define classic romance for me then the millions of subscribers to youtube should be able to...right? Well, after searching (yet again) 'classic romance' on youtube this video, of all the videos in the world, was the first hit.

You tell me, is THIS classic romance? (click the link...seriously, you don't want to miss this)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840B27zYfOk&feature=PlayList&p=BA1677255D40C15C&index=0&playnext=1

"I Want You"

2009-01-09T13:02:00.002-05:00

A clip from the movie Across the Universe portrays the Beatles' I Want You (She's So Heavy) and takes the question "What do pictures want?" to a whoooole new level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwB8QiKWodk

Paris Hilton's My New BFF

2009-01-08T22:34:00.003-05:00

Oh lordy.

What Would You Do?

2009-01-06T22:36:00.003-05:00

I just finished watching a show called "What Would You Do?". It's basically just a hidden camera show where unknowing people are placed in a staged situation and their reactions or inactions are caught on camera. A segment that really got my attention was regarding racism against Mexican migrant workers in the United States. An actor was hired to play a cashier at a eatery and 2 Mexican actors would walk in and attempt to order coffee and sandwiches in Spanish. The cashier would respond with really racist comments like "Go learn some English and come back" or "Go to Taco Bell where they speak Mexican". His job was just to be as rude, racist and ignorant as possible and see what the other patrons would do.

There were of course people who stood up for the workers, but there were also people who just stood by and didn't do anything, even when the guys were pleading to them for help. What really shocked and angered me was that there were people, who actually took the side of the cashier. According to the show, 9 out of the 88 patrons did just that. They made comments, and these aren't staged, such as "I couldn't agree with you more, it's house cleaning time" and they would help the cashier to tell the guys to leave, one man even threatened to physically take them out. After, when the camera crew would come out, some recanted their comments and made it seem like that they didn't really mean what they said, or that they were only directing these comments at illegal immigrants, as if that would make it ok. There were others, however, who blatantly admitted that they did not want these migrant workers in the United States, and that they were "stealing our jobs". When one man was confronted and asked whether he thought whether that was racist, he said yes, but still thought that refusing to serve the Mexican men was the right thing to do.

I just couldn't believe what I saw, I mean, I know that racism still exists, but seeing it concentrated and out in the open like that, it was still surreal. Mexicans, and Spanish speaking people are being tossed into one undesirable category by these people. They automatically assumed that a non-English speaking Mexican person must be an illegal immigrant, and that they have no right to be here and don't deserve to be treated like a fellow human being. It simply blows my mind.

I don't know what these people are thinking, but if it were me in that situation, I probably would have gone off at the cashier.

The Sad State of Celebrity and other thoughts

2009-01-06T12:35:00.007-05:00

I find it a little bit ironic that after struggling through all of the first semester to find something blogworthy, a couple of hours of watching CTV in December and a return to class has infused me with an abundance of inspiration... so without further ado:

Today's repeated referencing of Paris Hilton reminded me of a series of conversations I had during the break when it was brought to my friends' attention that I had never heard of Kim Kardashian. To my bemusement, they attempted to explain to me that very much like Paris Hilton, she was famous for, well, nothing, other than being rich. More research revealed the similarities between them to be dizzying.

So my first instinct was to theorize that in our modern day culture, high class alone had become a reason for fame. As we'd learned earlier in the course the middle class often strives to become high class, and this had clearly reached a level of desperation to the point where anybody rich was worth 'worshipping' to a level that enabled them to become even more rich by making otherwise vapid television shows feasible (see The Simple Life, Keeping Up with the Kardashians)

However, as Professor Kalmar is quick to point out one of the most 'appealing' (for lack of a better word) factors about Paris Hilton is the fact that she is vulgar and unrefined, whereas the opposite is usually expected of someone in her economic position. For someone who is in almost all respects 'Old Money' her behaviour can be seen as absurd.

Further inquiry and conversation lead me to the following options to the source of her appeal/fame:
1) She epitomizes consumption but does not have the behaviour that explicitly associates her with the high class. Like it was stated today in class she appeals to that instinct, perhaps even subconsciously - "she has whatever she wants but she's effectively trash - i'm better than her, therefore I could easily find myself in her position or better"
2) She is (pardon my brashness in the following paragraph) a manifestation of the carnivalesque. I mentioned previously her vulgarity. I noticed a lot of people who followed her were in shock and awe that someone so devoid of talent and charisma (at least in it's classical sense, denoting charm. It's undeniable that she has the ability to attract people) could indeed get whatever she wanted.
This was also reinforced by one of my friends who claimed she admired Anna Nicole Smith (prior to her death) because despite being trailer trash she had 'made it', even through questionable means.

Whichever way you look at it, two things are clear to me. The middle class is 1) striving to be high class through enabling these class-less people to reach celebrity status; 2) engaged in some sort of bizarre spectacle that, like a television show or a sporting event allows for conversation and in some cases heated discussion.
Sad as it may sound, Paris Hilton and other trashy celebrities may indeed be bringing people closer together, be it through shared admiration, indignation, or a mixture of both.

Before I ramble on much longer, other CTV induced thoughts:

So You Think You Can Dance: Take something traditionally associated with high culture, add flashing lights, drama, and seemingly ordinary people... voila! High culture into pop culture, but perhaps more rare, pop culture being educational? Fascinating.

Barbara Walters: This TV personality arbitrarily selects a list of the 10 most fascinating people of the past year every year. Take a look at her previous lists and it becomes clear that no one without celebrity status makes the list, and that many of these people disappear from the public eye. Hell, even Siegfried and Roy made the list a couple of years ago for being mauled by a tiger.
Disposable celebrities?

The Whopper Virgins

2008-12-22T22:47:00.005-05:00

www.whoppervirgins.com

This is a documentary made as an advertisement for Burger King. The idea is that the BK people are going in to cultures that are so separated from American culture that they've never heard of a hamburger and seeing if they like Whoppers or Big Macs better. They call it "the world's purest taste test". I'm still not quite sure what to make of it but it's pretty damn interesting. Teasers for the documentary have been running as 15 and 30 second spots on American TV.

Has Obama quit smoking?

2008-12-12T15:57:00.003-05:00

I can't think of any celebrity in recent memory, or anyone else, where the question of whether he's quit smoking or not, is considered something newsworthy. Can you?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_first_smoker

nothing from nothing....

2008-12-01T21:50:00.000-05:00

Animals and the Real

2008-11-26T00:00:00.001-05:00

I’ve been trying to connect notions of Zizek/Lacanian Real/reality in some way to what I’m learning in my animal cognition seminar. Essentially, the main theme in the seminar is whether or not animals have theory of mind – are they able to attribute intentions in other individuals, are they able to take their perspective, know what they think, etc. This sparked a huge debate between two main schools of thought. On one hand, the behaviourists have trouble accepting that animals may exhibit any semblance of theory of mind. On the other, the 'mentalists' believe that the easiest way to explain animal behaviour is that they are indeed able to 'get into the minds' of other animals. Seemingly deceptive behaviour may illustrate this distinction. Male baboons are known to do much of the hunting for meat, and do not typically share. One female edged up to the male, and groomed him until he laid down on the ground, at which point she grabbed his antelope carcass and ran. Mentalists would suggest that the female baboon had a clear intention to deceive the male, that she meant to 'mislead' the male. However, behaviourists would name many other alternatives. It could've been a coincidence that she was grooming him, then grabbed the carcass after noticing it. More likely, she had some prior associative learning where she may have had multiple attempts to steal food disregarding the conspecific's posture (so she most likely failed on these attempts). Then finally by chance, she succeeded in stealing food when the other baboon was lying down. She could've formed an associative relation between snatching food and award, which is most likely activated by the sight of an animal that is lying down on the ground.

I think I've gone a bit off topic. But the key points of interest here are the motivations behind these two intellectual groups. Is this an example of a group of people, the behaviourists, being fascinated by the Real? Are animals, to them, objet petit a? Perhaps they are so devoted to their research because of a suspicion that underneath it all, we are exactly like animals. Their desires may be coordinated by the Real, such that they want to return to the Real stage where we are 'at one' with the world, where we are ultimately the same as animals, where 'ultimate happiness' may be, like for the baboon, simply a matter of finding a piece of meat. At the same time though, this notion may be terrifying. The possibility that we are merely automatons, without intention, may be what is driving the mentalists to seek out evidence that animals have theory of mind.

This is starting to sound overly speculative and I may be misapplying the concepts here...so please feel free to add anything or to correct me.

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

2008-11-25T22:37:00.002-05:00

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty began to help young girls increase their self esteem and overcome the delusional ideas they have of “real beauty”. These ideas have for years been a result of the media and the influence it has had on our perception of what or who is considered beautiful. I’m sure most of you have seen the Dove Evolution film, either on TV or YouTube. If not, enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Putting loads of makeup on someone, taking their picture, and photoshopping it to the point where the person is almost unrecognizable is an example of hyperreality. In fact, almost all pictures we see on TV and in magazines are examples of hyperreality. These images are a combination of reality and fiction. Reality being the fact that an actual person is used in the picture. However, that person is altered to look “far more beautiful”, which is what causes the image to be somewhat fictional. The people we see in the final results do not really look like that in reality, yet we do not consciously distinguish between the two.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the Dove Evolution Parody in the related videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-kSZsvBY-A&feature=related
Although the complete opposite message is being portrayed in this video, ("Thank God our perception of real life is distorted”), this again is another example of hyperreality.

Are these baby dolls cute or creepy?

2008-11-25T20:20:00.004-05:00

Before leaving for class today I happened to glance at the front page of the Toronto Star and what I saw was on the border between interesting and disturbing. It was a picture of seven babies, only two of which are real, the others 'reborns' or extremely lifelike dolls.

This is a perfect example of Baudrillard's first level of simulacra. The baby dolls are definitely a fake or counterfeit version to real babies. Reading the article the artist brings up an instance of a special request for an infant to be made in memory of a 30-year-old daughter who had died and for some of her ashes to be put inside to represent her heart. I wonder if wanting the doll to not only look real but to actually represent something very real such as a lost child or in place of a baby for whatever reason make these items of the second simulacra? It was brought up in lecture that robots having human emotions and desires could make it of the second level but we did not go too indepth becuase of the trickiness of it...is it possible to apply that simulacra to the item in this way?

Personally the dolls kind of scare me...

The Loss of "Aura" in Music

2008-11-25T20:06:00.003-05:00

In the article, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin asserts that the reproduction of art using new mechanical techniques changes its impact upon the general public. No longer is art as authentic as it once was because it has been made so accessible through copies. He describes this change as the lost of “aura.” He uses the term to describe the feeling of admiration people experience when viewing the most unique and genuine works of art in person. Benjamin also poses that mechanical reproduction has led to a lost of rituals associated with viewing a unique work of art at it’s cite of origin.

Although music CDs and vinyl are reproduced in mass quantities today, I still believe that owning an original or rare record still holds some type of auricle value in my books. With the popularity of the iPod and new mp3 music storage devices it seems that rare and less accessible music has lost some of that appeal. For example, anyone may now be able to listen to a rare Beatles B-side by downloading off the internet.

In addition, listening to an iPod changes the ritual in which personal musical devices had once offered. For example, the LP record and the tape forced people to rise up from their seats and interact with a stereo if they wanted to skip forward to another song. Moreover, the CD, the tape and the LP also forced a person to listen to a music compilation in a directional order prescribed by the artist. But with the iPod’s shuffle mode, this directional order is no longer necessary.

Although Benjamin’s writing applies to those works of art exclusive to the upper class and bourgeois, I believe that his theory still applies in modern times. A record, a tape and a CD all have a physical presence. They are packaged in a case that contains art work, lyrics, photos and music. Traditionally, music has always been something that one can grasp and take ownership over. And when it is purchased a consumer’s money is exchanged for something concrete. The iPod and its usage of the MP3 file, has transformed that sensation into something almost imaginary and has led to a lost of aura in my opinion.

MP3 files are just data, metadata and a thumbnail and may only become physical when they are burned on to a CD. These files therefore become emotionally less significant to a listener because it is harder to set emotional value to something that one cannot physically grasp. In a sense, the iPod has dematerialized music because its popularity has encouraged the use of digital audio.

By: Joseph Minichini

Caricature: "Fake" Replica

2008-11-25T19:59:00.001-05:00

In last week's lecture, we discussed about the Simulacrum. In lecture, we learned that the Simulacrum is a fake replica, replacing a real thing, and the "fake" Moraco in Disney World was given as an example.I wanted to discuss more about the Simulacrum and wanted to look for other examples.

In my dictionary, Simulacrum is defined as: "something that looks like somebody/something else or that is made to look like somebody/something else"

Therefore, I came up with a caricature as the perfect example for Simulacrum because the caricature is "fake" replica of one individual's face. It is not a real face, but the sketch is filled with one individual's detailed facial features, replacing a real face.

Wikipedia defines Caricature as:"either a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness, or in literature, a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others"

When an artist start to sketch a caricature of one person, a random observer might find it quite difficult to identify and match the sketch with the actual face. The sketch might look pretty similar and resemble to anybody. However, as a caricaturist start to exggerate the face features and emphasize more details then the actual face, the observers find much easier to catch those details and they are able to identify the subject, although the caricature has much less resemblance to the actual face of the subject.

Take a look at the caricature I attached above. We right away know it is Einstein. It is not the actual photograph of Einstein, but with the exggerated details of his face, we can immediately guess it is Einstein.

Barack Obama and the current financial crisis in the U.S.: He is not a superman

2008-11-25T19:30:00.006-05:00

　　　The United States is facing a huge financial crisis these days. This is a serious issue not only in the U.S. but also all around the world since the United States is the most powerful and the leading economic force in the world, and thus affects the foreign currency and trading markets.

　　　The World’s greatest concern today is how the President-elect Barack Obama will tide over the present recession. It was announced that the Obama government will unfold a large-scale market maintenance policy. The basis of Obama’s economy policy is focused on increasing the quality of the life of working class who takes up the majority of American society. The Obama government is planning to reduce tax for the low-income group while raising the tax for the high-income group, and to create millions of new job positions because the unemployment rate is expected to increase in next year.

　　　However, my opinion is that even though the regime is going to be changed very soon, it will not make a noticeable difference in terms of the economy and finance situation of the U.S.. Beside the fact that he is to be the first black president in the history of the United States, what makes him particular is that people expect on him to be a special person who can solve this current crisis. Although he is proposing many new policies in order to overcome this situation, the thing is that he will not be able to make much difference.

　　　This is because the problem going on today will not be solved that simply. According to my research, stagnation of the real estate causes the banks, which lent or invested their money, to fall down. As the banks become fragile, the family buget also becomes weak, and it causes the decrease in consumption. Thus, corporations will collapse because of depression in selling. This credit loss of banks should be revived by giving a huge amount of money to the banks. Therefore, the nation's money will be tied to the banks and the U.S. will suffer extreme depression even more.

　　　My conclusion is that it is impossible to expect Obama to solve the financial crisis in a short-term period. His new policies don't seem to succeed and the class struggle in the U.S. will get more severe. He cannnot make any immediate changes and we should not expect too much on him. He is not a superman.

An Absolut World

2008-11-25T19:18:00.002-05:00

Absolut Vodka is famous for its humorous and unique ads that try to reach to its consumers in a very clever and creative way. The designs created for the bottle try to create an “absolute” reality or fantasy for its target market. In this particular ad that has caught my eye many times in magazines represents an “absolute” world for women, where men are the ones who would have to suffer the pains and realities of pregnancy. You can see why I liked this ad.
Browsing at a couple of other Absolut prints there was an obvious trend. The designs and messages on the bottle are different on every advertisement playing on two different realities: the real and the “Absolute” real. Baudrillard’s “hyperreal” can be expressed in these images used as simulations of actual objects or things in real life that are digitally skewed to create a satirical picture incorporating in some way or the other, the desires and fantasies of the target audience. Specifically, the ad I chose presents to the audience something that simulates a world that cannot exist and the awareness to this impossibility may at the same time make this ad so effective in reaching the targeted consumer. These funny and clever print ads produced by Absolut make good use of “enhanced reality” through digital modification to produce a connection with its target audience. It is ironic since they deliberately distort “real” images to sell their product and twist them to make them so acceptable and entertaining to look at.

Sushi and (my lack thereof) Cultural Capital

2008-11-25T18:42:00.005-05:00

A few of my friends took me out a few weeks ago for some “real” “authentic” sushi, which besides being an absolutely amazing (and delicious) experience, I also found it to be pretty surprising. I actually felt a little uncomfortable while I was there which I didn't anticipate, especially considering I am pretty food neophilic, so I began to question why was it that I was feeling rather out of place beyond my initial “it just must be that I am trying something new” instinctual reaction that I had. I starting thinking that I had taken for granted my knowledge, my cultural capital, of the rules governing how to eat in Canadian contemporary culture and reflected upon how the ways in which one eats, what one eats, the table mannerisms surrounding how one eats or even the very contrast between whether one uses a table and cutlery or not reveals the great power behind discourses on food and its symbolic use in both differentiating oneself from others as well its use as a means to identify with others in order to belong to a particular group (for example, to a class, ethnicity or religion). Even while writing this, I realize that what I wrote above regarding my attitude towards trying new types of food is really a means of using food and my relationship to it to define my “self” and thus a way of individuating myself from others, which I did not really think about while I was typing it initially.

But, going back to my first “real” sushi experience, what I had noticed during my lunch hour was that I clearly was not familiar with the “rules” of sushi eating and that a change from my usual methodology of eating (as in from a fork and a knife to chopsticks) as well as a change in the context in which I was eating (from say a Western restaurant for instance to a sushi bar) was making the underlying power of food and the social rules surrounding it quite apparent to me. I was really struggling to use chopsticks (which my friends used with such ease that it was really kind of frustrating) and about midway through our meal my friends had to go get me a fork and a knife because I was “eating way too slowly” since I was pretty unsuccessful at getting the food to my mouth that is. Although it was pretty funny to us how poorly I was using the chopsticks, when my friend did go ask the server for some cutlery the servers reaction was sort of a combination of a frown and head shake and the fact that she had to search a bit for some alternative eating utensils really made it apparent that in this context I was clearly using an “improper” and perhaps less “sophisticated” method of eating. I did notice here how variable the signification of what you eat with is – i.e., the use of chopsticks in a Western context previously has been considered as an “uncivilized” means of eating or in the very least as unusual and could look pretty funny at say a fast food restaurant for instance. However, in the context of a sushi bar the signification of the same signifier, the chopsticks, changed from being an “improper” means of eating to the more “proper”, “elite” and even more “civilized” method of eating where the inability to appropriately use them is, well not necessarily “bad” behavior, but certainly not looked upon favourably.

Although food is a very complex indicator of many facets of contemporary culture this really showed me that beyond eating as a means for survival a very complex language exists underlying food and its uses that we often just take as common knowledge and conform to automatically without really thinking about it. This language is neither always explicitly stated nor obvious but it is pretty interesting to really feel how the rules we learn regarding food and proper eating etiquette are really quite influential in directing our behavior which I found especially evident to me in my experience in not being equip with the necessary cultural capital to behave in a "proper" manner at the sushi bar.

An aside note though, my friends told me that only men were allowed to make sushi since women are considered bad sushi makers because their hands are warmer (although I’m not really sure why that makes sushi bad?). I was just interested if anyone knows whether or not this would have any implications, i.e., is the role of the sushi maker revered or not?

The Label: "Brand New Girl" in South Korea

2008-11-25T18:21:00.003-05:00

I was reading one of our classmates' post about Shopping in Seoul, and this girl In-Young Seo came up on my mind immediately. She is a popular Korean singer who created the image or the label of a "Brand-New Girl." She publicly said that she likes to shop things that are "new arrivals" even before anybody buys it, and she does not like to buy things that are classic that everybody has. Then girls in middle class (as mentioned in Shopping in Seoul, this group of people are very much enthusiastic and followers) immediately copied her, of course in their own way. In addition, Korean media started advertising using the term "brand-new girl" in their ads. This particular picture is an ad from Maybelline New York, and its CEO is happy that using the term and image of In-Young increased the profit very much. It makes sense that the profit increased because Maybelline brand is suitable in terms of budget for these girls.

There are also middle class people who criticize this popular culture. However, they themselves are unconsciously following the practice, and want to become like her and have things that she has. So these people would often buy, for example, immitated shoes that she once wore at the show program. So I thought of Fiske's theory that popular culture is tasteless. Unlike the girls in upper class, these middle class girls follow whatever in the popular culture, in this particular example, to become a "brand-new girl."

Even when broke, financial security is yours if you are willing...

2008-11-25T16:27:00.006-05:00

Okay, so I was thinking about double articulation after our tutorial today. And, I wondered if 'sound bites' or slogans could also serve as double articulation. In tutorial, we deconstructed TD Bank's green armchair. This had me thinking about Scotia Bank's new slogan "You're richer than you think." I find the slogan suggests that ones ability to save or have 'more' money is a matter of perception and that saving money is simply a matter of agency and creative or strategic money managment. In applying Barthes double articulation, the words "richer" and "think" is the signify 'the possiblity of more' and 'able to rethink' or 'view circumstance differently.' Together they signify the myth of financial success through personal agency and ingenuity. The slogan obfuscates or exnominates the economic variables and principles that impact ones life such as competition, free and global markets, wages, and cost of living.

Ty

Sim City

2008-11-25T08:45:00.002-05:00

Las Vegas, Nevada is a city of simulacra. Why go all the way to Egypt, when you can simply go to Las Vegas?

The gambling capital of the world specializes in simulation. Each casino on the famous strip presents a different themed environment, recreated like an adult Disney World to provide a simulated experience of fantasy and wonder. The Luxor Hotel impossibly transports us in space and time, back to ancient Egypt. It allows us to step into a pyramid, to meet a Pharaoh in person, and to unravel the mysteries of this ancient culture. You can travel down the Nile without leaving your hotel. A motion simulator disguised as an elevator uses film images and special effects to create the illusion that participants are plunging into an archeological dig of a pre-Egyptian civilization, 1,000 feet below the the earth. Another simulator then makes it appear that they are flying back to the surface, dodging particle beams and other dangers along the way. Luxor uses all these special-effects in an attempt to elicit the unknowable mysteries that have always been attached to ancient Egypt, of transcending the mundane world and knowing what cannot be told. But the Luxor casino merely simulates magic and mysticism; in the end, the only mysteries it has to offer are special effects provided by technology. According to wikipedia, The Luxor is seen as one of the best examples of 1990s Postmodern architecture, and it was featured on the cover of renowned architecture scholar James Steele's book Architecture Today.

By Juliana Vegh

The clash of a working class culture and the bourgeois in small town Ontario

2008-11-25T03:37:00.001-05:00

A recent visit to my parents’ small lakeside town, just north of Toronto, and its’ local bar reminded me of our lecture discussion on class and culture (though that’s quite a few weeks ago now), and the question of whether the working class have a culture and if that culture is disappearing.

Most of the 5000 residents in the town are either retired or work physical labour jobs – and from one step into the only local bar, it’s not difficult to perceive what some may imagine as the stereotypical image of the working class. Most of the people drinking are regulars; beer is the drink of choice; $200 black heels (as seen on every other club going girl in Toronto) are replaced by work boots; while pool and cigarettes are the game and distraction of choice. A hint of an untraceable accent can by heard in most of their voices that which can only be compared to the American “hillbilly” drawl. It is certainly not Toronto’s entertainment district, or what you might describe as “classy” or of bourgeois taste, but it is the culture of the largely working class town.

This might suggest to some that although the working class culture may seem to have disappeared almost entirely in the cities, it may still lay stagnant in Ontario’s small towns. This would be easy to argue if I hadn’t also observed the transformation of this town over the past few years in a process of embourgeoisement that Barthes would have despised.

As stagnant as some elements of the working class culture seem to have remained in the town, it has just as quickly and readily adopted elements into the town that are distinctly prestigious, exclusive, fashionable – as a very bourgeois reflection and often very direct result of the wealthy and middle to upper-class tourists and summer residents who flock to the town in the summer months. As far as I can perceive, there has been very little resistance to the sudden eruption of expensive spas, gourmet coffee shops, and boutiques which have replaced family-run shops and the like – despite the fact that most of the locals in the town don’t have the expendable income to afford these places. In fact, there seems to have been no resistance at all, aside from a few overheard remarks from older residents resentful of the too-sudden changes.

It seems to me to be a clear example of the demise of the working class, and very much so an example of the bourgeois imposing their culture on the lower classes. Afterall, it is a town very much reliant on tourism and profits from the town’s wealthy summer visitors and residents – so it has been forced, or at least is remotely convinced that it must keep up with and embrace the bourgeois paces and tastes in order to keep them returning every summer. Although the truth of the matter is, though rich, most of the residents and tourists have been coming for generations and would likely have continued to do so with or without the changes.

Aside from this, it will be interesting to observe how the recent economic situation will affect this domination of the bourgeois over the working and middle class. Will the working class reemerge and be forced to resist bourgeois culture as a necessity to survive a recession?

The dark side of savvy reflexivity

2008-11-24T22:43:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wondered why communist nations still exist these days? The fall of Soviet Russia and East Europe has come to the truism that communism won’t work in this world. It is very likely that the people in the current communist nations are aware about this. So the question is how these people with such awareness make sense of their status quo under the illegitimate rules.

Before I talk about savvy reflexivity, please allow me to talk a little bit about some basic facts I know about the People’s Republic of China. As I had been living in China until just three and half years ago, my experience of the state propaganda before I left is still the way it is in today’s China. The state-owned televisions and newspapers are always vigorously promoting the positive image of the Chinese government. Back in the 1960s to 1970s, many Chinese truly believed in communism, so the government could implement a series of maniac campaigns, such as the Five Antis, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, and so on. Now Chinese people (I mean the majority of mainland Chinese people who are not the beneficiary of the dictatorship rule.) have long been disillusioned about communist party since 1980s. The explicit state propaganda (there are other implicit propaganda), used to be quite motivating, now become a mere formality both for those in power and the recipients. The Chinese people know very well that they are mostly lies. Almost no one would take it seriously of the headlines about the percentage of GDP growth, or individual stories of personal life benefited from government policies. They know quite well that governmental statistics are exaggerated; stories are fabricated so as to provide a false image of progression, so as to maintain social stability. Most importantly of all, they all know that they are being fooled in some way, although they may not quite sure about the reality.

However, despite of this awareness, the Chinese people are still doing what the governments want them to do. Many young people want to work for the government, although they verbally repudiated it a million times. Despite of their criticism of the unfair social system, they try to make the best out of it instead of changing it. People are very contradictory. I know this is a complicated matter and there are many reasons in play here, but I want to single out the savvy reflexivity as one of the reasons, here is how savvy reflexivity works:

Chinese people somehow believe that the alternatives for the current economic and political system can not work better than the current one. There are some concrete common beliefs to support such notion: 1) the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has caused so many social problems that no democratic government can solve these problems, and any change of the society would cause the eruption of social crisis and everyone would be negatively affected. 2) large population, hard to manage, Western democracy might cause chaos; 3) the long feudal past have deep rooted influence in people’s mind which prevent them from collectively accepting democratic ideas; 4) Although their current lives are bad, they worry that any change would make life even worse: given the fact that Russia suffered economic turmoil because of the radical political change. All these reasoning are convincing some time (of course not for me), but not always. When very bad situations happen, for example the recent poisonous milk that has caused many children ill and even death, people began to question the system again. The Real sets in to repudiate the symbolic. People do not know what to believe. They know CCP cannot be trusted and things have to be changed, but they do not know how. They can not see any alternative that can guarantee a better future. (The majority do not get access to important modern humanity knowledge because of censorship) The ambivalence and disorientation have incapacitated their reasoning and as a result, they keep doing what they are doing without questioning it any more.

This can partly explain why Chinese people seem to be immune to Western democratic ideas, including those who get the chance to study or work in Western countries. The massive anti-Tibetan protest in Western countries before the Beijing Olympic Games is quite surprising to many Westerners. Why would these oversea Chinese irrationally embrace their government? Have any Western education exert any positive influence on them at all? I think savvy reflexivity plays a big part. These people knew quite well the Chinese government was bad and human right/democracy was good, but they embraced the Chinese government anyway.

That is what I mean for the dark side of savvy reflexivity.

One last thing I want to point out is that: we see capitalism as a system that we cannot see through and we are not sure if any alternative would work. This is quite similar to the system in China as I mentioned above. We know from the Western perspective that democracy is a common value for human kind. This is the alternative for today’s China. But Chinese people cannot see the alternative. They are not able to see clearly how democracy works. They doubt it, at least for the short term. So, I think savvy reflexivity work only when we cannot see alternatives. It does not mean that the alternatives are not there. Similarly, the fact that we cannot see the alternatives for capitalism does not mean there is no alternative.

Monogamy: A Life of Intensity

2008-11-24T22:03:00.003-05:00

Earlier in the blog there was a submission on the value of diamonds in our society. I stumbled on an advertisement reflecting this in a magazine -the ad shows a couple in romantic embrace with the caption claiming “Monogamy: Every Hearts on Fire Diamonds is cut and polished to the 100X magnification to guarantee a life of intensity”. It seems to imply that with this diamond comes committed intense love. The work of Baudrillard on representation discusses three types of representations. This ad seems to demonstrate representation in the form of masking and perverting reality. It portrays a certain lifestyle choice but viewers still respond and recognize the diamond’s association with committed romantic love. I think it is an entertaining association because the people are not wearing the diamond ring – but rather portraying what we might read as “a life of intensity”. It is also interesting that suddenly monogamy is something that can be bought.

Monogamy: A Life of Intensity

2008-11-24T21:51:00.002-05:00

Levels of reality

2008-11-24T15:52:00.002-05:00

I am not sure if this ad fits neatly into any of Baudrillard's three categories. I think it goes somewhere between his second and third categories, the "masks/perverts" and "masks absence of reality" ones. It is like the CK Obsession ad shown in class, except this has a tiny smidge in the bottom right that shows the product. I start to think that these sorts of ads don't actually try to advertise the product, but instead tell us that the corporation remains. I'm not quite sure how to argue this: it was suggested in class that we know companies use sex to sell and we continue to buy things. Perhaps that familiar set of images communicate immutability. I personally don't find this too far fetched. Religious communities often have a markedly distinctive language used by insiders, and this sort of language bubble has an inculating effect. Perhaps the same can be said with images (Barthes' myth?).

But suppose it is the case that ads such as this is about the ontological superiority of the corporation. If we situate this in the context of capitalism, I wonder if it can be said to reflect reality--a reality where money is the essence of life.

Mechanical Reproductions of Iconic Figures

2008-11-24T13:27:00.002-05:00

I see the image every where- Che Guevara's face on a pin, on posters, and most frequently, on t-shirts. The fact is that iconic figures throughout history are constantly referenced and replicated by contemporary societies be it through literature, theater, film, the fine arts, fashion, etc. This reminds me of our lecture on Walter Benjamin and the mechanical reproduction of art for when considering the matter of artistic reproduction, there is always an engagement with the notion of the "original"; there is always a starting point from which all deviations, intentional or not, are made.
Surrounding an iconic figure, there is a certain aura that Walter Benjamin explains as a phenomenon of distance, authenticity, and authority. This aura surrounding the "original" is powerful, though through technical innovations the "aura" of an object can be changed to "image". Specifically, Benjamin argues that in mechanically reproducing the original the aura is destroyed.
However, there is still much debate to be made surrounding the subject of aura, icons, replications, and the distribution of power- for in transferring from the original to the reproduction is there not also transfer of power? Is the aura inherent to the icon or does it lie in the eye in the eye of the beholder?

Barack Obama: US President or A-List Celebrity?

2008-11-24T09:29:00.006-05:00

What is currently the hottest ticket in the United States? No, it’s not to the latest Hannah Montana concert, but to the Inauguration ceremony. Multiple newspapers have reported that since Barack Obama was elected, demands for the tickets available to the public have soared. Furthermore, policies have even been implemented to crack down on websites attempting to sell imaginary tickets for thousands of dollars.

As soon as I had read an article about the demand for tickets, I immediately associated it with the type of media attention an “A-list celebrity” or performer would receive. Although I can’t confirm if ticket scalping did or did not exist with President George W. Bush’s inauguration, I have a feeling that it would not have been at the same level. There also have been other incidences throughout Obama’s campaign that have depicted him as a celebrity such as the paparazzi photos of the President Elect going to the gym or with his family on his day-off, and the hype surrounding his relationship with other celebrities like Oprah. It makes me wonder how the media will respond to Obama during his term and how it will impact the public’s perspective of him. In terms of the inauguration, does the public really want to attend the inauguration for political reasons, or do they want a really good story to tell their grandchildren? Moreover, are people actually taking more of an interest in politics or has the media’s portrayal of Barack Obama turned him into a fad?

A question of control...

2008-11-23T23:09:00.000-05:00

So, the other day I was searching for good horror movies to watch, since I was inspired by our discussion of zombie movies in class, I stumbled upon the Guinea Pig Films (please google with caution). I am a big gore/horror movie fan and I have seen it all, Saw, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the Grudge… you name it, I’ve seen it, but this is something that I’ve never encountered before. The films comprise of 6 individual movies with individual story lines. One that is of particular interest is The Flowers of Flesh and Blood. The movie revolves around a man dressed in a samurai outfit who drugs and kidnaps a woman and goes on to dismember, disembowel and finally decapitates her in an all-too-real fashion. This particular film caused actor Charlie Sheen to call the FBI because he suspected that it was a real life snuff film. It was reportedly serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki’s favorite film from the series and served as one of the primary "blueprints" for his murders.

Flowers of the Flesh and Blood and The Devil’s Experiment (where 4 men torture a woman to see the human body’s capacity for pain) show the cruel and curious side of human nature. The men tortured the woman just to see what would happen, they just wanted to know how much they have to subject her to before she dies. There were no restraints, and they just did whatever they could think of; without the boundaries that our society set for us.

“Would you kill if you will never get caught?” How many would answer yes even though you would never admit it to others? We only know what is right or wrong because we are taught that way, through rules and punishments. The law states that we can never kill under any circumstances, and almost everyone agrees with that. But if someone killed your mother, your father, or one of your best friends, isn’t your first instinct is to kill them, to avenge their deaths? And aren’t we always happy when the protagonist in a movie gets his/her revenge? I’m sure not many of us can go through with that thought (myself included) because we are conditioned to believe that killing is wrong, and we must deal with vengeance in a civilized manner, partly due to the fear of getting caught. But if we won’t get caught…who knows what will happen.

Back to the Guinea Pig Films, they are not for those with a weak stomach, but they are one of a kind, uncensored, Holy Grail for the gore fans, a portrait for all the violence in the human mind.

www.guineapigfilms.com

The “Upper Middle Class”: Doctors, Lawyers, and Prostitutes Too

2008-11-23T15:34:00.003-05:00

Earlier this year, the Governor of New York resigned after it was discovered he had been involved with an “escort”, a euphemism for a prostitute. Now that it is clear that Eliot Spitzer won’t face any criminal charges for the incident, the woman he hooked up with, Ashley Dupre, has given an interview to the media. The interview is particularly interesting and relevant because it involves the notion of social class, a subject written on by Richard H. Anderson.

The angle that ABC News approaches the interview from centers on the fact that Dupre comes from an “upper middle class” background, her step-father being an oral surgeon. What the interview perhaps does not stress enough is that Dupre did not experience downward mobility (a sociological term) when she became a prostitute. Dupre, who has since quit “escorting”, was an “upper middle class” prostitute. She was paid so well by the “company” she worked for that she did not have to work daily. A night with her cost Spitzer $4,300 in case you were curious.

Anderson would have to place Dupre in the same category with step-father, an oral surgeon, despite her lack of education and profession that is typically associated with those who are poor and struggling to survive. Ironically she is “upper-middle class” in the sense that she served or aided the “upper class” though not at all how Anderson envisioned. Overall, this case shows how class boundaries are not so rigid.

Check out the interview and be sure to read the user comments on pg. 3: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=6280407&page=1

A Diamond is Forever

2008-11-23T13:44:00.004-05:00

The meaning we deduct from things in society is what Roland Barthes calls myth. What I think has become a perfect example of myth in western culture is the symbol of a diamond. The dictionary definition of a diamond is an extremely hard, highly refractive crystalline form of carbon that is usually colorless and is used as a gemstone and in abrasives, cutting tools, and other applications. If a diamond is just a rock, why is there so much meaning placed on the diamond as a symbol of everlasting love, what makes it so special? The connotations that are attached to certain objects in pop culture are unexplainable for the most part, and the example of a diamond gives a perfect example. Why not use an emerald, or topaz to signify the union between two people? We take for granted the symbol of a diamond as a representation of marriage, never questioning it. Perhaps it is purely a marketing scheme to create more sales for jewellery stores. Who wouldn’t, if given the chance, try to buy love, or at least a mere symbol or token of a fragment of what it stands for?

Twilight and Vampire-Lovers

2008-11-23T13:38:00.006-05:00

First a book series and now this weekend’s highest grossing movie, Twilight seems to be almost everywhere I look. I’m far from being a fan of Twilight, but I’ve noticed among my friends the center of obsession in this entertainment phenomenon is the male romantic lead character, Edward, who also happens to be a vampire.

(This is all just speculation and since I haven't read the books or seen the film, I’m not sure how truly it can be applied beyond its surface…)

As an undead being with a romantic impulse for a human character (the female protagonist, Bella), Edward embodies qualities that are deadly and seductive to some people. In this sense, his character may be considered an objet petit a for Bella (and for readers who choose to identify with her) as he is on one level, a frightening vampire with an appetite for human blood, and on another level, portrayed as a masculine, protective, and desirable lover. This characterization system also complicates the notion we’ve discussed in class of undead beings having drive without desire: Edward is put into a position in which he must repress his own hunger for Bella’s blood and instead protect her from himself and from others in order to achieve his romantic desire to be with her.

It’s a risky situation, and so he is rendered a simultaneously dangerous and attractive figure, making him mysterious and unpredictable. These things considered, the status of the romantic relationship between Bella and Edward contains elements of possibility and impossibility based simply on the fact that she is human and he is a vampire, and I think part of the mass appeal of this condition is being able to fantasize the whole contradiction of it.

The Impossibility of 'Reality' TV

2008-11-23T11:13:00.004-05:00

Inspired by the previous post on 'Bear' I thought I'd share this with everyone.

The first ever reality TV show, to the best of my knowledge, was called "An American Family" which Wikipedia describes as:

" an American television documentary shot in 1971 and first aired in the United States on PBS in early 1973. The show was twelve episodes long, edited down from about 300 hours of footage, and chronicled the experiences of a nuclear family, the Loud family of Santa Barbara, California, during a period of time when parents Bill and Pat Loud separated and Pat filed for divorce. In 2002, An American Family was listed at #32 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time list."

Baudrillard had some interesting ideas about this show in his essay Simulations (Trans. Paul Foss et. al. 1983 Semiotext[e])

"The End of the Panopticon

It is ... to this ideology of the lived experience, of exhumation, of the real in its fundamental banality, in it radical authenticity, that the American TV-verite experiment on the Loud family in 1971 refers: 7 months of uninterrupted shooting. 300 hours of direct non-stop broadcasting, without script or scenario, the odyssey of a family, its joys, ups and downs - in breif, a "raw" historical document, and "the best thing ever on television, comparable, at the level of our daily existence, to the film of the lunar landing." Things are complicated by the fact that this family came apart during the shooting: a crisis flared up, the louds went their separate ways, etc. Whence that insoluable controversy: was TV responsible? What would have happened if TV hadn't been there.

More interesting is the phantasm of filming the Louds as if TV wasn't there. The producer's trump card was to say: "they lived as if we weren't there". An absurd, paradoxical formula- niether true nor false: but utopian. The "as if we weren't there" is equivalent to "as if you were there". It is this utopia, this paradox that fascinated 20 million viewers, much more than the perverse pleasure of prying." (49-50)

This brings to mind 'The observer Effect' which I believe was first used in physics in relation to Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, but has implications in psychology and information technology as well, both entirely relevant to communication media. It states that the act of observation changes the nature of the observed, effectively meaning that one can only ever observe what was there when one looked, not what is there after looking, the observed having been changed by being observed.

Perhaps this is the nature of the paradoxical involvement Baudrillard describes above. The truth about this 'TV-verite' is that we consume it because we are involved in it and would rather view actively than passively.

Of course modern reality TV is much different than An American Family. The circumstances of modern shows are much more contrived, the production values much more in line with flashy modern tastes etc, but the mechanism is the same as it was with the Loud family. After 60 years of passive viewing the public is demanding to participate in the media to a greater extent. This can also be seen in the internet. Perhaps the ever-more ridiculous and sensational premises of reality TV shows are a response to the economic gravity of the internet, a last ditch effort to save TV from a population that is tired of having no power over its programming.

A documentary, An American Family Revisited is available to be viewed on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DZauMwxOrw

Man vs Wild

2008-11-23T04:52:00.006-05:00

Man vs Wild is a reality TV show on Discovery where a man, Bear Grylls and his camera man is dropped into exotic locales as he braves the elements and try to survive in the 'untamed' wilderness. Having the bare essentials with him, Bear must exercises his intuitive subsistence knowledge and experience to survive in no man's land.

This relates to realism and reality TV. Reality TV is said to bring its audience back to the Real. Bear Grylls epitomizes the traditional woodcraft camper. He goes in with next to nothing and fashions what he needs from nature. In reality, such hikers are scarce to nonexistant because modern technology and conveniences are so rampant. Flashlights, knives, binoculars, lighters, etc are small, compact and easily carried everywhere so people do not need to rough it with 'the Bear' essentials.

Also the locales Bear is dropped in is supposedly uninhabited, exotic locales that is far from civilization. The entire world is mapped out nowadays. Few domains are truly unoccupied by residents and many places have roads running through them. It is never truly only man vs wild anymore.

The link is a video showing how in the reality show, the adventurous Bear is presented to be exploring new uncharted territory alone in the barrens where no help is quickly forthcoming if should he get injured, yet just around the corner are people, cars and a road. Quite funny the first time i saw it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpSlpvb1is

"Conflicting" Harmony

2008-11-23T04:02:00.007-05:00

When I first saw this ad, I was reminded of the political poster with the African child wearing a beret, Professor Kalmar had spoken about in class. I am glad i finally chanced upon something to post. This is an example of Roland Barthes' signifier, signified and sign idea.

This Benetton ad depicts a Tibetan monk along with a soldier of the People's Republic of China. In eastern cultures, bowing denotes reverence and pacification, they are greeting each other as such. At face value, they represent Tibet and China (the signifier) they are bowing to each other with respect (the signified) which propagandizes that the two are peaceful with one another. This is at the language level. On closer examination at the myth level however, there has been armed conflict between the faction ever since the invasion of Tibet by the Peoples Republic of China dating back to the mid 1950s.

I posted a second photo to show the irony that the propaganda photo shows the union to be so peaceful and agreeable, yet in reality the issue is much more violent and opposing.

Read Between the Legs

2008-11-23T01:12:00.006-05:00

The image in this anti-smoking ad demonstrates Roland Barthes’ concept of “double articulation” of language and myth. The ad exhibits knowledge of signs— in this case, of a cigarette and fingers and their literal significance— and how to manipulate these signs to extend their referents in order to effectively communicate the intended meanings. In other words, there is a denotative meaning associated with the two fingers and the cigarette, but there are also many connotations purposely coded into the image to convey a message in a persuasive manner.

At the language level, there are two fingers (the index and the middle) and a cigarette between them. The literal meaning is about as far as denotation goes in this ad; the rest of the meanings are to be found at the level of myth. Both the fingers and cigarette possess specific literal signified meanings, but they are positioned in a way to connote “legs” and a “penis”. Furthermore, the text in the ad acts to reinforce the connotative meanings of the image, clueing the reader in terms of what the two fingers and cigarette represent; thus, the text works with the image to make more explicit the connotations of the ad.

reality, morality and the gaming industry

2008-11-22T17:55:00.003-05:00

I found this article in adbusters (magazine) about virtual reality and morality. Basically the writer of this article posses the question, where do we draw the line? Most video games you’ll find now days have real life graphic, and stimulations to the point that the gamer is immersed into the game. What I found really interesting about this article is that it problematizes the liberty given to the video gamer, allowing them to experience their desires and fantasies even though it neglects morality- you leave that out-side the door. Some would goes as far as arguing that morality should be excluded from these virtual domains, allowing the gamer to experience his/her fantasy or desires for as long as the game lasts. I know some will argue that a game is just a game- it is simply stimulation. My only concern is, how are we ( as a society) suppose to deal with issues of gun violence and rape and other social ill’s when we permit the use the of violence ( physical and psychologically) in virtual reality.
Do you think that morality should have a place in the virtual world?
Read this article it does a better job in engaging this topic.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/80/virtual_morality.html

The End of the World

2008-11-21T19:47:00.004-05:00

So, the other day I was in the cinema, awaiting anxiously the beginning of the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace, hoping in vain that it could match up to its predecessor … Anyway, what I really want to talk about is actually regarding the close to maybe 5/6 movie trailers I saw before the actual movie.

If anyone has been watching movies lately, have you noticed that most of what we've been churning out lately are apocalyptic films? After watching the first trailer for 2012, I admit my interest was kind of piqued. But by the time I finished watching Keanu Reeves predict The Day The Earth Stood Still, I couldn't take it any longer. I might be stretching it a bit, but I'm pretty certain that maybe 1 in 3/4 films these days refer to some kind of the end of the Earth. Doomsday. December 21 2012. Wikipedia does a far better job of summarizing and giving examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_film

And as you can see, there's definitely at least one of those type of films per year. What strikes me more so is the fact that if you do a simple comparison, the number of these films have increased by the decades. Looking back on the lectures we've had so far, I'm reminded of the discussions we've had regarding the Real and the Reality. The doomsday film, to me, could be a manner in which our symbolic (notion of reality) has been stretched to encompass everything - our death, the end of the world, can all be explained and attributed to a particular reason, most typically viruses, natural disasters, economic problems, terrorism. More than often, it is something we can comprehend, rather than something such as giant aliens attacking the world ala War of the Worlds.

Herein, however, lies a paradox: the fact that the movie industry still continuously churns out such movies and make money from them refer to our appetite for the remainder of the Real - doomsday films allow us to somewhat voyeuristically experience the "eruption of the Real", and thankfully, our savvy reflexivity, at the same time, always safeguards us by leading us (at the end of the film) to think, "it's just a film" - the actors don't die in real life, since we made it past 2000 we would make it past 2012 (or whichever apocalyptic date you identify with). Yet in times of increasing uncertainty, do we not walk away from these films with the discomfort accompanying the belief that these could really happen? Is this, perhaps, as what we were mentioning in class, the initial signs of our symbolic order breaking down, and being unable to comprehensively allay our fears?

In any case, I guess that's why the movie industry produces a wide-range of movies. For someone like me who actually likes doomsday films (before they bordered on the point of being repetitive and a stark reminder of my impending death), but has that inkling of discomfort after walking out of a film like that, I guess one of the possible (escapist) solutions will be to skip the big blockbuster films of destruction, and turn to the family-friendly comedy that's playing in the next theatre. So maybe I'll see you there?

[disclaimer: I wrote this article with my own understanding of what has been covered so far in class. If I'm even interpreting any of these terms wrongly, I would deeply appreciate anyone explaining to me my mistakes!]

OBSESSION FOR MEN (CONT'D)

2008-11-20T23:50:00.002-05:00

Sorry, I thought I would be able to edit the post later even if I went ahead and clicked 'publish post.' Turns out that I can't!

Anyways, so in addition to the previous post I just created...

In contrast to the "OBSESSION for women" ad which "masks the absence of a basic reality", this image rather "masks and perverts the basic reality" in the presence of it. The basic reality, the perfume bottle, is present in the ad; however, the overall constructed image is masking and perverting the Reality of it. The marketing tactic utilized in this advertisement is therefore more 'traditional' and less 'postmodern.' Unlike the "OBSESSION for women" image which is widely open for many interpretations while still ensuring a strong visual impression of the advertisement and creating a unique brand image, this advertisement seems to have been designed for a narrow range of possible interpretations....

Why do you think there are such differences between these two advertisements?

OBSESSION FOR MEN

2008-11-20T22:51:00.009-05:00

I came across this advertisement, Calvin Klein's "OBSESSION for men", and wanted to share it with you all. This advertisement was produced as part of the same Calvin Klein Ad campaign for the "OBSESSION for women" shown in class, yet it seems to utilize a completely different marketing approach.

First of all, unlike the "OBSESSION for women", this advertisement includes an image of the perfume bottle and thereby directly refers to the product; the product is not absent. What is most important in comparing the two ads is how each of them treats the 'nude' image of Kate Moss. Unlike the naked image of Moss conveying an almost contemplative, neutral tone in the ad targeting female consumers, this nude image incorporated in the"OBSESSION for men" is definitely more explicitly sexualized. Here, Moss is lying down on her stomach on a couch and is gazing directly at the viewers, appearing as if she is attempting to seduce the viewers (who equals possible consumers of the product). The ultimate purpose of the advertisement indeed is to seduce the viewers and turn them into the product's consumers.

United Colors of Benetton: Masking the Absence of Reality

2008-11-20T21:27:00.008-05:00

Going back to the lecture on Baudrillard and the ability to mask the absence of reality with the example of Calvin Klein's Obsession, I thought of another example that again is from the fashion industry. The advertising campaign by The United Colours of Benetton with photographer Oliviero Toscani are an excellent example of masking the absence of reality.

These ads have nothing to do with the product being sold but the photographs alone are considered art conveying very politically and socially charged images. What is interesting is the time period which these ads first began to appear and how they reflect the change in how our society grasps reality with regards to Baudrillard's take on how contemporary society has constructed symbolic images.

Some ads are very charged on issues from HIV to Racism but they still do a great job in selling the brand and the clothing. It is becoming very difficult to key in on what the product is in some ads but that is not the point. All that is needed is for you to look and remember the blood red new born baby and the name Benetton.

Anything Goes...

2008-11-19T18:41:00.006-05:00

In the "Uncanny Capitalism" section of Andrejevic's article, he writes that our savvy awareness of contrivance in reality TV has caused us to "demand more and more punishing contrivances in the hopes of squeezing out a bit of authenticity......". The way I see it, we are pushing boundaries to introduce greater and greater eruptions of the Real into our realities.

I am reminded of a song, Anything Goes, written by Cole Porter in 1934. Here's part of it:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
But now God knows, anything goes

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, anything goes.

Anything Goes: no boundaries, no limits, no differences. Anything goes.

We've come a long way since 1934; revised lyrics today could go like this:

In olden days a glimpse of nipple
Was something quite abominable...." and so on.

The way I see it, savvy reflexivity is not confined to reality TV, which can be seen as an eruption of the Real over the Reality of scripted TV. Also, before reality TV, increasing levels of sex and violence (and blood) throughout the decades in scripted TV and movies have also been signs of eruptions of the Real. After all, who doesn't know that "it's just a movie" and "movies aren't real"?

While we are on the subject of not-real-yet-not-unreal, consider a situation when a man and woman connect on a dance floor. In 19th century (Industrial Revolution) England, the Waltz was a "scandalous" dance, because the man and woman embrace each other on the dance floor. The Continental Europeans scoffed at Puritan England: "It's just a dance". In other words, it's not real. Fast forward 200 years later (today). I readily admit to being a bit of a prude, but I have seen some salsas and tangoes that are so suggestive, I wonder how people can watch their significant others dance with other partners, and still say "It's just a dance". Regardless, isn't it interesting that the Waltz is now considered high culture, and salsa (a nightclub dance) popular culture?

I think I've degenerated into rambling. So I end by noting that there seems to have more and more of an "Anything Goes" mentality in our music, art, television, films, etc. Are we then slowly moving from the Symbolic, back to the Mirror, and finally the Real?

Virtual Reality

2008-11-18T18:58:00.004-05:00

Today's lecture discussing both Barthes's ad Andrejevic's conceptions of reality and Professor Kalmar's interesting association with reality TV and capitalism provoked me to think about computer and video gaming. Personally, I am not a follower of one or the other but I couldn't help remember feeling so disturbed seeing a bunch of YouTube videos of intense gamers, of all ages cursing and screaming at the computer or television because they were so enraptured in the game they were playing. Gaming is certainly not a new phenomena but it seems with the advancement of computer technology, the ability to create a 3D virtual simulation that is vivid and "real" has created a fascination and absorption with video games unlike before. After watching these videos one can only deduce these gamers are taking these games very seriously, that in some way they appear to be submersed into the reality of the character they are controlling. As a non-gamer however, it is hard for me to imagine that they believe somehow that the game is real or even represents reality in some way, as a simulacrum of some kind. The issue of gaming has gone so far that Dr. Phil has episodes where a husband and wife are divorcing and people are refusing to get jobs because they are fixated on gaming. A couple of weeks ago a child ran away from home (because his parents were concerned with his gaming) only to be found dead days later. Is gaming the new reality of our time and the non, gamers haven't 'clicked' in yet? Is our generation the true progeny of capitalism that we need to be competing at all times? Or are graphics so refined and detailed that people cannot help but escape?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTwgNhX4BSo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u15om2udjE

2008-11-18T15:24:00.004-05:00

Prof. Kalmar claimed that the meaning of the Newport ad was a straightforward pairing of the brand name with fun, wealth and youth. I disagree: The real meaning of the ad is deeper, and I'm shocked it didn't come up.

I mean, really now. Did nobody clue into the blatant crucifixion imagery here? There's Jesus on the cross, and there are the onlookers, Mary and Mary Magdalene. And he's alive again, and having a blast, with the pleasure of Newports. We are clearly meant to associate the brand with the joy of resurrection. As Jesus returned from the grave and danced on an inner tube, so shall we live on in paradise — after smoking ourselves to death.

Smoke Newports - your afterlife is waiting for you! (And it doesn't count as suicide!)

shopping in Seoul...

2008-11-18T14:47:00.003-05:00

On the topic of consumerism (to go way back to the beginning of the year) - I spent the summer in South Korea, and was immediately confronted with the stereotype of consumer crazy asia (both in conversations with expats and by the ladies in heels at the grocery store, dressed better than I do for a wedding ). The most obvious response was that it evidenced the Korean frenzied desire to mimic the west and thus appear modern and globally connected. Added to this was the common idictment of their culture as being "conformist", and the explanation was complete - Korean consumer culture could be chalked up to being an extreme replica of the west, and Koreans cared mainly about image and brand identity association.

This explanation seemed rather essentializing, and I never felt completely comfortable with it. As discussed (in class), consumerism operates on a number of levels and we're much more savvy than simply striving to conform to a hegemonic "western standard". So - I'm mostly going to talk about women here, cause they have a particular relationship with national culture and identity that i think is at play (sorry). I had read something really interesting about women's bodies and their relationship with confucianism in Korea and feel that it connects with how women often function in society as both the face of modernity and also that of tradition, and also how this informs our relationship to consumerism.

I'm going to say right now that this is all just observational and I sincerely apologize for any misrepresentations, bad assumptions, etc. I'm definitely not Korean, and am no expert on Korean culture/history.

In a really super brief look at recent Korean history, it originally existed as a confucian society, underwent colonization by the Japanese, and then experienced the civil war that divided it into North and South. Following the last two stages of their history, they emerged as a capitalist democracy which relegated confucianism to the realm of cultural and national identity, rather than being the whole social/political system (as it had been previously).

An aspect of this confucian cultural identity is that the individual is linked to the social body through spritual interconectedness (Ki). Women (who can not attain sagehood) are important in this system insofar as they give birth to sons (who can). Their fertility was therefor most valued. After the civil war, when the nation needed rebuilding, the somewhat authoritarian government encouraged the consumption of Korean made products as a way to stimulate the economy, and ownership of these products was an indication that you were taking part in the rebuilding of the nation - that you belonged, and that you cared (the capitalist approach). With the increasing introduction of global products, consumption came to signify modernity and membership in the world economy, as it does anywhere. Women were important in this regard as they were (and usually are) socially positioned as representitives of nationhood (representing purity, tradition and Korean modernity simulateously).

The theory is that strict social regulations traditionally applied to women's behavior and bodies (called T'aegyo), originally established and valued to protect the womb for offspring (so that they may successfully produce sons and pass on Ki) were translated into the modern capitalist enviornment through participating and belonging in the consumerist sense (social behavior like shopping and image). Social and spiritual interconnectedness were paralled. Although it's not regulated socially to the same extent as T'aegyo, I definitely encountered young boys claiming they could not respect a woman who did not wear make-up or dress "well". I constantly faced a barage of unsolicited opinions from old men and ladies on the street about my clothing choices while in public, or alternately very animated praise for being "beautiful" when I put on a dress to go for a walk.

The popular western notion of consumerism is that it allows one to assert their individualism, exnominating its underlying purpose of establshing group belonging. Korean advertising emphasizes this aspect of group belonging, and for that reason seems offensively conformist to western sensibilities. Same choices, different reasons.

2008-11-11T00:34:00.002-05:00

I have been trying to find a recent movie that fits into the Zizek The Terminator category when the trailer for The Strangers popped up as I was watching T.V, and is apparently inspired by true events, and near the end of it, the leading female character asks the question, "Why are you doing this to us?" with the simple reply of, "Because you were home."

To me this is an example of the desire-less drive that we've been talking about in class, which we've mostly attributed to zombie and robot movies. I know this example may be a bit different because of the difficult human aspect, because one can argue that the killers may have had an actual ulterior motive and not just desire-less drive(but the movie doesn't show it). Or is desire-less drive only attributed to actions that cannot be mentally and emotionally weighed?

At the same time I think it also ties into what we've been discussing about The Real, how it is unexplainable, how it is made up of dark desires and how fear stems from it, but is surrounded and kept hidden and in check by Reality. With the thought that the killers deviated from society's accepted norms of reasoning, in which they simply murdered the couple with no other reason then that, they were home. I believe society fears this most because, we need and crave answers and solutions for everything, ever since we were children we have been asking the question "Why?"

"Are You Young Enough to Drink It?"

2008-11-09T12:12:00.002-05:00

I snapped this picture using my cell phone at a local gas station in central Pennsylvania... I couldn't help but chuckle to myself at Lipton's shameless advertising campaign. Are YOU young enough to drink green tea? Are you pure enough to sip on white tea? Purchase your self identity! For only $1.69 you can be a healthy, fit and in vogue member of society (...or at least appear as one). I see images of a trendy soccer mom keeping up with her four kids and still managing to attend yoga classes three times a week... A man who needs no supplements or outside help to maintain his young physique... The poster is also non-discriminatory, inviting anyone with visual access to the poster to consume green tea. You! Yes... YOU! YOU are worthy of the question posed. I've noticed YOU... YOU matter. YOU are part of our demographic. It becomes a private conversation between consumer and advertisor. It singles out each consumer and forces them to reflect on their consumption identity.

Related to the idea of consumption identity... Has anyone noticed the new Glad commercials? They promote the "high classness" of their scents... One women (lying in her bathtub at home with a new Glade candle) tells her friend she is at a fancy spa - when her husband's voice becomes audible she lies and says its her masseuse. In another, a woman hosting a yoga session with 3 girlfriends secretly uses a cheap Glade plug-in and makes up some story about the expensive product she's using, her friends catch her in her lie and laugh at her... The status symbolization is so regular that lying about product consumption becomes a joke. All the women come up with elaborate lies to hide their low culture consumption (i.e. buying Glade products). Glade has cleverly advertised their low prices (associated with low culture products) while surreptitiously noting their ability to mask low culture qualities (via its fancy smell). The commercial comments upon the class identity attached to consumption in our society.

Anyone else have any rants about commercials these days?

2008-11-08T17:00:00.003-05:00

With regards to Barthes' ideas about myth and language, I thought of how beer ads are great examples of his notion of "double articulation". In most beer ads, they always show you images of really "hot" or sexy young girls, a great party going on, or just a refreshingly cold-looking glass of beer. This is the language of most of these ads -- the hot girls, people having fun at a party holding beer, and refreshing beer. Simple facts and images of what is shown in the ads are these and they are the "language" that Barthes talk about. On the other hand, the myths that these language elements give us are a variety of bourgeoisie associations we like to make with beer. We like to think of beer being associated to girls, sex, a good time, a crazy party, or just pure refreshment. The ads do not explicitly say "beer = getting laid" or "beer = having cool friends and a great time". They just show you pictures and clips (if it is a commercial) of these ideas and desires to reassert such associations. This method of marketing through double articulation is extremely persuasive, although it is done subtly. It has nothing to do with an argument or what is right or wrong. It simply presents these images, and indirectly make you associate beer with such ideas and events. But if you really think about it, what the beer ads present is obviously n ot the case. There are people who drink beer alone, without getting a girls or the intention of getting sex. There are people who are sad, lonely and frustrated and sit alone in their basement drinking a beer. THere are people who get drunk, and then do crazy violent things -- like drinking and driving, or mindless fights due to drunken rage. And obviously, if you think hard, a cold refreshing-looking beer has NOTHING to do with the beer. It is the REFRIGERATOR that makes the beer cold, and reasonably thinking, it is not the beer that gives you that cold shiver. Indeed, these are all images that are possible, but are never shown by the beer companies -- and for good reason. Otherwise, they're sales could be in great jeopardy.

It is interesting how Barthes articulated this idea about myth and language in images. In the modern world, I think it is a great break-down of a good marketing campaign.

Idiotic Enjoyment -- "Otters Holding Hands" clip

2008-11-08T16:23:00.004-05:00

This video is a clip of 2 otters in a Vancouver zoo holding hands. It was made very popular through youtube. I believe it was a teacher taking her kids on a field trip to the zoo and she caught this occurrence on tape while visiting the otters area. She posted it on youtube for fun, but it ended up to be a crazy internet phenomenon, with record-breaking views. It was so popular, that it even made it to CBC news!

In the clip, you see two otters holding hands, floating around in their little aquarium. And then at one point one of the otters let go, and then float away, but end up floating back to the other otter and they held hands again.

During the entire clip, you hear the crowds going "awww, that's so cute" or "omigosh, they're adorable". I thought this clip and the entire event it records is a very good example of the idea of "idiotic enjoyment" that Slavoj Zizek talks about, something discussed in class last week. When we look at the otters holding hands, we do not really think practically and critically about what they are doing. In a way, we know that what we see is manipulative and useless, but regardless, we enjoy it. Realistically and practically speaking, as the CBC news had mentionned, otters hold hands for survival reasons. When they are out in the wild, swimming and floating through running rivers and lakes, they hold hands in order to stay together and not get lost. They need each other to help with the food hunting and family raising. And with this in mind, the meaning that is behind otters holding hands is quite different from when we humans hold hands. It is like when we see pictures of babies or young kids kissing. We say they're cute and in love, but really, we know it is fake and that they are not really feeling the same emotions and passions when adults kiss. This bourgeois concept of romantic love that we fantasize and commonly relate to is not as common and natural as we think. Likewise, this bourgeois concept is reflected onto cute animals too. Although we know the otters in the clip are not really in love, we still enjoy watching them hold hands, thinking they're so cute, and they're in love, and they can't be without each other. (and this is obviously evident with the popularity of the clip, with more than 11 million views in total since it was posted!!. Zizek's notion of idiotic enjoyment is extremely evident and applicable in this clip. Watch the clips and see for yourself! :)

To watch the original "Otters holding hands" video, click here:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno

To watch the CBC report on the popular and silly clip, click here:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=tWu5ggvRDSw

Obama as 'objet petit a'

2008-11-06T20:31:00.002-05:00

Some might find this article of interest. It's an article from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons proposing that Barack Obama used techniques of neurolinguistic programming in his public speeches.

http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/0089

One of many possible explanations for the effect he has on crowds.

It's nearly 3 AM

2008-10-28T02:27:00.002-04:00

I still cannot come up with a thesis about political reality on YouTube... I'm thinking of switching my paper topic to wikipedia, but its late. I guess I'm more interested in YouTube, but I thought I'd share this with the class, cause its pretty great. Its an article from the Times about Sarah Palin's wikipedia entry upon her nomination. The Internet is supposed to be democratizing everything, but can democracy really be anonymous?