When researching MySpace, I found this complete interview of Rupert Murdoch with Charlie Rose from August '07. It didn't seem to fit anywhere quite right in my look at MySpace, but I found it pretty fascinating nonetheless.
Check it out:
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Identity, Globalization, and MySpace
It confounds the mind to think that Myspace has only been around for about four years and see that the site’s own Tom Anderson currently has 252,710,328 ‘friends.’ Obviously, something of significance has occurred, but what implications does the mass internet migration of several hundreds of millions of people really have? In presenting an altogether alternate version of reality for millions of users, MySpace creates a new paradigm of social interaction, one that has the potential to profoundly affect not only an individual user’s sense of self but also the transaction of ideas on a global scale.
“The Public Person”
MySpace is a vehicle for individuals to interact with the world. This is made possible only with the internet, since such an infrastructure was unavailable before it. At first, only nations had the ability to interact on the world platform, then companies were able to with the advent of industrialization. The change the internet has brought has also created a new paradigm. The world created by MySpace is completely and utterly centered on the individual. This egocentric shift puts key importance on the self while diminishing the value of the group. A person-centered world has many effects both subtle and far-reaching.
One of the most evident changes MySpace brought was the creation of the mass public individual. Before the internet, the only individuals with access to the public sphere were usually celebrities of sorts, be they writers or television personalities or musicians. MySpace made it so anyone could have their presence known on a relatively global scale. To the many users of Myspace, this is assumed to be a good thing. The site helps you keep track of your network of friends and essentially puts some semblance of a human face on the oft impersonal realm of the internet. There have been a few cases, though, when MySpace has enabled the internet to be a little too personal. The most extreme accounts concerning child predators and MySpace party crashers showcase the dangers possible when what is usually private enters the public sphere. In the grand scheme of MySpace, though, these incidents are few and far between representing the dark fringe of its use.
More so than being a place for the transfer of personal or “hard” information, MySpace is a virtual space out of which users craft an identity. This is most closely associated with the postmodernist conception of the self as one having “shifting, fragmented and multiple identities” (Barker 220). MySpace leads its users to create an identity for themselves that is not necessarily grounded in reality. This fact makes it a prime space for two particular types of usage: forming an idealized self or experimenting with wholly new conceptions of your identity . These usages bring up many of the fears individuals have in typical social interactions but these fears are played out all the time and in the private space. Media pressures to live up to a certain standard of beauty are pushed out across personal profiles. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the common joke about “MySpace angles” has occurred, as many attempt to live up to an imaginary ideal of beauty. There have even been occurrences of cyberbullying over MySpace, the most public event involving the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, after being harassed by a fictional boy she met on MySpace created by a classmate’s mother. An interesting tribute to the strength of these identities has been the advent of MyDeathSpace, a site devoted to archiving obituaries of MySpace’s users. Some will even go as far as creating a memorial MySpace area where friends and family can grieve online.
“Friends: Not so Human Interaction”
Stemming from the creation of new and fictional identities, the interaction in MySpace can also be given a substitutive nature. It seems, especially in how bands and comedians advertised themselves over the site (some not even being real artists), that ‘friends’ are more collected than made. Not a complete danger, but this can lead to ‘packrat’ like tendencies in finding and making friends. When friendships become collections, this can lead to the “devaluing of real friendships and the reduction of face-to-face interaction” (psyorg.com news via UCLA). The Law of Diminishing Returns applies here, the more friends you seem to add to your collection, the less each additional one adds value. And when someone has a multitude of friends, it becomes harder and harder to keep up a semblance of personal contact. In fact, MySpace’s use seems to lend itself to a streamlining of interaction that can sometimes become a replacement for face-to-face contact. Making life more efficient, MySpace makes it possible for one to post messages or bulletins to their entire friend base, making it unnecessary to contact friends individually. Taken to an extreme, this can lead to a fragmenting of relationships, leaving users to neglect building strong genuine relationships with others. This fact has been one of the fears of a technology and internet driven world, that people can have whole relationships separated from each other, lending to a deeper existential issue similar to the Marxist laborer-end product dilemma. The ambiguity these relationships create further adds to an individual’s fracturing identity.
Even though identities are created on MySpace, there is still afforded a certain degree of anonymity to members as it is not generally considered a wholly factual medium of interaction. It is this potential for anonymity that allows for situations like Megan Meier’s to happen. People like Clay Shirky, a journalist and professor at NYU, recognize the danger of anonymity on a public space like MySpace. What they see is popularly referred to as “John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” which essentially states that normal people given complete anonymity and an audience are prone to allow their most negative characteristics to surface.
Baudrillard’s writing on the consumption of objects plays a huge role here. MySpace users objectify themselves as people into the signs represented by their MySpace profiles. Others are able to draw conclusions about the individuals on MySpace based solely on the sign they display on the internet. In this way, we create a complete abstraction from a fragment of a person. The fragment or sign created becomes an object of consumption, just as the masses consume the ideas and half-knowledge we receive about celebrities. And just like celebrities, the sign is believed to be the true representation of a person when such a thing is impossible. Through this interaction, people continually consume the idea of interaction with a real person never actually making contact with that person.
“A Cause for Capitalism: Advertising on MySpace”
An unavoidable caveat of MySpace usage comes from its reliance on advertising revenue. Though it remains to be free for any and all users, it is important to recognize that it has a bottom line like any business. This is where MySpace begins to have implications much broader than an individual and his/her group of friends.
MySpace has become an important advertising venue for several parties. One the one hand, the site has been of great value to corporations, especially those hoping to target the younger 18-49 demographic that would be more likely to use its services. This demographic, in particular men in this age group, are notoriously difficult for advertisers to reach.
For its members, MySpace offers a vaguely similar service. Opposed to paying to have an ad service, users actually use their own profiles and messaging to advertise. The most popular users of this advertising ability come from musicians who are able to host some of their material on their personal profile for any to see. The site has been utilized for users’ movies, comedy shows, and even to promote their humanitarian efforts. It is in this way that the entire site is actually a large advertising platform. Both companies and individuals use it to promote and advertise their interests, whatever they may be.
“Origins”
To understand further implications of Myspace, it is important to understand MySpace’s history. An article written by Trent Lapinski chronicles the history and effect MySpace has had on the digital world. MySpace launched in the summer of 2003 as a better version of another social networking site, Friendster, hoping to take its strongest attributes and gain a larger audience. This was the intention of eUniverse (later Intermix Media), a marketing company responsible many forms of internet spam before such a thing was illegal. Using their massive information base consisting of upwards to 50 million email addresses, MySpace became an instant hit garnering users fast and financed by advertising revenue.
In 2005, the now massively successful site was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $580 million. Three years later, reports TechCrunch, MySpace is valued between $3 billion and $20 billion. When MySpace is viewed in the context of being a business segment of one of the world’s largest media companies, the issues affecting the world on a global scale come into play.
“Globalization and the Internet”
MySpace is not limited to solely the American consumer base, there are permutations of MySpace available in several nations across the globe. Implicit here is that MySpace, namely News Corp, has a potential influence on a mass of individuals the world over through its ubiquity as an online social network. Express or implied, this marks MySpace as both an influence of a world capitalist economy as well as a global information system.
“Potential for Manipulation”
As MySpace presents a similar way to interact with people across the globe, aided by the advertisements they host on their pages, it is easy to perceive a global homogenization of culture through its use. Barker explains that “the cultural homogenization thesis proposes that the globalization of consumer capitalism involves a loss of cultural diversity.” Though this is usually viewed in nationalistic terms and News Corp is considered an American company, this can really be seen as a homogenization created by News Corp itself. An interesting dichotomy forms from this, as fractured and ever-changing individuals are actually becoming more alike through the very form of the website. Of course, there are variations between the several MySpaces all over the world, but the essential form remains the same.
With the standardization of form and a singularity of leadership coming from News Corp, it is very easy for hegemony to occur. Inevitably, when one source has the power to shape the information the public reaches, though it may not be consciously, the inherent attitudes and beliefs of the gatekeepers will be given. At the least this comes in the form of further fracturing identities and the pushing for a vague acceptance of a capitalist economic model. This flow of cultural ideologies has been slowed in more strict countries, such as China which blocks certain subject matter from being discussed, usually centering on current political issues though. Continuance of these habits contribute to cultural imperialism through the digital domain. Barker describes cultural imperialism as "the domination of one culture by another and is widely associated with the leading role played in the global economy by multinational corporation of American origin" (Barker 370). It is in this sense that MySpace has undoubtedly had an affect, as English remains the second-most spoken language in the world and online. Schiller notes that "with the spread of English comes the ready adoption of Anglo-American ideas...and so the free flow of ideas in practice means the ascendance of US cultural products" (Barker 371).
More alarming is the idea of overt agenda setting. Though no exact examples have come up involving MySpace, there has been some cause for concern. At the World Economic Forum, Rupert Murdoch as much as said he has tried to push an agenda when it came to the Iraq War, supporting it though noting that public opinion has not kept that support.
So, is having 252,710,328 ‘friends’ ultimately a positive force in our world? While it may seem very innocuous to Americans in particular, there are still some very real concerns. Even without some kind of agenda at work, MySpace has successfully built a massive subscriber based on their own changing and idealized identities. These identities are unified and held together by MySpace for the purpose of perpetuating the capitalist economic machine through advertising. If anyone so desired, News Corp could use MySpace as a powerful tool for cultural imperialism. In a world where the current financial crisis begins in America and has the ability to send shock waves of disaster to economies worldwide, many wonder if these massive multinational financial firms are "too big to fail." The fear is that one company could wield so much power in the economies of the world that their collapse would cause complete devastation. Maybe the same can be thought of companies that hold a fragment of the identities comprising individuals across the entire earth. Not that the collapse of MySpace could cause cultural collapse per se, but perhaps it is a dangerous thing to leave so many of those identities under the watch of a single company. While it is up to the public to decide if this is truly any kind of threat, the potential for it gives at least some reason for pause.
Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. “The System of Objects.” 408-418.
Barker, Chris, and Paul Willis. Cultural Studies : Theory and Practice. Minneapolis: SAGE Publications, Limited, 2008.
"Crafting your image for your 1,000 friends on Facebook or MySpace." PhysOrg.com. 18 Nov. 2008. PhysOrg.com. 18 Dec. 2008.
C-Span. "Murdoch of Fox News Admits Manipulating the News for Agenda." YouTube. 15 Jan. 2008. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008.
Doing, Will. "Homophobosphere." Advocate.com. 26 Feb. 2008. Regent Entertainment Media. 18 Dec. 2008.
Douglas, Nick. "MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition)." ValleyWag. 11 Sept. 2006. Gawker Media. 18 Dec. 2008.
Douglas, Nick. "MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition)." ValleyWag. 11 Sept. 2006. Gawker Media. 18 Dec. 2008.
Krahulik, Mike, and Jerry Holkins. "Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies)." Penny Arcade. 19 Mar. 2004. Penny Arcade, Inc. 18 Dec. 2008
Lehre, David. "MySpace: The Movie." YouTube. 21 Feb. 2006. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008.
MacMillan, Douglas. "Rupert's World." BusinessWeek.com. 3 May 2007. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. 18 Dec. 2008.
MyDeathSpace. "Dr. Shirley Steinberg "Culturologist" on MyDeathSpace.com." YouTube. 19 Sept. 2008. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008.
"MyDeathSpace." MyDeathSpace. 18 Dec. 2008
"Myspace 05-11-2007 nyc channel 7 news." YouTube. 11 May 2007. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008.
"Myspace Predators/Abduction featuring Camfrog users." YouTube. 10 July 2007. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008.
"MySpace." Wikipedia. 18 Dec. 2008. Wikipedia Foundation. 18 Dec. 2008.
"Party dangers of being host with the most." Smh.com.au. 19 Jan. 2008. Sydney Morning Herald. 18 Dec. 2008.
Pokin, Steve. "'My Space' hoax ends with suicide of Dardenne Prairie teen." Suburban Journals. 11 Nov. 2007. Lee Enterprises. 18 Dec. 2008.
Schonfeld, Eric. "Three Years Later, Buying MySpace Looks Like One Of Murdoch’s Smartest Bets." TechCrunch. 5 Oct. 2008. TechCrunch. 18 Dec. 2008
Simpson, Dave. "Hype and Glory." Guardian.co.uk. 20 June 2006. Guardian News and Media Limited. 18 Dec. 2008.
“The Public Person”
MySpace is a vehicle for individuals to interact with the world. This is made possible only with the internet, since such an infrastructure was unavailable before it. At first, only nations had the ability to interact on the world platform, then companies were able to with the advent of industrialization. The change the internet has brought has also created a new paradigm. The world created by MySpace is completely and utterly centered on the individual. This egocentric shift puts key importance on the self while diminishing the value of the group. A person-centered world has many effects both subtle and far-reaching.
One of the most evident changes MySpace brought was the creation of the mass public individual. Before the internet, the only individuals with access to the public sphere were usually celebrities of sorts, be they writers or television personalities or musicians. MySpace made it so anyone could have their presence known on a relatively global scale. To the many users of Myspace, this is assumed to be a good thing. The site helps you keep track of your network of friends and essentially puts some semblance of a human face on the oft impersonal realm of the internet. There have been a few cases, though, when MySpace has enabled the internet to be a little too personal. The most extreme accounts concerning child predators and MySpace party crashers showcase the dangers possible when what is usually private enters the public sphere. In the grand scheme of MySpace, though, these incidents are few and far between representing the dark fringe of its use.
More so than being a place for the transfer of personal or “hard” information, MySpace is a virtual space out of which users craft an identity. This is most closely associated with the postmodernist conception of the self as one having “shifting, fragmented and multiple identities” (Barker 220). MySpace leads its users to create an identity for themselves that is not necessarily grounded in reality. This fact makes it a prime space for two particular types of usage: forming an idealized self or experimenting with wholly new conceptions of your identity . These usages bring up many of the fears individuals have in typical social interactions but these fears are played out all the time and in the private space. Media pressures to live up to a certain standard of beauty are pushed out across personal profiles. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the common joke about “MySpace angles” has occurred, as many attempt to live up to an imaginary ideal of beauty. There have even been occurrences of cyberbullying over MySpace, the most public event involving the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, after being harassed by a fictional boy she met on MySpace created by a classmate’s mother. An interesting tribute to the strength of these identities has been the advent of MyDeathSpace, a site devoted to archiving obituaries of MySpace’s users. Some will even go as far as creating a memorial MySpace area where friends and family can grieve online.
“Friends: Not so Human Interaction”
Stemming from the creation of new and fictional identities, the interaction in MySpace can also be given a substitutive nature. It seems, especially in how bands and comedians advertised themselves over the site (some not even being real artists), that ‘friends’ are more collected than made. Not a complete danger, but this can lead to ‘packrat’ like tendencies in finding and making friends. When friendships become collections, this can lead to the “devaluing of real friendships and the reduction of face-to-face interaction” (psyorg.com news via UCLA). The Law of Diminishing Returns applies here, the more friends you seem to add to your collection, the less each additional one adds value. And when someone has a multitude of friends, it becomes harder and harder to keep up a semblance of personal contact. In fact, MySpace’s use seems to lend itself to a streamlining of interaction that can sometimes become a replacement for face-to-face contact. Making life more efficient, MySpace makes it possible for one to post messages or bulletins to their entire friend base, making it unnecessary to contact friends individually. Taken to an extreme, this can lead to a fragmenting of relationships, leaving users to neglect building strong genuine relationships with others. This fact has been one of the fears of a technology and internet driven world, that people can have whole relationships separated from each other, lending to a deeper existential issue similar to the Marxist laborer-end product dilemma. The ambiguity these relationships create further adds to an individual’s fracturing identity.
Even though identities are created on MySpace, there is still afforded a certain degree of anonymity to members as it is not generally considered a wholly factual medium of interaction. It is this potential for anonymity that allows for situations like Megan Meier’s to happen. People like Clay Shirky, a journalist and professor at NYU, recognize the danger of anonymity on a public space like MySpace. What they see is popularly referred to as “John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” which essentially states that normal people given complete anonymity and an audience are prone to allow their most negative characteristics to surface.
Baudrillard’s writing on the consumption of objects plays a huge role here. MySpace users objectify themselves as people into the signs represented by their MySpace profiles. Others are able to draw conclusions about the individuals on MySpace based solely on the sign they display on the internet. In this way, we create a complete abstraction from a fragment of a person. The fragment or sign created becomes an object of consumption, just as the masses consume the ideas and half-knowledge we receive about celebrities. And just like celebrities, the sign is believed to be the true representation of a person when such a thing is impossible. Through this interaction, people continually consume the idea of interaction with a real person never actually making contact with that person.
“A Cause for Capitalism: Advertising on MySpace”
An unavoidable caveat of MySpace usage comes from its reliance on advertising revenue. Though it remains to be free for any and all users, it is important to recognize that it has a bottom line like any business. This is where MySpace begins to have implications much broader than an individual and his/her group of friends.
MySpace has become an important advertising venue for several parties. One the one hand, the site has been of great value to corporations, especially those hoping to target the younger 18-49 demographic that would be more likely to use its services. This demographic, in particular men in this age group, are notoriously difficult for advertisers to reach.
For its members, MySpace offers a vaguely similar service. Opposed to paying to have an ad service, users actually use their own profiles and messaging to advertise. The most popular users of this advertising ability come from musicians who are able to host some of their material on their personal profile for any to see. The site has been utilized for users’ movies, comedy shows, and even to promote their humanitarian efforts. It is in this way that the entire site is actually a large advertising platform. Both companies and individuals use it to promote and advertise their interests, whatever they may be.
“Origins”
To understand further implications of Myspace, it is important to understand MySpace’s history. An article written by Trent Lapinski chronicles the history and effect MySpace has had on the digital world. MySpace launched in the summer of 2003 as a better version of another social networking site, Friendster, hoping to take its strongest attributes and gain a larger audience. This was the intention of eUniverse (later Intermix Media), a marketing company responsible many forms of internet spam before such a thing was illegal. Using their massive information base consisting of upwards to 50 million email addresses, MySpace became an instant hit garnering users fast and financed by advertising revenue.
In 2005, the now massively successful site was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $580 million. Three years later, reports TechCrunch, MySpace is valued between $3 billion and $20 billion. When MySpace is viewed in the context of being a business segment of one of the world’s largest media companies, the issues affecting the world on a global scale come into play.
“Globalization and the Internet”
MySpace is not limited to solely the American consumer base, there are permutations of MySpace available in several nations across the globe. Implicit here is that MySpace, namely News Corp, has a potential influence on a mass of individuals the world over through its ubiquity as an online social network. Express or implied, this marks MySpace as both an influence of a world capitalist economy as well as a global information system.
“Potential for Manipulation”
As MySpace presents a similar way to interact with people across the globe, aided by the advertisements they host on their pages, it is easy to perceive a global homogenization of culture through its use. Barker explains that “the cultural homogenization thesis proposes that the globalization of consumer capitalism involves a loss of cultural diversity.” Though this is usually viewed in nationalistic terms and News Corp is considered an American company, this can really be seen as a homogenization created by News Corp itself. An interesting dichotomy forms from this, as fractured and ever-changing individuals are actually becoming more alike through the very form of the website. Of course, there are variations between the several MySpaces all over the world, but the essential form remains the same.
With the standardization of form and a singularity of leadership coming from News Corp, it is very easy for hegemony to occur. Inevitably, when one source has the power to shape the information the public reaches, though it may not be consciously, the inherent attitudes and beliefs of the gatekeepers will be given. At the least this comes in the form of further fracturing identities and the pushing for a vague acceptance of a capitalist economic model. This flow of cultural ideologies has been slowed in more strict countries, such as China which blocks certain subject matter from being discussed, usually centering on current political issues though. Continuance of these habits contribute to cultural imperialism through the digital domain. Barker describes cultural imperialism as "the domination of one culture by another and is widely associated with the leading role played in the global economy by multinational corporation of American origin" (Barker 370). It is in this sense that MySpace has undoubtedly had an affect, as English remains the second-most spoken language in the world and online. Schiller notes that "with the spread of English comes the ready adoption of Anglo-American ideas...and so the free flow of ideas in practice means the ascendance of US cultural products" (Barker 371).
More alarming is the idea of overt agenda setting. Though no exact examples have come up involving MySpace, there has been some cause for concern. At the World Economic Forum, Rupert Murdoch as much as said he has tried to push an agenda when it came to the Iraq War, supporting it though noting that public opinion has not kept that support.
So, is having 252,710,328 ‘friends’ ultimately a positive force in our world? While it may seem very innocuous to Americans in particular, there are still some very real concerns. Even without some kind of agenda at work, MySpace has successfully built a massive subscriber based on their own changing and idealized identities. These identities are unified and held together by MySpace for the purpose of perpetuating the capitalist economic machine through advertising. If anyone so desired, News Corp could use MySpace as a powerful tool for cultural imperialism. In a world where the current financial crisis begins in America and has the ability to send shock waves of disaster to economies worldwide, many wonder if these massive multinational financial firms are "too big to fail." The fear is that one company could wield so much power in the economies of the world that their collapse would cause complete devastation. Maybe the same can be thought of companies that hold a fragment of the identities comprising individuals across the entire earth. Not that the collapse of MySpace could cause cultural collapse per se, but perhaps it is a dangerous thing to leave so many of those identities under the watch of a single company. While it is up to the public to decide if this is truly any kind of threat, the potential for it gives at least some reason for pause.
Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. “The System of Objects.” 408-418.
Barker, Chris, and Paul Willis. Cultural Studies : Theory and Practice. Minneapolis: SAGE Publications, Limited, 2008.
"Crafting your image for your 1,000 friends on Facebook or MySpace." PhysOrg.com. 18 Nov. 2008. PhysOrg.com. 18 Dec. 2008
C-Span. "Murdoch of Fox News Admits Manipulating the News for Agenda." YouTube. 15 Jan. 2008. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008
Doing, Will. "Homophobosphere." Advocate.com. 26 Feb. 2008. Regent Entertainment Media. 18 Dec. 2008
Douglas, Nick. "MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition)." ValleyWag. 11 Sept. 2006. Gawker Media. 18 Dec. 2008
Douglas, Nick. "MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition)." ValleyWag. 11 Sept. 2006. Gawker Media. 18 Dec. 2008
Krahulik, Mike, and Jerry Holkins. "Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies)." Penny Arcade. 19 Mar. 2004. Penny Arcade, Inc. 18 Dec. 2008
Lehre, David. "MySpace: The Movie." YouTube. 21 Feb. 2006. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008
MacMillan, Douglas. "Rupert's World." BusinessWeek.com. 3 May 2007. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. 18 Dec. 2008
MyDeathSpace. "Dr. Shirley Steinberg "Culturologist" on MyDeathSpace.com." YouTube. 19 Sept. 2008. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008.
"MyDeathSpace." MyDeathSpace. 18 Dec. 2008
"Myspace 05-11-2007 nyc channel 7 news." YouTube. 11 May 2007. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008
"Myspace Predators/Abduction featuring Camfrog users." YouTube. 10 July 2007. YouTube, LLC. 18 Dec. 2008
"MySpace." Wikipedia. 18 Dec. 2008. Wikipedia Foundation. 18 Dec. 2008
"Party dangers of being host with the most." Smh.com.au. 19 Jan. 2008. Sydney Morning Herald. 18 Dec. 2008
Pokin, Steve. "'My Space' hoax ends with suicide of Dardenne Prairie teen." Suburban Journals. 11 Nov. 2007. Lee Enterprises. 18 Dec. 2008
Schonfeld, Eric. "Three Years Later, Buying MySpace Looks Like One Of Murdoch’s Smartest Bets." TechCrunch. 5 Oct. 2008. TechCrunch. 18 Dec. 2008
Simpson, Dave. "Hype and Glory." Guardian.co.uk. 20 June 2006. Guardian News and Media Limited. 18 Dec. 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Most Suprisingly Philosophical 2 1/2 Minutes
For anyone who hasn't heard of it, SLC punk is a film about a punk's experience living in Salt Lake City. Pretty interesting, pretty funny, and maybe just a little radical.
Check out the vid:
This clip features the voice-over of Stevo (Matthew Lillard) describing the reasons and pitfalls of fighting as someone who considers himself a punk. He ultimately finishes his argument with several contradictions to his beliefs with no answer to them. Stevo's issues with anarchy effectively defeat themselves and show how counterculture, even in its rebellion to convention, can eventually become popular convention, complete with its own set of politics and ideologies.
Bonus!
Because I enjoy the video so much and it fits so well into the same theme, but gives a different contextual point of argument, enjoy Mark Osborne's short "More."
More - Mark Osborne from Paxton Hansard on Vimeo.
Check out the vid:
This clip features the voice-over of Stevo (Matthew Lillard) describing the reasons and pitfalls of fighting as someone who considers himself a punk. He ultimately finishes his argument with several contradictions to his beliefs with no answer to them. Stevo's issues with anarchy effectively defeat themselves and show how counterculture, even in its rebellion to convention, can eventually become popular convention, complete with its own set of politics and ideologies.
Bonus!
Because I enjoy the video so much and it fits so well into the same theme, but gives a different contextual point of argument, enjoy Mark Osborne's short "More."
More - Mark Osborne from Paxton Hansard on Vimeo.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Rest In Peace
So it's finally happened. My very long distance friendship has been terminated.
I've been following the Mars Phoenix lander's exploits over the last few months. I've excitedly looked at its photography as if they were vacation pictures from a distant land and waited in anticipation to see what would be found when it sifted through Martian ice and soil. I promise it's not quite as weird as it sounds.
When I started using twitter (a social microblogging service) I wasn't sure what to do with it. Sure, I had a few friends who also used it, but it's not much of a surprise to see that someone's going to the grocery store moments after you get off the phone with them. One day I stumbled on to an article listing some of the most followed personalities on Twitter, one of them being the Mars Phoenix lander which NASA made to relay information from the lander to the public.
An incredible thing happened, this rover, really a very sophisticated RC car-science lab combination, began to seem very much like a person. It's unending optimism and journey for adventure and discovery inspired me. I, not a science person whatsoever, found myself excited to see what it found in the Martian soil and if it indicates a habitable environment for any life. And when I started hearing the news of the oncoming ice storm, I felt saddened. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but NASA fooled me into caring for a machine. And I don't mind. RIP MarsPhoenix
If you get a chance, check out the twitter: @MarsPhoenix
And the Phoenix website
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two. --HAL
Update: MarPhoenix epitaphs article from Wired
Mars Phoenix Returns to the Ashes (via Wired)
I've been following the Mars Phoenix lander's exploits over the last few months. I've excitedly looked at its photography as if they were vacation pictures from a distant land and waited in anticipation to see what would be found when it sifted through Martian ice and soil. I promise it's not quite as weird as it sounds.
When I started using twitter (a social microblogging service) I wasn't sure what to do with it. Sure, I had a few friends who also used it, but it's not much of a surprise to see that someone's going to the grocery store moments after you get off the phone with them. One day I stumbled on to an article listing some of the most followed personalities on Twitter, one of them being the Mars Phoenix lander which NASA made to relay information from the lander to the public.
An incredible thing happened, this rover, really a very sophisticated RC car-science lab combination, began to seem very much like a person. It's unending optimism and journey for adventure and discovery inspired me. I, not a science person whatsoever, found myself excited to see what it found in the Martian soil and if it indicates a habitable environment for any life. And when I started hearing the news of the oncoming ice storm, I felt saddened. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but NASA fooled me into caring for a machine. And I don't mind. RIP MarsPhoenix
If you get a chance, check out the twitter: @MarsPhoenix
And the Phoenix website
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two. --HAL
Update: MarPhoenix epitaphs article from Wired
Mars Phoenix Returns to the Ashes (via Wired)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Final Showing of M. Butterfly
A few weeks ago, I compared Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's to Song from M. Butterfly. I have to admit this choice was prompted by seeing the show for the first time the weekend prior. While I was familiar with the work, I had never seen it before then and I was blown away.
The point being... This Saturday (tomorrow) is the last showing. M. Butterfly is playing at the small and intimate Chandler Studios at 7pm. Tickets are $25. I would urge anyone remotely intrigued to come.
THE PRODUCTION COMPANY WEBSITE
The point being... This Saturday (tomorrow) is the last showing. M. Butterfly is playing at the small and intimate Chandler Studios at 7pm. Tickets are $25. I would urge anyone remotely intrigued to come.
THE PRODUCTION COMPANY WEBSITE
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A Shifting Paradigm
Just for my personal filtering I want to go over a few things we touched on in Tuesday's session. I believe we started with a short chronology of the changing status of the workplace. The jobs of our parents and grandparents were usually full-time, often labor intensive work. Employees had many work benefits resulting from the efforts of labor unions. There is an image of the factory associated to working, as illustrated in Metropolis and Modern Times.
Moving to the trends of today, there has been a shift toward more part-time positions in the service industry. Several factors such as automation and outsourcing have decreased the labor base in the US. It does seem though, that these changes have only proved to make the elite class more so, as many jobs are eliminated or moved overseas. The paradigm of gratification has also shifted, as consumers use future performance and funds to decide what can be purchased now. Loans and credit cards encourage a buy now, pay later mindset that has repercussions.
The most recent financial downturn illustrates the impending danger of living beyond our means. Technology has also played a role, as the internet has allowed for information and transactions to occur without delay. As far as the market, it's not difficult to see why companies have such huge swings in price, as tons of individual investors floor the web and buy and trade on a whim. While the market has been used for decades as a forward looking indicator of our economy, much of that seems diluted now as it seems to become more of a popularity counter.
Where will things go from here? I've heard some interesting notions of future trends:
The Project-Oriented Workplace
Some experts believe that trends will shift toward jobs being offered on a project by project basis. There's a pretty interesting podcast on this subject and I'll try to find it again, but essentially this would be very similar to how film production has been operating for a while. There's very little job security aside from the personal network of contacts you draw from. There's also a higher importance given to personal marketing, as a workplace of freelancers compete for positions.
The Speed of Information and Globalization
As computer technologies improve and more people use and continually make content for the web, the amount of data available will grow exponentially. We'll also see increased globalization as technologies "flatten" the barriers that once stopped individuals from becoming multi-national participators. For good measure, here's an opposing argument against the world being flat.
A wonderful illustration of many of the changes now and coming in the context of our lives now is a slideshow entitled Shift Happens:
Moving to the trends of today, there has been a shift toward more part-time positions in the service industry. Several factors such as automation and outsourcing have decreased the labor base in the US. It does seem though, that these changes have only proved to make the elite class more so, as many jobs are eliminated or moved overseas. The paradigm of gratification has also shifted, as consumers use future performance and funds to decide what can be purchased now. Loans and credit cards encourage a buy now, pay later mindset that has repercussions.
The most recent financial downturn illustrates the impending danger of living beyond our means. Technology has also played a role, as the internet has allowed for information and transactions to occur without delay. As far as the market, it's not difficult to see why companies have such huge swings in price, as tons of individual investors floor the web and buy and trade on a whim. While the market has been used for decades as a forward looking indicator of our economy, much of that seems diluted now as it seems to become more of a popularity counter.
Where will things go from here? I've heard some interesting notions of future trends:
The Project-Oriented Workplace
Some experts believe that trends will shift toward jobs being offered on a project by project basis. There's a pretty interesting podcast on this subject and I'll try to find it again, but essentially this would be very similar to how film production has been operating for a while. There's very little job security aside from the personal network of contacts you draw from. There's also a higher importance given to personal marketing, as a workplace of freelancers compete for positions.
The Speed of Information and Globalization
As computer technologies improve and more people use and continually make content for the web, the amount of data available will grow exponentially. We'll also see increased globalization as technologies "flatten" the barriers that once stopped individuals from becoming multi-national participators. For good measure, here's an opposing argument against the world being flat.
A wonderful illustration of many of the changes now and coming in the context of our lives now is a slideshow entitled Shift Happens:
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Life as Art Pretending to be Life: The Role of Acting as Portrayed in M. Butterfly and Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Nicholas Lansen
Professor Steven Wexler
13 October 2008
Life as Art Pretending to be Life:
The Role of Acting as Portrayed in M. Butterfly and Breakfast at Tiffany’s
There is a measure of pretense we accept as part of our daily routine: we put on clothes that we hope will exude the image we desire, we engage in polite conversation as we edit out our personal details, we create chance encounters to ask favors of others. As a society, we understand there is some value in an amount of acting, though what can be made of a life of pretense? Both Song in M. Butterfly and Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s shape themselves and are perceived by others based on the identities they create.
M. Butterfly’s Song is the paragon of womanhood, an actor in the Chinese opera who charms a French diplomat, Gallimard, into falling in love with her. She seems to do this not only with her delicate gestures or performing talents, but plays to Gallimard’s ego, making herself to appear to be very independent at first then implying that her weak heart desired to be submissive to a Western man. She also gives herself an air of mystique, as she keeps their meetings to only minutes at a time, leaving him always wanting more. Gallimard is only too happy to believe the elaborate ruse and eventually makes Song his wife for twenty years before finding out the truth: Song is not really a woman at all, but a male informant to the Chinese government.
In a similar way, Holly Golightly can be argued as having more feminine charm than physique. She is constantly the life of the party but is often described by her rather boyish figure with a “face beyond childhood, yet this side of belonging to a woman” (Breakfast 12). Holly creates a mystery about herself much like Song does, never allowing most people to pin her down long enough to get to learn who she is. She leaves everyone to piece together her identity for themselves which attracts them even more while having the added effect of implying their own desires to her character. In this way, others create what they want to see.
In the two works, both character’s identities make them into the objects of those around them. Song makes an interesting claim when talking to a comrade asking “Why in Bejing opera are women’s roles traditionally played by men? …It’s because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act” (M. Butterfly 49). Song claims an aspect of feminism to his character when he allows Gallimard to “define [a] woman not in herself but as relative to him” (Beauvoir). He showers the Frenchman with compliments for his high position as well as his great masculinity. Gallimard, in return, creates for himself the ideal woman, a delicate flower in need of protection. In this way, Song was able to retrieve sensitive government information and evade any suspicion saying that men will believe what they want to hear, no matter how preposterous.
The very measured actions made by Song help us to understand how Holly is also objectified. When Holly allows others to piece together her identity, she embarks on the first step of becoming an object of consumption. “In order to become an object of consumption, the object must become [a] sign” (Baudrillard 418). Others draw conclusions about her rather arbitrarily, separating her true self from the equation and creating a meaning based upon the assumptions (object-signs) made about her. She becomes everything to everyone but is not concretely anything to anyone.
We discussed this idea in relation to our conceptions of Michael Jordan. In the public eye, Jordan has been crafted into an icon of the perfect athlete, a player with not only great skill on the court but also can be associated with traits defining masculinity and Americanism. We create an abstraction out of a real person and end up consuming the things we may imagine about the person rather than anything related to who they really are. This same abstraction was discussed by Counting Crows lead man, Adam Duritz, when asked how he felt about making the cover of Rolling Stone in the 1990’s. He tried to explain that the fame was not something he could really comment on because he felt it was something being done to him rather than something he had done to deserve.
For many performers and particularly for Song and Holly, a person becomes so accustomed to acting that it becomes hard to distinguish an identity apart from it. Shunned in his country as a homosexual, Song finds that he cannot go back to Gallimard either, who has reserved himself to live in the past with the imaginary Butterfly he remembers. Initially thinking himself free from the confines of gender constructions, he finds it difficult to claim either masculinity or femininity for his identity. Holly also becomes plagued by the character she’s created when she is told that that character is incompatible with someone Jose Yberra-Jaegar would be able to marry (Breakfast 99). Defeated, she still fleas to Brazil to escape testifying in court. One could only hope that, with time, a new identity can be crafted so that life can be enjoyed for what it is and not for what is seems to be.
Works Cited
Capote, Truman. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. New York: Random House, 1958.
Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1998.
Beauvoir, Simone de. “Introduction: Woman as Other,” The Second Sex. 28 Jan 2006. Marxists.org. 13 Oct. 2008. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/introduction.htm>
Baudrillard, Jean. “The System of Objects.” 408-418.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
A Trip to Starbucks and Borders
Our class was tasked with observing human behavior and relationships in a public place. I went ahead and brought a digital recorder with me (I did not record people). Below is the recording with some graphics to make it a little more interesting than a simple recording. I also threw in a video blog test with some minor commentary and whatnot.
Observations (as recorded on personal recording device)
It is Sept 22nd, around 5 O'clock or so. I've just arrived at the Starbucks Coffee on Devonshire by the abandoned Blockbuster, soon to be Wachovia. Let's see what's going on.
Apparently, the establishment has changed very much since I worked at the Blockbuster over a year ago. There are less chairs and tables now, for which to observe people. There are about three people outside, with a dog. Two older-looking men and a young man, the dog is older. One of the men is heavily bearded. Heavily bearded. They seem to be discussing something about entertainment. I heard something about Jack Nicholson's vocal coach, it seemed like one man associated with him at some point perhaps. Inside the Starbucks there were approximately seven people with three employees on top of that. One older blonde woman had her laptop with her cell phone plugged into it, apparently charging it. When the blenders turned on, it was a little loud for her to hear who she was talking to on the phone, so she walked outside, where she is now. One man was on his laptop as was another man. There was a group of three: an older man and two boys going over math problems of some sort. There were two men in the back who I couldn't see clearly, one was dressed formally the other casual-formal. Not too much going on here. Now I have to pay attention because I am aimlessly driving around Chatsworth or Chatsworth-Northridge, something like that. Maybe I'll take some time to go over to the Northridge Borders and see if it's a little better over there. See if I can avoid getting into a car crash. Okay.
The Borders Bookstore in Northridge was much more as expected, compared to the Starbucks. For a Monday afternoon, it was adequately filled with people, not overly full like a weekend. I was able to glean a few instances from the experience. The first notable instance was by the door, as I was walking by the magazine stands, a couple came in. A younger couple, perhaps in their teens, maybe their early twenties, probably early teens though. They walked in the turned toward the magazine stand and he remarked "Baby, baby, baby, look!" He wanted her to look at the World War II magazines. Another instance, I walked by the religion area of the store and found one couple looking at religious books. The young woman seemed interested in looking at book from different religions, or religion in general. She mentioned that her grandfather used to talk to her about religion or different religions as a child, she seemed like she was on her own journey to see what it was all about. An interesting thing happened, they asked for help from one of the employees who seemed to be very helpful. He showed them Judaism, Catholicism, alternative ones against them, and also I believe they went over a few Eastern religion books. He gave his story for a bit, his mother was Catholic and his father a born-again Christian minister and he converted to Judaism. He also mentioned that he had done several projects on Eastern religion because he was directed to pursue learning about a religion that he had not been influenced by throughout the course of his life. So he seemed to be a very knowledgeable young man.
Thoughts
At the Starbucks, I was struck by how prevalent technology has become in our daily lives. The use of computers appeared much more pronounced in the coffee chain, but it made me think of how this technology has changed our communication habits. What could have been a somewhat social meeting place was actually devoid of much sound at all, save for the coffee blender's interferrence. It seems that, with the ubiquity of iPods and laptops and other mobile forms of technology, we use these technologies to avoid personal interaction, or at least trade the human interaction of strangers with the digital communication with those we already know.
The objectiveness of my observations were betrayed momentarily as I noted the bearded man outside the Starbucks. Reflecting back, I wonder if I was merely suprised by seeing a person whose cultural influences and experiences seemed likely to be much different than my own. Perhaps a bit assuming, it was not hard to imagine him as part of the anti-establishment or "hippie" group of the 1960s. That assumption does bring up an interesting issue, though. That would mean he was an active participant in the changing paradigm of masculinity in that era. The Barker text refers to this as the "betrayal of the modern man," where the ideal of masculinity spawned disillusionment as the "dutiful and useful" men returned from the Second World War only to soon discover "downsizing, unemployment, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, feminism, and a decline in public concern with space travel." Just a thought.
The Second World War came up more overtly in the Borders Bookstore. When the young man attempted to draw his campanion's attention to the WWII inspired magazines, I initially wrote off the interaction as merely marginally sexist and somewhat obnoxious. I believed on some level he was drawing attention to her feminism, as a person who could not relate to the experience or would find it distasteful. Upon further reflection, though, I realized that this young man has no stake in that experience either. That knowledge completely re-imforms the situation, as a man attempts to reinforce his failing sense of gender identity through association with men of a more defined and perhaps nobler time. This idea emphasizes the slightly desperate tone of a man trying to grasp his partner's attention and finding his effort without any gain.
As I encountered the couple in the religious section of the store, some ideas of feminism came up. It is very possible that this woman was searching for some sense of identity in learning about different religions. She seemed to have been greatly affected by the influence of her grandfather and his talks with her about the subject. Though not necessarily the case, the situation harkens to the patriarchial structure. Religious institutions (as a generality) often contribute to that same theme of saturated power relations. The store employee reminded me a bit of our conversation about culture and anti-culture, as he was drawn to a belief system that was not the same as his parents but the similarities did not seem to go further.
Picture Credits -
Starbucks Cup: http://bigmarketing.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/the-starbucks-experience-wins-over-coffee-everytime/
Borders: http://decaturmetro.com/2008/03/25/borders-books-ponders-selling-out/
ZZ Top: http://levrock.com/?p=Gallery&gid=7
Observations (as recorded on personal recording device)
It is Sept 22nd, around 5 O'clock or so. I've just arrived at the Starbucks Coffee on Devonshire by the abandoned Blockbuster, soon to be Wachovia. Let's see what's going on.Apparently, the establishment has changed very much since I worked at the Blockbuster over a year ago. There are less chairs and tables now, for which to observe people. There are about three people outside, with a dog. Two older-looking men and a young man, the dog is older. One of the men is heavily bearded. Heavily bearded. They seem to be discussing something about entertainment. I heard something about Jack Nicholson's vocal coach, it seemed like one man associated with him at some point perhaps. Inside the Starbucks there were approximately seven people with three employees on top of that. One older blonde woman had her laptop with her cell phone plugged into it, apparently charging it. When the blenders turned on, it was a little loud for her to hear who she was talking to on the phone, so she walked outside, where she is now. One man was on his laptop as was another man. There was a group of three: an older man and two boys going over math problems of some sort. There were two men in the back who I couldn't see clearly, one was dressed formally the other casual-formal. Not too much going on here. Now I have to pay attention because I am aimlessly driving around Chatsworth or Chatsworth-Northridge, something like that. Maybe I'll take some time to go over to the Northridge Borders and see if it's a little better over there. See if I can avoid getting into a car crash. Okay.
The Borders Bookstore in Northridge was much more as expected, compared to the Starbucks. For a Monday afternoon, it was adequately filled with people, not overly full like a weekend. I was able to glean a few instances from the experience. The first notable instance was by the door, as I was walking by the magazine stands, a couple came in. A younger couple, perhaps in their teens, maybe their early twenties, probably early teens though. They walked in the turned toward the magazine stand and he remarked "Baby, baby, baby, look!" He wanted her to look at the World War II magazines. Another instance, I walked by the religion area of the store and found one couple looking at religious books. The young woman seemed interested in looking at book from different religions, or religion in general. She mentioned that her grandfather used to talk to her about religion or different religions as a child, she seemed like she was on her own journey to see what it was all about. An interesting thing happened, they asked for help from one of the employees who seemed to be very helpful. He showed them Judaism, Catholicism, alternative ones against them, and also I believe they went over a few Eastern religion books. He gave his story for a bit, his mother was Catholic and his father a born-again Christian minister and he converted to Judaism. He also mentioned that he had done several projects on Eastern religion because he was directed to pursue learning about a religion that he had not been influenced by throughout the course of his life. So he seemed to be a very knowledgeable young man.Thoughts
At the Starbucks, I was struck by how prevalent technology has become in our daily lives. The use of computers appeared much more pronounced in the coffee chain, but it made me think of how this technology has changed our communication habits. What could have been a somewhat social meeting place was actually devoid of much sound at all, save for the coffee blender's interferrence. It seems that, with the ubiquity of iPods and laptops and other mobile forms of technology, we use these technologies to avoid personal interaction, or at least trade the human interaction of strangers with the digital communication with those we already know.
The objectiveness of my observations were betrayed momentarily as I noted the bearded man outside the Starbucks. Reflecting back, I wonder if I was merely suprised by seeing a person whose cultural influences and experiences seemed likely to be much different than my own. Perhaps a bit assuming, it was not hard to imagine him as part of the anti-establishment or "hippie" group of the 1960s. That assumption does bring up an interesting issue, though. That would mean he was an active participant in the changing paradigm of masculinity in that era. The Barker text refers to this as the "betrayal of the modern man," where the ideal of masculinity spawned disillusionment as the "dutiful and useful" men returned from the Second World War only to soon discover "downsizing, unemployment, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, feminism, and a decline in public concern with space travel." Just a thought.The Second World War came up more overtly in the Borders Bookstore. When the young man attempted to draw his campanion's attention to the WWII inspired magazines, I initially wrote off the interaction as merely marginally sexist and somewhat obnoxious. I believed on some level he was drawing attention to her feminism, as a person who could not relate to the experience or would find it distasteful. Upon further reflection, though, I realized that this young man has no stake in that experience either. That knowledge completely re-imforms the situation, as a man attempts to reinforce his failing sense of gender identity through association with men of a more defined and perhaps nobler time. This idea emphasizes the slightly desperate tone of a man trying to grasp his partner's attention and finding his effort without any gain.
As I encountered the couple in the religious section of the store, some ideas of feminism came up. It is very possible that this woman was searching for some sense of identity in learning about different religions. She seemed to have been greatly affected by the influence of her grandfather and his talks with her about the subject. Though not necessarily the case, the situation harkens to the patriarchial structure. Religious institutions (as a generality) often contribute to that same theme of saturated power relations. The store employee reminded me a bit of our conversation about culture and anti-culture, as he was drawn to a belief system that was not the same as his parents but the similarities did not seem to go further.
Picture Credits -
Starbucks Cup: http://bigmarketing.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/the-starbucks-experience-wins-over-coffee-everytime/
Borders: http://decaturmetro.com/2008/03/25/borders-books-ponders-selling-out/
ZZ Top: http://levrock.com/?p=Gallery&gid=7
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Initial Thoughts on Short Cuts
While I found the reading fairly entertaining throughout, I definitely had a few issues with it. At my most petty, I'm a stickler for how a piece is written; misspelled words, horrible grammar, and poor flow get to me. I did not find any misspellings, assuming the writers are not American ("adherence to a recognisible formula" and later uses of "analysed" and "maximise"). My favorite bit though, was about Sleepless in Seattle: "Tears are the result of both of these feelings and guarantee that, since she can be moved to tears by Sam's love, Annie merits its inheritance." Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I feel like you have to read this line forward then backward to understand.
Those things beside the point, what really irritated me was the complete tone of expertise on the genre (and life essentially) without nearly any supporting evidence. I have not seen Sleepless in Seattle, in fact, my preconceived notions of the film are likely different from any others because I know it by its re-imagined trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frUPnZMxr08). I cannot believe, though, that merely tearing up about Sam's love will ever necessarily "merit its inheritance." They follow with no proof of this. In order to legitimize their claim of the romcom as being the "lowest of the low" in genres, they use a romantic comedy review book. Just because someone writes reviews of romantic comedies does not make them the end all and be all on the subject. I see it just as likely that the authors felt it necessary to fess up to some amount of illegitimacy in the romcom genre in order to escape outside ridicule for writing such a book at all. If nothing else, reviewers are out to make money like everyone else and belittling what you do often has the effect of disarming an audience (as the authors note about the genre itself), a happier reader will ultimately buy the book.
Those things beside the point, what really irritated me was the complete tone of expertise on the genre (and life essentially) without nearly any supporting evidence. I have not seen Sleepless in Seattle, in fact, my preconceived notions of the film are likely different from any others because I know it by its re-imagined trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frUPnZMxr08). I cannot believe, though, that merely tearing up about Sam's love will ever necessarily "merit its inheritance." They follow with no proof of this. In order to legitimize their claim of the romcom as being the "lowest of the low" in genres, they use a romantic comedy review book. Just because someone writes reviews of romantic comedies does not make them the end all and be all on the subject. I see it just as likely that the authors felt it necessary to fess up to some amount of illegitimacy in the romcom genre in order to escape outside ridicule for writing such a book at all. If nothing else, reviewers are out to make money like everyone else and belittling what you do often has the effect of disarming an audience (as the authors note about the genre itself), a happier reader will ultimately buy the book.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Cat Contribution
Our group meetings began to help clear up how we were to give our presentation. CC brought up that she saw the cage as a major theme in the play, arching over many of the topics presented. This became our theme. I initially thought I'd tie this idea in with the alcoholism throughout the scenes. Upon further discussion, we opted to cover fewer subjects so as not to rush our discussion. We paired off into three main topic groups. I paired up with Jessica to lead the topic of gender as presented in the play as well as its relation to an outside work War of the Roses. We'd also both serve as kind of the discussion generators in case the group hits a lull. The format we decided on involved saying a few words about our topic and the film clips we were showing, watching the clips (compiled by Pip), and allowing the class to discuss what it says about our topic and how it relates to Williams' play.
Being responsible for knowing a bit about War of the Roses, I thought it somewhat important to have seen the movie. Upon finishing, Jessica and I dialogued on our thoughts on the film and how it related to the characters of the play and societal genders roles and constructs. I also saw that Aeden was having difficulty posting the academic article she had found. After a little research, I found the .pdf copy of the piece and uploaded the file to our Group area.
Since we're the first group, there's always the worry about presenting the "right" way. I suppose we'll see tomorrow.
Being responsible for knowing a bit about War of the Roses, I thought it somewhat important to have seen the movie. Upon finishing, Jessica and I dialogued on our thoughts on the film and how it related to the characters of the play and societal genders roles and constructs. I also saw that Aeden was having difficulty posting the academic article she had found. After a little research, I found the .pdf copy of the piece and uploaded the file to our Group area.
Since we're the first group, there's always the worry about presenting the "right" way. I suppose we'll see tomorrow.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Ambiguity in Cat
I had a hard time answering this question outright. So I consulted the
dictionary for a quick reference:
Still somewhat perplexed, I drew a chart and settled on some thoughts:
Ambiguity=Aesthetics/Culture/Politics
Cat=Ambiguous=Resists: Gender/Sex/Class/Familial Constructs/Norm/Values/Rituals
Gender
Brick and Maggie make a couple steeped in social and personal constraints that they struggle with in different ways. On the surface, Brick exudes masculinity. He's physically built with years of football games under his belt and an unaffected demeanor that lets others know you are merely tolerated in their world. His attitude is described as having the coolness of someone who has given up the fight. That implies that he cannot be hurt by anything, essentially because there's nothing left to hurt. Brick's broken ankle and being constricted to using crutches shows physically how Brick is emotionally. He is immobile because of his desire to live in the past and drinks so he can try to forget it all. He has become a man with no ambition or courage taken to a "career" of drinking. Not so much the image of heroic football player, favored son, or husband anymore, not much of a man.
Maggie's typical role as wife eventually flips on itself too. To others, her womanhood is questionable in many respects. Aside from lacking qualities expected from very traditional familial norms, essentially the quiet servitude of a meek woman to her husband, Maggie is without child. This fact affects not just the question of legacy, but also the validity of her marriage and even her value as a woman. With Brick as impotent as he is throughout most of the play, Maggie must even take on roles typically held by the husband. It is Maggie who informs Brick of the state of things, that they will be cut off from the family's funding if something isn't done. She must and does stand out in the play because she constantly faces the truth of situations as they are and fill the void left vacant by Brick. She ultimately becomes the "bread winner" of the two as she banishes Brick's alcohol until they "earn" their inheritance.
dictionary for a quick reference:
Still somewhat perplexed, I drew a chart and settled on some thoughts:
Ambiguity=Aesthetics/Culture/Politics
Cat=Ambiguous=Resists: Gender/Sex/Class/Familial Constructs/Norm/Values/Rituals
Gender
Brick and Maggie make a couple steeped in social and personal constraints that they struggle with in different ways. On the surface, Brick exudes masculinity. He's physically built with years of football games under his belt and an unaffected demeanor that lets others know you are merely tolerated in their world. His attitude is described as having the coolness of someone who has given up the fight. That implies that he cannot be hurt by anything, essentially because there's nothing left to hurt. Brick's broken ankle and being constricted to using crutches shows physically how Brick is emotionally. He is immobile because of his desire to live in the past and drinks so he can try to forget it all. He has become a man with no ambition or courage taken to a "career" of drinking. Not so much the image of heroic football player, favored son, or husband anymore, not much of a man.
Maggie's typical role as wife eventually flips on itself too. To others, her womanhood is questionable in many respects. Aside from lacking qualities expected from very traditional familial norms, essentially the quiet servitude of a meek woman to her husband, Maggie is without child. This fact affects not just the question of legacy, but also the validity of her marriage and even her value as a woman. With Brick as impotent as he is throughout most of the play, Maggie must even take on roles typically held by the husband. It is Maggie who informs Brick of the state of things, that they will be cut off from the family's funding if something isn't done. She must and does stand out in the play because she constantly faces the truth of situations as they are and fill the void left vacant by Brick. She ultimately becomes the "bread winner" of the two as she banishes Brick's alcohol until they "earn" their inheritance.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Impartiality
Simone de Beauvoir describes the state of things as society seems to present it. A man can both describe himself by his sex and all humans with 'man.' In this way he can be both a specific party and general. In having this ‘neutral’ stance, men become the standard upon which all things are compared against. This necessarily makes women the ‘others,’ implying that they are not the norm.
She goes on to ask if there is anyone qualified to mediate over the debate. Both an angel and hermaphrodite prove to be insufficient in taking up this position. Finding no naturally impartial judge in the matter, we come back to women who know the complexities of the problem and strive to be objective in their reasoning.
These two discussions in Beauvoir's work explain the difficulty in being impartial on the matter of feminism. On one hand, a man could never completely understand the subtleties of the issue. On the other, it is hard for a woman to argue and be considered unbiased. But really being objective or partial is only the argument for the problem, not the problem itself. People are rarely impartial toward a cause, it's nearly an oxymoron. It is a fact that women are not in an equal position with men. To a high degree, men still are the norm with women the fringe. It seems that this perspective might have to be taken to the extreme in order to move the perception of 'normal.' Not having seen it, I assume Sex and the City declares itself as a feminine-centered work. Several other works push other boundaries. Commander in Chief stared a female president. It could be argued that these push only to be female counterparts for male-originating standards. I wonder how society would react to an example that was completely beyond the norm of both male and female standards. Would that upset the norm enough to seriously consider equalizing the opportunities between sexes? Or is it the wrong
way to think about the issue?
She goes on to ask if there is anyone qualified to mediate over the debate. Both an angel and hermaphrodite prove to be insufficient in taking up this position. Finding no naturally impartial judge in the matter, we come back to women who know the complexities of the problem and strive to be objective in their reasoning.
These two discussions in Beauvoir's work explain the difficulty in being impartial on the matter of feminism. On one hand, a man could never completely understand the subtleties of the issue. On the other, it is hard for a woman to argue and be considered unbiased. But really being objective or partial is only the argument for the problem, not the problem itself. People are rarely impartial toward a cause, it's nearly an oxymoron. It is a fact that women are not in an equal position with men. To a high degree, men still are the norm with women the fringe. It seems that this perspective might have to be taken to the extreme in order to move the perception of 'normal.' Not having seen it, I assume Sex and the City declares itself as a feminine-centered work. Several other works push other boundaries. Commander in Chief stared a female president. It could be argued that these push only to be female counterparts for male-originating standards. I wonder how society would react to an example that was completely beyond the norm of both male and female standards. Would that upset the norm enough to seriously consider equalizing the opportunities between sexes? Or is it the wrong
way to think about the issue?
Monday, September 1, 2008
Opening Thoughts
While I'd like to take a look at the Barker text and put in a few thoughts on culture, the bookstore seems to be backordered on copies. So.. opening thoughts on the class. I think this is going to be a pretty fascinating semester. As a student of finance, I tend to be in classes that are a lot more pragmatic. Analyzing business strategies, valuing companies, developing marketing plans. Very "serious" stuff.
That's not to say that I think the issues in this class aren't serious either, I just look forward to really analyzing some material that doesn't involve spreadsheets and other forms of number/idea crunching. To be honest, I was also happy to see that this class was both tech friendly (as I've become a bit of a computer nerd) and easy (no offense, it's just that I've stacked 18 units this semester). Most importantly, though, I'm glad to finally have the chance to sit down with a group and really think about the culture that is influencing and influenced by us
and see what that all really means.
On to the movies. I was surprised how hard I found it to grasp what Anchorman was saying about gender relations and stereotypes. I've seen the movie several times and have enjoyed it, but I guess I've lumped it in with the "stupid funny" category of films that wouldn't have anything particularly relevant to say about society. Either that or I hoped the comedy didn't buy into some of the themes it perpetuated. In the clip we watched, the film seemed to say that no matter how self controlled or driven, a woman will be easily snared by feats of talent or spectacle.
Though it may be somewhat shortsighted, my overall enjoyment of the movie is higher if the scene is just a fairly weak plot point to move the film along.
I have not seen Fatal Attraction it its entirety, so this may be a shot in the dark. The film seemed to be essentially about a man who recklessly pursued his desires and became emasculated by the consequences. The first evidence of this is when Douglas cannot bring himself to admit to his affair. His weakness forces his wife to pick up the slack and ask him outright. I assume this progresses through the film up to our second clip. Somewhat ironically, Douglas' wife sends him to the kitchen to make some tea while she bathes. He does come to her rescue when the scorned lover attacks, but it is the wife who finishes her off once and for all. I found these clips made an interesting implication about women. Typically, we are conditioned to see the villains and heroes of a story as an embodiment of masculinity. We have tons of stories of men as both stalkers and killers as well as firefighters and courageous soldiers. By making Douglas neither one of these types, the film implies that women can just as easily fulfill masculine roles. If this is true, is there really much difference between masculinity and femininity? And if not, should we be surprised by this fact?
That's not to say that I think the issues in this class aren't serious either, I just look forward to really analyzing some material that doesn't involve spreadsheets and other forms of number/idea crunching. To be honest, I was also happy to see that this class was both tech friendly (as I've become a bit of a computer nerd) and easy (no offense, it's just that I've stacked 18 units this semester). Most importantly, though, I'm glad to finally have the chance to sit down with a group and really think about the culture that is influencing and influenced by us
and see what that all really means.
On to the movies. I was surprised how hard I found it to grasp what Anchorman was saying about gender relations and stereotypes. I've seen the movie several times and have enjoyed it, but I guess I've lumped it in with the "stupid funny" category of films that wouldn't have anything particularly relevant to say about society. Either that or I hoped the comedy didn't buy into some of the themes it perpetuated. In the clip we watched, the film seemed to say that no matter how self controlled or driven, a woman will be easily snared by feats of talent or spectacle.
Though it may be somewhat shortsighted, my overall enjoyment of the movie is higher if the scene is just a fairly weak plot point to move the film along.
I have not seen Fatal Attraction it its entirety, so this may be a shot in the dark. The film seemed to be essentially about a man who recklessly pursued his desires and became emasculated by the consequences. The first evidence of this is when Douglas cannot bring himself to admit to his affair. His weakness forces his wife to pick up the slack and ask him outright. I assume this progresses through the film up to our second clip. Somewhat ironically, Douglas' wife sends him to the kitchen to make some tea while she bathes. He does come to her rescue when the scorned lover attacks, but it is the wife who finishes her off once and for all. I found these clips made an interesting implication about women. Typically, we are conditioned to see the villains and heroes of a story as an embodiment of masculinity. We have tons of stories of men as both stalkers and killers as well as firefighters and courageous soldiers. By making Douglas neither one of these types, the film implies that women can just as easily fulfill masculine roles. If this is true, is there really much difference between masculinity and femininity? And if not, should we be surprised by this fact?
Saturday, August 30, 2008
I have this thing about warning signs
Greetings!
Hello and welcome to my first 'blog.' That is, the first I've made with the intent of blogging. Admittedly, I've previously been a Xangian and Livejournalist, but those journals from high school seem like such a long time ago. Now in my last year of college, I'm having another go at it. It will be interesting to me to see what has/hasn't changed over the last few years. In the meantime, I hope you find these posts to be as thoughtful and honest as I will try to make them. Take care.
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Now playing: Radiohead - Nude
via FoxyTunes
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Now playing: Radiohead - Nude
via FoxyTunes
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