BONUS #12

Randy Marsh exemplified the ontological of post modernism because although he knew he was not a racist, he owned up to his new nickname as “nigger guy.” For example, he went to a comedy club with mostly black people and made a little rap of apologies for saying “nigger” on TV. He went to a Black Coalition meeting to apologize to all the blacks in South Park for his behavior. The critical post-modernism I saw in the show was when the Southern hillbillies were out to kill Randy (and any other person) whose name is “nigger guy,” when the Seinfeld guy showed up and shooed the hillbillies away. It reminded me of the Chappelle Show episode we watched when white guys were at a gas station and they saw Chappelle and were ready to beat him up, until they heard all the “white power” talk coming out oh his mouth...too funny. The aesthetic post-modernism that was seen when Randy went to the Laugh Factory and Chris Rock? like person was there making jokes and then called Randy out for being “nigger guy” and kept poking jokes at him while everyone kept on laughing and laughing. But later on when he did it, no one laughed, they just stared. Also, the Jesse Jackson scene was a little absurd and later on, an authorial fallacy, because if Jesse Jackson accepted Randy’s apology by kissing his ass, then to Stan, Token should be okay with him now after the incident. But that doesn’t justify anything to Token.

QUESTION #1

The words with lower case letters represents the real. For example, Ted you are a man. It’s literal. The words with capital letters represent the word placement in discourse and/or culture. For example, it’s the concept of a man. Men are supposed too be masculine, chivalrous toward women, and dominant.

QUESTION #2

An “audience fallacy” is never assuming an interpretation is the only way. An “authorial fallacy” is not being able to argue an author’s point of view as the only view. An example of “audience fallacy” is “Gay marriages are immoral and 70% of Americans agree!” An example of an “authorial fallacy” is “Lindsey Lohan has made several great movie, but she is an alcoholic, drug addict, and vulgar so no one should go see her movies anymore. These examples are significant because they both are trying to convince us that their point of view is right.

QUESTION #3

The videos are the same in that they both have a black connotation. They are both stereotyping black lifestyle. “Ghetto Delta” clip directly explains how they like to “get their drink on,” chillin’ at their “crib,” and smoking a “flat spliff.” The “Get the education you need to get on with your life” clip indirectly explains the black lifestyle and person by having a black man attack the viewer about “sitting on the couch,” “watching TV,” watching their lives pass by, and spending time on the phone. They are different for the obvious reasons, one being the “Ghetto Delta” talking about airplanes and vacation with ghetto talk and the second, being “Get the education you need to get on with your life” talking about going back to school and the black man is speaking eloquently to sound educated to make his point clear to the viewer.

QUESTION #4

The image of the pipe and its translated text “this is not a pipe” implies that is is not just a pipe but a symbol of masculinity and/or identity. For example, pipes are associated with older men and sophistication. Men who smoke pipes are intelligent and wise. It is significant in cultural studies because the direct text saying “this is not a pipe” makes the viewer look at the painting, not as a painting, but pondering what more it could mean

QUESTION #5

Ideology is common sense and hegemony is maintaing common sense. Hegemony is when subjects all agree on the same thing. The urinal game is using ideology to pick which free urinal you would choose if one, two, or three people were using the others. To reify hegemony the person must pick the farthest urinal from the other. For example, if one person is using one, you would use the one farthest from him or if there is two people next to each other you would pick the farthest one from them. If there are people in every other one the answer is either you don’t use any of the free ones.

QUESTION #6

In Conan O’Brian’s American Express commercial there is elements of the exotic (indian) culture put into a custom. The custom being a curtain and all the places he goes to make it. It portrays globalization in a good way because of all the jobs he goes through to make the curtain he uses when he is in the US. Also, he goes to each place to get the materials and helps make his curtain which can be seen as sharing their “technology” on how to make a curtain. Conan also uses American conversation with the indian women when he was dying his curtain which is taking US culture and putting in with indian. It is also exotic because he starts off wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a jacket, but then changes into an Indian outfit of a loose shirt and pant. and he uses indian language and American language when conversing with them. The end of the clip represents all the hard-work that it took to make the curtain by the indians and like Conan dreamt that he was apart of it.

QUESTION #7

“How To Make Your Breasts Look Bigger” video is both appropriation and re-appropriation because it is set up like an infomercial to help people with small breasts out and how Penny presents herself in a sexual way to get that point across. The film is appropriated because it is showing the idea of consumerism and how Americans will do anything to get noticed or look good for any price to reach their goal to impress. It is drawn from a role-play porno film where Penny is the desperate girl in need of a quick fix and Hank is the “buff” technician who is there to assist her, but it is conveyed through sexual dialogue, but literal translation. The film is re-appropriated because Penny see’s herself as a sexual object, and if she buys products and works out she will have bigger boobs. When Hank finally asks her if she wants to have sex, she establishes who she is by declining to make herself happy. Basically, taking back her identity that she, before, gave herself away to.

QUESTION #8

The political economy and cultural studies are both theories of Karl Marx. The political economy has to do with economics, while cultural studies is how culture shapes the world and economics is not the basic factor of the world. In the first part of “Mouse Trapped 2010,” political economy is present when they talk about how the workers need the money to make to live their lives regardless of how little the make. For example, a fifty year old man who works 50 hours and makes only $165, or working there for 3 years and not even making $8 especially because Disney is a HUGE franchise, you’d think the employers would be making more. The cultural studies are seen when they interviewers admit that they love their job and making others happy, and they don’t want to leave the company because they don’t have enough money to put food on the table. In the first part of “Mickey Mouse Monopoly” Disney is apart of the political economy because of all the corporations they own. One being ABC, which is a huge network company, that also owned capital cities, so since Disney owned ABC then they also owned the capital cities, witch results into narrow media out-put of what the world around us is like. In cultural studies,Disney is seen has a fantasy that stimulates children's’ imagination. But as Grossberg states in his intro, “it celebrates pop culture...cultural studies ignores the economics, it is incapable of understanding the real structures of power, domination, and oppression in the contemporary world.” the fact that Disney controls what images and messages get put out to the public, the people can’t really understand what goes on behind the scenes. For example, Disney not allowing any authors to get political about them because they don’t want anyone knowing that some of the things they do are shady or how villains in movies are darker colored.

QUESTION #9

In the Onion (fake)news story, “Chinese Gossip Blogger Fights For Freedom To Post Celebrity Up-Skirt Photos” Zhang is a internet blogger that makes fun of Japanese stars, like Perez Hilton. In an interview on the talk show ‘Ellen,’ Perez Hilton spoke out on how he is going to stop internet bullying. The Onion story demonstrates gatekeeping because they withhold the negative aspects of Zhang’s online bullying, and instead justify his blog through his struggle of freedom of speech in his country. Perez Hilton’s interview demonstrates gatekeeping by talking about how speaking out for teen suicide and gay bullying is his justification to stop his mean blogs against famous people, but he doesn’t explain how, he just talks about himself and the blog. Perez’s interview is a good example of agenda-setting because his blog had a huge impact on a lot of audiences, mostly celebrities, and Ellen being one of his gay targets at the. On the Onion, agenda-setting by thinking Zhang’s story was news-worthy because the point of the interview was to bring to light how he fought for his freedom of speech right to allow his online bullying blog. I found the comparison in the two for the fact that they both were about online blog bullying. Baym’s article, where he talks about blending humor into a serious news story, like Zhang’s, even though it is made up. When Baym says, “satire is a discourse of inquiry, a rhetoric of challenge that seeks through the asking of an unanswered question to clarify the underlying morality of a situation.” This relates to Ellen’s show because her talk show is mostly humorous and she wanted to give the online blog-comedian a second chance to explain himself as to why is going to stop online-bullying.

Chinese Gossip Blogger Fights For Freedom To Post Celebrity Up-Skirt Photos

QUESTION #10

My image is of two gay black men wearing a “Gay Is The New Black” t-shirt. This ties into Fred Fejes article on gay and lesbian identity because for the obvious reason, that they are gay, but they are also selling a lifestyle and product (ex. the shirt) to others. Fejes talks about how gay men are labeled as “trendsetters” and the mean in this image have pink rimmed sunglasses on and a fedora hat... very trendy! To build onto Fejes’s findings, Robin R. Means Coleman explains how Black people have been breaking economic boundaries than they were before. In Coleman’s piece, she says that there is a notion in the white commodity of Black men feeling less than Black women but once they feel accepted than they will have their self esteem back. This relates to my picture because being gay is a hard sexuality to accept, especially if you are a gay Black man. But in this picture, these Black men feel very happy and proud that they are the way they are, and they are accepted into the white culture. In Baym’s “Johnny Can’t Dissent” he talks about counter-culture idea, and how capitalism and consumerism has it becoming commodified. This relates to the picture, and what Fejes and Coleman were talking about because there are two gay Black men who are dressed differently. This representing the homosexual counter-culture. They look like they want to market their shirts, because, today, there are more and more gay people coming out and they probably don’t want to make other Black men feel weird or alone. Also, I concluded this because gay’s have been known to get beat up for their orientation, and if they is a gay black guy, then they should run for the hills (if they live in the projects) because it is still something that is working on being accepted.

QUESTION #11

“Why Johnny Can’t Dissent” by Thomas Frank and “Black Sitcom Portrayals” by Robin R. Means Coleman are two texts that we read in the semester that expand on my over all topic for the semester. Although my topic was about “construction of indie identity,” I discussed their counter-culture from the mainstream. In “Why Johnny Can’t Dissent,” Frank addresses that concept, while Coleman addresses how Black people are treated like the counter-culture as well and not fully accepted in society. The image of The Black Panther Party is a good example of a different identity from the mainstream and black recognition as being equal in a white society in the 1960s. This connects to Coleman’s article when she talks about how television fails to represent the full achievements and stability of Blacks because there is the assumption that blacks never forget they are from the underclass. The Black Panther Party were televised to fight for their voice and show the world that Blacks were important by the use of military defense. They wanted education, better housing, and full-employment as some of their demands. They didn’t want to be seen as lower class anymore. Also, just like in Franks article when he mentions the word “Revolution” as a catchphrase of the counter-culture and the word “leadership” as bold talk for defying a herd, it relates the Black Panther Party’s identity as Black revolutionists and being leaders in their Black community. Their goal was to defy the white man’s rules and have their goals be met and become just as fair as the white mans’.

BONUS #13

I chose the music video “Get Some” by Lykke Li because I feel like it is a good video that represents women’s empowerment to do what they want for themselves. It discusses the first wave of feminism by showing the quantity of rights the women have. They don’t have many because in the background women being actively oppressed by the male dominant (at :53-1:02). The men are tying the woman up so she is not in control. Later at (2:34-2:46) there is a man and girl fight scene where the male gets very physical with her, making him more dominant and her oppressed. But at (1:11) a stream of “amazon” like women come out on their way to hunt the men who are controlling them, which can be seen as them trying to fix society where men and more dominant than women. Which leads me into the second wave of feminism which is qualitative. Equal recognition, the things we critique, the image and social role of women, and the sexualized woman. Lykke Li, the singer, is sexualized by the way she looks at the camera and moves her hands down her body. Her whole video is focused on women’s rights to themselves and society, as you will see when you watch the background images in her video. Her image is a woman in control, that doesn’t want to be oppressed in society like the first wave. Her social role is to be eye candy for a man, like the male gaze...but literal. Which leads me into the last wave of feminism, the third, which is all about taking back the power of women. Lykke touches herself and says, “I’m your prostitute/you gonna get some.” which is basically a sexual remark, maybe even considered agency, where a woman is given a choice. Example, Li being a prostitute for a man and being fine with it. She feels empowered by her lyrics because she is in control of any man that wants her (at 1:38) there is a scene where the girls in the background are catching and tying up a man to take advantage of him. The third wave is like the first wave, but if Li wants to be called a prostitute then it is ok, in her eyes and societies eyes.