This song serves as a good commentary on gender stereotypes and also shows how a woman can be empowered. The two characters in the narrative are a man a women; the man seems to be very stereotypically masculine. Men have been socialized by the media and other institutions to think that they must be solid, unwavering, and all-knowing. The man in the song thinks he knows it all, the female voice describes how men like this try and tell you that they know better. Unfortunately there are many women who take this "pill" and swallow it. But in the case of this song, the woman recognizes that she has her own voice and that he is "acting like you own me." Because of this, she finds her own power and breaks free from the box that men and gender rolls try and put women in. This sort of song is a great thing to be present in the media as it consciously and subconsciously gives women listeners hope of breaking free from this dis-empowerment.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Song Analysis 3: In The Next Room - Neon Trees
This song is a perfect example of a woman being simultaneously empowered and objectified. The female character in this song is empowered by the way she seems to have control over the male vocalist. It is pretty clear that she makes him lose control. She occupies his mind and and makes him act in ways contrary to what he feels he should. "I am usually better when I lie / There I go / Stuck inside a shell" indicates that the standard empowerment he feels over women has been diminished by this particular girl. She has broken him out of the way he has been taught to view women, and put him in a new shell - a shell which renders him powerless compared to her. In this sense, the female is portrayed as powerful. But at what cost...
The reason he loses control is not out of a new-found respect for her, but out of her sexual attraction. In the chorus when he sings "I lose control" it is important to note that he doesn't say "when I hear you move," but rather "when I hear your BODY move." He is clarifying that this dis-empowerment, this control she has over him is purely because of sexual attraction to her body. In this way she is turned into an object; nothing more than a body for him to want, to consume, to control. He even directly states "It's a sexual attraction."
The entire song is full of this sense of entitlement. He is a man and he wants this woman. Therefor he should have her. This wall, this room which contains him, is preventing him from receiving what all men in our society have been taught to feel entitled to.
The reason he loses control is not out of a new-found respect for her, but out of her sexual attraction. In the chorus when he sings "I lose control" it is important to note that he doesn't say "when I hear you move," but rather "when I hear your BODY move." He is clarifying that this dis-empowerment, this control she has over him is purely because of sexual attraction to her body. In this way she is turned into an object; nothing more than a body for him to want, to consume, to control. He even directly states "It's a sexual attraction."
The entire song is full of this sense of entitlement. He is a man and he wants this woman. Therefor he should have her. This wall, this room which contains him, is preventing him from receiving what all men in our society have been taught to feel entitled to.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
"Pop Goes the Porn Culture"
Ch. 2 Pornland
Gail Dines
The theme of this article is that porn has made it's way and is continuing to solidify its position in mainstream culture. Through various forms, products, and industries pornography has slowly become more and more accepted. As society slowly but surely begins to except more and more sexual images and "normal" or "ok" so too has the pornography industry solidified its position in our society.
Pornography is obviously one of the most direct systems of objectification. Women are dis-empowered and portrayed as having no function beyond what their bodies can offer men. Surprise, surprise, men are empowered. But interestingly enough, some women believe they too are empowered by this institution of sexual objectification. The porn industry has given women the idea that when they seduce men with their bodies, they are empowered. Though this feeling may truly be felt by many of the women who are a part of the industry, Dines notes that beneath this there is still an objectification, a fundamental objectification which simply cannot be dismissed.
She notes that many labels such as "Girls Gone Wild" create a myth that normal women are sluts. By filming women in drunken situations, GGW shows all viewers and participants that it is not just porn stars who do it, but regular women. However, these "regular" women are found to experience significant troubles and hardships in the rest of their lives due to these encounters with porn.
Porn Goes Mainstream
Porn stars in the mainstream - latimes.com
Discussion Questions:
1. Will this prove to be an even larger problem in the future because young people are getting introduced to this sort of imagery at such a young age?
2. With the rise of the internet the pornography industry has shrunk significantly, could this prove to be a good thing, or only a bad thing for our society with its increased accessibility?
Gail Dines
The theme of this article is that porn has made it's way and is continuing to solidify its position in mainstream culture. Through various forms, products, and industries pornography has slowly become more and more accepted. As society slowly but surely begins to except more and more sexual images and "normal" or "ok" so too has the pornography industry solidified its position in our society.
Pornography is obviously one of the most direct systems of objectification. Women are dis-empowered and portrayed as having no function beyond what their bodies can offer men. Surprise, surprise, men are empowered. But interestingly enough, some women believe they too are empowered by this institution of sexual objectification. The porn industry has given women the idea that when they seduce men with their bodies, they are empowered. Though this feeling may truly be felt by many of the women who are a part of the industry, Dines notes that beneath this there is still an objectification, a fundamental objectification which simply cannot be dismissed.
She notes that many labels such as "Girls Gone Wild" create a myth that normal women are sluts. By filming women in drunken situations, GGW shows all viewers and participants that it is not just porn stars who do it, but regular women. However, these "regular" women are found to experience significant troubles and hardships in the rest of their lives due to these encounters with porn.
Porn Goes Mainstream
Porn stars in the mainstream - latimes.com
Discussion Questions:
1. Will this prove to be an even larger problem in the future because young people are getting introduced to this sort of imagery at such a young age?
2. With the rise of the internet the pornography industry has shrunk significantly, could this prove to be a good thing, or only a bad thing for our society with its increased accessibility?
Song Analysis 2: Hatefuck - The Bravery
The following song fits very well into themes of this course. The song and its lyrics, rather explicitly, portray perhaps the most blatant form of male domination over women. It almost needs no introduction from me because the song's meaning is so clear. This song presents sexuality in a very dark and dominating way which correlates all too well with stereotypical gender roles. The hegemonic model of masculinity is one which tells men that their masculinity is a function of dominance over women. This can be seen in infinite forms, one of which being the actual act of sexuality. In this song, the artist sings about all of the explicit ways which he will show the power he has over his woman partner. Perhaps one of the most telling lines, which is not too graphic, is when he says: "There will be no tenderness." Another key element to hegemonic male sexuality is the way in which men are to be strong, emotionless beings. This naturally finds its way into the differing ideas of sex between men and women. Men are taught through socialization to view sex as recreation; to show no emotion or "tenderness." It is purely physical and clearly in the case of this song, it is purely for the benefit of the male. In this way, the song "Hatefuck" proves as an example of male empowerment over women.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Thematic Collection 1: Commodity
The key activity of pop culture is consumption, and this can be broken down into three contributing realms of consumption in our society: Power, rituals, and symbolic/material.
The goal of this post is to talk about how the consumerist culture we live in commoditizes celebrities and musical artists. More specifically, I thought it would be interesting to look into examples of the most literal and obvious ways we have turned people into products – the material. For example, we have already briefly referenced the Britney Barbie and how that can be used as a good model in understanding her function in the minds of us consumers. So what are some other ways in which we aid the commoditizing and objectifying of celebrities? Focusing not only on just images and rhetoric in the media, I have compiled a list of actually tangible and purchasable examples. Here are a few examples that came to my mind:
Trading Cards
It sounds bit ridiculous I know, but I can't help but wonder how this tradition of ownership, buying, trading, and coveting has aided the way we turn celebrities into commodities. Your classic baseball card trading is one thing, but this culture has broadened its horizons ranging from Pokemon to porn-stars.
Dolls
Branding
The list goes on. Any others that jump out to you?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Reading Response: EXILE part 2
The Exile of Britney Spears Ch 8-15
Christopher R. Smit
We have already established how we as a culture created and consumed Britney Spears. We consumed everything about her and exploited her as a person for our own entertainment and political (power) purposes. In this relationship between Britney and I, guess who holds the power? Me, the consumer. Our society has taught us to consume anything and everything as product; this does not exclude Britney Spears. This all sounds a little weird and uncomfortable, stating that we consumed Britney the way we consume cookies. Perhaps it is easier to say that we consumed Britney the way we consume, say, a Barbie doll. The fact that Britney was literally objectified and produced into the form of a miniature doll, says a lot about this relationship between us and Britney. We hold the power. Just as we can litterally buy a Britney doll and hold it our hands, play with it and manipulate it, we have also been manipulating Britney Spears the person. Using this idea of Britney as our manipulated product, explanation can be offered for the huge down fall we witnessed in her career. We let Britney make her own decisions and those decisions led her to become less "perfect." In her becoming pregnant, this young innocence which we had associated with her dissolved. Her body became physically less like a doll and more like a real women with the advantages of larger breasts, but a bigger, "used" body. We didn't like this and sent her into exile for it. We rejected her, but not completely - still using her as a point of ridicule and gossip, but not using her for her sex appeal any more.
But guess what, Britney's back! On our terms that is. Whether or not she fully understands the power we as a society and the media have over her, she will act in just the way we want her to. If she doesn't we know what happened last time. Just in case you are not on quite on the Britney's-back-band-wagon, lets just say that a few other people are... Who's top of the Google + charts?
In the process of trying to find out what other celebrities have been made into Barbies, I found myself on the Barbie website. I would encourage you to check it out, it is pretty fantastic... http://www.barbiemedia.com/?subcat=7
Discussion Questions:
Christopher R. Smit
We have already established how we as a culture created and consumed Britney Spears. We consumed everything about her and exploited her as a person for our own entertainment and political (power) purposes. In this relationship between Britney and I, guess who holds the power? Me, the consumer. Our society has taught us to consume anything and everything as product; this does not exclude Britney Spears. This all sounds a little weird and uncomfortable, stating that we consumed Britney the way we consume cookies. Perhaps it is easier to say that we consumed Britney the way we consume, say, a Barbie doll. The fact that Britney was literally objectified and produced into the form of a miniature doll, says a lot about this relationship between us and Britney. We hold the power. Just as we can litterally buy a Britney doll and hold it our hands, play with it and manipulate it, we have also been manipulating Britney Spears the person. Using this idea of Britney as our manipulated product, explanation can be offered for the huge down fall we witnessed in her career. We let Britney make her own decisions and those decisions led her to become less "perfect." In her becoming pregnant, this young innocence which we had associated with her dissolved. Her body became physically less like a doll and more like a real women with the advantages of larger breasts, but a bigger, "used" body. We didn't like this and sent her into exile for it. We rejected her, but not completely - still using her as a point of ridicule and gossip, but not using her for her sex appeal any more.But guess what, Britney's back! On our terms that is. Whether or not she fully understands the power we as a society and the media have over her, she will act in just the way we want her to. If she doesn't we know what happened last time. Just in case you are not on quite on the Britney's-back-band-wagon, lets just say that a few other people are... Who's top of the Google + charts?
In the process of trying to find out what other celebrities have been made into Barbies, I found myself on the Barbie website. I would encourage you to check it out, it is pretty fantastic... http://www.barbiemedia.com/?subcat=7
Discussion Questions:
- Do you think our contemporary society turns people into commodities more or less than it used to?
- Who do you see having the potential to be the next Britney? The next big cookie for us to spit out of our mouths?
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Reading Response: EXILE part 1
The Exile of Britney Spears Ch 1-7
Christopher R. Smit
Britney Spears is celebrity. Her name is recognized by everybody. Her image is ingrained in the minds of everyone in our society. Her story has intrigued , and continues to intrigue all of us. All of these aspects which make up who Britney is, have been produced by you and I. Who is the real Britney? Who knows. What Christopher Smit does know, and points out to the rest of us, is that we have created and consumed Britney Spears. From her origins as an innocent southern girl, we as a culture of consumption, have used Britney as an item of our entertainment and consumption. We took her and transformed her slowly from this innocent image to a sort of sexualized innocence. As she became popular with her 1999 album "...Baby One More Time" she really became a product of whatever function we desired her to serve. Her sexuality became more and more prevalent, and continues this same pattern now in her recent comeback to popular music. However, in the middle there was that portion of time in which Britney really fell of the map and made started making her own decisions. That didn't go well to say the least...
...but sure enough, we re-made her into what we desired. And today's Britney is just as much of a sex-symbol as the "original" one.
Discussion Questions:
Christopher R. Smit
...but sure enough, we re-made her into what we desired. And today's Britney is just as much of a sex-symbol as the "original" one.
- Do you think Britney is at all to blame for her consumption?
- How successful do you think this next portion of her career will be?
- What could cause her to have another fall from fame?
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