annaiswriting, 11/30

        During class on Tuesday, we discussed Judith Butler and feminist theory. Before taking this class, I had a strong interest in reading more feminist theory because of my previous experience in taking Intro to SWAG. I found reading theory as a way to educate myself on the struggles of feminists before me, and I also found it relatable to the struggles that I face as a woman today. Being able to discuss issues of feminism in a class without any men felt empowering because I could fully express myself and my experiences of misogyny without feeling judged or invalidated. In class, I discussed how when I would talk about feminism with men, despite knowing more about the topic because of my experience as a woman and because of the classes I have taken, the men would often believe that they somehow knew more about feminism than me. Throughout my college experience, I have dealt with the struggle of constantly feeling like no matter how intelligent and educated I am, my male colleagues would not view me as an equal. It has made dating extremely difficult because when I bring up these issues I feel like I am being “too much” even though I should never feel bad about standing up for what I believe in. I feel like I never really have a space to discuss how I constantly question my intellect and capability, and how that is likely to deal with my gender. When discussing being a feminist at college in this class, I heard another student talk about how men would react negatively when she told them that she was taking gender studies courses. I could completely relate to her because a lot of people, specifically male students, often do not understand the value of taking those types of courses. A statement that I hear often is that majoring or minoring in gender studies is easy, or that it should not be a real major. However, if any of those people were placed into a gender studies course, I truly believe that they would find the material challenging. Although, as a woman, I tend to fear being too much for other people, I tend to feel empowered to share my opinions and express who I am after engaging in empowering conversations with other feminists. I find that surrounding myself with other feminists encourages me to stand up for what I believe in.

mrt, Appadurai, 12/2

 "As for the fetishism of the consumer, I mean to indicate here that that consumer has been transformed through commodity flows (and the mediascapes, especially of advertising, that accompany them), into a sign, both in Baudrillard's sense of a simulacrum that only asymptomatically approaches the form of a real social agent, and in the sense of a mask for the real seat of agency, which is not the consumer but the producer and the many forces that constitute production" (p. 519).

        While Appadurai offers many interesting insights into globalization and the five dimensions of global cultural flows, this excerpt was what really stuck out to me throughout both of my readings of this piece. Appadurai uses Baudrillard to make a connection between these two theories, but my first thought was how much this reflected Marx and Engel's about the class that rules material production controls mental production. I think it's safe to say that in the current late-stage capitalism we experience in America, advertisers are indeed control of material production, meaning they control the intellectual force of consumers as well. I also noticed an interesting connection between this idea that the consumer does not hold any real agency and Adorno and Horkheimer's ideas surrounding the 'illusion of choice' and the rule of pseudo-individuality. Consumers believe that they hold agency in the sense that they are able to choose which product to buy (for example purchasing a Maybelline mascara instead of one by Covergirl), but either way they stand to serve the needs of the advertiser. Consumers become fetishized in this system because they feed the ever-growing production called for by capitalism, allowing the ruling force to stay in power because they control said production. Appadurai discusses this by saying "these images [global advertising] are increasingly distortions of a world of merchandising so subtle that the consumer is consistently helped to believe that he or she is an actor, where in fact he or she is at best a consumer" (519). We become passive participants in the system of production which has in every way become ideological. As Althusser says "the author and the reader... both live... 'naturally' in ideology"-- I would argue this could also be said about the consumer and the producer. I think there is also an interesting connection between Appadurai's ideas concerning globalism utilizing the tools of homogenization and Adorno and Horkheimer's idea that culture is infecting everything with sameness. 

mrt, Hélène Cixous' Bisexualty-- 11/24

    "Why does man fear being a woman?" (p. 159).

        In this excerpt from "Shorties", Hélène Cixous offered some potent ideas about gender binaries and the natural opposition between masculinity and femininity. As she states on page 157, "Thought has always worked through opposition" and while one can't help but notice the contrasting elements of femininity and masculinity, Cixous presented an aspect of this relationship I hadn't previously considered-- especially in her dissection of bisexuality. While I'm familiar with the term bisexuality, I've only ever heard it used in terms of sexual orientation. I thought it was interesting Cixous' two definitions placed it more so inside the realm of gender identity and the feminine experience. I really liked her interpretation of it as "a fantasy of a complete being ... a fantasy of unity. Two within one, and not even two wholes" (159).  As a queer woman who grew up struggling to fully connect to my identity within patriarchal notions of femininity, I found this really interesting and in some ways even relatable. But, I wonder if Cixous had written this in the 21st century if she would be referring to nonbinary identities and not a necessarily feminine experience. That being said, I do think there is an interesting relationship between this idea of bisexuality and femininity in regards to binary opposition. "Woman is bisexual" while men are "trained to aim for glorious phallic monosexuality" because of this historical opposition (159). If masculinity is portrayed as the superior being, the active participant, it makes sense that men would fear their identity being muddled with the inferior, passive feminine. Women stand to benefit from this conjunction of masculinity and femininity while 'bisexual' men stand to lose their place in the hierarchy. 

    Cixous also takes note of the opposition between speaking and writing, categorizing writing as a feminine space and speaking as a masculine trait. I would never think to place these two actions under this schema as both genders most likely participate in both on a daily basis. But, I think this excerpt from page 163 is the perfect evidence for her argument:

"Every woman has known the torture of beginning to speak aloud, heart beating as if to break, occasionally falling into loss of language, ground and language slipping out from under her, because for woman speaking-- even just opening her mouth-- in public is something rash, a transgression"

While I personally hope for the complete deconstruction of the gender binary and think that we are seeing more of Cixous bisexuality from both sides with the (at least to some extent) normalization of queer identities, I think it makes sense why man fears being woman when woman is representative of an 'inferior' identity we are trained from birth to reject. Feminine hobbies and interests such as boy bands and popular book series (such as Twilight) are seen as juvenile and obsessive while men are allowed to dedicate thousands of dollars and hours of their time to their favorite sports teams. Romance movies are deemed tacky while Sci-Fi is consistently praised in film spheres. Pop music is considered a money grab while male-dominated genres such as rock are considered "real music". Women are conditioned to think that not only their gender but everything even tangentially related to it should be seen as lesser than. 

annaiswriting, 11/18

        During class on Thursday, we discussed bell hooks and the concept of otherness. She writes about how Black culture heavily influences our society, and how we commodify Black culture without paying much attention to issues that Black individuals face in the United States of America. One of the questions that our professor asked was if any of us had a younger brother. I said yes, and then she asked if he had gone through a phase of listening to rap music by Black artists at around fourteen or fifteen years old. I said yes because most of the music he listened to when he was younger was rap music. Although that is still his favorite music genre, he has broadened the range of music he listens to since. Our professor then talked about how there is a trend of young teenage boys going through a “rap phase,” showing how this music genre, heavily dominated by Black artists, is commodified. Many of these young boys going through this rap music phase are looking for something different to listen to or something that is “other.” There is nothing wrong with enjoying art, such as music, that stems from a culture different from your own. However, it is also important to understand and respect the people who produce the art. I remember going to school dances in high school and mostly hearing rap music played. Generally, I noticed that rap music tended to be popular amongst male students, and both male and female student-athletes, connecting to how our professor said that rap music seems to be popular in athletic spaces. Even though many of the students at my high school enjoyed rap music or music by Black artists, many students at my school were ignorant towards the Black community, as there were instances of racism, and issues of microaggressions that I was unaware of until some of my Black colleagues shared their experiences with me. I found it beneficial to read about and discuss this concept of “otherness” to try to understand why people in our society treat people so differently based on their race, and why they commodify aspects of a culture without respecting the individuals within that culture.

mrt, hooks, 11/18

         While reading bell hook's "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance" I couldn't help but notice the connection between her experience and Dick Hebdige's Strategies that deal with The Other from "(ii) Subculture: The Unnatural Break". Hebdige describes two of these 'strategies', the first being to trivialize, domesticate, or naturalize The Other-- reducing it to sameness, and the other being to transform it into exotica. Hebdige describes the transformation to exotica as a separation from meaning, the making of a "pure object, a spectacle, a clown" (cited from Bathes, p. 133). But, I would argue that, as hooks suggests, in Western consumer culture exoticism has been made into more than a meaningless object, but a fetishized sexual fantasy. I can't even count the number of times I've heard (or seen online) an individual talking about how they desire an "exotic" partner. I'm not sure if this would be the same across all search engines, but when I looked up "exotic women" the entire first page of results was extremely sexualized. I was absolutely disgusted (but unfortunately not all that surprised) when I read bell's experience as a professor at Yale overhearing white male students talking about "their plans to fuck as many girls from racial/ethnic groups as they could 'catch' before graduating" (p. 309). And the cherry on top was that the people who say these vile things often view themselves not as racists, but as open-minded. Forget this just being a disgusting way to think about women, their logic is so flawed. Wanting to have sex with women of different ethnicities (at least in my opinion) furthers the idea that there are biological differences among people of different races which we know is both not true, and a common white supremacist ideal that was used to justify slavery (it was believed that black people were more biologically suited to be slaves...). 

    In terms of trivialization or the reduction to sameness, Langston Hughes' comments on appropriation on page 313 come to mind:

    "You've taken my blues and gone- You sing 'em on Broadway- And you sing 'em at the Hollywood Bowl- And you mixed 'em up with symphonies- And you fixed 'em- So they don't sound like me. Yet,   you done taken my blues and gone".

Black artistry is colonized and commodified by white mainstream culture, this 'naturalization' and domestication of Black art by white individuals maintains white supremacy and serves as a constant threat to black liberation. 

mrt, Foucault, 11/17

 The Pop Culture Panopticon

After reading the excerpt from Michel Foucault’s “Discipline and Punishment” for class on Tuesday, I can not stop thinking about the Panopticon. We briefly discussed how the CW’s show “Gossip Girl” served as an interesting example of this, but I almost feel like the influx of social media usage (even just from 2007 when Gossip Girl first aired) has created a real-life social panopticon, especially in celebrity culture. While social media allows the user to choose exactly what version of themself they want to portray on the internet, the average user can log off and escape the image they’ve created. A celebrity can not. While they can log off, they must always exist as the brand they’ve identified themselves with, and with fans and paparazzi lurking on every corner to take pictures and videos (often without the celebrities consent or even knowledge) they become the poor inmate and we all serve as the guard in the central tower, watching their every move.

In our discussion, we also talked about news stories that aren’t essential, and one of my classmates brought up the example of E-news and celebrity lifestyle stories. While I agree they aren’t essential news, I can’t imagine being the celebrity who has every personal detail of their life and relationships plastered all over the internet and serving as the headline for every popular magazine. For us, reading about celebrity lifestyle may serve simply as a guilty pleasure, but that is someone’s actual life and wellbeing. It makes me think of celebrities like Taylor Swift whose names have been dragged through the mud for audience interactions or the Damelio sisters who are both so young but have said they often struggle with even leaving their house for the fear of paparazzi following them everywhere they go. Or Amanda Bynes and Lindsey Lohan whose struggles with addiction were used as clickbait. If these people feel as they must act a certain way (or in Taylor’s case leave the public eye completely for a period of time) because of their constant surveillance by fans and pop culture consumers are we any better than the person in the central watchtower? Are we enforcing a different kind of discipline and power dynamic on these celebrities? I think sometimes it’s hard for people (myself included) to think about how it must feel to have every move you make picked apart by the public because we see all of the privileges and extravagant lifestyles celebrities lead, but in a way, I bet they feel as though they are confined to their cell, the public watching their every move, stuck as a cog in the Panoptic machine.

Annaiswriting, hooks, 11/17

        In the essay, Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance by bell hooks, hooks writes about the way people in a society filled with ideals of white supremacy view Black people as “other.” Hooks begins this essay by writing about an experience she had while teaching at Yale. She was walking behind a group of male college students and overheard them talking about wanting to have sex with many women of color as if they were targets rather than actual human beings. Hooks reflects on this racist and misogynistic conversation with “I found that it was commonly accepted that one ‘shopped’ for sexual partners in the same way one ‘shopped’ for courses at Yale, and that race and ethnicity was a serious category on which selections were based” (Kellner, Durham, 2012, p.309). Although Yale is such a prestigious school that offers an excellent education, some men who attend that school still have ignorant biases towards Black women, as they see them as sexual objects. Even at one of the best universities in America, students failed to understand their role in a racist society. Hooks then writes about how these men do not see themselves as racist because of these sexual desires towards Black women, and that if they were racist they would have those desires towards white women. She writes about how these men go after Black women because they want something “different” or something “other.” However, these types of attitudes lead to the intense sexualization of Black women in our society.

        The article “A New Report Shows How Racism and Bias Deny Black Girls Their Childhood” by P.R. Lockhart, demonstrates the way in which society sexualizes Black women from a young age. Lockhart writes, “The National Women’s Law Center noted in a 2018 report that black girls are more likely to be penalized for wearing the same things as other girls, and their bodies are often sexualized by teachers and school authority figures, who then punish them for minuscule or nonexistent clothing infractions” (Lockhart 2019). The dress code negatively impacts all girls in school as it implies that their clothes distract the boys and that it is more important for girls to carefully choose what they wear to school so that the boys can concentrate, rather than teaching the boys to not view the girls as sexual objects. However, the dress code especially harms Black women, as school authorities are more likely to punish them for what they are wearing. This relates back to the conversation hooks heard because these men perpetuate the idea of Black women as sexual objects. Although these men do not see their racism, they are maintaining the cultural norm of white supremacy, as they view Black women as “other,” rather than as equal humans.

References: 

Kellner, D. M., Durham, M. G., (2012). Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks. Wiley-Blackwell.

Lockhart, P. R. (2019). A new report shows how racism and bias deny black girls their

    childhoods. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/5/16/18624683/black-girls-

        racism-bias-adultification-discipline-georgetown

annaiswriting, 11/9

 During class on Tuesday, we discussed Noam Chomsky and propaganda. I found it interesting to learn about how only such a small amount of companies are producing the majority of media that most people are seeing. It was interesting to discuss the role of advertising in these popular media platforms and how they do not want to advertise controversial topics, as that will prevent people from buying from them. Since so many people are watching these major networks, the networks avoid controversial topics that would keep large groups of people from viewing them and therefore being impacted by the advertisements. In class, for example, we discussed how Disney censors progressive advertisements, and how shows such as “The Waltons” that are very wholesome and have problems that are always solved by the end, tend to be popular because they appeal to a large group of people, while shows that question dominant ideas would drive away a large portion of fans. Disney also has built a brand on this type of wholesomeness. I remember watching a lot of Disney channel shows when I was a child, and I remember seeing mostly white actors and actresses, all straight couples, and barely any issues that had not been solved by the end of the episode. Watching these types of shows as a child prevented me from understanding perspectives and experiences outside of my own. However, as the world has progressed, so have Disney shows. For example, the Disney Plus show, “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” has an openly-gay couple, actors and actresses of many races, and more complicated relationship dynamics. Although the show does address more complicated topics, children can still watch it as it does not contain cursing or sexual content. This show seems to be an example of how television programs can address topics, such as LGBTQ+ relationships, and still be appropriate for children. Shows like this seem to be a step in the right direction for Disney to appeal to children, while also representing more progressive topics.

Link to "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series": https://www.disneyplus.com/series/high-school-musical-the-musical-the-series/22p0ndod96BX

mrt, Jameson, 11/10

Since our discussion of historicism last Tuesday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between historicism and classicism. While these two concepts have different definitions (historicism relating to the parts of history we choose to highlight and classicism seeks to bring forth the ‘best’ of human existence and creation), I’ve found in their application they often intertwine. A great example of this is classic literature, out of Southern Living’s “50 Classic Books Everyone Should Read in Their Lifetime” only 15 of these 50 books were written by women. To be fair, this is a higher number than I was assuming, but it’s clear the classics are still heavily dominated by male writers. Obviously, this is not a result of men being inherently better writers, but rather that they have historically had more opportunities than women. I wonder if had historicism been blind to gender if more women would be considered classic authors. Another great example of this is art. While I am definitely no art history scholar, out of the 10 artists I could name off of the top of my head, Frida Kahlo was the only woman. Maybe that says something about me, but I think it says more about history’s tendency to highlight the feats of men over those of women, which in turn affects the art we consider to be classic.

    In full transparency, I think the main reason this topic has been so prevalent in my thoughts is a result of the book I’m currently reading-- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (I hyperlinked the Goodreads summary below if anyone is interested). While I’m still quite close to the beginning of the book, the reason I chose it is that it’s a fictionalized story of William Shakespeare’s family and the death of his son that inspired him to write Hamlet. But, the main thing that drew me in is that Shakespeare is never named in the book, only referred to as the father or the writer. Women have often been left out of the narrative as a result of historicism and as Shakespeare’s works are often thought of as classic I feel like there is a relevant connection that can be made. It is almost an example of reverse historicism in that it details the lives of a family that was left behind by both historicism and classicism. For example, I think most people have at least heard the name William Shakespeare if not actually engaged with his work. I think very few people know the story of his family, of his wife Agnes (who has been written into history as ‘Anne’) who was not only a mother and a wife, but a beekeeper, a healer, and a practitioner of falconry who was both sought after and feared by her peers. In short; she was a badass. Not to mention his son Hamnet, who quite literally inspired one of his most famous works (Hamnet and Hamlet were seen as interchangeable names at the time). While obviously, Shakespeare himself was the writer, and it makes sense that history remembers him, it is interesting it left behind all the people who supported and inspired him. This is definitely my personal belief and not fact, but I feel as though if Agnes had been the writer, history would have remembered the name of her husband as historicism often favors men. But like I’m sure has happened to many other women, while history has forgotten Agnes, it (and classicism) has immortalized her husband. 

Southern Living article

Hamnet

mrt, Herman and Chomsky, 11/7

Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model quite literally changed how I engage with news media-- especially pieces centered around politics. I think their ideas are not only still prevalent but have become even more relevant with the spread of social media and its engagement with the political sphere. News has become constant, and with the rapid-fire of coverage being consistently shoved down our throats, I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in the narratives presented to us without considering the implications of each individual piece. Especially now that there is an ever-growing divide present between the two prominent parties and political coverage encourages if not directly aids in this separation. And this is no coincidence. If left-leaning news sources get more clicks from bashing right-wing ideas and political figures (and vice versa) they will push more of these stories even if they hold no actual importance or even any validity. The downfall of democracy is seen as collateral damage to the corporate elites who control the media and will benefit regardless of the state of our political economy as long as their interests are being pushed (which they consistently are). As Adorno and Horkheimer said in “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, “Even the manifestations of political opposites proclaim the same inflexible rhythm” (p. 53). 

As I previously mentioned, we are being exposed to so much news media at once that it can be overwhelming. But, if all of our news is being propagated by the same group of media conglomerates, are we being presented with actual news or just the stories deemed worthy by those who stand to benefit from their coverage? If "The Propaganda Model" was published in 1988 and even then it could be said that "advertising-based media systems will gradually increase advertising time and marginalize or eliminate all together programming that has significant public affairs content", what does that mean for the state of programming today, over 30 years later (p. 213)? Has news become another form of public engagement in which we are passive consumers being spoon-fed narratives rather than a public sphere that provides space for active involvement and nuanced opinions formed by critical analysis? I would argue that it has, but I can't see any solution to this problem when media (and advertising) is so monopolized.

annaiswriting, 11/2

        While discussing Frederic Jameson during Tuesday’s class, I found the concept of historicism interesting to discuss, as I have been aware of the fact that our knowledge of history is skewed by the way in which people choose to portray it, but I never knew the term for that concept. A classmate brought up the term classicism, which seeks to bring out only the best of history, relating to historicism as it frames its own narrative. It differs though because while historicism chooses the way to represent history, it does not always represent the best of history. However, historicism often conceals the rather harmful aspects of our history, and a perfect example of this is how our school system fails to comprehensively educate us on the horrible ways white Americans have treated African-Americans throughout history. In class, we discussed the current debates around whether or not schools should implement critical race theory, which would educate students on the harm done to Black people in this country. Our professor stated that those opposed to critical race theory were basically opposed to teaching students about the truth, which I completely agree with. The most common arguments for abstaining from teaching critical race theory are that racism no longer exists in America and that we should not teach white students to feel bad about themselves. Many people who do not believe that racism exists in America are likely uneducated about systemic racism from never learning enough about racism in their curriculum, which makes it even more necessary for students to learn about racism to stop this cycle of ignorance. Implementation of critical race theory within the education system does not serve to make white children feel guilty for America’s racist history. Rather, it serves to teach them about the truth, enabling them to use their knowledge of racism in the past to confront racism in the present, and to become allies who confront their own biases and stand up against racism whenever they see it.