I have to agree with ‘seaniccus’ and his video in this argument. Family guy isn’t even really funny unless you keep up with popular culture events. The first time I watched the show I didn’t get it. It’s like The Office– you have to know the characters and you have to know the back story to get the humor. Now, The Office is funny because of the character portrayals and subtle humor, Family Guy is NOT funny for the same reason– you have to know why their referencing what they do. Iceman 1190 argues “Family Guy and many other shows portray the feelings and actions of today’s society.” Yes, partially– and this is why the shows are icons, they display a specific time. But I don’t think Family Guy will stand the test of time– watch an episode from season 1 ten years from now and I bet you’ll find yourself saying “Wait, this was a comedy?”

In Practices of Looking, an introduction to visual culture, Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright examine visual images and the roles they play within commerce and culture. The chapter focuses on advertisings role within economics, and how worth is placed on certain objects based on reputation and social value. Advertising strategies are used to sell the same products in new and exciting ways—these strategies are a driving force in capitalist and consumerist societies, and are used to target specific demographics. Advertising is a way of persuading people to shop and new advertisements persuade consumers to keep shopping by creating a value for the next best thing.

The consumption of commodities creates a “commodity self,” the idea that our selves are mediated through and constructed in part through our consumption and use of commodities. This self is the reason we choose to buy, wear, eat, drive, or watch the things we do—because we believe that those things define the self we epitomize.

The concept of the commodity self is, however, partial to the individual, making advertisers recognize which people should be driving their markets. The worth of an item may vary both in monetary value and social value between two different people. This creates “commodity fetishism,” the idea that commodities having different a different value per individual are emptied and filled of value depending on their commodity status. Their production is unequal to the value of their social value.

Concerning advertising and teens– corporations know how to work the age group into buying their product. And when the teens buy their product that is what give them the ‘cool factor.’

Masculinity: stereotypically male characters are broad shouldered, deep voiced, handsome, strong, reliable (unless they are evil), heterosexual, and loyal. Those males who do not exhibit these characteristics are usually given the role of the sidekick or are cast as the bad guy. Let’s look at The Little Mermaid. Prince Eric is the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Why do you think Ariel falls in love with him and not Grimsby?

Prince Eric

Grimsby

Femininity: stereotypical female characteristics are narrow-waisted, high-voiced, beautiful (unless she is evil, or evil is an extreme beauty), semi-weak (she needs her man), submissable, heterosexual, and loyal. Like in masculinity, those females who do not fit these characteristics are usually given the role as enemy or sidekick. Again looking at The Little Mermaid; Aerial is one of the original Disney Princesses. She has a waist about as narrow as her neck, a beautiful voice, and she is submissive to the will of Eric and her father. Ursula on the other hand is obese, ugly, and has a rotten voice– therefore she steals Aerial’s.

Ariel

Ariel and Ursula

The Sleeper Curve is also shown in television, despite popular beliefs that television is, like video games, dumbing us down. “If we’re going to start tracking swear words and wardrobe malfunctions, we ought to at least include another line in the graph: one that charts the cognitive demands that televised narratives place on their viewers” (63). Johnson applies the Sleeper curve to television programming; he tracks the viewer through charts of the linear narrative paths and plots of Dragnet, Starsky and Hutch, Hill Street Blues, and The Sopranos in attempt to show the complexity of plot ‘threads’. “Put these four charts together and you have a portrait of the Sleeper Curve rising over the past thirty years of popular television” (70). The need for more complex threading and social networking in television programming is proving that this medium is enhancing cognitive development and therefore influencing the Sleeper Curve.

Johnson also applies this theory to the internet and films. “It’s one thing to adapt to your lifestyle to include time for sitting around watching a moving image on a screen; it’s quite another to learn a whole new language of communication and a small army of software tools along with it” (117). Because the internet is providing new extremes of communication (social networking, video chatting, blogging), it is forcing humans to jump in and understand. Google has become the new encyclopedia—we consult the internet first. And modern films, like television, have proved that the Sleeper Curve is affecting our ability to comprehend complex threading of plot lines. “By each crucial measure of complexity—how many narrative threads you’re forced to follow, how much background information you need to interpret on the fly—Lord of the Rings is several times more challenging than Star Wars. What Johnson is inferring is that sometime between the release dates of these films (Star Wars: A New Hope 1977, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2001), human cognition for extensive complexity has increased. Like the tracing of television plots from Dragnet to The Sopranos, film plots have become more intense and intricate, even in children’s movies. Johnson’s argument for the existence of the Sleeper Curve is proven correct in relation to video games, television, the internet, and films. Technology over the last half-century has revolutionized human daily activities, from how we read the news to what television shows we enjoy on Sunday nights.

I expected to learn the technical aspects of blogging networks, and how blogging writing styles vary from very informal to very formal. And I’ve learned the answer to both of these queries. This site is excellent in being able to design both visually and verbally a post– there is a lot of freedom to construct content, something that makes blogging an individualistic art form. Within my own posts my writing styles varied, and I learned that even when I’m writing in reference to an academic article that I can write informally.

The post I think best exhibits my work is titles “Jon Stewart’s Sin-icism.” I’m a broadcast journalism major with specializations in Pop Culture and French, so the course content relating to this post was right up my alley. I’m actually continuing with my research on this topic, and am thinking about somehow incorporating this into my senior thesis. The post is my best post to-date because it uses multiple academic sources and my own opinions and observations to critique and explain satirical news media. This work uses multiple video clips and images as well, the best examples and supporting evidence to the claims made within the post. In writing about video and visuals, the best way to get an audience to agree is to directly SHOW them what you are talking about. Blogging is an appropriate medium through which to discuss this topic.

I think my weakest work is titled “That Squirrel Can Water Ski… response to C.C.’s blog”. It was not very explanatory of any concept relating to course material, and lacked any academic sources within the post. I used youtube clips to sort of speak for me instead of explaining my case and backing it up with examples, as I have done in the majority of my other posts. To improve this work, I would try to find sources that back up what I wanted to say concerning quotes from movies as memes, but again sometimes there just aren’t academic sources for such topics.

Had I to do this project again, I think I would have spent more time being thorough about my ideas in my posts. I would try to mix academic sources with visuals and videos because the medium allows for it, and I would try to use more than just one example per controversy. Although this does not always have to be formal, I would like to make it so in the future.

Overall I’ve enjoyed this process, I think I’ve gotten to know myself better as a writer, and as an internet researcher. I’ve learned how to find appropriate multimedia online. I will continue to post and update in the future, probably within the guidelines we were told to follow within this class. This is Kelly May’s pop culture blog and it will stay that way.

Heidi Montag-Pratt

Kate Gosselin

Ashlee Simpson

Just look at these faux-lebrities and all of their plastic surgery gloriousness. There’s no wonder they’re famous, thier jobs are to be professionally good-looking! And they’ve got the team of beauticians to back them up. Celebrity culture today is about looks. The better you look, the more likely you are to get famous and stay there. And to stay there, you need to keep up with your personal up-keep. Havrilesky says it right; these days celebrities leave most of theirselves behind for another version of themselves, whether it be with the obvious examples of weight loss and plastic surgery, or by selling out their life to a camera crew that makes them conscious of there every waking minute. It’s not like the days of Mae West, Grace Kelly, and Irene Dunn anymore. It was their obvious natural beauty and personality that made them famous, the fame came to them– nowadays people change their personality and looks in order to meet what standards they need to BECOME famous, they go to the fame.

Celebrities try to claim that they are ‘just like us.’ They go to the grocery store to buy orange juice, they invite reporters into their homes and kitchens to show what they keep in their fridge, they walk their dogs in tennis shoes and sweatpants. But the difference between us and them is that they have a stylist, manager, nutritionist, and make-up artist preparing them for these events. We don’t go to Wal-Mart in $300 jeans, or walk our dogs in Beverley Hills. Today’s celebrity culture will never be ordinary people because they’ve made their fame by being un-ordinary.

“Ironically, the reason RW flourished is because its telegenic humanoids became less and less complex with every passing season. Multi-faceted people do not translate within The Real World format. Future cast members figured this out when that initial season finally aired and it was immediately obvious that only two personalities mattered: Alabama belle Julie and angry African-American Kevin. The only truly compelling episode from the first season came in week eleven, when Julie and Kevin had an outdoor screaming match over a seemingly random race issue. But the fight itself wasn’t the key. What was important was the way it galvanized two archetypes that would become cornerstones for late twentieth-century youth: the educated automation and the likable anti-intellectual” (Klosterman 33).

Klosterman’s argument is relevant to RW casting. As mentioned in previous posts, casting has become a picking and choosing of the people that will cause the most drama, and therefore the most exciting television. Real World producers have figured out that the most drama ensues when they put certain personalities together, stick a homosexual and a devout christian in a house and there’s sure to be an argument or debate about the morals of homosexuality in relations to the bible. In essence, the producers of The Real World have taken the ‘characters’ they see make the most sense for their business and continually cast replacements for the next season based on similar characteristics. Because in reality, would a black lesbian from New York be living in a mansion with a conservative Texan farm boy?