Putting Women in Their Place

This meme at first glance seems to be very serious connecting with a riot somewhere in the world. Then when you take a closer look and see what is written below, the meme becomes in some ways personal and degrading. With using Patriarchy, this shows how it is okay for men to “put” females in their “place”. This is wrong on so many levels because our culture today should so equality on house roles but according to society women belong in the kitchen and traditionally they need to live their lives in the kitchen. This meme makes me very frustrated because it makes it seem as if women do not have power to make their own decisions. This is not true at all and it is sad to see that society thinks it is okay to think of women this way. Although I know there are two sides to sexism, it is so stupid to make a meme like this because there is probably is serious a sad meaning behind this picture and now all people will think of is this stupid line, “ Nice try, you thought you could escape from the kitchen didn’t you?”

Cross-Dressing Through the Ages

Being a communication major, a lot my courses deal with the media and the way in which gender, sex, and sexuality are portrayed within it. For a group project this semester I had to analyze in depth the film, She’s the Man.  The main character, Viola, is a seemingly strong female heroine that goes beyond traditional gender roles to join the boys’ soccer team (after her team was cut from the roster because of school funding). Historically, there have been films in which female characters have taken the persona of a male role to break into a male dominated society.

I saw this repeating theme of cross-dressing in another of my classes, The Quixotic Search For Meaning. In this class we had to read the novel Don Quixote. Throughout the novel, we encountered characters that have cross-dressed for one reason or another. One of these characters is the curate who decides to dress as a woman, to trick Don Quixote into coming home. I think that the curate understood the power that women have over men, especially that which the damsel in distress had over Don Quixote. Other interesting characters that have cross-dressed are Claudia Jeronima and Anna Felix. These women dressed as the opposite sex to escape from their current reality of misfortune.

It is quite surprising that even though Don Quixote was written in 1605 and She’s the Man was filmed in 2006, centuries later, the idea of cross-dressing is still being played with. I think cross-dressing is a way in which people break societal norms to try to change the system for the better. 

The Wonderful World Of Disney

Most of us grew up watching Disney films,  specially the most beloved princess ones like The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty. Throughout my communication studies at Regis, I've learned about the subliminal messages and ideals that are posed to young children through these films. Something that I did not realize is the amount of corporate power that this conglomerate possesses. Disney is a really powerful industry that dominates children's media all over the world. Essentially we are allowing Disney to shape children's imagination. After watching the documentary the Mickey Mouse Monopoly, I was quite astonished at the amount of work that Disney does to keep its reputation clean. In the documentary we learn the amount of control they have over the media and even the amount of messages we are exposed to. The consequences of this is that we are introduced to a very limited point of view of the world, filled with unreachable ideals.

Narrative Critique of Scrubs

The inner monologue of ones mind is an intriguing thing. We are so used to hearing our own all the time, but what happens when we hear someone else’s thoughts? Specifically, what does the audience of the medical dark comedy show Scrubs learn and feel as the main character narrates his views on situations of life and death in the hospital? After watching “My Super Ego”, “My Lunch”, and “My Last Words”, three powerful episodes that involve the main character and his friends dealing with death, I learned that no one is invincible in the face of death and eventually the strongest people are broken down by what death brings. I chose to look at this text with a narrative critique for an analysis, because I often compare my experiences to those found in this narrative text I am analyzing and wanted to see what other people have thought about the way it directs our thoughts and what we learn from the narration of JD’s mind. Has JD's view of the show ever differed from the track of thought you were thinking when you watched episodes concerning serious life and death situations?

Californication

I was recently watching the Showtime series, Californication, and I realized that it relates to the class in several ways, but most of all through Hank Moody's combination of feminism and sexism. Yes, he is a stubborn prick who objectifies women and uses them as objects for sex. However, we also can sometimes see that while he can be harsh towards women, he also has great respect for his daughter and her mother. We can see through his relationship with his daughter that he does understand that women need to be respected. He does not approve of her dropping out of school and he is very conscious of what she wears and the boys that she is hanging out with. Hank also has great respect for Karen, the mother of his child. He sees her as an equal and only wants what is best for her. He is always kind to her and looks at her as one of the most powerful people he knows. These are just some observations, but I thought it was interesting how a man can be such a womanizer when the two most important people in his life are both women.

Beats Commercial: Use of the Male Gaze

Beats have created a new product that is in the takes the form a a pill shaped speaker along with the new HP Split computer/tablet. The two companies have brought their products together in the commercials in the video in order to advertise the fact that the beats audio is available in two new forms, a tablet as well as portable speakers. The Beats Pills are the main voice of the commercials, and they are passing on very specific messages. While watching the second commercial in the video it is easy to see how the commercial truly takes on the male gaze. The camera focuses on the woman's body, and the Pill uses very sexual terminology. The most astonishing part of the commercial, provides a blatant form of the male gaze is when the Pill acclaims, "She took her top off." It is so obvious that the camera is focusing on the woman and then the speaker turns out to be speaking about the laptop. It is interesting how Best Buy would see this commercial as a good way to advertise their product, but as the saying goes, sex sells. 

Discovery Channel: Making Safe Decisions

          After spending only a couple hours watching the Discovery channel, it was easy to tell that a lot has changed in reality television on this specific network. Shows used to typically be documentary style episodes that were mostly educational in nature. Now, though, I noticed that a lot of things had changed. The shows were all still based off of real situations, but in the couple hours I watched it didn't seem like any of the shows were not staged. In other words it seemed that all of the shows were completely staged. In particular I found the show Bering Sea Gold interesting because it came on directly after the show Gold Rush. Gold Rush was a fairly appealing show, but Bering Sea Gold seemed completely over dramatized. My main question was how this show could be successful even though it was blatantly over dramatic. In the Marxism section of Critical Media Studies, Brian Ott and Robert Mack state, “the most fundamental rule of the profit-motive is nothing succeeds like success.” This concept parallels with the changes in television that were noticed on the Discovery channel because creating overly dramatic reality was threaded through many other shows also. The logic of safety uncovers how media conglomerates will recycle generic formulas of media texts including subjects and characters in order to ensure financial success. Discovery was not even attempting to alter almost anything between the two shows other than the location of the characters. Both shows utilize a competition style gold mining scenario where different teams of miners attempt to find the most gold by the end of the season. A major difference was in the danger that the divers in the Bering Sea had to face in order to mine, and this may be where the show has its most interesting subject matter. Other than these differences attempting to alter the scenarios of Gold Rush, Bering Sea Gold is nothing more than a simple spin off of the former. This type of blatant reproduction is another method that large television companies like Discovery use in order to produce massive profits. Mack and Ott use shows like Law and Order and CSI as examples of how the television industry uses the logic of safety in order, yet there are countless examples of this occurrence on the Discovery channel alone. For example, the shows about gold mining have been highlighted here, but there are even shows about loggers that use the same competition style reality show. The diversity of television is being lessened all the time as a result of the logic of safety, and it will continue to make more money for television conglomerates  because of how easy it is to create spin offs that will be successful. 

Google Super Hero Memes

Looking for some comedic relief I googled superhero memes and instead of getting comedic relief I stumbled upon a ton of politically incorrect, rude and just wrong super hero things instead. This one in particular stood out the most to me. This meme definitely breaks heteronormativity. When we think superman I know the first things to come to mind aren't: sex, rape or gay. Normally we think the opposite. I feel like this meme is showing homophobia and perversion of a beloved character. Whether or not Superman or the boy in this meme are meant to come off as gay, this makes homosexuality look perverse and wrong. I find it sickening that this is on the first page of google when something as simple as superhero memes is typed in. Things like this should not get popular enough to get to one of the top hits on google because it is gross and wrong.

Dramaturgy in Side Effects

The movie Side Effects is about a woman named Emily who starts taking anti-depressant medication after she tries to kill herself by driving into a concrete wall. Her husband, Martin, who is played by Channing Tatum, was just released from a four year sentence in prison and ever since the suicide attempt she has been seeing a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist she has been seeing is name Jonathan Banks, who is played by Jude Law. Jonathan prescribes Emily with a specific antidepressant called Ablixa. Emily has been trying tons of different medication because many of them don't work or cause her to do things that are very unlike her. One example is in the middle of the night she stabs and kills her husband Martin and she claims it was because of the medication she was taking. Little do we know that she was going behind her psychiatrist's back and seeing her old psychiatrist named Victoria, who is played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Emily and Victoria end up having a romantic relationship together and they both faked the side effects of Ablixa so that they could manipulate the prices of the drug making them rich. As you can see Emily is a bad character in the movie even though tries to portray she is good. The idea of dramaturgy is very visible with her character. You can see her front and back side. Her front side is that she is Martin's wife who is depressed and can't find the right medication to make her feel better. Her back side is that she is really manipulating her husband (before she kills him) and her psychiatrist. Emily is two completely different people in the same story and in both roles she is trying to change the way people perceive her. Have any of you seen this movie? What do you think about this? Do you think dramaturgy is present in society today? I have put the trailer of the movie below which will hopefully better explain the plot to those of you who haven't seen it.

Buddy The Elf

I am pretty sure everyone has seen the movie Elf. Will Farrell plays the role of Buddy who is a human that has grown up in an elf's world. He slowly begins to realize that he is different for a many reasons. He just isn't as fast at building toys like the other elves and he puts the whole toy-making system behind. He is also much taller than everyone else and he didn't realize it was because he was human. Papa Elf finally tells him what really happened and that he was adopted and grew up in the North Pole. He then makes his way to New York City to find his real dad. Along the way he encounters some challenges that he must adjust to. Cultural analysis is very apparent when he makes the big change of living in the North Pole around elves and Santa Claus to living in New York City where it's all humans and no one is as spirited about Christmas as he is. Some of the major cultural difference that I see is when he sees gum on the subway railing and decides to eat it. He thinks it is candy but he didn't realize it was people's old gum. Buddy takes everything very literally and isn't used to this type of cultural. Another example of how you can see cultural analysis being demonstrated in this film is when he is at the mall trying to find something to get for his dad for Christmas and he sees a sign that says " For Someone Special" and it is a lingerie outfit. He takes that literally and buys it for his father. Buddy doesn't understand what this means and he think it literally means for anyone special. During the holidays in America many retail stores have very similar signs near their items because they just want people to buy them. Lastly, another example that I think is a good example of how Buddy doesn't know proper etiquette when meeting someone new or seeing something that is different. His father, Walter, is in a a very important business meeting and Buddy barges in expressing his feelings about Josie after their date. One of the men in the meeting is a dwarf and Buddy thinks he is an elf because of his size. He asks all sorts of questions about how he came and if he knows Santa. Miles Finch, the dwarf, gets very angry and ends up fighting Buddy and Buddy is very confused as to why he is so angry. Cultural analysis comes into play here because Buddy isn't accustomed to seeing anyone who looks like an elf in New York City so he legitimately thinks Miles is an elf. I have never thought of cultural analysis in this sense until I watched Elf this passed weekend. I think the whole film does a great job of portraying how a human, who has been raised by elves, thinks he is an elf and then gets put into a whole situation and has to learn the customs of the people of New York City. Below I have put one of my favorite clips from the movie. I suggest you all watch it and then analyze how you see cultural analysis being portrayed. Why is it that Buddy doesn't care what others think? All the people around him go along and pretend to believe everything he is saying and he believes it because he doesn't know better. If you saw someone like Buddy what would you do? Hope you enjoy the clip and reading this post! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Poor Rudolph.

Since it is the lovely season that is Christmas and what not, I figured I'd add a little something that I noticed last year while watching the traditional animatronic version of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

This movie has always been a tradition of my family's to watch every year, but last year, I was was watching it, and I was taken quite a bit surprised.

The characters in the movie are completely out of date (and consequently out of line) with their ideas of social roles.

Rudolph's father Donner, is a misogynistic asshole, Santa Clause is a dick, and Ms. Clause enforces body images in some weird reverse feministic way. Like....wtf?

For example:
When Rudolph gets lost, his mom is looking to go help and Donner replies "No...this is a man's work."
Santa Clause completely at first rejects Rudolph because of his red nose. Donner had also tried so hard to cover it up. (Queer theory? I think so!)
Ms. Clause also gets hella pissed at Santa clause because he is too skinny. "Nobody wants a skinny santa."

I could literally go on about this for a bit longer, but I'd literally get to pissed off that my childhood was completely ruined when I realized all of this.

But please, if you decide to watch it this holiday, try to pick these things and more out. 

who the fuck is "The Girl Next Door"

In respect to the male gaze I realized almost all movies, and even tv shows, have the ideal "girl next door" with the banging body, mesmerizing eyes, luscious hair, perfect tan...etc. Some examples I immediately thought of were, Transformers, Disturbia, Bubble Boy...etc. After making this realization, I wondered why the iconic female in the movies always have to achieve this idea of "perfection". Although some may disagree and consider my reasoning too broad, I feel that the whole hot girl in the movie trends stems from the fact that most directors and writers are male. Granted I realize that there are plenty of female directors and/or writers involved in the business, but the male gaze is everywhere, and can be dated back to before I was born. This style of movies in which this male gaze is present objectifies women to one category: being sexy, and not only that but it somewhat shuts women up because they don't fit the stereotypical hot female these movies create. In the end, my point is for all viewers out there to cut the females in your life some slack if they aren't living up to your "Megan Fox" potential because news flash: those type of women are rare.

Cyber Bullying, Net Neutrality?

a while back we discussed pragmatic analysis in class, and what role the government should play in media, but how much is too much regulation... etc. So as much as I disagree with the government spying on us via media and technology, I had to step outside of my views and try to see it in a new light. So what my mind started to wonder was if the government is going to spy on us anyways shouldn't it be on those who actually use media, or in this case internet, for evil and spread hateful and dishonest things about others. Cyber bullying is one biggest negative impacts we see today on kids from high school on down; how can it not be when it is so easy for bullies to attack their victims when it's coming from behind a screen. Children have taken to extremes such as suicide as an answer to this problem because there isn't anyone mediating what is being said to who on the internet. For example, when your older brother, sister, or even cousin is picking on you, essentially everyone had the same reaction to run and tell mom and/or dad. However, for those being picked on via the internet they don't have that same mediator that mom and dad play. So I wonder what it would be like if the government put their spying to good use and would play as the mediator in cyber bullying? Would the cyber bullying stop all together? Would we see a decrease in these victimized youth?

The League... leading us to consume?

I have been watching the tv sitcom The League ever since it first aired in 2009. I personally love the show, the dialogue between the characters on the show creates an impressive humor that is both enticing and apparently influential. The sitcom is about a group of friends that join a fantasy football league, and for those of you who don't know about fantasy football, it's kinda like gambling. You get a league of people together in which everyone contributes the same amount of money creating a "pot" and within that league each person creates their own team of NFL players that will hopefully collect the most points out of anyone in your fantasy league. Now, like I said earlier I have been watching the show since day one, but it took my up until this past year to make the connection between "The League" and Fantasy Football. After watching the new episodes at my boyfriends house with his roommates (I don't have cable(: ) I gained a new perspective on the show. The references on the show about who traded who, or who got hurt, or who the starting line up for the week was, are all very real and legit references to the actual players we see and hear about in the NFL. So with that in mind, I observed my boyfriend and his roommates making comments about, or even critiquing the line up that one of the characters in the show picked. So coming from a Marxist point of view on all of this, couldn't the tv sitcom The League be considered a motivator to consumers to partake in ESPN's very own Fantasy Football in which they would be spending money with hopes that they win the fantasy league and make back more then they spent?

Duck Dynasty

So how many of you have seen or heard of the A&E show Duck Dynasty? Well I happen to be a huge fan of it and think it is pretty entertaining. If you haven't seen it, it's about a family in South Monroe, Louisiana who have become famous from their invention of the duck call. Phil and Kay Robertson are the owners of Duck Commander. Willie and Jep are their sons and they run a lot of the business now and the show focuses on their families as well as Uncle Si. Throughout the show Phil makes comments to his grandchildren about how you need to find the right kind of woman who likes to cook and that you don't want any of those "yuppy" women. "Yuppy" refers to the suburban culture and how they need a country woman to get things done around the house. I think this relates to the feminist analysis we discussed in class. Phil just expects his wife to cook and clean for him and that he doesn't have to do anything. The men are expected to provide for the family and hunt and when they come home for a long day dinner should be cooked and ready. Gender roles are portrayed very differently in this show. Do you think it is because of where Phil and his family lives? Does the fact that Phil is an older man make it okay to describe women like this? Below I have a clip that goes more into detail about the use of the term "yuppy" to make it more clear. What are you thoughts about feminism ideals and values after watching the clip?

Why have I not noticed this before?

I have been watching TV ever since I can remember, but have I really been watching it? In my COM 303 class a group presented an analysis on the portrayal of men in advertising specifically men in Axe commercials. While the group was analyzing this text about how men can just put on Axe and be considered masculine and strong or how men need to be strong and masculine in order to be considered a men; I was analyzing how women were objectified in this text.

The Axe commercial that I have posted above is a perfect example of male gaze, and how women are expected to look, and act in order to be "desirable" in society. Until I took this class this semester commercials like this never really bothered me, I actually thought they were funny and a form of mindless entertainment. Now, looking at a text like this text I think it is sad that advertising agencies think it is ok to objectify women in such as way where only there looks matter. This advertisement also implies that women only care about what men "smell" like, or there physical appearance, when in fact much more matters to women.

A woman is not going to "fall" for a guy that smells good, and this is exactly what this text is implying. The female actress in this text is sexualized by what she wears, how she appears to be the stereotypical "dumb blonde" (even though she isn't blonde). Throughout the text the camera zeros in on the female body parts as well as her action at the end of the clip when she is seducing the homeless man.

I don't know about any of you, but I never really critiqued the advertisements that were proposed to me on a day to day basis until I took this class. I believe it is because advertisements like these are a social norm. What do you ladies think?

1 Million Intense

So I was going about my business after class just casually watching videos on youtube when this ad came up. Initially I was disgusted and confused. This was one of those ads you can't skip so I was forced to watch the entire thing. I was confused because I had no clue what they were trying to sell me until the very end but what I wasn't confused about was the male gaze, fantasy and scopophilia.
Through out this commercial the woman is seen as just a sexual object. The toe to head panning of the camera accentuates the male gaze as this is how the male is perceiving her. The entire commercial is a fantasy of the man in this ad. He snaps his fingers and piece by piece her clothing comes off then she goes away for a moment and comes back painted in gold like a goddess. Scopophilia is a large factor in this because the man and woman don't even touch until the end of the commercial but we are shown many times how he just sensually glares at her.
I hope the other women who saw this on youtube found it as outrageous as I did that this is a commercial for a PERFUME and the product isn't shown until the very end in just a tiny blurb.  

Ouran High School Host Club

Ouran High School Host Club is a manga series that became a 26-episode anime television series. This television series aired between April 5 and September 26, 2005 on Japan's Nippon Television network. The series follows Haruhi Fujioka, a scholarship student at Ouran High School, and the other members of the Host Club. In the beginning of the series Haruhi stumbles upon the Third Music Room, a place where the Ouran Academy Host Club, a group of six male students, gathers to entertain female "clients". During their first encounter Haruhi accidently knocks over and breaks an antique vase valued at 8,000,000 yen. In order to repay her debt she is enlisted into the Host Club by the other members. Haruhi's short hair, slouching attire and gender-ambiguous body cause her to be mistaken by the hosts for a male student. The hosts eventually figure out her gender but agree to keep the secret because she would make a great host. Haruhi ultimately joins the Host Club and dresses as a male in order to pay of the cost of the vase.

Other than Haruhi, the other members of the club consist of the president Tamaki Suou, a student who treats Haruhi like she is his own daughter and extremely jealous of anyone else who approaches her; Kyoya Otori, the bespectacled calculating vice-president who serves as the brains to the club; Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, the pair of mischievous identical twins who like playing tricks on the other club members and playing up the homoerotic angle on their relationship; Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka, a small cute boy who has a great passion for stuffed animals and eating cakes; and Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka a tall quiet boy who is protective of Honey. Below is a picture of who is who.

When looking at this text through the lens of queer theory this series rejects sexual binaries and embraces more fluid categories of sexual orientation. Though all of the members are heterosexual, there are relationships between the host members that hint at being comfortable with homosexuality or bisexuality. Examples from the show are Hikaru and Kaoru's homoerotic angle of their relationship, Tamaki and Kyoya being the "King and Queen" of the Host Club, and finally the deep love and loyalty between Honey and Mori. Then there is Haruhi who dresses as a male to entertain and get the attention of the girls/clients. This series ultimately attacks the stereotype of naturalness of gender and heterosexuality. 

Although not all texts are perfect and Ouran High School Host Club sometimes plays into the hetero/homosexual binary. The series falls short because all the members are male and therefore they expect to get the attention of women, which is the only type of "clients" that ever come to be entertained. However, Tamaki does resist this when he first meets Haruhi (when he thinks she is a boy) by asking what type of man she prefers and being open to letting boys be "clients". 

If anyone is interested in trying the series the Pilot is included below. I have to warn those who are not familiar with anime this cartoon might seem odd. It's my favorite anime series because it is a comedy and the situations they get in are hilarious. Especially after looking at the Japanese holographic singer, Hatsune Miku, I could not help myself from talking about Ouran High School Host Club.

Huckleberry Finn

I just finished reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I saw a powerful connection between the story and the critical race theory. The story is set in a small town in Missouri along the Mississippi River during the mid 1800's when white people still owned slaves. Huckleberry Finn is the main character who is an outcast in his town because of the trouble he is always getting into as well as the fact that his father is an alcoholic. He is living in a time when whiteness is extremely prevalent. He is running away from home with a slave, Jim, who is also running away for his freedom.

Huck constantly struggles throughout the story with the racial paradox because he has been given the White Privilege, meaning that he has the advantage of being considered "normal" in his society. He also struggles because he is helping a black man escape for freedom. He knows that he is doing the right thing by helping Jim, but because he has grown up in a society where African Americans are not allowed to have the same freedoms as white people, he feels that he is doing something wrong. Throughout the story Huck realizes that he cares deeply for Jim, and that Jim also cares about Huck, and Huck realizes that he could never turn in Jim no matter what the reward, instead he helps Jim escape for freedom and the two become very close.

Another important part of this text is that it is written in English vernacular, based upon different regions and how they speak. The more wealthy white folks speak more clearly, while Jim does not. The slaves speak in a language that is much more difficult to read and understand. There is also a strong use of the n-word, primarily by Huckleberry Finn, and it is not nearly as big of a deal as it would be today. I frequently wonder  if people in the 1800's thought that the use of this word would still be common over one hundred years later. It is astonishing to think that in 2013 there are still people who feel that African Americans deserve anything less than the privileges of white people.

Boys Don't Cry

I recently watched the film "Boys Don't Cry," and I felt that it was a strong example of Queer Theory as well as feminism. The Story was about Brandon Teena, a transgender from a small town in Nebraska who falls in love with a girl named Lana. Brandon Teena is a woman who dresses like a man and plans to eventually get a sex change. He falls in love with Lana, and becomes close with her family and friends who do are not aware that Brandon is actually a woman. Throughout the films Brandon is constantly trying to prove himself as very masculine by racing his car, getting into fights, and being smooth with the ladies. However, he has a very sensitive side to him and Lana finds him to be extremely genuine and has a strong attraction to him. Her family and friends soon discover that Brandon is a woman and begin to humiliate him and take away his masculinity. At the end of the film Lana's male friends rape him and shoot him.

This film shows the binary between Brandon and Lana's friends. They are set on proving that Brandon is not a man and that she never will be. I thought is was an extremely powerful representation of how far our society is willing to take its homophobia. This is a true story and it happened in the early 1990's which shows that many people still struggle with transgender and homosexual individuals. Brandon never does a thing to hurt this family, but only wants to be a part of it because of the strong relationships that he has built, but the family is willing to throw it all away because they feel that they have been lied to and they are disgusted by the fact that Brandon has been a woman this entire time. However, they do not only choose to kick Brandon out of the house and stop speaking to him, but they physically humiliate and abuse him. This is a strong representation of how much people have to go through in order to be a part of society and most of all, be happy.

Breaking Bad--Cultural Resistance

·         Resistance is defined as “those symbolic and material practices that challenge, subvert, or suspend the cultural codes, rules, or norms, which through their everyday operation create, sustain, and naturalize the prevailing social structure in a particular space and time” –Ott & Mack

·         Walter is performing the practice of cooking meth that clearly challenges cultural codes, rule, and norms. He is able to cover this secret identity of his because his brother-in-law is DEA agent, which allows Walt to become knowledgeable of how they catch drug cartels. He is able to easily imitate normal emotions to keep his appearance socially acceptable by coming home to his family each night and eventually, is able to get his wife, Skyler, on board and together they launder money through their car wash business that they open up together.

·         5 intertwined principles of resistance—contextual, tactical, creative, cumulative, and incremental.

·         Resistance is contextual: the time and place of Walter's act of cooking is crucial to its status as resistance because rather than being a fixed quality, it is specific to particular times, places and social relationships. He carefully chose Jesse to be his cooking partner because of his connections and knowledge of how exactly the drug business works. Together, they chose particular places and times to cook the meth in order to avoid suspicion from Walter's family and obviously the police and DEA.

·         Resistance is tactical: Walter's resistance is an action or practice, not a product or outcome that exists spatially. A tactic is disappearing almost as quickly as it appears. Because of Walter's highly profound knowledge in chemistry, him and Jesse are able to produce mass amounts of high quality meth. This leads him to having a quota that he much meet each week to satisfy his boss, Gus, and the needs of the meth heads.  

·         Resistance is creative: Resistance is about “making do” and turning the rules to one’s advantage, taking advantage of the system. Walter is set up perfectly in his situation to take advantage of the legal system. Every time he comes into contact with Hank, he is able to find out more information about how they are tracking down this blue meth, which allows Walter to cover up his tracks that much easier.

·         Resistance is cumulative: In isolation, acts of resistance rarely constitute a serious threat to the prevailing social structure, but over time, multiple acts will accumulate. In this case, Walter is literally producing thousands of pounds of the purist meth, which makes the audience questions whether or not someone is going to start noticing and if he is going to get caught. This aspect of the show is what keeps viewers tied in and keep watching.

 

• Resistance is incremental: Because of his chemistry background and knowledge of how the DEA operates, Walter starts his meth cooking business of small, but smartly chooses when to expand according to the connections he obtains. He spaces out each act of resistance to keep the level of suspiciousness low, but is still able to satisfy his needs of more money and eventually complete power.

The Framing of Media and News

I apologize for the bad quality but it's the only one I could find.

Basically I always wonder what drives American News to report what they do. I think that this clip does a fantastic job of summarizing some ways in which they select and choose what they report--in this case pertaining particularly to race.

Furthermore, I always talk with my Grandparents, and every time I am at their house, they are either watching a sports game or the news. Every time the news is on, my grandmother always makes a comment along the lines of: "I hate watching the news. It's so bad and it just shows us how bad of a world we live in."

Congruently, my brother and I have a joke running between us mocking the news in that they'll briefly report how "X" person donated however much money to a charity or whatever organization put on an event for "Y" group of people, and then they'll "Dispatch with the boring stuff" and get on to the latest pop-cultural, political, or violent scandal.

What I find interesting is how the media frames their reports in the above said fashions, but yet we as Americans can criticize it all, and still be big enough hypocrites to return the next day to absorb some more.

Looking at the Modern Family Episode : ClosetCon ’13 Using Queer Theory

The premise of this episode contains two main parts that perpetuate the existence of binary:

• The couple Mitchell and Cameron visit Missouri where Cameron’s southern family is still coming to terms with their relative’s homosexuality.
• Father and daughter Jay and Claire are attending ClosetCon, and Claire believes that her father may have had an affair twenty years ago.

Sexual preference plays a large role in this episode of Modern family because not only are the characters Mitch and Cam visiting Cam’s family farm for the first time since their engagement, Claire assumes her father had an affair with an old colleague simply because she overhears a weird conversation between the two. I also found a major focus on ‘the closet’ in this episode, which spreads the idea heterosexuality as normative behavior within the show.

Claire finds out later in the episode that she had simply jumped to the conclusion that since her dad and his colleague were whispering about something that they must have been keeping a secret about their sexual relations when in reality they had never been together in that way. Their interactions also bring to light the idea of playing the prank of putting a skeleton in the closet because it is Claire first time at the convention. The skeleton in the closet may be a play on the idea that Cam and Mitch were trying to find a way to tell Cam’s grandma that he had fallen in love with another man. Jay and Claire may have been at ClosetCon, but the binary highlighted in Queer theory is also present in this episode because Cam is trying to “come out of the closet” for his older family members.

      I saw the binary being most present during the scenes where Claire is sneaking around trying to get evidence of her fathers’ affair, but she never really hears anything. It is because her dad is a well known individual and his colleague was a woman that it seems obvious that the two were hiding a sexual past. In the scenes with Mitch, Cam, and his grandmother, it almost seems like she would accept the two for their love, but when Cam ‘comes out’ the old woman immediately expresses her disapproval. These two occurrences are almost opposites, which a perfect example of how the binary works. Simply because a man and a woman were whispering to each other a third person assumes there must be something sexual happening, whereas when a homosexual couples finds the courage to come out of the closet they are shot down with denial from a close family member. ClosetCon becomes a representation of Cam and Mitch's attempt to come out of the closet, while Claire embarrasses herself by accusing her father of cheating.

My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)

Fall Out Boy

The hit single My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) is from Fall Out Boy's new album, Save Rock and Roll. The music video for the song is the first of the Young Blood Chronicles, which is an ongoing series with the band filming a video for every song on the album, Save Rock and Roll. This song is very popular and is played at many sports events. It also has been featured in the movie, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, and the new TV show, The Originals (a spin-off of the show Vampire Diaries). The song has a fun beat and is catchy, however one has to wonder what the lyrics mean.

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) Lyrics

The lyrics don't really make any sense when first read but one does get the sense that he is singing about exposure or "seeing the real." In an interview with the band members, Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, they talk about the meaning of the song. Patrick explains that the song is about the anger adults keep hidden that we might have expressed freely when we were younger. He says that adults keep this side of themselves hidden because that is what we are supposed to do, and it's not "gentleman like" if we were to blow up and get angry at people. This reminded me of dramaturgy from sociological analysis.

Dramaturgy explains that the self is not stable or an independent entity. Rather the self is a performed character that we are endlessly staging and restaging the presence of others. The example from Patrick's explanation is that he says people construct and mediate their behavior to act appropriately as "adults." The second part of dramaturgy is impression management. This is the art of successfully staging a character or "part", of enacting a performance that creates the desired impression of the self. Patrick's example of this is that people manage their behavior to not appear as angry or crazy, so they construct the "well manged and put together" adult. Finally the last four things to look at in dramaturgy is the stage, setting, part, and team. Below are examples of how My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark does each of these four things.

1. Stage (front stage and back stage): The front stage is adults appear as following the norms society expects them to obey: they are well put together and act "ladylike" or "like a gentleman." The back stage is that adults do get angry and need to channel that emotion. The song acts as a release that lets the frustration and tension out in an appropriate manner.

2. Setting: Adults compose their front stage in front of other people, so the setting would be places where they have to socially interact with other people (i.e. work, home, internet, etc.) The back stage would most likely be in a setting where a person doesn't think anyone is watching or could possibly overhear, like driving alone in a car.

3. Part: The pattern of actions adults use to define their front stage character would be acting cool and collected. If something or someone angers you there should not be any expression of frustration (verbal or nonverbal). The patterns of actions that define the back stage character is yelling, hitting things, maybe even crying.

4. Team: Adults are a cast of players who share the same performance. They all know that it is socially inappropriate to show the emotion of being angry. Therefore they share the same performance of remaining clam and cool in a frustrating situation.