hegemony and rap

After discussing hegemony in rap and reading this week’s readings, about language, repetition and the media, I thought about how many of these concepts consisted in the movie “Borat”.  In Hall’s article language is defined by a system of representations which links various signs and symbols.  Studying language is very interesting because it is the foundation of many cultures and in recent decades, culture has been more globalized and mediated then ever before, thus inter-relating the many ideologies that go along with is.  On page 24 of Hall’s article, he claims the language is produced, constructed and maintained, and studying language needs to start with the familiarities of culture.  In “Borat” for instance the representations are stereotypical and similar to all other media text; however there is a distinguished language barrier.  In one scene. Borat stopped and asks a group of several African America individuals and with his strong eastern European accent asks “how can I talk and dress like you?”  He was then is told to loosen his belt and say “what up with it” when you greet someone” he however does not know what context to use this language.  He later goes into a local hotel and says to the Bell click, “what up vanilla face, me and my niggas need somewhere to post up…it’s just my niggas not no hos”.  He later ended up getting in trouble because of misuse of his language which originated from the language barrier from the previous interaction.  This author in the article uses the example of street lights to define language as well.  We attach meaning in cultures that globalize over time though the channel of media texts, to objects, or in this case, green to go and red to stop.  “Saying what up with it” makes no sense in English or to a dictionary, but meaning was constructed by the African American cultural traditions and slang.  This brings into the light of the ideology of hegemony that the other article discusses, the way things are and the historical context from which these meanings are produced in the center focus on this topic and over time this will of course change as meanings and language as always changed.