Kim and Kanye

Kim and Kanye, are they dating are they not? Who cares? The public is interested. Why? Kim has turned into a celebrity. She has played the business and the public well. She turned a negative situation, her leak of her sex tape, into a positive, money making, videotaping lifestyle.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-earrings_n_1445206.html

This link contains an article and pictures describing Kim's "KW" earrings. This is her "obvious" explanation of her relationship status with Kanye. Something I found funny was the picture at the end of the article. It's an old picture of the Kardashian family. They all look so different. They even almost look real.

The real interesting part of the Kardashian family is how they became famous in the first place. Bruce was an Olympian. So, he used his athletic ability to become famous. He achieved his celebrity status. Kim was originally attributed her celebrity status because of her tape. However, she has changed that and now has achieved her status.

The important aspect to note in American culture is that the public has the ability to change their celebrity status, just like they have the potential to change their social and economic status.

True Life...I'm a Sports Fanatic

Here is a clip of a sports fanatic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiqJKP7I6O4. She is an extreme Giants fan. She has created her own website, been featured on MTV's True Life...I'm a Sports Fanstic and has spoken on radio shows.

She states during her interview that she has trouble finding a boyfriend because of her obsession with the Giants. She even calls her self a fanatic. If she is aware of her behavior, why does she do it? She travels all over to watch the games. She is constantly thinking about the Giants. However, she does not seem to be questioning her behavior.

The Giants franchise has definitely changed the nature of this female. This participatory culture has produced a lot of fans. This lady is not the only fanatic for the Giants. The NFL has created a lot of fan bases. Each team has its own fans as well as Fantasy Football. The audience not only gets to watch the games, but they get to create their own teams from the NFL.

Here is another clip of the entire MTV episode: http://www.mtv.com/videos/true-life-im-a-sports-fanatic/1631814/playlist.jhtml.

Glitz and Glam to Working Class Citizens

Sex and the City represents the wealthy side of New York City. The average American does not live like the four main characters. They shop at all designer stores, go to Red Carpet events and eat out for just about every meal. They own the penthouse of an apartment building downtown. Most individuals are not this fortunate.

A new series will be hitting HBO in a couple of days, Girls. This program also shows women from New York City. However, they are very different. These women represent the working class, the average Americans. They shop at thrift stores and are not living the glitzy life of the Sex and the City women.

It is interesting to have the same concept for the premise of the shows, but just change their class status. I wonder if Girls will do just as well as Sex and the City?

I am inferring that Girls will depicts its characters either with bad taste, lack of intelligence, reactionary politics, poor work ethic or dysfunctional family values. My reason for saying this is because that is the general formula for working class TV shows. I guess only time will tell on this matter.

It's All About the Money

It's sad to me that everything is about the money. For example, Madonna is willing to create this sexual persona in order to earn a lot of money, or in rap music, the rappers talk about having sex with a lot of women so they can make millions of dollars. Too many people are willing to sell themselves and others to the world of sex to make a dollar. And I do not mean sex slavery or prostitution or anything along those lines necessarily. However, the reproduction of stardom requires the stars to continue this sexual demeanor.

This creates a problem because the youth are very impressionable, and this can change their outlook. Many children believe they need to act sexual in order to make their crush like them. Or they see so much sex and sexual behaviors throughout the media that they feel they need to partake in these activities in order to be "normal." There are not enough positive messages in the media to influence the public to go out and volunteer or do good for their friends, family and the community.

Advertisements

I found Killing Us Softly to be very interesting. The media really plays on stereotypes and this "ideal beauty." Women need to be seen as thin, beautiful and sexy in order to make the product sell. Something that I found extremely interesting was the part about minority women being represented as animals. This was shown by their poses and garments. This video really opened up my eyes to how messed up advertisements can be.

Do we always have to use sex to sell? Last semester,  I wrote a research paper on how women are displayed in perfume ads. Over 2/3 of the ads displayed women either nude, partly clothed or in a sexual manner. If a man was shown in the ad, the women were always in a submissive to the male counterpart. My guess is that the advertisers believe females will look at these pages and think by wearing this perfume, I can be sexy, too. However, the perfume will not change who you are as a person. Yes, the viewer might smell differently, but no matter what the perfume can not change who he or she truly is. Unfortunately though, it can influence them. This is a major problem with the younger audiences. This is why anorexia and bulimia are so prevalent today.

In my opinion, our definition of beauty needs to be adjusted. Being beautiful should come from within. Not how skinny you are or how much makeup you can put on. As a society, we should become more aware of this issue.

Not only TV shows, but also the news.

Not only do TV shows display acts and thoughts of racism and stereotyping individuals, groups and communities, but the news does as well. During Hurricane Katrina, Caucasians and African Americans were not presented in the same light. Caucasians were seen as taking food to help save their families while African Americans were perceived to be loiters and thieves. Why is it okay to present one community differently than another?

A picture might say 1,000 words, but are you seeing the whole picture or only a fragment of it? The news should be an unbiased source of information for individuals to learn about happenings all around the world. Unfortunately, the news is a bias source of entertainment. Now, this would be okay if everyone had equal access to education and was aware of this situation. Since this is not the case, some people interpret the news to be fact, and that has the potential to be very damaging.

Is Marriage Always Associated with Love?

Signs and symbols represent every aspect of our culture. A table is only called a table because as a society we have agreed upon this term. Words do not have meanings unless they are connected to a physical being.

This reminded me a lot of The Notebook. In other cultures, marriage is not always associated with love. However, in America love is the key to a successful relationship or at least that is what we are told. Thus, The Notebook presents these two characters that fight and are sometimes aggressive with one another, but they are madly in love. Therefore, the relationship works. This is because our culture associates marriage with love. This idea then means that we represent love through marriage.

Boy Meets World

This weekend, I decided to watch Boy Meets World. This was my favorite show when I was younger and still makes my top list today. However, when I view it now I have a much different perspective on the program.

Since being a communications major, I pay a lot more attention to details within television programs and movies. I notice product placement and advertisements. Things I didn't think I paid much attention to before.

This holds true to Boy Meets World as well. I had no idea Yahoo advertised on that show at all until this weekend. The magnets on the refrigerator and stickers on the bulletin boards were all advertising for Yahoo (or most of them at least). It always surprises me how they sneak little things like that onto the show.

Product placements connects very well with the rhetorical nature of TV. The viewers are receiving a "gift" for watching the program, and thus, they are responsible for paying back the producers by buying the products advertised on the programs. I personally think this idea is a little ridiculous, but I understand their thinking none the less.

So, the producers place ads within the show anyway they can. All the products for example might be Coca Cola or Kellogg's brand. Product placement is important to the commercial industry because people can not "fast forward" through the show in order to skip the advertisements. Any way these programs can influence the consumers to spend money, they will do it.

The Vow

So, of course with Valentine's Day last week I had to go see The Vow. This is the stereotypical romantic comedy for the most part. Male and female fall in love. Female falls out of love, and the male tries to win her back the entire movie. (It wasn't quite this simple, but I don't want to give any details away.) America is obsessed with the story of "love." However, how would this play out in another country? Would other societies be just as intrigued as the Americans?

I don't think this storyline would work perfectly in other countries. The main female character does not have the best relationship with her parents, and in many cultures, family relationships are extremely important. Even so much so that the grandparents, parents and children all live under one roof. I think some individuals would be upset to see this break in the family.

With all this being said, not all media produced will evoke the same reaction or response for every culture. Media needs to fit that culture specifically based on their morals, religious views and economic status. In America, we would not like to see our "beloved" Apple products being marketed to just one specific type of person. The reason we like their products so much is because they market their goods to every type of person within the U.S. That's what makes them so successful. They found their market and played to their needs perfectly (or pretty close).

Breakthrough or Surge in Tax Hikes?

I decided to look up news stories regarding the payroll taxes because I wanted to see if any new information has arose regarding the situation. I found it extremely interesting. However, not too surprising. ABC News and Fox News had very different views on the topic. ABC's article was titled, "Breakthrough: Negotiators Near Deal to Extend Payroll Tax Cut" while Fox's title was "Proposed Obama Budget Includes Surge in Tax Hikes." Fox is notorious for its conservative, republican views. It just really interested me to see the same topic framed in such different ways. ABC stated it is a "breakthrough" and a positive move. Fox used the words "surge" and "hikes" as well as "Obama" which is sure to hit on the rhetoric of pathos for a lot of its readers.

News stories and programs are not facts. They are carefully selected, bias stories regarding worldly or local topics. Yes, these stations are a good resource to learn about new topics and situations. However, it is important to remember that a producer picked what stories were going to be presented and in what light.

Sometimes, I think the American public forgets about this or never paid attention to it in the first place. Grossberg believed that the public should be made more aware of situations as well as have more control over the country. I am sure he would want the American public to be more aware of news stations and their bias tendencies.

BET

I wanted to learn more about BET as a television network. So, where did I first start in order to learn the most broad facts? Wikipedia, of course.

It explained how BET is mostly known for its rap and R&B music videos. However, it did not always start this way. Programming included comedies, news, public affairs and music. What happened that made this drastic change to just music programming? Money.

Television is becoming more and more of an outlet to make money. I am not saying that it hasn't always been that way, but even more so today. TV isn't here just to inform its consumers of the daily news. The news itself is chosen by what is going to receive the most viewers.

There are not just five channels anymore like back in the day. There are hundreds of channels all wanting to have the highest viewership. On Sunday mornings, BET previously hosted a Christian show with gospel music. This network programming has completely changed since Viacom took over. BET has turned into MTV featuring the African American community, but produced for a Caucasian audience. Is it more important for our society to make money rather than promoting minorities and displaying them more throughout the media?  

Music Can be a Way to Convey News

Rap as well as other genres of music has really impacted popular culture and mass media today. It is no longer about the artist or the song. The artists are now becoming brands themselves. What they wear, eat and say influences our daily lives (whether we like it or not).

The artists aren't the only people influencing things. Culture impacts their music. Kanye West's song Diamonds are Forever refers to the issue of Blood Diamonds. Families are dying over pieces of shiny rock. It is important that music covers these important issues because a lot of teens do not watch or listen to the news. However, they would be interested in listening to a new rap song and watching the music video.

I would rather listen to a song about an issue going on with the world like Black Eyed Peas' song Where is the Love? rather than listen to something calling everyone a bitch or a hoe. That does not benefit me as a person or provide me with important news. Artists have a responsibility as role models and brands to raise awareness for these pressing issues.

The Simple Life

The television show, The Simple Life, starred socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. The series took these women and puts them in the life of ordinary, American citizens. Paris and Nicole always mess up or were grossed out by their new "jobs." They did not perform well as average citizens.

This was the perfect example of hegemony. Paris and Nicole have a lot of influence and power over American culture (maybe not as much now, but when the show aired they had a lot of power). Their ideas were seen through everyone, but their ideas and lifestyles are only really possible to obtain for the elite. They themselves could not even live the life of an average person.

Another example of hegemony was displayed on Paris' show, Paris Hilton's My New BFF. Everyone wanted to be her best friend in order to go to the best parties and dress just like Paris. It was because of her business ideas or ethic. They wanted to be seen on TV (or at least that is what I interpreted from the show). 

American culture takes on ideas that the elite present to us. However, we can not truly live the lives they are displaying to us.

Work It

I really enjoyed watching the pilot episode of Work It. I didn't like it for its quality because honestly, it was not very good. However, it did teach us a lot of lessons. Analyzing the content was interesting and has given me a new perspective for watching television shows.

Something we did not discuss during class which I thought was humorous was the fact that there was a book in the purse for book club. It is funny to me that everyone believes adult women are always involved in a book club. Why? I think that is an odd stereotype.

This show definitely touched on a lot of stereotypes as well as focused on current events. Sitcoms are generally popular when they hit on current events (obviously not this show). However, not all current events can be discussed because it will make the population uncomfortable. For example, references to 9/11 were not placed in sitcoms for a couple years because of the sensitivity of the topic. The program 24 was supposed to air an episode containing a plane crash  (I believe--if not that exactly, it was something very close to that) and changed the premise for that episode in order to not upset the public.

Television programs really touch into current events in order to try and make the shows relate to our lives.