Dragging out their 15 minutes of fame

Today in class when discussing whether a person was a celebrity or not, someone brought up a good point, that the Kardashians are more recognizable than actual actors on television shows. We see the Kardashians and other people like them as celebrities but in reality, they have done nothing to earn the ‘privilege’   of being called a celebrity. Most of the people on these shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians, or The Bachelor, or The Real World, earn stardom by doing something outrageous and getting attention. All of these people are attributed celebrities. On one of the first days of class we discussed a quote “In the future everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame”, and I think that applies to a lot of the people who get the chance to be on TV. But some of them are lucky and I guess you can say smart enough to keep the fame going and continue getting attention and getting people to want to know more about them. In our society today, the emergence of celebrities is so common because of all the social media available, so really it makes it possible for anyone to get their 15 minutes of fame.

Little Monsters

We discussed Lady Gaga in class but when I think of fandom and fan culture she is the first person that comes to mind. I attended one of her concerts and I have never seen so many people dressed in elaborate costumes that mimicked hers and with posters and homemade t-shirts. She calls her followers Little Monsters and every concert urges the audience to “put their paws up” as a sign that they are all unified as one group. She has a strong message of people being true to who they are and I think that is why a lot of people adore her and dress like her. She is very different to say the least and sometimes people just want something to believe in, or someone that they can agree with on their view points. There is even a blog http://gagas-monsters.com/ with photos of Lady Gaga and fan art and costumes and comments are all in adoration of her. From parodies, to art projects, and even flash mobs the site shows how much her fans appreciate her and take her eccentric way of dressing to heart. But in this case I think the love her fans have for her is actually mutual. Lady Gaga even has a little monsters tattoo on her.

Working class comedy

The class system has been around for as anyone can remember, and people are always saying there are no social classes. But the truth is they are everywhere. When watching TV there are many shows that relate to the working class but also ones they show a higher class lifestyle. I wrote about Gossip Girl in one of my other posts but I think it applies to the class system fairly well. I watch this show because I like to see their lifestyles because I do obviously not live like that. In the show they also make fun of one of the characters and his father because they are from Brooklyn, which is not as “high class”, as the Upper East Side. I think the comedy aspect is often applied to a working class person because that is truly how most people live and they can relate to it, so it’s better for them to just laugh it off. Many shows mentioned in the video we watched on Tuesday are comedies and they are all about the working class people. There are not many serious shows that revolve around their problems. Gossip Girl on the other hand deals with problems about the upper class, such as having to pay a dowry to a Prince or losing their penthouse in their grandmothers will. Most people cannot relate to these situations but it makes for good entertainment because it allows people to imagine they are living these lives.

Devaluing of Women: Killing us Softly

After watching Jean Kilbourn's Killing us Softly video, I really had a new perspective on advertising and the way the media portrays women. She made a point when she said some people say they do not remember the advertisements but they actually do stick in your head. I am one of these people, I say I am not affected by commercials and magazine advertisements but in reality I can always remember ones that have stood out to me. The examples she showed in the video were pictures where women are used to advertise foods, cars, and other products in a sexual way, they are not even getting the point out of the product they are advertising. It is sad that that is what these people have to do in order to sell a product. Also the fact that they are only using extremely thin and attractive women gives real women an unrealistic goal to try to live up to. The women in these ads are not even real women; they are cut and cropped until they fit what the advertiser sees as "perfect". The images we see can not be obtained by a normal woman, we will never look as perfect as these women in ads because they are fake. The advertisers are devaluing the women they use in their ads either by altering them completely or using them as sex objects. 

Barbie

I really enjoyed this weeks reading on Barbie “The Bitch Still has Everything”. Small children, primarily little girls are introduced to the doll at a young age and get to see all of the things Barbie can do. She is a doctor, a veterinarian, a politician, a pilot, and so on. She has all of these careers which allow kids to see that they can do whatever they want. But is this setting young Barbie fans up for disappointment? I think it may be. Yes, these kids who play with Barbies will realize they can do whatever they want if they put their mind to it, but they will have to soon realize it is next to impossible to have all the careers Barbie had. And then we come to Barbie’s flawless looks. Besides her long blonde hair and blue eyes, Barbie has a body that most girls would want. There was an experiment that showed Barbie’s proportions of her body. They were physically impossible to attain and she would be considered freakish if someone were to see her in real life. When analyzed Barbie seems to be providing a bad image to us and to the children who play with her, but the real question still remains if the child’s innocent yet curious mind is thinking these things too.

Gran Torino

This week’s discussion focused on race and ethnicity. The one film that I thought of that shows a decent amount of racism and prejudices is Gran Torino. The movie is about a Korean War veteran who really does not have a liking towards anyone. He is very angry and racial slurs are part of his everyday vocabulary. There is an Asian family that lives next door and he calls them derogatory terms for Asians all the time and throughout the movie he calls people racist terms and says things that are offensive to people of different races or ethnicities.  People ignore him for the most part. I feel like this character in the movie is from such a different generation that he does not realize what he is saying is hurtful to these people and could ultimately get him in trouble. People try and use frames to justify the fact he says things, like saying he is old and that’s all he knows; but in reality people are aware of what is going on around them and choose to say the things they do because that is how they feel. In this movie Walt, the main character could be an example of using cultural racism to belittle his Asian neighbors or even possibly minimization because he does not see the big problem with him calling all of these different people racist names.

Celebrity Apprentice

On this week’s episode of The Celebrity Apprentice, there was a direct reference to stereotypes in two ways. The task for the week was to create two window displays for Ivanka Trumps new clothing and jewelry line. The line is for women so I expected the women’s team to do a little better than then men, since they would be styling the models and creating a display, (which is a stereotype on its own). One thing that stood out was when they were deciding on who would dress the models they picked Clay Aiken, who is gay and they made it obvious that’s why they picked him. In the boardroom they asked one of the celebrities, Adam Corolla, why they choose George Takei as the group leader and he responded with that they choose him because he was gay and they assumed he would have good taste and be able judge properly on women’s apparel. This relates to the Dyer article because he describes the typical gay stereotypes that are in movies or on television, and this example on the Apprentice does just that. The men thought that their gay teammates would excel at this more “feminine” challenge because of their sexual orientation and them possibly being more feminine than the straight teammates; but in the end it was the women’s team that won.

Sitcom Confessionals

This week’s discussion focused on audience orientated critique. We talked about how soap operas or serial narratives allow the audience to become involved with the show and feel as if they are actually a part of the cast and involved with what is going on. Soap operas allow this because they have episodes everyday and repeat a lot of what is going on. There are not many soap operas left because I think daytime television is not as popular as it may have been in the past. I related this concept of getting the audience involved with some television shows that only air one a week. The examples I thought of were Modern Family and The Office. These shows are sitcoms but they have parts of the show where one character is face to face with the camera and talks to the audience as if they are having a conversation. By doing this it allows the audience to feel as if they are talking to the character and getting into the characters mind. It almost serves as a confessional for the characters and the audience gets insight that they may have not known before. Since these shows only air once a week this feature allows flashbacks from previous episodes, to keep the audience up to date.

Sex and the City 2

After discussing different cultures and how shows and movies are adapted to conform to the values of these different places where they are aired, I thought of a particular scene in a movie. The scene is from Sex and the City 2. It's when Carrie is in Abu Dahbi with the rest of her friends and she is trying to get the cabs attention. In this scene all the woman including Carrie and her friends are dressed in burqas (fully covered from head to toe) in efforts to get a cab Carrie hikes up her burqa to expose her leg and her stylish high heel. Multiple cabs suddenly stop in hopes that this "daring" woman will get in their cab. I find this scene funny and worth recognizing  because Carrie is an American woman and she is being associated with showing a little more skin to attract the male can drivers. In the culture of Abu Dahbi this is obviously prohibited so the men are attracted to it. The portrayal of a woman being able to use her body to get what she wants is present in this scene and really shows what our culture deems acceptable in films.

Pop Culture vs. Politics

After taking that “quiz” on Tuesday about politics and some world news, it really occurred to me that the things featured in this quiz were not as well known as they should be. Most people in our age group are not very informed about politics and our government because it does not interest them the way popular culture does. Many of us can tell you who won which Grammy and all about the recent death of Whitney Houston, but when it comes to who won the Republican primaries in a certain state, there would be a lot less responses. Our media places such a large emphasis on celebrities and Hollywood, and such little on our government and politics. I feel Lippmann is correct in saying that a lot of people are not informed and do not really know what they are talking about because our society does not make topics like who will be running our country as important as which celebrity checked into rehab this weekend. It is up to the people themselves to educate themselves, but I feel if the media made an effort to feature some stories less focused on Hollywood, maybe more people would live up to Dewey’s statements.

Gossip Girl

        Every Monday I watch Gossip Girl; but it wasn’t until this class on Tuesday that I really connected some of the topics we discussed with the show. Gossip Girl takes place in New York mostly in upscale neighborhoods and the plot revolves around 5 main characters and their families. All of the characters are unusually rich except one, whose father is married to one of the rich girl’s mother.  

                This past few episodes features one of the main characters, Blair, in the process of getting married to a prince and planning the wedding. Throughout these episodes and even some before there is always shopping at high retail stores, going out to A-list parties and them poking fun at their not-so-rich friend Dan. Everyone wants to be, dress, and live like these people, but why? From what we discussed in class and from my own wishful thinking that I could have a life like that, I realized people only watch this show because they want to live these lives. People want money and want to be able to do or buy whatever they please. The main characters always have the upper hand and basically control everything that goes on in their small part of town, somewhat like the intellectual and material force. These people have the money, so people listen to them and cater to their every need.

                We are a lot like this in our real lives. We want to be like the upper class, and we wish to buy things that make us that way. But like the article said it’s all a vicious circle that is just benefitting the upper class in the end.

Glee

Thinking about this week’s lesson and how we discussed the goals of cultural studies, I feel like a lot of television shows could be related to discovering instances of meaning and struggle. I was watching Glee tonight and a lot of these themes could be connected with this show. First off there is a constant theme of using song to express emotion and to get the message of the episode across; which goes hand in hand with discourse which explains how they talk and act towards each other. Glee also uses its show to relay lessons at the end and lessons throughout the entire 3 seasons. Throughout all the seasons the constant theme of bullying is always visible. The episode that was on tonight showed a student from a rival school hurting one of the main characters physically. The sign that is in each episode is the slushy that is thrown in the faces of the Glee club. The slushy is a symbol for bullying and the hatred that many people feel towards the Glee club. Going back to this episode, instead of the Glee club retaliating back with violence they use song to come back and prove a point that they will not be pushed down and forced to forfeit to the opposing team.

Malorie Duda

hegemony

     After really thinking about everything we discussed this week one idea really stood out, and that was hegemony, which means the power a class has over another. This got me thinking of what class has power over who? In my eyes the media is a higher class because they decide what we see, and how we should view things and form opinions. From magazines, to tv, to movies, and on the internet there is that high “power” that decides what we will view. On tv ideas are instilled in our minds and therefore aid in our opinions we make. Celebrities endorse products and when you see a celebrity you like in a magazine with a new perfume, there’s a great chance you will buy it. But I feel that the things the media puts out there for us to absorb is most of the time not beneficial to us. I watched the state of the union address on Tuesday, and thought to myself if my teacher wouldn’t have told me it was on, I probably would not know; but if the media and celebrities whom we follow daily mentioned it or said it was important to watch, I think a lot more people would become involved.

     Just from that one example in my own life it shows how hegemony works in our society. We would rather have the media feed us news and how to think then take the time to watch something that actually may be beneficial for us.

Malorie D

Fame

What is fame? I looked up the term and found that it is defined as widespread reputation; but is this really how everyone views fame? And who decides what actions people can gain fame from. But in terms of the quote we discussed in class by Andy Warhol “everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame”, I feel this definition can vary from person to person. For me someone who is famous is in vague terms an actor, singer, or athlete that people will recognize; but in the world we live in today we have the internet which offers people a way to also become famous in a sense. For example like we discussed in class, someone can post a video on YouTube, the video will get millions of hits, and most people will know of the person who is in the video, but I do not think this person is considered famous unless their career expands from this one YouTube video.

                Going back to the quote by Andy Warhol, I do agree that in the future everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame, but for most this fame will not be being on the cover of magazines, or getting your own television show; I feel this fame is being recognized for doing something (like posting a video on YouTube), although there are many people who are famous for doing nothing (Kardashian family).