Cultural Hegemony and Family Guy

As we’ve discussed in past weeks, pop culture can often work to reinforce existing stereotypes and cultural norms in our society. Comedy in film and television often comes from poking fun at different aspects of society or the people in it. A number of things are safe to poke fun of while other things are considered “going too far”. Our society has come to accept a number of controversial topics as comedic, even things like gender and sexual preference. However, one topic that is usually strictly off limits to poke fun at is the disabled population. That’s why I was so surprised to watch one particular episode of “Family Guy”.

“Family Guy” is a comedic cartoon for adults that focuses on a “typical” family. It plays on Fox during prime time so it reaches a pretty large mainstream audience. The show forces the viewer to accept unconventional family roles; the father Peter acts like a child, the baby Stewy is a genius and works various jobs and drives a car. The family dog walks around on two feet, drinks coffee and dates while the other children play a minor role in the show.

On the episode I watched, a deaf woman starts working in Peter’s office and his coworkers all find her attractive. It leads them to believe all handicapped women are hot so they start a “Disabled Night” at their bar. The bar hosts an array of women in wheelchairs and prosthetics and Brian, the dog, meets an attractive blind woman who he begins to date.

Some of the notable controversial moments of the show involved Brian tricking his blind date into believing they went to exotic destinations as well as a friend of Peter’s who is in a wheelchair asking his wife to commit suicide with him. My first question was, “How is this show getting away with these things?” It’s a very popular show that has been around for at least ten seasons so it has a good track record. On the other hand, I started thinking of cultural hegemony. We are trained to understand what is acceptable on TV and what is not, but this show seems to have no concept of that. I know people enjoy it, but how come I never hear them talking about it? Are they simply too afraid to bring up the controversial topics that “Family Guy” dives right into? In my opinion this show challenges cultural hegemony jumping out of a pattern of what is accepted in mainstream society and addressing basically anything it wants to. However if it doesn’t get people talking, other TV shows may not follow suit and the societal norms “Family Guy”  aims to break will continue.

Happiness Is What?....

The concept of ideology is a common idea on a subject matter relating to the "norm" of social life or politics etc.. Sitting here thinking about this the life of a successful career, a house with a white picket fence and a house filled with a husband/wife and 2.5 kids are all ideas of how we should live out our lives to be truly happy and successful not just in our careers but what society calls a "great life". But where did this concept come from and why is it that this although we now know there are many ways of achieving a "great life" that we still strive to have this fantasy of a perfect American dream. I know for myself, I know that this is not exactly what I want for myself with the white picket fence and so forth but I believe that everyone's version of the American dream all stems form the same original concept that the hierarchy of our society has pushed on us. So will this thought of the American dream change? I don't think it will anytime soon completely but there is already a little change of this concept already, which means no one set of ideas are concrete and unchanging if we really want a difference we can have one we just have to express these difference and make a new concept of ideology.

accepting a label

Today in our world I believe people really don’t have a good understanding of individuality. Everybody has dreams and goals, but is the dreams and goals we have of what other people have? People always say that they are their own person, but that is in fact not true. I am guilty of it too. People that are true individualist are innovators. An innovator is someone that came up with something on their own, it is their own identity. I feel people are afraid now to take risks and be their own person, so they settle for what society calls the “norm.” We see and hear it every day on the radio with rap and hip hop artist reality television shows. Today we listen to four rap songs about people’s lives as they were growing up and how they see the world as it is. In my opinion that is what they think society expects them to do is be hustlers and gang banging. When in reality there is an out to the life they live. People shouldn’t accept what they think society labels them as. People should be motivated an want to explore more and new options for their and families lives.

Say what?!

Showing four different types of rap videos in order to illustrate a point is a great way to get into people's minds.  Just by looking at one video at a time, perhaps we would not have noticed the differences and values that each video has to offer.  As being part of group three we analyzed the song, "Racks" by YC and it basically showed that in that particular video, the most important thing to value is money, or in other words, materialism.  This is so embedded in our culture that we do not take a second look or even seem to question it.  I am really glad we talked about this because we, as part of this culture and society, have to learn to question things that are considered 'normal' and really ask, "is this fair?", "is this how things should be?", "why is this happening?", etc.  As a philosophy student alongside communications, I have been exposed to think outside the box very early in my college career.  I have never thought about this myself until I was exposed to it by a plethora of philosophers.  When people say, "why do people exist?"and, "What is the purpose of everyone's life?", really makes you question everyday, things as well.
Ever since Lady Gaga started becoming popular, I noticed that she was obviously very strange, but, I started noticing patterns in all of her music videos.  I became very interested in the signs and symbols she uses, for example: triangles, checkerboards, lightning bolts, a single eye, religious symbols, heads of animals, hand signs, etc.  These signs just started completely flying out at me every time she produced a music video and I decided to do some research on it.  I put the pieces of the puzzle together and realized she is appealing to the "Illuminati".  Now, I am not taking a side to this, but simply pointing out that she is doing anything and everything do abide by the definition of what an "Illuminati" is.  This is a very controversial topic, and some say a conspiracy, but it is something you will never hear on the news or hear people questioning. Now that we are exposed to the internet, you can Youtube this topic and see that many people have noticed the exact same thing.  This goes not only for Lady Gaga, but other very popular current music artists.
The point I'm trying to make is the exact same one we made in class, is that we should really question things in life.  As my Lady Gaga example, perhaps next time you see a music video don't just say, "Oh it's great, it has amazing visuals, etc",  but really stop and think what kind of message she is trying to send out to the public. The same way product placement works in music videos, is the same way other messages can be sent without us taking a pause and deciphering.  A popular blog, Vigilant Citizen, writes, "In order to keep the youth interested and attracted to the elite’s agenda, creators of pop videos cleverly combines fresh visuals with mind-numbing repetition".

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.      

Kanye's Diamonds from Sierra Leone

Examining the videos in class today was interesting, and the Kanye - Diamonds video for me was the most interesting. Our group was trying to determine why Kanye chose not to wear any diamonds in the video, which featured child miners from Sierra Leone. I understand the message and the juxtaposition that Kanye was trying to get across - bringing awareness to the violence and "bloodiness" of the diamonds that children suffer for to bring to rich white people, and contrast the images with Kanye in Paris. I think what Kanye was trying to do, by not wearing diamonds and strolling alone through one of the most populated areas in Paris, was indicating that as a black man who is celebrating his success, he is also not ignoring his roots, his past, or his people in that he keeps the children of Sierra Leone on his mind. I think the footage of him walking through Paris alone indicates that while he celebrates his success, he also feels isolated in being a black man with the kind of success he has. I think he was trying to show that the child miners remind him of his own struggles. While I think I understand the points Kanye was trying to get across, I don't think that the imagery was necessarily juxtaposed in a way that made it clear what his message was. I think he wanted the video to generate discussion, but not necessarily discussion of what he was actually trying to say about the blood diamond situation.

 Kanye VS Common

 I thought today's class was very interesting, especially the music videos we watched. Although they were all the same genre (rap) they all had different things to say. My group focused on the Common video of the song 'Corners.' The video began in the nicer parts of Chicago and progressed to the ghetto areas that he (Common) grew up. He showed the rougher parts of his area and was basically saying this is where he grew up and because of this he is now a famous rapper. He brought up the fact that an education doesn't really get one anywhere and the way to live a life there is to sell drugs and join a gang. On one side it seemed like he was glorifying the ghetto and showing people that because of his upbringing he is now a successful rapper but also saying that not everyone from the ghetto can become a celebrity like him. Another interesting video was the last Kanye West video. It was more of a story line than just random clips like Common's video. It also seemed like a Sierra Leone awareness video showing people where their diamonds really come from. Kanye looked down on the white powerful groups by going to the cathedral and walking around in Italy. The video was also shot in black and white which was very interesting. These two videos really stuck out to me because they were both talking about reality while also trying to show 2 sides of the story.