A brief overview: 2/11/2010

After being placed into small groups, we discussed various aspects of the readings. Part of the assignment was to find the main point of the readings Particular attention was given to reading “A Propaganda Model” by Herman and Chomsky and the discussion of how propaganda is generated in society. Also within Media and Cultural Studies “On Television” also commented on the fact that tv is becoming a powerful tool within the modern world. Another article that received a lot attention was “Replication Techniques in Eastern Zhou Bronze Casting” we discussed industrialization in China, and how the replicating the techniques used by craftsmen was able to prove that China possessed a vibrant industry, that could have rivaled the Industrial Revolution in Europe. The article that the group spent the most time talking about was “The Many Figures of Eve: Styles of Womanhood Embodied in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Corset. “ While several faults could be found, such as the author using Laura Ingalls Wilder as a source, it was Miller’s article that was chosen to be the basis of a hypothetical exhibit. The exhibit, would examine if women were really free and liberated based on the undergarments women wear. The exhibit would be circular to show that fashion has become full circle. The exhibit would start with the stays, corset, chemise, the 1950’s style of undergarments, bra burning, then move on to Madonna and the famous cone bra explosion, to the push up bra, spanx, a lingerie version of a corset and lastly a photograph of Lady Gaga wearing an outfit that resembles a stay. The exhibit would feature a collection of the undergarments but also photographs of advertisements. Multimedia clips would also be featured such as the infamous It would be up to the public to decide if women really are free from societies strain of undergarments.

Stays : http://www.history.org/history/clothing/women/images/gown1.jpg

Still from Gone With The Wind: http://www.philadelphia-eflections.com/images/scarletohara.jpg

An example of 1920’s chemise: http://www.pastpatterns.com/images/500.gif

1950’s Advertisement: http://www.d.umn.edu/~sett0060/Cleavage%20Pics%20004.jpg

Recap of 2/11

Dallas W. Smythe " On the Audience Commodity and its Work" : 1981

Pierre Bourdieu " (i) Introduction (ii) The Aristocracy of Culture": 1984

Nicholas Garnham " Contribution to a Political Economy of Mass Communication" : 1986

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky " A Propaganda Model" : 1988

Leslie Shannon Miller " The Many Figures of Eve: Styles of Womanhood Embodied in a Late-Nineteenth-Century Corset" : 1990

Herbert I. Shiller " Not Yet the Post-Imperialist Era" : 1991

Steven Lubar "Machine Politics: The Political Construction of Technological Artifacts" : 1993

Robert W. Bagley " Replication TEchniques in Eastern Zhou Bronze Casting" : 1993

Jeffrey Collins "In Vino Vanitas? Death and the Cellarette in Empire New York" : 1996

Pierre Bourdieu " On Television" : 1998

Robyn Asleson " Seduced by an Old Flame: Paradox and Illusion in a Late-Twentieth-Century Lucite Lighter" :1999

Eileen Meehan " Gendering the Commodity Audience: Critical Media Research, Feminism, and Political Economy" :2002

Smythe: Any type of program that is put on any form of media will influence the audience in some way.

Bourdieu (1): Class dictates what the habits of your culture are. Class - Culture/ Culture- Class.

Garnham: Connect the media and culture by understanding the economics behind it.

Herman/Chomsky: The five filters dictate what and how the audience experiences media.

Miller: Society deemed the corset necessary for women as a symbol of their femininity and cultural status in the late 1800s, yet this symbol is lost on todays cultural ideals.

Shiller: Globalization of the market leads to hegemony instead of diversity.

Lubar: Machines/Technology -Culture/ Culture - Machines/Technology.

Bagley: Differences in values, labor, techniques based upon economic and cultural influences.

Collins: Cellarette in the 1800s was a symbol for high class and society members to reinforce their cultural ideals, these ideals are lost on todays society.

Bourdieu (2): Journalists - Masses Demands/ Demands of the Masses - Journalists.

Asleson: The lighter as a mediate image to remind the user of subconscious American cultural ideals, such as tobacco and Hollywood.

Meehan: Media as an an advertising outlet focuses on the young, white males as the primary audience which introduces an unspoken bias.

Our group then discussed the exhibit that we would create which was centered around the corset. We chose stays, the corset, chemise, 1950s pointed bra, a bra burning photo, madonna in her cone phase, wonderbra, spanx, victoria secret corset, and lady gaga in her metal corset type outfit. We also chose to use a couple of film clips such as Gone With the Wind when Scarlet is getting laced into her corset before the Twelve Oaks BBQ and then again after she has had Bonnie and is concerned that her waist is 20 inches rather then the 18 1/2 it was. Also the clip from Pirates of the Caribbean when Gov. Swann gives Elizabeth a corset and says it is the latest fashion in London. We chose to use a circular exhibit to show that even though the corset came out of fashion, it still shows up in todays culture.

Questions, Comments for Feb 18th

The New England Cemetery:

Looking at the Cultural Landscape surrounding an object can help us to better understand the object itself; it gives it context in which we can better understand the thing itself. It seems to me that this is an obvious statement, but in reality its usually the first thing that we forget to do.

I found it interesting to look at cemeteries as a way of learning more about patterns of life. Looking at the placement of gravestones in order to learn more about the social relations between those buried there and those who placed them made me wonder: What other types of resting places tell things about current society and relations that we are around every day

Do old historic neighborhood layouts have similar emotional undercurrents as New England cemeteries? Does the placement of kids at recess say anything about the culture that we are submerged in today? What patterns can we see in the placement of things and places today? Do unconscious or conscious decisions help us place homes, neighborhoods, districts or place of rest according to how we view our own cultural landscape?

Looking at the context of certain places today, what does that tell us about the time, space and form of the society and time period of when they were designed and built? Looking at those objects will certainly be able to tell us more about the context; it is hard for one to exist and speak without the other.

A Garden in the Machine: Reading a Mid-Nineteenth-Century, Two-Cylinder Parlor Stove as Cultural Text

Joel Pfister discusses the open hearth as a romanticized symbol of order and how the stove in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Fire Worship” “symbolizes the incursion of a fast-changing industrial world into the home”. I have to wonder, what would our generations equivalent be of the open hearth, and what would it say about “homes” of today?

Lucubrations on a Lava Lamp: Technology, Counterculture, and Containment in the Sixties

The author talks about the history of the lava lamp, and its apparent psychedelic ties to the 1960s and how its “orgiastic suggestiveness” stirs up sexual thoughts. She then goes on to say, “So the lava lamp seems, in fact, to merit its reputation as a sign of sixties psychedelia and its associated corporeal permissivness”. I have to wonder, however, for those of us who bought lava lamps when we were kids in the 1990’s, what did it mean to us? I certainly don’t remember looking at my purple and gold lava lamp and thinking, “what is sexual about this?”. I am curious as to what the lava lamp would mean to the next generation who enjoyed them?

The Light of the Home: Dialectics of Gender in an Argand Lamp

This lamp and other types of lighting from the 19^th century seem to show a family dynamic. Since the author feels like this lamp tells something not only about manufacturing and details of family life, I have to wonder if: if since we have moved away from such finely handcrafted objects such as lamps, what does that say about “family and home life” today?

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Culture

I don’t necessarily agree with the author’s last sentence, “Women, whose image has continually been stolen and used for this end, cannot view the decline of the traditional film from anything much more than sentimental regret”. I would challenge the author to at least give a counter argument on this.

Questions for 2/18

Mohanty holds that “Western feminist discourse, by assuming women as a coherent, already constituted group which is placed in kinship, legal, and other structures, defines third world women as subjects outside social relations, instead of looking at the way women are constituted through these very structures” (414). She calls for feminist discourse to consider cultural and historical context within different third world societies rather than making broad statements about “sexual division of labor, the family. Marriage, household, patriarchy, etc.” (410). Mohanty’s discussion of Western feminism’s depiction of “Third World women” lacks a material presence (Durham and Kellner admit this absence on p. 340), but how has Western feminism influenced how Third World women are depicted materially? One example that came to mind when I was reading was how National Geographic depicts Third World women.

In his discussion of the hybridization of cultures, Canclini suggests that through the hybridizations he describes, “cultures lose the exclusive relation with their territory, but they gain in communication and knowledge” (442). He further suggests, “at every border there are rigid wires and fallen wires” (442). Throughout his discussion of the effects of mass media on Third World cultures, I wondered what Mohanty would say to this argument: Perhaps that these statements may hold true for the societies he considered but not for all? North and South America have a unique relationship - one of both negative and positive influences, and the two continents have certainly impacted one another’s cultures – but I am not sure that the hybridization that can be seen in these cultures is true elsewhere in the world. However, it may be that my biases and personal experiences are coloring my perception and that this hybridization is a global trend, not just an American one.

Moving from theory-based questions…

Pfister cites Hawthorne fearing that the presence of a stove rather than a hearth would cause domestic life to “‘seek its separate corners, and never gather itself in groups’” (150). I know this is not directly related to Pfister’s analysis, but this lament made me wonder: What would Hawthorne think of the TV? And worse yet, TVs in different rooms so that family members can watch what they want and not argue over the remote?! Maybe the stove was the downfall of domesticity… dun.dun.dun

Robert’s discussion of the Lava Lamp and its both mainstream and counterculture acceptance had me wondering if another product successfully lives in those two worlds.

I am not sold on Ye’s Argand Lamp and wife coming together as the light of the home, but maybe that is because it is late and just seems cheesy to me at this point. With that said, I am struggling to formulate a good question to pose.

On an extremely light note…who else was disappointed that there was no juicy secret as to why Elizabeth Coolidge was buried away from her family?! Brown really set me up for disappointment at the beginning…but he did succeed in keeping me reading to find out.

Mulvey and Dyer questions

Working from Laura Mulvey's arguments about the ways in which mainstream classic hollywood cinema supposes and aims to please a male audience --
how do we think women might experience the representations of woman as object/threat, when they view these male oriented films?
how would a male viewer who doesn't identify as heterosexual fit into the dynamic Mulvey presents?
another way of posing these issues: Do we see those viewers who don't fit within the realm of the proposed ideal spectator as being subsumed under the power of the looking relations in these films, or are there perhaps alternative ways of viewing that have emerged from audience members whose identities are situated outside of the cinematic understanding of relations between subject and object?

How does Dyer's article, "Stereotyping" attempt to shift the terms of debate about the cultural problems that stereotypes present? What does he suggest criticism should focus on, rather than stereotyping as a problem of accuracy/truth?
As Michelle noted, another of this week's essays considers some questions of otherness- How does stereotyping, as Dyer understands it, relate to cultural processes of representing otherness?
Dyer suggests that hegemony (our new favorite vocabulary word) plays a role in the process of stereotyping. How do we see stereotyping playing out hegemonic interests, i.e. what kinds of social effects does this kind of representation seem to have?
In contrast, how might we see the role of hegemony within the cinematic dynamics that Mulvey spells out?

Questions for 2/18

Oh Boy! I just want to sat that I really enjoyed Bell Hook's essay in the Durham/Kellner book. It was refresing to read something and undertand it the first time. It was a super intriguing article and I encourage everyone to read it if they can...

Eating the Other
1. Hooks discusses the commodification of the "Other". Who/What is the Other and how does this commodification affect mainstream ideas/actions as well as the Others?
2. How is racism/white supremacy affected by this commodification?
3. Is the desire felt by the mainstream population for "otherness" genuine and long lasting or just a fad that will eventually fade away?
4. How does this article challenge the way you ffeel about "Others" and can you identify times where interactions have influenced/changed you?

British Cultureal Studies and the Pitfalls of Identity
1. What challenges are associated with defining a personal identity? A National identity?
2. How does culture fit into these definitions? What does the discipline of cultural studies have to offer to the discussion?
3. What are the different ways in which one can define identity?

I won't repeat what Suzanne said in regards to our groups coming up with a 1980s Hollywood influences on culture and cultural influences on Hollywood theme. She has adequately discussed the artifacts chosen. However, as a compliment to the artifacts are the photographs of events from culture. For example, Red Dawn tackles Cold War issues. To compliment film clips, we proposed using photographs of Reagan/Gorbechev meeting (for example: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB203/photo03.htm). In tackling the politics of AIDS by using a clip from "The Story of Ryan White" we will use images from culture addressing homophobia, fear of AIDS, protests by organizations like ACT UP (see potential types of photos here http://www.tcnj.edu/~boff3/cassy2.htm).

In trying to assess the successfulness of our exhibit, in trying to give museum patrons enduring motivation to challenge the present day world, and to encourage visitor interaction there are several things we seek to implement:

1. on a basic level the visitors will press buttons to start film clips (older museum world thinking of "interactive")

2. visitors at the end of the exhibition will be able to print photographs of themselves with 1980s material culture including in clothing, hairstyles, or with objects from that period

3. Visitors will have the opportunity to compose thoughts about the larger issues we raised in the exhibit such as potential use of nuclear weaponry in the future, AIDS/health care crisis, technology in vehicles and entertainment. They can express their feelings on these issues or where they feel the world should head in the future to address these matters.