The Other History of Intercultural Performance

Author Coco Fusco wrote an article titled, "The Other History of Intercultural Performance". Fusco writes on European and the United States and their early days of colonization. She explains the concept of "living practice" which I thought was a little interesting to say the least. This was a concept of intercultraul performance. It is difficult for me to understand what exactly this was, but for what I can understand it sounds like a sort of exhibit, for nonwhite people. People were supposed to open up their bodies for exhibits so that they were displayed as art. This was to critique the racial and gender violence that was hppening at this time. This was through interpretation of the physical body. Seeing as I don't quite understand what was really going on here, it is hard to explain this. Although, havign bodies put on display as art is a weird concept in my opinion. There is a picture on the article of someone inside a cage and someone on the outside is feeding them food. What?! I do not really know if this acutally helped them understadn the racial issues during this time period but I sure hope so. It is explained that Fusco as well was a perfomance artist so that makes sense on why she would write an article on it. I can see, however, how it would change the stereotypes that people would have. These still exsist today so I think this can be applied to our generation especially. People have stereotypes by the way they dress, eat, look, act, who they are friends with, etc. Through these stereotypes, people are judged. I think this is a huge fault of our generation and especially here at this school. I'm not quite sure how Fusco was as a person, but she is obviously pretty passionate about what she believes. She seemed to start alot of upraor abour her beliefs and for that, I praise her.

The Dark Knight

I have personally always thought that the Dark Knight was an exceptional movie. I usually am not into the superhero movies, although I do fondly remember that my first PG-13 movie was Spiderman. I remember that when the Dark Knight came out in theaters a few years ago, I saw it the first weekend and ended up purchasing it when it came out on DVD because I enjoyed it so much. The screenplay, the actors, the incredible points of action and suspense, I'm all about it!
Tood McGowan's article, called "The Exceptional Darkness of the Dark Knight", was really interesting to me. Well, the parts that I could understand. He opens up with saying " the mask that superheros wear indicates their complex reaction to the law". I found this statement with such truth, because the reasons superheros wear their masks is because the actions they are doing are against the law, and they want to hide their identity to the public and/or  enforcers of the law. McGowan goes onto explain a German philosopher's, by the name of G. W. F. Hegel, view on superheros and thier uneasyness by saying that he sees them as "antithetical". Hegel also rejects the idea of a modern hero. This surprises me, but at the same time makes sense becuase of Hegel's views on superheros. McGowan then explains the movie in further depth, focusing on Batman and the Joker. The joker was actually one of my favorite characters in this film, even though he was technically the bad guy. McGowan states, "Both are figures who devote themselves to an ethical principle and follow it to its endpoint. For Batman, this is fighting injustice, and for the Joker, it is creating chaos." I think this is a great example of how ethics is involved in these types of superhero stories.
Another great quote I got out of the article was that "the problem of evil isn't the extreme criminal but the way that evil insinuates itself in even our good acts." This aspect of the movie and the one of hiding of the identities can be applied to our lives today I believe. Yes, these are superhero movies, but we can read much more into it. McGowan also points out the differences of the concealing identities of Batman versus the Joker. Batman conceals his identity by a mask so that people cannot tell who he is. On the other hand, the Joker is just wearing makeup, so it doesn't conceal who he is, but rather shows the absence of an identity altogether. This was such an interesting way to look at the two characters in a way I haven't before! This movie is primarily about heroism and evil, but by reading McGowan's article, I can really see more things that one can take away from it, that it almost makes me want to watch it all over again.

Pop Culture Readings

I think Steven Johnson's book on "Everything Bad is Good for You" is a very interesting title and really draws you in. He mostly focuses on how technology and social media is actually beneficial and intelligent for us. This would be something that I would like to read more of. In this excerpt of the book, he speaks first on books and how these are beneficial. He also speaks on video games and the progress they have made over the years. A quote that stood out to me says, "It's not what you're thinking about when you're playing a game, it's the way you're thinking that matters". Johnson then goes onto explain this is not only pertaining to video games. This can relate to any time of learning that we are doing. It is through our experiences we learn, not only during the the time, but after as well. The learning goes beyond the actual experience. Johnson explains how games force you to make desicions. They force you to choose characters, choose moves, places, things, etc. The list goes on and on. No other form of "pop culture" makes you activate your desicion-making in the brain. This part of the article was extremely eye opening for me. I have a 16 year old brother, who is a video gamer, and I always looked down upon the fact that he loved it so much. I thought how boring, all you are doing is clicking buttons. After reading further in Johnson's article, I realize that even though it is just a video game, it is helping him to open his desicion making abilities, and for this I can come to terms with it easier. I also dated someone recently who loved playing Super Mario Smash Brothers, and I would get extremely annoyed when I was at his place and he would be playing and not paying attention to me. (Typical girlfriend reaction). Although, I can look at it at a better light now. I think this article was very interesting to me and actually one I understood!
The second part of the readings was a study done by Angeline Lillard and Jennifer Peterson. It was about the impact on different TV shows on young children. As a babysitter, this was very interesting to me because I was intrigued to know if what the paretns are letting their children watch are actually beneficial to the children. I wasn't suprised, although, when the study showed that the children that were tested who watched the fast-paced television show did worse on the tasks that the other children.I know we have talked in class before about how Spongebob isn't good for children, so I enjoyed reading about this study and learning as well. This is definetly something I can apply to my life.

Klosterman & Glassner

Chuck Klosterman wrote an article called All I Know is What I Read in the Papers. This article started out by talking about media and newspapers and journalism. You can tell that Klosterman has a certain opinion about these things and ligtly inserts this into his article. I thought a quote that he stated about journalists was quite funny, "They have higher ethics and lower common sense." I thught it was interesting how he explained how reporters write the news and how many people distrust what they read. i can relate to this in many ways. Personally, I have had problems trusting articles as well. I think that journalists can sometimes twist the story from what it is in reality. But this also depends on the actual media form they are reporting too. I think Klosterman really argues from this though and udnertsantds that our generation is based on technology. He says in the end, "We are loosing the ability to understand anything that's even vaguely complex". This is such a strong statement.

In the article "Dubious Dangers on Roadways and Campuses: How Fears are Sold" by Barry Glassner, he opens by explaining fear and how it is evident this day in society. He quotes Alfred Hitchhock by saying, "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it," Glassner explains how this can be related to journalists in print media. They have an ancedote of foreshadowing that goes aong with their work. He uses the example of car accidents and the way they report them to explain journalistic views. Glassner is getting at the fact that media trys to scare society on differente things and establish fear on things that aren't that fearful or are unimportant. I thought this was an interesting idea. Glassner states,"The more talk there is about road rage, the more likely are newspaper reporters, police officers, and insurance agents to classify as examples of it incidents that they would have ignored altogether or catalogued differently in the past." The media always tries to twist events or stories that may not be as they seem. I think overall, we shouldn't ignore the news entirely just because we believe that these stories might be exaggerated, but we should just read it with some caution. Journalists might have a campaign of fear among the reader but we should not over analyze these aspects of the news. 

Week 8

The article by Henry Jenkins called "Buying into American Idol" was very interesting from my point a view. Jenkins speaks on a process called media conversion and reality television. To starts off, this article is from his book called "Convergence Culture: Where Old Media and New Media Collide". This is actually a book I would probably read. I have always been very interested in how the media can affect us. I think that through growing up, the media has changed drastically and caused more affect then it used too.
Personally, watching television shows in general growing up did change and affect me. I was a big fan of Gossip Girl- now, that's not a reality show- but the way it protrays everything in life- especially relationships- was something that I saw to be normal. Back to the reality shows though. These people start out as "normal" everyday people, just like you and I. And they hit it big. Jenkins specifically talks about American Idol and the first thing that comes to mind was Carrie Underwood. She is at the top of her game right now as one of the leading country artists. And she bgan as a normal person, won American Idol, and now is extremely famous and worldwide known musician.
All of these reality shows are like this. The Bachelor/Bachelorette series is another one. Jef Holm and Emily Maynard, the couple of the last season of the Bachelorette, recently broke of their engagement and now they are known worldwide because of their appearances on that show. The reason that these poeple have these ratings and shows like American Idol do well, as Jenkins touched on, is because of the audiences. It is because of the population of people who watch that show and put in their votes and pay attention weekly. It is amazing how much our world is involved in these reality shows- and for some people, it is positive, like most of the people of American Idol. But how many couples on the Bachelor/Bachelorette have actually stayed together and gotten married? ONE. That goes to show something right there. Not only do they have a warped view of what "love" is, but so do the people watching it. Now, American Idol isn't that bad, but we should really watch what reality shows we are feeding our mind with. Becuase, in real reality, they are mostly lies.

Week 7

     I found the article called "Coercion" by Douglas Rushkoff to be very interesting. Rushkoff spoke about the media and this generation and how companies advertise their products to make them attractive to their customers. Advertisements are such a huge part of a company and the measure of their success. Rushkoff speaks on the competitive part of advertising and how companies go back and forth fighting with each other with parodies or something of the like. He spoke on how companies use irony as well to distort our thinking process when it comes to buying a product and on why we should purchase it. This is what coercion is- "convincing a person to lie to himself by any means necessary" (5). Rushkoff states how people search for truth and authenticity  in the "increasingly disconnected virtual experience, advertisers seize on the opportunity ot help us delude ourselves into thinking we haven't really lost touch" (50). This article is so true by saying our world is distorted into buying products based on how they will make us feel, when in reality, they may make us happy or content for the moment, but it will be a fleeting moment and will not last. Advertisements do such a great job of pushing that factor of needed that one thing (their product) to make us happy, but they are doing it just as much as the next company.
     The article "Rhetoric of the Image" by Ronald Barthes also can be realated to the previous article. Barthes speaks on the messages of a certain image. The three messages are linguistic message, coded iconic message, and a non- coded iconic message. This has to do with what one sees when looking at a picture, and what happens at the same time. When a person sees a picture, we usually describe it as a word, or the structure of the image. We also consider it a literal message or symbolic message. Barthes concludes on saying that the "literal image is denoted and the symbolic image is connoted" (3). This can be related to advertisting because when we see an image on advertising we usually relate it to a word. We first relate emotionally to us to see if it has any effect in that aspect, but also relate it to us mentally to realize why or how we need that product. Barthes explains our thought process once we see the image.
     The third article was by Karl Marx and was called "Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production". I never really can fully understand Marx, so after reading a little bit into his article I obviously was lost. He does talk about commodities though and how they are a value in use depending on the person's perspective. I thought this can relate to our previous articles and how the companies are selling their commodities, and people purchase them based on how they rate their value in their own lives. Marx considers commodities as mysterious, and in a way so do I. Depending how the companies market their own commodities depends if they can speak themselves, and if the images use words. In a way, all of these articles can come together. It is about the marketing and advertising of your products that make the products attract and sell consumers.

The Matrix

First off, this movie is weird. Honestly, it probably isn't my top choice of movies to see. It is a mind wrap to try to watch it and understand the meaning. Also, it is scary. And gross. One thing I found interesting was the "trinity" in the movie, and how this can resemble Christian terms for the father, son and Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, alot of these have Christian terms that go along with the movie. The whole concept of Neo and him being considered "The One" also has meaning to it. Basically, that is what the whole movie is about. Neo overcoming himself and and being the hero to everyone, because he is the one who has been chosen and appointed to do so. Neo is empty until the Trinity contacts him and he realizes what he is called to do. I am interested to see other opinions on this movie and other interpretations of the meaning other than what I percieve it to be. I think that Christianty can be richly related to this movie in some way, shape or form, mostly because it is about someone who is appointed as "The One" and the path he takes to overcome his challenges and defeat the "bad guys". I think this is the sort of movie that you have to see a few times to understand the whole meaning of it.