It's the one that say's Bad Mother F*cker!

In class this week we discussed how The Empire Strikes Back defined Generation X. Chuck made the argument that Luke Skywalker was the quintessential Gen Xer due to his outlook on life. He is a whiny kid who has knowledge in things that would have no practical purpose in the real world. Chuck argues that these views are mirrored in the movie Reality Bites. I think that every generation can pick a movie that defines them and my generation is no different.

I think that one of the movies that defined my generation is Pulp Fiction. I think that this movie is one of the greatest of all time and it would be hard to find many people from my generation who haven't seen it. My friends and I watched it in the theater multiple times and would quote from it incessantly. It immediately altered the way that people talked and acted. Everyone wanted to be like the characters in that movie. They were so cool! It also changed the way that new film makers looked at movies.

Country vs Hip Hop

Country music and hip hop have both changed a great deal over the last two decades. I think that it would be a pretty safe bet to say that those who were the inovators in the genres would have a hard time recognizing their genre today. I will start by talking about hio hop because it is the younger of the two and I believe that it's evolution into what it has become came much more quickly than country's transformation. Most people usually point to the Sugar Hill Gang as the first hip hop group. Their single "Rappers Delight" was released in 1979 and the style quickly caught on. My first memories of hip hop music featured lyrics that were more political and focused on discrimination and living poor. The first time I heard NWA's straight out of compton blew my mind. While it was still focused on the same themes as previous rap albums is was more raw and angry. And they swore a lot which I thought was cool. From there rap seemed to morph into more of a party music that focused mostly on getting drunk or stoned. And then it began to get very misogynistic. Today it seems like the only thing that main stream rap cares about is money, girls and money. While there are still a lot of great hip hop artists that rap about political issues they certainly are not the artists that are getting radio play.

Country music's evolution seems to have happened over a longer period of time. Of course this might be because I have not been alive for the majority of country music's life span like I have been for hip hop's. I remember listening to Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson with my uncle when I was young and thinking that it was great. And then country music started to change. I think that country started to change because the new artists were starting to become influenced by other genres than just other country. It started to become more mainstream. Today many country artists are played on several different formats, not just country stations. I think that this is happening with all genres of music though. It has all become so homoginized that there is little difference between country and rock and pop music making it easy for the masses to injest it. I'm pretty sure ole' Hank would not be happy.

Heres some Hank III. A bit of a throw back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7sM0iiAUs&feature=related

The Power of Play

This week we discussed the role of play in popular culture. In the article Bootleg Culture the author states that "Bootlegs inject an element of playfulness into a pop music scene that can be distressingly sterile". This indicates that people instinctivly want to have fun while creating. While writing music is not somthing that everyone cand do anyone, with enough practice and technical savey, can blend two existing sourses together. It is apparent when listening or watching these mash-up's that the creators were having fun when the were making it. The episode of "The Super Friends" dubbed with vocals from an episode of "Friends" illustrates this quite well.
Billy Sim discusses our cultures desire to "play God". In the game The Sims the player creates an alternate life in a computer game. While playing this game the user is in total control of their alternate self. This seems to be the draw to gaming. The individual playing is in control and has a goal to complete. Through practice we can become the best that we can be. Through games we also find social interaction through shared interests. This has become an important part of our culture.

Hey, Tough Guy!

One of the first movies that I remember seeing as a kid was Top Gun. I know that I saw movies before that but that is the one that sticks out the most. Maverick and Goose, Ice man and Slider; those guys were so cool. The reason they were so cool to a young boy is pretty obvious. They got to fly in bad ass planes, they didn't take shit from anyone and they got the girls and the glory. I didn't realize it at the time but movies like Top Gun  portray what our culture believes masculinity should be. Boys have been brought up in our society to think that being tough, and often disrespectful, is the way that a "real man" is supposed to behave. This is what is being portrayed in our cultures movies, music and television and while this depiction of a "man" has certainly been around for a long time it has started to lose some of the moral lessons that the old westerns and war films depicted. The distinction between "good" and "bad" is getting harder to distinguish and social etiquette is almost non existent in movies today. While those old westerns might have been violent there was at least a clear distinction between right and wrong.

I believe that it is no coincidence that school violence and bullying are on the rise and our entertainment choices are getting darker and darker. I think that part of this has to do with the way that the role of family has changed over the decades. There is more and more independence for kids and they are seeing and listening to things at ages that were unheard of when I was growing up. These depictions of super macho men has made it very difficult for boys today to act in any other way without being dubbed a "pussy" or "faggot". Although the movies and television do perpetuate these stereotypes, the blame can not be put on them. It has to be put on us as a society. Hollywood is simply giving us what we want, which is often stylized violence where the star has a "perfect" body and he gets the girl. I don't know what the answer to help turn these views around is but hopefully it can be changed sooner rather than later.

Body by Victoria?

This week we have been looking at the relationship between advertising and our perception of beauty. What is interesting about this is that while most of the products we discussed are products for women, they seem to be advertised to men. This is particularly true with Victoria's Secret. This is a company that sells mostly to women, yet their ads are clearly directed towards men. This can only imply that women should see these ads, realize that this is what men think is sexy, and shop accordingly. This phenomenon does not only occur in Victoria Secret ads but everywhere in society. Advertisements such as these have been proven to lead to anorexia, bulimia and many other "image" disorders in younger and younger women. What makes it even worse is that advertisers are selling women an image of beauty that does not even exist in the real world. The amount of photo manipulation is astounding. In some cases the women shown in ads are amalgams of several different people. How can it be healthy for young women to base their ideas about beauty on images of women that are pure fabrication? I would say that it is not.

Oh My god! Did You See Pam's New Movie!?

Today we are going to talk about two articles written by Chuck Klosterman. The article entitled "Porn", which deals with the issue of pornography (duh) and technology. In "Porn" Chuck Klosterman talks about the first time that he realized "how prevalent the Internet was going to become". He realized this in 1994 when a friend showed him how easy it was to bring up an image of two lesbians kissing. While the Internet was still in it's infancy, and had few uses other than sending messages from nerd to nerd, you could still access porn. How cool is that! Many people may not even realize that the Internet does anything other than provide access to porn.What Chuck is saying in this article is completely valid. Pornography has long been at the forefront of technology. It is one of the main reasons that VHS won out over Beta max; pornography took advantage of all of the technology that DVD had to offer long before the mainstream movie studios.(Coincidentally, the first Hollywood movie that I remember having a TON of bonus features on it was Boogie Nights). WE would be foolish to think that when George Eastman invented modern film he didn't (almost) immediately think, "Hey, I should take a picture of a naked lady". The fact is, technology and pornography have been linked together forever. Which bring us to Pamela Anderson (sigh).

In "Ten Seconds to Love" Chuck talks about Pamela Anderson being our generational equivalent to Marilyn Monroe. I believe that this is a valid argument. Both women have been talked about greatly in all sorts of publications and households. Whether you like or dislike Pam you can't deny that she has had a huge impact on our culture, as did Marilyn in her day. The difference is, according to Chuck, we can picture nailing Pam in very explicit detail. If we so chose. With Marilyn, it is hard to get past the making out stage. Surely this has to do with our degraded values today right? I don;t think so. I would guess that if there was a film of Marilyn floating around that was similar to that of Pamela and Tommy Lee, our view of her would be totally different. After all that is the only REAL difference between the two. They were both in Playboy, they both married the "rock stars" of their generation, Pam literally, and they both had mediocre acting abilities. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Happiness

In the article "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness" Jon Gertner proposes that what we think will make us the happiest may ultimately dissapoint us. The reason for this is that we have a hard time anticipating how things will actually affect us. The term for the disparity between what we think will make us happy and the happiness that we ultimately recieve is called "impact bias". This also works when looking at how bad somthing might make you feel, like losing a leg or getting divorced. Knowing that the awesomeness of owning the newest toys is often less satisfying than we anticipate could help to reduce our culture's constant need to have the next big thing, which could lead to more responsible spending. It might also cut down on America being viewed as a "throw away culture".
A person may believe that owning over renting will make them much happier. No more worrying about parking or annoying neighbors keeping you up all night. But suddenly you have to replace the hot water heater and the roof. While the idea of owning a home may sound great people often fail to think about all of the work that goes into it.