| Culture Jam and Hyperbole |
“America is no longer a country but a multitrillion-dollar brand, which has taken over our emotions, personalities, and core values.” (Lasn P. XII and XIII) Our culture is no longer, created by the people and we are no longer free to live an authentic life. (Lasn P. XIII) Corporate American is in control now, and it has branded the words “democracy,” “opportunity,” and “freedom.” (Lasn P XII) Our thoughts and our lives are under siege by the mass media and “American cool has become a global pandemic.” (Lasn P XIV) Consumer capitalism has taken over the established system, and our only hopes of breaking free lie in a mass rebellion, or “culture jam.” These are but a few of the ideas presented in Kalle Lasn’s book, “Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge – And Why We Must.”
“A global network of media activist who see [themselves] as the advance shock troops of the most significant social movement of the next twenty years,” culture jammers, hold that America corporations are to blame for all of life’s problems. (Lasn P XII) Have a psychological disorder well corporate America is at fault. Are you over weight, then, corporate America is to blame for forcing you to sit in front of a t.v. Addicted to video games, again it’s not your fault. Corporate America is to blame. Unfortunately while corporate American may contribute a great deal to these problems, Lasn and culture jammers fail to acknowledge that individuals should also be held accountable for their actions.
While Lasn does make some valid points in that we as a society tend to place too much value on name brand products, and generally consumer more than we need, his solution to the problem-- to give up your car, ride your bike everywhere and become a vegetarian-- is a bit unrealistic for any society. Had Lasn stressed more our over consumption and pointed out less what we should give up, then perhaps more people would be willing to give up things. Further, had Lasn acknowledged that individuals and well as corporations are to blame for America’s current state of affairs in addition to provided a more realistic solution to the problems he posed, then his book would have been a bit more believable.
As it was, Lasn’s book was filled with to, many pathos, which relied mostly on trying to establish an emotional relationship with the reader instead of a logical one. The book was also filled with too much hyperbole, which made Lasn’s arguments appear unrealistic. Ultimately in the end, Lasn’s book appears to be more fanatically then anything else.
Citation:
Lasn, Kalle. Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge – And Why We Must. New York: HarperCollins, 2000 |
|
|
|
| Things Change |
 In an episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” titled “Tough Love,” the villain, a hell god who goes by the name of Glory, drags one of the main characters, Willow Rosenberg, a Witch, across the floor and pins her to a wall. She asks Willow if she “knows what they used to do to Witches…” and then proceeds to tell her “crucify 'em.,” to which Buffy Summers, the main character retorts, “They used to bow down to Gods…things change...”and so to has the media’s perception of Witches. (Joan Act IV Lines 38, 39 and 40) Once portrayed as--old hideous looking, green faced, wart ridden, broomstick riding, devil worshipping women --television shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” and “Charmed,” have helped to empower women by giving the traditional stereotypical image of a Witch a new look--a more realistic, humane, girl next door look--but while these television shows have transcending some of the older stereotypes associated with Witches, Wicca, Witchcraft and Neopaganism, they have unbeknownst to many, helped to perpetuate others.
On the surface, shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” and “Charmed,” may seem, fun, witty, and entertaining, but such entertainment comes at the expense of others. For example, Josh Whedon’s cult hit, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” is notorious for playing on the damaging stereotypes commonly associated with Witches and Witchcraft. Over the course of the series, various models of Witches have been presented, from the evil, black-cloaked Witch of times gone by, to the more modern, spiritual, nature-loving, feminist Witch of present times.  While Whedon’s witches have been recently attributed to causing a renewed interest in both feminism and Witchcraft, his ongoing misrepresentation of the Wiccan religion, helps to perpetuate the fears often associated with religious intolerance. In season one, episode three, “The Witch,” Whedon, presents a plot to his audience, which consists of the use of Witchcraft by a mother who is in envy of her daughter’s youth. Wanting to relive her high school cheerleading days, the mother uses witchcraft to switch bodies with her daughter, so that she can try out for and once again be, part of the high school cheerleading team. However, when the mother discovers that she is not good enough to make the cheerleading team, and has been given a spot only as an alternative cheerleader, she turns to magic to eliminate her competition. Using what can only be described as a cauldron full of green goo and Barbie dolls the mother begins to cast spells on individual cheerleaders. Hence, slowly, one by one, each of the cheerleaders succumbs to a strange and unusual alignment, which keeps them from being able to cheer until finally, the mother secures a spot on the team. The plot, an obvious play on the traditional perception of the dark and evil Witch, is used to perpetuate fear. The story line teaches us that Witches are selfish, evil and do evil things to others. Unfortunately, despite, the obvious play on stereotypes in season one, Whedon’s misconceptions of Wicca and Witchcraft don’t end there. In season four Whedon exploits clichés concerning Witchcraft and lesbianism, when the shows main Wicca character Willow decides to join a collegiate “Wiccan group,” and meets her future girlfriend Tara. While Whedon will develop Willow and Tara’s relationship throughout seasons five and six, he ultimately kills Tara off with a stray bullet towards the end of season six. The season finally comes to an official end, when Tara’s death leads Willow to descend into dark magic, and Willow’s grief, ultimately opens the door for Willow to use her new magic to try and destroy the world. While on the surface, modern day depictions of Witches and Witchcraft in shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” may lead us to believe that we are becoming a more open minded, unbiased, religiously tolerant society, that message couldn’t be further from the truth. Just look at the message Whedon is sending out: Wicca and Witchcraft will lead to bad things happening to all those who practice and or believe in it, it will seduce otherwise good people into doing evil things and those who chose to follow a Wiccan/lesbian lifestyle will either die or be seduced by evil as a result. It’s when we start to examine the storyline, plots and other information these kinds of shows are conveying to us, that we begin to discover that their messages are more often that not a mere reiteration of long-standing stereotypical perceptions. Take “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” for example which draws largely on the stereotype that witches end up as spinsters. In an episode titled, “The Great Mistake,” Sabrina who, as the show’s name implies, is a teenage witch, asks her Aunt Hilda, also a witch, how old she was when she had her first kiss, to which Hilda replies, “forty-eight!” (Booth Line 378) Sabrina then proceeds to ask her aunt if she has ever been married, to which her aunt replies that she has not. Hilda then goes on to tell Sabrina the story of how she was stood-up on her wedding day at an altar in Acropolis, by a man named Drell, a theme which would apparently play out again in the show’s finale, when Sabrina calls off her own wedding to a man named Aaron while standing at the alter. The series, intended to be light, and funny, in fact at times is neither, particularly when it plays on the belief that women who practice Wicca and Witchcraft aredoomed to a life of spinsterhood. While one could argued that the series in leaving some of it’s main characters unmarried, is trying to present a more modern image of women, one has only to recall Hilda’s response to Sabrina’s initial question, about her first kiss, to realize that it is spinsterhood not modernity that the show is hinting at. “Charmed,” on the other hand, tends to be a little less stereotypical when presenting it’s views of the relationships of Witches, in that at least one of the three sisters Paige, marries a normal, mortal, human in the final season. However while there are fewer stereotypes presented in “Charmed,” it does misrepresent the Wiccan religion and Witchcraft, in a number of other ways. For starters, “Charmed” tends to refer to supernatural powers--the ability to freeze time, see the future, and use telekinesis—as magic. Further, it also portrays magic, in its opening pilot as being something that is easily obtained and pays little attention to the years of study and hard work, that most Wiccans and practitioners of Witchcraft spend studying their religion and craft. While each of these shows have exploited the negative stereotypes of Wicca and Witchcraft in one way or another, it appears that in spite of these exploitations, Wicca and Witchcraft are being, viewed in a positive light by many at least according to an academic study conducted by Dr. Kristen Aune of the sociology department at the University of Derby, who claims that “more than 50,000 women a year” who are unstatisfied with the “traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the [Christian] church,” are “deserting their congregations,” thanks in part to shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” which has introduced many young people to the female empowerment of the Wicca religion. (Beckford Pars. 1, 6, & 5) In a time when, women “feel forced out of the church because of its "silence" about sexual desire and activity, its hostility [towards] single-parent families and unmarried couples which are now a reality for many women,” in addition to the churches historic views which valued male members more so than female. (Beckford Par. 13) Contary to the once widely held views of Witchcraft, as put forth by Aristotle, and those before him, who saw “women as being predisposed…to be witches,” because their “souls and bodies” where seen “as being inferior,” modern day Wicca and Witchcraft as portrayed in shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” and “Charmed,” send out a strong, and attractive message that women are no longer inferior and can play central roles in the religion of their choice. (Brain Par. 1) This message obviously stands in sharp contrast to the message women receive “from Anglo-Catholic and conservative evangelist [communites] who believe that scripture and tradition teach that bishops must be male.” (Beckford Par. 19) Hence as more and more women leave the church to practice what they deem to be friendlier Neopagan religions, the Christian church has been left to deal with the “damaging effects of it’s traditional attitudes towards women.” (Beckford Par. 18) In the end, while television shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” and “Charmed,” play on negative stereotypes surrounding non-traditional Neo-pagan faiths, they also help to enlighten us that such faiths exist. While their protrayals of such religions and traditions may not always be acurate, they do have a profound impact on our culture in that, they make us question our own beliefs and ultimately lead to changes in our social structure, as is evident by the Christian’s church’s recent adoption of “female bishops.” While on the surface shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” and “Charmed,” may seem like little more than teenage dramas, in reality they are so much more. For those willing to look past the obvious, these shows provide a world of insight into our culture. Citations: 1 Buffy The Vampire Slayer. “Tough Love.” Dir. Joss Whedon. The WB, 1 May. 2001 Transcript. Joan http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/transcripts/097_tran.html2 Sabrina The Teenage Witch. “The Great Mistake.” Dir. Jon Sherman ABC, 2 May. 1997 Transcript. Booth, Paul. http://www.tvtdb.com/sabrina/transcripts/1x22.php3. Beckford, Martin. Buffy the Vampire Slayer slaying church attendance among women, study claims. Telegraph [U.K.] 23 Aug 2008 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2603343/Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer-slaying-church-attendance-among-women-study-claims.html4. Brain, James L. “An Anthropological Perspectice on the Witchcraze.” Magic, Witchcraft and Religion: An Anthropological Study of The Supernatural. Lehmann, Arthur C. and Myers, James E. 5th ed. Mountain View, CA 2001. 208. |
|
|
|
| Persuasive Communication: Advertiser’s Play On Consumer Emotions Essay Review |
Personally, I never really paid much attention to how advertisements affect consumer’s choices in the past. The subject was one, which never dawned on me. I suppose I had always known that advertisements affect consumers choices, but I never paid attention to the how’s or why’s of the issue. I never stopped to ask myself why product images where located in the places they where, or why certain styles of text or color choices where used in the advertisement.
After completing the assignment the answer became pretty obvious, and I was rather surprised that I had never noticed the obvious ploy on consumer emotions used by advertisers. I learned a great deal from this assignment, and it will definitely change the way in which I view advertisements in the future. As for my writing skills, I learned to pay closer attention to where I locate my paragraph points. The points are in the paragraph, but are often located nearer the bottom of the paragraph, when the paragraphs would be more effective if the points where located nearer the topic of the paragraph. |
|
|
|
| Persuasive Communication: Advertiser's Play On Consumer Emotions |
In a world where humans are bombarded with “approximately 1,500 advertisements a day,” advertisers need to relay a successful message about a product, in a limited amount of airtime and or ad space, while ensuring that the advertisements message, reaches it’s targeted audience. (par.1) For advertisers getting a product noticed, requires a strategic plan. By eliciting emotional responses versus rational responses, advertisers use a form of persuasive communication, to address a consumer’s unconscious needs.
More often than not, many of the product advertisements consumers see, read or listen to on a daily basis, are advertisements for products, which serve no functional biological or physiological need. Obviously consumers need a reason to buy a product, and many times no logical reason exists. If no logical reason for purchasing a product exists, then advertisers need to find some way to communicate with consumers about a product, which will “stimulate, facilitate and reinforce,” a consumer’s un-rational choice to buy the advertised product. (par.1)Thus, companies like the cosmetic giant, Estee Lauder link their product advertisements to consumer’s emotional needs, thereby giving consumers a reason to purchase their products.
Cosmetics, unlike food and water, are not required to maintain life. If a consumer doesn’t purchase a bottle of perfume, he or she will not die as a result. Advertisers know that consumers consciously realize that certain products are not necessary to maintain life and therefore the decision to purchase such a product is based on an un-rational choice. If a product does not serve a rational purpose then “advertisers [need] to circumvent the logical, cautious, [and] skeptical powers,” consumers develop, to try and reach the “unfulfilled urges and motives swirling” around “in the bottom half of [consumer’s] minds,” which warrant the consumer’s decision to make un-rational product choices. (Fowles P. 73)
 Persuasive communication, which, warrant’s the consumer’s decision’s to make un-rational product choices and can be seen in almost any advertisement. Take Estee Lauder’s “Sensuous,” perfume advertisement for example. The two-paged advertisement has been meticulously planned so as to forge connections between Estee Lauder’s product, and consumer’s emotions. Set on a black backdrop, the advertisement’s right hand page, features big, bold, purple, advertising text, which, tells the consumer that the product goes by the name of Estee Lauder “Sensuous.” Directly below the product name in smaller white text, the advertisement reads, “Every women wears it her way.” Below the “every women wears it her way,” caption, lies the product information, i.e., information about where the product can be purchased and finally below the product information, lies a picture of the product itself. On the left hand side, or left page of the advertisement, there is an isolated model. At first glance we find nothing suspicious about the product, the product’s information and the model’s placement. We naturally assume that the product and its information have been located on the right page of the advertisement because magazines naturally require us to grab pages from the right hand side and flip the pages leftward. Locating the product information on the right hand page seems logical. Until we stop and realize that all the product information has been located on the right hand page, leaving the model isolated on the left.
The isolated model, a young women, scarcely dressed in what appears to be men’s attire, has light brown, bed-ridden hair. Her eyebrows have been brushed to give them a disheveled look. Her lips painted with a nude lip-gloss and her cheeks colored with a soft pink blush, to give her skin a flushed look. She has a seductive, come hither look on her face, with her mouth slightly open. Her clothing has been carefully placed so as to reveal a small portion of her left breast, the curvature of her left hip and her black underwear. She has been set against a black backdrop and her only goal, is to catch our attention. To appeal to our sexual needs and desires.
The appeal has been well planned out. While the product is intended for women, the advertising company realizes that the vast majority of men, will buy perfume for a women at some point or another in their life time. As a result the advertising company uses the model to play on the basic biological criteria men have in regards to sex. This, criteria can best be summed up as follows; “a women must be healthy, she must be young, she must be receptive and she must be impregnable.” (par. 9) By portraying a young, healthy, attractive, impregnable, looking women in the advertisement, the advertising department at Estee Lauder, hopes to forge a psychological connection in the minds of men between, buying the company’s product and increasing a male’s chance of producing offspring.
Contrary to the sexual appeal used in the advertisement to attract male buyers, the advertisement appeals to its female audience by eliciting a “need to dominate.” (Fowles P. 82) The advertisement’s statement, “every women wears it her way,” conveys to its female audience the sense of “control [over] one’s environment.” (82) The white, men’s dress shirt, which has been placed on the model, reinforces the idea of a women being in control. Society may say that, “the dress shirt should be worn by a man,” but the model in the picture breaks societal norms. The model lives by her own rules, not societies. The advertisement thus attempts to psychologically reinforce the idea in the minds of women, that should they buy this product, they too will be in control.
Though the advertisement’s appeal to men and women may be different, the goal remains the same. By using a carefully planned out and placed model, the advertisement “[gives] form to [consumer’s] deep-lying desires,” and “[arrests] attention and [affects] communication,” by providing consumers with the “[state] of being that [consumers] privately yearn for.” (73) Further, by separating the model from the product, the sex appeal used in the advertisement does not “obliterate the product information” and or “[reduce] the brand recall.” (78) By using the magazine’s natural structure to lay out the advertisement in such a way that the product information gets viewed first, followed by the model and the subconscious message, then forcing the consumer to take a second glance at the product information before flipping to the next page, the advertising company stands the best change at eliminating any reduction in product recall that may otherwise be associated with the use of sexual appeals.
In the end, while there “is no evidence,” to suggest “that advertising can get people to do things contrary to their self-interest,” there is evidence to support the claim that advertisers can and do appeal to consumer’s emotions, through forging subconscious links between advertised products and emotional needs in the minds of consumers as we have shown. (89) Thus as Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure put it, “consumers [would be] well advised to pay attention to [advertiser’s] underlying appeals in order to avoid responding to [advertisements] unthinkingly.” (73)
Works Cited:
Fowles, Jim “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals.” Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture. Patracca, Michael and Sorapure, Madeleine Ed. New Jersey: Pearson 2007. 73
Riemsdijk, Celine Home Page. 6 May 2005 http://www.unc.edu/~celinev/Celine
Taflinger, PhD Richard F. Home Page. 28 May 1996. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/sex.html |
|
|
|
| The Impact of Socially Disorganized Communities on Urban Tribes Essay Review |
In review of my “popular subculture essay,” titled “The Impact of Socially Disorganized Communities on Urban Tribes,” I learned to pay closer attention to the term “culture,” as described in this class. In most cultural anthropology classes, located on college campuses across the U.S., including Foothill College, social organization, which may also be referred to as social stratification, is a commonly taught subtopic. Cultural anthropology classes at Foothill College, consist of, an “introduction to the diversity of human behaviors, beliefs, and social organization.” (1) Cultural anthropology classes at Centre College located in Kentucky, include teaching, “the nature of culture; the relation of culture to language; the importance of the environment for human societies; and a cross-cultural examination of family structure, social organization, political and economic systems, religion, arts and folklore, and the impact of social and cultural change.” (2) At Kennesaw State University in Georgia, anthropology students, can choose to take one of two separate cultural anthropology classes, Anth 3310, which teaches, “the interrelated issues of culture, race, ethnicity, identity, gender, and social stratification in American society,” or Anth 3350, which offers students “a comparative survey of culture and social organization in various regions of the world with a focus on contemporary social problems, cultural change and adaptation.” (3) Unfortunately, since social stratification and or social organization, are seen as sociological topics, and not anthropological topics in this particular class, my essay was seen to be more sociological based, with a “great sociological view…of gangs,” when “the assignment called for more of an “anthropological definition of the culture.” Thus the problem with my essay laid not in the essay’s structure fore say, but in the understanding of the term culture as is used and applied in this classes, verses the way the term is used and is now generally applied by anthropologists.
As a result, and as a read, writer and thinker, I learned not to apply the anthropological knowledge I have obtained in other anthropology classes to this class, and to instead stick with only what is being thought in this particular class. Socio-cultural anthropology, also known as social anthropology, is now a widely accepted academic field and taught at some of the most prestigious universities in the world, including, Harvard, Oxford, Columbia, and Stanford.(4,5,6 & 7) Thus for many practicing anthropologists, and anthropology students, there is no longer a distinction between the worlds of sociology and anthropology, when it comes to culture, since the two academic subjects are so closely related.
Bibliography & Sources Cited:
1. http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/register/Winter/ANTH002APRICE.html
2. http://www.centre.edu/web/catalog_past/2003/antcc.html
3. http://www.kennesaw.edu/academicaffairs/acadpubs/2008-2009UCat/UCAT%2026-29%20Course%20Descriptions.pdf
4. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~anthro/
5. http://www.isca.ox.ac.uk/
6.http://www.columbia.edu/cu/anthropology/undergrad/main/program/index.html#Majors%20and%20Concentrations
7. https://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=node/806 |
|
|
|
|
Name: Save Moki
Home: Northern, CA
About Me: Hi my name is Crystal but some of you may know me by my pen name, Save Moki. I am a full time college student, and part time blogger. When not working at my part time job, studying or going to school, you can find me writing about and helping animals in need.
See my profile...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Suck My Lolly
Dingbat Font1 - Dingbat Font 2
Foley
|
|
posted by Save Moki at 
