Confrontations: Popular Music and Politics.

For my last blog entry of the semester I am going to be talking about chapter three in Entertaining the Citizen which is Popular Music and Politics. I should be an expert on this chapter because I did my media presentation on it. The first thing I am going to be talking about is Popular music as a Campaign Instrument.













MTV which stands for Music television has had numerous campaigns to try and get the youth or younger members of the voting community to try and get involved in politics and to get them to vote and have their voices heard. Rock the vote and Choose or lose are the two major events that MTV endorsed and uses to get their viewers educated about politics. Politicians like former president George Busch senior have tried to use MTV as a way to get people to vote in favor of themselves. Although this plan backfired for Mr. Busch going on MTV or being involved in their campaigns usually help them in their efforts to get to the white house. Although these campaigns claim to have increased voters registration in the younger crowd but the main question still remains. That question being do these campaigns really bring these young voters to the voting booths? The have factual evidence that says they have indeed increased registration but I don't believe that they really bring these voters to the voting booths. These campaigns are a good Idea And have good intent but politics are more than just popularity.

The second thing I am going to talking about from this chapter will be popular music as a political forum. Basically talking about musicians and bands using their fame or concerts as a way to spread their political ideas.

These two photos that you see are from Rage Against The machines Republican National Convention protest concert held in Minneapolis last September. As you can see RATM loves to share their political ideas through their music and concerts. You can see them dressed in prison suits with black masks over their heads representing inmates in the prison camps that the US has. The other photo I think speaks for itself with the nice little saying above the concert stage that shows their love for the RNC. I think that musicians using their stage for talking about politics is fine by me. I think it might be a good things to maybe help get people more aware about certain issues and things of that nature. You can to see a concert but you learned a little bit about government issues, all good in my book. Some people say popular musicians should just sing and not talk about politics but, if they are actually really passionate about their beliefs then they should have the same right to free speech as we do. I wouldnt adivise that popular music should be your sole source of political knowledge but, it is a alternative source and in some cases a pretty good one.


Sometimes when Musicians speak their minds about their political views and how they feel about the country can get them into trouble and cause a major backlash. I know in class and in my media presentation we talked about the dixie chicks deal. When the lead singer claimed that she was ashamed that the president was from her home state of Texas. Then this caused a huge debacle and everyone hated the dixie chicks and called them un American and things of that nature. Using popular music as a Political forum can be a good way to get ideas and information out to the public but it isnt always the best way to go about it.

Gender in American Film Since the 1960's

In this issue of my blog I will be chatting about the topic of gender in American film. The first concept that I will be talking about will be Gender in the "slasher" genre of films. The Slasher type of movie became popular during the 1970's and the 1980's, for awhile you didn't see a lot of slasher movies after the mid 1980's then they made a revival during the mid 1990's. In class we used the movie Scream I believe for the class example. In that example we saw the one survivor was the one girl that was not sexually active and she was dressed in clothes that were not very reveal ling unlike the other cast members. I am going to be talking about gendered violence in the next paragraph comparing how men are killed in these films compared to women.

Gendered Violence

In these films you will see that male characters are usually killed right away or quickly and they don't drag out the killing its usually just quick then done. With women you see them get chased around for quite a while and then when the killer finally catches them you will see them being killed and attacked for a while and they seem to be tortured and killed very slowly the very opposite of the male characters. A film that has some examples of this gendered violence and is considered a horror film not exactly a slasher film but still has some of the same characteristics would be "Cabin Fever". This film was created by Eli Roth in 2002 and draws from other horror films from the slasher movie golden age of the 1980's.

In this film features five recent college graduates who rent a cabin for the weekend in the woods in a remote town. There are three guys and two girls involved in this film. You get to see some examples of gendered violence play out in this movie. There is a flesh eating virus that is contaminating the water source that feeds the cabins water supply. One of the girls comes down with the flesh eating virus and when she is sleeping with one of the male characters he notices that she is bleeding and there is a large wound on her leg. The group starts to freak out and instead of trying to help the girl out they banish her to a small tool shed so that the other four friends don't get infected by her. They leave her out in this tool shed and let this virus slowly eat her away. I think this is an excellent example of gendered violence on females in slasher films. She is just left to suffer and die slowly where as you see with other males in this film there are killed quickly and don't suffer like this girl did. The other female in the film suffers a very similar fate. Once she realizes that she is infected the virus slowly eats away at her and you just watch her suffer until she finally is killed by the virus. Another concept I am going to talk about with Slasher films is The "Final Girl" and the virgin whore complex as well as the films punishing sexually active women.

"Final Girl" and Punishing sexually active women

As I mentioned earlier in this blog entry about the movie scream and the final girl usually being a non sexually active girl compared to others that died and the films punishing the girls that were sexually active by having them tortured and killed slowly. A film that I believe that has good examples of these to concepts would be Rob Zombies remake of Halloween (2007). This movie is a remake and it is a prequel to the original film. In this film there are lots of examples of punishing of the sexual active women and a very good final girl example.

In this film we see Mr. Meyers as a young child and he goes on a brutal killing spree at his home. We see his older sister and her boyfriend having sexual relations and after they are done Michael comes in and brutal kills his sister with a large knife. She was tortured and it was a very drawn out gruesome scene to say the least. I believe this is a very good example of the girls who are sexually active being punished. When Michael comes back after fifteen years to his hometown to find his sister, ends up killing one of her friends in his old home after she was fooling around with her boyfriend. This would be another example of punishing the sexually active girls. The Final girl example would be that of Michael's sister who he comes back for after fifteen years. She is seen as pure and doesn't do any sexual things and she survives the movie after Meyers was after her. This movie had very good examples of both of these concepts I mentioned. That's all I for this entry, until my next entry peace.

The Portrayal of Race in American Film

Race relations and other stereotypes that are found in American films can be recognized by the time period that they were made in. Films in the early 1930's didn't have any black characters at all and if they were involved in the film the played either a very small roll or a mammy or butler type character. As we fast forward into the 1980's and early 1990's black actors start to have large roles and even star in films. We talked about the lethal weapon series with Danny Glover and also the Spike lee effect, who was one of the first black movie producers out there.

Race in American film is usually made apparent by the use of stereotypes. Although these stereotypes aren't always correct and can be considered very inappropriate. These are what people associate as to what people of different races are actually like. These stereotypes allow movie producers to have the audience understand what is going on and why these people are acting the way they do by these stereotypes.

One concept of race in American film would be that or othering. The example that we saw of othering in class was the Black people are good and dancing and white people are not very good at dancing. and example of othering that I will show a photo from the film White Men Cant Jump.

In this film is an excellent form of othering. I would have show a clip here but my computer is not working well with video stuff. In this film we see woody harrellson's character as this white guy in the inner city and looks like he wouldn't be any good at basketball because of the stereotype that white men aren't as good at basketball as black men. Wesley Snipes character uses the stereotype that whit men cant jump to his advantage and they hustle basketball games for money. This is an excellent film to see the concept of Othering.

Another concept of Race in American film that we talked about in class was Tokenism. Tokenism is when there is a stereotypical character that is put into films or shows to show a level of Diversity.

One example of Tokenism is found in the very popular Television show on Comedy Central is South Park. They have one black character in the show and the movie that was made based on the Television is token. The black child's name is token, which can be seen as very offensive but that is what this show is going for. Humor or comedy that pushes the line of offensive or in just plain humor.

As you can see in this photo of Token from South Park, he plays a very stereotypical black character. In this picture he is playing a bass guitar and in the show they tell token he can play the bass guitar because he is black even though he really doesn't know how to play it. The example of tokenism here is very apparent and in this example it is actually probably very offensive to some people and the this Television show get in a lot of trouble sometimes for the things they put into the shows.

Race in American film is always going to be a struggle because, we still have problems in equality in our nation and until these problems are solved and everyone feels that they are considered equal and treated that way stereotypes will still be present in our films and television shows. I am going to talk about whiteness now and how whiteness in being portrayed in American films now.

White people in film mainly white men have been man stays in Hollywood blockbuster films. IN almost every major film up until the 1980's white males have played the major roles and you didn't see many minorities having a big part in these films. These days are changing now and you can find films where black people and other minorities are starting to have the major roles and even some films have very few white people playing major roles. This is a good thing for Hollywood because it lets people know that actors or minorities can be just as good or even better than the white actors. IN time we will have equality in Hollywood but this will take some time but the times are changing.

Mens Magazines and their relation to the crisis of Masculinity

The issue of masculinity is a fairly new to the general public. This issue came to the main stream surface in the early nineties with the explosion of men's and men's health types of magazines. Using the power of the media these magazines give readers a picture of what is suppose to be ideal for men to look like and other types of things men are suppose to be doing. I will be using several images from men's magazines to help further develop this topic.




Guys growing up in the days before the crisis of masculinity didn't have images coming at you from every direction telling you that you need to look like this or have have these kinds of things to make you manly and if you didn't have these things or didn't fit the ideal image of a masculine man you were considered to be less manly or masculine. The pictures of guys on these magazine covers are of men you have spent countless hours in the gym working out to obtain these muscular bodies. These magazines dont give an accurate portrayal of the average american man. I probably know only one or two people that have bodies anywhere even close to as muscular as the ones portrayed in these magazines. the media is basically saying to the ameican public that unless a man looks like this they are not attractive or good looking. There are many things that come into account when I tend to view someon as beautiful, it is not just the way their body looks their are much more important things than just having a rock hard body.



These magazines also have all kinds of how to or help kinds of articles. These articles are usually about sex or sex related things. They give the readers the thought that if they arent doing these type of thingd in the bedroom then they are doing things incorrectly or the wrong way. These articles I think almost breed insecurities in male readers. When reading these magazines I feel that people are using these magazines for consultations and help regarding dating and sex. Muscles and sex moves arent going to make you a better person, they might make you stronger and possibly better in the bed room but it doesnt help you at all in other aspects of life. Theres much more to people than muscles and sex These magazines stress the physical aspects rather then intellecutal aspects. It seems to me that these magazines are trying to turn the american male into a muscle bound sex crazed monster. These types of magazines and images are how other cultures view us through our media and films. I wish these magazines would offer some advice on stuff other than muscles and sex.

Gender Representations in Todays Media

Gender and Television.

Gender is shown and represented on many different television shows and in each show gender is represented differently. We talked about ensemble casts in class where male and female characters are involved and shown as equals working along side one another but in the same sense in the example in west wing the women were still outnumbered three to one. I believe television shows still hold stereotypes for workplaces where women in the past were considered not be allowed in or considered a mans place of work or no place for a woman to be. The in class example of west wing is based in the white house and it showed that the white house is still a very male dominated workplace. the photo in class showed six men and three women. Although they were considered equals as co workers the men still had the upper hand with numbers on there side. In male dominated work fields women can tend to be harassed or made to feel unwelcome or unwanted. a great example of this would be the show Rescue me on the FX station.



This show follows a group of firemen in New York city and they follow along with their daily lives and all the macho life saving things they do. The macho things like; basketball playing hockey and very course language and a very male dominated cast. The only women in the show are the men's wives and girlfriends and they don't play very prominent roles and when they do have significant roles its all about drama and stuff of that nature. The male dominated workplace such as this New York City fire house eventually has a woman come to work for them and when she arrives the place goes nuts. They harass her constantly and they just never see her as equal to them because she is a woman. Even though she is very qualified and can hold her own when fighting fires. The gender stereotypes are out there and still are very prominent in mainstream Television.





Gender and Magazines


Magazines geared for men have changed with the times and you can see the cultural change through the years by what the magazines talk about and what they are portraying on the front cover. The magazines of the past were mostly geared to politics and other general interest stuff. the Men's magazines of today are all about looks and sex and trying to be as manly and good looking as possible. The magazines change with the times and are doing what they have to to make their product appeal to the consumer and the consumer wants to but what is popular. In woman's magazines in the previous years have focused on being able to make the home a place of happiness and how the wives need to be the one to be the homemaker to make the home a lovable place. the magazines change with the changes in culture women aren't always the homemaker any more. Many women work instead of being that homemaker or stay at home mom. The media shows that with the changes in culture they have to change as well to still target an audience that will pay attention to their product that they put out.


Gender in Advertising.


In ads most men are viewed as macho or as authority figures when run on television. Women didnt even show up in the advertising world until the 1970's. Mens advertising shows men as being very manly the big muscles the beard or being dirty and greasy and working on cars and engines. the woman in adevertising are usually very skinny and very beautiful and they dont dipict the average american woman. The same goes for men, were all not tall muscle bound or can grow facial hair. the ads dipict the image of what the media wants us to look like or to aspire to be like. If you dont look like this certain person your wrong. Or if you use this product you will end up looking like this person of pure beauty and perfection. and in all likelyness none of us will ever look like this. Here is a example of a ad from a magazine.