Pkondrack

[pkondrack16-blog]

For this assignment I will continue to explore domestic violence in the music industry. I chose this because I feel like this is an important issue that needs to be more aware of. Unfortunately, domestic violence is a common topic in popular culture. Movies, television shows, social media, and music all in some way can show or represent domestic violence. In music, domestic violence is a common theme. It’s portrayed not only in the lyrics themselves but also in the music videos. Fortunately, the music videos show the seriousness of domestic violence.  It’s important to show the seriousness because this kind of abuse does happen a lot around the world and I feel that it should be shown. Most of the music videos that talk about domestic violence also include gender representation in them. More women are overrepresented in music videos about domestic violence, whereas men are more underrepresented. Although women are the ones who are usually being targeted in the videos, men do also get abused quite often.Most songs and music videos are written and produced to try and take a stand against domestic violence. By making these videos and songs, i feel that more and more awareness is being made.

[pkondrack16-blog]

When it comes to domestic violence in music I feel that it is a very positive thing. Many people will disagree with me and say that talking about domestic violence in songs and portraying it in music videos is a bad thing. Some people might think that younger audiences shouldn't be exposed to those types of violent music videos because it is a negative topic. Even though domestic violence is a negative topic i think that it is a topic that should be taken more seriously and should me more aware of these days. Domestic violence happens nearly almost everyday in the world. A lot of young kids are exposed and even effected by domestic violence. By showing this through songs and their music videos, I feel that it could actually help people be more aware of this and find  ways that they can try and end domestic violence. When singers write songs about domestic violence it gives them a way to express themselves and to let the audience know how they feel. We the audience may not know it but some song writers could be a victim of domestic abuse themselves. Some people feel that making these kinds of songs and music videos portray that domestic violence is okay to do. I personally don't see this at all in any music videos or through lyrics in the songs. All the songs I listened to had a sad feeling and negative feeling to them, not a good feeling 

[pkondrack16-blog]

I thought that the final chapter of the book was well written. It brought everything that we learned throughout the course and tied it all into one chapter. It starts out by talking about how there is a mass media matrix and how people are getting sucked into the matrix. A lot of corporations and companies are trying to get greater control over us. They do this buy trying to get us to buy television shows or watch movies, even play a new video game. This strategy i feel works on many people. Professor Kidd mentions and references the Matrix and how it relates to the mass media. I for one find myself being a cypher of the mass media matrix and being one who is drawn back. 

I like how this chapter puts emphasis on the term freaks. In the beginning of this course I was taught that all of us are freaks in our own way and in the matrix of popular culture. The main question is really what makes someone a freak and what makes someone normal.  Like professor kidd says, people want to put boundaries up around themselves so they tend to call people freaks so that they can say that they are normal. What is basically being said is that all people are freaks. It doesn't matter what class your from, what gender you are, what race you are, or any other quality that might make you different. We just need to embrace who we are and not be ashamed of it.

[pkondrack16-blog]

For my qualitative analysis I chose to look into the topic of domestic violence in music and music videos. I didnt realize at first how many songs out there today are actually songs about abuse and domestic violence. For example the song Love The Way You Lie by Eminem and Rihanna  is about an abusive relationship. I found it interesting that pop, hip-hop and rap arn't just the only types of music that talk about domestic violence. The song Independence Day by Martina McBride is a country song that speaks about abuse. I really wanted to look at these two music videos and really listen to the lyrics that each of these songs spoke. One thing that was interesting was that one of the songs was sung by a man and the other by a women. This just goes to show that both men and women get abused, its not just one or the other. It turns out that mostly women are the ones that are being abused in most music videos though. A lot of people can relate to these music videos and songs because domestic violence is very common these days. These songs tend to be very powerful to the viewers and like I said the people can relate to the lyrics. I thought that this assignment was a little more challenging then the other assignments that we had.

[pkondrack16-blog]

For my quantitative analysis I choose to look at the television show Red Band Society. This show is mainly about a group of kids that are stuck in the hospital due to some type of illness. Being in the hospital doesn’t stop the kids from having fun. It turns out they form a society of friendship among themselves and find different ways to manage living the hospital life. While doing my quantitative analysis I concluded many interesting things. The first interesting, but not shocking, thing I realized was that most of the main characters on this show are either white or African American. Not many other races are represented in the show. It wasn’t surprisingly that pretty much all the characters in the show were straight. When I looked at the differences between male and female characters in the movie, I saw that males and females were almost equally represented. What shocked me the most was the information under the disabilities category. Only 2 out of the main 9 characters had traits that considered them to be disabled. I would of thought that since this television show was about a hospital more of the characters would have more disabilities then are shown in this analysis. When I looked at the crew that was behind making this film, a lot of the people who were involved also were straight and American. Most of the people involved in this show were mainly men. Only one women was involved in editing the movie. This was a little shocking to me as well because I would think that more women would have more insight on a show about hospitals then men would have. This quantitative analysis was a very interesting assignment for me and it really helped me learn a lot. 

[pkondrack16-blog]

Advice For Future Students

I think that everyone who is able to take this class should definitely try to even if you just take it as a general education class because you truly learn a lot in this class. To be honest, at  the beginning of the year I thought that this class was going to be boring and uninteresting. I quickly found out that I was wrong because the material that we were learning i thought was interesting. This class has taught me how to look at things in a different perspective and to not always judge or make assumptions right away. For anyone who is taking this class in the future I would just tell you to open you mind to new things. Also to manage your time wisely for this class. The assignments are not necessarily hard but they are sometimes time consuming and you wont realize that until your trying to work on something the night before its due and you end up staying up all night. Don't be afraid to ask questions in class because someone might be wanting to know the same answer and remember there are no wrong questions to ask. You find out a lot about yourself through out the semester with all the discussions that take place and the floor is always open up for students to discuss how they feel about the topic. I have two final pieces of advice. The first is to always come to class because attendance does count as a grade, and don't underestimate the class. You cant just expect to get an A and not do any work!

[pkondrack16-blog]

Domestic Violence and Music: A Controversial Relationship

Here is a link to an article I found on domestic violence and music. It talks about how the music and violence are connected and how people who are being represented by this feel. This article gives many examples of music and how it represents certain domestic violence.

[pkondrack16-blog]

Domestic violence isn't always between two adults. Children are effected and can suffer from it too. This video shows kids who are singing about them being domestically abused. 

[pkondrack16-blog]

Autobiography

Pop culture has been a big part of my life since childhood. When I was little my mom would sit me down on the couch and turn on some old childish show such as Barney or Little Bear while she cooked and cleaned. Watching these shows actually did teach me a few things like how to share, help me count and say the ABC's, and a lot of other little useful things. Even though I was somewhat being 'educated" by the shows, unfortunately I didn't like to sit still to watch them most of the time. I ended up being put into a dance class instead. While being enrolled in dance class, I came to have a taste for music. Not only just ballet music, but all different genres as well. I would listen to music in the shower, on my way to school, at lunch, after school, at dance, while I was doing homework, and right before I went to sleep. 

While I was in high school I didn't really watch much television or listen to music. School and after school activities were my number one priority. During this time period, many of my friends started reading books such as Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. Every so often I would hear them saying how good these books were and that the movies were even better. I kind of felt like I needed to start reading them to see just what everyone was talking about. I’ve never really been the one to read. I feel reading books take up too much time and most of them I had to read in school were boring. I started with the Harry Potter books and immediately got addicted to them so I moved onto Twilight and eventually Fifty Shades of Grey. I find that I only read books that have been made, or are going to be made into movies. Like I said before I just think it’s more exciting to read the book and then see the movie and see which one is better. 

After a while I started getting tired of reading all the time so I ended up watching a lot of television again especially on Netflix. I like to watch shows such as The Red Band Society, American Horror Story, How To Get Away With Murder, and Breaking Bad. My favorite show currently is Gotham. I'm not really the type of person who watches reality TV. Yes, I do get a good laugh out of it once in a while but to me it’s annoying.  

I am a big fan of social media. It all started with Myspace and AIM. Myspace was a way for me to connect with many of my friends since most of them didn’t have cell phones back in middle school. Now Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Snapchat have all come along. I currently use all of these apps on my cell phone regularly because I feel like it’s a good way to keep up with the news and also with friends.