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Story of Beyoncé in Lemonade

Lemonade is the sixth studio album by Beyoncé. On her sixth solo album, Beyoncé Knowles Carter starts rolling mid-scene: She’s just realized that her husband is cheating on her. The surrounding context is familiar to anyone who follows popular culture. Beyoncé and Jay Z are the most famous musical couple on the planet, and Beyoncé in particular is in a great place. With 2013’s Beyoncé, MJ-level talent met pop-perfectionism in a moment that defined album-cycle disruption; moreover, it was a victory lap Bey took as pop feminism's reigning goddess. I argue that Beyoncé’s political bent takes a back seat to personal matters; these are, though, expansively contextualized.

The album’s title comes from Beyoncé’s 90-year-old grandmother-in-law, Hattie White, who endorsed the old epigram that since life served her lemons, she made lemonade; a testament to female endurance and pragmatism. What unfolds is an album about male-pattern infidelity and female self-examination. That cycle can be broken with forgiveness, Beyoncé implies – but not before she breaks stuff with a baseball bat on Hold Up. With a sassy dancehall lilt, Beyonce unexpectedly quotes a Yeah Yeah Yeahs track, a cocktail of warmth and fury. “What’s worse, looking jealous or crazy?” she wonders. She appears, for half of the album, to be as mad as hell at Jay Z. It is tremendous.

At its basest level, then, Lemonade is a gossip rag, as art-directed by a Vogue stylist who’s smoked the budget. In a series of sumptuous vignettes, in which Serena Williams gyrates and a range of other famous black female figures make visual cameos, Beyoncé appears to launder her business in public. Rumours of a rift in the marriage ricocheted around the internet in 2014 after Solange Knowles, Beyoncé’s hipper little sister, attacked Jay Z in a lift. Now Beyoncé names names, regrets the ring, and threatens to leave if he “try that shit again”.

The songs, though, are not just prurient catnip, but actual dynamite – a dazzling series of edgy, but tuneful collaborations with a diverse array of guests. Beyoncé’s hurt is articulated magnificently, often quoting Somali-British poet Warsan Shire, who doesn’t mince words like “menses”. You can hear the confident hand of Jack White on the superb digital-analogue confection Don’t Hurt Yourself corrects where Beyoncé unleashes a righteous hip-hop blues-woman holler. Even heavier and freakier with organ is Freedom, a declaration of intent that features a typically electrifying Kendrick Lamar verse.

After Beyoncé makes nearly half an album’s worth of glorious rage songs directed at an unfaithful partner, she gives it a little time and remembers that she was raised to value hard work and spirituality. And so, she can’t give up on her marriage, the same one she spent her last two albums celebrating. Beyoncé even kind of sells it, surmising with a tear-inducing sincerity on relaxed-fit soul jam “All Night” that “nothing real can be threatened.” It’s an easy platitude to make, but it’s also an extremely Beyoncé way of looking at things. For a perfectionist who controls her image meticulously, Beyoncé is obsessed with the notion of realness. That’s the biggest selling point of an album like Lemonade, but there’s a quality to it that also invites skepticism: That desire to basically art-direct your own sobbing self-portrait to make sure your mascara smears in the most perfectly disheveled way. But who cares what's "real" when the music delivers a truth you can use.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/arts/music/beyonce-lemonade.html

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The Power of Social Media

In me at the zoo, filmmakers Chris Moukarbel and Valerie Veatch center on a teen-aged, gay Tennessee rube, Chris Crocker, whose outlandish postings and declarations of admiration for Britney Spears on YouTube have turned him into an Internet celebrity. This film explores how video sharing and social platforms have shaped the way we tell our stories and mediates our lives. When we “Like” and ‘”Share” a video we are creating a market for that specific type of content. I argue that video sharing and social have a great power that can help people became famous or submerge their lives.

Whether Crocker was genuine in his wails back then or not, one cannot deny everything after was a carefully constructed image to garner more fame and celebrity while the iron was hot. For a transgendered boy growing up in small town Tennessee, his entire life had to be a carefully cultivated image in order to survive the childhood beat-downs, taunting, and church backlash that area is known for when it comes to the gay and lesbian community. What the internet and YouTube did for Chris was finally allowed him to shatter all remnants of the façade he no longer found necessary. After attempting to create a gay/straight coalition at his Middle School in his refusal to hide who he was, the town began to fear for his safety. High School simply wouldn’t be a welcoming environment.

What happens next, however, is less a testament to Crocker and more a defamation of a nation in love with anonymity. As the world became flat and the internet connected us to far-flung corners we’d never imagine to visit, humanity devolved into snarky, opinionated cretins unconcerned with the victims they targeted via their computers. Where YouTube gave Chris the friends he never had, it also exponentially increased the enemies that will always follow him due to a rampant bigotry and hatred I’m not sure will ever be eradicated. Where the gay kid flexing twig arms and swearing at invisible foes was once a laugh riot, inspirational call to arms, or posts modern entertainment, the effeminate whiner sobbing about a famous pop star is now sad, pathetic, and grounds for unsolicited death wishes.

Moukarbel and Veatch aren’t merely showing us the rise and fall of an individual daring to be different. What Me at the Zoo depicts instead is a nasty world devoted to deranged hero worship and a media too quick to vilify innocents for financial gain. We watch the paparazzi reduce pop music’s queen to tears, driving her to the point of mental breakdown and attempted suicide. And rather than acknowledge her humanity we’re the first in line to light the fire that will incinerate her. Why support a comeback attempt by this fragile girl America once put on a pedestal as a teen role model when we can push the knife in further and call her fat, washed up, and no longer worth our time? Crocker empathized with the persecution and stood up against it.

https://hollywoodthewriteway.com/2012/05/documentary-review-me-zoo.html

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Graphic Thinking changes my mind

           Graphic Thinking is way to explores how graphic and visual communication changes people’s perception of the world. “It’s an intersection of ‘comix,’ society and academia,” said Waldman, a Philadelphia-based digital designer. The spelling of comics as comix dates back to the 1960s and refers to the subgenre of “underground” comic books. Compared to mainstream, family-oriented comics, comix writers incorporated more mature themes — like sex, drugs and violence — into their work. I argue that Graphic Thinking is a good way to remind young people thinking about history and change their perception about recent society.

            While comic books and graphic novels have increased in popularity among children of all ages in the last few years, there are still some parents and educators that dismiss the medium as trivial or "not a real book" or "junk." We live in a visual society. It only makes sense that children are drawn to visual media. Not all comics are about superheroes, and graphic novels do not always include "graphic" storylines. Some teachers and librarians on the 2014 New York Comic Con panel "Super Girls: Using Comics to Engage Female Students in the High School Classroom" listed these as some of the benefits and skills strengthened by graphic novels: motivating reluctant readers, inference, memory, sequencing, understanding succinct language, and reading comprehension. When reading comics, children slow down and look at the images and text to fully ingest what's happening in the plot.

Graphic novels are bringing art education (which is often an endangered program in schools) into the classroom. Graphic novels can be paired with traditional classics. One high school teacher on the "Super Girls" panel said that he's found success in pairing a canonical text like The Scarlet Letter with a graphic novel like Smile. Both titles are centered on female protagonists feeling alienated, which a lot of tween and teen girls can relate to. Speaking of girls, comics aren't just for boys. Everybody enjoys a good story. And there are plenty of great graphic novels available for kids of all ages. Additionally, for children with dyslexia, while it might be very frustrating for them to finish a page of a traditional book, they often feel a sense of accomplishment when they complete a page in a comic book. Accomplishment is important. It's a huge self-esteem booster and leads to kids naturally wanting to read more.

However, when kids have lower self-esteem because they aren't strong readers that can discourage them from wanting to read. But graphic novels are a great way to promote literacy. Teachers and librarians do not want to give ESL students picture books. Kids would reject that and deem it embarrassing. However, a comic book at a lower reading level might give kids the reading confidence they need while boosting reading and language skills. Reading comic books is a great way to share the joy of reading with your child. If you grew up reading Archie or Spider-Man comics, you can share that with your reader now. It's a great way to strengthen your bond. Plus, kids look up to their parents and want to share and discuss those favorite comics or moments or scenes with you. It's a no brainer! 

http://temple-news.com/lifestyle/cla-hosts-graphic-thinking-conference-comics-illustration/

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Behind the Truth

In the Miss Representation, Jennifer Newsom exposes the bold reality of western culture and out continuous idea that a women’s ability to hold positions of power and influence in society is being overlooked by her sexuality and beauty. The movie challenge how mainstream media’s sexism plays role in a women’s ability to attain a leadership role in a society where the media is the most convincing forces shape norms. The message is clear, a women’s power lies in her youth, physical attractiveness, her sexuality, and not in her capability as a front-runner. So the key characters in Miss Representation were less than original, but so too was the film’s formula

The key slogan for Miss Representation is “you can’t be what you can’t see,” meant to drive home the fact that girls cannot become successful, self-assured, empowered and civically engaged if they do not see women who embody these traits on television, in the movies, and in the pages of magazines. It is a powerful message.  But again, Newsom seems to commit the very sin of which she hopes to rid the world.  Who don’t we see in Miss Representation?  Women with disabilities, for starters, whose large-scale exclusion by the mainstream media contributes greatly to the discrimination they experience every day, as their abilities and intelligence are routinely under-estimated or outright dismissed.

One reason the negative images feel like a bombardment today is that they're coming from so many different directions. Youth get their information via social media, their cellphones and so many cable stations, where the smut and shock-value quotient seem to be growing by the day. Bork said it's difficult, but not impossible, for a parent to run interference. "Even the Disney channels and with Nickelodeon, you have 13-year-old girls being mean and sarcastic or talking about how to get a boyfriend," she said. "Nothing is safe, and it's much more complex as a parent to monitor it and dispel myths.

But aside from these few educational, big-picture contextual components, the film comes off as a primer for high school students in desperate need of some media literacy, not for adults who have consumed at least a modicum of media in the last thirty years.  I think – or at least I hope – that the average person is fully aware that women don’t exactly fare well in the media they consume every day.  It’s time to move beyond stating the obvious.

In a handful of places in the film, Newsom includes footage from a focus group of teenagers discussing sexist media and the consequences.  They speak of their low self-esteem, their anxieties, their sheer anger and frustration.  I wonder if this incredibly articulate group of young people was given the time to brainstorm a response, to come up with realistic strategies, or to plant the seeds of revolution.  If they were, why didn’t we see it?   What an incredibly inspiring film that would have been – one in which the majority of production time and energy went into finding a solution.  Now that’s a film I’d like to see.

http://therepresentationproject.org/film/miss-representation/about-the-film/

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Definitions of class in USA Indeed, television doesn’t correctly reflect how we live, but it’s not always easy to articulate how it distorts the real world. The film navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows and images of African-Americans, Hispanics and women in the working class are also analyzed. This film gathers interviews with media analysts and cultural historians. This documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants. To follow the film, you have to tune in to the definitions of class used. When its talking heads refer to the ‘working class’, they use the narrower meaning of people with low incomes, little power and less “cultural capital” According to Leistyna, ‘middle class’ characters on television are depicted as empowered, independent and sassy because the social and economic forces which often prevent these traits are downplayed. These characters only need to struggle against aspects of their personality which might stop them living the American Dream. Program makers are less interested in showing issues relating to wider social forces or being dealt with collectively. Besides, the ‘middle-class’ culture is shown on television in ways which hide wider problems: if a television show depicts a well-off black family, then this disguises the real inequalities that exist between communities. Program makers would see it differently, of course. They would say that minorities can be shown in a positive way to challenge stereotypes and to improve how they are represented. However, Leistyna would reply that television only depicts successful characters from minority groups in ways compatible with ‘middle class’ values. He’s saying that television tolerates minorities as long as they are living that American Dream. Moreover, this is television as propaganda to sell the American Dream and distract us from thinking about how capitalism really works. While his argument has merit, it would be more accurate to say that the mindset Leistyna associates with a ‘middle class’ is just mainstream capitalist ideology. ‘Middle-class’ people are also alienated and exploited within capitalism, even if they don’t always have the same pressures as those lower down the social scale. The film ends by recognizing that changing the ideology presented on television requires changing the society which creates that ideology. And that’s something else worth switching off your television for. In conclusion, this is a provocative video, making one look at TV with new eyes. Two critiques I would offer: almost all the commentators are academics or journalists – no average workers are interviewed about their TV counterparts. Working class Americans who have a positive TV image – fire fighters, nurses and police officers – are not analyzed. Why does TV show these jobs in a positive light but not others? Still, the video is worthwhile, simply because TV saturates our culture and our conversations. There are basic underlying assumptions about workers and unions in TV land and as critical viewers, we should understand them. “Class Dismissed” is an excellent first step in that process. http://mediamatrixshow.weebly.com/reviews/pereption-is-everything-a-review-of-2005-documentary-class-dismissed

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A Game or Political Struggle

           Nowadays, American sport is not a purely game that is a political debates and struggles. Not Just a Game opens with assertions by two very different athletes—Jesse Owens and Pete Sampras—that sports have nothing to do with politics. “And yet,” observes the tireless and most wonderful Dave Zirin, “Everywhere we look, there seems to be a strange contradiction of this No Politics rule, prominent in powerful displays of nationalism and patriotism and military might that seem nothing if not political.” Zirin first traces how American sports have glamorized militarism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, then excavates a largely forgotten history of rebel athletes who stood up to power and fought for social justice beyond the field of play. I argue that the result is as deeply moving as it is exhilarating: nothing less than an alternative history of political struggle in the United States as seen through the games its people have played.

           Zirin makes the point that despite claims to the contrary, sports and politics do mix. The film is didactic, explicitly considering “that murky place where sports and politics collide.” Here Zirin finds sports to be a means to shape worldviews so that they seem “natural.” Such cultural persuasion is easy to see in an overt “form of propaganda,” such as the 1991 basketball game that Zirin cites as his own intellectual turning point, when the Knicks mascot “started to beat up a guy who was wearing this Arab costume. And the Jumbotron was whipping the crowd into a frenzy getting everybody to chant, ‘USA, USA, USA, USA!’” Zirin recalls this scene as “sick,” an especially effective “political spectacle” that helped churn up patriotic feelings, encouraging basketball fans to support the first Gulf War.

           On one hand, that argument means to counter the “natural” appearance of sports today. On another hand, it seems obvious: the “sports-media complex” creates and promulgates cultural values, like, for instance, the ideal body is masculine and white and straight. Even when that notion is contradicted in some way—say, when Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in 1973 or when black athletes demonstrate phenomenal skills—the narrative adjusts to accommodate exceptional individuals and still, to maintain organizational conventions.

           Corporations like Nike and Gatorade are part of “sports-media complex” that makes millionaires of some and billionaires of fewer, and leaves fans to function as consumers only. In the U.S., the damage done to teams, sports, and to increasingly disenfranchised devotees extends beyond commercial products to professional sports ownership.

           In conclusion, American sports have glamorized militarism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, then excavates a largely forgotten history of rebel athletes. Against such a backdrop of banal and moneyed interests, Not Just a Game offers the inspiration of those athletes who have opted to resist orthodoxy, to support individual and community rights, to challenge rules that do damage. Like Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali, Martina Navratilova, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, John Amaechi, and Scott Fujita have made visible the collision of sports and politics.

https://zinnedproject.org/materials/not-just-a-game-power-politics-american-sports/

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The rise or fall of the generation like Nowadays, increasingly technological science has swept the human into development spiral. The communication facilities are becoming more and more convenient. People can send messages via email, face book, twitter or other types of network. However, anything also exist two face of it. I argue that the generation has to depend on technology and it leads the generation to be restricted, passive to work. The younger people have an evolving relationship with technology that leads their privacy to be restricted. Douglas Rushkoff finds several interesting points of entry into this multipronged topic, from the obsession with celebrity to the way sponsors crunch data in order to turn enthusiastic teens and young adults into apostles to help promote their brands. Every time, they see the famous stars, they will take some pictures and send to any web or their personal web. That influences to other people’s privacy. Besides, young people have a habit of regularly updating their personal information on social networking sites like facebook, instagram, twitter and some other social networks. They update their personal status when they have vacation, holiday, party…If other people want to know their information, they just need to look for these social network site. That is so easy. Young people tend to be lazy and passive to work. The sharply development of science technology evolved with the machine-growing equipment becoming more modern and more functional. This makes people become more passive in the potential to find information in the workplace as well as in learning. They do not need to be motivated to search for information and materials. They just use their laptops and search for the information they need. That is quite convenient. However, the search is too quick to lead them to forget the information quickly. Especially, they cannot take the initiative when they only want to look for the initiative from other people from some webs or social network. That leads to an underdeveloped society. Illegal organizations and hackers have additional conditions to steal personal information. Multi-platform computer worms are a tool that computer hackers use to infect computers to gain control access. Computer worms are a dangerous virus because they are self-replicating, meaning that they multiply themselves and spread onto other computer networks seeking a lapse in internet security. Computer worms do not need to attach themselves onto an existing computer program to gain access to the victim computer files. Hacking is the practice of changing the features of a system, in order to accomplish a goal outside of the maker’s inventive purpose. Today, all important data is stored directly in computers with social networking. This allows hackers to accomplish their tasks better. In conclusion, the generation cannot develop themselves if they still completely depend on social network. The generation will become passive people who are lazy to give initiative and easy to be taken advantage by bad people. However, if they know how to control their dependence on social network, their work will be more effective. http://variety.com/2014/tv/reviews/tv-review-frontlines-generation-like-1201088233/