The Froggy Files

Brendan Lange

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Regarding Susan Sontag

Upon viewing the documentary film titled, Regarding Susan Sontag, one sees first-hand her lifelong rebellion against ignorance and injustice. Susan Sontag was a Jewish-American writer best known for her contributions in the literary field of philosophical theory. With a love for reading and books at a young age, she gave herself the linguistic tools to develop her unique writing style and provoke the masses.

Throughout the documentary we see her resisting the status quo in her personal life by exploring her sexuality and her femininity. Consequently her rebel spirit comes alive in her writing as she explores the relationship the American society has with photography in her piece titled, On Photography. Here she explores the injustice imposed on the rest of the world created by the false global understanding Americans create with photography. Photos, as she describes, are a manipulation of reality, and yet the consensus in our society is that what isn’t photographed doesn’t exist in reality or isn’t worthy of historical attention. In addition, as we develop our understanding of the representation of the world through photography we further that false understanding. She also warns the public, as consuming photographs is addictive and preys on our insecurities by way of creating a smaller simpler world for us to more easily exist in. 

One thing I particularly admire of Sontag’s work is her application of the ideology structuralism. One great example of this feat is her piece titled, Notes on Camp. The essay is a collection of points describing the connotative definition of the word “camp”. She relays onto the reader the implications of the word identified as an unrealistic apolitical aesthetically dominated world view. To camp something is to have it exist without opposition, clearly representing good and evil, love and hate. This notion of camp perpetuates naturally as it is a way to please the insecurities of society, by removing the critical challenge involved in consuming a text. 

As it reads in the text, “41. The whole point of camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, camp involves a new, more complex relation to, “the serious.” One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.” Here Sontag is describing how this cultural adoption of camping has created a new notion of what is to be considered serious and frivolous. This being undoubtedly harmful to the human experience of life. 

Another great example of her use of structuralism is a quote brought onto me by the documentary film reading, “death is the opposite of everything.” I find this particularly interesting because the human relationship to death is mysterious and complex, yet using the opposition of what we know to be everything, we are given a deeper representation of the nothingness that is death. 

Sontag will be forever known as a feminist rebel and great writer whom sought out to exceed the boundaries of modernness literature thought and style. As well as, an inspiration for both women and men to seek to understand themselves beyond the ontological position given to us on the day we are born. Her genius perspective is survived through the relationships she had with the people she knew, her exquisite literature and her legacy within the feminist community.      

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Blog Post 10

Culture is a term with seemingly infinite usages. But, ultimately the main conflict created is whether or not culture is a representation of the people in a society, or a representation of the societal norm ideologies. That dynamic has been in question for decades.

Karl Marx, perhaps the most well-known philosopher of the modern era, weighed in on the debate heavily. His notion of what culture is to a society was defined by, “the class which has the means of material production at its disposal; has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so generally speaking, the ideas of those of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.” In other words, Those that hold the power to produce content and texts, have the power to produce aspects of culture. That means the ruling class’ ideas are rendered dominate, and become internalized. This power scheme is an adequate account of the ways hegemony is sustained in a capitalist society, such as the United States.

One prime example of a dominating ideology internalized as culture is monogamy. The United States has been using the “family” narrative to define it’s identity for generations. It has grown and evolved to the point in which it makes financial sense to find a partner and share assets. In turn, making the family orientation an imposition upon the American people. Plus, up until recently, a large percentage of the population was kept from partaking because their sexual preferences weren’t legally accepted. Additionally, it all comes back to money and spending. When surrendering to the influence created to forward marriage, it means that you will likely: buy a diamond ring, pay for a big wedding, your guests will buy gifts, have children and spend on them. It hasn’t been said, but marriage is a commodity to be sold. Additionally, there is no better way to hide that motive than with emotion, particularly the emotion between two partners. Realistically , love is defined on a personal level between two people, however, culturally, love is expected to be symbolized by a diamond ring, otherwise it isn’t love.

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Blog 11: Discussion Lead

Social media is an environment that is seemingly endless and untamed, however there are ways to use that flexibility to the advantage of your cause. Dustin Kidd, in his book titled Social Media Freaks, discuses utilizing social media in the chapter “Social Media Tools.” He lays out the importance of identifying personality and audience, as well as, finding the right platform for your purpose.

A movement defined and perpetuated by its social media presence is the #blacklivesmatter movement. Being a white dude, I can’t truly speak on behalf of what the movement means because, its seems to be very personal to the men and women of color who embody the movement. However, I’m fully backing the movement on the grounds of my knowledge in identifying systemic racism and seeking to exploit it to the public. Black lives matter is often misconceived as a white shaming movement, and that misconception has birthed the movement of #alllivesmatter. The truth is that today in our society, all lives don’t matter. If you are poor, of color, a female, yes your voice can be heard through social media, however the agency you posses to influence is very limited by systemic oppression.

Respected theorist, Bell Hooks said in her essay titled, Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, “hegemony is determined by the articulation of race and class. and more importantly it is the ability of the right to represent class issues as racial issues.” To me this quote means that through the imposition of poverty on the black community hegemony survives. In our society black culture is commodified and their struggle is used to heighten pleasure. Watching black athletes excel beyond the odds and listening to black Americans rap about their struggles allows white America to bicuriously  live their lives. For obvious reasons this dynamic is problematic, however entertainment corporations utilize this feat. Be sure you are critically interpreting the texts you consume, the mtive is always money never promoting individualism.

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Blog 10: Magazine Project

The main focus of my magazine is exposing hegemony through counter-culture. It will read in a similar way to AdBusters magazine, in that it will be abstract and satirical. Heavy on imaging and light on text. I plan on there being 3 sections including: Political, Commercial and Cultural. The magazine will be a collection of culture jamming texts, designed to expose the true colors of the subject. Some of the theory I will be using will include a variety of topics including, class perspective, gender perspective, disabilities perspective and hegemony.

I had an Idea for a comic novel type narrative that will play out somewhere in the pages. It would be called something like, “The Zombies: a Family Affair”. It would be a satirical representation of the nuclear, wasp, family of four. I have a few ideas about scenes including the entire family blankly staring and the TV, drooling. I was also thinking about doing scenes of each of them standing at their closets with only the same clothes in it representing their gender role. I was imaging one of the children of the family holding/wearing a t-shirt that says “I’m not a zombie.” This would represent how our culture has made us believe that the products we by represent us and make us unique, even though there are hundreds of the same products in circulation. Also, possibly a image of the son zombie holding his own leg at a football game and his father on the sidelines yelling, “your fine rub some dirt on it, wimp.” This would represent an aspect of gender role imposition, as well disabilities perspective/able bodiedness critique.

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Blog Post 5

When unpacking the social media atmosphere we find that there are groups (often intentionally) separated by a variety of factors including age, interest, geographic relevance, even class, gender and race. However, one group additionally marginalized is users with disabilities. It is apparent that by way of both user policing and systemic algorithms, the dynamics of the major platforms hold body image perfection to a standard, perpetating able-bodiedness as the expectation.

Its projected into the real world in the way that being able is policed unconsciously. The ideology being imposed seems to be that those with disabilities are derived of the privledge of being able, and that those able, or projected to be able, must utilize their good fortune. I have always been big for my age growing up, yet skinny. When meeting new people, my body was usually the first thing brought up in the conversation. “How’d you get so tall?” “You should play basketball.” I’m terrible at basketball. Often I would feel incliend to mention other sports I’m interested, almost as if to approve that I’m using my ability in the way I was expected. Going to a single-sex catholic high school was an experience of what I see now as really hyper masculine. Those who were the most athletic were given this unwritten, unconscious, pass to act however they felt. It was an interesting dynamic that I felt a lot of shame from when i decided to quit playing football. I enjoyed playing for a while, however I had come to know the brutality of it. I remember feeling hurt and injured but being expected to keep playing, or be made a mockary of. Today when people ask me how I got so tall, I usually reply with somthing sarcastic like, “eat your vegetables and get pletty of sleep.”

My case of feeling this social implication affect is similar to millions of others. Some of which had disabilities and yet still had expectations. I can recall from when I did play basketball (...and was terrible at it), my team had went traveling around the midwest and we had played this team who had a kid who was much taller than me, like three feet taller. But, it had seemed to be contributing to a lot of problems for him. He was really slow because his knees were so bad. I remember watching him run in pain, holding his knees and not understanding why he played. Maybe he enjoyed it, but I’m starting to think that he might have felt the same type of pressures to use his height, and even thought it seemed to be at his expence, it was viewed as a blessing. Somewhere the same situation is playing out and the coach on the sideline is yelling, “you’re fine, rub some dirt on it.” Don’t be that coach!

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Blog 7: Reality Television

Reality T.V. underwent a spike in American interest over the past decade and a half. However, I haven’t contributed much to that spike, other than being caught between channels on the food network or watching a show called Moonshiners (2011). In my opinion, what has kept be from tuning in has been that I’ve always seen reality television as a false reflection of reality. Additionally, I’ve seen friends and family internalize this fantasy and impose it on others. The concept, perpetuated by shows like The Bachelor and The Bachlorette (2002), that the beautiful women or men of our country get drawn together to fight for the same partner, to the point where they get engaged at the end of the season. That in order to be an American Idol (2002) you need to be voted in by viewers week after week and judged by three or four people who apparently know the entire extent to what America wants to hear.

Another thing shows like these tend to forward is white washing. After 15 years of seasons of the Bachlorette/Bachlor they have finally casted a black woman to be the lead role. Also, I’ve reality shows, for example The Real World(1999), have contributed to the tokenism of people of color. Also what inherently wrong with these shows is that class representation is misconstrued. Shows like the Real Housewives (2006) contribute to this in the way that, “Class is a performance” (p.146). In demonstrating that they are consciously or subconsciously competing with the viewer who, if they are one figure in the 70% of Americans who are represented as lower class or middle class, they feel encouraged to spend beyond their means in order to compete.

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Blog 6: Gender Roles

Rosalind Gill best describes gender as, “fluid, abiguoius and contradictory: asite of ongoing conflict and contestation.” However, gender itself is a construct of the media world. It’s constructed to make male masuculitiy idolized and to make female femininaty a standard. Sex/ Gender and the Media From Sex Roles to Social Contruction and Beyond, by Cynthia Carter is an article describing how the media has constructed the distribution of power in our patriarchal society. 

Throughout my examination of the text I couldn’t think much else but to relate a lot of the critisim on gender construct in the mass media to American Sit-Com Shows. I think for the reason that these shows are meant to be consumed to represent situations in everyday life despite being scripted. Yes, quite obviously in the shows airing before my time like The Brady Bunch (1969) and Leave It to Beaver (1957) have misrepresented gender roles, but also in the more recent past T.V. shows like Seinfeld (1989), Home Improvement (1991) and That 70′s Show (1998). These still culturally relevant series’ contribute in a certain way in my opinion. They subliminally normalize the perspective of the male characters by making sexes of each charater a key part in the image of the character they portray. What I mean by that is for example that characters like Elaine from Seinfeld are dependant on their sexual identity, often as it relates to a man. As well as her continuous struggle in the workplace for promotion. The gender roles representation, as described in the article has shifted to including more regulations about the male norm role after the 20th century. The example that came to mind was the character Eric in That 70′s Show. He is represented as a male that exhibits feminine qualities and is barraded by his father at every instance of such. He is caught in the toil of what it means to “be a man.”Normailizing that Eric is irregular for that feature of his character. The show itself takes place in the 1970′s a different era from when it was filmed, yes, but the social gender norms are still present and perpetuated. I was not surprised to read in the article that the initial saturation in the 1970′s caused a regression in the economic state of the country due to the fact that more than half of the population was being oppressed on a day-to-day basis. Yet, there have been no jurastic changes to create a mirroring cultural change.

Carter, Cynthia. Sex/ Gender and the Media From Sex Roles to Social Contruction and Beyond. (2012)

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Blog Post 2: Homophily and Twitter

Twitter is a unique social media platform that has an identity portrayed as a free forum. However, the corporation is reaching a tipping point of conflict with the explicit nature of the interface showing its true colors. What was once a fast moving thought exchange has become a breeding ground for hate and trolling.

Like any social media structure, it’s designed to bring people with similar interests and backgrounds together to share their similar experiences, this basic human instict to group with those alike you is called homophily. Despite how harmless and purposeful that may seem, the platform has created a seperation between socio-economic groups entirely. Hashtag conversations have grow into movements and campaigns. Yes the positivity of organizing a group for a cause is made easier, but it’s also easier for hate organizations to recruit members and spread opposition.

In disscussing the nature of the platform with a group of colleeges, we unpacked the opposition created on the site. We identified a hashtag, “#blitter”, that has grown into an entierly new platform. The term blitter is also known as black twitter. It started as a hashtag dissussing African-American lifestyle and has now become an entirely different exclusive platform aside from twitter made only for the black twitter community. 

The platform Twitter will likely see a series of changes in its policies on censorship, however the seperation through homophily is the source of the conflict. Not only among races and classes, men and women are placed into categories for advertisements, promotions and recomended pages furthering seperation of communication between the groups. In addition, there are ceratin expectations of what a woman should be retweeting and following, in order to maintain a compelling identity, and the same is for men. If twitter wants to stop the instances of slander and hate speech they need to develop a way to integrate group discussions and expose the hashtag discussions about hate publicly for the public user to police. 

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WWW (World Wide Web)

A dramatic change in media history occurred with the invention of the internet. Communication grew to be global and distribution became simpler. Ultimately, this invention would spring us into an entire new age coined the Digital Age. In its early years, before the emergence of the web browser, the internet was a concept adopted by the government, and eventually on a corporate level, to record and communicate data faster and more efficiently. The same is true for today, but our relationship to the technology has dramatically changed.

In our current media climate, social and entertainment usage of the technology is considered standard. Ingrained into our society so thoroughly that we live separate lives (Internet life vs. reality). Our internet life, contrary to reality, is completely formulated in our own image of perfection. We choose what parts of our lives we want others to see. This has become so important to socially functioning in society that those who don’t use a specific platform will be left out of real life conversations discussing it. In addition the more one posts and proves they live a desired lifestyle are symbolically rewarded. This type of cultural currency is the reason that no one can see the stage at a concert. The vision space is clustered with extended arms holding recording phones. In the hopes to capture something that will last and serve as proof of someones attendance at the show. Also it’s the reason there are a billion-and-a-half photos circulating the web of the same pumpkin spiced latte from Starbucks. Posting this photo shows that one has the privilege and the money to indulge in an overpriced beverage. Both examples with the goal to get noticed and to make other users envy.

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The U.S. Adopting T.V. Programs From The U.K.

The media industry is defined by the people that consume it. Well aware of this feat, producers and executives of major media distribution companies will use ratings and polls to take advantage of trends in society to produce content that caters to this trend. These trends often become apart of the industries and will become mandate to an extent and are known as a lore. One example of a lore is the adoption of television programs from the United Kingdom among American producers.

The list of programs that have been rendered American from the U.K. is astronomical. It includes all types of shows from Sci-Fi to game show. Some of the more successful American series include Shameless, The Office, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Cash Cab, Hell’s Kitchen and more. These series went on to have great success because they were able to forge an identity and a following independently from their U.K. counterpart.

On the contrary series’ like Viva Laughlin were monumental failures. This series was a comedy-drama musical popularly know on BBC network as Blackpool. One of the major critique of this film is that the plot and the acting. The major problem was being able to cast all of these very talented singers/actors/actresses and having them perform. I think that the producers of the show overlooked the American public lack of taste for finer arts and that also played a role in it’s demise after only two airings. 

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Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove is a satire of the political environment of its time. The film is an inside comedic look into the United States Headquarters during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It provides perspective into the parties involved and exposes the overwhelming paranoia among them.

Kubrick, being a abstract cinematographer ahead of his time, was able to depict the issue both realistically and abstractly. In these times of national fear, ultimately the population looks to its government. Kubrick shows how the government is complied of people that have their own conflicting agendas and personalities, an aspect of the government that is often forgotten. He casts roles according to real life depictions and stereotypes. The passive President, the young bloodthirsty military general, the southern patriot pilot and the German mad scientist are all perceived personas created by the public during the time period.  

The film was met with a good deal of controversy upon its release in 1964. The American public criticized it for being “implausible”, according to writer Eric Schlosser of the New Yorker. In the conclusion of the film the atomic bomb is launched at the U.S.S.R without the order from the president to do so. This aspect was specifically unrealistic to the public and critics alike, however Kubrick achieved his goal in portraying the imperfections of humanity and how these imperfections remain despite of someone’s prestige or title.

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NPR and FOX News

Escaping advertising today is an impossible task. Just about anything people look at can be hypothetically made into a billboard. Today’s news corporations face a unique period in time where viewers is everything. The more viewers a network gets, the higher they can sell their advertising time slots. Fox News is a company that has seen a lot of changes over the past two decades and it’s for this very reason. They are consumed by the notion that ratings are supreme, and more often than not the content suffers. As the time has passed Fox News has become more of an entertainment news source rather than and educational one.

There is hope however. National Public Radio is a non-profit organization tied directly to the American Public Broadcasting Station and British Broadcasting Corporation. The radio station doesn’t technically have ads, it has solicited donations and sponsorship. Depending on the amount donated, the party funding receives airtime on the station in exchange. This dynamic excludes the network ratings, allowing the network to focus on it’s content. However, as we see proposed budget cuts from the government in public broadcasting, money may begin to run tight.

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The Mandate of Cartoon Network

Being a commercially funded network, Cartoon Network’s mandate reflects it as such. In a world of seemingly limitless television channels and certainly limitless content, competition for viewers is at its highest ever. Time Warner Cable corporation utilizes Cartoon Network to appeal to a market consisting mostly of children and young teens. However, most children aren’t watching T.V. late into the night. To accommodate for that, after 8pm the network switches from Cartoon Network to Adult Swim for a more mature audience. Overall, the content on both networks isn’t bound by too many limitations internally. The writers of the shows have a large grip on creative control in comparison to other networks. This is evident in the outrageousness and unpredictability of success among the programs. Giving the network a very artistic, raw and organic image. Appealing to imaginarily inclined viewers of all ages. This model has thrived for over a decade, however I think one major change could result in furthering the success of the network and its programs.

Its simple, separate the two networks into two channels and/or sell the rights to the programs to a streaming service. In all honesty, the two target audiences represented by each network, are present at all hours of the day. So why not make them available at all hours of the day. To have the two networks share a channel was once a great idea when cable T.V. first began to come about. Today, content moves exponentially faster than it once did and has more media platforms to deliver it. Both Cartoon Network and Adult Swim have released a few select series on streaming services like Netflix, but is recently beginning to withdraw all of them. A major contract with one of the major services, making all programs available for streaming, could result in more exposure and more success for the programs.

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The Medium is The Message

In America society and in any digitized capitalistic society, self-expression is achieved in the the purchase of products, and affiliations with companies though brands, medium preferences, and most prevalent political party. Ultimately, the result is a feverish attempt on a corporate level, at the challenge of categorizing a population. In the media environment produced in these circumstances, the individual consumer is encouraged to subscribe to the amenities that represent their position in the population. Inevitably reinforcing separations between people on  a large social scale such as gender, race, economic class, religion, sexual orientation, political identity, physicality and geographic location. As well as on a smaller social scale, including clothing fashion and music taste. 

In my own case for example I am a frequent consumer of NPR News, Spotify Music and the television show South Park. Given that information one could create a narrative as to who I am. Some assumptions may be true and some false, the point is that making assumptions based on media consumption doesn't begin to represent me in any way or anyone for that matter. However, when someone is trying to get to know the other in personal conversation, trivial things like Television shows and Restaurants are mentioned at the least alongside real representations such as professional aspirations and opinions, family importance and faith perspectives.

In “The Medium is The Message” by Marshall McCluhan. Media innovations are identified as an extension of ourselves as a society. As we become more and more influenced by the globalization of economics, a digital global reality will continuously contribute. By constantly adapting to the communication yielding the least amount of room for inconveniences, bringing closer virtual life to reality. Creating constantly growing importance for individuals to invest more time in an online presence. Coincidentally, making what mediums represent you more and more important

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The Mass Customization of Television

Innovations of the late Twentieth Century gave the present day platforms for communications. However, the evolution these platforms has resulted in a new world era of digitization and globalization. A handful of large communication corporations have a grip on majority of the information, not only causing smaller level communication inovations to be absorbed or extinct, but controlling and monitoring the spread of information and ultimately what political agenda is prevalent. As a result of our global world mass customization in media information, all media texts are political. Every bit of information from t-shirts to Hollywood films, has a specific audience in mind during its creation. Whether a corporation is involved with political lobbying and choosing to perpetuate information as it pertains to a specific ideology, or an artist is creatively expressing their subcription to an ideology. 

These major media corporations (Disney, Time Warner, Comcast, etc.), use all of the texts particularly the obviously biased texts. By having all ideologies represented blatantly, mass customization is achieved, providing said corporation agency in their market respectively. For example, The Fox Network is well-known for its programs “Glee”, “The Simpsons” and “Fox News″ itself. All of these shows represent nearly polar opposite ideologies. “Fox News” being arguably conservative, “Glee” being liberally progressive and “The Simpsons” representing a suspicious and/or sarcastic. By catering to each political expression separately, the network and corporation as a whole profits off the circulation and growth of all of them.

This dynamic may seem beneficial in furthering the separation of corporate motives from their content, however it does exactly the opposite. News Corp has the agency to make the ideology best promotes the profit of their company a concrete news program, and the movements or in their way fantastical cartoons and musicals. 

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South Park; Does it Help or Harm

Comedy Central’s South Park has been on the air now for 20 seasons, starting in 1997. The creators of the show, Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Brian Graden, seem to have started the show as just a simple adult humor cartoon, with the occasional deconstruction of pop culture. However, the show has grown to be an political spectacle. 

The show is about four children, named Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick, who live in a mountain town in Colorado named South Park. The boys go on adventures, often involving pop culture celebrities, and eventually somehow someway the story gets completely blown out of proportion and becomes utterly ridiculous. Just to try and portray the ridiculousness of the show, here is the opening disclaimer shown before every airing of the show:

Despite the recommendation that the show not be viewed by anyone, the show is one of Comedy Central's highest-rated shows (watched by more than 8 million viewers a week). It has been translated into 30 languages and shown in 130 countries, nominated for 18 Emmys (winning five), made into a movie (1999's Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which grossed $83.1 million worldwide) and has spawned a merchandising industry generating hundreds of millions of dollars (The Hollywood Reporter). Does the show inspire a pessimistic view of the world around us, or does it serve as a representation of how ridiculous the popular media’s portrayal of society is? Using cultural theory and ideologies, I plan to expose the show for what it is, regardless of my bias, and let you the reader ponder the rationale of the show.

The first set of analysis regarding the show, is based on its relationship to pop culture. In many ways, pop culture is American culture, because no other society internalizes pop culture representation like American society. This notion is often termed as the Americanization of culture. This is referring to the change of culture from an art of the people to an art for the people to consume. This is the product of a commercial capitalist society and it as resulted in popular culture being more socially and institutionally central in our society, more so than that of Europe (Storey, 8). In our society today pleasure and desire is manufactured for us based on our socio-economic position and how that position is represented in popular culture. That being said, I believe that South Park acts as a contradiction to that representation. South Park exposes the ridiculousness of having popular culture so prevalent in society’s spheres on influence, by mocking celebrities, fads and norms, yet the only reason its still on the air is because it makes money and people watch it. 

The show also exposes how Americans idolize the representative they voted for president, as if he is a figure of pop culture. For example, in episode 12 season 12, Obama wins the election and those that voted for him bask in his glory, while those that don’t think it is the end of days. Randy Marsh when looking at President Obama, pressing his face to the television comments, “He’s so awesome, he’s so perfect and awesome.” The episode then continues by making fun of the conspiracies created behind every election. They do so by rendering Obama and McCain as using the entire election as a way into the White House so they can get access to an underground tunnel leading to the heist of the hope diamond. This represents how the election has become more of a patriotic rally than a democratic debate and how things get thrown out of proportion in a heated election.

Here’s a link to the entire episode: http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s12e12-about-last-night

Here’s a list of the top 10 celebrity impersonations on South Park (Warning Crude And Mildly Offensive):

“Popular culture is structured by the attempt of the ruling class to win hegemony and by forms of opposition to this endeavor (Storey, 10).” By mocking pop culture South Park exposes the agenda of the ruling class, particularly the ruling class’ use of popular media to articulate an unachievable desire conforming subordinate groups to a hopelessly commercial lifestyle. I believe this is why they chose the band Primus to produce the soundtrack for the show, a band that named their 1999 album Antipop.

Despite the benefits of putting up a mirror to pop culture and letting its hideousness be exposed, the viewer must know to interpret as such in order for it to be fully deconstructive. A viewer may very well view that show as just mindless humorous entertainment, which renders them just as capable as one of the ignorant citizens of South Park. Or, they might view the show in a pessimistic matter and internalize the content to be the stupidity of a hopeless world.

Also, South Park directly relates to a Post-structuralist interpretation of society. Its meaning is flexible and will never truly be concrete, depending on personal interpretation. Because the show is a cartoon it is in binary opposition to reality. It gets place in the same category as hundreds of texts that are unconsciously binge consumed. However, it is a deconstructive text if critically interpreted correctly. Deconstructive texts, “must always aim at a certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of language that he uses” (133, Storey). South Park fits this definition because the language used is crude and vulgar, yet its message is, hey society look at what is accepted by you in relationship to what isn’t. It says that to talk about things using curse words is unaccepted, yet for a company to profit off of the public by manipulating them with lies into thinking a certain way is. Its exposes how stereotypes are created and internalized, yet to talk about them and address the issue is taboo. It exposes how to make jokes about Satan and God are forbidden, yet to make jokes that oppress social groups is ok. 

South Park is a deconstructive text, however if interpreted incorrectly, it can reinforce existing hierarchies. If a viewer were to watch the show without critically thinking about its message, it could potentially further the internalization of the hierarchy.

In a episode 4 season 20, the children at South Park Elementary have been exposed to an online bully that torments the young girls of the school. This leads to the split of boys and girls against each other. The girls think it’s one of the boys, when in reality its one of the parents. The episode begins with Kyle explaining the issue to his father (who is the bully or “troll”) and he says, “One guy gets online and says terrible things about girls and it reflects badly on all of us. Everyone is sad, everyone is depressed and no body knows how to move forward.” Kyle’s Dad brushes the issue aside and walks out. This is the basis for every stereotype every created. When a man of color commits an act of violence, it gets internalized by the people around him not for what the crime is, but for what he is, a man of color. Then the act becomes stereotype because it is reflected badly on all people of color. On the contrary, if a white man were to commit the same act, he would just be considered a crazy person, because he doesn’t ave the same signifier as the man of color. South Park is exposing this issue, though it is hidden in pity middle school conflict, and it exposes the societal issue. The episode then continues with students that are male exposing their genitalia during the national anthem, in protest. The character Butters is usually shy and avoids conflict, however he is the leader of the boys who are in protest. This to me shows how hate and opposition can make even the pure at heart want to take up arms against the oppressor. Additionally, South Park has reversed the roles of men and women, making the boys of the show oppressed by the women based on the actions of few. When in reality it is the majority of men who oppress women by judging them based on the means of their sexuality and their physical attributes. This is a prime example of the shows deconstructive nature.

Here is a link to the entire episode: http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s20e04-wieners-out

South Park is also a critique on the postmodern society we live in. The show essentially defines its characters by the metanarratives they posses. That notion parallels how the members of a society define themselves and judge others based on these subscriptions. For example, the character Chef, one of the few black characters on the show, is overtly involved in classic African-American culture preconceptions, such as his ability to sing soul music and discuss the power of love with the children. Also, a priest makes a few appearances on the show and its almost always during a mass. The priest says something ridiculous and untraditional, yet all the people of the church take his words with reverence and respect. The one black child’s name is literally Token. 

In addition, South Park mocks the American Society for being hopelessly commercial. South Park is the definition of an, “anything goes culture, a culture of slackening, where taste is irrelevant, and money is the only sign of value” (Storey, 196). The character Kenny represents the lower class of society. Kenny is purely the object of neglect. The viewer can never understand what he is saying and he dies in every episode and yet no one seems to care. Often his dead body lays and rats surround it and then the episode ends. Kenny represents the absence of wealth and what it means to social status to be as such. Yet all the children and adults desire the same material goods commercialized. Representing the lack of separation between what is perceived as art, and what is art. 

Kenny’s Multiple Deaths:

South Park is a show that I would recommend to a friend, because it brings all of the issues of society into reconsideration. I forces the viewer to see the horrors of racism, sexism and gender binary, in a comedic environment. Though there is no comedy when having real life discussions about these issues, It makes the topic easier to cope with. However, before recommending I would explain the critical thinking elements involved in watching the show. Without understanding them, the viewer can either further their hierarchic misrepresentation of society, or view society pessimistically as hopeless and too far from revival.

If you are a frequent viewer of the show, I would enjoy hearing your interpretations of the show, before and after reading this blog. Did/Do you view the show as a exploitation of the ridiculousness of society, or as a comedy cartoon show with no other purpose than to exist as such?

Reference:

Storey, J. (2015).

Cultural theory and popular culture.

Harlow: PearPrentice Hall.

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