Sociology of Popular Culture

Cayley's blog for sociology of popular culture

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Me at the Zoo?

I’d have to agree with part of what this documentary is showing, a person struggling with their gender and sexuality on top everything else going on in their lives. And how the internet has played a part in this whole thing but I didn’t really like the documentary. It was pretty focused on Chris Crocker as a youtube personality and his mom not so much centralized on his gender and sexuality struggles. Chris Crocker’s fame is cemented by his number-one-fan status in the Britney Spears pantheon. Like many young people, he indulges an infatuation for a favorite pop star, and in that icon’s struggles with fame and media scrutiny he recognizes a kindred spirit. His vlog identity, likely more flamboyant and histrionic than his everyday personality, makes a tearful video admonition to “Leave Britney alone!” and scores millions of hits.  It also visits upon him a smaller-scaled but no less devastating lesson in attention overload, illustrated by a small-town boy skidding out in the biggest of media cities.  The ephemera in which he traffics is its own punishment: the words “I don’t know what else I’m qualified to do” have rarely resonated so bleakly. In the years when previous generations were developing their identities, this boy had two, the more fabricated of which was by far the more attractive.  There is a vacancy in his eyes throughout most of the movie, a question of self not completely answerable at this stage of his development. His vlog-life plays up his sexuality, his train-wreck of an absentee mother and her own tawdry upbringing, and the ambivalence with which the churchgoing grandparents who raised him view his sensationalist self-invention.  And so he and his grandparents get a depressing number of hate messages on video and telephone, as well as national-scale mudslinging from the likes of Mr. Beck and from other YouTube practitioners.  As Chris Crocker says at one point, “You can only exist on water, sunshine and mascara for so long,” and his attempt to find a more genuine, less enervating lifestyle constitutes the film’s bittersweet final act. Early on, Chris Crocker speaks persuasively of the ecstasy in watching his favorite celebrity on video: “I get to transform into Britney Spears!” One may not entirely believe him, but still one is outraged that such a beautiful creature would want to be anybody else.  Later, an angrier version of himself rails that his fame is “not about Britney!”  As he matures, a development captured in efficient, dynamic visual terms by the film’s four credited editors (Jesse Haas, Matthew Sanchez, and the two extraordinary directors), he reflects that in some of his public missteps, “I was playing with perceptions of me that already existed.”  As David Quantick once wrote, “pop will eat itself.”  But within the perspective of the 1980s from which he wrote it, no one expected that someday pop would begin to eat itself in the shell. The ending was also very ambiguous because you don’t know if Chris Crocker was playing a role the whole time or if that was his genuine self. I was wondering how he felt about everything now after we talked in class and found an article from this year. 

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Miss Representations

I agree with the film Miss Representation, it touches on many important issues regarding the inequality women face.This film looks at the media’s impact on the American discourse of women’s bodies, women in power and the effect of internalization of being sold the same standards of what women should be. It is more than a film, it is a start to a much-needed reform of education, collective thinking and a continuation of the great work of powerful women leaders in this country. This is a large issue today regarding women’s rights and rape culture. The sexual objectification of women onscreen leads to a trivialization and dis-empowerment of women in the cultural and political process.  78% of girls hate their bodies by the age of 15. 65% have an eating disorder. 17% cut themselves, and the number of cosmetic surgeries quadrupled on women ages 17 from 1997 and 2007 and have increased six fold since. Woman are 56% of the population, yet only 17% of Congress, 3% of Fortune 500 CEO’s, hold only 3% of clout positions in media and are 7% of directors and 13% of the film writers. These are all  jaw dropping statistics quoted in Miss Representation and yet the predominant message we hear over and over, is that women have broken through the glass ceiling, that feminism isn’t necessary and above all, that empowerment for women is by having control of a sexualized, “good” body. Men are facing similar issues that women are, being taught that the definition of manhood and what it is to be a man is to be above women. Men are given the okay that women are objects and the first step to violence towards people is by dehumanizing them into others. So when women try to raise themselves up, men will of course view it as trying to bring them down. They also points about that men are  taught nothing about rape culture, that what they are presented as normal is part of that same culture, while women have drilled into their heads day after day how to survive, how to cope with rape culture. The burden or the blame is again, put on women in forms of what were you wearing, why were you out so late, what were you doing in that neighborhood, were you asking for it. It is acknowledged that with all this information on rape prevention for women, not once is it publicly made prevalent that for men, feeling the entitlement in raping a women is the root of the problem. Having men and women in stereotypical, binary boxes is clearly not good. There’s certain expectations and the way we as a society enforce these is very damaging. But there’s also such a backlash when you don’t fit and conform into these standards. Overall, Miss Representation gives us all a powerful message and information on the problems within our society. It's a great opportunity to open up a larger conversation on what we can do about it and what changes we can make. 

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Working Class Dismissed

I argue that there has been a misrepresentation of class in television. Class Dismissed does use some dated examples.When tv shows do depict working class characters its usually not very accurate, or is showing them after they had just moved up from the working class. Especially after shows had become more commercialized and big businesses had a larger part in creating television shows.Television reinforces ‘middle-class’ ideology as an attack on the working class. This is television as propaganda to sell the American Dream and distract us from thinking about how capitalism really works. Stereotypes help to both create and reinforce negative perceptions of the working class. In the examples used the working class men are always angry and unintelligent. Working class characters are shown with having: bad taste, lack of intelligence, reactionary politics, poor work ethic and dysfunctional family values. Homer Simpson is a good example of this he’s shown as someone who is not smart, is often shown sleeping at work, and has a lot of family issues. The ‘working class’ is portrayed as an underclass of hillbillies, rednecks and trailer trash whose lives are there to be ripped open on The Jerry Springer Show. When tv shows do depict working class characters its usually not very accurate, or is showing them after they had just moved up from the working class. Especially after shows had become more commercialized and big businesses had a larger part in creating television shows. Television reinforces middle-class ideology as an attack on the working class. This is television as propaganda to sell the American Dream and distract us from thinking about how capitalism really works. Stereotypes help to both create and reinforce negative perceptions of the working class. In the examples used the working class men are always angry and unintelligent. Working class characters are shown with having: bad taste, lack of intelligence, reactionary politics, poor work ethic and dysfunctional family values. Homer Simpson is a good example of this he’s shown as someone who is not smart, is often shown sleeping at work, and has a lot of family issues. In trying to think of more modern examples of the working class, I really couldn’t come up with anything or even find many examples online. Shows today usually are depicting middle class families, or are not addressing class at all.The only examples I could find are the shows, Girls and Two Broke Girls. (I  have never watched Girls and Two Broke Girls is awful). The working class has become almost non-existent in modern television. We have shows depicting middle to upper class characters and shows that are completely devoid of class.  The film ends by recognizing that changing the ideology presented on television requires changing the society which creates that ideology, and that is something I agree with.

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Throw Like a Girl

Not Just a Game was really informative and well put together. I’ve had previous sociology class and women’s studies where we went over about the homophobia and gender and racial inequalities in sports. But Not Just a Game brought the militarization of sports to my attention. I had just never noticed it before, probably because I do not watch sports that often. I argue that there is a gender inequality in sports. Often the rules are different for sports when being played by women, and some are even given a different name. An example would be baseball for men but softball for women, it’s essentially the same game just different variations for genders. In basketball the size of the ball is slightly smaller for women. Generally for football women are only able to play flag football. And for hockey the rules are different and harsher penalties are set when women get more violent but if you watch any hockey game with men fighting is often even encouraged. There’s also the issue of sports being separated by gender in the first place. Women’s sports do not get covered or advertised as much as men’s sports. I’m honestly not even aware if there are professional women’s teams for certain sports (hockey, or football).Women are more seen as cheerleaders dressed in small amounts of clothing during men’s sports than they are shown as athletes. Here’s an article that goes more into number detail about the differences in sports. Professional women athletes definitely do not receive equal pay. This is also based on  the less viewers, less people who attend their game, less sponsorships. But that’s not always the case, sometimes women’s soccer gains more revenue compared to men’s but they are stilled paid less. The exact numbers are in this article. Sports are an overly masculine area in which women are very often sexualized. We even have something like lingerie football which is televised, where the women are not paid and receive not medical coverage when we have no actual professional women’s football teams. Looking further into it I found this Ted Talks from Sarah Du about her experience with gender equality in sports, in China. So it’s not just a problem in America, gender inequality is an issue across countries and across sports.

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Generation (Dis)Like

I argue that the film Generation Like draws attention to the exploitation and sexualization of children and teens. It shows the stories of two kids, Steven Fernandez and  Daniela Diaz who are seeking internet fame. Steven Fernandez is shown to is as 12 year old living in poverty who loves to skateboard. He makes videos of himself skateboarding in hopes to make money with brand deals and sponsorships to help his family live a better life. He tries out new ideas to gain a bigger audience by doing videos involving older women who are in some videos dancing and twerking on him. Daniela Diaz is 13 years old and she started out by her mothering encouraging her to post videos of herself singing. Then on to using instagram her mother takes her pictures and based on on feedback knows which outfits people want to see and even admits that full body pictures will gain more likes. The adults and companies in both situations don’t seem to have a problem with what is going on. Older women are willing to be in Steven’s videos and dance on him knowing he is a minor and that other children are most likely viewing his content (video example down below). His parents are also supportive of what he is doing and don’t object to mature content that is going on. He still continues to get his sponsorship and youtube isn’t having kind of restrictions on who can view his videos. He gets millions of views and no one in charge seems to have an issue with the way he’s portraying women and the sexual situations he is putting himself in at such a young age. Daniela Diaz’s mother is working to build an online status for her daughter to the point where she is making note of which outfits get more likes and that full body shots get the most likes. She has to be aware that she is to some degree sexualizing her daughter, she knows what is going to get her more attention but she doesn’t seem concerned with who is giving her the attention. Both of these kid’s story show a side of rape culture. Daniela’s body is being shown and used to get more likes and attention.It is conveying a message to her to rely  on her looks and body to get what she wants. As for Steven he is portraying that you need to get girls to be validated, bothering women on the streets are okay and just a general mistreating of women. No one is really telling him its wrong and he’s excused for it because he’s young, the whole “boys will be boys” excuse. It went so far that he is now facing rape charges along with two adults who were involved. As was said in class the exploitation of children for profit is nothing new, but now it’s just more easily accessible and easier to make a profit from.