Project: Brittney Griner, Women's Basketball, Caster Semenya

https://vimeo.com/64151575

Little Kid Ted Talk on Organic Food

We clearly have some serious problems with our food system in this country. The fact that a small handful of corporations essentially control our entire food industry is a bad thing and have caused disastrous effects. But as with every conversation we have had in this class, this is a very complicated issue that is much more complex than "GMOs are bad and organic is good". The whole food movement is a great example of popular culture because it has spread throughout the nation, collecting millions of devoted followers spreading a message they may not necessarily understand fully. It is nearly impossible to understand an issue like this fully but isn't it important to try? When I heard this Ted Talk with this eleven year old, all I could think about is how brainwashed he comes off. I'm not trying to say that his opinions are invalid or that he doesn't have the right to say them, I am just saying that his opinions are his parents'. And his parents adopted those opinions from somebody else who preached them the same sermon. We are very lucky to have the luxury in this country to chose to eat organic foods. But genetically modified foods have saved millions of lives and have provided a food supply that might otherwise had not existed for millions of people living in impoverished nations. When I hear this kid talk about GMOs, I wonder if his parents have ever really explained the whole issue to him. Or if they have ever even been told themselves. 

Mos Def

I think Mos Def is a very interesting specimen when analyzing the hyper-masculine front that hip hop artists feel they need to put on. In the documentary Beyond the Beats and Rhymes Mos Def talks about how he was a "book worm" and was forced to put on that front in order to succeed in the hip hop game. This statement stuck out to me because even though this may be true for Mos Def, he is still able to portray positive messages with his socially conscious lyrics. Alternatively, hearing other rappers like Jadakiss talk about the front of hyper-masculinity had a very different impact for me. While Mod Def recognizes hyper-masculinity and understands that rappers need to adopt that front to succeed, he still doesn't rap about murder nor does he degrade women with his lyrics.

It is clear that hip hop has had a huge impact on how men feel they should present themselves, especially black men from poverty and crime-ridden regions of our cities. And I understand it is a lot easier to sell a hip hop song about sex than a socially responsible one. However, I still think there is room in hip hop for rappers like Mos Def who reject the violence within the genre.

The Concept of "Princess"

People in our class are clearly in a disagreement over the effects that our media have on us as a society. Some may argue that watching a Disney movie had no effect on how they viewed gender roles and submissiveness. But there should be no argument that those gender roles do in fact exist in our media and they therefore have somewhat of an effect on our culture. The fact that we can all laugh at videos that swap gender roles is a testament to the fact that those gender roles do exist, they are very clear and mutually understood, and they are constantly being reiterated in on our televisions, in our movies, in the products that we buy, and what is expected from us. The problem with these gender roles is that their stereotypical characteristics do not apply to every single person of that gender and they should not therefore be expected. A girl who doesn't like the things associated with the princess culture should not be considered "different" or a "tomboy" just because she doesn't comply with the mainstream concept of what a "girl" should be because that concept is completed crafted and molded by our media; it is not real. If my daughter's favorite color is pink and she wants to take dance classes and wear pretty dresses than that is fine and I would support her but I don't want to live in a world in which that is her only option or a world in which she thinks she is "supposed" to like those things simply because she was born female. 

Why not, instead, include gender representations into our media that don't necessarily reiterate the same stereotypical roles over and over again? The most memorable Superbowl commercial for me this year was the Toyota commercial where Kaley Cuoco played a genie. When the little girl makes the wish to be a princess (0:27), she is on horse back with armor and a sword, not in a pink dress being rescued by a knight. But this representation of a princess stuck out as different to me from what I have come to expect from our media. I expected the latter and that is a problem. There should be more well rounded representations of gender. 

Deleting Facebook

I have had a Facebook since I was 15 years old. That was seven years ago. I have been posting status updates, writing messages to people, and posting pictures via Facebook for a third of my life.

To some, this may sound cool. I essentially have the ability to look back onto my life and see what I was talking about any day for the past seven years. This freaks me out. When Facebook came out with the new timeline layout I suddenly realized how readily available my 15 year old self thoughts were to the entire Internet and I hated that. So I decided to do something that I assumed was a personal decision and deleted my Facebook. 

I quickly realized how much less this decision had to do with me and how much it apparently insulted many of my "friends". Within the first few weeks without my Facebook I suddenly began receiving text messages and phone calls from some very upset people asking why (not if) I had "unfriended" them on Facebook. My mother even called me to inform me that people from my home town were approaching her and asking why I was upset with them because I had apparently "unfriended" them. These reactions only solidified my decision. 

However, the longer I went without a Facebook I began to realize something was missing. My friends would be frustrated with me that I wasn't aware of the plans they had apparently made, there were inside jokes I didn't get, my classmates were annoyed I couldn't be a part of their Facebook group to plan meetings, and I was no longer talking to some of my friends who live across the country. 

I went about three months without a Facebook. It was a very alleviating experience but what I ultimately learned is that Facebook actually makes life less complicated in many ways. Since my return, I now use Facebook very differently than the average user. I get on maybe once a day and pretty much only use the secret groups of my friends and class groups. But in this middle class University culture that I live in, Facebook is almost a necessity. 

Vigilante Justice

The first week when we were discussing the different rhetorical perspectives, a lot came to mind when the Dramatistic perspective was explained. The concept of the God terms and Devil terms really seemed to apply to the media for me. I watch a lot of scripted drama television and it seems like every one of these shows have certain God terms that really drive the characters and shapes the viewers opinion of those characters and the show as a whole. A lot of time these God terms relate to family and doing what is right to protect the people you love.

It is for exactly this reason that so much vigilante justice exists on these shows. Because popular culture text both justify and break acceptable rules in society, we tend to forgive these characters for the rules they break if they are doing it for a good cause. You tend to feel bad or even proud of the characters that break rules in these shows because they are almost always either doing it for a greater good, asking for forgiveness afterward, standing up and taking the blame for it, or being clever and getting away with it. I'm sure many shows come to mind when you think about this concept. If you are in our Pop Culture class you are probably thinking Breaking Bad because apparently everyone in our class loves that show. Boardwalk Empire always stands out for me. Nucky is a huge gangster that kills someone almost every episode but you are still rooting for him and care about him. I also have been watching a ton of Sons of Anarchy, which essentially has vigilante justice as the title character. The Sons are almost always doing the cops' job of keeping Charming clean of drugs and rapists. And even when they are killing people for their own personal goals, we still do not blame them for their guilt because it is for the greater good and you care about those characters more than the faceless dead people.