True Friends -- Relationships Week 12

Friends. Friends are represented in popular culture in a variety of different ways, but there are definitely some dominant representations of friends that we see more than others. This video clip is filled with such dominant discourses about what makes someone a "true friend."
What are these discourses? What do they tell us about how friends "should" behave?
If the target audience for this video is people under the age of 15, how does that social location impact the meaning of these discourses?

The In-laws -- Relationships Week 12

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msn%20video&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:de6a5020-ed90-4120-9eb0-9d5605b20ab6&showPlaylist=true&from=iv2_en-us_lifestyle_relationships&fg=MSNlifestyles_relationships

What do we expect from our relationships with our “in-laws”?
Many of us are told that the parent’s of our life-partners are supposed to become part of our family, but what is that process supposed to look like? Well, when you watch the way that popular culture reflects the process, it sure seems like it ain’t gonna be something pretty.

“The in-laws” is, in and of itself, a dominant discourse, filled with jokes about uncomfortable moments, awkward relationships, and conflict. This dominant discourses actually suggests that our relationships with our in-laws are bound to be so unpleasant, that they are acceptable to mock. And while many of us experience positive relationships with our in-laws, it would seem from representations in popular culture that these successful relationships are few and far between.

Consider the two clips above. The first, is the trailer for the film, “Meet the Parents,” which epitomizes the dominant discourse about in-laws (in particular the one about the female partner’s father being especially critical and unpleasant). The second, is from the “Today Show,” where we hear a “reporter” in a mall try to make people’s relationships with their in-laws sound worse than they actually are, and a psychologist in studio who prescribes various “solutions” because she believes that there are bound to be various communication problems for people and their in-laws over the holidays.

Watching these clips, what do you learn about the expectations we develop for our in-laws? What potential impact can you see this dominant discourse having on real-life relationships?

My Mom's on Facebook -- Relationships Week 12

In this rather entertaining comedic song, we come across a relatively new development in familial relationships: parents and facebook (or any other social networking site).

Now, I’m not sure how many of you interact with your parents on facebook, or how much you share with them about the things you do when you’re not studying hard at school, but I do know that over the years I’ve discovered there are a lot of things that MY parents are better off NOT knowing. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are VERY cool, and VERY understanding, but there are some behaviors, like drinking and sex, that early in college I discovered were things that my parents didn’t need to know about.

The video above reinforces this discourse—that parents and children are better off not sharing too much of their lives. In fact, this video reproduces some very important discourses about how parents and their children should interact. This video reminds us that there should be limitations surrounding what parents and children know about one another and how “involved” they are in each others’ lives. “Children,” this discourse says, need boundaries with their parents; otherwise, they can’t really be themselves, which of course suggests that children are their “true” selves when they aren’t with their parents. Any chance this discourse facilitates boundaries in the relationships between parents and children?

As we see in the video, this discourse seems to be particularly prominent for mothers and their children. For while it is safe to assume that many fathers wouldn’t react well to seeing their sons (and CERTAINLY their daughters) “debauchery” on facebook, this video promotes the dominant discourse that it is moms as parents who are more likely to be nosy, more likely to try and “connect” with their children, and more likely to be upset by their behavior.

What I find particularly interesting about this video, though, is the way it presents discourses about how relationships between children and parents are changing as a result of social networking sites like facebook. This discourse, like so many others about the internet, reminds us that parents should be fearful/suspicious/on top of their children’s social networking, and reminds us that when “children” are being asked by mom or dad to be a “friend” on facebook—and likewise when they have to deal with the process of deciding whether to “confirm” or “ignore” them—they are going to feel uncomfortable and awkward. This video employs discourses which teach us that “confirming” mom might lead to “destroying all my [our] privacy,” and that social networking sites are going to be a place of tension between parents and their children. Parents need to "watch out" for what their kids are doing on the internet, and "kids" need to watch out for their parents getting too close and too involved with their lives.

Defining Family -- Relationships Week 12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhbNJ4zJA1A

The clips above are both from reality TV shows in which families are the focal point. We see from these clips some VERY different styles of families. These clips show us a wide variety of discourses about the ways that motherhood, fatherhood, work, marriage and parenting function in a family.

It would seem, then, from watching these clips that discourses about families in popular culture provide a certain amount of flexibility—a way of seeing that all families are different.
However, while there is no question that these families look and behave differently from one another, there is also no question that there are dominant discourses present in these shows that create consistency in how we define families. For example, all of these families have two parents, which reflects a dominant discourse about the ways families should be structured.

In fact, these dominant discourses reinforce the basic parameters for how we perceive and understand families in the first place. In other words, these dominant discourses are what inform us that these groups of people are not just groups, but ARE families.

What are some of these dominant discourses? What do they tell us about how families should function? In particular, what do these clips show us about which types of relationships & roles families “need”?

In the end, while popular culture does reflect different “types” of families, what we can see from these clips, is that it also reinforces certain hegemonic ideas of what families should be.

Cancer -- The Body Week 11

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/koppel-living-with-cancer-you-dont-stop-living.html

Cancer afflicts about 1.5 million Americans every year with over 500,000 dying from the disease. Cancer (and its prevention) has become a common discourse that informs us about our bodies and how they can “betray” us. Discourses about cancer in popular culture have made ALL of us familiar with the disease being both common and deadly.

Yet what do these discourses tell us about cancer and how we are to understand it? What are the representations of cancer we see most often? What do these discourses tell us about our own bodies, and the realities of living with illness? Does popular culture teach us to “fear” cancer and illness?

The videos above highlight a variety of discourses about cancer, our fears of illness, how our culture should "respond" to illness, and even illuminates the links between discourses of happiness and discourses of illness. Don’t let cancer get the best of you, we are reminded. Prevent it before it happens, we are told. But can you “live life to its fullest” even when you have cancer?

In her book, “Ordinary Life: A Memior of Illness,” Kathyln Conway writes the following, "I resent reading glib, cute stories about cancer not being so bad, and I hate hearing that cancer made someone a better person. It's only making me a worse person”…People want to hear stories "of lessons learned, of cancer as a transformative experience."

Do dominant discourses about illness and how they “other” our bodies make more it likely that we will hear more positive stories about people “overcoming” the challenges of cancer instead of more negative stories about people suffering through it? Why/why not?

I'm on a Diet -- The Body Week 11

The industries surrounding health/fitness, weight-loss and diet make over 35 billion dollars a year in sales. The success of these industries depends heavily on the production & reproduction of dominant discourses that criticize and “other” bodies that are not thin. The impact of these discourses is obvious, AND profound.

With clever names like, Nutrisystem and Medifast, we are informed that we can actually transform who we are, not just the way we look. In other words, these discourses create “othering” by reminding us that being overweight is not only bad dangerous, and undesirable, but apparently, it fundamentally changes who you are (and clearly, not in a good way).

Furthermore, the fact that these discourses are encoded in so many different ways plays a large role in the impact they have. The basic dominant discourse that fat bodies are wrong, bad, ugly, unhealthy etc., is reproduced through websites, ludicrous surveys, and medical professionals who talk about the dangers of belly-fat.

Take a look at the videos and websites below and consider how they “other” fat bodies. What do you observe? What impact does this type of “othering” have on our indentities?






http://chli.com/packages/individual_package/promotional?gclid=CNiu9MDHp54CFShSagod4wrklw

http://www.medifast1.com/?campaign=3257&gclid=CI7VlszHp54CFRhfagodEQhWlQ

Gender Wars -- Gender and Sex Week 10

The title “Why Men Are Becoming More Like Women” caught my eye on Huffington Post this week (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcus-buckingham/why-men-are-becoming-more_b_360349.html).
It’s an article written by Marcus Buckingham in response to Time magazine’s article “The State of American Women”
(http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1930277_1930145_1930309-2,00.html).
Time declared the gender wars “over” and the result a “tie”: “It's no longer a man's world…nor is it a woman's nation. It's a cooperative, with bylaws under constant negotiation, and expectations that profits be equally shared." However, Buckingham has a different interpretation of the research and trends Time used to justify their declaration. His interpretation centers on the issue of choice, which makes it particularly relevant to this class, since we’ve been talking about the positive value of being able to position oneself in relation to gender discourses rather than simply being positioned by them.

Interestingly, Buckingham links this idea of choice with “being women” – which explains his title (which I assume was meant to be provocative – “oh no, men are becoming like women, scary!). So his interpretation of the outcome of the gender “wars” is that gender norms are less rigid, that everyone has more choices about how to “perform gender”, and because of that “women have won.” According to the author, “The choice-filled world that women have bestowed on men is a tough world. Tough on women; even tougher on men.”

What might be the effects of assuming and declaring that less rigid gender norms and more choice means that women – their “attitudes, behaviors and preoccupations” - have won? How does this idea relate to the gender discourses we see in popular culture (and that we’ve been exploring in class)?

These articles highlight the social constructionist view of multiple realities and how these are constructed based on social location, the different experiences these locations give rise to, and the stories we tell ourselves and others – what we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore (including research and “trends”).

Have we as a society been engaged in a “gender war?” Is this war ongoing, or is it indeed over? Are we at a stand-off? A truce? Did one side win? Are we better or worse off now than before? The answers to these questions undoubtedly depend on who is answering them and what they choose to use to justify their answers.

How do the ideas of multiple realities & social location from social constructionism help you make sense of (deconstruct) these two articles? Why might deconstructing these “stories” be helpful and important in our society?

And what about the “negatives” that Buckingham says are the result of “women winning” – that more choice means more confusion and more guilt? How might a social constructionist respond to that?

Criticizing Masculinity -- Gender and Sex Week 10

These two advertisements for Polysporin & Verizon Wireless are part of a unique genre of representations of masculinity. In these advertisements, men are portrayed as being unable to meet the hegemonic standards of masculinity in that they are not “tough” enough, or are not self-reliant enough to be “real” men. These men are portrayed as being idiots with little or no common sense. They are also portrayed as being disposable. They can be physically hurt or emotionally belittled because they are represented as not meeting hegemonic norms for masculinity. In the Verizon ad, for example, we see a dad being shown as moron who needs his daughter to explain the “magic” of the internet to him, and who can’t even be trusted to complete the simplest of tasks (washing the dog). Furthermore, his daughter and wife seem to treat him as nothing more than a nuisance, and when they do so, his response to them shows him not only lacking any toughness or aggression, but lacking any basic self-esteem or assertiveness.

It is interesting to consider the impact that hegemonic masculinity and social location have on the way our culture views advertisements like these as being “acceptable” or “appropriate.” If the gender of the characters in these commercials were switched, would we respond differently? If a man and his son treated a mother the way the Verizon daughter and mother speak to the Verizon father, would this blatant disrespect be culturally acceptable? In effect, these advertisements, and hundreds of others like them (and TV shows, movies, etc.) inform us that men who do not follow the rules of hegemonic masculinity cease to deserve basic respect and are acceptable to victimize. However, because men as a social group retain a great deal of social and political power, discourses that devalue them as people become more culturally tolerable (this advertisement WAS eventually removed after repeated criticisms of it being anti-male & anti-father).

While these advertisements may seem like they contain alternative discourses about masculinity, they do not. Rather, these advertisements show us the consequence of what happens to men if they do NOT “live up” to being a real man. They serve to reinforce the hegemonic by reminding us that men should be “real” men, otherwise, they are acceptable objects for us to mock and laugh at.

No Homo -- Gender and Sex Week 10

Based on our discussions in class, it should be clear that there is tremendous pressure on men to prove that they are not gay or in any way feminine.
As we learn from this clip, such discourses of masculinity have taken a new turn with the phrase, “no homo.” Simply stated, this phrase provides men a way to express emotion, discuss beautiful weather, and even talk about homosexual sex, while at the same time clearly communicating that such “feminine” traits do not make them gay. This phrase is a powerful commentary on the links between hegemonic discourses that tell men not to be feminine, and hegemonic discourses that suggest any expression of femininity must be followed by homophobia.

How does this clip challenge the phrase “no homo” and the hegemonic discourses it promotes? What does the phrase “no homo” tell us about the expectations being placed on male behavior? What potential impacts does the phrase “no homo” have on different groups of men?
In addition, as this phrase was generated from Hip-Hop music, what, if anything, does it tell us about discourses of race and how they inform/relate to discourses of masculinity?

A Woman's Nation -- Femininity Week 9

Recently, Maria Shriver, reporter and first lady of California, launched a new website and media series called “A Woman’s Nation.”

Visit these websites, look around, and watch some clips.

http://www.awomansnation.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33247001/

These websites reveal many dominant discourses about women, and also inform us about which discourses of femininity are “relevant” in news media today. They inform us about motherhood, working women, representations of women on TV, and more. However, at the same time, they clearly do NOT inform us about ALL women, or even a broad array of the possible discourses that exist about women. Why?

There are also some significant differences between the sites even though they are based on the same study. The MSNBC website, for example, reflects the news media’s interpretations of the study, and thus explores these topics in a way that emphasizes and models more dominant discourses about femininity. Why?

Which discourses of femininity do these websites choose to emphasize? Which do they ignore? Which women are charged with reporting this information to us, and how do they differ from the women they are supposed to be reporting about? How do the discourses of femininity portrayed on these websites position the women and men who view these programs?

Femininity & Alternative Discourse -- Femininity Week 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8e6-IeQ0aw

Alternative discourses can provide us with a valuable tool for identifying and understanding dominant discourses and their impact on us. This is understandable, as dominant discourses are frequently experienced as “taken for granted truths,” so it’s easy for us to be unaware of how we’re being positioned by them, until we are presented with some “alternatives” or “challenges” to them.

This SNL clip starring Natalie Portman asserts several alternative discourses about femininity. In the clip, this young, petite, White woman is performing a form of gangster rap. She is, therefore, portrayed as vulgar, aggressive, angry and even violent (which coincides with our dominant discourses about Black men and gangster rap). The producers of this clip clearly thought that their audience would be amused by this representation. Why? What assumptions were they making about us and how we view femininity?

When we laugh at this clip (and/or find it amusing), we are recognizing that the behavior being displayed is NOT what we typically associate with femininity. This, in turn, highlights what the dominant discourses about femininity actually are—that women should be docile, calm, passive, & polite.

Certainly part of what makes this clip funny (and/or amusing) is that Natalie Portman, a film star, is not someone who we associate with this type of behavior (the clip clearly shows this in the segments where she is being interviewed). The “joke” is that Natalie isn’t the “nice girl” people expect her to be. Of course, if we change Natalie’s social location, our expectations of “nice girl” change along with them. If, for example, Natalie were a Black woman film star doing gangster rap, would our interpretation of her actions be different? Would we still be as amused or think it was as funny? In other words, Natalie’s social location as a young, petite, White female film star fits with the dominant discourses about femininity, so when she performs this alternative discourse about femininity we are able to find it funny/amusing.

So when you watch this clip, which alternative discourses about femininity do you notice? What do they tell you about dominant discourses of femininity?

Questioning Gender -- Gender & Sexuality Week 8

Gender construction begins at a very young age. Watch this clip and identify the discourses about gender that are already so dominant for these young children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWc1e3Nbc2g

There is no doubt our socialization into gender begins at a young age. What is important to note from a social constructionist perspective, though, is that our gender subject positions are constantly being reinforced by dominant discourses, which is part of why it is so difficult for people to have those subject positions challenged directly. Even as adults, many of us are obsessed with trying to apply our discourses about gender (in particular the binaries about gender, behavior, and sexuality) onto the world around us. We are often “confused” when people do not fit into our discourses about gender. The image above of “Pat” from SNL, epitomizes this in that the entire skit is based on the idea that people can’t “figure out” what Pat “is”. Take the following link as an example.
http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/23658986.aspx?MsdVisit=1
This is from a popular blog called, “The Knot.” Notice here, someone has posted a question about how to identify the gender of a person with whom they work. It certainly seems from their post (and the comments below) that there is no hostility or anger directed toward the “genderless” person, but there is no doubt that it is more than mere curiosity motivating their inquiry. There are serious concerns about how to interact WITH, and how to refer TO this person. The responses to the post are VERY informative as well, in that not a single person suggests (not surprisingly because our discourses about gender are hegemonic) the possibility that this person may not fit into the category of “man” or “woman.” Instead, we see one dominant discourse about gender after the other. What would this post (and comments) mean to someone who is transgender or intersex? How might the dominant discourses acted out on this blog reinforce social power? Might the transgender or intersex person reading this feel shamed, different, or ostracized because they are hearing over and over again that people think if you don’t fit into these dominant categories then you are not normal—you are some sort of “freak?”

Unfortunately, the process of questioning gender is not always as “tame” as it is on the Knot. As a result of our gendered subject positions being so dominant a part of our identities, so important a part of our performing masculinity or femininity from the youngest of ages, serious challenges to those positions are often met with open hostility. This hostility can be heard in the screams of “fag” & “dyke” on our schoolyard playgrounds, in our hip-hop records, or on any number of Reality TV shows. But this hostility all too often manifests itself in violence. Below is an article about a transgender woman who was brutally murdered when the man she was dating discovered she was not biologically female. In the article, the defense attorney is quoted saying, “That while Andrade did kill Zapata, it was not premeditated. Instead, Andrade acted in a moment of rage upon discovering that Zapata was transgender.” What about Zapata being transgender was so terrible that it motivated such rage and murder? Could it be that our dominant discourses about gender, those that we internalize and use to create our subject positions, facilitate a culture in which violence like this is possible?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/16/transgender.slaying.trial/index.html

Virginity -- Gender & Sexuality Week 8

Ah, virginity. A discourse about sexuality that literally is as old as recorded history. Virginity as a discourse has come a long way since the Virgin Mary, but it still dominates much of our thinking about sex. Virginity is a concern for many young women and men, and the social implications of “being a virgin” versus NOT “being a virgin” are rather severe.

For example, I was once giving a violence prevention workshop to a group of junior high students. After my presentation, a young woman came up to me and told me a story about how she’d had oral and anal sex. She wanted me to confirm for her that she could still consider herself a virgin. She was TERRIFIED by the idea that she was not a virgin, and was even more terrified of what it would mean to other people if she wasn’t a virgin.

In fact, Oprah dedicated an entire episode of her show to discuss tweens who were engaging in various sex acts (oral, anal, other) in order to “keep” their virginities in tact. From a social constructionist perspective, it is fascinating that both the tweens on Oprah and the junior high school student with whom I spoke believed that a certain type of sex, i.e. penile-vaginal intercourse, was the only way to “lose” one’s virginity. This dominant discourse about virginity implies that penile-vaginal sex is THE most important type of sex. This should come as no surprise. After all, how many of us have been exposed to the “baseball diamond” analogy about sex, in which oral sex (& sometimes anal sex) is considered “third base,” while penile-vaginal sex is considered a “home run.” Such discourses about virginity/sex are rather limiting, since sex can be experienced in so many ways, and they are certainly heterosexist in that they clearly suggest that if one does not have penile-vaginal intercourse then one has not “really” experienced sex—or for that matter, has not “lost” their virginity.

In our culture, there are countless discourses that promote the importance of virginity. Many religious discourses promote the notion that virginity until marriage, in particular for a woman, is a measure of purity, a measure of a person’s “quality”. But religion is by far the only location where this dominant discourse is promoted. Our culture is FULL of references to the fact that we (especially women) are supposed to “save” our virginity for someone special—or that at the very least, we are supposed to think about our “first time” having sex as something important. This is not to suggest that our first sexual experience shouldn’t be meaningful, but from a social constructionist perspective, we should question why so many discourses instruct us about the meaning of “losing” our virginity. Part of such questioning might involve asking how someone actually “loses” their virginity in the first place. Loses it? Like losing your car keys? This language (and discourse) implies that virginity is not an idea, but rather that it actually “exists,” that it is “real.” Virginity, apparently, is so real that it is like a material possession, one that can be “lost,” or “stolen.”

Back in September of 2008, a woman who called herself Natalie Dylan, put her virginity up for auction to the highest bidder. When she (and the brothel in Nevada helping her—The Bunny Ranch) began to promote her auction, the media response was remarkable. She was on every news channel for days, and her action prompted countless discussions about women’s empowerment, prostitution, morality, etc.

Below are three links that provide us with powerful examples about the dominant discourses that surround virginity. The first two links are news coverage about Natalie’s auction from CNN and a local Sacramento news channel, in which we are exposed to questions about the “value” of virginity, and many examples of people internalizing discourses about virginity. Then there is the last link, which is an op-ed written by Natalie Dylan herself. In it, she explains her rationale for auctioning her virginity by using several alternative discourses to challenge the criticism she was receiving.

Needless to say, there are COUNTLESS interpretations we can create from all of the discourses about virginity, but regardless of the meanings you see, there can be little doubt that virginity as a discourse has a dramatic impact on our conceptualizations about sex, and our own identities.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1547743588883333195#docid=6056890354786360040

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/01/22/virginity.value/index.html

http://www.alternet.org/sex/123185/why_i%27m_selling_my_virginity/

Linking Gender & Sexuality -- Gender & Sexuality Week 8

In class we discussed the ways in which gender and sexuality are linked through discourse. Below are two clips that help emphasize this point. These SNL skits are highly dependent on the social locations (in particular the gender and sexual orientation) of the performers in order to create humor. In other words, the way the characters act (sexually) makes sense to us because of their social locations as straight men. Thus, the fact they are obsessed with sex and their penises “makes sense” to us. In fact, both skits utilize the “male sex drive” discourse to construct meaning, and thus demonstrate how gender and sexual behavior are connected in our minds.

It is also interesting to note that in both skits, in particular, “motherlover,” there is a good amount homoeroticism (i.e. sexual tension) between the two male performers. While the skit is definitely reinforcing the “straightness” of these two characters, it is also creating humor from the fact that these two men are so obsessed with one another that it “almost” seems like they’re sexually into one another (note the moment when one of them puts the picture of the other up before sex). Again, we see that the humor created by this “attraction” depends on the audience being able to identify that these individuals share the same social location (as men), and that based on discourses about that social location, certain sexual acts (i.e. being attracted to one another) are considered awkward, or taboo—hence, the audience laughter.

In as much, how do the social locations of the performers create the humor in the skits? In other words, if you were to change the gender of the performers, what would happen to the humor? How would the jokes change? How would the insinuations about sexuality change? Would a song entitled, “pussy in a box” or “fatherlover” be interpreted the same way? Why/why not? What does this tell us about the ways we link discourses of gender and sexuality?

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1596/saturday-night-live-dick-in-a-box-uncensored

http://www.hulu.com/watch/73123/saturday-night-live-digital-short-motherlover-uncensored

What to Buy? -- Consumerism Week 7

What are we supposed to spend our money on? What’s worth it and what’s not?
Advertising is full of discourses that claim to inform us about how we should be making such choices. In class, we mentioned discourses like The Material Good Life and The Body Perfect, both of which inform us about what is “worth” spending money on. Yet understanding the way consumerism produces so much discontent, requires understanding the ways that we value and criticize our choices about what we spend our money on. Consider the following…

Save money? Live Better?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbucVty-_xs
In this advertisement Wal-Mart informs us that we can “save money and live better.” However, is what they’re saying, “save your money and don’t spend to live better,” or "spend your money at Wal-Mart so you can live better?” Which discourses about consumerism are being used in this advertisement, and for what purpose? Wal-Mart clearly wants us to spend our money at Wal-Mart, that’s why they spent the time and money creating this advertisement. So what is the idea they are trying to sell us? Do people who care about “what’s really important” not spend money on unimportant things? Does this advertisement suggests what should be identified as a “thing” that is important versus a “thing” that isn’t?
It seems this advertisement is implying that by shopping at Wal-Mart, by spending less for what we “need,” we will then have money left over to spend on those things that “really matter,” like our families (and summer vacations). In other words, there's a "right" way to spend your money, and that means spending less, so that we can then spend more. Does feeling good about spending your money require that you spend less money on unimportant things or more money on important things? If you spend on the wrong thing, do you not have the "correct" priorities?

Be Smart?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewCSdHnvTs
You’re only as smart as what you buy. That’s the motto in this advertisement.
In other words, dumb people don’t spend their money in the “right” way. Not only does this advertisement clearly define “smart” for us, but it helps us understand the “right” way to spend our money, the right way to be happy.
What does this advertisement suggest smart is? Which dominant discourses are used to teach us what smart is? Does a smart person buy the “right” product? Do they spend their money on things that are “worth-while?”
This advertisement reinforces the discourse that buyers remorse, something we ALL experience at some point, is most likely related to our intelligence, to our making the “correct” choices. If we save our money buying a Hyundai instead of another car, we are making smart choices that we will not regret.
Of course, most of us WILL make choices we regret, so how do the discourses used in this commercial likely leave us feeling about ourselves?

The Cage Within -- Consumerism Week 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBMHz1Dthw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM-yQLZbatc
In these commercials for Electrolux appliances, we are exposed to a VAST array of discourses. For example, both ads use the Material Good Life discourse. They both clearly suggest that having these material items makes your life better. The ads tell us “Dreams come true when you have an Electrolux,” and “Electrolux, be even more amazing.” Such statements reinforce the discourse that such material items will result in real improvements, in real happiness, for us. In fact, these discourses epitomize how we learn to connect our happiness to the consumption of material goods, and how that process constructs “The Cage Within.”

However, to understand just how powerful “The Cage Within” is, and why these dominant discourses about consumerism are so effective, we have to further deconstruct HOW advertisers represent this happiness that we are meant to desire. The first deconstructing question to ask, then, is what other dominant discourses we are exposed to in these advertisements that reinforce the “good life” portion of the Material Good Life? What do these dominant discourses tell us about what “happiness” should be, or what “amazing” looks like? In identifying and understanding the impact of these discourses we gain insight about how The Material Good Life remains such a dominant discourse, and how it produces "The Cage Within."

The second deconstructing question to ask comes from our understanding that advertisers produce commercials with specific audiences in mind. Thus, we can further deconstruct the creation of “The Cage Within” by asking questions about the social location of the audiences targeted by these commercials. What is the social location of these commercials’ audience? Based on that social location, what can we determine about WHY these dominant discourses are being used, and what they mean for the audience’s subject positions? In other words, if these ads are targeted at affluent women (mostly mothers) between the ages of 25-50, what can we ascertain about how they will be impacted by the discourses of happiness represented? How is this audience "supposed" to feel about The Material Good Life? How do the discourses in this commercial reinforce “The Cage Within" for this particular audience?

Consumerism & Hegemony -- Consumerism Week 7

In a culture saturated with discourses that encourage us to spend money in order to find happiness, it should come as no shock that many of us spend more money than we actually have. The current recession/depression has highlighted some alternative discourses about consumerism—many of which address the “spending problem” that we have as a culture. This Saturday Night Live skit uses some of those alternative discourses in its satire of our desire to spend more money than we have.

However, upon closer examination, is this clip reinforcing dominant discourses as well? It seems to suggest that people who do not have enough money, or people who have come into financial trouble, are “at fault” for their fortunes, and that these individuals are, for lack of a better term, stupid, which is WHY they’re having problems with money in the first place.

While this skit is certainly challenging dominant discourses like “shop till you drop,” the material good life,” and “the freedom to choose” with an alternative discourse of, “if you don’t have money, don’t buy anything,” it is also promoting another dominant discourse. This other discourse reinforces the notion that “smart” people don’t make bad choices. It suggests that those who are having financial problems should feel like it is ALL their fault. They SHOULD “know better.” Notice the skit makes no attempt to provide a cultural or historical context for why so many American’s want to spend money in the first place. Is this because if the skit did provide this context, it wouldn’t still be funny to us? Is the humor in the skit actually based on reinforcing (instead of challenging) the hegemony (cultural dominance) of discourses that blame problems in the American economy solely on those who spend too much, not on the culture that encourages their spending? Are we laughing because we recognize how ridiculous it is that we’ve been told to spend money in order to feel good AND then told to criticize ourselves when we spend? Or are we laughing because we believe these dominant discourses are “true”?