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?