CMC100 Marshall Final
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Question 1- Capitals
Question 2- Fallacies
Monday, December 6, 2010
Bonus- Question 13- Feminist waves
Here is an image that I can relate the three waves of feminism to.The context of the right magazine cover is that Halle Berry is featuerd as the sexiest woman of the year.
First wave feminism is purely quantitative. It is generally just about basic human rights. It is almost the foundations of the second and third waves as it is the most broad of the three. The advertisement displays Berry as this sexually powerful woman as she is compared to the President. She is appropriating Dominance and because she is compared to the President, it gives her choices and represents power. That is an example of third wave feminism, which builds off of the first wave.
The third wave was more about choice, allowing woman to do what they wanted. It was trying to fix the issues regarding how men are always the dominant ones, especially in the workplace environment. The second wave was more about equal recognition, not really about surpassing men in the boardroom etc. but to be on an equal playing ground. Which fixed the first wave's generalizations about human rights. The image signifies that women can become a sexually attractive, boardroom executive based from the textual elements from the ad. But overall it is more of a third wave picture.
As the waves get higher, the rights women have seem to increase. They build upon one another and allow women to become equally represented to the point of dominating over men.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Question 10- Three texts
Here is an image I found that was for the Sony PSP system
I remember when the advertisement came out and I remember it was banned in many places, and it seems like for good reasons. Many of the chapters and articles we read can be applied to this image but I think the three main ones are: "Cultural Studies Vs Political Economy" by Grossberg, "Advertising and Political Economy of Gay/Lesbian Identity" by Fejes, and "Postmodern Blackness" by Hooks.
I really like how almost any image or cultural/political idea we talked about in Critical Media and Cultural Studies class can stem from Grossberg's article. The political economy implications that stem from this picture are not quite as clear as the cultural implications, but I believe that the white woman could represent capitalism because of her dominant position over the black woman. It signifies that the white color is truly the best color for the PSP and that colors could represent the capitalistic system in which products are released. Culturally, there are some heavy racial themes in the advertisement. It almost goes without saying, a white woman dominating over a black woman, which historically is associated with white male landowners have a higher position over black slaves. Another interesting component is how it ties into gay/lesbian identity and how Fejes describes it.
The white woman does like homo erotic as she is physically touching another woman along with her clothing choice. There is also an important reason why the creator chose to use two females instead of two males. I believe it was to tie the advertisement more into homo erotic themes instead of racial (which is still heavily present). Grossberg's article can be narrowed down further into the advertising of Lesbian/Gay idenitiy from the fact that those topics stem from both political and cultural areas.
Even though I think homo eroticism is a large component of this advertisement, the textual elements of race are still strong and noteworthy. Hook's chapter about postmodern blackness. When he talks about the sixties and how repressive the postmodern state was and how race was viewed also reminded me of how the advertisement is constructed. I think its also important that the word "white" is separated from the rest of the copy. Race, gender, and sexuality stems from cultural studies. All the texts I chose follow that path, Grossberg gives a general overview of cultural studies and the political economy, and Fejes/Hooks go off of that idea and give a critical view of the issues associated with their topics.