The lines of entertainment and information have been blurred in contemporary television programming when it comes to the delivery of political commentary and coverage in the United States leading to a confusion as to whether or not a television show should be taken as a credible news and political discussion source such as Mad Money or a piece of entertaining theatre that is purely for laughs like The Daily Show. However, these days I don’t think that many people can tell the difference between entertainment and infotainment, but I don’t really think that is such a big problem, unless the focus or agenda of the program becomes more important than the information being presented. I will be looking at the information provided and the agenda behind two hot TV shows that offer information that is viewed as entertainment (Mad Money with Jim Cramer) and a show that offers entertainment which is viewed for information (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).
Mad Money
CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Cramer’s is a finance television show whose main focus is on investment and speculation, particularly in publicly traded securities. The general format of the show starts with two segments, where Cramer recommends one or more stocks in a group with his rationale for choosing them. At the end of each segment, Cramer will take one or two calls from viewers with questions about either the stock he recommended, or another stock in the same industry or which the viewer thinks may benefit from the topic discussed.
Now, there is nothing wrong with informing a public audience and educating them on things that could potentially bring them good fortune (of course, investment information given on Mad Money is only speculation and that is state very early on during the show). However, using such an important topic like investments and market health in a time of economic downturn is not something that should be used so much for entertainment. Ironically enough, Jon Stewart in a Daily Show segment calls out Jim Cramer about his over abuse of bringing entertainment and information together without being able to admit that Mad Money is for pure entertainment.
Daily Show
On the other side of the infotainment spectrum comes a show that is built for entertainment and is sold to its audiences as such, just not always looked at in that way.
Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has become more strongly focused around politics and the national media and describes itself as a fake news program drawing its comedy from recent news stories, satirizing political figures, media organizations, and often, aspects of the show itself.
Television ratings show that the program generally has 1.45 to 1.6 million viewers’ nightly leading commentators such as Howard Dean and Ted Koppel say that The Daily Show serves as a real source of news for young people, regardless of its intentions.
Because The Daily show is a nightly entertainment program that is on-air for almost 42 weeks out of the year, it is not hard to see how it can be a reputable and up to date news source. For someone who would have had no idea what had happened during the day the show not only offers the actual information and news from the day, but it also puts its comedic spin onto the story instead of placing a framed media agenda or scare tactic into the story that is possible to come from other news sources.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Disney is just all white with me!
I have found that even in today’s more accepting and global society it is very easy to pick out the old traditional styling’s that went into making some of the earliest films.
Disney Channel Television shows such as Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody are two prime examples of Disney’s hottest and most popular pre-teen television shows that are fully laden with racial and social stereotypes, token characters, and both follow a classical Hollywood form that quite resembles motion pictures of a much earlier era.
The series Hannah Montana focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cyrus) by day and a famous pop singer named Hannah Montana by night, concealing her real identity from the public, other than her close friends and family.
As if the name Hannah Montana could not sound any whiter (besides being named after a state that is 90.6% White according to the Montana Census and Economic Information Center in 2000), the cast resembles the state’s demographics. Out of six listed main characters in the series only one of them would be considered non-white. Moises Arias, a Columbian-American who plays a sly, smooth talking, wisecracking, very child-like “Latino-Lover” beachfront shop owner ironically named Rico.
Not only does this subtly introduce Latin American stereotyped concepts, it also gives Hannah Montana her only recurring token character.
A show even less subtle at token characters mixed with racial stereotypes and new age equalities is Disney Channel’s “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”. The show centers upon Zack and Cody Martin, twin brothers who live in the Tipton Hotel where their mother, Carey, sings and performs in the hotel lounge. Also residing at the hotel is the hotel owner's daughter, London Tipton, who is impolite and ditzy. Maddie, is the hotel's down-to-earth candy-counter girl. Mr. Moseby, the strict, dutiful and serious manager is often a foil to Zack and Cody's schemes.
Two characters that I would like to concentrate on are Mr. Moseby and London Tipton, the shows token racially defined characters.
Mr. Moseby is described as the somewhat uptight manager of the Tipton Hotel, who speaks with a wide vocabulary and an urbane vernacular, along with speaking a number of different languages besides English (French, Japanese, Swahili, Spanish, etc.). Now, in early film an African American male would not have been portrayed as a successfully employed, educated, and caring person. However, Disney has used classical form to also portray Mr. Moseby as slightly effeminate (closeting homosexual tendancies) as well as allowing him to fill the role of the classical “Coon” character.
Though London is obviously an Asian-American, she is portrayed as a parody of the American socialite Paris Hilton. London is an air headed heiress, and leads a wild girl fabulous life as heiress of the Tipton Estate. She is a spoiled, rich and often insults her peers by comparing how they dress. Her character is very Americentric and naïve. Her character is what I would consider to be an extremely youthfully conservative version of the Victorian defined by the virgin-whore complex. (Benshoff and Griffin, 2008)
The television media industry has come a long way in it's many years producing and developing shows and characters, but when will it be able to leave behind it's formulaic ways and be able to create something completley brand new? Or, is the damage been done so much to say that any way you spin a character there is always going to be something that can be construed as typical or racist of a character?
Disney Channel Television shows such as Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody are two prime examples of Disney’s hottest and most popular pre-teen television shows that are fully laden with racial and social stereotypes, token characters, and both follow a classical Hollywood form that quite resembles motion pictures of a much earlier era.
The series Hannah Montana focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cyrus) by day and a famous pop singer named Hannah Montana by night, concealing her real identity from the public, other than her close friends and family.
As if the name Hannah Montana could not sound any whiter (besides being named after a state that is 90.6% White according to the Montana Census and Economic Information Center in 2000), the cast resembles the state’s demographics. Out of six listed main characters in the series only one of them would be considered non-white. Moises Arias, a Columbian-American who plays a sly, smooth talking, wisecracking, very child-like “Latino-Lover” beachfront shop owner ironically named Rico.
Not only does this subtly introduce Latin American stereotyped concepts, it also gives Hannah Montana her only recurring token character.
A show even less subtle at token characters mixed with racial stereotypes and new age equalities is Disney Channel’s “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”. The show centers upon Zack and Cody Martin, twin brothers who live in the Tipton Hotel where their mother, Carey, sings and performs in the hotel lounge. Also residing at the hotel is the hotel owner's daughter, London Tipton, who is impolite and ditzy. Maddie, is the hotel's down-to-earth candy-counter girl. Mr. Moseby, the strict, dutiful and serious manager is often a foil to Zack and Cody's schemes.
Two characters that I would like to concentrate on are Mr. Moseby and London Tipton, the shows token racially defined characters.
Mr. Moseby is described as the somewhat uptight manager of the Tipton Hotel, who speaks with a wide vocabulary and an urbane vernacular, along with speaking a number of different languages besides English (French, Japanese, Swahili, Spanish, etc.). Now, in early film an African American male would not have been portrayed as a successfully employed, educated, and caring person. However, Disney has used classical form to also portray Mr. Moseby as slightly effeminate (closeting homosexual tendancies) as well as allowing him to fill the role of the classical “Coon” character.
Though London is obviously an Asian-American, she is portrayed as a parody of the American socialite Paris Hilton. London is an air headed heiress, and leads a wild girl fabulous life as heiress of the Tipton Estate. She is a spoiled, rich and often insults her peers by comparing how they dress. Her character is very Americentric and naïve. Her character is what I would consider to be an extremely youthfully conservative version of the Victorian defined by the virgin-whore complex. (Benshoff and Griffin, 2008)
The television media industry has come a long way in it's many years producing and developing shows and characters, but when will it be able to leave behind it's formulaic ways and be able to create something completley brand new? Or, is the damage been done so much to say that any way you spin a character there is always going to be something that can be construed as typical or racist of a character?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Everything I learned...I learned from Racist Cartoons!
For many years Hollywood has been in the business of making historically racist films. It is more common for people to be able to identify racial stereotypes in movies than anywhere else.
Something to be considered is the fact that in history it was not only in film has there been a great deal of stereotypical racism. Cartoons have been a source of racism just as long as films have been. Two of the major motion picture companies that produce and put out animated cartoons are also some of the largest releasers of racial stereotypes.
I have been able to find racial stereotypes in animated cartoons from Warner Brothers and Disney that stereotype African Americans, Arabs, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.
It is only too easy if you really stop to think about it that a majority of Disney animated films have a great deal of racism tied into its works.
Wonderful World of Racism
For all Disney's contributions to American culture, Disney children's films are not without fault. Widely accused of sexism and poor ethics, several Disney movies also express and romanticize racism, one of the ugliest traits seen throughout American history.
While it could be argued that racism can be seen to some degree or another in nearly every Disney film, some of the corporation's movies illustrate racism to a deeper or more offensive degree than others.
Released long after most of the other overtly racist Disney films, Aladdin received heat even from its first release. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the film was a set of lines in the opening song "Arabian Nights", which is a pure example of Orientalism. The song described the Middle East as a land, "Were they cut off your ear/if they don't like your face/ It's barbaric, but hey, it's home." The line was altered slightly in the more recent releases of the film.
The film could also be considered racist in that it portrays Arab culture as deeply oppressive of women and brutally violent. Princess Jasmine is trapped mercilessly inside her palace home, and the palace guards threaten to cut off her hand at one point in the film. It might also be noted that the villains in the film look distinctly more "ethnic" than Aladdin and Jasmine, who both appear Caucasian. The message to kids: good guys are white, bad guys are not.
Disney's racism hits an unprecedented peak in Peter Pan, in which the protagonists encounter a tribe of fairy tale Native Americans. The Indians (or "Injuns" as it is pronounced) are all essentially mute except for the chief, himself a crass, inaccurate stereotype, and communicate like animals in a variety of crude grunts and mumbles. They have bright red skin, are portrayed as patriarchal and oppressive, and are very ugly.
The worst aspect of this racist portrayal is the Eurocentric song "What Makes a Red Man Red", which is sung by the chief in broken, primitive English. The song explains that "Injuns" say "Ugg" --because, according to Disney, they communicate only in grunts -- because of an occurrence when the "first brave married squaw". It gives a similar explanation for why "the red man is red", as if to imply that the default skin color is white and all variations require explanation.
Warner "Brutha's"?
“Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” (1943) is an American cartoon, Warner Brothers’ answer to Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). It is seven-minute long, set to jazz music and has an all-black cast.
Some say it is one of the best cartoons ever made, yet Cartoon Network, which owns the rights, never shows it. It was pulled from American television in 1968 and became one of the “Censored 11″.
While it is clear that it is well made and that you are supposed to be laughing your head off, it is shocking stuff. It keeps hitting you over the head with image after image of blacks as being little better than monkey men, as creatures with huge lips and big eyes. The main story teller is that of the mammy character who sits by the fire and tells the tale of So White. (This became apparent to me upon further review when I discovered...her name is MAMMY!)
The only character who looks like a black person in a cartoon and not some creature is So White, the main character (called Coal Black in the title to avoid trouble with Disney). She is an attractive character. But even she is a stereotype: she shows way more flesh than Snow White and sleeps with her would-be killers, the stereotypical jezebel stereotype.
The evil queen is a big, ugly black woman who sounds like a man. Another stereotype.
Prince Chawmin, who is the classic example of the "coon", wears a zoot suit, drives a big car and has gold teeth. As for the Sebben Dwarfs they are something less than human. The cartoon shows how far we have come in 65+ years, but also how little.
So what went wrong? Except for So White, all the black characters are drawn in blackface. No black person looks like that. Since when do they have big white lips? But for over a hundred years whites had been watching blackface entertainers - white men with black faces who “acted black” to get laughs. It became how whites saw blacks.
These portrayals may be easily dismissed as unimportant in the overall development of society's psyches. However, they have major effects on the overall perspective that people have regarding other races and their own. Many white people will retain the belief that Indians have bright red skin and don't know how to talk, and many black people may subconsciously associate African American language patterns with the lazy crows in Dumbo or the almost-human apes in The Jungle Book.
Something to be considered is the fact that in history it was not only in film has there been a great deal of stereotypical racism. Cartoons have been a source of racism just as long as films have been. Two of the major motion picture companies that produce and put out animated cartoons are also some of the largest releasers of racial stereotypes.
I have been able to find racial stereotypes in animated cartoons from Warner Brothers and Disney that stereotype African Americans, Arabs, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.
It is only too easy if you really stop to think about it that a majority of Disney animated films have a great deal of racism tied into its works.
Wonderful World of Racism
For all Disney's contributions to American culture, Disney children's films are not without fault. Widely accused of sexism and poor ethics, several Disney movies also express and romanticize racism, one of the ugliest traits seen throughout American history.
While it could be argued that racism can be seen to some degree or another in nearly every Disney film, some of the corporation's movies illustrate racism to a deeper or more offensive degree than others.
Released long after most of the other overtly racist Disney films, Aladdin received heat even from its first release. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the film was a set of lines in the opening song "Arabian Nights", which is a pure example of Orientalism. The song described the Middle East as a land, "Were they cut off your ear/if they don't like your face/ It's barbaric, but hey, it's home." The line was altered slightly in the more recent releases of the film.
The film could also be considered racist in that it portrays Arab culture as deeply oppressive of women and brutally violent. Princess Jasmine is trapped mercilessly inside her palace home, and the palace guards threaten to cut off her hand at one point in the film. It might also be noted that the villains in the film look distinctly more "ethnic" than Aladdin and Jasmine, who both appear Caucasian. The message to kids: good guys are white, bad guys are not.
Disney's racism hits an unprecedented peak in Peter Pan, in which the protagonists encounter a tribe of fairy tale Native Americans. The Indians (or "Injuns" as it is pronounced) are all essentially mute except for the chief, himself a crass, inaccurate stereotype, and communicate like animals in a variety of crude grunts and mumbles. They have bright red skin, are portrayed as patriarchal and oppressive, and are very ugly.
The worst aspect of this racist portrayal is the Eurocentric song "What Makes a Red Man Red", which is sung by the chief in broken, primitive English. The song explains that "Injuns" say "Ugg" --because, according to Disney, they communicate only in grunts -- because of an occurrence when the "first brave married squaw". It gives a similar explanation for why "the red man is red", as if to imply that the default skin color is white and all variations require explanation.
Warner "Brutha's"?
“Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” (1943) is an American cartoon, Warner Brothers’ answer to Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). It is seven-minute long, set to jazz music and has an all-black cast.
Some say it is one of the best cartoons ever made, yet Cartoon Network, which owns the rights, never shows it. It was pulled from American television in 1968 and became one of the “Censored 11″.
While it is clear that it is well made and that you are supposed to be laughing your head off, it is shocking stuff. It keeps hitting you over the head with image after image of blacks as being little better than monkey men, as creatures with huge lips and big eyes. The main story teller is that of the mammy character who sits by the fire and tells the tale of So White. (This became apparent to me upon further review when I discovered...her name is MAMMY!)
The only character who looks like a black person in a cartoon and not some creature is So White, the main character (called Coal Black in the title to avoid trouble with Disney). She is an attractive character. But even she is a stereotype: she shows way more flesh than Snow White and sleeps with her would-be killers, the stereotypical jezebel stereotype.
The evil queen is a big, ugly black woman who sounds like a man. Another stereotype.
Prince Chawmin, who is the classic example of the "coon", wears a zoot suit, drives a big car and has gold teeth. As for the Sebben Dwarfs they are something less than human. The cartoon shows how far we have come in 65+ years, but also how little.
So what went wrong? Except for So White, all the black characters are drawn in blackface. No black person looks like that. Since when do they have big white lips? But for over a hundred years whites had been watching blackface entertainers - white men with black faces who “acted black” to get laughs. It became how whites saw blacks.
These portrayals may be easily dismissed as unimportant in the overall development of society's psyches. However, they have major effects on the overall perspective that people have regarding other races and their own. Many white people will retain the belief that Indians have bright red skin and don't know how to talk, and many black people may subconsciously associate African American language patterns with the lazy crows in Dumbo or the almost-human apes in The Jungle Book.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Business of Hollywood
In America on Film, Benshoff and Griffin describe the structure and history of Hollywood filmmaking; within the text they discuss the “Business of Hollywood” by introducing multiple concepts that create the framework that is “Showbiz” both today and in history. It has always been evident to me that Hollywood and film was a business, but until recently I had never realized how easy it actually is to look at Hollywood made films and break down their success formulas. I will discuss the business of Hollywood by looking at the concepts of profitability and cross promotion through the example of the “Batman Empire”.
The Batman rEVOLUTION!
Hollywood has been able to cultivate profit off of the concept of “Do what works.” Movie producers know to continue to do what has been done in the past by recycling concepts, characters, and even re-making entire movie series when the form has become outdated. This can be seen by looking at movies like the “Batman” series which some people would think started with Director Tim Burton and his 1989 release of “Batman”, however, in reality there had been a Batman movie released in 1966 which followed the television series, but even before that in 1943 the original Batman movie was released in a 13 part movie serial later followed by a 1949 sequel. It is also important to note that “Batman” was not a movie to start off with; the concept was brought to the film industry though another form of popular culture, Comic Strips.
The Batman Empire birthed from a single comic strip in 1938 has grown into a media franchise that has given birth to 10 theatrical releases; 6 direct to video releases; multiple live action television cameos; and even more animated feature presentations to include 5 animated series based solely on the character Batman.
It is almost too easy to see the producers of the Batman franchise have the profitability formula down very well with the recreation and distribution of just a single movie character. This brings me to my next concept of cross promotion within the Batman franchise and how it also directly correlates to profits. Businesses have come to realize the massive amount of consumers that are available to through each other’s networks and are able to utilize each other in order to gain further recognition and sales potentials. This can be seen in the Batman example by looking at how Batman uses OnStar as well as how Batman supports McDonalds.
Distribution is another key to the success of the Batman empire. Movie industries have been able to not only tap into the success of the American market, but the international market as well. In fact, the example of international distribution as well as cross promotion are seen where there is a Spanish version of Batman “iconization” through LEGO being marketed not in film, but in a video game.
Batman is just one example of how Hollywood over time has used a profit formula to make itself successful. It has done so through many genre's and series of films. (Rocky, Star Wars, The GodFather, Robin Hood...etc) But something else I feel needs to be addressed as well and that is the Independant Film Stlye. I am not talking about Independant films themselves, the real movies or documentaries that are submitted to the Sundance Film Festival or even the Fargo Film Festival for their "Focus of Film", but I am talking about what I will call Hollywoods exploitation of the Independant Film style by creating a Hollywood film based on the stylistic concepts of Independant film for profit based off of the recent trend of indy film popularity.
Movies such as Napolean Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, Resevoir Dogs, American History X are all movies that I feel would have made fine independant films but were brought into the limelight by the same types of formulas that create profit for large scale motion pictures.
Take example of Napolean Dynamite, it is an independant film that has a lot of the same concepts of Hollywood film. I use the example of the Vote for Pedro T-Shirt or the line of clothing that spurred into pop culture stores like Spencers or Hot Topic after its release. The movie was made emblematically like any other independent film with non-mainstream ideals and non-traditional cinemetography , however, it had the backing and production mind of Hollwood to drive its sucess.
Does this mean that profitability can only come from regurgitation of old worn out concepts becuase we know that repeated through history is the concept of "Do what you know works"?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Hyper-Masculinity in Society
During the course so far we have been able to discuss the issue of gender representation in both the past and present. Chapters 3 and 4 have identified a “radically simplified” view of gender in media with the focus being mainly on television, movies, advertising, and print. However, there was no discussion on the matter of gender representation in music videos, only brief acknowledgment that example’s could be found.
I want to use this blog entry to discuss the issue of gender identity in music. Specifically I will discuss the representation of masculinity in Hip-Hop music and the culture of violence because of it, the represented view of women in hip-hop, as well as how the view of how masculinity has effected self identity.
Hyper-Masculinity in Hip-Hop Music and Violence:
Hip-hop, also referred to as rap music in popular culture, is a music genre that has to some become a lifestyle. Hip hop music is part of hip hop culture, which began in the Bronx, in New York City in the 1970s, predominantly among African Americans and Latino Americans. In the 1980s and 1990s hip-hop had transformed from the lyrical tales of emcees in the 1970s to lyrical complexities and a new “gangsta rap”.
The difference between hip-hop today and the roots of hip-hop is the image that has been socially constructed and supported by those in the hip-hop world. Today’s hip-hop artists and followers have used hip-hop as identification of their gender representation. I speak specifically about the feeling of masculinity in being involved in hip-hop.
Young people in hip hop use weapons and violence as the symbol of being a real man. If you are a young man growing up being told that being a “real man” is having power, being dominant, and having respect from your peers but you don’t have “real power”, but what you do have is your body and your ability to present yourself physically as someone who is worthy of respect; that is what accounts for the hyper-masculine posture that you have seen in the past. This was seen more in the early 1990s and has steered towards drug use and sex to identify masculinity today. This hyper-masculinity and violence in hip-hop could by some be considered to be proven by the effects model from other forms of media like movies and television violence.
I use two examples here to show the difference of rap today and rap 30 years ago.
Hyper-Masculinity and sexism in Hip-Hop:
Hip-hop has also given rise to sexism and the identifying masculinity with the act of womanizing and by objectifying women in music videos. In the music video “Tip Drill”; Nelly is seen swiping a credit card down the backside of a female dancer. He is viewed as so important and so powerful and the women are so many that they do not matter that they are eye candy and they are just worthless. This image sends a message to young impressionable minds to tell them that “if I want to be a man, be like Nelly, this is how I have to be.”
I remind you that hip-hop music videos are the only place you will find this concept, however, this is the area I have chosen to expound upon.
Hyper-Masculinity and Self-Identity:
Finally, I want to discuss the concept of how self-identity is affected by hyper-masculinity in society. I define self-identity just how it sounds, how one identifies oneself. When it pertains to gender identity I feel that gender identity is formed off of both the concept of biological determinism and social construction. Biology defines how you feel you should be, and society will describe how to fine tune how you should be. An example would be, a female who feels sexy, already feels like a woman and feels sexy based off of what society tells her sexy really is, she chooses for herself if what society tells her is sexy aligns with her identity, but I still feel they go hand in hand.
Desired Feeling+Societal Perception of Feeling+Individual Choice=Self-Identification
Now, where a problem with some people arises is with the issue of feeling societal mis-identity because of gender representation. The feeling that you feel like a man, you want people to see you as a man, but you are treated the opposite causes a gender mis-identification. In an article I found in the Texas Prison system, inmates are made to wear pink outfits, pink socks, pink underwear, and even live with pink walls. The use of pink is said to be calming, but inmates often times say that it affects their masculinity. I first found this issue when I came across an article about boxer Mike Tyson who had stated that he had a problem with being dressed in pink as well as rapper DMX's response to his masculinity and the effect of him wearing pink.
As you can see with these examples, gender representation in media can expand very deeply into any type of genre or medium. I am sure with more research and further looking even jazz music, and possibly even classical music you could find connections to hyper-masculinity in society.
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