mrdarcycherryblossom-blog

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/cosmetics-line-called-out-for-cultural-appropriation-1.3597988

I don’t know how many people heard about the controversial MAC makeup line release a little while ago, with product names and colors inspired by Aboriginal culture, but I think it’s relevant to our discussions in class. In terms of colonialism and decolonization, I think this is an example of the “fantasizing adoption” and “settler nativism” modes of settler’s “move toward innocence.” 

The colors and prints and names revolving around Aboriginal culture were appropriated into mainstream culture for a profit. The makeup depicts a modern idea of “going native” by using products clearly denoting a certain cultural background, and sells it to the public without blinking an eye. I think it promotes the idea of “native culture coolness,” where all of a sudden it’s considered popular and mainstream to wear feathers and beads and use makeup called “arrowhead” to remediate the culture of a people without even asking, or perhaps even understanding what it means to do so. 

Ultimately, I think the line demonstrates the way our society neglects to take seriously the culture of other people, and that anything will go if there’s a chance of making a profit. 

-Shelby Carleton

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Culture

I remember seeing this poster for the first time in my first year of university. Back then at first glance, I couldn’t see what the big deal was. At the time, I remember being confused, thinking it wasn’t a big deal because it was Halloween and Halloween involved costumes, and why shouldn’t someone be allowed to wear a costume? 

Well, first-year-university-Shelby, there a few reasons. 

For one thing, these people posing in the poster are sending a message. They’re saying they’re not comfortable with their culture being appropriated the way it is, and if someone says “no, I don’t like this,” I think we as a society need to understand that they mean it. We shouldn’t get to say “that’s too bad you don’t like this, because I do, so I’m going to do this anyway.” We should be standing up for each other, not putting each other down. Especially over something as small as a costume you wear for a single night one day of the year. 

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This topic moreso applies to past class discussions regarding media, but I heard this on the radio and really wanted to share it. Above is an interview with Jessa Crispin, explaining why she’s “not a feminist.” She says some... interesting things throughout. And, after listening to the entire interview, I myself am still unsure as to what to think about it all. But one piece caught my attention in particular: 

Jessa Crispin: “Well, the goals are not societal change. The goals are, you know there's lean in feminism, where the goal is just to make more money and attain positions of power. There's this kind of pop star feminism where it's just like you know you get to do whatever you want without any sort of self-awareness of the consequences of your actions. And the feminist discourse is now mostly about very surface level things like television shows. You know which television show is a good television show and which television show is a bad television show, and all this sort of focus on pop culture rather than on the actual systemic problems that we're facing.”

I don’t fully support what she’s saying here in regards to modern feminist discourse. Let’s say, for arguments sake, it is mostly about surface level things like television shows, as Crispin says. But even if it is, then isn’t that at least a starting place? Today everything seems so saturated by social media, from tv to film to music to snapchat. Whatever. It’s everywhere. I think that parts of the feminist community are criticizing and engaging with kinds of media, like television shows, and separating what makes a show “good” or “bad” in an attempt to diversify what we see on the screen. 

So much of our lives are surrounded by television. But if all we ever watched were, I don’t know, white males living their lives and engaging with the world, it seems like our own world view would be rather limited because other diverse experiences would never be accounted for or represented. I think the fight for representation of all people (whether they’re men, women, LGBTQ, people with a disability) across media is an important one, because it allows people to identify with something, and relate to something, and ask questions, and showcases a wide range of experiences we may not otherwise recognize. I think a novel like “Geek Love” is great in this regard, because it gets the reader thinking and asking questions about disability, and what it means to be a “freak,” and how people should treat each other. 

Long story short, I think we should support each other and all kinds of feminism(s), because I think in the long run, they will all be important to equality. 

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Reality TV: Villains?

This is Corinne. She is from season 21 of the show The Bachelor. After this weeks discussions regarding “freaks” and freakshows in class, I started thinking about reality television and the way it’s received by people. 

The Bachelor revolves around one man and his dating adventures with some 20 or so women. Each week, a few women are eliminated, until one is left and the bachelor marries her. Each episode something dramatic happens to keep viewers engaged, and every season there’s a villain that everyone loves to hate.

Enter Corinne. She was the “villain” this season. She’s strong willed, independent, knows what she wants, and goes for it. And people hated her, because I don’t know, viewers needed someone to pick on. There always needs to be this concept of a villain. Corinne isn’t exactly the concept of a “freak” as discussed in class. But I think she exemplifies the way people are thoroughly entertained by the differences of others, and how these differences cause people to put others down. 

So maybe freak shows are changing, and positive ideas are coming from modern day freak shows that represent and understand and empower with regards to disability. But I think this attitude of looking down on people who act differently, or stand out for being headstrong and outspoken (like Corinne), is still extremely prevalent in society especially with the rise of reality television, and there’s a long way to go before we can all treat each other with respect. 

-Shelby Carleton

source: http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/corinne-olympios----6-things-know-about-nick-viall-the-bachelor-bachelorette-21122.php

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(via 12 Gender-Neutral Clothing Brands You Need to Know About | Her Campus)

For me, growing up, my gender expression was always centered around clothing. I didn’t wear makeup yet, my shoes were usually a sneaker of some kind, and I often found myself wearing (and hating) a lot of dresses. Nowadays, it’s funny to me to think back to a much younger version of myself when I would declare I didn’t like dresses because dresses were for "girly girls,” and I certainly wasn’t one of those. Even then I was somehow aware that certain kinds of clothing would denote certain things about me. If I wore dresses or the color pink, I was a “girly girl,” heels and shorts you’re a “slut,” black shirts and jeans and you’re “goth.” Every piece of clothing seemed to have a stereotype of some kind to go along with it. 

These days, I wear what I want. My wardrobe holds a variety of dresses, both pink and black, with high-heeled shoes, shorts, boots, white lace, and leather pants. But I don’t want my clothing to be a label for me. Maybe that’s asking a lot, because I want to use clothing to express myself, without having it define me, or others. Here’s where gender neutral clothing comes in. I think the concept of gender neutral clothing is pretty awesome. It feels like everyone could express themselves through these fashion lines without being defined by what’s on their body. I wonder if dresses weren’t just for “girly girls” and pants were shared and worn by all, if we would look at each other a little differently. “Oh look, Tom and Sue are wearing a black t-shirt and white skirt. They look comfortable/awesome/stylish today.” 

I guess what I’m getting at is the idea of being able to express yourself without judgement. Being able to wear what you want in the sense of “having the outside match the inside,” and being comfortable enough to express yourself in these ways without having to think about what the world may think of you. I don’t know how to get there, or if it’s even a plausible idea, but maybe gender neutral clothing could be a step in the right direction. 

-Shelby Carleton

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Sex Positive

Image From: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=24596912https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=24596912

In class, we touched on the topic of sex and sexuality, and that most people don’t like it in terms of sex talk. We are all “presumed” to have a sexuality, which means apparently people either think and talk about sex which isn’t okay, or they don’t (of course thinking of asexuality). The main thing I wanted to focus on is the topic of sex, and how somehow (especially growing up) I was always given the impression that sex is bad, like, if you have sex you will get pregnant and die kind of bad (thanks for the reference, Mean Girls), and that you really just shouldn’t talk about it. The above image is from a graphic novel called SEX CRIMINALS. It focuses on a couple, Suzie and Jon, and their experience with sex. Long story short, when they have sex and achieve orgasm, they stop time, which is cool, of course, but what’s even cooler is how the graphic novel approaches the topic. It treats sex as a completely normal thing. It’s open, it’s honest, and it’s part of a popular accessible medium. I think things like this, pop culture mediums used to transfer positive messages about things like sex, are important to reinforce ideas that sex and sexuality and everything to do with it is O.K. I think that being told (and shown) different mediums regarding sexuality as being completely okay to recognize and talk about is a powerful message to send in the world today, where maybe everyone could do with a few more positive and encouraging thoughts regarding sexuality, no matter what they may be. 

-Shelby Carleton

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***IMPORTANT NOTE*** Hey everyone! Please only watch the video from where it begins at 5:05 to the 5:50 mark. 

So, selfies. I was thinking about immediacy and hypermediacy and the way we remediate so much of our culture, whether it’s turning novels into movies, or looking at photographs taken from videos that happened in real life as seen on a social media website in order to reconstruct that reality for us to experience. In the spirit of the Bolter and Grusin article we just read (especially the examples revolving around video games) and our recent class on selfies, I figured I’d try to find an example of both of these things working together. Video games and selfies.

The clip you just watched is from the game Life is Strange. Max, the protagonist, takes a selfie in class, and the subject of ‘the selfie’ is discussed. Part of hypermediacy is recognizing that mediation is happening. And in the game, Max’s teacher recognizes that selfies have been around for a long time and that Max, by taking a selfie, is merely reproducing an old technique remediated by her generation. For us as the viewers or players of this video game, we get an even bigger effect of hypermediacy as we experience Max as a character undergo remediation through her selfies and photography, while also realizing Max is a character created by someone else, who wrote her dialogue, drew her appearance, voiced her character, programmed her movement, and then played the game to experience her whole character, before filming the game being played and posting it to the internet for others to view. 

It’s kind of like hypermediacy inception is going on here with both the characters within the contained game experiencing remediation in their lives without even recognizing they’re in a video game, and us as the players recognizing remediation in all its forms. 

-Shelby

source: (via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw–xmlnS_0)

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Kitty says “I can haz gender conversation?” 

Yes kitty. Yes you can.