MTV Editting

I actually took out time to watch Jersey Shores in preparation for this unit in class. I have never watched Jersey Shores before, having never been a fan of MTV. Although some segments of it did seem quite real to me (such as girls always, always, always fighting when in groups of more than three ), other aspects of it I couldn't relate to.

However, one thing that did stick out to me was the style of editing. I realized suddenly why this kind of show is so appealing to kids, the sex and violence and fostering of superiority complexes aside. I thought back to how i felt about movies from t he 70s, and how the slow pacing would always make me shut them off before they were halfway done and go do something else. The movies of the 30s, 40s, 80s, and 90s were always much more appealing to me because they talked fast, acting fast, and things happened fast. The 50s, 60s, and 70s with their slow pans, their long quite moments, and muted color palettes usually didn't appeal to me (unless they were early sci-fi B movies, but that's neither here nor there )

Content is definitely the main draw of Jersey Shore, but I think that delivery is just as important and not remarked on as often. I think the quick cutting ,colorful overlays, and use of popular music really helped bring the show home to squirmy teenaged audiences and the college crowd who can't even get off Facebook for twenty minutes to pay attention to a class they're paying ridiculous amounts of money to be in. If anyone is curious to see this kind of cutting in a different format, check out the anime projects of a studio called SHAFT. You'll notice the resemblance immediately. I believe in both cases it's to save budget by making a cheap show not as noticeable with even cheaper filters and shiny colors, and to keep an ADD prone audience engaged. I think it's no surprise these kinds of show can beat well written dramas in the ratings polls, considering most of well written dramas are just the actors staring at each other meaningfully. Older audiences may have a tolerance for that, buy the percentage of the population that does will decrease as the years go on and studio execs better get forward thinking before it has an even bigger impact on their bottom line.

In Defense of Product Placement

Hasbro, owners of the Transformers property that experienced a brief re-flourishing during my freshman year of college, has another show out on the airwaves now. This show is a re-imagining of the My Little Pony Franchise, called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

(You can read the creator talking about her intentions with the show here )

You can watch the first episode, if so interested, here

It's completely awesome by the way )

The show is smart, well animated, and has a catchy soundtrack. Best of all, Each pony is completely different, but just as beautiful and just as important. There is no token female. There is no one way to be that is held up to be the ideal. I would even argue that it's stronger and smarter than many nonchildren's shows aimed at women, especially in light of our reality TV show discussion week.

And it wouldn't exist without the preexisting commercially successful toy line. The reason why? Little girls today are more prone to watch Jersey Shore or CSI with their families than animation. With the proliferation of media choices, there world of the Saturday Morning Cartoon has effectively been ripped asunder. Making animation has always been a dangerous bet, costing much more and usually have much less draw then sitcoms or reality shows which the whole family is usually willing to sit down to watch

Need evidence? Consider Disney Channel hardly airs cartoons anymore, and the cartoons they do make are super cheap, vector based comedies recycling the same tired stereotypes and storylines they seem to be plugging into all their new properties these days without even utilizing the foundations of animation. Compare this to the original Disney channel, with Bonkers, Gargoyles, Darkwing Duck, Ducktales, Tailspin, and a plethora of others and you'll see how even it's pioneer studio as abandoned the medium.

The outlook at the film division is even more miserable, outsourcing all their projects to Pixar which doesn't deal with traditional animation but CG (Which is different due to the technical skills required for each kind, PIXAR animation has a lot of design early on and a lot of math play and slider adjusting for most of the production, while traditional animation is almost all design work and illustration. )

It seems the Disney Renaissance is dead in the water and will remain so for a long time. In fact, it has often been suggested their last Disney Princess film was the direct result of merchandising desires. They needed a black princess for their Disney Princess franchise, which continues to earn money long after the films have left theaters or slowed in DVD sales by having a princess each girl could pick as their favorite. They weren't selling enough princess merchandise to black girls, so The Princess and the Frog. (It's still a good film, like all their films, the underlying motivation was not that making

animated art is profitable. Because it is so often not. )

Animation doesn't make money.

So, What advantages do cartoons have over live action?

Why would a studio ever use animation?

One: historically it's cheaper to do convincing stunts. This is why there is never a shortage of action-adventure boys animation, from Jonny Quest to He-Man to The Amazing Spiderman to Ben 10.

Two: It's easier to distort for comedic effect. Whether this be maiming the character or simply pushing an expression to a hilarious extreme, it's often times allows writers to go 110% into a joke. This is why we were refer to over-actors in live action as cartoonish, or caricatures. One good example is the beginning of this spongebob video Watch the range of expressions, the way they're stretched makes the transitions between the emotions is so dramatic that it is much more instantly recognizable than they would have been in a live action adaption. Since every second an audience has to think about a joke is more audience that doesn't laugh at all or ever get it, for comedy instant recognition is important.

Three: It's easier to make action figures that look on-model. Compare this Spectacular Spiderman toy (Based off an animation design that's already simplified and exaggerated) to this Edward from Twilight toy:

Edward doesn't look like Edward at all, but spidey's instantly recognizable.

The problem with this?

1. Girls aren't allowed to be aggressive without being labeled as lesbians or at the very least tom boys, implying they're fighting nature. Girl clothes are even made from lighter colored, cheaper, thinner material that rips easier from physical activity. Even if their parents buy them practical clothes, consumer culture pushes them towards non physical roles and clothes not appropriate for physical interaction. Girls who would otherwise be interested in stunts of physical strength like fighting and sports where special effects would be used in animation are constantly societally pressured to lose that interest.

2. Before Tina Fey, could you name a female comedian? I certainly didn't remember many from the 80s and 90s, but dozens of men. Historically, female comedians have depended on innuendo to make a living (Mae West). Although this trend could be changing, I certainly notice the class clown always a male. Certainly, sitcom wives continue to be the joyless nags they've always been since women got empowered. (This includes not-even real girlfriends such as in the sitcom the Big Bang Theory. The neighbor across the hall only gets jokes in when cutting others down )

3. …..Wait! Wait! Parents DO BUY girl's action figures! Sure, they don't buy them as long as men do since they're oriented towards putting all expendable income into clothes, make up, and training to cook and clean long before men are, but there is that window where it could be very profitable!

Which makes the action figure market the only place where girls animation seems like a plausible idea from a studio's perspective. Boys shows can be made without a preexisting success because there's more a chance of it succeeding for longer.

There's always been a debate about long toy commercials in the form of cartoons. It's an understandable concern. As argued in Branded for Life, children don't have the full capacity we do to distinguish advertising from programming. (Haha, though is there is a difference? *drumroll*) However, because of animations ghettoization and the culture forces at work on women, especially when connected to the media, it doesn't seem like it's possible to invest successful in animation made for women by women. MLP:FiM is only possible because of the toy line.

However, unlike it's predecessor, the creative team behind it is incredibly passionate. To animators, just like film makers, their productions are art. Commissioned art is where many of our legendaries made their greatest works. just like Mozart, just like de Vinci. When there isn't a economy to support an artists work (There's always an economy for porn, for example, but not for girl's cartoons ), people wishing to work in that industry must rely on commission. It is not counter intuitive to the arts. It is not unusual, especially in our media saturated environment. And I argue, if it will allow more shows like MLP:Fim, or even great show aimed at boys such as Spectacular Spiderman or Transformers: Animated, it's a necessary evil to keep the artform alive.

Group Project: Video Games and Women

Ashley knapp, jesus Martinez, tyler pittman, steven towle, matt patton, mikey whiteker, renee Atkinson

GOALS/THESIS: Our video text will address the issue of stereotyping of women in the medium of video games. It will take a historical approach by illuminating the milestones in women in video game history as far as female characterization is concerned. The Damsel in Distress, the Dangerous Midriff, the Just One of the Boys, the Ghost Girlfriend, and other tropes will be discussed with examples. These will be integrated into video examples of the same stereotypes in other medias such as television and movies from the same time period to show the male dominated industries provide a limited vision of women through the male gaze regardless of the particular medium used. We will also touch on how consolidation has limited the consumers options , like in Rich Media, Poor democracy. We will tie in some o f the definition about masculinity to the documentary Culture of Cool, and how important the virtual citizen soldier is to our ideas of masculinity in video games, terrorist thwarting movie and television plots.

INFLUENCES: Our group has a variety of viewpoints in it. We have some members who haven’t played video games since childhood, we have some members who love video games, and some members who only play video games occasionally. Our group has 3 women and 4 men, which will influence how we look at gender issues to come out a bit more evenly. Our group’s perspective is limited by all over us being enrolled at the same Midwestern college as far as education level, socioeconomic class, and geographic influence.

Idea for video: A composite documentary using existing video game play footage, video game trailers, film trailers, television ads, and scenes from movies and film with voice over narration summarizing main ideas. Dissection of each stereotype will be divided into two parts revealing the stereotype in the video game via video scenes and audio explanation, before following it up with a Film/TV example of a similar trope using footage and voice over narration.

Our introduction will feature a quick history of video games contrasted with a history of films and tv (Not in-depth, just things like starting dates, demographics of industry leaders. )

Our conclusion will feature in reiterating our main argument with more evidence that video games are gender segregated, and revealing that films and TV are much the same way. It will end on a hopeful note that all mediums are trying to draw in all audiences, though, and hopefully attain a more balanced portrayal of gender.

RESOURCES: We will secure the resources we need by dividing up the labor for the project. Because we will not be shooting new footage, we need only to ensure the group member doing the recording has an adequate microphone. We will always be able to share audio files digitally if we cannot arrange a time to meet in person. We have divided the job of project idea, initial script and outline, video gather/conversion to different individuals in the group.

Be Fair and Squarenix

Our discussion on video games today left me really frustrated. I didn't understand why so many people who'd never played video games were chiming in. When I involve myself in a conversation I do so knowing something about the topic, and I try very hard not to participate in something i have admitted ignorance about. This is why I don't say much about diet culture or music. I don't really know much about it, besides what I see in passing.

I feel like a lot of media that doesn't get attention from the mainstream populace gets an unnecessarily bad rap. This includes animation, comics, and video games, a long time domain of nerds exclusively. This could even be further extended into games like D&D, which ALWAYS have a negative portrayal in the media despite it being a bunch of people hanging out and talking. It never fails to perplex me how hanging out with beers wasting the day away=cool. Hanging out with dice wasting the day away=lame. Hanging out with beer and dice gambling=cool.

This brings me to the sneaking suspicion that most people that write these D&D segments in TV and movies have never played it.... like many of the people who comment in class, especially the women, on video games. Even when people have never touched a comic or played a video game longer than short demo at Best Buy, they feel entirely suited to comment on it. When I knew we have a topic in class coming up I go out of my way to at least immerse myself a little bit in the material. For example, going into film history classes, I watched all of Stanly Kubrick's works. I hate Kubrick and pretty much all films from that era. However, I pressed on so when i participated in discussions my comments would be relevant and not completely out of line. And if it was about a movie I had no seen, I did not comment. If I would have tried talking about Kubrick knowing only clips that had been parodied and snippets I'd read in books or things friends had said, I'd still be laboring under the delusion that his films were great and I would have said a lot of things that wouldn't have added any useful contributions to the discussion, having no firsthand thoughts of my own.

It is not that I think it is wrong to have negative opinions about these things, or that I'm frustrated people disagreed with me or agreed with me. It's simply that people professing ignorance and then climbing on their soapbox seems contradictory. As a fan of video games, animation, and sequential art I have to constantly combat the ignorance about them and I guess I just found myself disappointed that this sort of uninformated criticism was being sancitioned in a university environment.

Our Credit Culture

Entitlement is an issue we come back to again and again in our class, how people believe they deserve the best because anything less isn't featured in most popular culture. This includes entertainment for both adults and children, and it's really frustrating to see it in action.

Why I think this is so interesting is because compared to many first world nations American's aren't getting the treatment they deserve. We have some of the highest illiteracy rates and infant mortality rates for an economically developed nation. We have the highest percentage of the population in prison.

One of the disturbing aspects of this is how we do seem to focus more on the faults of the individual and not how the culture of rugged individualism could lead them to that path. It's incredibly easy for Americans to fall through the cracks, especially after the collapse of the Midwestern Rust Belt taking away so many of our jobs and the 2008 recession being the final knife the back of most of the working class families I know. I wonder why all these articles are fixated on how culture creates entitled individuals, and not so much on how large institutions use this rugged individualism narration as it justifies the top down way it exploits people.

Why do we focus on personal, consumer debt when we should be focusing on how people are having trouble maintaining healthy lifestyles? I'm not a communist (although there's nothing wrong with that ) and I believe different levels of work should deserve different awards. What I don't understand is why in out culture of plenty and gluttony, anyone has to go hungry or do without the basics, which thousands do. I think our surrounding culture, the university, often forgets this because the people here either have escaped financial desperation, left it temporarily in their home towns, or most often, have never experienced it to a severe degree.

However, I think that consumer debt is driven by the culture. I think we need to stop thinking about 'this individual with too little moeny needs to learn to control themselves', and more about 'These people with too much money needs to learn to stop increasing the companies profit margin and start offering comprehensive health care.'

Just Look Away Not an Option

Today while walking through the Atrium I saw a poster hanging in the hall between the bookstore and the ATM.

It had a woman's bottom in a bikini, standing in front of the beach, with a Andriod Scanner symbol tattooed above her left butt cheek. It said 'Go on, snap a photo, you know you want to. Send the code #### to see if you win our Spring Break Getaway contest!'

Except, it wasn't a whole women.

That would have been a little bit annoying, a women glancing over her shoulder, smirking a bit. No, the thing that made it incredibly problematic was that it was only a woman's buttocks, cut away from the rest of her body. Just a tanned, generic hip display, like some sort of store mannequin. The caption made it even worse. 'Go on, you know you want to.' I find this weird considering the majority of the us college population is now women, and i don't believe that's any different at ball state. The posters implication is either implying women aren't important enough to try and appease with this advertisement or that all women love to gawk at other women on the beach in a sexual manner and take voyeuristic photographs of them. Now that I think about it, this advertisement was insulting to men as well, assuming most of them would haver a problem being thought of as creepy perverts who dissect women with their eyes and snap photographs like stalkers just awaiting the restraining order.

I don't watch most modern movies. I don't buy beauty magazines. I avoid television aimed at adults audiences (Dexter, House, True Blood, Mad Men ). I do these things because I hate seeing women turned from vibrant, powerful, wonderfully complex individuals into mere sexual items whose conquest mark an important step along the MAN's storyline. However, I cannot avoid this kind of advertising, much of self-inflicting by women, no matter how much I withdraw from culture. The only way to truly avoid it is to never leave the house. Which sometimes sounds appealing, but I digress.

Arguing 'just Look away', or 'If you don't pay attention to it, it won't effect you' doesn't realize that one CAN withdraw from the culture as much as possible and still be deeply effected by it.

It is all invasive and inescapable. perhaps, maybe, there should be more restraint on how women can be used to sell items. We're not items. We're people. Our hips evolved this way in order to bring life into this world, not to get entires to stupid MTV Getaway Spring Break contests.

Culture is active. Popular Culture is distractive.

For me, culture is anything that conveys life and in some way works to change or improve human behavior within the context of society of a whole, even if it’s just by reflecting its ugly truths.

For example, Maus is culture because it reflects an incident in history and by displaying that horrifying incident hopes to warn future generations

against complacency for minorities being exploited, showing ‘this could be you, or your father, or your mother.’ The thematic choice of turning the characters into anthromorphic mice is effective in that it removes more senses of racial, ethnic, or genderized visual based subconscious judgment calls. The cartooning style uses slips under our ‘otherness’ radar and makes the protagonist can be anyone even if the supporting speech bubbles say ‘he’ and ‘jew’.

However, Micky Mouse comics are pop culture because the messages are more based on reaffirming universals instead of trying to improve or change the way of liof life for the society it was generated for.

The basic messages such as ‘don’t lie’ ‘be nice to your friends’ are largely consensual values that it is assumed anyone would want their children knowing. It doesn’t attempt to change the culture or cause a societal shifts or reflection. They are done in this consensual way to draw the largest possible audience because their primary intent is economic, entertainment, and finally artistic. Note that I do not believe that just because something is popular culture instead of ‘culture’, it is not artistic. Oftentimes art is based on the craft itself and has no desire to carry a heavy social justice message.

However, subject matter itself is not the determining factor in whether or not I define something as culture versus popular culture.

For example, the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes and the Japanese

webcomic Hetalia both deal with World War II Nazis extensively. However, both of these are comedies, and the protagonists and antagonists simplified into silly archetypes that make any sort of motivational messages about human behavior lack authority. It is obvious from studying these media texts the intent was to entertain, although with Hogan’s Heroes there was also the commercial interest that kept it so upbeat.

Now, whether or not some seasons of M.A.S.H. are legitimate culture or popular culture is difficult for me to define, with its distinct overarching social message in select episodes and completely lack of commentary in others. Some segments of M.A.S.H. the sitcom do seem to desire to influence the audiences thoughts for a certain social stance on war, which would be cultural movement. On the other hand, it's a lot of silly jokes strung together.

In conclusion, culture leads you to think about the more important questions in life whether it be a classic musical composition that makes you contemplate the existence of a higher being such as a God, or a television show that suddenly kills off a character to illustrate some institutionalized unnecessary social brutality of the past that could happen again without societal vigilance. Culture entertains while stimulating you to consider those issues that are complicated. Popular culture, by contrast, may be artistic, witty, and reflective of the society that generated it, but its main intent is often to make you not think about more difficult questions, priming you to consume for the commercials. The reason why popular culture is important to study is this very non confrontational nature. When left unanalyzed, even those who did not hold the beliefs of some popular culture media texts will walk away assuming 'that's just how it is' for many societal expectations.

Culture as intentionally engaging society and Popular culture as intentionally being there to be passively enjoyed is an imperfect definition, and obviously many things fall in the middle. For example, sensationalistic news certainly has you think about a lot of difficult questions, but it’s motivated by commercials. Webcomics have no official sponsors, but often times use the same hegemonic ideology as a multimillion dollar movie that has to please thousands of sponsors before it can be released (ironically, that director may whine about having cut many challenging ideas in a film to please those sponsors the webcomic artist might have self censored). However, this is the best way I can think to define it without having there be more exceptions than inclusions. In general, this is how I define popular culture and why it's important to study.