Gender Stereotyping!

Gender Stereotyping!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrI_D5s48I0

Reality Television Shows

To this day I do not understand why people watch reality television shows. Reality tv like the reading talked about does nothing but gloss on issues such as Real Housewives Hurricane Sandy episode and use them to gain more ratings and to paint the characters in the show in a positive light. Reality television uses the technique of stooping down to the lowest common dominator to attract people to watch the show. By turning things into a spectacle such as poverty or natural disaster it diminishes the importance of these things. One thing that I will rant about is the slow death of the History Channel. I will admit though that the History Channel has always been kind of shaky on presenting actual history such as conspiracy theories on Nazis or having a marathon of Nazi documentaries, they have been good at presenting interesting shows about history. With the introduction of Pawn Stars the history has instead started to focus on these low brow shows to draw in a new audience. With a new audience the history shows that used to be the bread and butter have been pushed to the side in favor of shows about truckers in Alaska or lumberjacks. Viewers of these shows are still taught some form of history but it is not the critical perspective that a historian led documentary would be. Instead viewers are shown what Michael Wallace, a public historian, would call hardware history, were the facts of items are shown and the significance of that item is ignored either because it would be deemed controversial or unimportant. In conclusion though I hate reality tv because it killed the History Channel and now I live in fear that one day HGTV's House Hunters will become a reality tv show spectacle that I will not enjoy watching.

Being Gay

In class last week we discussed how gay men and women are portrayed in the media. Typically when they are depicted the shows play upon the stereotypes of the gay men being feminine, having a fashion sense, and the other things one would associate with gay men. This mold is how people see gay men and they expect real life gay men to fill into this mold that the media portrays. The problem I see with this is as a man that identifies himself as gay, people expect me to act in a way that is deemed fitting of a gay man. Whenever people ask me about the people that I am attracted to they are always surprised that I like men. They give me responses like "I would never guess" or "Are you sure". the question of "Are you sure" is what gets me the most. Just because I do not fit the stereotypical mold that the media portrays or flaunt my sexuality. I am who I am and just because I identify as gay does not mean that I need to act a certain way. I will always have poor fashion sense and be barely able to dress myself. We shouldn't try to make people fit a stereotype or labels but focus more on what makes an individual unique or interesting instead of focusing on details that in the grand scheme of things do not matter.

Binge Watching

Binge watching a tv show has become common place in everyone's life. Just as the reading said no one watches the same television show to have chats by the water cooler. Now these conversations about a television series occurs more with friends than it does with co-workers. What I mean by this is that we use our friends to get recommendations of what to watch next when we are done with a series. Then when we are done with a season or an episode we can talk to that friend the next day and essentially nerd out about what happened. I think this is what sets binge watching apart from casually flipping through channels at night. Binge watching is more of social activity or leads to social activity compared to channel surfing. From my own experience I know I look forward to talking to my friends about what happened in House of Cards or episodes of Dexter. One thing I will disagree with though about the reading is that binge watching is sort of a bourgeois activity that people do when drinking wine, I will admit that when I binge watch a series I will resort to eating potato chips or ordering take out. So binge watching can be as trashy as watching Pawn Stars.

Zombies Culture

When Erik King Watts presented to our class last week about zombie culture, it really made me think about the origins of some of things that dominate pop culture today such as zombies. As a history student I would have never thought to connect the dots between modern zombies and the African slave trade that occurred for hundreds of years until the practice was abolished by the British. For me it makes me want to research more into how historical events or actions have impacted our society and our culture. One thing that I always think is interesting is the idea that things such as zombie culture reflect what is important to society or the things that we fear. In the 1950's much of the popular media were about the fear of the spread of communism and the "evil" Soviet Union. Today, just as Erik Watts mentioned, zombie culture taps into our fear of pandemics and apocalypse by depicting it in a semi realistic way except with zombies. The example that most people would use is the Walking Dead and how it is a show about the human experience after the collapse of society and zombies are only a small factor in the events of the show. What takes center stage is interaction with other humans and the need of survival. Overall I would say that Erik Watts made me think in a new way about pop culture and about why our culture is the way it is.