The Macy's Parade Is One Big Advertisement

        Pierre Bordieu states that "the farther a paper extends its circulation, the more it favors such topics that interest 'everybody' and don't raise problems. The object - news - is constructed in accordance with the perceptual categories of the receiver" (Bordieu 254). This can apply to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which I watched a couple of weeks ago on Thanksgiving for the first time in years. When I watched the parade, I was appalled by the blatant capitalism throughout it. I hadn't noticed this in previous years, as I hadn't thought as critically in the past. The parade, which reaches 22.3 million viewers, makes no political stance or sends important messages; instead, it presents advertisements in the form of floats, balloons, and performances. These meaningless, capitalistic advertisements are extremely elaborate. From a balloon featuring the Pillsbury Doughboy to a float advertising Build-A-Bear workshop, the pageantry and entertainment factor just barely mask the fact that the parade is just one big advertisement. These floats and balloons are advertisements as well as entertainment, and they are part of a system of "homogenization, which smooths over things, brings them into line, and depoliticizes them" (Bordieu 254). This also falls in line with Chomsky's assertion that "advertisers will want, more generally, to avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the 'buying mood'" (Chomsky 213). If the Macy's parade was a controversial event, it would never get the number of sponsors and advertisers that it gets today, as it is not a politically charged event.

        Rather than reporting on real news, the newscasters report on trivial things, such as which float is coming down the street in New York City, and interview stars of new television shows on the NBC network, advertising further programming on their channel. The newscasters themselves are examples of Bordieu's criticism on the celebritization of news anchors, as they "are treated with a respect that is often quite out of proportion with their intellectual merits" (Bordieu 254). Americans know Matt Lauer and Al Roker, and look forward to seeing them on their television screen. We as a society idolize news anchors such as Lauer and Roker, and during the parade, we trust them to host with integrity and without politicization. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has truly changed in my mind from a purely fun event to one that involves blatant advertisement and idolization of news anchors.

A Final Afterthought and a Big Thank You

As you all know by now, I am not a CMC Major. In fact, the only CMC class I had taken previous to this one was CMC 100 my Freshman year. With that said, I absolutely loved this class and I owe that to all of you. I had previously not been in a class with such engaging discussions that truly challenged the realm and depth of my critical thinking skills.  This class has been an extremely uplifting, enlightening, cathartic, and even therapeutic experience for me, one that I really had been searching for throughout my  time as a Rollins student.

This course taught me a lot about my self and the perceptual lens through which I experience the world; more so than I was ready for. As a senior, I kind of just took this class because I needed credit and I wanted to have a class with Dr Cummings. As the course progressed, I realized how much I was learning from my peers as well as from the course material. In my experience, there are typically only one or two people that add  substance to class discussion, at least in most communication classes. With this class, you all challenged my perception and pushed me to look through various lenses rather than my own. Furthermore, being able to genuinely discuss such a variety of complex works with so many perceptions was fantastic.

As far as the material goes, I can definitely say I look at the world through a very different lens I previously did, especially in regards to media. With so much theory in the back of my brain now, I will never be able to see any form of media as simply “entertainment,” I know that everything is deeper than that. I certainly will never be able to look at Disney the same either!

You all made me grow a tremendous amount this semester. You gave me everything I really needed from a college course, for the first time since I began at Rollins. Thank you all so much for being integral parts of such an amazing experience.

Social Prison

I really enjoyed the perception Foucault wrote from and many of his concepts particularly stuck out to me. The strongest part about his work was his was of paralleling our social construct to a prison.

The idea of a panopticon, as it relates to a prison, is that if the security tower is in plane sight, the inmates will assumes that they are always being watched. A perfect example of a panopticon can be seen in the prison scene in Guardians of the Galaxy, as we discussed in class.

In his work, Foucault relates the physical idea of a panotpicon to the confines that define our social norms. Although I had never heard these kinds of ideas put within the context of a prison, my mind instantly went to the idea of “Big Brother” always watching. Especially now, in the age where googling is an oxford-official verb and everyone from age six to sixty has a Facebook account, the idea of a social panopticon has never been more real. 

“Power should be visible and unverifiable” (98), which is what makes it so terrifying. The scary part about power now is that everyone has more of it at the tip of their fingers. The idea of privacy on the internet doesn’t exist, and that is largely do to the fact that once you put something out there, it will be out there forever.

In doing some outside research, I came across a very interesting video on youtube that did a very a good job of explaining a social panopticon in a modern context. I may come of a bit over the top at times, but it addresses some key topics we discussed in class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVTKHI5ovyc

Propaganda in the 2016 Presidential Campaign

        In doing research for a political science assignment, I came across a blog about propaganda throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. Herman and Chomsky discuss how propaganda "manufactures" public consent for economic, political, and social policies; candidates looking to be elected are a prime example of this, as they are vying to get the consent of the public to run the country through spinning their political policies in the most positive light possible. Following the propaganda model, a political campaign is essentially a business looking to sell its product to the voting public. This campaign season is particularly fascinating because there are so many GOP candidates, and because of this, any candidate needs to stand out in order to gain media coverage and in turn gain votes; this results in propaganda, most of which is positive and focused on the candidate's own campaign. It is unusual for a campaign to launch negative propaganda, but during this campaign season, Chris Christie issued a negative piece of propaganda in the form of a bumper sticker aimed at Hillary Clinton. The sticker says, "No Way in Hill," and it includes both Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign logo and Barack Obama's 2008 logo.

        While most candidates try to get the public's consent through positive propaganda for their own campaign, Christie has decided to make voters consent to his opinion that Hillary Clinton should not be elected through this bumper sticker. 

        Rand Paul is also utilizing a form of political propaganda in his campaign; he created a campaign poster that looks like an eye chart, asking the public to see him as an eye doctor (which he really is, but which does not actually apply to his presidential campaign) who can "correct their vision" regarding American politics. His website states, "Dr. Rand Paul is an ophthalmologist (eye doctor), serving in the US Senate. Professionally, he has corrected the vision of thousands and now will do the same thing in the White House.. and we're not talking about a new prescription for President Obama." I find this to be a pretty odd statement; maybe it is my political bias, but while it is creative and plays into something that makes Paul unique from other candidates in the race, the metaphor doesn't seem to apply to Rand Paul because his policies don't seem like the most "clear" out of all the candidates'.

https://store.randpaul.com/index.php/rand-paul-eye-chart.html

Here's the link to the political blog:
http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/programs/cmd/blogs/posters_and_election_propaganda/tags/2016_election/

Top Gun Revelation

        I must confess that I had never seen the movie Top Gun until last night when my boyfriend forced me to watch it (only under the agreement that we could watch my favorite movie, Tangled, another night). I was not impressed with the film at first, mostly because I couldn’t get over my bias against Tom Cruise, but also because the script itself was extremely corny. I’m aware that at the time the film was made, this type of stuff wasn’t corny, but it is to me today, and I strongly disliked the romantic aspect of the film. However, after we watched the movie and I had expressed my distaste in the film, my boyfriend showed me a slip from the film Sleep With Me, in which Quentin Tarantino analyzes Top Gun, claiming that it is the greatest film script ever written. It’s actually an extremely funny clip, and I would recommend it to anyone who has seen Top Gun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSV35A1cQDM

        The subversity in the text, he claims, makes it such a great film because it is not a film about a fighter pilot who goes to flight school, or about his relationship with his instructor. Instead, the film is about a man’s struggle with his sexuality. Tarantino goes on to explain his reasoning, saying that there is sexual tension between Maverick, the protagonist who is played by Tom Cruise, and Iceman, his rival in th flight school. Supposedly, Iceman is tempting Maverick to “go the gay way,” while Charlotte, Maverick’s love interest in the film, is trying desperately to convert him to complete heterosexuality. The best part is that Tarantino's observations actually make sense.
        Tarantino’s analysis of the film is an extreme example of Barthes’ pleasure of the text; while it doesn’t seem as if the film leaves too much room for interpretation when it comes to Maverick’s love life, Tarantino has found a space in the film where it leaves a gap and has given it his own meaning. I hadn't considered Top Gun as a writerly text, but I can see how Tarantino does because it is able to be interpreted differently by many people. While I was watching the movie, I did not completely formulate a romantic subplot between Maverick and Iceman, but I think that Tarantino's analysis makes sense. Tarantino takes great pleasure in filling in these gaps in the text; Barthes calls this jouissance, or the French word for pleasure. Barthes discusses the eroticism behind this filling in of the gaps, saying that this is what the reader takes pleasure in because it gives them freedom to be creative. The interpretation also goes hand-in-hand with Macherey's "Theory of Literary Production," in which he states that what is left out of a work is what is most important, because it allows its readers to make interpretations and to decide for themselves the meaning of a text. Like Barthes, Macherey values the writerly text over the readerly text. I think that what is so entertaining about this clip is that Tarantino does take so much pleasure in his interpretation; he is visibly excited throughout the film clip. I haven't seen Sleep With Me, but if the rest of it is anything like that one clip, then I think I would enjoy it more than I enjoyed Top Gun.

Jake Gyllenhaal hates Bourdieu

Returning to reflect upon a theorist gone by, I really enjoyed Bourdieu's reading, "On Television."
 It immediately called to mind the film Nightcrawler (check out the trailer, it's a great movie), in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays a man looking for a job who stumbles upon an accident on the freeway and realizes that bloodshed is a lucrative business in the news world. When he can't find a position in the business, he decides to go DIY with a camera and his old (but speedy) car.

There are plenty of gory lines in the movie that immediately call to mind Jameson's quote: "The underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and horror," such as "If it bleeds, it leads," and a newscaster's disturbing advice to "Think of the news as a bleeding woman running down the street with her throat cut." In fact, the movie's grotesque media spectacles and commodification of terror can relate back to numerous theorists, especially Baudrillard and Zizek. Jake Gyllenhaal's character eventually finds success in manipulating the scenes of crimes and accidents to make them seem more spectacular, even arriving before the cops and manipulating evidence for the most shocking shot (blurring the line between media, fiction, and reality - back to Baudrillard). However, I'd like to give Bourdieu domain on this one; he seems to be much more optimistic.

He argues that no singular journalist can really be to blame for this phenomenon, because media and society as a whole has created an immense pressure through "the race for the scoop." As Bourdieu points out, "This means that news which might prove dangerous to those involved can be broadcast simply to beat out a competitor, with no thought given to the danger" (258). This is essentially the premise of Nightcrawler: news is a business of speed and spectacle, with victims becoming objects of consumption. The audience of Nightcrawler is then entitled to sit and watch in horror, realizing the poignancy of the critique and thinking self-righteously about the callous nature of the news industry; essentially "opining and reclining," as Chomsky would put it. However, Bourdieu is more optimistic. He believes that if people become aware of the system that necessitates this behavior and the mentality of "if it bleeds, it leads"reporting, change will be made possible. A refreshing view in the face of so much cynicism. In his words, "[If] people became aware of them, conscious action aimed at controlling the structural mechanisms that engender moral failure would be possible" (258).

However, I'm sure Jake Gyllenhaal's character resents Bourdieu's optimistic vision; its realization would mean he's out of a job.

A Modern Day Panopticon

        In class yesterday we talked about the Panopticon, which was originally designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1785 and analyzed by Foucault, who applied it to society as a whole. We spoke about its use in the recent film Guardians of the Galaxy, but I was wondering if there were any real examples of its utilization within the past century. The most recent example I could find was in the design of the Statesville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, which was built in 1925 and is still used today. It is the only currently working example of the Panopticon in the U.S. The correctional center has two "roundhouses," each of which houses a tower in the center, surrounded by cells. A "fun" fact about the center is that it was also used for executions from 1928 to 1962; thirteen people were executed on the electric chair during this time, adding to the cruelty of the center. It was also the only center where executions were carried out when the form of capital punishment was changed to lethal injection until 1998.

        As Foucault states, "all that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy" (Foucault 97). It is interesting to know that this type of prison is still around today, as the intimidation tactic that it employs is effective, but damaging to its inmates, who believe that they may be constantly under watch. However, as Foucault observes, this is merely a reflection of the constant observation that we conduct of each other in society. Because of this, is living in the physical Panopticon really much different from living in the figurative Panopticon of society? Obviously, those of us who are not incarcerated do have much more freedom, but we are all under the same pressure to perform. We are told to act a certain way, and we are all under a microscope. Especially with the introduction of social media, we don't always know when we are being watched (for example, I am not aware that someone is scrolling through my Instagram photos until they like one of them, so as a sort of unwritten rule of social media, I should always put my "best foot forward" when posting pictures). Foucault is so right in comparing the prison to our lives; the societal pressure to conform is exactly like the Panopticon that he so acutely compares it to.