Queer Housewife Bethany

So after watching the "horror" version of the trailer for Pretty Woman I found a whole bunch of vids that were made using other pop culture. One that I thought was really well done was the queer housewife. Bethany's character on the desperate housewives is a single successful woman. She is strong headed and a tough cookie, if you will to be with. She has noted throughout the show that she suffers from daddy issues, which is one of the contributing factors as to why she has so much trouble with men. However, this vid portrays her in a new light. I found this remix to be successful compared to some of the others I had watched. Knowing her background story and how her relationships with men always seem to falter (although now she is pregnant and engaged), you could possibly see her experimenting with her sexuality and becoming a part of the gay community. What do you think?

Double Vision

One of Will Ferrell's most well known characters during his time on Saturday Night Live was Alex Trebek. As Trebek, he hosted a parody version of Celebrity Jeopardy--he was the straight man (in comedic terms), surrounded by moronic celebrity contestants.

Come Ferrell's final episode on the series as a regular cast member, there was a special end to the sketch, which can be seen from roughly 6:00 on in the embedded clip below.

This is disconcerting, for we've become used to a world of accepting these characters as "real," albeit within a humorous characterized world. When the real figure appears, this serves as an immediate reminder of the SNL version being nothing but a comedy show. Ferrell may do a wonderful impersonation, but it's only that, which makes the final minute of the clip somewhat awkward, since he's still in character.

Our reading included: "postmodernism is, in some of its manifestations, about citation or quotation both in terms of referencing other texts and in terms of putting things in quotes to indicate a kind of distancing irony" (Sturken and Cartwright 321). The SNL clip does just that, by pulling the rug of reality out from under us.

Mia Thermopolis to Princess Mia of Genovia

I really enjoyed the reading on Postmodernism because I found that it was something that our generation can easily relate to. There are so many great examples of this in media, specifically in movies today, that I was happy to finally put a name to what I've been watching all these years. Anyway, as Sturken and Cartwright explain, the goal of Postmodernism is for the audience to look at values that "underlie all systems of thought and thus to question the ideologies within them that are seen as natural." What I like about this goal is that postmodern ideals are looking for audiences who are media savvy, meaning that they are not easily fooled by society's techniques of propaganda- so their audience is typically parents. However, I did find a great example of Postmodernism that is targeted to children AND parents. Take the movie, The Princess Diaries.

Disney infuses postmodern ideas in the movie, The Princess Diaries, because it portrays a character, Mia Thermopolis, a not very attractive, unpopular, band geek only until she receives the news that she is going to be the next princess of her father's country, Genovia. Thus, we begin to see an extreme transformation in Mia's character as her grandmother, the Queen of Genovia, gives her a total makeover. As soon as her classmates and the public gets news of Mia's princess status, Mia becomes extremely popular at school, as she finally gets the attention of the hot guy she used to drool over, and cameras film her as she steps out of her grandmother's limo before walking to class. Mia has achieved an entire new identity while making this transformation from ordinary school girl to beautiful, celebrity, princess. This is an exact illustration of how Disney adopts this changing identity. Mia is not born with this beautiful confident persona, (therefore, it is not innate- postmodernism) it is only until she adopts the ideals of her grandmother, which are closely innertwined with the ideals of society, that she becomes truly confident.

The Malleable Image and Identity in Postmoderism

In this postmodern society, we have adopted the idea that “the body is imagined to be easily transformed” (Sturken & Cartwright 326). This correlates also with the idea that the modern “notions of identity as innate” is no longer reliable (325). I think these two ideas are represented in Hollywood movies where agents go through reconstructive surgeries to adopt. An example is Get Smart where Anne Hathaway’s character, Agent 99, completely changes her face because her previous identity was compromised. However, her character changes as she adopts her new “identity.” I feel that this bolsters the idea that in postmodernism, “the surface is understood to be a crucially meaningful element of social life and not simply the illusion put over the real” (325). Identity is not definitely innate; it is structured by social elements and the changing of appearances.

Couldn't find the image or clip of Agent 99 before her transformation, so here's a trailer from the movie for fun:

Hyperrealism

According to Sturken and Cartwright, "A hyperreal text is one that seems to be saying, "this is real, take note of that!"

The above picture is me holding an ice cream.... or a picture of an ice cream cone. It is hyperreal in that it invites the consumer to simulate holding the actual product.

Those OnStar car commercials are also a great example of hyperrealism. Another example would be the Geico commercials that have celebrities with non-celebrties. These commercials give the viewer a sense of realism because they involve non-actors, thus giving the viewer more room to trust that the products really do satisfy everyday people. The use of non-scripted advertising is an effective way to create hyperrealism.

Walt Whitman Wants You To Buy New Jeans

By discussing Cindy Sherman's photography, Sturken & Cartwright mention that "nostalgic references to other historical periods is another hallmark of post-modern art" (256).

Have any of you guys seen the latest Levi commercials? If not check these out.

Instantly, we hear the scratchy recording of someone's voice reciting a voice. In both commercials, the poems "Kalliope" and "Pioneers! O Pioneers" by Walt Whitman are being used to successfully set a nostalgic tone that the Levi's campaign is clearly aiming for. These two commercials also embody polysemy since there doesn't seem to be one clear meaning. Are we supposed to go out and start a revolution...while wearing Levi jeans? Or perhaps there's a stronger social commentary?

What do you guys think?

One more!!!

Okay, so I finished my other blog post and put on this Xeno and Oaklander CD I bought today, and HOLY CRAP is this not total pastiche sounding-like-1983-up-in-my-headphones right now. This was just released, like, Tuesday, but it was made specifically with vintage synths on analog equipment. Anyway, just thought I'd share some sick modern music with you guys too..

Their Myspace.

Also, really great clip of them playing last year:

Alter-Modern and The Return of The Real

Recent discussions about the state of post-modernism have struggled to determine its relevance today. While several theorists and historians contend that it has run its course, it is still widely excepted as the dominant ideological epoch. The frustration concerning the end of post-modernism centers primarily around its formal structure, which unlike its modernist predecessor, is formed defined in negative terms (constructed in contrast to modernism.) This logic suggests that the only feasible end of the post-modern era will come at the re-birth of the modern one. That, anyway, was the premise of art historian and theorist Hal Foster's 1996 book The Return of the Real. Though the subject of its own criticism, Foster's critique of post-modernism provides on of the earliest and most substantial post post-modern propositions.

Another text that has recently revived the debate over post-modernism, is the French curator Nicholas Bourriaud's Altermodern, which for better or worse attempts to brand work being made in today's global context as a reaction against standardization and commercialism. Rather than failing back on modernist principles, Bourriaud describes his new aesthetic era in terms of cultural hybridisation and translation explaining:

"Artists are looking for a new modernity that would be based on translation: What matters today is to translate the cultural values of cultural groups and to connect them to the world network. This “reloading process” of modernism according to the twenty-first-century issues could be called altermodernism, a movement connected to the creolisation of cultures and the fight for autonomy, but also the possibility of producing singularities in a more and more standardized world."

As a curator, Bourriaud's primarily interest is in visual art, but it's not difficult to see how his assertions, if you buy them, can be applied to any other sect of visual culture.

Switched On Bach

One work (of course from me, a musical one) that I was reminded of while reading the Sturken and Cartwright chapter was Wendy/Walter Carlos' Switched On Bach from 1968, which I was just listening to on the way to class Tuesday. Although it is an early example of these ideas of postmodernism, the record (in which Carlos, creates elaborate interpretations of well known Bach pieces with early Moog synthesizers) fits more into the postmodern ideas of remake and pastiche than the standard practice of classical re-recording. The sounds of the synthesizer were highly uncharacteristic of classical music at the time, and were highly experimental, but the whole record has a playful feeling to it. Many of the pieces were sped up, making them sound a bit like electronic circus music, and the timbres used can also sound comical during some of the faster pieces. Carlos is playing with, morphing, prodding the music of the past to create something seemingly new. This requires, as was said in the text, a rich knowledge of media, which in this case is the history of music.

The record is also a great example of Sturken and Cartwright's assertion at the beginning of the chapter that we are not entirely in a postmodern world. Although Switched On Bach can be seen as postmodern because of its relationship to the past, it is also fiercely modernist because it was also a demonstration of the power of the Moog synth, which was extremely new at the time. The idea was that this is the future of music, and that this progress was going to lead to a greater understanding of sound in relation to composition. Although many other composers were more modernistic in terms of their experiments with electronics (Xenakis and Stockhausen especially), it was the mechanical nature of Bach compositions that was built into the music that made it such an important example of the power of synthesized sound.

This album is really amazing, and highly recommended by me. Wendy has done a lot of soundtracks including the soundtracks to A Clockwork Orange and Tron. Below is the only example form the record I could find on Youtube, and it is of one of the very short pieces, but there are clips available on iTunes and Amazon and such.

Girl Talk & The "Remix Culture"

Sturken and Cartwright claim that "postmodern styles have emerged...through a redefinition of authorship and the relationship of production, distribution, and consumption that has been enabled by changing technologies and new cultural practices" (334). Various media texts exhibit postmodernism by disregarding "modern" marketing and copyrighting practices. In this manner, postmodern works are able to "rely on style for its expression"(335).

Girl Talk is a popular musician widely known for 'borrowing' copyrighted material and mixing popular songs together in order to create hybrid recordings. Like Radiohead's "In Rainbows", these recordings are made available online for fans at a price that they determine.

Here are a couple of his songs - the videos are fan-made but are pretty well done...





Anyways, you get the idea, but overall, Girl Talk exhibits postmodernism not only because of his distribution tactics, but also through using the strategy of pastiche, in which artists incorporate other texts into their own work to the point of legal complication. If anything, he is quite literally an example of the "remix culture", which is propelled by postmodern thought.

Postmodern Body & Pop Icons

In this chapter, Sturken & Cartwright refer to the "issues of identity and the postmodern body," (p.326). They claim that the body is easily transformed through a number of different ways. With this the postmodern body is "integrated with contemporary concepts," (p.326). Their examples with transformations of identity is easily seen with pop icons such as Madonna and Michael Jackson. Madonna is known for her many personalities and appearances throughout her career. Obviously, Michael Jackson took on a more physical change with his appearance rather than character and style. However, I'm interested in who they are calling the new Madonna, the only and one Ms. Lady Gaga. Clearly Lady Gaga is not afraid to speak her mind nor is she afraid to express herself through costume or performance. She is truly one of a kind. Struken and Cartwright say that "body and identity become infinitely malleable in a culture in which the image is the ultimate register of experience," (p.326-7). Lady Gaga's is the ultimate example of revealing her body and identity in unique and innovative ways. In a recent interview with Ellen Degeneres she says, "the whole point of what i do, the monster ball, the music, the performance art aspect of it, I wanted to create a space for my fans for them to feel free because I didn't fit in in high school," (Lady Gaga on Ellen). Lady Gaga is known for her outrageous costumes and her crazy performances, so what will she think of next? Will she be the next Madonna and create new and different identities with each album? Only time will tell...Lady Gaga and Madonna were on SNL a couple of weeks ago doing a skip playing up the so-called "rivalry" between them. It's funny, check it out

The Post Modern Body

Sturken and Cartwright discuss the postmodern body in Chapter 7, and how it is one that can be easily transformed. The post modern body has definitely become one that can be easily “resculpted into new shapes and forms.” Besides conventional, cosmetic surgery, doctors are now providing facial reconstructive surgery for people who have been in terrible accidents or have severe disfigurements on their face, allowing them to alter their facial structure completely. Furthermore, new discoveries regarding stem cells which develop into various tissue may soon provide amputees with the possibility of getting their limbs back, which is probably the ultimate form of human malleability.

Due to the accessible nature of plastic surgery “the loss of identity” has definitely become a severe side effect as everyone strives to attain the conventional, ideal form of beauty.In Asia, it is increasingly common for girls to get plastic surgery according to the same formula; they all want double eyelids, pointier, higher bridged noses, smaller faces, and sharper chins. In the future everyone will probably have the same features, reducing the authenticity of the appearance of the face.

I don’t know if the ability to change one’s appearance is a positive or negative phenomena; it is positive in the sense that it allows one to raise their self esteem but it is negative in the sense that it places so much more emphasis on the importance of beauty. I found Orlan’s work extremely fascinating as she is actually defying the conventional standards of beauty and disfiguring herself in order to highlight the extreme degree “to which we have taken choice and self fashioning to a limit that has surpassed notions of self unity and the rootedness of the human subject in the natural and biological body.” She even put implants in her forehead to emulate horns. Here is a picture of her:

Thoroughly Modern Cindy

Sturken and Cartwright mention photographer Cindy Sherman as an example of reflexivity--a style in modernism which is the "self-awareness of one's inevitable immersion in everyday and popular culture" that leads modern artists "to produce works which reflexively examine their own relation to the artwork or the artwork's institutional context" (old textbook 254).

I went to the International Center of Photographer during the break and Cindy Sherman was one of the artists that was part of the Triennial show, so I appreciate that it was mentioned in our reading. Though she stars in her photos, Cindy Sherman does not create self-portraits because she is not herself but rather is playing a role to make a statement. Her position as both artist and subject "invites us to think reflexively about subjectivity and gendered processes of identification, cultural memory, and fantasy in postmodern visual culture" (256).

In this photo, Cindy Sherman is playing all 4 women, having fun at a party with red cups at hand. There are only minor details among the women, in their makeup, hairstyle, and outfits, speaking to the "herd mentality that ironically pervades an industry celebrating individuality and personal style." In this photo, Sherman makes a statement on the irony of wanting to be both part of a group and being individual, concluding with an inevitable result of being a replication. This idea of reflexivity in modernism is actually ubiquitous that even/esp street artists such as Banksy use it in their art.

PS

I just remembered this website that has a bunch of 30-second parodies of well known films..re-enacted by bunnies. They are pretty funny.

http://www.angryalien.com/

10 Things I Hate About You Parody

While reading Sturken and Cartwright's discussion of parodies in chapter 8, I immediately thought of Not Another Teen Movie, a 2001 parody on the Teen/High school movie phenomenon that was very popular in the early 90s. The film is a perfect example of postmodernism, as Sturken and Cartwright point out that "postmodernism has been characterized by a kind of fatigue with the new and the sense that everything has been done before." (p. 328)  This pastiche, or the artistic work that imitates, remakes, and parodies films such as Bring It On, American Beauty, She's All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and countless others. 

The particular scene that I have chosen is a parody of the film 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Heath Ledger and Julia Styles. Heath Leadger's character, Patrick, is trying to win the heart of tough-girl, Kim, by publicly serenading her in the middle of her soccer practice. In this film it comes across as cute because the song is "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." In Not Another Teen Movie, the scene is remade and the context is somewhat similar, Jake is trying to woo Janey. However, to add a comical element to Jake's act, he sings, "Janie's Got a Gun" which is not so cute because it causes everyone around her to freak out in fear that she has a gun. Unfortunately, she gets tackled by security and tazered. Not so much of a cute serenade after all.

 

Nikki S. Lee

I am a big fan of the artist Nikki S. Lee, who's profiled in Chapter 7 (pp. 324-325). She's an NYU alumn and, by the way, does NOT identify as Korean-American- she's Korean. Here's an excellent article on her work and all its complexities in the NYT.

Here's a (kind of cheesy with cheesy music) YouTube video with more of her work.



And here's another image from the Hispanic Project:



The Lesbian Project:

Zero To Hero

Sturken and Cartwright explain that the goal of Postmodernism is to look at the “values that underlie all systems of thought and thus to question the ideologies within them that are seen as natural” (313). Media forms that embody postmodern ideals, therefore, require audiences that “will not be fooled by techniques of propaganda and illusionism, [people] who will get the reference, who [are] media and image savvy” (316). In most cases, these target audiences are parents.

The Disney movie, Hercules, is a great example of a media form structured by postmodern ideas. In the movie, Hercules emerges as a hero through his acts of bravery and displays of strength. As his acts of bravery spread throughout Greece, Hercules achieves “celebrity” status. Along with being well-known and receiving constant praise, Hercules becomes the face of everything from sandals to water bottles. Turning Hercules into an obtainable commodity is Disney’s attempt to parody the capitalistic and materialistic society that we have become as well as our unhealthy obsession with celebrities. Hercules can therefore be seen as a satire of the Western world wrapped up in a conventional fairy tale.

The non-reunion reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm

The chapter "Postmodernism, Indie Media, and Popular Culture" shows that there is no definition for postmodernism that can be summed up in a few short sentences. But while many people (including myself) may not be able to attach a strict definition to the word, most can point it out when they see it. As popular culture continues to develop, certain texts begin to show recurring themes. Texts that demonstrate postmodern characteristics often play with convention using irony (Sturken & Cartwright 315). They acknowledge themselves as texts and products and are aware of other texts as well as their own production (314-20). In essence, postmodernism is less about creating meaning and more about rearticulating existing meaning (330-331).

In the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David playing Larry David is trying to have a Seinfeld reunion in order to win back his wife. Now in real life, Larry David has always said he won't have a Seinfeld reunion because its stupid, and that this is not in fact a Seinfeld reunion. On the show, tv Larry David goes to all the Seinfeld stars, playing versions of themselves, and tries to convince them to do a Seinfeld reunion when in real life they've already agreed to do a real reunion by appearing on the show, even though real life Larry David says its not a reunion. Confused? Well thats postmodernism for you....well maybe.

Gazes of Lady Gaga vs. Farrah Fawcett

What struck me the most out of Sturken and Cartwright's chapter entitled, Modernity: Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge, was the concept of “gaze.” Gazes are widely used reinforcements dominant ideologies and hegemonies placed within our society. Yet, the chapter discussed how more and more gazes are being challenged by these ever-changing ideals of society.

I would like to present a photo of Farah Fawcet:

This gaze or "world of meaning” adheres to society's once dominant ideology of the ideal woman. This picture is an example of how women used to be "objects of the male gaze" as Farrah Fawcett is photographed here in a red bikini, with long blonde hair, a big white smile, and big breasts hanging out. She is really all that society's typical man would want to be offered because she is timid, happy, and sexualized. Here Farrah is the "object" of desire in the photo, not the subject. This photo revokes sexual desires specifically from other males in society.

However, times are changing as you can see in this contradictory photo of Lady Gaga. I would argue that Lady Gaga represents the changing fields of society because as a woman, she represents much more of a "subject" now than Farrah Fawcett does. Instead of being an object, Lady Gaga exemplifies warfare and hard-core ness (sorry for the lack of a better term) as she is performing in chains but is still lively and somewhat dangerous, much different than Farrah Fawcett's timid smile and calm pose. There is nothing comparable in these photos besides the fact that both of these women are famous and idolized. Yet, Lady Gaga's dark hair, fierce stance, and off the wall attitude do not take away from her fame. This exemplifies how society's "gazes" are constantly changing and something we thought was sexual and desirable in Farrah Fawcett's time is completely different than what society accepts as desirable today.

The Gaze and the Other

Nowadays, the “other” is still highly represented in the media, specifically in advertisements where “ads attach notions of exoticism to their products through images of places that are coded as distant and outside the world of consumption.” Asia and Africa are often construed as “exotic” places and women of biracial/African/Asian decent are highly fetishized.

 In fact, a few weeks ago, America’s Next Top Model had an episode where the contestants had to adopt two different ethnicities for a photo shoot. Tyra said she wanted them to adopt biracial identities because they were in Hawaii, which is home to people of various ethnicities. Thus, the contestants were asked to portray ethnicities including, Mexican and Greek, Tibetan and Egyptian, Moroccan and Russian, Native American and East Indian, Botswanan and Polynesian, and Japanese and Malagasy. Here is a picture of one of the contestants after getting a lot of make up done to blacken her face to make her seem as though she is Batswanan/polynesian:

I personally think that this photo shoot reinforces racial stereotypes by making these various races appear more “exotic” and “foreign”. The fact that this contestant was asked to adopt a different race and was made to look darker and thrust into a setting that looks primitive and tribal reinforces notions of the other. The gaze is “commonly regarded as awarding more power to the person who is looking than to the person who is the object of the look.” Thus, the fact that Tyra is making these models adopt various ethnicities that are going to become objects of the look reinforces the idea of the “other” and the fact that they are subjugated in the media.