Reality Television in Actuality

THESIS: Reality television is a solely profit-driven spectacle that exploits its subjects by promoting itself as "reality" when it is, in fact, fictional.

The Stone vs. Gladwell Debate Continues

While reading Dave Gilson’s article, “Wii Shall Overcome,” about game researcher and developer Jane McGonigal, I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu. I realized what it was as I reached the end of the article and the author made the comment, “But there’s a big difference between getting more people to take their medicine and enticing them to cure the world’s ills.” While Gilson was commenting on the participation levels when comparing large, popular games with the still-being-developed world-changing games McGonigal is creating, it reminded me of the Stone vs. Gladwell debate way back at the beginning of the semester.

There are two factors to the argument about games that I think correlate with the argument about Twitter as activism. First, there is the question of if gaming could be activism at all. Does simulating a game in which participants get a “crash course in changing the world” really effective it all in actually changing the world? Gladwell would argue no, whereas Stone would, of course, argue yes, that the community surrounding that activism and change would inspire change itself. For me, I’m still on the fence about this, as I am about Twitter.

The other issue is whether gaming should be utilized as an outlet of social/economic/political change or activism. Gladwell obviously dislikes the idea of Twitter, a social media outlet, being used in this way, but what would he say about video games? Well, as mentioned in the article, networked games, or games where you interact with other people playing the same game, allow for collaboration. This makes gaming seem more and more like a social media. Gladwell would, again, probably not agree that using social media interaction is the best way to solve world problems or do some activism would actually be beneficial. But Stone, on the other hand, would probably argue that interconnectivity is the only way it will happen.

For me to believe that both social media and gaming can be outlets of real change, I think both need to be reworked a bit. As of right now, there is too little evidence that change actually does happen because of these communities, and I think that is in part because both industries do not cater to that side of it by providing ways to actually do good. Hopefully, if both industries can work towards implementing some new ideas, we will actually be able to take advantage of the popularity of social media and gaming and change the world for the better.

Obama: Defying Hyper-Masculinity

I really enjoyed today’s lecture and discussion about hyper-masculinity in our culture, particularly hip-hop. I’ve seen Beyond Beats and Rhymes in a few of my other Film and Television Studies and Anthropology classes, yet I still have trouble completely understanding that culture. Probably because I grew up in a white, suburban, middle-class family, and we didn’t have “baggage” to the scale that Tupac grew up with. However, when we were discussing the stereotypical hyper-masculine qualities that men feel the need to portray, I couldn’t help but think of this video I saw yesterday, of President Obama speaking to volunteers at his campaign office in Chicago:

This video, which was only put online yesterday, was widely circulated on social media, and now has nearly three million views. In the discussion today, it was mentioned that “masculine” men don’t cry or show their emotion. Yet in this video, the very President of the United States is crying. It got me thinking about other ways Barack Obama defies masculine stereotypes. Physically, he does not place the same importance on body image that some of the people we mentioned today (Tupac, 50 Cent, Brad Pitt, the Jersey Shore guys) do. In fact, he’s a pretty slender man – just check out his wrist and hand as he holds the microphone in the video above. He has taken strides to end the war, a large source of violence associated with the United States. He obviously cares deeply for his wife and daughters and, as far as we know, is faithful to Michelle.

In all of these characteristics he openly defies the masculine and hyper-masculine stereotypes that were in the reading. I guess my question is: why do men still feel the need to perpetuate and fulfill these stereotypes, when it’s obvious that you don’t need them to succeed? The President of the United States – whose job could be considered the epitome of success – didn’t need to follow that path, so why do others? I guess I don’t really have an answer, other than it may be related to poverty levels and where people live, but the situation seems perpetual. Something needs to be done to start ending the cycle. But it is encouraging to me that the President, who has had the most reach into young demographics of recent presidents, is breaking those stereotypes down.

Human Sexuality is Complicated

From my previous post, you can tell that the topic of gender roles is one of my favorite things to discuss. However, a lot of times we (myself included) are still in the mindset of only discussing how culturally constructed gender roles effect heterosexual women and men. When really, as we’ve hit on in class, sexuality and gender should be put on a spectrum. I love the idea of one day being able to identify our gender the way we currently identify our cultural background, such as “I’m 50% German” – perhaps one day we will say, “I’m 80% female.” Our discussion of Caster Semenya kept me thinking beyond class, and I happened upon this video by one of my favorite YouTubers, the Vlogbrothers:

In the video, Hank relates gender roles to two “shiny boxes,” and he talks about how those boxes shouldn’t even exist. Instead, he creates a graph. I love this graph, and his explanation of it, because it makes it easier to understand (as a heterosexual female) how someone who does not identify in one of the world’s “shiny boxes” might feel. Another great point that Hank makes is that people move across these spectrums. Most of society right now tends to find that weird or cannot accept that someone could identify as one gender and then switch, or be attracted to one type of person and then change. I think this is a huge gap in our society’s stream of consciousness. It, like when we see someone who we can’t place into one of those shiny boxes based on their appearance, confuses us, so we just ignore it and pretend like they don't exist in order to protect ourselves from feeling uncomfortable.

All of this discussion on gender roles, both in and out of class, got me thinking. One day, will future generations look back on this time like we look back on when our ancestors owned slaves, or when women did not have nearly the same rights as men? Will it then be completely obvious to everyone that equality is the “right” and moral thing to do? I think we are headed in that direction, but we still have an incredibly long way to go. Tolerance isn’t created overnight. Strides are made – such as the first election of an openly gay person to the Senate and the legalization of same-sex marriage in three states last night – but, as with racism and gender equality, it is a slow moving machine.

Feminism is Genetic

When I read through our first set of gender-related articles, “When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink,” “Is Pink Necessary,” “Can Superheroes Hurt Boys’ Mental Health,” etc., I happened to be trapped in a hospital for nearly eight hours. Having my mother confined to a room with me allowed me to discuss these articles with her and find out more about the culture in which I was raised, as it relates to gender.

Growing up, I always knew my mother was a feminist. Raised in the south, her political opinions evolved to be entirely the opposite of her conservative father, my grandfather. I’ve heard her stories about picketing at political events, campaigning for women’s rights and equality, and she eventually headed to Indiana University to pursue journalism. She kept her maiden name, something that I’ve had to explain probably hundreds of times in my life. When she and my father talked about marriage, she said, “You know I’m going to keep my maiden name, right?” to which he replied, “You know what? I think I will too.” She got married in a suit – a cream-colored pencil skirt and blazer – instead of the traditional white gown.

But I really had no idea how this feminism effected the way my brother and I grew up. When I expressed my desire to raise my children, if I ever have them, in as gender neutral of an environment as possible, she filled me in on some things I hadn’t known about. For example, she didn’t know the gender of either my brother or myself before we were born, and the nurseries had been painted a neutral palate. While she didn’t go as far as to put me in boys’ clothing, she ordered all of my clothes from a Swedish clothing company which had only primary-colored girls clothing, including practical leggings and knit tops. I wasn’t much of a skirt or tu-tu kid. Apparently one year for Christmas my brother received a superhero cape (which gets into a whole other issue), and I decided I wanted to be a superhero too, so my grandmother made me my very own cape.

Now, I’m not denying that, like most girls, I went through those phrases. The Barbie phase, the Bratz Doll phase… My mom even let me try out ballet (I quit), gymnastics (I quit), and cheerleading (I quit), when I asked. But the important thing was that neither of my parents ever made me feel like I had to do those things because I was a girl, or that I was any less of a girl because I would rather play on the soccer team or street hockey in the neighborhood.

My thoughts on how I grew up and how it has had an impact on my gender identity now, as an adult, came full circle when we read the “Girls Rule!” article on Nickelodeon and I was introduced to the concept of “Third Wave Feminism.” I realized that to be a feminist these days, I don’t necessarily have to be on the front lines or completely rebel against femininity. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve picketed in support of Planned Parenthood, and fully plan on keeping my maiden name, if I even get married at all, but I am looking forward to learning more about how I, as a Third Wave Feminist, can utilize my future role in the media to help shape perceived gender roles to positively effect the lives of the next generation, and potentially my own children.

Weak Ties + 18 Days in Egypt

Talking about the Gladwell vs. Stone debate may seem like I’m going way back into things we’ve already talked about and moved on from, but I can’t seem to get their argument out of my head. Even in our reading for this week about pranking, some of Harold’s statements made me think, “Gladwell wouldn’t like this.” For example, in the Truth campaign, they put signs in magazines to make it easy for kids to tear them out and put them up. Harold says this, “provides young people with a quick and easy way to protest, to feel as if they are committing a subversive act, however small and temporary.” I have a feeling Gladwell would argue that these are weak ties between the audience and the rhetors.

While their debate lingers in my mind, I am still torn between Stone and Gladwell. I would like to believe that social media, Twitter in particular, has the power to help change and start movements, such as those happening in the Middle East. I watched a lot of news coverage during the beginning of the Arab Spring, and was fully under the impression that Twitter played a large role in organizing the uprisings, so Gladwell’s points to the contrary somewhat deflated my good opinion of Twitter as an agent for change. After I read Gladwell’s article, Stone appeared a bit whiny and defensive in his article, and I was left conflicted.

That is, until I stumbled across “18 Days in Egypt,” a collaborative, interactive documentary project. The producers are using the power and reach of social media to collect real stories and put them all in one place to show people around the world what happened to start this change in the Middle East.

Yes, the media probably dramatized the involvement of Twitter in the Arab Spring, and yes, social media is not as pervasive in the Middle East as it is in the United States, so of course there will be more action here than there, but does that matter? Looking at this project, to me, it doesn’t matter. Social media is still playing a part, no matter how small or large, and it is still creating ties, no matter how “weak” or strong. It’s relative, and I don’t think something like this needs to be quantified (in terms of how many people are tweeting where, who consistently follows what is going on, etc.) in order to be considered legitimate.