Blank Screen

I had a hard time making myself sit in front of a blank screen for that long. I kept thinking of all of the other things I needed to do, and then I remembered I wasn’t allowed to make lists. So then I looked at how reflective my tv screen is. When it’s turned off, I can see a lot of the room. That made me think that I need to clean the living room. I really had to concentrate on keeping my eyes on just the screen. I found myself analyzing how the TV isn’t really in the center of the wall, and the spot of paint I got on the ceiling and never touched up when I painted the wall last year, and where each of the things on my mantle below the TV came from. You get the idea. I was very restless. Usually when I watch TV I’m also on Facebook, or folding clothes, or doing something else, so to just watch the blank screen felt very wrong. I was very uncomfortable, and felt like I was wasting my time. One of the first reflections I wrote for this class was about a show I was watching on Netflix that I saw as a guilty pleasure.  I really felt guilty just sitting here watching a blank screen. Eventually, I ended up just staring at the word “Panasonic” at the bottom of my TV and kind of zoning out. The theme song from the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was stuck in my head (that’s my newest Netflix show) and that drove me crazy as well. Twenty minutes can really be a loooooong time. I try to be aware of how much time I’m spending on screens, but I know that I waste more time than I should. With my boys “screen time” is a phrase that gets used often in my house. (As in screen time’s over!)

Staring at a blank screen is silly, and I feel like maybe the point of this exercise is to try to make you feel ridiculous for spending so much time staring at an object--- whether it’s on or not. But I can’t help but argue that staring at a blank screen is so much different than when it has content on it. When I‘m watching TV, or on the internet, my brain is active and I’m interacting in some way with what I’m watching/reading. However, we should be conscious about how much time we spend on screens instead of interacting with the people around us.

Yahoo then and now

After reading the 2012 Pew Research Report "Future of the Internet, Millennials" and looking at The Internet Archive: Wayback Machine (http://archive.org/web/), I showed my 10 year old son yahoo.com today (https://www.yahoo.com/) and what it looked like in 1996. He said the 1996 version did not have very much information, it was boring because it had no pictures, and that it looked unreliable to him. He said he would be much more likely to use the 2016 version because it showed news, had more information, and he felt like it would be more reliable because of the ads. He said ads mean the website is making money, and it would have to be reliable for people to pay to put the ads there.

Like the report discusses, my son has grown up on the internet. (He learned his abc’s from an online game when he was 18 months old- the website is still up and surprisingly still the same http://www.fisher-price.com/en_US/GamesandActivities/onlinegames/the-abcs-zoo-learning-game). I thought it was really interesting that he said the 1996 Yahoo did not seem to have much information. In 1996, that was a huge amount of information on one page, but as the report discusses, people who are “hyperconnected” have vastly different expectations about how much information should be available to them.

I was not surprised that he said it looked boring. (Like the article says, people who grew up on the internet want to be constantly entertained.) However, I was surprised that he used advertisements as a way to make judgments about whether a website is reliable or not. The fact that he is trying to evaluate the reliability of a website shows some sophistication of thought about the internet. He already knows you can’t trust everything you read on the internet.

American Idol

Say what you will, but I’m an American Idol fan. I cheered on Kelly Clarkson when she won the first season and laughed with the guy who sang “Pants on the Ground.” I’ve been watching the last season and I’m sad it’s the last one. I think it’s been so popular because everyone can imagine themselves on that stage. America loves a good Cinderella story.  This article http://realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com/2006/04/26/why-is-american-idol-so-popular/

says perhaps one reason it was so popular is because “American viewers get the reward of knowing that they and not some suit in an office somewhere have created the next American superstar.”  Our chapter last week about active audiences is so relevant to this show. The audience sees the contestants as one of them and they are able to interact with the show and vote on the outcome.  

As culture has changed, American Idol has changed as well.  In the first few seasons, Simon Cowell was a judge and he was known for being mean to contestants who did not sing very well. He would say things like “you should sue your voice coach” and then the person would walk out the door and the judges would all laugh at them. With the new focus against bullying, that part of the show has been toned down significantly. The current judges will say things like “I’m sorry, this show is not for you” instead of making fun of people. Here’s an article from 2012 about American Idol making money by bullying people http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155358188/facing-up-to-bullies-everywhere-but-on-reality-tv.

What do you think about American Idol?

Active Audience Question 2

2. For me, social context definitely influences my experience of movie and television viewing. When considering how I interpret what I watch and how that’s influenced by those around me, the first thing I thought about was my role as a parent. It makes a big difference in the way I think about movies or television if I’m watching something with my boys, or if I’m watching it with them in mind. If I’m thinking about if something is appropriate for them to watch, I’m much more sensitive to cursing, violence, and underlying themes. My boys will occasionally ask if they can watch a movie that I have already seen, and I have to go back and look up what is in the movie because I wasn’t watching it with my “parent eyes” the first time I saw it. Watching with “parent eyes” is a very different experience for me than watching things for my own pleasure. When watching television or movies with my boys, I’m constantly thinking about how they are interpreting what is on the screen. (When I’m focused on being a good parent anyway haha). This article https://storify.com/Mike_OD42/active-audience-reception-theory talks about movies like Toy Story that have different messages particularly for kids and parents. These types of movies are some of my favorite movies to watch with my kids, because we can all enjoy them.

When I’m watching something away from my boys, I don’t try to analyze it as much, I just enjoy it. I have found that watching Netflix on my iPad with headphones is very immersive, and sometimes when I really want to just turn my brain off and enter a story for a few minutes, I’ll watch tv that way. When I’m watching something completely alone like that and I’m just focused on what I’m watching and not doing housework or anything else, that’s when I’m most able to enjoy a storyline and not focus on being critical.

Hypodermic Model

In researching what the hypodermic model is, I found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-toj0weAEM, which used advertisements as an example of how the hypodermic model can work. It made me think of how cereal advertisements have changed. In the past sugary cereals (like Lucky Charms) had commercials aimed right at children and they were shown during children's programming. Here's an example from the 90's:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foghWSflbIA. Now, people are more concerned about children's health and commercials like these are seen as irresponsible. Now, more Lucky Charms commercials are aimed at adults. To watch one example, click here. This is because many people firmly believe that if children see a commercial for a sugary cereal, they will have no choice but to beg for the cereal until their parents buy it for them. Here's an article about that: http://domain.me/kids-and-advertising.

I'm torn about how I feel about marketing sugary cereals to kids. We know that the hypodermic model has been proven incorrect, but we also know that advertising does have an affect on people, especially impressionable children. As a parent, I monitor how much screen time my boys have and I have taught them to fast-forward through commercials whenever possible.

What do you think about the relationship between advertisements and the hypodermic model?

Stereotypes and Pitch Perfect 2

I watched Pitch Perfect 2 just a couple of days after watching The Celluloid Closet, and the week after our discussions and readings about representations of race in the media. Pitch Perfect is a comedy about a group of girls who are an a capella singing group. One of the reasons that it is funny is that it over-plays stereotypes of all kinds to poke fun at them. Rebel Wilson plays a character who calls herself "Fat Amy" and her size is a big part of her quirky personality. Hana Mae Lee plays an Asian girl who speaks so quietly you can never hear what she's saying. Chrissie Fit plays a girl from Guatemala who is always concerned about being deported. Ester Dean plays an African American lesbian girl who is very butch and claims to be the biggest minority out there because she’s black, a woman, and gay.

After watching The Celluloid Closet and thinking about our discussions about race and the way people are represented in the media, this movie got me thinking about how homosexual people or people of color might feel about this movie. One of the things The Celluloid Closet pointed out was that not every gay person feels the same way about movies. For example, one man hated the “sissy” characterization and another liked it. This article from the Canadian Centre for Digital and Media Literacy points out the same thing and says that it should be considered whether the makers of the media product are gay and whether the gay community at large has accepted the product.

I would guess that some people of color and some gay people would laugh at this movie and see that it is pointing out the absurdity of stereotypes, while others may feel that it’s perpetuating those stereotypes. What do you think?

Race portrayals in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

I just finished reading the YA novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. The plot is basically Greg and Earl befriend Rachel (a girl who has cancer) and make a film for her. The movie based on this book was released last summer. I read it this week, and I was surprised by how much it made the black characters stereotypes. The first thing that struck me was when introducing the “jocks” Greg, the main character, says “they’re pretty much all black, and many of the white kids are afraid of them.” It only gets worse from there.

When Greg introduces his friend Earl, the fact that he is black is one of the first things he tells the reader.  Pretty much the only things Earl says are profane and/or violent. Earl’s family is even worse. There are no men in Earl’s house. Earl’s dad is “in Texas or something” and his half brothers’ dad is in prison. Greg’s dad, however, is a college professor who is an active part of Greg’s life. When Greg goes to visit Earl’s house, Earl’s brother breaks Greg’s arm over a small disagreement because Earl’s family is just that violent. Greg has trouble in school, and a teacher arranges with his parents for Greg to stay after school every day for tutoring. Greg says Earl is in classes where “you could staple a dead animal to your homework and still pass”. Earl’s aspirations for life are to be a manager at Wendy’s. Greg isn’t sure what he wants to do, but the book ends with his hopes of going to film school and it’s clear that he has a lot of options.

This is really troubling, especially because the film adaptation was widely acclaimed and received awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one to write about Earl’s portrayal. If you’re interested check out these links:

http://www.metro.us/entertainment/me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl-is-all-about-white-people-problems/zsJofi---ZlqAeehp5HY/

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/whats-missing-from-me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl