Thinking About Culture

Final Conclusion:
http://webct.lakeheadu.ca/SCRIPT/57264/scripts/serve_home


Throughout our search for gendered sites and different ideas of gender on the web, we have managed to find insight as to why there are marketed toward one gender or another, and why. We have also found how they perpetuate the cycle of masculinity, femininity, and gendering.

The website gendered towards women include everything down to specific colours, advertisements within websites (feminine hygiene products, etc.), styles of design, and wording which targets the caretaker or homemaker of the family. These more feminine ideals are then placed upon the generalization of all women. These websites also portray the heterosexual norms in which place heterosexual relationships as the ideal. The one blog ‘Google Search’ touched on a website http://www.gurl.com/ that projected resistance towards the ideas of feminine but in the end it was also pulled back into the vortex of the heterosexual ideals.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, www.facebook.com are gendered as feminine because women are seen as linking into relational stereotypes, whereas men are much more autonomous. A woman’s liking to gossip and social chit-chat makes networking sites a tool which allows women to do this more frequently. Whereas, there are notions that men do not constantly update statuses, however they partake in the viewing pleasure of creeping other people’s pages. This directly links these men to the male gaze that is placed upon other, which may entail people to curtail their pages to meet that masculinised gaze. The creeping created a successful union, allowing the reader to be fulfilled with their viewing, and then the feminized relationships are fulfilled as well. Facebook allows people to follow the lives of others, similar to soap operas. The three aesthetic essentials that make up a soap opera are very similar to Facebook and social networking site features. For example, light entertainment is related to the applications on Facebook like “Farmville” or “Bejewelled” or the constant questionnaires people partake in. Facebook is an emotional engagement with friends or acquaintances, or even strangers. It also allows a realism that reveals their true or made up self. (Roth, 2010). Facebook allows people to show their truthful reality and allows them to makeup, avoid or disallow people from seeing through to all their information which could potentially portray them as someone completely different than themselves. Like Soap Operas, Facebook allows people to create a more glamorous lifestyle than what is true.

The LCBO Food and Drink Magazine directly links the woman being the home entertainer and caretaker with the phrase, “the art of entertaining”. This directly links to women in that stereotypical lifestyle of homemaker and cultural broader social norm of women’s place in the home. Therefore, perpetuating the cycle of women’s place in the home which would could been seen in centuries before.

Home Depot http://www.homedepot.ca has developed a masculinised title because they offer a linear lay out of their store which links to the patriarchal set up. Home Depot presents sections their products in aisles where everything is easy-to-find, straight-forward and presents a Linear set up. This links back to French theorist Cixous, who brought forth the proposal of linear being masculine and the circular formation to be feminized(Roth, 2010).For example, products and household things targeted towards women, are organized in a more circular way and scattered throughout the middle of the stores, rather than organized in a linear fashion. Making the majority of the store set up speak to the masculinised masses which obviously, are their target audience.

While these websites are gender specific, they also typically speak to upper middle class people who are from financially stable economic backgrounds. These website make the lower classes strive to reach those impossible societal ideals that are deemed necessary. These products make it necessary for the intended audience to have access to internet which does not include everyone in society. Furthermore, these intended viewers require the means to consume these name brand products. In reality, consuming these products is not a necessity but rather a luxury that is pushed upon people to consume in order to conform to the societal ideal.

There are few cultural jams that resist the perpetuating cycle of product gendering and gendered websites. Therefore, completely resisting the process of societal norms is virtually impossible. So with the realization of these gendered texts and product marketing, it brings forth some deeply rooted fundamental questions.

We believe that basically, it all boils down to purchasing and consuming whatever makes you happy as an individual – no matter what gender, race, class, cultural belief, religion, or sexual orientation. However, the ongoing questions will still remain: Why is it that we like what we like? Where do these ideals come from, and where does the cycle end? Does the cycle ever end? Will we ever TRULY think ‘for ourselves’?

Works Cited:
Roth, J (2010). "Popular Culture and Counter Culture Lectures". January 5, 2010 to March 4, 2010. Lakehead University.

gURLs- Final Conclusion Blog

Cultural texts surround us in many different forms everyday. By critically analyzing what it is that we are seeing and being shown, one is able to recognize the subtle and more prominent ways in which gender is injected into the different types of media. Gender, in our Western culture, is mostly limited to male and female. This binary is and exclusive and inaccurate. It has been constructed, as many other things in our society have, as a hierarchy in which those things associated with being male and masculine are much more valued and respected, in comparison with things that are associated with feminine and female. However, both have to exist for the other one to contain meaning. Our blog outlines a broad range of examples that illustrate this point.

Websites act as a medium of culture by portraying the dominant cultural values of the time. As a result what we see is the perpetuation of the gender binary in websites such as gossip sites, cleaning product advertisements, sports sites and “reality” television. Also, what was prevalent while deconstructing these websites, was the presence of other forms of oppression and stereotypes. For example, many of the household cleaning product advertisements that we see portray an upper-middle class, white, heterosexual family. There is very little variation in the type of family that we most often see. This is a demonstration of the layers of oppression and exclusion that can exist in many types of situations.

Our research of gendered websites has proved that in terms of the ideological construction of what is feminine and masculine, things that are coded as feminine are frequently devalued. As we discussed in class, this is a learned response. We internalize social hierarchies and constructions through the process of socialization. All of this feeds into the hierarchy of high culture as valuable and often masculinized versus low culture, which is often feminized and less valuable. Our blog posts attempted to uncover ideas about the social constructions of femininity and masculinity in relation to high and low culture. A major discussion on the blogs stemmed from the website Perezhilton.com and whether or not it was gendered as feminine. Written by a homosexual male (self-proclaimed ‘Queen of all Media’), the site features your daily fix of celebrity gossip - “Celebrity Juice, Not from Concentrate” (Perezhilton.com). As we discussed in class in relation to soap operas, women’s gossip is something that is seen as socially illegitimate and thus is consequently devalued. Many students responded to the blog expressing that they did not want to admit their enjoyment of celebrity gossip due to embarrassment and that it was a ‘guilty pleasure’. This demonstrates how society views gossip. Partaking in it is often deemed a ‘waste of time‘ and this is connected to systems of domination. Gossiping in a way lacks credibility according to the dominant discourse (Hollows, 106).

As we have discussed in class, current dominant ideologies rely on hierarchical divisions between human beings. Our research of gendered websites and texts has revealed how dominant ideologies rely on a system of binary thinking, which results in the naturalization, and normalizing of certain roles for men and women. This type of dichotomous thinking does not necessarily reflect the actually lived realities of people, and could perhaps be referred to as a distortion of reality. Our research has shown that these ideas have become embedded in cultural texts including the world wide web, with sites such as www.mrclean.com and www.toysrus.ca depicting specific norms or roles for men and women. The section of Mr. Clean’s website that features advertisements from the company through history is particularly interesting. As Looie pointed out in one post, an ad from 1957 depicts a comic male placed into a ‘woman’s role’ with a frilly heart apron. Although there are certainly websites out there that are not gendered or that disrupt gender norms and categorizations, the web is not a space that is free from gendering. This was discussed in class in regards to hegemony and cultural texts, as cultural texts are spaces where a combination of representations can exist. We must consider how websites can spaces of both oppression and resistance (Roth, 2010).

Lastly we would like to discuss representations of masculinity and femininity through websites. Some excellent points were brought up in the blogs that contrasted “men’s” websites to “women’s” sites. www.spike.com, www.tsn.ca, and www.muscleandfitness.com were three sites that we determined were gendered masculine while websites such as www.cleanandclear.com, www.victoriassecret.com, and http://twimamas.wordpress.com were gendered feminine. Our research has led us to believe that the masculine websites often portray opposite ends of the spectrum from feminine ones, depicting extreme representations for how men ‘should be’. By analyzing the websites, we can determine the types of qualities that society values for men including strength, athleticism, and a lack of interest in the private space (as depicted on www.spike.com). Feminine websites such as www.victoriassecret.com portray the ‘ideal’ women through the Male Gaze and urge women to purchase lingerie and products to achieve this ideal. Other ‘feminine’ websites are devalued for their content such as gossip or their purpose such as fan sites of typical ‘chick’ texts. Websites may also be gendered as female because of the roles they represent, such as cleaning and home related websites. In conclusion, our research has helped us to better understand the constructions of femininity and masculinity in popular culture texts. Websites are contested spaces, which both resist and support dominant ideologies. Our goal was to highlight and deconstruct some of the most recognizably gendered websites and discuss the how this relates to the system of social hierarchies.

References:

Roth, J (2010). "Popular Culture and Counter Culture Lectures". January 5, 2010 to March 4, 2010. Lakehead University.

Aubrey B, Looie, Princess Consuela Banana Hammock

Pop & Counter Final Blog Post

After conducting our research and posting on the blog we have come to some interesting conclusions. Websites that are designed to appeal to men or women work in a way that perpetuates stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, as well as the “physical characteristics, traits, behaviours and occupations” that make up gender stereotypes (Begley 2002). These stereotypes affect our performance, and encourage us to act in a manner that corresponds to our gender (Begley 2002 http://www.ablongman.com/
partners_in_psych/PDFs/Brannon/Brannon_ch07.pdf).

Websites tend to be a distortion of reality and give agency to the social institutions that mould people and culture. Dichotomies are a crucial aspect of and are consistently perpetuated through websites. In particular dichotomies involving gender and ‘what it means to be a woman’ are prevalent in pop culture. Women remain to be portrayed as either a Saint or a Slut. In dating websites women are represented as man eating sex addicts, using men merely as their props. Whereas laundry detergent, cooking and diet websites deliver the message that women’s femininity is constructed by cooking, cleaning and being thin. Hollows writes that “the processes and practices of representation work to produce ideas about what it means to be a woman” (Hollows, 2000), it seems that women must follow unrealistic social standards where “judgments’ about value have often been gendered” (Hollows, 2000) The dichotomies found in websites do not reflect reality, and their meanings are negotiated to conform to the mainstream stereotypical social standards. Distinctions between the Saint and the Slut are becoming increasingly blurred and femininity continues to be re-negotiated.

Two types of websites that are both gendered “saintly” feminine are parenting and cooking websites (since historically these duties have been deemed “Women’s Work”). These websites maintain these ideals by trapping and containing women further into the realm of domesticity. These types of sites perpetuate stereotypes of femininity, while at the same time reinforcing these stereotypes. It’s a cycle that works to control women: telling them how they should look and act, and what their responsibilities/duties are as women (Begley 2002). Contrast these websites with websites about parenting and cooking that are designed for a male audience. These websites are all reinforcing stereotypes of masculinity: that men don’t know how to be a parent (whereas it comes naturally for women), and that men don’t have to take on any of the domestic responsibilities.

The results were very interesting when comparing porn sites that are gendered masculine, and sites that are gendered feminine. There were distinct aesthetic differences between the sites as a whole. The male sites had predominately masculine colouring, whereas the women sites had more traditional feminine colours such as pink or purple. Also, the female sites seemed a lot less cluttered: the male sites seemed to try to cram as many naked ladies and advertisements onto the page, whereas the female sites seemed almost relaxed in its presentation. Other interesting differences were the content. The male sites were predominately thumbnail clips with links to videos, and the female sites had many personal stories, something that the male sites did not have at all. These sites perpetuate the stereotype that men are interested in the sexual connection of a relationship, whereas women should focus on the emotional connection. If women do show interest in porn sites, then immediately they are placed in the Slut category within the "Saint" vs. "Slut" dichotomy because they are expressing and exploring their sexuality (something society frowns upon), and deviating from the "pure" and "virtuous" position women historically and stereotypically are expected to have within society.

In conclusion, there are such discrepancies between the types of websites that appeal to men, and the types of websites that appeal to women. However, all of these websites perpetuate stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, maintain dichotomies involving gender, and work to keep men and women safely trapped and contained within the realm of stereotypical “femininity” and “masculinity”.

Danger Powers, Keekers and The N3rd

Thinking About Culture

Here is the link to our Blog  http://webct.lakeheadu.ca/SCRIPT/57264/scripts/serve_home

In the short period of researching for ideas and examples of pop culture jams and messages, we as a group found that while these culture jams had great messages and could potentially make a difference on a personal level. The overall, idea of culture jams were, in a macroscopic view, not making a large difference in the way it protests and blocks the overall societal view. It is largely an underground “rebellion” that is overlooked and lost because of unawareness by many due to some of the forms it is presented in. We felt that there is not enough public awareness and education on the culture jamming available to the public and therefore, they are ignorant to the fact that it is available to them.

The overall intentions of culture jamming are definitely in the right place, however, the overall effect is narrow on the effected populace. This is because it is somewhat elitist in subject matter in which it demands a certain level of education and awareness to understand it. Such as the “buying nothing for one day” (https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd) jam. While this idea is great concept, it proves unrealistic in the way it could not be achieved at a macroscopic level. This would only be effective at a local level which inevitably would have negative consequences on privately owned businesses. Culture jams seem to live between that of civic art, in the subject matter covered and guerrilla art by the forms in which it’s presented. We found that the overall effect of civic art is too elitist in intention and represents the upper-middle class rather than including the lower socioeconomic masses as well. The guerrilla, more primitive, underground art form is viewed as a lower form of artistic expression, which receives less merit as a form of art because of this and therefore receives less attention from the upper or upper middle class. Guerrilla art such as the sticker that was attached to a skin care ad (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mixthemessage-com_fansite/4019881544/in/pool-adbusters) in our blog is a part of an underground movement and exemplifies the simplistic effective forms it can take. Although both civic art and guerrilla art, in culture jams, are speaking to the same cause of disruption they are viewed on two different levels which clash.

While Culture jamming is a somewhat effective rally against westernized, patriarchal conformity, such as the “Thank you Corporate America” (http://webct.lakeheadu.ca/SCRIPT/57264/scripts/serve_home) post;
It has its limitations as an effective feminist tool depending on how the message is presented and where. Culture jamming is a great tool for the public to get their message across to the masses; however, it is a hidden form of protest that is a disruption to the popular ideologies that rule our societies. For this reason, it is silenced by the dominating ideologies of society and the disrupting messages brought from culture jamming are therefore taken underground because of its defying nature.

GuRLS Final Blog

Cultures are constantly being reinvented, and are “always the site for struggles for meaning.” (Sturken et al, 2009) In cultural arenas such as politics, consumer life, and art, dominant values are constantly questioned and counteracted. Culture jamming started as a revolt against the mass production of products, consumerism and capitalism and the environmental and social issues that go along with that (Liacas). It uses the forms, language and logos of the powerful production companies as a way to get across its message. Along with culture jamming in Western cultures, globalization has caused jammers to start up across the globe, in attempts to counter act the damages that have been done by production companies to include sweat shops, advertising, low paying jobs, and mass media focused on selling products (Liacas).

Culture jamming started early in our history, and has remerged due to the acceleration of new companies, products, media and internet spreading advertisements and messages. Some of the very first culture jams were done by activists with spray cans, they rewrote the messages of billboard advertisements, “changing the slogans in hopes of startling viewers into thinking about messages differently” (Sturken et al, 2009) Culture jammers began with using whatever they could to get their message across to an audience. With such a wide audience to target, using a spray can and billboard or poster was a rudimentary way to reach the most people. Today, activists have started producing the culture jams to fight against the fact that only a few companies owning and producing the majority of things we consume (Liacas). Remakes of ads and parodies “are deploying new tactics and creating ambiguous brand meanings through postmodern style… thus the distinction between ads and anti-ads is increasingly difficult to make.” (Struken et al, 2009) Culture jamming has changed from the basic need to express one’s self to a highly technological way for activists to get their message out. The remaking advertisements show the new found sophistication that culture jamming has adopted. As in the development of anything, culture jamming began from a need and grew in to something recognizable and popular.

The term cultural appropriation is the process of “borrowing and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion” (Sturken et al, 2009) and it has been used by culture jammers and artists to make statements that resist dominant ideologies. Cultural appropriation can create multiple meanings, building off the reversal of the original. Culture jammers use media and internet tools to get their messages across, using the same tools that advertising and production companies’ use. Many critics of culture jamming ask if something that uses the mainstream can also change it? (Liacas) Some research suggests that even though culture jams alone are not stopping mass consumption/production, they are changing the ways in which products are being made and sold (Carducci, 2006). Because of culture jamming and the activism against the issues surrounding mass production, many companies have "gone green", and taken anti sweat shop policies (Carducci, 2006). So even though, the problem is not completely solved, activism has made some impact. The area that culture jamming can make the most impact in is with the public. Informing and motivating the public is what culture jamming started out doing and it is what activists and protesters are still working for today. “In a commercial-dominated society in which 'culture' is often defined simply as a set of objects, images, and artifacts to be purchased and amassed, participating in individual and community-based forms of cultural production and resistance is seen by culture jammers as an essential component of responsible democratic engagement with the ideology of the everyday.” (Darts 2004)

Danger Powers, Abbey Road, BritFan

Pop & Counter Culture

By analyzing culture jams in both global and local contexts we have found that they have developed into a world-wide phenomenon and consequently can be strong political pieces. Each of these political pieces portray stories of the creator and their life experiences. Readers also use their own individual cultural contexts to interpret images and thus each image can represent new or different meanings to different people. “Understanding the cultural context of a story can often help our understanding of some aspect of the story itself. The social, political and economic currents surrounding a writer can and usually do affect the writers literary creation” (virtuaLit).

Banksy was one of the culture jam artists who created political pieces such as Maid in London and the pieces done on the Gaza wall. These political pieces make statements and critically examine the culture and politics of that region. For example: the work on the Gaza wall was created in order to demonstrate how restricting and confined life is in Israel and Pakistan. Banksy challenges the negative aspects of this barrier by creating works of art that depict people being trapped behind the wall and trying to escape. By creating images like this Banksy is trying to prove that these walls are confining, and is criticizing them for the lack of freedom they portray. This is Banksy’s way of showing his outrage and dislike of this wall, and how this wall is taking away from people’s rights and freedom.

A culture jam from Slovenia was one of the rare finds of a culture jam that is not extremely westernized. This is mainly because the language used is not English. It does however criticize advertising and proves that billboard advertising does work. It also sends the message to the viewer that people, who buy into and believe what they see, cannot think critically about the advertisements they see and are therefore, in the words of the billboard, an idiot.

One form of culture jamming that is certainly occurring around the world, but is not necessarily visible on the internet, would be ‘Guerrilla Marketing’. Weburbanist.com describes this type of culture jamming as ‘Subvertising for Good Causes’. In a write-up on subversive marketing and other culture jamming techniques, the website states that “sometimes it is even more powerful not just to make a statement against the status quo - but to make one that might actually benefit someone in serious need. Humanitarian guerrilla marketing and subvertising can raise awareness about local and global issues in a visceral way that can engender real change”. This particular write up is important because in a consideration of culture jamming as a world wide phenomenon, this kind of technique becomes extremely significant. The website featured an example of an advertisement which touches on the humanitarian concern of children and poverty. If culture jamming is capable of addressing large scale issues such as this, then it must be occurring around the world to raise awareness about the vast number of global issues that we in the West do not witness on a daily basis. Although not being able to find good examples of it on the internet is discouraging, this website gave hope that Guerrilla marketing is out there in countries other than the United States and Europe who have more frequent internet access.

The second technique found through research was culture jamming propaganda. As the question asks to explain why culture jams are important political pieces within their specific cultural contexts, these examples were also significant. Weburbanist.com features some examples that take the artistic elements of historical propaganda, which have been used across the globe, from the Soviet Union and China, to the UK and the United States, and transforms them into culture jamming pieces. For example, one ‘propaganda’ like image features Bert from Sesame Street in the place of a historical figure, while another uses the red M&M character. Weburbanist states that “propaganda has often been SO serious and over-the-top that it invites parody. By injecting a note of humor into traditionally staid and solid imagery, we can derive amusement from belittling the propagandists while enjoying the jarring inconsistency between, say, the Soviet Threat personified by an army of Kermit and Bert clones”. Propaganda posters are used to boost moral and patriotism, and often feature controversial images such as North Korea’s anti-American propaganda (Weburbanist.com). Another example as discussed in class is the culture jamming of Marxist guerrilla Che Quevara. Culture jamming or parodying of these types of images helps to shed light on the use and possible abuse of propaganda during Revolutions and wartime (Weburbanist.com).

While researching it was found that many images from global locations still portray contradictions toward western built companies. “Nike the Ripper” is an important political piece towards Nike as it shows already fit women being withheld by the Nike swoosh, bringing forward questions in regards to the social class and politics behind the products they sell. This culture jam also prompted questions of how Nike products are manufactured with the economic goal of making money and how they are going to go about doing so. Furthermore the Nike culture jam and the blog are intriguing because of how one image developed into many different things. As the experiences from person to person vary, we see the controversy based on the cultural and experiential differences. This blog in reply to the Nike image seems to be based on life experiences and beliefs. It cannot be assumed that people will see the portrayed image the same way we will or the way the artist had initially intended. This concept presents us with what we have learned to date as the preferred meaning which the producer originally had in mind therefore creating a polysemic view on the image.

Culture jamming is global phenomenon but we have become more familiar with the bigger industries which are mainly in the United States and Canada. Culture jamming is a great way to spread your message, whatever your message is, whether it is contradicting a global corporation about where they get their meat or who is making our clothes for those multinational corporations. The mass audience is what media wants to appeal to; they want us to think what they have to offer us is what we should all want and need. Consumption of products is what makes our world go round today. Women play a huge part in the media, because lets face it, sex sells. Just like in the picture of the woman in the underwear ad in class, the lighting accentuates her breasts and thighs making it easier for the woman to decide, "I want to look like that! Therefore I should buy this underwear and bra!" More so, these are young women who get this big heaping weight of sex poured onto them, in order to be more appealing. These industries are here to first and foremost make money, and they will do anything to do so. Culture jamming is a person’s way to go against these global corporations and say how they feel. People should have that right to not have to buy into consumerism and going with the masses. Culture jamming certainly takes place around the world, as it is a tool to counter dominant discourses as well as address or highlight underrepresented issues.

Although finding examples from around the world proved to be difficult at times, this does not mean that culture jamming is not happening around the world. Other groups have discussed the wide variety of culture jamming formats and the history of culture jamming practices. Due to the large expanse of what is considered 'a culture jam', as well as the varying cultural and political contexts around the world, it is safe to assume that culture jamming is occurring outside of the Western world. We have attempted to discuss some versions of it throughout our blogs and in out final conclusion, but we have certainly not uncovered or discussed them all.

- Keekers, Kate Bauer, Durden32 and Aubrey B

*Feminism and Culture*

Our blog group (Feminism and Culture http://2113wa10b.blogspot.com/) focus was to find culture jammers online and research them. The research included; finding out information on the specific group that designed the culture jammer, their politics, how they use jamming and why.

Throughout the last month we each found very interesting and thought-provoking culture jammers and groups/individuals that use culture jamming through images, video, and as our group found even themselves. We found that feminism is used in culture jamming as an outlet for challenging the viewers thought-processing and show how non-sensical our society can be to stereotypes about women. For example; "The Right Dress Size" culture jam creator Beverly Naidus shows the viewer that generations of American women have been 'bought' into the idea that if they buy the right clothing, wear their hair the right way, eat the right thing than they will be the true definition of an American woman. Naidus' culture jammer reflectively proves that this idea is just plain ridiculous because like Naidus wrote; what happens to the people that don't fit in, or can't fit in?

Feminism is used through culture jamming to provide a voice for women that are not heard by society by using the same tactics as large media and advertising. Culture jammers that speak the truth seem shocking because feminists confront 'taboo' issues that society usually chooses to ignore. Such as our January 10, 2010 post "QUEERying Culture..." in which the creators (Dyke Action Machine) use their creativity to fight the stereotypes about lesbian lifestyles and show society what it is really like.

Through our research we've learned that culture jamming is all around us whether we consciously realize it or not. Take our January 18th post about Lady Gaga for example, she herself is a culture jammer. Through what seems to be her way of fighting the constraints of

the 'politically correct' she has made an empire all while being an activist for gay and lesbian rights. She takes using 'shock-value' to a whole new level!

When women are negatively portrayed in media or misunderstood by society culture jamming will always be a way for feminists to fight back and unveil the lies that many are taught to believe. Feminists create culture jammers that depict the ridiculousness and show the often humorous side to sexism. Culture jammers are a form of social movement and could possibly be our generation of feminists newest way of protesting.

Jigsaw blog

Hi bloggers,

This is the Jigsaw blog, to which you will post your final, "academic" conclusion, and the link to your blog work.