In class on Thursday, our Professor Nichols told us that we were going to be watching a movie. I was very excited because for some reason I just wasn’t in the mood to take notes this day. The name of the movie we watched was called “ The Codes of Gender”. This movie focused on Erving Goffman and his overall analysis of advertising through the forms of femininity and masculinity. It was very interesting because a lot of the things that were analyzed I had not ever considered or looked at until it was brought up. The movie made sure to distinguish between the differences of sex vs. gender. Sex being the more biological characteristics that define men and woman while gender focuses on the physical differences and socially constructed roles and behaviors appropriate for men and woman.
The movie was able to show us what we do as people to demonstrate the behavior of our genders to set us apart. The movie described femininity as being more submissive, powerless and dependent while masculinity was more dominant, and powerful. It was interesting when they used the example of Commercial Realism and related masculinity and femininity to commercials. I never realized how they have women and their “hands” in commercials. Women’s hands are often shown as sensual and delicate while the hands of men are more masculine, utilitarian and manipulating molding. Some things you don’t pay attention to because it’s normal for us to see this, and not think twice about it. But then I start to reflect and ask someone “what do I do to demonstrate behavior as a female”? Another interesting thing was how they compared little girls and their behavior to older women. Now days we notice that many women are portraying the behavior of little girls to seem more innocent, and pure almost. This made me a little upset because we deem men and their behavior with little girls as perverted and obscene but then as women we act like it and we want men to find it attractive. That’s really strange and sick in my opinion.
The movie also shed light on how some advertisers add females to their advertisements so it won’t seem like the men are “gay”. Because if other men think the men are gay they wont wear the product thinking it will relate them to being homosexual. That honestly blew my mind because if a guy were in an advertisement half-naked I personally wouldn’t think he was gay, but being a man you might look at it differently.
This movie allowed me to see things at a different light especially being a woman. It made things that would normally be invisible now visible to my eyes. It’s interesting that everything we do, and every way we act all falls back on our gender and who we are.
I can’t believe the end is here already! It was just in September that I was taking my seat in Professor Nichols class, not sure what was in store for me. But all I knew was that these three credits would get me one step closer to graduation. Which by the way is this semester! Anyways, back to media criticism…For our final blog assignment we were asked to go to three of our classmate’s blogs and read a blog that they wrote during the semester. We were asked to comment on their blog answering the following questions:
What you enjoyed about their blog
What you learned from them and why you think it’s important information to know or an important perspective to use;
What you know about the topic that they didn’t cover and why you think it’s important;
Where they could find additional information/examples/sources to support their discussion and why this information is relevant
Where you might disagree with points they made in their discussion(s) and why you disagree
How they might improve their discussion(s) and why.
Now when I decided on the three I would pick, it was just a thing of total random. The first three people who I saw when I logged on our class social network page would be the lucky winners. It was almost as easy, as buying a $2 lottery ticket before 11 to win the mega million tonight. But I picked Saba Bader, Mark T. Scott, and Alexandria Autrey.
Saba introduces readers into Propps 31 Functions and how it relates to the Lion King. Being a huge fan of this movie, it was very enlightening to learn more about the 31 functions and the character types within the film.
Read the comment I left for her:
I really enjoyed your blog discussion over the Lion King. I personally have been a fan of this classic since I was a little girl and there is not a moment that it’s impossible for me not to watch it again. The Lion Kings is one of those movies where you can watch over and over again. I think you did a wonderful job at making sure your audience understood the movie (by putting in the movie trailer) as well as giving a brief overview of the movie. As much as I watch this movie, I’ve never actually analyzed it. You did a good job of relating Propps 31 functions to the movie and characters because I learned some things that I never considered. But I think its important to remember that when it comes to most stories they all share common features regardless of media and culture but how they are told is different according to culture and media. I think that marinates more in our minds especially when we think about the trends of Disney movies. I found a link of someone who too, used the Propps 31 function to analyze three Disney movies, including the lion king. You should check it out and compare your analysis.
I personally disagree with your character types you gave for the movie. My only objection is that I think Rafiki is the donor. He’s the main one who had a lasting effect on samba to go back.
I think Nayla is somewhat the dispatcher, and the princess. Overall, I think you did a good job! Its important that we understand these functions so it can help us analyze things that we may watch on TV or in movies later on. It helps so we know how to explain things to our kids (whenever that happens of course) I also think that beside each function you should put what I means so that your reader doesn’t have to go back and forth for a definition. It helps to keep the reader engaged.
Mark opens his blog with the discussion of media criticism and uses the hit television series House as his example. He points out why it is especially important to be media literate in the society we live in today.
Read the comment I left for him:
Let me just say that I am a huge House fan! I remember the first time I started watching it, I stumbled across it while flipping channels one day and it was a House marathon. I literally watched it the entire day and fell in love with it. Gregory House is a hot mess but one of the smartest doctors I have ever seen on a television series. His personality alone made me want to watch more of the show. In the beginning of your blog when you introduced the concepts to understand media, it really did make me analyze the fact that if we don’t learn to be critical of the things we see on TV and or movies we will believe anything we see. Clearly at a younger age, you don’t understand but being older it all makes sense of how important it is.
I think it’s important that I point out that media criticism is more then just the study of texts as you said. It’s an actual process that we use to understand these texts and how they affect us. When it comes to your example of House, I really cant see anyone actually believing what happens on this particular show will happen in real life. Clearly this show goes above the norm to make the doctors look like superheroes but I don’t think that it gives people false hope because if you actually believe that all doctors can solve miracles then your crazy no matter how you look at it (not you, but speaking in general terms). However, I know these people exist and I’m so glad you touched on the importance of being media literate so that they can distinguish what is real and what is made up.
Also, I know some people have wrote about the media portrayal of this show, and the commentary is very insightful because even doctors have their negative views about what this show is actually saying or the perception it gives audiences.
I think you could spice it up a little maybe by adding an additional medical text to analyze and compare to House (i.e. Greys Anatomy, ER) just to see if it’s the same portrayal on all of the shows
Alexandria discusses in her third blog about ideologies in Disney films in particular and the dangers associated with it. With Disney being a major conglomerate it is extremely important that we are mindful of things we see on TV so we aren’t subject to believe in the depiction we see.
Read the comment I left for her:
I really enjoyed reading this blog. I noticed that while I was reading I had a lot of “ah-ha moments” and I could really relate to many of the points you brought up. Until recently, I never looked at Disney movies and the characters and related them to people of race. I never did the comparison of the Chihuahua and the Hyenas and how one relates to Hispanics and the other to African Americans. That’s just something I never did because I guess it didn’t make sense to me. I agree with you though, that media is so embedded in our culture that after a while we just believe what we see because it’s the norm. Why else wouldn’t you believe that the prince would save you, or that if you drop everything you and him will live happily ever after. I grew up with this mentality that relationships were like fairytales until I really got hurt and realized it wasn’t. That’s why I’m so glad you touched on why it can really be dangerous for younger generation girls and boys.
But we have to remember that when it comes to ideologies and the overall criticism we cant just look at the text itself but actually how is produced, structured and how it interacts with our life experiences to understand ideas and values that circulate in our world. I was reading an article from someone from Georgia State about the dangers of Disney ideology and it was so interesting because she analyzed the ideologies of these films from 2000-2010.
It’s an ongoing cycle, so no wonder why people buy into this. It’s everywhere!
I think it would be good to mention where else these ideologies are located that aren’t related to Disney. This way it will really show the angle of influence media conglomerates currently have on our society.
I have had a good experience writing blogs this semester. Besides the fact that I already like to write, being able to analyze TV shows that I watch on a daily basis was extremely fun and something different for me. Before this class I would have never analyzed anything I watched on TV because there was no point to. I also enjoyed reading my classmates blogs because its interesting to see another persons thoughts and insights on the same thing you’re learning.
Hello Followers! I am so glad that you have decided to come back for yet my third blog for Media Criticism. We have learned a lot so far, and I cannot believe the semester is almost over already. This class has made me look at everything completely different. I noticed that when I’m watching T.V. I’m analyzing advertisements, promos, to see what approach they use. It’s actually quite scary to be honest. Who actually thinks about schoolwork outside of school?
But anyways, today I wanted to talk about how the media is really reaching our youth using the political economy perspective of ideological criticism.
Ideological criticism as I understand is how text is produced, structured and ways it interacts with our life experiences to understand dominate ideas/values circulating in our social world. It is not to be confused with just looking at the text itself.
Ideology is defined as a means of exerting power as an “instrument” dominant elites use to extend control over others works to maintain existing power relations.
It examines:
How these ideas are embedded in and circulated through texts
How they reflect/serve the interests of the dominant elites
How the systematic representation of these ideas become accepted as normal and
How they go unnoticed and unchallenged
This really allowed me to think in terms of how media is shaping their texts to influence kids and even us.
Political economy perspective is a perspective that Theorist Marxist feels is a theory of socioeconomic order, which in turn generally ask audiences?
How media institutions, texts practices establish and sustain existing power relations
How media advance the interests of dominant elites and
How elites maintain control through “hegemonic” consensus.
As it relates to hegemony, this is really the type of power we buy into as a culture. But the elites use ideology as the instrument that draws us in.
The overall analysis examines both the role of ownership in media industry and how production and distribution practices shaped the media texts that is ultimately the link between media ownership and the ideology embedded in media texts.
In class we were able to watch two movies: “Mickey Mouse Monopoly” and “Consuming Kids”. Both movies showed how media (movies, advertisements, TV shows, commercials) are indirectly targeting our kids. It shows how text is being embedded to get the attention of our kids.
In the movie “Mickey Mouse Monopoly”, they analyzed Disney and their purpose. As it relates to the political economy theory Disney is being used as the storyteller. People buy into Disney, because of who they are and what they are known for. They tend to use “magic” as manipulation. Kids watch it because their parents watched it, so what harm could we see from it especially if our parents were watching it at some point? From watching the movie, I was able to get a better understanding, and actually see things that I would have never thought of before.
For example, there are many stereotypes in Disney movies that go along with the assumption of ideological criticism; that there is value in exposing and challenging often taken for granted, ideas and values even though CONFRONTATIONAL. I put a lot of emphasis in capitalizing that word because if we really take a look at some movies they are confrontational beyond words.
Example 1:
Disney Movie: The Jungle Book
There are so many forms of confrontation in this movie as it relates to stereotypes. The biggest example was one used from the movie about the interpretation of African-Americans being compared to the monkeys. For a kid to watch this movie, you mentally have an assumption of who black people are, and how they act. For years black people have been compared to monkeys, and “The Jungle Book” is an example of bringing that out.
Other examples of Disney movies that just show how much power these writers, and producers have over our generation is the belief that women are inferior unless they have a man. They use a lot of gender roles in movies to make kids believe what is their role in society. There is the belief that a woman needs to be saved and a man is their to rescue her, or that every woman just has a man on her shoulder.
Beauty and the Beast
Sleeping Beauty
Kids are only seeing the glitz and glamour of these movies. They only see that the woman is in danger, and that in order to be rescued a man has to be the one to do it. Other writers have also talked about this issue. Women are supposed to be poised, and of beauty.
The second movie that we watched was able to touch on the many concerns that political economists have. This movie, “Consuming Kids” show the commercialization through media.
Some concerns with theorists are :
current trend of deregulation
growing power and reach of global media conglomerates
increasing dominance of advertising and marketing in our lives.
This all is through the “Synergistic practices”
I think the main thing that I learned from this movie is that media is starting young when it comes to reaching kids. It’s honestly disturbing, and quite sick.They make kids more vulnerable to advertisements because kids are like sponges. If something appeals to them, nine tines out of 10 they will flock to it.
Economists are concerned with the fact that there is an increasingly focus on:
social role of advertising and marketing practices
ideology of materialism or consumerism
its influence on our consumer culture and
how advert/marketing practices promote culture of consumption.
If it is not clear already what they are doing, we must really be in denial. Lets look at this example of an advertisement:
McDonald’s has used the drop of cartoons into their advertisement of their food. Kids love SpongeBob, and in order to get the toy they have to get the food. Kids don’t care about anything else, the cost the effects of the food, but SpongeBob. I remember my little cousin came up to me one time and said “Ashley can we go to McDonald’s, Hannah Montana is there” im like Hannah Montana is there? I was confused, because why in the world would a pop star be at McDonald’s until I realized there was a toy there that she wanted.
I bet you’re wondering, well “so what Ashley, whats your point?” Well my point is this, the influence is real and media are constantly targeting our kids. But I think it is really important that people realize that at the end of the day YOU have the say in what your kids watch, what they listen to and how they are exposed.
Clearly, you can’t stop them from seeing advertisements and things when they are at school and are faced with things daily. But you have the final say in what you buy, you are the one who can explain these depictions in movies. It’s important that you personally understand so you can explain it to the younger ones because if you don’t they will grow up with an idea of something that Disney created.
Hello everyone! I am so glad that you decided to come back to my blog. If you are new to the blog, this is a blog intended for my media criticism class. Please be sure to look at the first blog that I did on “What is Media Criticism” so you will be able to follow along. My last blog, I introduced the text of “The Good Wife”. The Good wife is a series that comes on every Sunday on CBS and it is truly one of my favorite shows. I decided that for this assignment I would just continue the discussion of the show but in a different perspective. Today, I would like to discuss Semiotics and the relation it has with this particular media text. Now, many might question what is semiotics? As defined by my professor, semiotics is the study of how social production of meaning is constructed through a system of “signs”. It’s very fascinating because when you really think about it, signs are everywhere.
Signs are:
1. Embedded in all texts
2. A way to understand the meaning of a text
3. Used to understand how reality is socially constructed
When you have a clear understanding of what semiotics is, and the purpose of signs it makes you look differently at things we come in contact with. It makes you listen to music differently; it allows you to interpret television in ways you probably would have never thought of. I know personally for myself, after the lesson on semiotics it has made me more conscious of things around me. Our professor broke down the study of semiotics a little further with four meanings.
1. Sign which is the signifier
2. Meaning which is signified
3. Process which is signification (the way to create meaning)
4. Field of signs which is code
So for the purposes of demonstration, I would like to go over different print ads for the Good Wife. We won’t just be analyzing one print ad, but we will be analyzing four ads for each season of the good wife. I figured this would be great because as I have watched each season, I have personally noticed how characters evolve, how the story changes and it made me wonder if the advertisement itself would change? …and it did. So for each ad, remember to keep in mind semiotics. The study of signs, which we already said, was our signifier, their meanings, which serve as the signified, and how they are signified (signification) into codes (field of signifiers).
Season 1
The Good Wife premiered its first season in 2009 introducing audiences to Peter and Alicia Florrick. Peter Florrick is a former state attorney who has been jailed after a sex scandal. After being a stay at home mom for years, Alicia is forced to go back to work as a litigator to provide for her family. The print advertisement for this season is eye-catching. Other than the fact that the sub headline reads “His Scandal, Her Story”, it is evident that Alicia is the focus behind him. All the cameras are directed to her husband who not to mention has his back turned. While it seems like the focus is on him, the ad assures you that it’s really about her. Alicia is showing very little emotion in the picture. I think it’s almost as if she doesn’t have emotion because she doesn’t know how to feel given the events in her marriage. She is wearing red, which makes me believe she is conservative as well as white pearls to show her in a pleasant light. She is also holding her ring finger as if she’s in doubt for what’s to come, especially for her marriage.
Season 2
The second season premiered in 2010, and the writers of The Good Wife did a good job at introducing audiences to a love triangle. While trying to stay connected to her husband, Alicia and her boss Will catch feelings for each other. The advertisement is clearly demonstrating that there is a love triangle because she is holding both her husband’s hand, and the hand of the other man she loves. Noticeably, Will is holding his briefcase which shows his relation with Alicia stems from work. They are all still showing little emotion, but still demonstrating they are all so very conservative.
So far, we have looked at two different print advertisements. My professor introduced two different analyses to go along with semiotics. Syntagmatic Analysis and Paradigmatic Analysis. She explained, Syntagmatic Analysis as understanding the combination of signs and their meaning to make a whole. We not only needed the trailer to better understand, but also the print advertisement had a combination of signs intertwined to help us have a clearer picture. But then with Paradigmatic Analysis, its an analysis that understands a set of associated signs that are even through all members of a defining category. Lets continue our analysis.
Season 3
Season 3 definitely started up hot and steamy. Season 2 ended with Alicia finding out that her husband Peter slept with her best friend and colleague Kalinda. She was devastated and hurt. The writers left everyone in awe as we watched Will and Alicia go into a hotel room together. At this point it is clear that Alicia and peter are finished. The print ad for this season shows Alicia in a more sensual way. If you go back to the other ads you notice how she went from a conservative red dress to now wearing a sexual black dress. She is not only showing more skin, but she has her shoes off like she is free. The one thing that also stands out is the fact that the sub headline reads, “ Don’t let the name [the good wife] fool you”. This season was the hottest one yet. Alicia had her own rules, and she was only following them. She is more vibrant, and carefree in this season. In the ad she is sitting in her brand new office with the view behind her. This lets the audience know in a way that she is not the same.
Season 4
Season 3 ended with Alecia and Will deciding to remain strictly professional because things at work were too risky, not to mention she was still technically married. Her and Peter have finally decided to somewhat mend their marriage. This advertisement still has Alicia in a carefree manner. She is more aware of who is she is. She is giving off not too much sexy, but still allowing audiences to know that she is “that woman”.
If you notice that in each different advertisement they all have given different meanings, but things that I have mentioned you might not get the same meanings. This is something called “Polyvalence”-signs interpreted with different value systems. What I may see, others may see it totally different.
There are also different types of text that can help you analyze a form of text:
1. Closed text- which has little room for own meaning
2. Open text- invites a readers own meaning
I personally think for the past four advertisements they have all been open text. Each advertisement has allowed the viewers to interpret their own meaning. What do you think of the advertisements? Starting with the first season and ending with the fourth, what is the print advertisement showing you?
Hello, my name is Ashley and I wanted to welcome you to my blog for my media criticism class. I am currently in my last semester at Towson University, and I cannot wait to graduate. I took this class honestly because I just needed an additional elective. I didn’t know what media criticism was or what it entailed, but I knew that Professor Nichols was a great teacher so either way, I couldn’t go wrong.
After the first class however, I was already one step ahead in what media criticism was not. For one, media criticism is not your opinion or others, and it’s not always a negative thing. That had seemed hard to believe given the name was media criticism.
But Professor Nichols defined media criticism as“a systematic process used to understand media texts as meaningful sociocultural symbolic forms and forces.” But to those who would prefer something a bit simpler, I’ve come up with my own definition.
My Definition:
A process used to analyze and really understand the true meaning of media and how it affects the culture around us.
I think it is extremely important that in today’s society we pay close attention to the media that we consume in our lives daily. We live in a media saturated environment, and media is always around us. Our focus for this course has been to focus on television as our medium. Television has many agent sources. It is used to entertain, help socialize, educate, create community consensus, inform and allow us to interpret information. Something that has that many abilities should be a reason alone on why we should pay attention to it.
I personally hold on to the saying that “you are what you eat”, and I relate that to everything. I am a firm believer that things we watch on TV, and listen on the radio has an affect on us-sometimes good, but often times bad. Everything that we watch or listen to has its own meaning, and its important that we are able to interpret what it is because media does shape our world. So now that we have our definition on media criticism maybe this would be a fair time to use a media text and actually break it down using the systematic process of media criticism.
I think that the show The Good Wife does a great job at showing different messages throughout their show. This is one of my favorite shows that I am faithfully watching every Sunday. For those who aren’t quite familiar with The Good Wife, it’s a drama series that comes on CBS and is about a politician’s wife, Alicia Florrick who decides to pursue her own career as an attorney after her husband, Peter Florricki s sent to jail on charges of political corruption. In this drama, Alicia has to deal with her own career as being a female lawyer , as well as trying to build the pieces in her marriage and hold her family together all at the same time.
Watch the clip below for a better understanding:
What I love so much about Alicia is the fact that she makes audiences relate and fall in love with her. She makes things that aren’t the norm, a reality for many. She is not only one of the best district attorneys, but she has two kids and a failed marriage. In the world we live in, women have always had a hard time gaining respect from people, especially men in power. So the fact that Alicia is going against the norm in this drama and showing women that it is possible to be a good lawyer is really moving and powerful. Alicia knows that her life is under the microscope especially after things with her husband, but she will not allow people to make that her weakness and she will never tolerate being treated differently because of the fact that she is a woman.
Here is a clip from The Good Wife
This is one of my favorite scenes, because Alicia’s witness is on the stand, and the judge tries to badger and go against what obviously Alicia’s lawyers have told the witness to say. The judge not only ignores and tries to provoke the witness but then begins to threaten and argue with Alicia. He tells her not once, but twice to shut up. Would this have happened if the lawyer were a man? Would he have disrespected her in that way given another circumstance? I honestly don’t think so. This episode allowed audiences to realize one, women will not be disrespected, and two you will never back down. Alicia did not back down in this episode and she held her ground and the judge respected her and ultimately she won that battle.
Can you see now how media text can shape our lives and our own perception? I’ve never really broken down media and really analyzed it but now thinking back a lot of other media texts things are making sense and I can’t wait to analyze more shows within this course. I hope to be able to properly criticize other forms of media in this course.
Now that you know what media criticism is, what do you think of the clip I showed? How would you analyze that? Interested to hear your own thoughts.
The movie was able to show us what we do as people to demonstrate the behavior of our genders to set us apart. The movie described femininity as being more submissive, powerless and dependent while masculinity was more dominant, and powerful. It was interesting when they used the example of Commercial Realism and related masculinity and femininity to commercials. I never realized how they have women and their “hands” in commercials. Women’s hands are often shown as sensual and delicate while the hands of men are more masculine, utilitarian and manipulating molding. 
Some things you don’t pay attention to because it’s normal for us to see this, and not think twice about it. But then I start to reflect and ask someone “what do I do to demonstrate behavior as a female”? Another interesting thing was how they compared little girls and their behavior to older women. Now days we notice that many women are portraying the behavior of little girls to seem more innocent, and pure almost. This made me a little upset because we deem men and their behavior with little girls as perverted and obscene but then as women we act like it and we want men to find it attractive. That’s really strange and sick in my opinion.
The movie also shed light on how some advertisers add females to their advertisements so it won’t seem like the men are “gay”. Because if other men think the men are gay they wont wear the product thinking it will relate them to being homosexual. That honestly blew my mind because if a guy were in an advertisement half-naked I personally wouldn’t think he was gay, but being a man you might look at it differently.
“Mickey Mouse Monopoly” and “Consuming Kids”. Both movies showed how media (movies, advertisements, TV shows, commercials) are indirectly targeting our kids. It shows how text is being embedded to get the attention of our kids.
Ashley Jenelle 