Extra Credit

You have to love relatives. I couldn’t even enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner without my lovely Aunt Mildred asking me about school. The one thing I really wanted to think about on my break!!! When we finally got on the topic of my Popular Culture class, she might as well have been laughing in my face. Aunt Mildred just didn’t understand how popular culture could be considered a legitimate academic course of study. That was my chance to put that old bat in her place.
I explained to her, that similarly to a book being judged by its cover, you can’t judge course content by the title of the class. I told her that what I had learned in this course so far was nothing to be scoffed at. Popular culture is everywhere. It incorporates television, movies, mass media, video games, books, clothing, music and so much more. I told her that a course in popular culture has academic benefit because studying this; it allows people to become introspective in thought. By looking at what is around you, you are forced to examine your value structure, belief system, and society in general. Popular culture has an influence on peoples’ choices, beliefs, and actions.
Further into our conversation, I told Aunt Mildred about the blog assignment I have been working on all semester. She didn’t quite understand that the X-Men movies could be adapted into academic study. I let her know that the reason I chose this topic was because of my enjoyment of the cartoons when I was young. I briefly skimmed over the plot of the movies and suggested that there was much more to the story than she thought. We talked about how the main concepts of the movies could be generalized to many of society’s problems. The conflict between human vs. mutant could be compared with good vs. evil, black vs. white, gay vs. straight. I showed her my video clip analysis and explained that it is important for young adults to learn that just because someone is different, does not mean there is anything wrong with them. It is a valued lesson, that of tolerance and acceptance. Today people are sometimes blinded to the fact that intolerance is still a major issue. There are many lessons to be learned through the study of popular culture.
All in all, my aunt felt a little embarrassed by the time she left. Being a respected scholar of romantic poetry, she should have realized how important popular culture is. I felt the need to inform her that romantic poetry, for instance, is a form of popular culture. Take Shakespeare’s writing for example, he was so popular in his time and after and had such an influence on different play writes and poets. I think she finally understood how popular culture is a valid academic subject.

Everything Bad is Good for You!

The book Everything bad is good for you, by Steven Johnson is “an old fashioned work of persuasion that ultimately aims to convince you of one thing: that popular culture has, on average, grown more complex and intellectually challenging over the past thirty years” (Johnson, xxii). In this book, Johnson discusses what he refers to as the sleeper curve. This notion was taken from a Woody Allen film where scientist failed to discover the nutritional value of “junk food”. Johnson believes that many of popular culture critics today are mistaken and that television shows, video games and other forms of popular culture are actually making us smarter.
In a portion of his book, Johnson discusses the significance of video games. He counters the point made by Dr. Spock that video games are a waste of time and at best only promote hand eye coordination. Johnson argues that video games improve visual intelligence as well as manual dexterity. The interactive nature of video games demands a high ability in wise decision making and complete concentration and focus. Johnson may be completely correct in his assumptions about video games. There are plenty of scientists that feel studying video gamers will prove that games do have a positive impact on cognitive abilities. “There's a lot of ignorance about gaming, but overseas research in the area is now gaining recognition at the highest level. In the US, Harvard and MIT are doing similar studies” (www.unitech.az.nz). He also argues that although video games are not making kids today less intelligent, he does not deny the benefit of reading or engaging in other activities. Johnson also mentions the argument that television is lowering our intellectual levels.
Johnson discusses how television today has become very complex. He talks about the different types of television shows and movies available today. Today in television there is a huge use of multiple story lines in one show. Viewers are forced to get to know characters and their ties to other characters and events within the shows. Viewers must also analyze plots and storylines to gain the full effect of the shows and understand the message being relayed to them. Here is where television is requiring us to think more and to “read between the lines”. DVD’s, Tivo, and On Demand can help those watching shows to gain the perspective needed to follow the story, just by allowing the viewer the opportunity to review a television show more than once. Johnson argues that viewers of shows like West Wing and Lost “no longer require training wheels, because twenty five years of increasingly complex television has honed their analytic skills” (Johnson, 77).
He also touches on the internet as an extremely valuable instrument for social networking and information retrieval. Johnson reviews the idea of intelligence testing in his book. He feels that these tests are not completely valid and do not measure fully, all areas of intelligence. He argues that many factors of intelligence are left out of these tests.
I am not sure if I can completely agree with Johnson’s arguments. Sure he has some valid ideas about the increase in complexity of television and that video games offer more than just an exercise for hand-eye coordination. But something just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s the fact that Johnson argues against content being important. Content is very important in my point of view. Much of the point of popular culture is to absorb the content. You don’t learn anything unless you analyze all aspects of the form of popular culture. “A content analysis is a more quantitative approach that broadly surveys things like how many instances of violence occur on a typical evening of prime time TV viewing, or how many Asian American women appear in a day’s worth of TV commercials. This information, especially when linked to more qualitative kinds of analysis, can be very valuable in moving beyond the analyst’s somewhat subjective observations” (www.wsu.edu).

http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/pop/text.html
http://www.unitec.ac.nz/?1A61532B-FED5-4C57-85C3-60163A08462F

X-Men Clip Analysis

This is a clip from the 3rd installment of the X-Men trilogy. This clip describes the conflict of the entire film fairly well. In this movie, a cure to the mutant gene has become available and made accessible to the public. There is a conflict here between mutants and non-mutants. Some mutants feel as if this cure is being forced upon them and the non-mutants don’t know what this feels like. In this story, the non-mutants are fearful of those who are different. This is much like people today. In our society, tolerance for those who are different seems to be a common theme, but there are still many people who have a problem with those who are different. For example, all members of society were completely tolerant; there would be no racism or “gay bashing.”
It seems that in this clip, intolerance for difference was apparent between the mutants and non-mutants, but it was also evident between the mutants. I think the message of the movie was that intolerance is not acceptable in a changing world. The younger generations, who will one day be leading the world, could stand to learn this lesson from the movie.
There is definitely a power struggle in this movie. The mutants seem to have power in the sense of “super powers”, but they don’t realize the “power” they have. They are aware that they are different than the non-mutants, but they keep to themselves and don’t see that they could use different “powers”, such as influence and friendship with the non-mutants to gain trust and change attitudes. The influential non-mutants seem to realize this and view the mutants as a threat because the non-mutants are afraid of change. Their fear is their “power”; they are terrified and speak out to mutants and non-mutants alike. Also the more revered mutants have control and power over those who are younger and who respect them.

So you're a fan of X-Men

When asking about movies, a person usually recommends one that they like. Most people don't recommend sequels or even trilogies. However, Big L loves super hero movies and has been mildly impressed with the three parters that have come out over the last decade. He is not usually a fan of trilogies because he feels, that on average, on one in the series is really good. A huge fan of super hero comics and cartoons, Big L has gotten hooked on this genre of movies.

Big L was not a very social person before he came to college. That is why he liked the X-Men cartoons, comics, and movies. He felt he could identify with the character Wolverine, because like Big L, he too was a loner. They have similar personalities and both have "tormented souls". He wishes he had the ability to always do the right thing like Wolverine does in the movies. Big L anticipated watching the movies because he could visualize himself in the role and had found someone he could view as a role model.

Super hero movies have a positive impression on society (especially children), in Big L's opinion. He feels that they teach good morals and values, as well as showing that good decision making is a key component to being "good". Big L was impressed with the special effects in the X-Men movies and that, for the most part, the movies stuck with the original plot of the comic book series. Although he does get annoyed at the mild differences between the movies and the comics. He feels that this is not usually the case with other super hero films, such as Spider Man.

Big L really would like to have the ability that the character Professor X has, the ability to control minds, and to move things with his mind. He feels that with this power he could make people more caring about others, be nicer to each other, and not have to get up to get a drink.

Mostly Big L sees these movies as valuable tools. Throughout the story, the mutants are being persecuted and hunted out because they have powers, because they are different. People are different in the real world and that is just a fact of life. He feels that if people can sympathise with the characters in the movies, then they can learn to be tolerant of what and who are different in their own lives.

Pop Topic

Okay, so I settled on the X-Men movies for my topic. I know it was not one that I had previously described, but after thinking more about my trip to Geppi's, I realized that action heroes had a huge effect on American society during the depression and thought that this was a good rout to go.
I decided to interview a friend of mine, who I will refer to as Big L. He is a fan of the X-Men movies, and since I have only seen the first one, I figure I can gain some perspective and insight about the rest of the series of movies and the characters.
These are some questions that I have been thinking about asking...

1. Do you feel that action hero stories have had a positive influence on American culture?
2. What is it about the X-Men movies that you find interesting. Do you think this makes X-Men stand apart from other hero stories?
3. Which character do you most identify with and why?
4. Is there any quality or trait that this character has that you wish you could posses as well? In other words, what is so admirable about this character?
5. If you were an "X-Men", what special power would you want to have?

Geppi's Entertainment Museum, So Much Fun!

So after battling back and forth with myself, I have chosen three topics for my future blogging:

1. Strawberry Shortcake

2. Charmed (the television series)

3. X-Men.

This past weekend I visited Geppi’s Entertainment Museum for my American Studies class. I was thoroughly pleased the museum and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed their childhood. There were so many things there that were relevant to me, because I had a lot of toys. Because I am the youngest child in my family I played with my siblings toys which were from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. One object that now sticks out in my mind was the case filled with Batman paraphernalia from the 1960’s television series which starred Adam West. It had pencils and figurines and random toys with the shows insignia on them. Growing up, my babysitter would put some re-runs of that show on while we ate a snack and I remember how the words were giant on the screen when there was a fight. “POW”, “BAP”, and “BAM” are some examples that still make me laugh when I think of the show. I also saw a lot of other toys that have some small nostalgic meaning to me. There were Wonder Woman and Sheera comics that I remember. Also some Barbies that I played with that none of my friends had because they were already discontinued. When I walked into the Star Wars room, I laughed at the giant Millennium Falcon that hung from the ceiling. My brother had a slightly smaller one that hung up in his room. There was some pretty interesting stuff at the museum. I had no idea that comics carried political weight. Superheroes were already promoting a patriotic pride before America entered WWI, and pilots spawned the creation of the fictional flying characters that appeared just before WWII.. The museum holds the past and preserves it well and I feel it is a beneficial place where we can revisit our childhoods and see the evolution of the characters and toys that we held so dear.