Take Control of Your Culture - American Studies - Blog

The Pjs

 The Pj's is a television show that gives a visual of how life is lived in the Projects (an urban community). The show use to be aired on The Wb, Adult Swim, and Fox. Now the show can be viewed on Tv One. The show includes a crackhead, a violent old women, and immigrant, a biracial couple, a superintendent and his wife, two kids, and a voodoo lady. The show portrays racial stereotypes that are in public housing. They live off of food stamps and nobody in the building pays there rent on time. The television serious shows crackhead stealing things and the African Americas getting accused for everything. It portrays a great amount  of violence within the neighborhood and no police to come and help. They send the same police officer because he is the black one. The people who live in the projects appears very uneducated and they never graduated from High School. The show does not show the positive things but mostly focuses on the stereotypes and bad things in urban communities  

Black Kids on Degrassi

    Degrassi is a show that is directed towards teenagers. It tries to deal with problems that all teens may face while in high school from drama with others, to personal problems. I couldn't help but noticed that most character on this show are white. You will see the black kid on the side lines trying to fit in, trying to like someone but it never works out. It just seems like the black kid can never be accepted in this show, in most cases.

"Nobody's Asian in the Movies" -- A Reflection on Race

In "Dr. Horrible's Sing-along-blog" there is a thing in the extra features called Commentary the musical. Other key staff members ask the person who played the groupie in the chorus and co-wrote "Dr. Horrible's sing-along-blog" why she didn't cast herself as Penny. The song she sings in response enforces many racial stereotypes and makes some races .This song is "Nobody's Asian in the Movies."

In the song "Nobody's Asian in the Movies," she makes asians look like a subjegated people because they aren't shown much in the movies while the examples she gives makes asians look positive. In one part of the song she says" if there is an asian in the movies" they are cast as wise old healers, ninjas, comic relief, scientists, and wealthy but short businessmen. She makes it be made negative that Asians are only allowed to be cast as these roles.

This song does also display a negative message of other races beside Asians when she sings the "who would you want before you want an asian" part of the song. She list races including Mexican, black, Indian, Native American, Persian, Cajun. When she sings it it has the tone like it is disgraceful to be cast beneath these races and therefore displaying being the races as a negative thing, yet does not mention being cast beneith a white person making them be displayed as more positive. She also constructs Asians to be Chinese or Japanese and leaves out a huge group who are Asians like Persians and Indians.

The end of the song enforces all of the stereotypes on Asians for when she was asked what her father did for a living she said he was a nerdy funny scientist, which is many of the things that she said Asians were forced to be cast in. She makes this stereotype stronger by basically saying that the stereotype is true. Also throughout the song it makes a stereotypical Asian music and probably more specific Chinese which made it feel more strongly racist.

"America's Best Dance Crew" Analysis

This televison show is a great show it promotes excitement and entertainment. It's about how  different types of dance groups compete to see which dance group is the best. The show all comes down to the winner and wat group is the best. The show gives a dominant ideology of a particular thing and how it shapes our society. The show is helping shape our society because it's keeping people off and out of the streets and busy doing something. the show also can be teaching at the same time, the young and the old. It may be teaching people how to dance. Also' this piece of culture is also telling us that the world today, America has alot in store for the young. America has plenty of things to do. Also, teaching that there should never be a focus just on one thing there are many different things out there for people to do. And the ideology that the Dance show promotes or reflects is that just the point of dancing can get you in a good place or givve you a great start in life, and being in the place u wanna be in. 

Ugly Betty Review

I really liked the episode of "Ugly Betty" that we watched in class. I think it really sends the message across on how woman in America are treated, especially if they look like her. Betty definately has to fight through the glass ceiling, not just because she is a woman but because she is very ugly. The show also does a nice job of showing how better looking woman might get better oppotunities just because of their looks and not because of their capability to do the job well. I have already seen the original Colombian version of the show and I thought it was pretty good. "Ugly Betty" does a great job of showing how a "normal" woman has to fight to get up the corporal ladder.

Ugly Betty Analysis

I really liked the show Ugly Betty because it showed people that you don't have to look a certain way in order to be successful. But this show does actually support the fact that if your not really attractive or "liked", it will be harder for you then the average person. I think that Betty played a really good role in still helping her boss after she found out that he only hired her because she was ugly and probably wouldn't sleep with her. This show is really good and I think that in the future this show could make people realize the struggle that unattractive people go through sometimes in order to succeed.

Strike halt 7 Shows

With scripted shows suffering as a result of the strike, reality series could become even more prevalent. Recently, the production of the popularshow Desperate Housewives and at least 6 sitcoms filmed before live audiences will be halted as a result of the writers strike. Shows that have already been completed won't last until Christmas. Even presidential candidates added in on the strike, like senators Barack Obama and John Edwards. This is sad but it is really amazing i am personally not a big fan of reality tv so i dont mind very much, but for those who do, it is quite tragic.

Don't Always Believe What You See

Have you ever seen a person with physical disabilities and thought that they must have mental disabilities too? A common American stereotype is that in America people don’t think that certain people with physical disabilities can live a typical American life. Is this really true? If you have ever seen, “Little People Big World,” you know this idea is part of a family ideology. “Little People Big World” is a reality television show about a dwarf family. (The proper term for a dwarf person is “little person.”) The T.V. show proves that people with physical disabilities can do things a regular sized person can.

The dad, Matt, and mom, Amy, are both little people. They gave birth to three children and only one is a little person. Matt does have to use crutches because his legs were twisted as a baby. But that doesn’t stop him from fulfilling his dreams. He always has a project to finish. The family lives on a huge farm with little villages for the kids to play in that the dad built, and just so many other things that you wouldn’t believe a little person could accomplish. None of them have any mental disabilities at all. They might look like it though because their bodies are shaped different than a typical normal sized person. This T.V. show proves shows like South Park and the Simpsons wrong about their way of expressing people with physical disabilities. Both of these shows make fun of people in wheel chairs, and people with physical disabilities. “Little People Big World has changed the way I think about little people. I hope it changes how you think too.

Bill O'Reilly

I believe you all know who Bill O'Reilly, but for those that don’t know, he is a super conservative who has his own television show and his own radio show. I am also a conservative, but this guy’s comments are absurd.

I have heard of Bill O'Reilly before, but I never paid much attention to him. Until I heard about what he had to say to the Florida student that was tasered. Bill O'Reilly said that the boy who was tasered was an example of a terrible American citizen, saying that he was only asking for attention and that he was a chump for screaming while being tasered. This really hacked me off, so I looked up some videos of Bill on YouTube. I found some surprising and humorous things about him. Watch the videos to see what I mean.

Bill O'Reilly cuts the microphone of US Colonel Ann Wright

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsuooIpnArQ&mode=related&search=

Boulder High student Jesse Lange on O'Reilly Factor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6cT-JSfdzM&mode=related&search=

Bill O’Reilly on the Iraq War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGAibec9JsA&mode=related&search=

Bill O'Reilly Attacks Snoop Dogg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpUrEFhJJSw&mode=related&search=

Snoop Dogg replies to Bill, and not the nice way. XD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWDVpSUXHeM&mode=related&search=

Bill replies back, and it’s really pathetic on how he tries to act witty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtN98IqvYpg&mode=related&search=

Bill on rap music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oLGjhpY9jM&mode=related&search=

Jon Stewart on the O'Reilly Factor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5pK7sK0i4A&mode=related&search=

Bill O’Reilly on sex-ed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556mUsPpaSY&mode=related&search=

Iknow that these are a lot of videos, but there very interesting and in some ways amusing. Please respond back after seeing all of the videos and tell me what you think.

The Simple Life

The Simple Life is a reality television series on Fox and E! Depicting two young, rich, talent less, socialites (Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton). In the first season, the girls have to leave behind all of their valuables including cell phones and credit cards, and head to Arkansas. “I’d rather not have food for six weeks than no cell phone,” Paris remarked, demonstrating her arrogance.

The Simple Life mirrors the dominant ideologies of the rich. I believe the motive of the show’s popularity is the manner of which it carries out various rich/poor stereotypes. For instance many Americans today believe that rich people are stuck up, arrogant, lazy, and are treated better.

I think that American’s that agree with these stereotypes will find the show humorous because the girls undoubtedly exhibit so many. Through the DUI’s and pregnancies, the girls decided it would be better to cancel the show rather than filming from Paris’ jail cell. They made a very good choice.