The Bechdel test is a simple but effective way of assessing the feminist qualities of a film, and how women are represented. The test was introduced by Alison Bechdel in 1985, in a comic strip called ‘The Rule’. The test asks three simple questions of a film: 1) Are there more than two (named) female characters in the film? 2) Do they interact with each other? 3) If they do, do they talk about something other than a man? If...
Battleground Afghanistan and Eyewitness War are two new shows premiering on National Geographic Channel this July. Both reality dramas follow the firsthand experiences of soldiers on the front lines of combat, as they engage in battle and carry out a variety of missions for the American military. And although these shows have yet to begin, I’d like to pose some “guiding questions” for those who might end up watching them.
Notions of authenticity and modernity are often challenged by indigenous groups. The Ya’kuana and the Sanema of Venezuela (see article below) use microphones to record birdsongs, the Yanomami of Brazil have learned how to use video equipment to document their own cultural traditions and ceremonies, and the Runakuna of the Peruvian Highlands adopt Western urban clothing in their ventures into the cities. Often with indigenous groups there is an underlying current of Edward Said’s Orientalism, the Other. The traditions, languages,...
Eva Illouz, in Cold Intimacies asks us to consider how technology changes notions of the body and of emotions. One of the forced rearticulations occurs in the realm of the presentation of self. As Illouz notes, when technology (specifically in the form of the Internet) mediates relationships we are simultaneously displaying our innermost private selves in an extremely public way. The subjects of our own experiences and author of what we choose to reveal yet increasingly vulnerable to the scrutiny...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6APT6_w7I] linanne Mass media and technological advancement have created webs of images of reality, which often serve as resources for audiences and social actors to refer to while interpreting and understanding the world around them. Sociologist and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard understood such mass production, imitations and constant reproduction of images and goods as “second order” simulation. This second order simulation, according to Baudrillard, disturbs and blurs the line between the “real” and the “copy,” threatening to detach social actors...
by kiddingthecity … Is s/he British? Is this person happy? Intelligent? These are some of the strong questions participants were asked to cast their vote about when faced with the anonymous picture of a stranger in latest Christian Nold‘s provocative installation. Over 14,000 people in one month cast their vote in the ‘Community Metrics’ in Nottingham (UK) and decide ‘live’ who of the volunteers should be deported: a sort of ‘friendly fascism’, a dystopian version of Facebook, a tease out...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoDbO3NeTj4] (by linanne10) Race has long time been a crucial issue for the American society. The representation of people of color is especially tricky in the media, where the mainstream discourses are produced and reproduced largely by and for the white community. The recent debut of the comedy, “Chocolate News,” unrolls with the idea of creating a black sitcom “by and for” the African-American community. The French theorist, Michel Foucault, has noted the relationship between power and the production of...
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