Since moving to Canada, race and particularly my race has been emphasized as a key part of my identity. In Canada, where blacks and African are a minority population, being black holds completely different challenges as compared to being back home in a predominantly black peopled country. I am constantly confused on the significance of race. I personally do not hold much significance to race as compared to origin and nationality. When asked to self-identify, mentioning my nationality and heritage holds more value than my skin color. In the class discussions, race was suggested to be an empty signifier which categorizes large groups under one definition and attempts to explain what the group is about. A prime example is the label ‘people of color’. Such a vague term can be manipulated to include any human being but is politically used to cluster various races which happen to by minority races. In doing so, dangerous assumptions are made such as assuming all people of color experience the same social and economical challenges. For example, as a Kenyan and African, I am often confused for an African American and assumed to share the same culture, heritage and socio-economical challenges.

These generalized identification terms are highlighted in the article on Tiger Woods. Henry Wu the author, discusses how Tiger Wood’s race was crafted and commercialized as a n intersection of racial and cultural issues. Born into parents of Chinese, Taiwanese, Native American, African American descent and talented in a sport played predominately by wealthy Caucasian men, Woods was a perfect example of a cross-cultural transition of minority groups into an exclusive sport. Multi-billionaire companies such as Nike, realized the immense profits gained by commercializing Woods as the epitome of a multi-cultural athlete who was able to transcend racial and economical boundaries in sports. Woods would become the role model for minority groups and especially children from minority backgrounds who would first aspire to Wood’s success and secondly (and most importantly to these companies), blindly consume any commodities sold by Woods. The problem is that Tiger Woods is commercialized as a “multi-cultural” man who can reach out to various racialized groups such as ‘people of color’. These institutions such as Nike attempt to cluster Wood’s geographic and cultural heritage under one problematic umbrella of ‘multi-culture’. In doing so, in unique and important differences within the various groups confined under ‘people of color’ or ‘multi-cultural groups’ are overlooked and forgotten. As a result, Tiger Wood’s commercial persona fails to reach their indented wide audience simply because not all ‘people of color’ can identity with Tiger Wood’s life. Just because people share the same skin color does not mean they share the same experiences. This moment of disconnect relates to last week’s discussion of counter-identification where there is a period of detachment between the narrative and the viewer where the viewer does not relate to the narrative. It is through these discussions were we are recognizing and consciously unlearning how the body lacks independence. Bodies and their race as seen through Tiger Woods are used to control commodity desires.

Sources:

Rowe, John Carlos. “Post-Nationalist American Studies”. How Tiger Woods Lost His Stripes. Post National American Studies as a History of Race, Migration and the Commodification of Culture. Ed. Henry Wu. California: University of California Press, 2000. 223-247. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

The article by Stuart Hall addressing ‘Black Popular Culture’ and Pedro Zamora’s Real World of Counterpublicity makes apparent the intricate lines that bind human identification in society. Hall states that even when assessing at ‘Black Popular Culture’, it is best understood by focusing on three historical times meaning, presently, black popular culture is not popular culture. What stands out, which Hall makes clear is that the issue we face is a fight over cultural hegemony and breaking the barrier of what is popular to include a more holistic representation of the majority. Black culture, which is deeply rooted in American history, is sidelined from the conversation of popular culture. Hall’s interest is to deconstruct the popular and include a true representation of everyone’s experiences, traditions and choices in order to be accepted as popular. This is not to discount the differences that exist among people.

A theme that joins Hall’s article and Zomara’s story is the realization that we as humans are always stuck between different personalities and different identifications, and this is a difficult idea to try and encapsulate into one social facet. Pedro Zamora’s story of being a Cuban-American, gay man living with AIDS in the spotlight of popular American culture exemplifies the need to reshape the dominant culture to make it more inclusive. The interesting aspect about Pedro Zamora’s personality while on MTV and off was he was fighting for the rights and protection of future queer and Latino individuals living in a world structured by homophobia and racism. He understood that the mainstream media did nothing to integrate people outside of the norm and worked towards normalizing queer and non-Caucasian people appearing on popular TV. Zomara’s inclusion onto MTV’s The Real World was his revolutionary stage where he begun to breakdown the barriers of normal for others to see that life as a gay person with AIDS was not any different from the lived experiences of a straight HIV negative individual.

Caitlyn Jenner from the Popular reality TV family the Kardashians, underwent gender transition and uses his-now her celebrity status and fame for the same ideals as Zamora. Caitlyn formally known as Bruce Jenner, changed her gender after living with insecurities of not being her true self. She publicly came out on TV and announced that most of her life she had felt she was a woman and wanted to live as she wished. She now uses her continued fame to help empower and protect individuals living with similar issues. She guest stars in TV talks openly discussing her transition, to an audience that is homophobic and sexist. Caitlyn has been the focus of a media frenzy over the past year and has inspired so many more individuals to be ok with themselves, just like Zamora, Caitlyn sees it as important for people to understand that someone her age can live a life that pleases them and society should never dictate otherwise.

As a relative private person, I am often interested in celebrities and their publicized lives. We as consumers of popular culture are not satisfied by solely engaging with the artist’s work. We also want to know about the artist’s personal life. Reality shows are created to serve this urge to uncover the artist’s lives as an attempt to familiarize and relate to the artist on a personal level. In many ways, Ellen DeGeneres is an example of the urge to unravel the personal life of a celebrity. In Ellen’s case, her sexuality was publicized gradually through the two sitcoms, Ellen (ABC 1993-98) and The Ellen Show (CBS 2001-3) and finally The Ellen DeGeneres Show (CBS 2002-present).

Jennifer Reed analyses the character evolution of Ellen from queer to openly lesbian then to famously post-lesbian, using the respective sitcoms and show. The challenge of this analysis is that it connotes a linear evolution which culminates in the final stage of post-lesbian. Nevertheless, Reed offers an stimulating discussion around the politics involved within each stage. I was particularly drawn to the post-lesbian discussion in which Reed termed as a stage where being gay is irrelevant. The post-lesbian attempts to reconcile heterosexuality and lesbianism through using other markers to liken the two. For example, The Ellen Show releases episodes where Ellen struggles with universal challenges such as change, family drama and dating. Therefore, the show attempts to liken Ellen to the heterosexual viewers who experience the same challenges. Moreover, the post-lesbian stage purposely diverts the narrative from sexuality by explicitly abandoning any political identity. Ellen does so by conforming to a heteronormative lifestyle and replacing her difference sexuality with a difference in the character’s place from urban city to small town. As a result, the audience believes they are accepting of lesbianism without acknowledging any difference within a lesbian identity.

I think that the currently Ellen DeGeneres talk show has mastered the post-lesbian stage which is troubling. The show follows a typical talk show narrative of interviewing celebrity guests, talented individuals and playing fun games. Rather than focuses on Ellen and her sexuality, the talk show concentrates on the conversations with the guests. I see this as an attempt to regain some power over her personal life. After years of being publicized in regards to her sexuality, I would argue that Ellen is no longer the spectacle but rather a participant of the post-lesbian era. However, liberating it may be to think that lesbianism is irrelevant, the danger is an inevitable disregard of the genuine challenges and discriminations faced by those who identity as lesbians.

Sources:

Reed, Jennifer. “The Three Phases of Ellen: From Queer to Gay to PostGay.” Queer Popular Culture: Literature, Media, Film and Television. Ed. Peele, Thomas. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 9-27. Print

From the week’s reading and class discussion, it is clear that there is a feminist debate on the implications of post-human interactions with technologies. Toffoletti Kim in her article titled “Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body”, highlights some of the debate. Kim suggests that Post-human is the interconnectedness and interactions between the body, the self in a new technological age (Kim, 11). In this era of Post-human, there is an intentional focus on constructing one’s identity through the use of technology. Kim mentions and I do agree that the post-human interpretation falsely connotes a de-naturalizing process. The assumption is that the increasingly complex human interactions with technologies means that there is a deviation from human nature and what is deemed as natural. In the article, Kim borrows from work by Katherine Hayles in which Hayles argues that Posthuman does not mean a de-humanizing process but rather challenging the boundaries between human and non-human forms. Hayles feminist critic in her work titled Posthuman Bodies examines the connection between posthuamnism and disembodiment.

Even in the Posthuman stage, virtual spaces within technology still deny women’s bodies of their lived experiences in the world. However, there are artistic work aimed at re-empowering female voices which have previously been silenced. Life Size is a 2000 movie about a girl who accidentally brings her doll (Eve) to life whilst casting a spell to resurrect her mother. The movie is praised for casting a colored Barbie and Tyra Banks as the transformed human Barbie. The barbie, an inanimate object lacking voice is then re-imagined as a human being thus given some urgency. The movie challenges the hegemonic notions of human interactions with technologies such as toys. Often we construct and project characteristics onto such technologies. Therefore, humans hold the power to envision and create an alternate world and relationship with the technology. By anthropomorphizing the barbie, there is a power shift from the girl to the barbie thus a change in the dynamics between the human and the technology.

Despite the human transformation of the barbie, the movie is still problematic in that it reproduces feminine stereotypes. When brought to life, Eve is characterized as oblivious and mentally incompetent; stereotypical characteristics associated with models. The movie appears to be pushing racial boundaries by casting a black barbie however upon further examination, it reinforces the ‘dumb attractive model’ stereotype. Therefore, Life Size is an example of an artistic work which discusses empowerment between humans and technology yet still reproduces social stereotypes.

Sources:

Toffoletti, Kim. Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body. MacMillan, 2007. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

The Kardashian family are no strangers to controversy surrounding their lives. However, around July, the attention shifted to Kylie Jenner’s Instagram selfie picture showcasing her cornrows. Some might say, the picture ‘broke the internet’, meaning that it stirred up debates about cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is the borrowing of cultural practices of a given culture by that of a privileged other without recognizing the history or cultural meaning thus deemed as a negative social phenomenon. In the article, Chera Kee expounds on the history of Zombies t explain how contemporary depiction of Zombies are a form of cultural appropriation.

Kee suggests that contemporary American Zombies are distinguished by their cannibalism characterization. However, the article continues to explain that the initial Zombies derived from Haitian ancestral practices of Voodoo during the Haitian Revolution of 1986.

The article expounds on the first book The Magical Island by Willian Seabrook in which he described as “Dead Man Working in the Cane Fields”. Therefore, the Zombie was identified as a slave; more importantly, the implication was that Zombies were corrupted figures on the hunt to corrupt others. The American unfamiliarity with Haitian Voodoo paralleled their colonial fear of an Independent Haiti which would spread and corrupt Voodoo to the rest of the Americas. Kee argues that the depiction of Zombies emphasized otherness of the Haitians. Clear binaries of black and white, slave and master were reinforced. Nevertheless, these binaries are suggested to have been blurred through the formation of white zombies in the film industry. White zombies were the manifestation of the Caucasian destruction by the black uncontrolled slave.

According to Kee, the evolution of Zombies in films illustrate the power dynamic that allow Caucasians to freely borrow from others without having any experience in that matter. Relating back to Kylie Jenner’s case, the debated centered between those who thought the picture (like many other magazine advertisements of afros as the new fashion look,) only glamourize the hairstyle without recognizing the history of discrimination due to hair texture in the professional world. On the other hand, others argued that cultures are always appropriated. Black people also do appropriate Caucasian hair through weaves and wigs, therefore Kylie Jenner’s hair choice is independent outside opinion.

Although two completely separate examples of cultural appropriation, both confirm that cultural appropriation is part of our lives however we should acknowledge the origin when borrowing ideas.

Sources:

Christie, Deborah. Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human. Fordham University Press, 2011. Web. 6 Oct. 2015.

The two readings by Angela McRobbie expound on post-feminism as a drawback from the feminist gains of the 1970s and 80s. In the “Beyond Post Feminism” article, McRobbie discusses how we are in a period where feminism is regarded as a redundant discourse; particularly in the western world (McRobbie, 2011). The argument is that Western governments have already attained all the goals set out by the previous feminist movements such as equal labor rights, education and voting rights for women. Therefore, feminism is now in the past and only emphasized by the older (and some would say) outdated women.

We are in the neoliberal era where young women seem to own their sexual freedom. Advertisements are now re-focused on sexualizing the female body and encouraging public gaze without impurity. McRobbie explains how the Sexual Contract offers a false sense of gender equality. The sexual contract acts as a hegemonic agreement on the identification and status of young women. The contract encouraged young women to excel in their education and work force where they would be assured of gender equality. In exchange, the government would offer incentives such as a monthly wage which meant that they would be less financially dependent on the male, thus financial freedom. Financial freedom also allows for some sexual independence where sexual double standards are forgotten. However, as McRobbie points out, the contract fails to include any sort of political inclusion. For that reason, many young feminists remain politically silent in fear of being labelled as an angry feminist.

In the second article titled “Post-Feminism and Popular Culture”, McRobbie reiterates the point that post-feminism is a form of anti-feminism. Post-feminism in described as a double entanglement between conservative discourses of gender and sexuality with liberal advancements of diversity and choice of gender and sexuality (255). McRobbie suggests that the post-feminist woman is encouraged to focus on education but be devoid of any feminist politics. Living in the post-feminist era, I can understand McRobbie suggestion that perhaps this is a generation nostalgic to the pre-feminist era. Through the globalization of the media industry, girls and women are encouraged to own and celebrate their body in a structured manner. There are numerous advertisements which praise females for sexually liberating themselves through various forms of nudity. My critic is that the sexualisation of one’s body is being re-produced and therefore normalized as the only way for a woman to own their body and sexuality. One does not need to expose their body or appear confident and ‘sexy’ so as to be recognized as embracing their body.