The Social Construction of Race, Part Deux

This is the bulk of readings for the 'discourses of race' section of the course as we wade through it this week. Pay particular attention to Zook's article on the Fox Network as it invests that political economic perspective that is so well dramatized in Bamboozled as well as the Means-Coleman article on 'black sitcoms' which is a good example of textual analysis. The Herman Gray article is also important. The other articles you can use for your papers, if relevant and/or to expand on our class discussion.

Kristal Brent Zook, "The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television"
Robin R. Means-Coleman, "Black Sitcom Portrayals"
Herman Gray, "The Politics of Representation in Network Television" from Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (University of Minnesota Press, 1995/2004)

Donald Bogle, "Workplace Dramas, Ensemble Casts 1990s Style"
Chyng Fen Sun, "Ling Woo in Historical Context: The New Face of Asian American Stereotypes on Television"

This video is the  'incomplete sentence' vaudeville routine by Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter from the Charlie Chan movie The Scarlet Clue (Phil Rosen, 1945)

Below is Sarah Jones' 'Your Revolution' (with DJ Vadim) from Def Poetry Jam's Season 1 (2002)

The Social Construction of Race I

As we watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled* and discuss the film, Ash Corea's "Racism and the American Way of Media" is a good summary of the issues raised by Lee and those that you will be reading about in greater detail with the next group of articles. As a bonus, a classic article by Stuart Hall.

*Through Bamboozled please reflect on the mechanisms that Lee describes (through a satirical register) as well as how he narrativizes the power dynamics at work inside the (fictional) CNS network. How does he convey the conversion of aspects of African-American culture into a commodity within the context of a white-owned and controlled corporation? Also, as Delacroix is 'permitted' to move up in the corporate entertainment ladder by becoming show runner and head writer of a 'variety' show, what are the conditions that he needs to submit to? How does the white construction of black culture play into what he is being asked to conform to? In the end, what is the price that Delacroix has to pay according to Lee?
Finally, what does Spike Lee say about the way in which Mantan: The New Millenium Minstrel Show's genealogy in minstrel shows and blackface performance (along with the accumulation of historical artefacts) has become an empty gesture, a comedic ploy that removes the complexities of history and society and keeps racial hierarchies intact? What forms of contemporary popular culture do you think Spike Lee would consider to be operating through the same mechanisms today?
That's a whole lot of questions. Enjoy.

Ash Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media" from Questioning the Media
Stuart Hall, "What is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture" from Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies



Clip from the 1949 film Hollywood Varieties where actors Glenn Vernon and Edward Ryan apply blackface make-up while on stage and reminisce about 'the good ol' days' --as they say-- of minstrelsy.

That James Dean vs That Daydream Nation Look: Taylor Swift covered by Ryan Adams - Genre, Gender and Style

Please find a series of articles on the whole Taylor Swift/Ryan Adams affair below. The articles are primarily a press review of the discourses surrounding the Ryan Adams/Taylor Swift operation. I've also included a few articles from the past past, mainly Taylor Swift profiles from mainstream magazines like The New Yorker and New York Magazine. You can skim through these to get a sense of the operation and of the critical response to it. As you read relate it to our discussion on cultural value and cultural hierarchies and consider the unspoken gender aspect in these critical evaluations. Make sure you all read the Tavi Gevinson article linked to at the bottom of the post in .pdf format. Also included is a recent article from The Atlantic about authorship in pop music and the strategies used by record companies to downplay the 'outsourcing' of pop hit manufacturing. Read that if you are interested in these specific aspects of popular culture. Use this case study, and this material along with it, to get a sense of the kind of sources and knowledge you should be prepared to draw on in order to produce critical analyses of popular culture. Remember that these articles are not primary sources but they in fact are part of the intertextual and paratextual aspects of the text you are analyzing (in this case Taylor Swift and/or Ryan Adams, the record 1989 and the questions raised in relation to gender representation and the mode of address. Enjoy.

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the Vindication of Taylor Swift

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the mansplaining of Taylor Swift

No Blank Space, Baby: Taylor Swift Is The Soul Of Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams isn’t revealing something ‘good’ about Taylor Swift’s ‘1989.’ The album was already great.

Beats 1 Ryan Adams interview about '1989' with Taylor Swift call in 'surprise'

Platinum Underdog: Why Taylor Swift Is the Biggest Pop Star in the World

You Belong with Me

How Taylor Swift made teen angst into a business empire.

Taylor Swift Is Confusing

Haters Gonna Hate: Listening to Ryan Adams’s “1989”

The Reinvention of Taylor Swift

Flavorwire Interview: Talking Taylor Swift With Tavi Gevinson

The complete version of this article by then 16-year old Tavi Gevinson published in The Believer in 2013 is below in PDF. Tavi Gevinson started the Style Rookie blog when she was 12. Rookie Mag below is a treasure of 'readings' of Tween/Teen culture from a non mainstream perspective --with all of its exhilaration and limitations.

Tavi Gevinson, JUST KIDDING: NOTES ON TAYLOR SWIFT

Rookie Mag

Why must we hate the things teen girls love?

Hit Charade: Meet the bald Norwegians and other unknowns who actually create the songs that top the charts.

Genre and Gendered Media Spaces + Text and Context: Reception

The article by Gledhill & Vicky Ball is from the Stuart Hall edited Representation (2nd Ed., Sage, 1997/2013). It's a long chapter but filled with information and notions. You are responsible for pgs. 335-361 -the rest is recommended, up to you, based on your own interests and projects. You don't need to actually do the 'activities' listed in the various sections but they are at the very least good mental exercises and opportunities to think through some of the issues.

Christine Gledhill & Vicky Ball, "Genre and Gender: The Case of Soap Opera"

For an example of a political economic reflection on the media:
David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"

EXTRA READINGS:

Stuart Hall, "Encoding-Decoding"
Sut Jhally, "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture"

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Film

Stills from Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look."

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

‘Men dream of women. Women dream of themselves being dreamt of. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. -John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Jill Soloway, the creator of the TV series Transparent and  I Love Dick (based on the Chris Kraus novel of the same title about having a crush on cultural critic and author Dick Hebdige which some of you might have read in previous classes). This is a talk she gave on 'The Female Gaze' at the Toronto Film Festival. We will be discussing this in relation to Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire next week.

Textuality: Semiotics

To complement our discussion, the screening of Codes of Gender and the other readings, here are three different takes on 'semiotics' and semiotic analysis and their use for cultural studies and the analysis of media representations. These are not required readings if you have encountered 'media semiotics' before. I would however suggest, to those of you who are encountering 'semiotics' for the first time or need a refresher, to treat these readings as required readings: your work in class, your ability to grapple with the other required readings and your final project would certainly benefit from a familiarity with the concepts presented here.

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

Construction and Performance I: Privilege and Representation

Cultural Studies & Representation: Ideology and Hegemony

Douglas Kellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture"
James Lull, "Hegemony"

Power, Privilege and Discrimination

Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" - new link

all readings (except the online Peggy McIntosh) are from Dines and Humez (eds), Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader; 2nd Edition(Sage, 2003)

As an introduction to the methodology that we will be following in the course please read the Kellner and the Lull.

The Peggy McIntosh 'invisible knapsack' article is an additional quick read, for your own reflections. As McIntosh thinks through the concept of 'white privilege' in society, forcing us to consider the question of privilege and the way it links to questions of power in society as well as the existence of hierarchies, please think of other forms of privilege that exist on the basis of social differences. ie. male privilege, hetero privilege, cis privilege. Can you make a list, even just a mental one, that works in similar ways to McIntosh's? In other words, that starts from the 'I can...' premise as you put yourself in the position of the privileged subject? Can you also think of what privilege means, how it is in contradiction to the values of open and democratic societies as well what forces ensure that the social relations and the meanings to social identities are reproduced so that privilege itself is maintained and perpetuated?

Welcome to SUMMER I 2020/Race and Gender in Media - The Online Edition

Paul B. Preciado on the 'Rona

PAUL B. PRECIADO

LEARNING FROM THE VIRUS

Find here an earlier article by Paul B. Preciado from the outset of the Covid- 19 pandemic, "The Loser's conspiracy"

If you're interested in interesting takes on what is going on you might want to read this article bysci-fi author and literary critic Kim Stanley Robinson:

The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations

What felt impossible has become thinkable. The spring of 2020 is suggestive of how much, and how quickly, we can change as a civilization.

Interactivity: Is it TV?

THE GAMIFICATION OF TELEVISION? BANDERSNATCH, VIDEO GAMES, AND HUMAN-MACHINE INTERACTIONRYAN STOLDT

How ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Fails to Acknowledge the Rich History of Interactive Fiction (Or: Video Games Did It Better)

Black Mirror's Bandersnatch: Charlie Brooker's meta masterpiece

______________________

Those who are working on Netflix (or streaming service shows) should look at:

Marieke Jenner, Netflix and the Re-Invention of Television

(This is a link to RedShelf which you all can register to use. JCU library also should have an e-copy of the book)

____________

Introducing Swipe Night: An Original Adventure Built for The Swipe® Feature 

Tinder swipes right on ‘Swipe Night’ by renewing it for a second season

Tinder’s interactive video series ‘Swipe Night’ is going international next year

How To Watch Television Articles

Here is the link to the articles from the 2nd edition of Mittell & Thompson's How To Watch Television.

Here you will find the readings from the 1st edition that were not included in this new one. There are still some quite useful readings.

Look at the 2nd Edition's Table of Contents here.

If you want to take a look at any of the other articles from How To Watch Television can get it on RedShelf at this link.

If you don't know RedShelf, get to know it, (sign up here) it's quite handy. Particularly in these 'Rona times since they are giving open access to most of what they have.

Music Videos Trapped in the Network: A New Aesthetic and Function?

Gina Arnold, "Why Psy? Music Video and the Global Market"
Daniel Cookney, "Vimeo Killed The Radio Star: Burial and the User-Generated Music Video"
Carol Vernallis, "YouTube Aesthetics"

More resources:
Carol Vernallis, "Music Video's Second Aesthetic?"
Carol Vernallis, "Reconfiguring Music Video: Beyonce's 'Video Phone'"

Extra Reading:
Carol Vernallis, "Viral Web Media and the Obama Campaign"

Complex TV and the Future of Narratives

Complex TV Basics

from Jason Mittell's Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling
--Chapter 1: Complexity in Context

Aymar Jean Christian, "High Maintenance and The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl: Indie TV"
from Ethan Thompson & Jason Mittell (eds), How To Watch Television; 2nd Ed. (NYU, 2020)

I will be posting episodes of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, Insecure, Atlanta, Master of None, The Show About The Show, High Maintenance (Vimeo), High Maintenance (HBO), Baskets, Horace and Pete, SKAM (Norway/Italy/US) in addition to the links below.


Article on the original SKAM that aired in Norway on public broadcaster and on social media NRK TV here.


(Blocked Trailer here.)

Find the clips from Season 4 of SKAM here. 

(nb. Final episodes are at the top of the page so you should scroll down to find earlier ones)

Below you can find the Pilot, "Why Did We Greenlight This?", for Caveh Zahedi's The Show About The Show which 'aired' on the BricTV network on YouTube. Relate this to the concept of Complex TV. We will be watching more of this show during the week.

Some career advice from Baskets College below.

Fatal Strategies & Slackers: Withdrawing or Accelerating? + Enjoy Poverty Readings

Matthias Leupold, Im Kino / In the Cinema, Part II Berlin GDR, 1983

Baudrillard, "The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media"

Additional Recommended Baudrillard Readings:
Jean Baudrillard, Requiem for the Media
Jean Baudrillard, The Implosion of Meaning in the Media from Simulacra and Simulation

The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow.

Please read the section 'Disciplines and Sciences of the Individual' in Part II, particularly the first four segments (from "The Body of the Condemned" to "Panopticism")

Foucault, "The Repressive Hypothesis" from The History of Sexuality, Vol. I

In the clip below the scene discussed in the first pages of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism.
from Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaròn, US/UK, 2006)





ENJOY POVERTY by RENZO MARTENS 

I will be posting the link for Renzo Martens' Enjoy Poverty on Moodle.

The readings below are not part of the reading requirements but they are helpful in contextualizing and helping you come to terms with Enjoy Poverty. Please take a look at them, particularly the interview with Martens and the Susan Sontag essay on 'looking at war'.

"Enjoy Poverty: Disclosing the Political Impasse of Contemporary Art" in Art Papers

-an interview with Renzo Martens

Paul O'Kane, "Renzo Martens: Episode III" review in Third Text, 2009

T.J. Demos, "Poverty Pornography, Humanitarianism and Neo-Liberal Globalization: Notes on Some Paradoxes in Contemporary Art"

Bonus Interview from the "Africa is a Country Blog" here.

Bonus Reading:

Susan Sontag, "Looking At War/Regarding the Pain of Others"

Faster! Faster! Faster!

#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (Srnicek & Williams)

Steven Shaviro, "What is Accelerationism?" from No Speed Limit: Three Essays on Accelerationism

Bonus:

Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation (Laboria Cuboniks)

+

What About 'Today'?

Christian Fuchs, "Participatory Web 2.0 as Ideology" from Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies

McKenzie Wark, The Hacker Manifesto

"Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death"
"Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy."

Post-Rock, Subcultures Gender & Sexuality: The End of Discourses of Authenticity

At this point you should be moving forward towards completing the Garofalo textbook, here are the reading assignments for the final weeks:

On 'co-optation':
Thomas Frank's "Commodify Your Dissent" here.

On Jamaican Music:
from Dick Hebdige, Cut'n'Mix here.



On Gender:
Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie, "Rock and Sexuality"
Simon Frith, "Afterthoughts"
"Richard Dyer, "In Defense of Disco"
Find these articles here as a single PDF file.

Lindsay Zoladz, "Joni Mitchell: Fear of a Female Genius"


On 'sub-cultures':
Here are the Dick Hebdige chapters from Subculture: The Meaning of Style.
Refer back to the Punk: Attitude film screening.

The Ramones, "Rockaway Beach" Live in Rome, 1980




On sampling, music videos, remix culture and the 'postmodern turn':
Andrew Goodwin, "Sample and Hold"
E Ann Kaplan, "A Postmodern Play of the Signifier?"

Also, to clarify (or further obscure) 'postmodernism' please help yourself --in case you have not encountered it in your other studies-- to Fredric Jameson's "Postmodernism and Consumer Society"