Final Blog!

Steven Johnson’s main point is that popular culture is actually making us much smarter, instead of dumbing us down. In fact, he likes to look at how popular culture makes us, the audience, think more intelligently. As we all know, television and films are much more complicated than they used to be. Instead of having one plot and two characters that the audience would follow, there are many small plots including many characters that somehow tie together in the end. Also, video games teach us more skills than reading a book does. Video games are not what they used to be and they have much more complicated plays that are in demand.
“To watch an episode of “Dallas” today is to be stunned by its glacial pace—by the arduous attempts to establish social relationships, by the excruciating simplicity of the plotline, by how obvious it was. A single episode of “The Sopranos,” by contrast, might follow five narrative threads, involving a dozen characters who weave in and out of the plot. Modern television also requires the viewer to do a lot of what Johnson calls “filling in,” as in a “Seinfeld” episode that subtly parodies the Kennedy assassination conspiracists, or a typical “Simpsons” episode, which may contain numerous allusions to politics or cinema or pop culture” (Gladwell, The New Yorker). The television shows are becoming more complicated as the years go by.
“For decades, we've worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the ''masses'' want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the masses what they want. But as that ''24'' episode suggests, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less. To make sense of an episode of ''24,'' you have to integrate far more information than you would have a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like ''24,'' you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships. This is what I call the Sleeper Curve: the most debased forms of mass diversion -- video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms -- turn out to be nutritional after all” (Johnson, NY Times).
“But another kind of televised intelligence is on the rise. Think of the cognitive benefits conventionally ascribed to reading: attention, patience, retention, the parsing of narrative threads. Over the last half-century, programming on TV has increased the demands it places on precisely these mental faculties. This growing complexity involves three primary elements: multiple threading, flashing arrows and social networks” (Johnson, NY Times). Multiple threading, flashing arrows, and social networks really is what defines complicated popular culture that we have today. People that consume popular culture see these methods of developing complicated shows and films, which allow people to develop great cognitive skills.
I truly believe that popular culture does develop cognitive skills that books just don’t give us. I think it’s fascinating to compare the complexities of shows and films today. The most important thing is how the complexity is not even noticed today. We have become so accustomed to these types of shows that we don’t even realize how complex they actually are. I think that it has made us smarter. However, I don’t think it’s made us more intelligent as a whole. It has definitely helped us in some skills. However, I don’t think it’s helped us with everything. You can definitely call me traditional. I believe that a book can teach you more than anything else.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/16/050516crbo_books

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24TV.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=e08bc7c1e7acbb59&ex=1271995200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

My Blogging Experience

My blogging experience has been a really great learning experience. Everyone in my group had a topic that I’ve never heard of. It was the first time I heard of Atmosphere, Guitar Hero, and David Lynch movies. I went from not even hearing about these topics to knowing the popular culture meaning behind them by all of the critical analysis. I had fun reading about these topics. If I had an academic article on these topics, I wouldn’t have been highly interested in them as I am when reading my fellow classmates’ opinions on them. All of the theories, concepts, and discourses we learned in the course are very difficult and confusing to understand fully. I think that writing shorter than traditional papers was better to understand them more clearly, especially when being related to a specific topic. Papers would be a good learning experience as well, however, I don’t think papers would have had a greater impact on the students than the blog assignments. Also, these blog assignments made me much more comfortable with using the Internet and blogs on the computer. Because of how comfortable I actually became with blogging, I was able to use it in different classes as well for certain projects and assignments.
The only thing that was tough about my blogging experience was the fact that there was an assignment due each week. The only reason why it was tough because I was taking another class at the same time that had posts due every week as well. It was hard to keep up with both during the same semester, just because I was just getting adjusted to posting over the Internet this semester. I’ve only had a couple of posting assignments in the past during my entire college experience.
I’m glad that I was able to apply all of the discourses to my semester topic, Nip/Tuck. I think it was a great experience to look at Nip/Tuck through a different lens. I learned how popular culture applied to my topic and how the producers and the audience view the show very differently. I’m a little less interested in the show now that I have seen the discourses applied to my topic. It’s made me feel as though the show is completely pointless to watch. I’m not excited for the new season to begin because I know that as I watch it I’m going to be thinking of the concepts we have learned in the class. However, when I apply the concepts to other shows I currently watch I get more interested in those shows. I think it’s the fact that I have focused on Nip/Tuck alone and have gone into greater detail with Nip/Tuck though the assignments we had. As I watch other shows and apply discourses to them, I’m not going into as great of detail as I did with Nip/Tuck.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a way of thinking in which there is no one truth. There is no one way of life, there are many. It’s a mixing of styles and beliefs. There can be so many different styles that make sense, they are only different from one another. In relationship to popular culture, postmodernism is seen through many ways. There is a loss of metanarratives and a focus on smaller and local narratives. There is also an importance on the fiction, other than the reality. Fiction is very important because it gives us an easier way of understanding things, other than dealing with the real truth. Style is definitely more important than substance.
Nip/Tuck has an important subject that is closely tied to a postmodern approach. Fiction being more important than reality is completely obvious in Nip/Tuck. Because the entire show is based on plastic surgery, there are many characters that create a way of looking in order to hide the reality. The plastic surgery also shows how style is more important than substance. As Christian was going through a mid-life crisis, he got liposuction in order to hide the fear that he was getting old. Kimber got a lot of plastic surgery in order to have the perfect body. She does this to get the attention of Christian. She tries to live in the fantasy of two perfect people, with a perfect car, and a perfect apartment. Another character of Nip/Tuck, Escobar, who has appeared on the show twice is a criminal who gets plastic surgery to look like a completely different person. He almost takes his entire identity away to get on a plane and out of Miami.
By living in a fiction world, these characters hide from the reality that is too hard to live with. The fiction is more important and creates a perfect world. Even the theme song of the show says the worlds “A perfect life”. Also, the style of their lives, Christian’s car and Kimber’s perfect body, is more important than the substance, which is their own identities. Christian creates his own identity with his style of luxurious things, like his car, apartment, and clothes. Kimber creates her own identity with her perfect body to become important, better than everyone else, and to make her career as a model and a porn star the way for people to remember her.

Clip Analysis

In an episode in the first season of Nip/tuck, Julia is continuing medical school to get her doctorate degree that she’s always wanted to become a plastic surgeon. It was a great time for her to go back to school because her second child was finally old enough to get a nanny for. Sean is still a successful plastic surgeon who is not able to watch the kids. While going to med school, Julia had an unexpected pregnancy and told Sean the news. Sean was very excited but was worried about Julia continuing school. Julia was not as excited as Sean about the pregnancy and continued to go to school everyday. She miscarried because of getting no rest. Sean was really sad about it, while the episode wasn’t clear about how Julia felt.
The person that obviously had power in the relationship is Sean. He continuously told Julia to get some rest, to keep the baby, and to not worry about school so much. As Julia went against his orders, it definitely was displayed as wrong and stupid, not smart and brave. In the end, she was the wrong one because her wrong actions caused a miscarriage.
Obviously there are a few stereotypes that are shown within ideas of gender. First, the man of the house tells the wife what to do. Julia is told to stay home and to rest. More importantly, Julia is told to keep the baby. Julia didn’t really want the baby because she wanted to finish medical school. It was Julia’s own fault for not telling Sean she didn’t want the baby as much as he did. However, because she is a woman, she wasn’t able to speak up to her husband. Another stereotype is that the man has the successful job, not the woman. Sean would come home everyday in his business suit and briefcase. Julia is trying very hard to be successful. However, no matter how hard she tries, she fails. After the miscarriage, she drops out of school. She doesn’t continue her dream of becoming a doctor. Another stereotype that could be seen is how all doctors are men, while women are nurses. Julia can’t become a doctor, and this idea implies how women can’t work as hard to become a doctor as men can.
This clip is definitely an old clip from 2003, the first season of Nip/Tuck. This is important because around that time there were many married mothers that were trying to go back to school to get their degree. The terrible thing is that Nip/Tuck made this impossible for women to accomplish in their show. It could have been intentional. If it was, I don’t think it was intentional to make it seem as though women can’t accomplish their goals. I think it was intentional for Sean and Julia’s relationship because of the episodes that followed.
This example is helpful to understand how gender roles are argued with binary opposites, which are seen as natural. Whatever Sean is, Julia is not. Julia can’t even become what Sean is, even with hard work. However, at the same time, it’s seen as natural. Julia’s natural pregnancy was key in seeing how natural the entire episode is. Julia miscarried and dropped out of school. It was a natural way of dropping out of school. Because it was so natural and biological, we don’t see the difference in gender roles.

Upcoming Events!

Nip/Tuck airs September 4th, 2007. There aren't any comments of new episodes to come in the new season to avoid spoiling the show. However, the creator of Nip/Tuck, Ryan Murphy, is continuing to run the show with its upcoming fifth season. The season is going to be the longest one yet, a total of 22 episodes. No other season before this has gone over 16 episodes. What is going to be even more interesting is the new practice that Sean and Christian, the two doctors, have opened.
Previously, on Nip/Tuck... Sean and Christian moved from Miami, and opened up their new practice in L.A. Julia moved to New York with their little daughter.
It will be interesting to see how the show changed within it's new location, L.A. I wonder how the morals and values that are expressed through the scenes in Miami are going to change now that it will be located in L.A. It's going to be interesting to see the new ideas brought up because of Los Angeles. Another thing that is quite sad is if Julia is ever going to be on the show again. What does this mean for Sean? Is he going to find someone else? Or have the roles changed now that Christian has a serious girlfriend and a son? Is Sean going to be the new womanizer now that her wife has left her?
I'm really excited for the new season to come. After all of this analysis I've been doing on the television serious, I think it's going to be even more interesting to watch the new show.
Now that the show is going to be making an income of eight figures over the next three years, I wonder if the show itself is going to change at all. Is it going to become more or less provocative. All I've seen is each season becoming more and more scandalous. What's next!!

Marxism and Hegemony

The article on Marxism explains the idea that the ruling class has ideals and values that are shown and displayed to the subordinate groups in order to win their consent. The idea of hegemony is played on because the ruling class owns the mean of production. They use their advantages to convince the subordinate groups of their beliefs.
This definitely relates to the television series Nip/Tuck. The owners and producers of Nip/Tuck display the important value of science to their audience. This value is seen through the beauty and perfection of not only women, but also men, that are on the show. The theme song alone says, “Make me beautiful...” This tune is something that can stick in someone’s mind just like any other rhythmic pattern. In the contemporary world of popular culture physical appearance is very important. Women are expected to be thinner than they ever have been, and men as well. Kimber, the beautiful, sexy, and perfect porn star, gets liposuction, breast implants, as well as many other different surgical procedures. Also, Christian, the dreamy doctor, gets liposuction because he couldn’t get his body the way he wanted to with working out. This idea that science is the modern way of thinking is shown through cosmetic procedures. The ruling class, the producers of the show, is winning the consent over all other groups. They are convincing their audience that science and plastic surgery is the modern way of living. They are also convincing them that physical appearance is a very important part of life.

Semiotics

As I begin a semiotic analysis of this image, I must be able to first describe the image in very basic terms. Sean is on the left of the woman, and Christian is on the right. The woman is half naked, holding her breasts. Christian has a marker in his hand that is aimed towards the woman, while looking at Sean. Sean and Christian both have their doctor coats on. The difference in their clothes is Sean has a collared shirt buttoned up with a straight tie, while Christian has his collared shirt unbuttoned with no tie. Sean is holding a notepad and pen. The woman has markings all over her body. The most obvious markings on her body is around her belly button and around her breasts. This is definately the signified. The signifier would be in more simple terms, such as three humans, one facing left, the other facing right, some wearing clothes, others not. I'm still having a problem with pin pointing the signifier because it's really hard to see it in even more simple terms than the signified. The sign of the entire image is basically what the television series is about. There are two doctors, one of them being more uptight than the other. The women are striving for perfection. The marks all over her body shows unnecessary surgery. It shows these surgeries are done because of the value put on physical attraction. The woman in the picture is already beautiful and has a fantastic body. However, she still feels the need to do more and more surgery. It almost becomes an addiction. Christian has the marker in his hand ready to start the process because he thinks perfection is necessary for women to be beautiful. However, Sean is still in the process of answering questions, trying to realize if the woman has a psychological problem, or anything in order to stop the surgery.
Within a myth, the sign of the image is basically the signifier. The signified would be the idea that beauty is a very important value for women. The sign would definitely be the idea of nature vs. science, the idea that plastic surgery is just as good as natural beauty, or that plastic surgery can make you look like you have natural beauty. Or is it that plastic surgery is wrong, and becomes an obsession for women? Barthes writes in the article, Myth Today, "...myth is a system of communication, that it is a message" (1). It's really hard to figure out what the message exactly is.
I think this picture sells Nip/Tuck, not only because of the very attractive characters in Nip/Tuck, but also because it shows what the public is most interested in today, perfection of physical appearance. It's become a major theme in popular culture. I think this picture shows the obsession the public has today about beauty, and also creates a sense of scandal, which the public loves and eats up! I think it's a brilliant photograph and a perfect resemblance of the entire television series.