Serial Killers

Serial Killers... They are no doubt a different breed, I think that's what attracts us to them. What they do is so random and hard to fathom why they would do that to someone is what attracts people to what to learn more about them and in turns helps them reach this pseudo celebrity status. Murderers aren't uncommon to our culture & society and some of the time it's easier to see where someone might be coming from when it happens from crimes of passion, etc. However with most all serial killers they usually don't know their victims. Unfortunately victims usually happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. 
I've mentioned this before but something that doesn't help with creating the celebrity culture for these monsters is the 24 hour news cycle, every news network beats stories to death with their constant news coverage, one network tries to get the scoop on another network by beating them to the punch. If you need an example look no further then the missing Malaysian Airplane.  

Accidental Racist

     This week we talked about the song "Accidental Racist" and the national attention it received due to the sensitive nature of the topic. One of the reason's I believe it got a lot of the attention it did was because it was done by a country artist and like in the reading we did this past week with country artist a reason for their success is because people can actually understand their lyrics. Let's be honest this isn't the first song about racism but I think due to the fact that it was a white person talking about and almost minimizing it by saying hey the confederate is just a dew-rag to me, and since it was a song it didn't get into any type of depth into the things they listed so there was too much left open to interpret. Another mitigating factor I think that helped push peoples buttons about this song is in general most people think that a lot of people who listen to country music are racist which is a huge over generalization.

Disney

     This week we discussed the vast reaches "The Magic Kingdom" has, for some people it's almost like a religious pilgrimage to load up the whole family in the ol' truckster like out of the classic movie National Lampoon's Vacation and head on out to see the mouse and his friends. However, I think an even more significant trip would be taking the family to the nations capital, Washington D.C.

     Now stating the obvious here there isn't the sexiness of going to Washington D.C. like there is in going to Walt Disney due to it not being a theme park but just the amount of history and knowledge that is in that city with the Museum and national landmarks is truly overwhelming. I certainly know that not everyone is a history junkie like I am but I certainly think it would serve a lot of our younger generations some good to see first hand some of the symbols that epitomize our country to people around the world like The White House, Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, or the Vietnam Memorial Wall. 

     I'm a firm believer in looking back and trying to learn from some of our greatest accomplishments & challenges in our past and then using the tools we have now to learn from them. George Santayana said it best when he said this -"Those who are unaware of history are destined to repeat it."   

Intertextuality

     This week in class we talked about examples of Intertextuality, a lot of the examples I found involved the animated TV show "Family Guy".  They like to take a lot of different movies and put their own "Family Guy" spin to it. If you look at this Top half of the picture you have the iconic picture from the Movie North by Northwest and then on the bottom you have Peter from Family Guy reenacting that famous scene.

     The second example from the Family Guy is a pretty iconic scene from the movie Star Wars with it being reenacted by Stewie & Brian from Family Guy with them playing the roles of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. 

     Lastly, I have an example from the show The Simpsons where they are depicting Mr. Burns as the killer from the movie "The Silence of the Lambs".  I find this one amusing due to how Mr. Burns is always talked about as being a very evil man and then he is shown as epitome of evil in this example. 

 

Coolness

     In our readings we looked at the a couple different viewpoints on what is considered cool. If you take a look at Klosterman article he talks about the exclusivity of things that are cool. Take for instance the example he cited about about cereal and the "Trix Rabbit" is always denied his craving of some of the sugar in a bowl that they market to children. By making it only for "kids" it has the image of being exclusive and therefore they are in the cool club.
     If you look at the piece by Quart that if I may say was brilliantly narrated in class (shameless plug for person that read the Frontline Questions, I know lol) Anyhow, she talks about how hard she has observed children trying to be cool and how active they are to represent that in different forms of social media that is out there. 
     If you look at both viewpoints I think they are both strong arguments and are valid however they just seem to differ a bit.

Comparing Violence

In class this week it was all about violence and how we process the things we see on television or in movies. The video "Mean World Syndrome", Gerbner talks about how its not that media violence makes us more violent, what the video does a great job of showing is that the underlying cause is that media violence causes us to have anxiety and fear of being a victim of violence and the more people were witness to this the anxiousness in them became elevated. 

There is some definite similarities to the "Mean World Syndrome" and the Article that features American Civil Liberties Union in the way that they do not see a problem with media violence which in turn makes the case that there should be no need for new regulations in regards to violence in media.  As noted in this article, the FBI has recorded a decrease in youth violence over the past few years, so the argument about media violence creating violence acts and aggression among children is incorrect. Something that backs up what the FBI study says is that Gerbner mentions that crime rates have decreased. Even though crime has been on the decline the one thing that stands out is that gun purchases have been on the rise. 

Both articles that we have read and the video "Mean World Syndrome" have shown great examples of issues that I have mentioned here. With that said my own personal view is that I would side with the stance that the ACLU takes. I don't feel more regulations are necessary but more dialogue between children and their parents is what is needed. If parents put more effort into being a parent and not letting a video game, or television show be the babysitter/parent I feel the impact would be seen in a positive manner down the road. 

Intimidation Culture

     In the Frontline video we watched in class it explored how football at the High School level has turned into what they call a "football factory". Being a former football player on a lot of different levels (Junior High, High School, College, and Professional) as well as also being a high school football coach in Iowa I feel like I have some knowledge on this subject. Although I haven't worked at a school that can claim to be a "football factory" I have seen first hand what they look like.
     However, I don't feel you have to be at a "football factory" to have the "intimidation culture" that was referenced in the reading by Klosterman. Almost every level of football that I have played at as well as once I became a coach, I have coached players to be aggressive. Football isn't a sport that you can patty cake your way through it, the sport of football is played with controlled aggression. It's a sport where I have coached people if you're going to make a mistake it's 100% full speed. I would rather have an athlete make a mistake going full speed then questioning what his responsibility is on that certain play. 
     It's not uncommon to hear on the practice field or game field that I want to see a "snot bubbling hit" on this play, or at times I would refer to our kickoff team as the "Hit Squad". I know that with the rising concerns of concussions in football that some could say that's being irresponsible to make statements like that but I will tell you with 100% certainty that I have seen more injuries when players start to question what they are doing or don't play to the whistle then I have with someone playing the sport like it was meant to be played which is like I said before when it's played right it's played with "controlled agression" and by no means am I saying to play dirty, I am saying that football is played within the rules that have been established for the sport.