Blog #9: Are we happier?

I just responded to a fellow students post with the below. I felt it important to share with all as well; it's a quote from the movie Contact (1997). What's interesting is how relevant the quote is at a time when social media had not even exploded onto the scene yet, and I love the connotation that the word synthesized gives to our society.

"Are we happier as a human race? Is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? We shop at home, we surf the Web... at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history... We're becoming a synthesized society.... In a great big hurry to get the next... 

We're looking for meaning. What is meaning? We have mindless jobs, we take frantic vacations, deficit finance trips to the mall to buy more things we think will fill these holes in our lives. Is it any wonder that we've lost our sense of direction?"

Blog #8: To Be Self-Aware...

Watching Miss Representatation was a powerful view into the lives of women and the struggles they face. I had a surface level understanding of equal rights, the mis-representation of women, and the societal pressures they undergo. I have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the struggle now.

My husband works in education counseling, and I often hear stories of girls cutting themselves, hanging themselves in their home, letting men abuse their bodies over and over from Junior High on. It's even happening in elementary school now. I've heard stories about the girls who wear the rubber bands on their wrists in different colors, signifying what they have done sexually, how many times they've done it, and what they are willing to do. And while suicide would be considered the worst for a family to experience, the most gut wrenching issue I heard about was a girl in Junior High who kept a journal of all the guys she had sex with — pages of them — and she had a rating system, stats, and what they did written down. She lost it at school and a teacher found it and turned it in to the counseling office. When they called in the girl and her mother, the response was the same from each..."So What".  If I were to ask myself what would drive a girl to dis-respect her body, and most likely have such self-loathing, the question would certainly be easy to answer in this case. But most of the time it is not easy to see the source, that is until your faced with truths in a documentary such as this.

Fag, homo, queer, weak, sissy, damned... this is the definition of manhood I grew up with.  Bitch, slut, fat, skank, easy, worthless... is no better a definition for a female to grow up with either. Even with the momentous court ruling for marriage rights yesterday, I can look back at our history and know that discrimination and hatred will never cease. I only need to examine the progress we've made since the 13th Amendment, 19th Amendment, Civil Rights, and Equal Opportunity. The hate and animosity is still present and strong in our society.

I've worked in advertising for a long time, so I have plenty of first hand knowledge in regards to the meetings that happen on how to best design a campaign to twist the public mind. I've witnessed the intense air-brushing and photo manipulation that happens in producing many of these campaigns. From that experience, I live with many of the suggestions made at the end of the documentary.  I don't buy magazines. I mute the TV and walk away during commercials. In fact, I hardly watch TV and when I do, I typically watch a movie or show on Netflix or Hulu that I know has little to no advertising at all. I use Facebook & Twitter strictly for providing links to my blog. I created a dummy twitter account strictly for school purposes. I don't spend time scanning the feeds or reading the massive amount of garbage online. I only use Instagram as a means of letting those friends and family who care know what I am doing, yet only posting at most 2-3 times a month.

That said, I can't imagine the rest that women have to deal with. The societal pressure to buy $15,000 to $18,000 in makeup per year!!!  WHAT??? I have even joked a few times with some of my female friends, saying I don't know how you can afford to buy all the beauty products that you do AND still afford rent, food, bills, and any entertainment. In my eyes, a female is more beautiful without all the covering, but I know my opinion is in the severe minority.

So what do I mean by Self-Aware? The definition tells us it is "the idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their own internal standards and values." Looking back to those standards I listed earlier as we have been defined by our peers — by other human beings — what kind of internal standards will these girls grow up with? I've mentioned the human race issue in a few of my earlier posts. If we have evolved into beings with such intelligence, why is the human condition so destructive and so hateful to one another? Maybe if every penis was the same size and every set of breasts were exactly the same, would that make the difference?  Would it be better if everyone were blond with blue eyes? We've seen humankind make that attempt before and witnessed the devastating affect it had and the millions of valuable human life lost. Maybe soon it will be brown hair and green eyes and the rest of us will be gassed, poisoned, or just shot in the head. Crude thoughts and statements, but being uncomfortable helps to spark new cognitions.

Who makes the call that these are the appropriate standards we must live by? Based on the documentary, the media and the money belong to the most powerful outlets. It was mentioned in the documentary and I mentioned it in my Blog #3 post regarding the control of news and media by 7 giants. But then, the 99% of us have allowed the top tier elites to control us and we pour our money into their pockets practically every day. Trust me when I state...they DO NOT want us to think for ourselves.

I have no right to judge your beauty, nor does anyone else have the right to judge mine. And despite overwhelming negative observations right here in my own community, I do have an optimistic view of our future. I do believe we have it within us to be good, kind and loving to one another. We have amazing intellect, I hope we all can learn to have Independent thought versus Interdependent thought. You, me, each of us, is NOT the idea and creation of someone else's vision. Do not let social conformity guide our footsteps, otherwise we are simply puppets on a string. Then the question we will have to face is "What's the point?"

Blog #2

I’m sorry my post has to re-appear, being that we studied semantics at the beginning of the course, I have accidentally deleted my post, so here it goes again …

Although I have watched the movies before, I had never watched the show version for the Sherlock series.  I’m really happy we were asked to watch Sherlock for our study of semantics;  I am now so in-love with the short series, it is amazing!

We start by being introduced to Dr. John Watson, we are introduced to his past and are now aware that he has been to war and now suffers from what appears to be PTSD.  Dr Watson has clearly just come back from a life that was full of constant dangers and thrill, and he is obviously now missing that part of his life.  He feels alone and finds no meaning for his life.  As he awakens, we can see that his room is simple, he appears to only own the bare necessities and everything around him symbolizes the way he feels about his life: Boring; the color palette in his room is white and beige, his room seems to be organized almost military style, and even the apple on his desk is yellow, given that apples come in so many colors, he chooses the pale looking apple, opposed to a bright red apple.  Dr. Watson is also observed to have a really classic short haircut, very neatly combed, symbolic of the plainness of his life, opposed to the curly and messy hair that Sherlock sports in the show.  Towards the beginning of the show we observe that Dr. Watson uses a cane, which he uses only as symbolism of the crutch he is imposing on himself as he tries to carry all his sorrows and bad experiences with himself, although he feels he does need it.  As the show progresses and Dr. Watson is able to find meaning in his life through Sherlock and his “insanities,” Watson gains perspective in life and is able to enjoy his new role in civilian life; Sherlock symbolizes the excitement that Watson was craving as a soldier, since before Sherlock, Dr. Watson expressed that he felt “nothing happens” to him.

Sherlock is the opposite of Watson, and surely in this case, opposites do attract.  Sherlock’s flat is messy, his books and belongings are spread throughout the place, which gives us an insight of how he is inside; his thoughts are fast and seem unorganized; he is always, as Mrs Hudson puts it, “Dashing about.”  Although Sherlock’s room is messy and his hair is unruly, which is a good symbolism for his attitude, his attention to detail is exceptional, opposed to Watson, who does not seem to be nearly as observant.

Of course, there are many more examples of semiotic concepts, I have just mentioned a few.  I love that Sherlock was chosen for this lesson, I really appreciated the show a lot more as I was being more observant towards different signifiers throughout the episode.

Sherlock	Dr Watson
Unruly hair Messy room Incredible attention to detail Disliked	Neat/Classic Hair cut Organized Room Not as observant to Detail Respected as a Military man and good friend

Blog #8

I was ecstatic to hear the news about the supreme court signing the bill for equal marriage rights. This morning at work, I actually overheard a conversation about the bill signing, and then I was eventually informed by multiple coworkers. There was just something so warming about hearing this news by word of mouth, before seeing it online or on social media, because it actually implemented good conversation with people. This current event is obviously a very big deal, especially since equal marriage rights have been on the fence for such a long time. I wanted to read more articles about the event, and after checking my email, this is the very first article I see:

I was a little confused at first. Why was a celebrities social media account the VERY FIRST article instead of the historic event of the signing of equal marriage rights? This carousel was from Yahoo, in which they pick the top 60 stories, and people can scroll through them using the displayed left and right arrows. I did not find an article concerning the equal marriage rights until I scrolled to 46/60. Was the lack of coverage on the event a reflection of the personal views of the people running the Yahoo page? Are the articles ordered by "trending" and "most popular"? I just felt that such a historic event deserves more news coverage, rather than celebrity matters. 

Blog Post 8

With all the discussion on the ruling by the SCOTUS today I wanted to take this post in a different direction. Today I had a heated debate with one of my friends in regards to the significance of today's sudden clarity by government to make unconstitutional the right to ban gay marriage. Unless you had not been paying attention, this was inevitable as the laws put into place and the mental gymnastics by the people who made them who would have made the legislators of Jim Crow gleam with pride were frankly, ridiculous. Gay marriage was far and away one of the most socially popular movements of our time and it was just a matter of time and rightfully so, people deserve to make their own decisions about their lives and no one should infringe on another person's free will so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. Having said that, this post is not about gay marriage. This post is about how the government used a conveniently fantastic distraction to prevent the media from focusing their attention on another major issue. Today, president Obama passed legislation that effectively made him the only person in charge of the TTP and TTIP, the two most important trade agreements of the 21st century, two secret agreements between corporations and countries that we, the citizens, are not allowed to know about, and after today are unable to vote on. I know what you're thinking, "Sushen, why am I not allowed to be happy about this monumental historical moment in time?" And I agree with you, I am the quintessential wet blanket, however while this is something to rejoice about, the timing could not have been better for the executive branch to unilaterally extend itself power while distracting the masses about something else. Only time will tell what the details are about in the TTP and TTIP, though leaks have been made available on Wikileaks if anyone is curious, however I for one am not comfortable about the lack of media coverage on these two monumental trade agreements, both of which are rumored to threaten our very sovereignty, while the increased media coverage on issues of controversy such as confederate flags and gay marriage which incite crowds raise suspicion in my mind.

Post #8

There has been a large amount of media today surrounding the Supreme Court’s ruling on same sex marriages. I actually do not really understand why anyone would oppose gay marriage but I am sure that they exist. I read an article that discussed Senator Ted Cruz’s proposal for the Justices of the Supreme Court to have to face an election process, which caused me to look for the reason or event that may have sparked that idea. Eventually, I came across the article listed below that discusses Justice Clarence Thomas and his comments. He compared gay marriage to slavery and stated, “Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved.” This was in response to some who thought the government took the dignity from gays by not allowing them to marry. He also stated, “Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them.”

Dignity is defined as the state of being worthy of honor or respect. It is reasonable to think that if you take someone’s freedom from them and make them a slave, you are also taking their dignity. Currently, there is a lifetime term for Supreme Court Justices. I believe that this is related to why Senator Cruz is proposing elections. Justice Thomas has either lost his mind, or maybe he never should have been appointed as a Justice but in our current system we are stuck with him for the rest of his life.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/justice-clarence-thomass-anti-gay-marriage-argument-is-that-slavery-wasnt-so-bad/ar-AAcbh0P

Blog #7

As a young female adult, I am aware and often face the issues stated in the documentary. Gender equality has always been an issue I was very aware of, but while I was watching the documentary, what really alarmed me the most were the statistics.  To actually be given a number and to be able to visualize the data was very alarming and disheartening to me; it’s like you understand what is going on, but you are not completely understanding of how deep the issue really is. For example, when I saw the text pop up on the screen stating that more than 50% of women have an eating disorder, I was shocked. Was I aware of eating disorders? Yes, of course. Did I know the extent of eating disorders affecting women? I had no idea it was that high.

Although the statistics were very alarming to me, the main focus that I really picked up and engaged on, was the talk on raising new generations and the fear of having them susceptible to negative media and advertising. I think Cultivation Theory—where effects happen over a period of time—is the media’s most powerful tool and theory, especially when dealing with younger generations who can be easily influenced by the media.  I also found it very powerful in the documentary where it was said that teenage girls idolize people because they have not yet found and are in the process of obtaining their own identity, yet there are not enough woman in power to help demonstrate the possibilities of their identity. I think if women were taken more seriously in the media, and not just seen as sexual objects and caregivers, it would not only empower women, but also inspire younger girls to strive to become something more in life.