Post 1 - Carol Woo

In our society, having power means everything.  The power to control the media, to create the images that embedded themselves into the deepest part of our culture.  The power over others to have consumers do what they want them to do.  By having the power to manipulate us, the creators behind the image makers can basically control anyone.

John Berger's essay, Ways of Seeing talks about the relationship of the spectator/buyer.  "Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance." "You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable." (pg 133)  Validation is needed to feel wanted.  As humans we all want to feel wanted, and those in power who create images play off of that emotion.  They want you to feel wanted.  They want you to want (whatever they're trying to sell).  By becoming the "wanted," the person becomes the envied object, the thing that they want.  Publicity can be called the life of our culture, "Publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour." (pg 131)  That glamour that is manufactured is supported by capitalism which exploit the majority who feel that they want, that they need that product to become someone who is envied.  By achieving and imposing a false standard of what is and is not desirable, they are able to control anything and everything.

Sexism is rampant in our society.  A major reason for this is because it's a tried and true method image makers use to appeal to consumers.  The term, "Sex sells," rings true.  Freud and other psychoanalytical experts focused on our primal desires to sell us things that we don't need but we buy anyways.  By using the term "torches of freedom," along with creating pseudo events, the cigarette companys managed to associate irrational emotions and feelings to women buy cigarettes and smoking them, even though it was against the norm.  Attracting new consumers the cigarette businesses had a whole new market to add under their control.  Thus more consumption of their product increased dramatically.  This ties in to popular culture as I explain below.  When we see something that we want (even if we really don't even want it), we have to have it.

Bell Hooks talks about representation, popular culture and pedagogy.  She challenges us to engage the media in a critical view instead of just taking in whatever crap they spew at us.  Being under stimulated and over rewarded by what we see is the state of our current society.  What is actually being represented, we really don't think about it, we just sit back and go along for the ride.  Who is supplying us this representation?  What is their message?  We pretend that the representation of images don't mean anything, but in fact they do.  The movies we watch today are filled with stereotypes, the black guy is the bad guy, the asian kid is always good at math and so on.  Because of mass media, certain representations cause certain effects that are detrimental to our society.  Our perceptions are tainted with the representations that the media feeds.  More information on Bell Hooks' view on education can be viewed here.

The divide of those who feel they are entitled and have privilege, money and or power verses those who are not any of the above have contrasting different views because they are not given the tools of critical thinking. Those who have power and wealth, usually gain more than those who are the have nots.  As they say, the rich only get richer.  It's not because of lack of intelligence or anything of the sort but the difference comes from expectations from others.  As Bell Hooks stated, the students from Harlem were equally intelligent when compared to the students she taught at Yale but because we automatically assume that because of the divide of classes, we think and expect less of those students who came from Harlem.  The divide in societal pedagogy shows that we are missing out on a lot of intelligent thoughts and minds, just because we assume that because of their background or where they're from, we should not expect anything from them.

Barbara Kruger's Remote Control, she talks about the difference between fine arts and popular culture, juxtaposed with art and leisure.  The saying "seeing is believing," is no longer the case, instead Kruger states that, "Seeing is no longer believing.  The very notion of truth has been put into crisis. In a world bloated with images, we are finally learning that photographs do indeed lie."  Instead what the media wants us to do is for us to not pay attention to what their motive is but instead gobble up whatever they try to feed us.  Our lack of apathy to the media and propaganda reflects our society today.  We are manipulated into thinking that we are always lacking something.  Our society can be summed up in a single statement.  You are what you have.  The cycle of need, want and showing what we have is endless.  Advertisement within the media today, The zeitgeist of today is the sharing of information and knowledge is limitless.  The creation of the printing press was a revolutionary movement because anybody could be able to publish and spread knowledge to others.  Now we can spread information worldwide with just a click of a button.  Just like how I created this blog post.