Week 2 - The Good Stuff

I have decided to split this post in two because it was getting too long.
Now to the stuff I actually wanted to talk about - The Hunger Games and (to a lesser extent) Twilight.

The Hunger Games

I picked up the Hunger Games in second year university without any knowledge of it's following. I found it an interesting book. I read that the author came up with the idea after flicking channels from Iraq war coverage to kids competing in reality television and deciding that combining the two would be a good idea for a book. You can feel for Katniss as she tells the story from her point of view. The reader sees that her world is bleak and she is doing everything she can to fight it. When I read the book I wanted a happy ending and by seeing it was in the Young Adults section, I knew there was a 95% chance that I would get one.
When the hype was beginning about the movies I wondered about how it would transfer onscreen. The Hunger Games contains some very serious themes including dictatorship, censorship, class struggle and media control. Depending on the age and maturity of the child, these are important topics that need to be discussed, even if some think that it is too delicate for young people to handle.
One thing that did confuse me was people's reaction to the movies. On one hand people were concerned about the notion of kids killing kids and how it would be too violent for them to watch. Yet they watch coverage of wars happening overseas, where children are roped into fighting - regardless of whether they want to or not. On the other hand people had shirts with "Team Katniss" written on them, and fans boasting that she was a good role model for girls. Hang on, let's think about that a moment. Katniss is a survivalist, she is rude to her mother, she is surly, sarcastic and doesn't like making friends, she doesn't take compliments and doesn't like the authorities. I don't know about you but if I saw any of those qualities in my own kids I would be pulling my hair out (Yes, I know she volunteered for her sister at the Reaping, but this is because Katniss saw her sister Prim as someone who is small and weak,  and who needed to be protected, but I don't think this act alone makes Katniss a role model).
The Hunger Games has a huge following online - there are Tumblr pages, Pintrest boards, whole sites dedicated to Fan Art. Another feature of this fandom is that people can join the Paneem community (Paneem is the ficitonal country the Hunger Games takes place in) through Facebook and generate an ID card which categorises them into a District, gives them a personalised id number and gives them an occupation (including Tribute - For the Record I was put as a farmer in District 9, which is responsible for grain). After logging on people "show district pride" and write fan fiction using the character traits they'd been allocated, even adding the long id numbers after their names so people. This level of participatory culture is on the rise as the second movie Catching Fire is due to hit cinemas in November.

Twilight

I won't mention too much about Twilight as I don't find rants very attractive. Twilight came out when I was in high school. I read it. It was like reading the diary of some of the girls I went to school with. I remember girls swooning over Edward when I thought he was just down right creepy (give me Neville Longbottom any day of the week). I did see the movie with my brother's girlfriend - it wasn't my cup of tea. At least I didn't fall for the advertising pitch it was a "vampire movie".
But I suppose some good has come out of Twilight. It got girls who rarely read novels into reading. It brings up issues like sex before marriage. Over 200,000 fan fictions have been written (and as far as my friends have told me almost a third of them are amateur attempts of writing porn) which I guess gives people an outlet to... express themselves.

Look Forward to next week
(RANDOM NOTE: Did you know that the infamous 50 Shades of Grey began as a fan fic entry? with Chrisitan Grey being the AU, Alternative Universe, version of Edward Cullen. This may explain why the character is rich and creepy.)

Week 2 - Reflecting on Resources Pack A

Reading Material

 Johnson (2005) in his article Everything bad is good for you, floats the idea that being involved with popular culture can be good for us and won't, as our parents put it, give us square eyes or make us misfits within society. In some ways I can agree with this - if you spend long enough playing Angry Birds, you will actually use the long lost components of your brain to apply maths and physics in a sort of real world application (otherwise known as making killing the green pigs to get to the next level). With that being said, this is shouldn't be used as an excuse to spend hours watching TV and claiming it to educational.

I found the video lecture by Jenkins fascinating (I was googling to find more videos of him after the clip ended - I could have listened to him all day). Participatory culture has been around for generations, but the internet age is really the first time that adults and adolescents can come together and share ideas as equals. I think it's a mixture of changing social norms and technological advances which means that every voice has equal weight. There are few barriers which stop people from engaging and everybody believes that their opinion matters. He also goes onto say that participatory culture ignites an informal learning. This links in with the Johnson article by saying that this engagement can develop important leadership and communication skills along with equipping them with various norms, mores and ideas that can help serve their broader offline communities; there is the fact that while these "skills" are being developed online - they are probably not being put into practice in real world settings and that the most important thing about these technologies is balance.  (I love the story of the Chilean senator and his theory that World of Warcraft holds the key for Latin America becoming more involved in global conversations).

Now for the not so good stuff. I found the Fiske article dry and dated, it lost me when it said that popular culture has come out of people oppressing women and children and "a housewife regularly buying romance novels and finds some pleasure in her husbands disapproval..." (Fiske, 2010, pgs 44-45) What? How the hell is that relevant to the modern day? Who care's if she reads romance novels (not that this isn't at all stereotypical) As for the example of the Newlywed Game... I could see the different reactions and how the "text" impacted them but the fact he was arguing that it was used to deal with patriarchy? When the women on the show answered "Yes Master" about their sex lives - yeah, I'm not buying it.

My Popular Culture - On Pintrest

I may have mentioned previously that I am an avid user of Pintrest and that I already have specialised boards for many of my pop culture pictures purely because they wouldn't fit on a single board. 

I love pop-culture mash-ups as it creates something new when older ideas are put together. The first picture is made up of Despicable Me and Batman. I love animated kids movies - I'm a big kid at heart. I also like batman as a comic icon. The movies were great, although I've never been able to get into the comics. The second is a take on the crime novel "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" but uses characters from the Smash Mario Brothers - Princess Peach and Yoshi. This picture is light and almost comical which is a polar opposite from the very dark and graphic novel. The third is a mix of Dr Seuss and Yoda from Star Wars. I loved Dr Seuss as a kid and his books still have a lot of very important lessons to teach children. Yoda was my second favourite character from Star Wars (I have a soft spot for Ja-Ja-Binks) He is a symbol of wisdom within his world. 

The next three are of very strong, feminist women in their respective genres. Wonder Woman was the first main female superhero, and the only girl in the Justice League (she doesn't have a bad figure either). I find the pin-up style really sexy as it embraces femininity. Lara Croft was my idea of awesome at the age of 10. She has guns, fights with the boys and is an "archaeologist" (well more of a treasure hunter). Lara Croft was originally a video game character who was brought into mainstream popular culture after she become an icon inspiring both boys and girls. Alex Munday (Lucy Lui's character in the 2000 version of Charlie's Angels) was my favourite Angel. She was focused (not boy crazy like the other two) and was a hard fighter. Both Lara and Alex are representations of my generation - third wave feminists who have been encouraged to do anything we set our minds to.

I have just recently gotten into poster art. The first is taken from the Hunger Games and is a representation of what political propaganda for the rebels might look like in a fictional world. The second is from Harry Potter and is stylised from a by-gone-era by travelling was as much about the journey as it was about the destination. I like how these posters use elements of the universe are being used in an isolated form - without the use of the protagonist overshadowing them (Katniss and Harry respectively).  

There are a few honourable mentions I would like to add:

James Bond - I remember watching Sean Connery in Goldfinger on VHS under my grandma's house when I was eight - after that I was hooked. I love the gadgets, the cars, the exotic places, the explosions and the legacy. I love how the role of women has been transformed from being the damsel in distress and the pretty air headed woman who swoons over Bond's charms and good looks; to the woman who is equal to Bond and is not willing to let a man over-ride her authority.

Sesame Street - I don't care how old you are - you are not too old to love a furry, singing puppet. I loved Ernie because he was carefree, Elmo because he was funny (I watched it a while back and didn't remember him being that annoying when I was a child) and Zoe because she was orange and she always had fun. They teach children great lessons (both academic and life).    

I will leave you with just one more picture that I really want on my bedroom door! 

(From Monty Python and the Holy Grail "A five pound swallow cannot carry a 1 lb. coconut!")