extra credit

- Had you ever used a blog before attending RTF 305? IF SO, WHAT WAS ITS FOCUS?


Yes, I have used one before. I had a few in the past and one now, all mostly for personal use. One of them was used also for a marketing blogging position I had for a while. None of them had a certain theme or focus - they were mostly just a place for me to write about random things and share ideas with my friends and whoever else would read it.

- What were the positive aspects of using the blogs in the course?


I liked the speed in submitting the post. I could do the blog at any time during the week and submit it even an hour before the actual submission time. Another aspect I enjoyed was the more personal feeling of the blog, giving the impression that we could say our own opinions as well as talk about the terms and the subject involved. The less strict atmosphere of the blog made it feel less stressful for me to do the assignment. Incorporating media such as videos and pictures also added to what could have been a more dry and boring blog. Furthermore, the ability to edit the post after it was already submitted was useful just in case something didn't work out the first time. 

- What difficulties did you encounter in using the blogs? (both technical and conceptual)


The only technical difficulty I encountered with the blogger was that it always reverted to my Gmail account even though I signed up with a Yahoo account. Maybe in the future you guys could use a different type of blog instead of one that was linked to a company that practically forces you to use their email service. One conceptual problem I had in the beginning was trying to make it somewhat formal while in an informal setting, but it wasn't too hard to overcome that.

- If you had difficulties in using the blog, how were you able to overcome the difficulties you encountered?


I just had to make sure my Gmail was logged out of before I started a post and I couldn't sign back in or else the blogpost wouldn't submit. Sometimes I would just save it in an MS word doc before.

- What types of blog prompts were more or less interesting or difficult? (provide an example and rationale)


I thought the blog prompts with more analysis were more interesting to me - such as the one analyzing television shows in a sociological point of view and the one analyzing commercials. This could be biased though because I'm also really interested in sociology. One in particular is the first blog prompt where you analyze the stereotypes in a certain television sitcom. I liked it because there was room for examples and it was a specific enough prompt to go in depth with. One I found less interesting was the one asking for an example of a 3-act structure - the blog was basically just summarizing a movie while classifying it in which act it went in. 

- Would you recommend using a blog in future course, either in RTF 305 and other undergraduate courses at UT-Austin? (explain why..)


Yeah, I really liked the idea of having a blog for a class. I think it makes doing assignments less stressful and I originally liked blogging anyway. I also liked all the positive aspects I listed above.

- What would you suggest to change or improve the blogging experience in the future?


I would suggest a change from blogger so that people who don't have Gmail or don't want to use their Gmail account for this blog. I also would have wanted a more interactive use of it since after you submit the post you wouldn't get much feedback on it from either the ta or the students. 


Oh and "Yes, you can use my blog in a paper or report."

glow ball is a shun

Globalization, to put it simply, is the process of increasing worldwide interconnectedness economically, culturally, and politically. While many people are talking about it in recent years like it JUST began happening, it can be argued that globalization began when Columbus first set foot in the West Indies, or really even before that. Personally, I believe globalization is just an increase in communication among diverse members all over the world, usually due to economic reasons. As the world's businesses and economies interconnect, communication among members of different nationalities, races, and cultures increases.


This of course has its advantages and disadvantages. Globalization can make us more unified, yes, but is that always a good thing? Is this process making us into one homogenized culture? Since the United States (imperialistically called "America") is a worldwide superpower due to its high standard of living and once-upon-a-time thriving economic market, it can also be considered a perpetrator of cultural imperialism. The easiest example of this is McDonald's - a company that essentially embodies what America is about - can be seen next to the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower, or the Sphinx. It has no boundaries. If we were to find life on Mars and colonize the planet, there would, no doubt, be large golden arches dominating the landscape.


About 10 years ago when I went on a vacation to India, my cousins all had asked us to bring them Gap T-shirts, Adidas jackets, and baseball caps with names of teams they could care less about. These were simply for appearance purposes - to be 'cool,' you wanted to look wealthy and branded (pun unintended) like an American. However, things have changed in India since then. They don't look to this country as an idol anymore, but  as competition. 

Let's just say this was one of the more modest
photos out of the selection.

An NYTimes op-ed describes another example of American influence on Indian soil. The article is about how the Washington Redskins' Cheerleaders are coming to India to help hold auditions for a cheerleaders for an Indian cricket team. The author, Tunku Varadarjan, a professor at the NYU Business School, goes on to say: 

"All this, however, pales when compared to the broader lessons. With the Redskins cheerleaders on Indian soil, one can safely declare that the British cultural influence in India has been entirely replaced by an American one, cricket notwithstanding. India’s relationship with the United States — economic, strategic, diasporic and cultural — is now its primary external alliance, with a complex nuclear deal at one end of the spectrum and 12 cheerleaders and two choreographers at the other."

This quote perfectly describes cultural imperialism - usually the Western, more established countries have influenced the developing nations rather than having a balanced exchange of ideas and goods. If you look at Bollywood movies, the heavy influence of American culture is apparent over time. The music has changed from being softer, acoustic sounds to electronic, synthesizing sounds with rappers; the women (and men) bare a lot more skin and they actually...dare I say it...kiss! I feel like I'm rambling. I'll end it here. END.

Dove Evolution Commercial

Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign has created quite a buzz in television and the internet.  I recently just saw a commercial (called Dove’s “Evolution” Commercial) in which Dove revealed the entire process of makeup, lighting, digital retouching, etc. of a model to the viewer in a time speed video.  The commercial starts with an average-looking girl, pretty but not model-pretty, being brought onto a set for a photo shoot; and then the lighting changes.  The lights brighten up as if to show that this is the truth of the women that you see on the billboards, magazines, advertising to you makeup, beer, anything and everything.  The girl initially has oily skin, with lots of freckles, some minor blemishes, and in a matter of seconds (the video is sped up) the blemishes are covered and her skin looks flawless.  More and more makeup is put on, her hair is straightened and curled, and she looks incredibly different.  As if that weren’t enough already, the photo is shot and then Photoshop increases the size of her eyes, changes her proportions making her looks thinner and her neck longer, and at the end of the commercial her face as it is after the manipulation is put onto a billboard at the very end.  It proves that Dove is a good listener and is high on the level of integration, focusing on a long-term relationship with the consumer.  The company also conveys the idea that it is socially responsible in that it is changing the perception of real females.

Although blatantly a marketing strategy, the company makes it seem as though it is genuinely caring about the self-esteem of young girls and women in the world.

The appeal used in this commercial is satisfying curiosity. Many people do not know the extent it takes to make a models look the way they do on advertisements - the makeup, the lighting, the image manipulation, etc.  It also nurtures and guides the viewer into believing that Dove is a supporter of natural beauty and will uncover the shams of other beauty companies (Despite Dove allegedly photoshopping their 'Real Beauty' models and despite the fact that they sell skin lightening cream to women in Asian countries).  





Characteristics of the satisfying curiosity appeal in general are grabbing the viewers' attention and constructing an audience.  It grabs the viewer's attention through viral YouTube videos and making it styled as a short film that is sped up until the very end when the image of the 'more attractive' girl is shown on the billboard.  In addition, this advertisement was on many websites and was spread virally over the Internet. Using the internet for this commercial easily constructed and targeted an audience of younger people, and since it is a beauty company using a young women to advertise their product, it is obviously targeted towards females. 

If you're from Africa, then why are you white?

One movie which follows a 3-act structure that I’m embarrassingly familiar with is Mean Girls. In this film, the protagonist narrates the story in the present while speaking retrospectively of her first year in an American public high school.  

First Act (set up, ~30 minutes):

 Cady is the protagonist, a naïve, previously homeschooled teenage girl with overprotective parents who just moved recently from Africa to the U.S.  It starts off with showing her parents sending her off to school in the same way that parents do for children on their first day of kindergarten.  Soon Cady meets Janice, the rule-breaking outcast, and Damian, her flamboyant sidekick.  Janice is used as a way of introducing the entire high school kingdom to Cady – she points out the cliques of the “freshmen, ROTC guys, Preps, J.V. Jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks, Unfriendly Black Hotties, Girls who eat their feelings, Girls who don’t eat anything, Desperate Wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually Active Band Geeks, and The Plastics (a.k.a. the worst people you will ever meet)”.  After taking a liking to Cady, the Plastics try to include the new girl into their ‘club.’ The inciting incident that sets the plot in motion is on Halloween when Regina backstabs Cady by kissing Aaron, Cady’s love interest.  Thus, Janice, Damian, and Cady get revenge by sabotaging Regina George to remove her from her adolescent throne (the dramatic premise).  The action continuously rises as Cady begins to have a false relationship with The Plastics while trying to get Regina fat with Swedish Nutrition bars, make her face smell like a foot, and steal her boyfriend.  This is the first plot point.

I'm not a regular mom. I'm a cool mom.

Second Act (Complication, ~60 minutes):

The relationship between Cady and the Plastics becomes stronger, and Janice notices that Cady is becoming more and more like them (leading up to the second plot point). During this time, there are more and more obstacles she faces from getting Aaron and breaking Regina George.  Janice remarks, “It’s been a month, and all we’ve done is make her face smell like a foot.”  Cady backstabs Janice after throwing a party at her place in an attempt to gain the ultimate “Queen Bee” status and steal Aaron away from Regina. After Janice finds out, she breaks it off with Cady and she begins to realize the severity of her actions. This is the first culmination.  The plot soon reaches the midpoint after the “Burn Book” is distributed throughout the high school, causing the kids to act like animals. 

Third Act (Resolution, ~30 minutes):

Thus, the principal issues a “Trust” workshop for the teenage girls in the school, which soon leads to Regina George running out on the street and getting hit by a bus, which is the climax of the movie.  After the climax, the third act presumes as Cady apologizes to everybody at the Spring Fling, does well in the Mathletes competition, and gets the guy she’s been lusting after.  Everything begins to settle down (dénouement) and “The Plastics” all find different niches in which they fit in, and peace is restored at the school (besides the fact that a new set of “Plastics” are entering). 

I only date guys who drink Snapple.

A strict rule of the past in sitcoms, the fourth wall separated the characters in sitcoms from the audience. Archie Bunker never reveals the fact that he is being recorded constantly in his house daily, and the characters in Friends never ask “Who are those people that keep laughing at us in the background?” But in newer shows, especially the mockumentary-style sitcoms such as The Office and Modern Family, the “proscenium arch” is being dissolved.  The laugh track becomes an ancient attribute of sitcoms, the characters speak to the camera, and unlike many sitcoms of the past, the characters actually LOOK at the camera – one example is the typical Jim Halpert face.

Look at me, I'm so self-aware!

A television show that continuously shatters the fourth wall without the pretense of a documentary/mockumentary is 30 Rock.  In this show, although the characters are not constantly aware that they are being taped, they satirize the entertainment industry, and essentially themselves, by blatantly plugging in their sponsor’s names and having mini-advertisements in the middle of the dialogue.

In the last clip shown, Verizon is plugged into the show with an obvious advertisement-style way, claiming that the company has great service and that everybody watching should get it. Then, further breaking the fourth wall, Liz Lemon stares at the camera saying “Can we have our money now?”  This shattering of the Proscenium arch makes the audience realize that the media industry needs to constantly advertise for companies in order to get money and realize that the characters in the show are simply characters.  Another thing about 30 Rock is that there is no laugh track, which allows the viewer to be more independent in judging what is funny and lessens the feeling of being in a large crowd of spectators. 

I left my thimbles and Socialist reading material at home.

I decided to use the movie Stranger Than Fiction as my example - in particular this scene below where Harold meets Miss Pascal in the bus and attempts to engage in small talk (I didn't choose it because the cinematography in this specific scene was so wonderful, but mostly because it was easy to find on YouTube and is a clear-cut example of this concept).

The Long Shot in this scene is at the very beginning where Harold (Will Ferrell) is not shown, and the camera only shows the people standing in the bus. This is done in order to go from General to Specific. If the camera only concentrated on Harold at first, the audience would be confused as to where he was.  In class, Prof. Ramirez-Berg also talked about how the long shot usually indicates loneliness - and in a way, I can see how that is in this movie since Harold does almost everything alone (at least in the beginning).  However, this this particular scene I feel like the long shot was done just to get the audience to get the general idea of the location.

The next shot is the Medium Shot where Harold is "deep in thought" thinking about all the calculations and precisions in the world.  The camera does a kind of lazy shift (not sure what you call it) to resemble the motion of the bus, but it mostly continues to stay in the medium-shot mode the rest of the scene. This shot allows the audience to see that Harold is truly alone - there aren't even people sitting directly next to him.  Also, once Miss Pascal steps on the bus, it reveals the relationship between the two. Since Harold previously "o-ogled" her, she keeps a very far distance (especially evident in the shot where her purse is in the foreground and Harold is seen as very far away), until of course she falls into the seat closer to him. Also, in this scene where Harold is alone initially, the camera is slightly at a high-angle, as it is in a lot of the movie since we, the audience, have the power: we know what will happen to Harold since the narrator who is controlling his life is telling us. Thus, Harold is essentially powerless when faced with destiny and surreal forces acting upon him. However, there are many instances where he is at eye-level, allowing us to identify him in a more human-like way rather than simply a character in this story within a story.

Directly after the camera goes into Medium Shot when Harold is alone, it zooms in on his man-purse/briefcase onto his pen and paper - showing the irony of Harold calculating the precisions of his daily life while his life slowly starts to stray away from his routine, and all the mathematics of it melts away.  Soon after, Miss Pascal coincidentally steps into the bus, already revealing a shift in the story.

complete control of the media industry sucks out the creativity of film and propagandizes singular ideologies

One of the most important features of the classic Hollywood studio system was the fact that there were only about 8 different studios existing, 5 of them being vertically integrated and monopolizing the entire industry. These studios did not allow for independent studios to start, so that they could dominate the entire Hollywood films in what they wanted to create (hegemony!). This view of creating movies was also very limiting since the industries only went by the same formulas – thus making a creative process into an uninspired, unimaginative marketing ploy. These companies, in order to stay in business, would cast the essentially the same actors to play the same character (ex. Judy Garland and the naïve, always childlike girl who sings and dances.

This still happens now in some cases – ex. Michael Cera is always the socially awkward, stuttering boy who is lovestruck; Katherine Heigl is always the uptight, working woman who loosens up after she meets a man that changes her ways. However, typecasting was just completely standard back in the day – there would have never been a Johnny Depp-type actor who plays transvestites, pirates, drug dealers, and romantic male leads. Actors were used more to fulfill the audiences expectations.

Also, each message that the movies would send their audiences were completely owned and distributed by these industries too – there were absolutely no outlets for contradicting opinions. This complete ownership of the movie industry is apparent specifically in Casablanca, which we watched Thursday. The movie was essentially propaganda justifying anti-Axis sentiments – revealing that it is the U.S.’s responsibility to get involved in the war to help the underdogs. Humphrey Bogart is the perfect man to cast to spread this message since everything he says is completely neutral. He claims to not believe in anything, and he is a total cynic. However, he is loveable and secretly virtuous, and at the end he makes the sacrifice to help Lazslo and his true love escape in order to help restore peace to the entire world. If it were not for vertical integration, more independent studios could have joined the film industry, perhaps with a different viewpoint. Having Hollywood control the entire media industry allows for hegemony to become more apparent.