Final Project

"Popular culture is like pornography, in, oh, in many ways: we may not be able to define
it, but we know it when we see it. "(Parker 2011). From announcements to marches
carried out by activists, different elements generate the mobilization and physical or
virtual participation of a large crowd of people. Many of these elements reflect problems
that go back many years ago, while others generate new controversies. The access and
distribution of different types of popular elements have been changing too. Now, there
are many ways to access to a diversity content easier. In this context, it is possible to
affirm that modern popular culture involves different kind of issues. For example, over
the years, race thread has been portrayed in many types of popular elements. This
article analyses three examples of popular artifacts related to this issue, how these
artifacts connect with their audience, the audience's responds, its access, its distribution
and how they send messages that define social values or provoke change.
Firstly, Pocahontas is an American animated musical romantic drama epic film which
plot portrays the love between an Asian princess, who had lived all her life in a remote
place with their uncivilized group and a white young man from London. This movie was
released in 1995 in the Unites States and it builds on the story of Pocahontas, the first
Native American woman to marry an Englishman and to visit England. At the beginning
the film was acclaimed by the audience as it appears to respond the development of
cultural diversity, to against race discrimination, to show a woman with a dominant role
and other etic role models. However, over the time different details have been noticed
for the different type of audience and their opinion had changed. Amy Aidman in their
article Disney's "Pocahontas": Conversations with Native American and Euro-American
Girls revels some details and reviews. For example, many people believe that the movie
reinforces the stereotype of a Native American as a primitive. Although, that opinions
were negative, the film managed Disney to collect a large amount of money. An example
is that Pocahontas Costume was the best-selling Halloween costume in 19951. Over
the time the new audience is more critic about details in the movies. Now it is not
enough a film with a multicultural variety of characters. The public focus their attention
in the characters’ personality construction and the way their costumes are reflected.
The audience for this animated movie are not only children, it is for all the ages, so adult
people can be more critic.
Secondly, “The hate U give” by Angie Thomas is a book published in February 28, 2017,
that tells us the story of a black Sixteen-year-old teenager called Starr, who moves
between two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she lives and the fancy suburban
prep school she attends. She lives in a dangerous neighbourhood where shootings are
heard every day. This hard balance in her life ends up when a police officer kills her best
friend Khalil when they were going to a party. After that, Starr’s life changes and she
hast to live between different people’s opinions and try to fit into her school. This book
is aimed at readers of all ages in order to help raise awareness about the abuses
committed today with dark-skinned people. So, since the book has received good
reviews, it is going to be portrayed in a movie with the same name in October 5, 2018
and has caused much expectation. An example is the title of an article of The Voice of
America (VOA), a dynamic international multimedia broadcaster, titled “'The Hate U
Give' Puts Black Lives Matter on Screen”, because the story told really reflects what life
is like for dark-skinned people. Through the protagonist, we can see the prejudices
associated with people who are not white, because, according to the book, many people
thought that Khalil had sought his death. In addition, Starr must behave differently at
home and at school, where people whose skin colour should remain silent and not
comment to avoid problems.
The book and their film will change the definition of “normal” because nowadays many
audience still ignore the hard life with which these people struggle. In words of Russell
Hornsby, who play the role of Starr’s father, “We see it on the news for 10 minutes…
and the moment goes,” she continued. “But when you watch a story like this, you realize
that loss is reverberated [through] all the people that know him. That loss is real, and I
think it’s imperative that people get that.” That is a comment refer to a violent news
that are showed on the screen.
Finally, heavyweight sport is type of game, which specific audience are young and adult
people. It helped the fight against thread because through one victory of a black boxer
like Joe Louis in 1987 generates the empower racial identification for African-Americans.
Moreover, most champions of that sport are dark-skinned people, situation that had
helped for inspirations to many cultures. However, today, the audience seems different.
Currently, many people tend to prefer to know the private life of the players than their
talents, modals or what they are doing to reinforce African-Americans empowerment.
The access and distribution in the cases of “Pocahontas” and “The hate U give” are
relatively simple and economical. There are available in different popular platforms like
Amazon, Netflix, Google Reads, online libraries, etc. Also, their formats can be economic
or more expensive depends of the city and the quality. Nevertheless, the industry of
sport is more expensive and heavyweight sport are available only in some parts of the
countries. People can have access to this sport paying tickets or watching in Tv, but most
of its audience are people who have a good economic situation. While distribution of
films and books are easy, fast an economic, heavyweight sport games are usually
expensive, and audience must buy their tickets with anticipation.
All the artifcats mentioned before are related to race thread. However, heavyweight
sport is related with violence issue too and Pocahontas had been called, for a group of
people, as a movie that empower gender issue. Since heavyweight is a fighting sport,
many critics say that it empowers the violence in children and teenagers. “(…) there is
no sport like boxing, people say romantically. No sport that produces such characters or
such confrontations, such awesome contests. There is a simple reason for this. Most
man-to-man sports are a form of stylized dueling with ball, racquet, or stick. The enmity,
the attacking, the defending is metaphorical. There is no metaphor in boxing: it is the
real thing. Boxing is real fighting, perfectly genuine violence, a pastime with the genuine
aim of causing damage to the opponent. No wonder the contest stirs the blood; no
wonder the contestants are fearsome, mythical men. The point is not, in fact, that “there
is no sport like boxing.” The point is that boxing is not sport at all. It is violence
unadulterated performed for the pleasure of millions. And millions are what it is all
about” (Smillie 2003). This opinion means that sports like heavyweight generate the
acceptation of violence like something normal and even is glorified by many people. In
Pocahontas’s case, the physical image of the princess has received negative reviews
because she was drawn from blended photos of top models, so, her body looks like a
Barbie doll body with an unrealistic body shape. “Feminist arguments point out that
holding up these unrealistic body images to young audiences is unhealthy” (Aidman).
The audience of these times changes constantly. Therefore, popular elements such as
movies, books, among others, generate different responses and changes in the opinions
of citizens. The public is more analytical, makes their opinion known and forces the
media to transmit prepared content.
To sum up, I believe that opinions change depends on the age of the public. For example,
when I was a child, I watched Pocahontas and I connect with the romantic story and the
beautiful princess, but when I rewatched the movie at the age of twenty I paid attention
and analyse the dialogues, the characters and when I read the negative reviews of
feminist groups, I agreed with them because although the fact that Pocahontas was a
brave character, she was stereotyped physically and in a world with teenagers that still
suffer problems of acceptance with her bodies, they deserve to feel represent with a
character that reflect the real bodies and not just model stereotypes. In the other hand,
I really appreciate books like “The hate U give” since it permits to more people to know
about how people are still discriminated in popular countries. Books allows people to
learn about different topics, know situations or events that they do not appreciate in
their country or the media modify in their favour. Modern popular culture can be
expressed through different elements, but each person must use them with a positive
purpose to against social issues.
References:
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