This is my first blog, so bare with me. As I have been doing a lot of reading lately on visual culture, interpellation and context etc, I started applying this to many of my favorite shows. It wasn’t until I was interrupted during a new South Park episode with the question “what crap are you watching?” that I started to take note.
“How can you watch such vulgar racist crap?” my mother asked, to which I returned “what crap are you reffering to?” She started to explain that she was offended by many of the character representations, such as the AK47 toting Jesus, and cute woodland creatures. As I thought of a response, it came to me that maybe the representations in South Park are not racist, sexist or offensive. I explained that yes, maybe the producers are a little sick, twisted and perverse and that they purposely mean to infer such meanings in there work. I also told her that maybe the producers are actually masters of reflecting modern visual culture and have designed the show to enhancing the feelings of the viewers by engaging them, and forcing them to apply the values reflected in each portrayal. I explained that such values exhibited by each individual representations were actually meaningless in and of themselves, and that any negative values it may hold were simply her own personal values, beliefs and such reflecting back thru the image, and that any meaning she associated with it was totally her own. I also explained that I was trying to higher my sense of artistic development, by openly embracing the art hidden within modern culture.
While this could be considered a poor excuse to avoid letting her have the remote, and not watching American Idol, it still holds true. The meanings that we as individuals draw from different media forms are not completely influenced by the producers. Our past experiences, beliefs, values and other factors all come into to play, as each individual is directly responsible for creating the values they interpret. Either way it still worked, I got to watch my filth, and she got bored and made me a sandwich. In the words of Eric Cartman… “Sweeeet!”
“How can you watch such vulgar racist crap?” my mother asked, to which I returned “what crap are you reffering to?” She started to explain that she was offended by many of the character representations, such as the AK47 toting Jesus, and cute woodland creatures. As I thought of a response, it came to me that maybe the representations in South Park are not racist, sexist or offensive. I explained that yes, maybe the producers are a little sick, twisted and perverse and that they purposely mean to infer such meanings in there work. I also told her that maybe the producers are actually masters of reflecting modern visual culture and have designed the show to enhancing the feelings of the viewers by engaging them, and forcing them to apply the values reflected in each portrayal. I explained that such values exhibited by each individual representations were actually meaningless in and of themselves, and that any negative values it may hold were simply her own personal values, beliefs and such reflecting back thru the image, and that any meaning she associated with it was totally her own. I also explained that I was trying to higher my sense of artistic development, by openly embracing the art hidden within modern culture.
While this could be considered a poor excuse to avoid letting her have the remote, and not watching American Idol, it still holds true. The meanings that we as individuals draw from different media forms are not completely influenced by the producers. Our past experiences, beliefs, values and other factors all come into to play, as each individual is directly responsible for creating the values they interpret. Either way it still worked, I got to watch my filth, and she got bored and made me a sandwich. In the words of Eric Cartman… “Sweeeet!”
Brother of my name!
ReplyDeleteI dig your disection of South Park and all its hilarious glory. While it could be assumed that Tray Parker and Matt Stone are quite well verse in how to break down culture and examine it, as they are both professional film students and probably exposed to critical theory as such. My main discourse with the show is that yes it parodies and pokes fun at sterotypes as well as common conceptions, I can’t help but think that these are taken blindly and without judgement. While this is not Tray or Matt’s job or obligation as writer to ask their audience to deconstruct what they are view, but I feel to the average viewer these images are only going to propetuate and worsen the already common misconceptions of cultures, beliefs, ect.....
I do dig the jesus image you have there on the page, it really resignifies what one is taught to think about this character, I believe that it offends peoples because it causes so much discourse and forces them to at least think about what their jesus means to them. Or does it, at least thats what came to my mind.
Peace out doggie.
Luke
Interesting comments—especially with regards to the differing tastes between you and your mother. I’m sure a lot of why you and your mother have different tastes has got to do with age, gender, differing lifestyles, etc, but it got me wondering about differing tastes amongst generations. My dad recently looked over my shoulder at a magazine I was reading and said something along the lines of, “Kids sure are stupider these days,” when catching a glimpse of a photograph of teenagers with numerous tattoos and piercings. Subcultures are often rebelling against a rigid, more traditional, “paternal” mainstream culture which predates them; often simply by employing mindboggling actions such as having a man-eating coy fish etched into the skin. Is visual culture evolving by making fun of Jesus? Or has it dwindled to just pointing out what’s wrong with our world, instead of actually doing something about it? I’m not sure.
ReplyDeleteThe comments from Luke and Noako point the the structuralist/post-structuralist debate.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, can one enter into the media establishment as a voice of dissent and not be compromised? After all, it seems that in order to have some measurable affect, the message of social change must be broadcast within the corporate media superstucture to reach "those that need to hear it" or the general public, or the elements of the social structure that the message seeks to change.
In The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Theodor Adorno lays it out as such:
Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system.
Adorno, being a structuralist, would say there is no way South Park can be a real part of positive social change. Just because it seems to be critical of the establishment, does not mean it functions as such. He argues that anything in the media establishment functions to maintain itself. He also didn't live to see the internet, or a music industry not totally dominated by 4 corporations, or the fragmentation of the television medium.
I have to say, on a personal level, I don't believe I would be in cultural/media studies, trying to get smart enough to challenge the current social order, to help create a less oppressive society, to usurp the status quo...etc etc... if not for Rage Against the Machine. I'm sure I found about this band on Much Music, owned by CTVglobemedia, the second biggest media conglomerate in Canada.
Rage introduced me to Chomsky, and a vision/version of the third world I wasn't getting from anywhere in the corporate media or my high-school education.
So there is my own individual evidence against structuralism.
Valid? I'm not sure. I'll probably have to get a job to pay off student debt after school and work in support of the society I aim to change. I hear they pay well in marketing... Adorno might be onto something...
Well I am glade to see that someone has brought up South Park… and I am ready for the anger that will come with what I have to say.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I feel South Park does is reaffirm how racist our culture is. Although I see what you are getting at (that any meaning is constructed through the viewer), I am going to have to disagree with you that this then renders what the show less racist. Even if one views these shows as ‘parodies’ they are still doing incredible damage because of the connotation of the images.
Much of what South Park deals with is modern events, yet the danger is that it comes of as being older. The way that coloured people are treated in the show could be viewed as making fun of these ‘old views’ however the pain, and hurt that has occurred to all the people of colour in the states is far to recent, and still happening. Shows such as South Park risk making things appear as though they happened in the past and are in the past.
I am not one that thinks we must always be politically correct, I feel that certain words still have power, and should be used when confronting issues. However, I do feel that a show, made for teenagers and young adults, who do not realise how hurtful and recent all of the issues these ‘harmless’ jokes are talking about, can be simply written off as meaningless. On the contrary, I feel they are the most important things to study to try and understand why some white mean feel they can use such humour, and how this humour translates to young adults.