“To be the man—you gotta beat the man!”

-Ric “The Nature Boy” Flair

How does the role of masculinity and gender in wrestling reflect American culture?

When I was 9 years old, I was drawn into the world of wrestling. Home to some of the biggest icons in popular culture, wrestling has been a spectacle in the industry of entertainment for many years, drawing fans from all different age groups and genders. But what makes such a product the “male soap opera” that it is? It is a place where men are able to act out our drama…

In my paper I plan to examine the role of gender and masculinity in wrestling. Some the questions I plan to ask include: How do personas and gimmick (characters) in wrestling portray and support the patriarchy of masculinity? What is the role of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in the way that they support this drive for masculinity within the wrestling world? How are women viewed in the eye of the male gaze in the wrestling environment? There’s a lot about gaining respect and being the champion—becoming the alpha-male—in the story-world of wrestling that reflects the way our society works, and several theories that we’ve studied—feminism, hegemony, and ideology—can be represented in this piece of text.

I plan on focusing on books, articles, blogs, videos, interviews, etc for my research. The reason why I might venture into blogs and interviews is because I also plan on studying the way it is received by the audience, concerning masculinity.  When I was 16 years old, I had 10 good friends of mine (all male) come over and watch WrestleMania 20. Brooker’s group viewing of Star Wars reminded me of this experience and made me think a lot about how significant the event was.

Oppliger, Patrice A. Wrestling and hypermasculinity. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, c2004

Sehmby, Dalbir, “Wrestling and Popular Culture” CLCWeb Volume4 Issue 1 (March 2002) Article 5 <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1144&context=clcweb>

Soulliere, Danielle M.”Wrestling with masculinity: messages about manhood in the WWE.”

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research (July 2006) <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_55/ai_n19328330/?tag=content;col1>

In 1913, RJ Reynolds stunned competitors in the tobacco market by introducing the pre-rolled cigarette. Until then it was believed that people’s practice of rolling their own cigarettes was so simple and ritualized that innovation could hardly yield a profit. Yet few other inventions have come to dominate the twentieth century on so many sensory planes.

It has to be recognized that market forces are comprised of producers trying to sell something, and consumers wanting to buy it. This creates fertile ground for the researcher as there are theoretical concepts to be utilized on all sides of the equation. In my research paper, I intend to consider the following approaches:

– Psychoanalytic: Camel and Marlboro have been criticized for various reasons in their advertising campaigns. The first for inappropriate sexual imagery, the second for an unrealistic depiction of the smoker’s lifestyle, tragically embodied by the real-life story of the “Marlboro man.” Additionally, what can psychoanalysis say about the smoker himself? Freud agonized over his own cigar smoking, which he sensed had a traumatic experienced attached to it that he never successfully isolated.

– Marxist: the proliferation of cigarette brands and marketing campaigns would be regarded critically by theorists like Adorno, who would point to the pseudoindividualistic aspect of brand selection based on imaginary attributes.

– Althusserian: this perspective covers both the smoker’s addiction, and his relationship to advertisement. As a former smoker, I know that much of one’s lifestyle consists of creating ideologies in which smoking is a natural, harmonious facet of one’s personality. How much does advertisement infiltrate this ideological process?

– Cultural studies: how do smokers regard their own activity? Interviews with people outside dining halls and the library are perfect sites of study. I also plan to examine how paratexts, like Still Life With Woodpecker, use Camel cigarettes as a literary image. To what extent is pleasure missing from the smoking discourse?

– Queer theory: how has cigarette marketing drawn the lines between the masculine and the feminine in our culture? Virginia Slims vs. Marlboro Reds.

Tentative thesis: as an addictive, unhealthy, and controversial biological process, cigarette smoking triggers defense mechanisms in consumers who struggle to reconcile their behavior with various deterrents. This struggle provides ground for exploitation by all market forces – consumers, producers, social groups, and researchers.

Texts

– Brandt, Allan. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America. New York: Basic Books, 2007.

– Robbins, Tom. Still Life With Woodpecker. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.

– Kluger, Richard. Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

I will probably come across other sources either in the course of reading the above, or in conversations with people whose advice I might ask while working on this assignment. I might also take a few trips to the library and see what other goodies they have.

Identifying with Lisa: The Simpsons and the Representation of a Second Grade Activist

Me: Did you grow up watching The Simpsons?

Female college student: Yes.

Me: Who was your favourite character?

FCS: Grandpa.

Me: Why?

FCS: Because of all the random shit he says; it’s so funny.

Me: Whom did you most identify with?

FCS: Lisa.

Me: Why?

FCS: Because she’s smart and normal.

Me: Do you think she’s an important character?

FCS: Yes.

Me: Why?

FCS: I think she provides a good balance, both her and Bart, you know. There’s a lot of plot lines and jokes and, you know, “moral issues” where she’s important because she cares about so many causes and things. She’s smart, and it’s a smart show, and I think Lisa’s reaction to the stupidity of the other characters is, like, the creator’s reaction, or point of view.

            My research paper is a case study of Lisa Simpson. I will analyse Lisa’s role in The Simpsons, who is she written for, who is she written by, and what contribution does she make to the show? My main area of research, however, will be focused outside of Springfield, I want to know; how important is Lisa Simpson?

            Specifically, I want to know how important is Lisa Simpson to female college students (even more specifically, female college students at Middlebury, because I am somewhat limited in my access to other college students…) I believe that Lisa is one of the most progressive television characters ever created and that her presence as a smart, young, environmentally friendly, politically active, liberal feminist plays an important role for girls who grow up in, what is arguably, a post-feminist society. I believe that even if students do not specifically draw attention to Lisa as a role model, or choose her as their favourite character, they, as female, liberal arts students in an elite institution, will identify with Lisa, as I do. I want to know why, or if they do not identify with Lisa, why not? I expect to find that they identify with Lisa because she is a smart, young, environmentally friendly, politically active, liberal feminist and, if this is the case, then I want to analyse why it is important for young women to identify with this type of television character in contemporary western culture. Is it important at all?

            I plan to discuss texts written on Lisa, I have found a few good chapters in various books (see below). I also plan to look at specific episodes where Lisa demonstrates how she “cares about so many causes and things”, I have yet to decide on the best ones to study, and I am open to suggestions, but currently the short list stands at; “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8^th Commandment”, “Mr Lisa goes to Washington”, “Lisa the Beauty Queen”, “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy”, “Lisa the Vegetarian”, “The Old Man and the Lisa”, “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”, and “Lisa the Treehugger”. I am also planning on conducting as many short interviews with female Middlebury students as possible, in order to find out if and how Lisa is important.

Secondary sources:

Steven Keslowitz, The Simpsons and Society: An Independent Analysis of our Favourite TV Family and its Influence in Contemporary Society (Arizona: Hats Off Books, 2004).

Chris Turner, Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation (USA: First Da Capo, 2004).

Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture, ed. John Alberti, (Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2004).

Kyle Howard
4/8/09

Research Topic Proposal:
Twitter

Christine Gledhill claims that, at least on some level, our “situation” or “social and cultural constitution” determines how and why we engage with a cultural text or social activity of some kind. One major aim of this paper will be to provide a sampling of the various kinds of individuals who tweet and why.
I think specific case studies – that is to say actual people (much like William Butler’s approach) – are appropriate for this project. Butler found his case studies by having a post pasted on a respectable blog within the Star Wars community and examined over 100 e-mail responses. But with something like Twitter, I think the best approach would be to follow the pages of my “friends” and then direct message any relevant twitterers for some follow up questions. I also plan on trying to have some twitter experiences of my one to examine. In order to fully understanding something like twitter, I think actually using the service is an important part of the research. The beauty of twitter
What about Twitter itself and it works? Another task of this project will be a Saussurian approach to twitter and carefully examine the structure of the service. Also important is the question of how this system and its design affect the way we use it. Twitter is a “micro-blog” and, as such, it restricts user posts to 140 characters or less (including spaces). Is twitter an example of the internet corrupting the English language and the written word? How does a word limit determine the things we can write about?
Twitter is a unique form of micro-blogging in that it works through a variety of mediums (IM, SMS, or, the web itself) and other services (Tweet @ Facebook). Is twittering on your smartphone that different from being on your laptop? Is a “tweet” on facebook any different from a “twitter?” This latter question brings up another distinct aspect of Twitter – messages can either be sent privately to someone else or publicly to anyone who would like to follow your page (there’s no denying friend requests here). This get’s into a really interesting part of why Twitter has so much media buzz surrounding it recently. Ever since Politicians and Celebrities started using twitter, everything changed. Barack O’bama uses it as a way to mobilize people into political action. Senators punching keys on their blackberries during a presidential address is far cry from the first session of congress. What about celebrities like Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher who use it to essentially controlling their press – it’s like they’re basically telling the press this what I’m doing and you the fans can determine if its newsworthy.
This mix of business tool and “lifestreaming” social networking really blurs the line between producer and consumer. It really throws an interesting kink into any simple, unidirectional communications model. In conclusion, the basic question this paper will attempt to answer (or at least crack into) this – who uses Twitter and why, and how does the design of the system itself play a role in determining the who and why. But I also want to allow for an in depth background of Twitter and help locate where it fits into the digital landscape (facebook, digg, texting, etc.)

Preliminary Sources

Boyd, Danah. www.zephoria.org/thoughts/bestof
(The articles “Why youth Heart Social Newtork Sites” and “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” will both be useful.)
(Looks like this will also be a fun exercise in learning how to site blogs and such.)

Deborah Micek and Warren Whitlock. Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online. Xeno Press, 2008.

Greenberg, Andy. “Why Celebrities Twitter?” www.forbes.com 3 March 2009.

Pogue, David. “Twitter? It’s What You Make It.” New York Times. 12 February 2009.

Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002.
(Chapter 7 talks about how p2p and reputation management services can be used to coordinate collective action. The opening case study of the “Shibuya Ephiphany” is an interesting examination of text messaging).

Slatalla, Michelle. “If You Can’t Let Go, Twitter.” New York Times. 14 February 2008.

Created with the explicit intent of inducing sexual arousal, pornography has held a prominent yet simultaneously veiled place in society for centuries. In recent decades, pornography has developed into a multi-billion dollar industry which has spread across all media and has continued to grow with the introduction of new technologies such as the VCR and the internet. How pornography is perceived has also changed drastically and has been a heated issue throughout its history.

In my final paper, I hope to investigate what exactly the role of pornography is and how it functions within society as a site of popular culture. The majority of scholarly texts written on pornography portray it in a negative light and argue outright that it should be banned from society. However, an article I read recently on the BBC entitled “What porn is really for” argued that porn plays a positive role in society in that allows us take our mind off of sex essentially by putting it on sex briefly. He argues pornography suppresses a person’s true sexual desires (in the context of the article, porn helps to uphold marriages) and prevents them from acting upon their fantasies. In line with the aforementioned article, studies have shown that an increased availability of pornography in a society equates to a decrease in sexual crime, as has been seen in many developed European countries. While his definition of pornography and his assumptions about human nature are somewhat short-sighted, the article brings up a number of points about the potential positive nature of pornography.

Pornography appeals directly to a person’s animalistic desires as at its core, pornography is pure unadulterated sex, assuming sex as an innate human desire. From a Freudian perspective, pornography operates at a similar level to the dream realm described by Freud in that it acts as a place to play out our fantasies and desires. I will examine how pornography accomplishes this and its limitations. Using a feminist approach, I will investigate pornography as a site of the ‘male gaze’ and how this has shaped pornography and in turn how pornography has shaped the female image and glamorized male dominance. Drawing upon a Marxist approach, I will look at how the commercialization of sex and pornography’s explosive popularity signifies a deeply sexually repressed society and what are the potential causes and consequences of this.

I hope to focus my study specifically on pornography in America, but will draw from international examples as well as they illustrate the effects of a different perspective on pornography.

The majority of my research will be composed largely of books and articles as a wide range of scholarly perspectives exist on the issue. As pornography is a rather taboo subject and most people would not be comfortable speaking publicly on the subject, primary sources will rely largely on user comments from web articles such as those who commented on the BBC article.

Listed below are a few of the sources I intend to use:

Soble, Alan. Pornography: Marxism, Feminism, and the Future of Sexuality. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Kipnis, Laura. Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

Stross, Nadine. Defending Pornography. New York: Scribner, 1995.

Peckham, Morse. Art and Pornography. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1969.

Donnerstein, Edward and Daniel Linz and Steven Penrod. The Question of Pornography: Research Findings and Policy Implications. New York: Macmillian Publishers, 1987.

A. Hughes, Douglas. Perspectives on Pornography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970.

J. Berger, Ronald and Patricia Searles and Charles E. Cottle. Feminism and Pornography. New York: Praeger, 1991.

James, Clive. “What porn is really for” BBC Magazine. 3 April 2009.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7982132.stm>