My research paper will focus on the television show, American Idol, and I am looking specifically at how the show is regulated, represented, and consumed.  In my paper, I will attempt to understand how American Idol impacts American society, whether that impact is positive or negative, and how it is achieved. Based upon the British version Pop Idol, American Idol is in its sixth season and is arguably the most popular tv show currently on the air.  A huge part of its appeal is audience participation; once the field of contestants is narrowed down to twenty-five, fans vote each week to determine who is voted off.  People enjoy watching it because the show is far more complicated than finding the best singer; the fact that talent and ability are not the only criteria for choosing a winner makes it far more interesting. Some argue American Idol is popular because it is so controversial: in terms of the judges (from Paula’s persona to Simon’s bitter criticisms and Randy’s slang) and the contestants (outfits for that week as well as emotional expressions).  Despite their obsession with the show (and its many other manifestations in American popular culture), many people do not realize that the show is constantly marketing both people and products. 

I’m looking to examine the ways in which American Idol promotes the dominant ideology of capitalism through its commodification of contestants, audiences, and American society. I will be using the theory of ideology to show that despite the many different ways the show is read, it is ultimately just a marketing tool for Simon Fuller and his company, 19 Entertainment Ltd. I will focus on how the contestants are commodified and exploited (using Adorno’s concept of pseudo-individuality), how the audience is commodified and exploited (incorporating Althusser’s idea of interpellation), and how American society is commodified and exploited (bringing in the Marxist notion of false consciousness).

My research will involve a combination of books, articles, and online resources.  For secondary sources, I will rely books about reality television and its impact on American culture and scholarly articles and newspaper articles on American Idol.  In terms of primary sources, I plan on using episodes from the show, online blogs devoted to the show, and press articles about particular people or events from the show.  My research will primarily be devoted to 3 main topics: the commodification of the contestants, the commodification of the audience, and the commodification of American society.  In finding information on the contestants, I will look at how Simon Fuller’s company, 19 Entertainment, exploits the careers of Idol contestants and alums, as well as the tension surrounding the contradictory notion that the contestants are supposed to be original, yet the same (looking mainly at newspaper articles, scholarly articles).  I will focus my research on the commodification of Idol’s audience in terms of the allusion of having a say in who wins, the numerous commodities they are exposed to while watching the show, and the side dramas on the show that also peak their interest in the show (researching online blogs, scholarly articles, books, press articles, possibly episodes from the show).  For information on the commodification of American society, I will look into the numerous other commodities that American Idol has created or influenced, the popularity and influence of reality television on American culture, the scope and influence of the pop music industry, and how the show incorporates other key aspects of American society (focusing on books, scholarly articles, press articles).

Here are some sources I plan on using:

Andrejevic, Mark. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, MD: Rowman and

            Littlefield Publishers, c2003.

Biressi, Anita. Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. London: Wallflower, 2004.

Brenton, Sam. Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV. London: Verso, 2003.

Elber, Lynn. “Pop Culture Sings an ‘American Idol’ Tune.” USA Today. (9 March 2009).

8 April 2009. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/states/california/2009-03-09-1270779454_x.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Holmes, Su. “Reality Goes Pop!: Reality TV, Popular Music, and Narratives of Stardom

            in Pop Idol. Television New Media, Vol.5, No.147 (May 2004), pp.147-172. Sage.

            http://tvn.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/5/2/147

Understanding Reality Television. Ed. by Holmes, Su and Deborah Jermyn.London:

            Routledge, 2004.

            For my final research project, I would like to study the concept of sexual assault and rape in popular culture. I would first examine how rape is represented in television episodes, movies and contemporary novels, then I would examine how these texts are produced and consumed.

            How is rape represented in popular culture: how is it approached, confronted, and used as a narrative tool? When I think about this topic, I immediately think of Lifetime movies and TV shows like Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit in which rape is so often an essential part of the plot. Rape is dealt with in numerous ways on film: it is actually shown (The Sopranos; Gladiator), it affects individuals as an element of their past, it affects family members, relationships, etc.. These various methods of dealing with rape have varied effects on the reader, which I would study in the consumption part of my examination. For novels, I am thinking of looking at Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and Lucky, both bestsellers. How does Sebold express her trauma through popular culture? This question relates to others I have about production.

In terms of production, who are the creators and writers of texts about rape? Many of them are survivors themselves, such as Alice Sebold. I want to see how survivors use their traumatic experiences to create works of popular culture. Many of them, I think use writing about their trauma to recover. I would also want to see how non-survivors use rape and sexual assault to create fiction. 

            I would also like to study what individuals and groups consume these works and how. What role do the works have for survivors and in survivor groups, what role to they have for non-survivors? Why do people read and watch these texts? Shows like SVU are immensely popular; Alice Sebold’s books were bestsellers. Why? I would think that there is a consistent crowd of readers who read these novels and watch these movies, and I would like to see how they interpret and relate to the texts.

This may seem like a depressing topic, but I think it is really interesting. What does rape in various texts say about gender, sexuality, race, class, nationality, etc.? My tentative thesis/ hypothesis about this topic is that representations of rape in popular culture both reinforce patriarchal domination and serve as a space for the discourse of recovery from trauma and escaping the suppression of male sexual domination. These texts may reinforce the patriarchy by placing physical or psychological fear of the power of men into female readers and watchers. However, survivors who portray their experiences may perhaps successfully subvert the patriarchal norms through the experience of recovery from rape. I hope to find that, like the romance readers studied by Janice Radway, consumers are able to develop power from these texts.

Maybe I should choose one novel/ memoir, one TV episode, and one movie? The Lovely Bones has been turned into a movie, which would be interesting to look at in reference to the book. I have a lot of ideas about this, because it’s a very broad topic. If anyone has any suggestions about how I could focus my study, that would be great. Thanks!

Some Sources:

            Any SVU episode or Lifetime movie dealing with rape.

            Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. Bay Back Books. 2002.

            Sebold, Alice. Lucky: A Memoir. Bay Back Books. 1999.

         Higgins, Linda A. and Brenda B. Silver. Rape and Representation. University Columbia Press. 1991.

            Projansky, Sarah. “The Elusive/Ubiquitous Representation of Rape: A Historical Survey of Rape in U.S. Film, 1903 -1972”. Cinema Journal, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 63-90. University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225562 (This article may be slightly outdated, but I think its arguments may still be relevant.)

            Eschholz, Sarah and Jana Bufkin. “Crime in the Movies: Investigating the Efficacy of Measures of Both Sex and Gender for Predicting Victimization and Offending in Film”. Sociological Forum, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 655-676. Springer. http://www.jstor.org/stable/684828

My research paper will be about Facebook as a popular culture exchange between people all over the world. I will focus my research on the social network created between users and by the exchange of information in using different mediums (writing, video, photograph, website link…).

First, I will begin to explain how Facebook works, what it is about and who uses it. Also I will point out the different functionalities of this new social platform. It would be worthwhile to write a brief history of this concept to know how Facebook has evolved since 2004. Indeed, Facebook changed when it became a company making profits; some advertisements are noticeable in a column on the profile page.

In my paper, I would like to highlight the fact that this website is a good way to share and to spread culture to a network of friends, but also friends of friends. Moreover it is a way that users exploit to promote and to tell about their own life in posting notes, pictures or videos. In using Facebook, several questions come to mind: How has this invention changed our Internet habits into a dependency? What is the ideology behind this Internet platform? What was the first purpose of this social network? What is the impact on our society? I will argue that Facebook has significantly transformed our way to interact with each other. The original concept was designated to a closed circle of students and then was opened to a larger audience which lead to loose its first essence.

It would be also important to deal with the question of privacy on the Internet because Facebook is a huge source of personal information. It will be significant to notice the boundary between private and public in such a vast popular medium.

The sources I will use to justify my arguments are from newspaper articles, books about Internet social communication, and critics in magazines.

To conclude, I am thinking of doing a survey asking different students/professors what their personal relationship with Facebook is in order to measure the impact of it in Middlebury College. 

In running for (re)election, politicians oftentimes attempt to cultivate a “home-style” geared toward disarming potential voters.  They meticulously orchestrate images intended to connect them to their constituents; to make their constituents feel that the person running for office has their best interest at heart by virtue of their innate similarities.  Cowboy boots have proven an essential element to political campaigning in states and districts known for ranching- and agriculture-based economies.  As such, I would like to research the proliferation of cowboy boots on political campaigns.

This topic is deeply rooted in both semiotics and conceptions of sexuality and authenticity.  By virtue of their contextual propinquity to manual labor, cowboy boots connote a degree of weathered masculinity that politicians exploit to imply competence and capability in spite of the thick of Capitol Hill politics. So, for research, I will start by compiling a collection of campaign advertisements that feature cowboy boots.  Also, I will survey the academic literature that exists regarding “home-style” cultivation – which is extensive – and attempt to apply the framework they describe to the proliferation of cowboy boots.

And additional advice regarding directions I could take this would be greatly appreciated!

A Psychoanalytic Investigation of Beer Commercials

Research on television beer advertising has proven that it alters viewers’ drinking beliefs, knowledge, and social intentions. Studies have also show that these commercials affect various age groups and both genders in different ways. Generally speaking, however, statistics demonstrate that the majority of people exposed to beer commercials have a higher propensity to drink as adults and a greater awareness of beer brands and slogans than those who are not exposed to these images.

Alcohol advertising can predispose young people to drinking and imposes a collage of potentially perilous ideologies regarding gender and sexuality through the use of verbal metaphors, “body-isms” (pictures of bodies and body parts), stereotypes, and somewhat discrete innuendos. Although men appear twice as often as women in beer commercials, the fact that the body-isms of women significantly outnumber those of men speaks to the psycho-emotional power that beer corporations wield over their target audiences – whether on purpose or not.

The proposed research project explores these aspects in order to answer how beer commercials craft and promote various meanings and generalizations about gender roles and sexual assumptions. For example, how does the ostensibly dumb guy who is often contrasted to the smarter and/or allegedly sexier woman help to sell beer? What implications do such images have on viewers? What meanings are encoded and decoded?

By employing the theoretical work of Freud, Hall, and feminist perspectives from scholars like Rakow and Radway, the paper will argue that beer commercials, which behave as a microcosm for the alcohol industry and others similar industries, use the meanings that they create about gender roles and sexuality as the salient ingredients to sell their products. The paper will first examine a series of television advertisements from a diversity of major brand names (e.g. Budweiser, Miller Light, etc.). Then it will incorporate the theory of the aforementioned scholars in conjunction with contemporary scholarly literature on topics like adolescent responses to beer commercials, gender and ethnic differences in marketing, and an investigation of the locations and socio-historical contexts in which these ads are typically aired.

Beer advertisements are an issue of paramount importance because they directly and indirectly impact public health, habits of consumption, youth pacification, cultural norms, corporate control over mass populations, patterns of manipulation, and mental disengagement of media viewers.

This interdisciplinary nature of the topic is mainly what interests me – so if anyone has suggestions, questions or other comments, let me know!

Sources:

Grube, J.W. and Wallack, L. “Television beer advertising and drinking knowledge, beliefs, and intentions among school children.” American Journal of Public Health. Vol 85, Issue 2 254-259. 1994: American Public Health Association.

Iijima Hall, Christine C. and Crum, Matthew J. “Women and ‘body-isms’ in television beer commercials”. Sex Roles. Volume 31, Number 5-6 / September 1994. Pages 329-337. Springer, Netherlands: May, 2 2005.

Slater, Michael D. “Adolescent responses to TV beer ads and sports content/context: gender and ethnic differences” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Volume 74 number 1, p 108-122 Spring 1997.

I’m looking to use the Lord of the Rings trilogy as my topic for research. The trilogy, penned by J.R.R. Tolkien, is one of the most celebrated trilogies of its genre or any, and has had a profound impact on the fantasy genre. Its themes and characters can be found influencing the plots and subtexts of many cultural texts since its release. The books were turned into movies in 2001-2003, all three of which were critically acclaimed and received numerous awards. Nevertheless, its newfound prominence in pop culture led to a rebirth of Tolkien’s classic by a vastly wider audience, and one (if not two) new generations.

In my research, I will examine exactly how society has changed the trilogy (high culture to pop culture, a common topic of our earlier discussions), and how it has changed society. The books and the movies will be examined separately at first, with research brought in surrounding the reactions of each upon release. Ultimately, however, the two will be examined together. This will include fan reactions, increase in book sales, profits made from the movies and associated marketing crusades, etc. The cultural implications of the films’ successes will be examined under the lens of many of the theories we’ve studied, including hegemony, Marxism, and culturalism. What I aim to do in this essay is show how the LotR trilogy has faded from the public eye and then stormed back, and the cultural processes which allowed both the fading as well as the storming. Subsequently, I want to examine the big picture, taking the books and movies as one and evaluating the effect on society by the two. This last part might be a bit ambitious…we’ll see how the rest goes first.

I don’t intend to examine the thematic elements of the film, although it might be interesting to mention the involvement of A-list stars on the project, as well as “teen heart throb” Orlando Bloom. While the books and films undoubtedly contain profound subjects for thought, they will not take the focus in my research paper. Rather, the effects of the text on society will take precedence.

In all likelihood, interviews with fans of the books, movies, or both will be conducted and included in the paper, though no such interviews have been arranged yet.

Of course, any suggestions, questions, or whatever are very welcome.

For my research paper, I plan to provide a Marxist feminist critique/analysis of the first Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. My central argument is that in many ways, Raiders represents Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ responses to the Feminist movement of the 60s and the 70s. In this paper, I will argue that the representation of women in Raiders through Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) suggests that the US feminist movement is obsessively paranoid and the social standings of American women is not as bad as it is described by feminist critics. In other words, I will argue that the representation of women in Raiders aimed to undermine the Feminist movement of the 60s/70s.  To support my argument, I will use secondary sources such as Isabel Santaularia’s 2001 article ‘He comes back badder and bigger than ever!’ : Adapting the masculine and negotiating the feminine in treasure-hunting adventure narratives. Here is a link to Santaularia’s article: ddd.uab.cat/pub/lal/11337397n8p1.pdf.  For this part, I also plan to use resources such as Yvonne Tasker’s essay Working Girls: Gender and sexuality in popular cinema and Lisa Hopkins’ article Returning to the Mummy. Here are links to both articles:
Tasker’s: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NF2EymFKZ8gC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Yvonne+Tasker&ots=5Lm19Uce0J&sig=FzYR6S725fcY1fM7to2IX3xrvlg#PPA5,M1
Hopkins’:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v012/12.2hopkins.html (scroll down to part 13)

So far, I provided the feminist aspect of my evaluation of Raiders. This evaluation is closely related with Marxist and Negotiation theories.

The Marxist element in the feminist critique I plan to offer is that women, as an oppressed group, are confirmed of their social roles as housewives in Raiders. This is the reason why Spielberg and Lucas decided that Marion, an independent women who once used to run a bar in Nepal, leave her ‘independent woman’ role and give in to Indiana Jones later in the movie. Another Marxist element is the standardization that takes place in the movie. As we know, Raiders is a blockbuster designed to reach the widest audience possible. In order to do this, I argue that Spielberg and Lucas had to simplify the plot, the narration and other similar elements in the movie. To support my argument, I will use secondary resources such as Warren Buckland’s essay A close encounter with Raiders of the Lost Ark: narrative aspects of the New Hollywood blockbuster. This essay can be found in Steeve Neale and Murray Smith’s book Contemporary Hollywood Cinema: a book which is available in our library. I will also provide primary sources such as Pauline Kael’s article Whipped published in the New Yorker in 1981.  Here is a link to Kael’s article: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1981/06/15/1981_06_15_132_TNY_CARDS_000119462?currentPage=all

The ‘negotiation theory’ aspect of the feminist critique I plan to provide is the research component of my paper. In other words, I am suggesting that the makers of Raiders encoded some of their views on women’s role in society into their movie, and I would like to research how successful they were in influencing people’s perceptions and opinions. The basic research question I have in mind is this: Were viewers aware of the anti-feminist themes encoded in Raiders?

For my research, I am planning to interview people who saw the Raiders in the time of its release and gather data on their interpretations of the movie. I am aware that I will have to find subtle ways of obtaining data on this issue.

Feedback on my research plan, or any aspect of the proposal, will be greatly appreciated.