Satire in RuPaul's Drag Race (week #11)

If you have never watched an episode of RuPaul's drag race, I highly recommend you stop reading now and go to logotv.com and check it out (the seventh season is currently airing). RuPaul's Drag Race is a show about, drag queens competing to be crowned America's Next Drag Superstar. The show has been on television since 2009 and right now you can catch the seventh season, which began airing on March 2, 2015. Throughout the series there are challenges so that some of the queens can be eliminated and the best queen left standing gets the title of America's Next Drag Super star.
RuPaul is the host of the show (obviously). RuPaul is an actor, drag queen, model author and recording artist.

Now that we all understand what this show is about (or have gone to logotv.com  to watch an episode) I want to focus on one of the challenges from a season. The challenge is called "Snatch Game", where contestants use their knowledge of drag to act out some famous people, like Beyonce, Tyra Banks, Amy Winehouse and Jennifer Lopez. This game is satire because it is a work that diminishes or derogates a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward attitudes of amusement. Satire is usually witty and often very funny, the purpose of satire is to criticize in order to shame someone. "Snatch Game" is a form of  indirect satire because the queens are expressing characters through narrative. In indirect satire the characters are the focus of the satire and they are not ridiculed by what is said but what they themselves say or do.

Watch the link above, it's my favorite "Snatch Game" to ever be played on the show! 

There are four techniques when it comes to satire: 

1. Exaggeration: the representation of something beyond normal bounds so that it becomes ridiculous 

2. Incongruity: present things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to their surroundings.

3. Reversal: present the opposite of the normal order

4. Parody: to imitate techniques or style of some person, place or thing.

Most of the contestants on "Snatch Game" do an excellent job at using exaggeration in their satire. For example, Raja the contestant who is playing Tyra Banks (in the clip above), does a fantastic job at exaggerating Tyra Banks' character (SPOILER ALERT!!! Raja goes on to win this season). Raja used to be a makeup artist on Tyra's show, America's Next Top Model this relationship probably helped Raja in impersonating Tyra in the game. The game also invokes the  parody technique of satire because the entire premise is to imitate techniques or styles of a person and it is also a parody of the Match Game. Yet again Raja does a fantastic job at this (It makes sense that she won!). She does so many things that Tyra does, from her hair, to her famous "smize" (smiling with your eyes) to how she presents her answer to RuPaul, as if she was getting ready to eliminate a contestant on her show America's Next Top Model. 

Cultural Appropriation/Exchange (week #10)

There have been many times I have seen people wearing a headdress because they think it looks cool or they want to use it as a form of self expression, but most of the time, they just do not understand that a headdress is used in Native American cultures to signify much more than something cool or as a way of creative expression. 

According to this website I found about the Indian Headdress (click on the link to go to the website), that only the "most brave and powerful of the tribe" wore them. For people to be wearing headdresses and not either be Native American or "the most brave and powerful" is a form of cultural appropriation. For one culture to wear the headdress as a commodity a culture, they can feel a sense of loss or that their cultural values are not being taken seriously by the culture who is wearing it out of how it should be worn.

Cultural appropriation is when you take an element of another culture (like a headdress) and present it in a shallow way
(Bell Hooks). 

When someone is seen wearing a headdress in a 'fashionable' way, you could say that they are using that headdress as a commodification because they are benefiting from the 'other' culture'. They are using it as a form of art as you can see by the Victoria's Secret model, Karlie Kloss, wearing hers down the runway or the other woman wearing hers for a picture. Them wearing the headdress in this way was not how the Native American culture had intended it to be worn. Victoria's Secret did issue an apology for the use of the headdress Click here to read the apology. Either way, neither of these women are wearing the headdress the way it was intended in the Native American culture. It is purely a way to express creativity or as a commodification. When someone turns another person's culture into a commodity this can come from an act of privilege, which shows the in balance of power that still exists between cultures.  There are social and historical implications that come from treating a marginalized group or cultures items of significance like a costume (Uwujaren, 2013). 

Click Here to read about Pharrell Williams caught in cultural appropriation by wearing a headdress on the Cover of Elle Magazine.

You may be wondering if it is ever a positive thing to wear something or use something from another culture, this is called cultural exchange. Cultural appropriation is different from cultural exchange because cultural exchange implies that there is mutual understanding, equality and respect between two cultures.

For example, you may remember from my Frames in a News Article post that I attended Arapahoe High School. Arapahoe High School, is associated with the Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. My school had the Warrior as our "mascot", but it was not a typical "mascot because we did not have someone wearing a Warrior costume assemblies or sporting events. It meant that we would wear the Warrior icon (with the headdress) proudly on our clothes because we had made the exchange with the tribe that there would be a mutual understanding, equality and respect when we were representing the tribe. 

Click the link here to read about Arapahoe's Relationship with the Arapaho Tribe. 

Ethnic Representation on Television (week #8)

Remember last week when we were talking about Scrubs well this week we will still be looking into the show, but at a different character Carla, Turk’s wife. Last week we mainly focused on racial representation in television, but for this week let’s focus on ethnic representation. It is different because it is not as easy to look at someone and know their ethnicity, like it is for race. In this show there seems to be more of a lack of ethnic representation for the series as a whole. Although there are a few episodes, in later seasons, where Carla speaks about her heritage. 

For the majority of Scrubs, Carla does not engage in her Dominican culture, mostly because she lives in a place where majority of her friends and family speak English. (SPOILER ALERT) Even her own husband does not learn Spanish until later on until he secretly learns it to 'give' to Carla as a gift. But there are a few times where she does get to speak Spanish like when she talks to her mother on the phone or when her brother come to visit. Now her brother only speaking Spanish is another thing you will have to watch to know (SPOILER ALERT: he really knows English but he keeps speaking Spanish to please Carla) Also, after she gives birth to her daughter Izzie, there is a time when she struggles with what it means to incorporate her heritage into her daughters life. Making sure her daughter knows her Dominican heritage is very important to Carla, so she engages in Spanish with hopes that her daughter will pick up on it.  This is called acculturation where attitudes or beliefs are being modified as a result of contact with a different culture.

Check out this episode of Scrubs feel free to watch the whole thing, but if you want to jump to the part I’m talking about that is fine too. There’s a lot of jumping to clips here, but stay with me, first start from the beginning and watch up until 1:23 then jump to 7:33, 16:39 and 20:52

It’s clear from this episode that Carla is concerned with passing her culture down to her daughter. Integration is the synthesis of two cultures, which is not always half and half (Berry). So in Carla’s case, she wants to make sure that she is able to share her culture with her daughter so people do not just see her as African.  It is also evident to me as someone who has watched Scrubs too many times to count that ethnic representation in television is difficult. The clip above is from the seventh season of the show and it is the first time where being aware of your culture really pops up. Even though they are sending a good message in the episode about being aware of your culture and integrating it into the life you live, it still would be more impact-full if it was talked about sooner and more often.  

Minorities on Television (week #7)

We all have our favorite television sitcoms, you know those shows you watch for half an hour at a time, that have all the same places and all the same characters each time you watch? For me it’s Scrubs a sitcom show which aired from 2001 until 2010 showcasing life as either a doctor, surgeon or nurse working at Sacred Heart Hospital. For those of you out there who have never seen an episode of this show, I highly recommend you do, it’s full of hilarious jokes, great friendships and sometimes even some great lessons. I mean what more could you ask for in a 30 minute sitcom?

The main reason I’m taking this week to write about Scrubs because it has characters who are not just White in it. Minorities such as Blacks and Latinos are represented in a non-stereotypical way. One of the main characters, Turk is a Black man who is working at Sacred heart as a surgeon (SPOILER ALERT: he ends up marrying Carla who is Dominican).

Here’s how minorities were represented on television leading up to the Cosby era (when the Cosby show came out). They were either underrepresented or when they were represented, they were mocked or the laughable character on the television show. When the Cosby era came, minorities were represented, but still their characters were one dimensional. Then once the Cosby era was established, minorities began to be treated like White characters (Clark, 1969).

Since the Cosby show, who let’s face it set the precedent for the representation of minorities on television,  minorities are shown as upper class, being the comedic relief, being single (no family), and shown as the sidekick.

Scrubs Turk is best friends with J.D., who’s White. They are inseparable. And contrary to the typical stereotypes of Blacks, (SPOILER ALERT) Turk is the one who has his act together. He becomes a surgeon, has the same apartment for the whole series, marries Carla, and has children. Which is normally how we see Whites portrayed in television. J.D. on the other hand, becomes a doctor, jumps from apartment to apartment and couch to couch even ending up being ‘homeless’ for a while due to hard times, loses his license for a while (SPOILER ALERT) due to a D.U.I.,  does not have a steady girlfriend, does not end up getting married until the second to last season. So if anything, J.D. is the sidekick to Turk, because Turk has his life together more than J.D.

Showing all of Turks qualities in the show seems to explain how he has ‘made it’ in his life, he’s basically done everything by the book, despite the fact of him being Black. Enlightened Racism relieves viewers of the responsibility of inequalities and obscures the connection between race and class. Scrubs shows Turk with the qualities that most Whites have, which gives the viewer a break of seeing the minority character being shown as lesser than the majority characters. This may be a false sense of reality because the idea of enlightened racism and showing success of black characters in a television sitcom, infers to other blacks that they have failed because they may not be as successful (Jhally). It is a slippery slope, one where you are glad to finally see a black man who has a better life than his white best friend, but yet it still is sending the message of, 'if you do not have what Turk has, then you are not as successful as him'.

So here's my question to you, my readers: Will it ever be a positive thing for society to see a minority race 'make it' in a sitcom?

Frames in a News Article (week #6)

Back in December of 2013 there was a shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. This tragedy is very close to my heart, as I graduated from Arapahoe back in 2010.  When reading this article "Colorado's School Shooting---Over in 80 Seconds" it’s important to understand the frames being used to get the best understanding of the context. Entman and Rojecki authors of the article, Benign Neglect in the Poverty of News show readers 4 ways of framing or selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text. 

1.      Promote a particular problem or definition

2.      Causal interpretation -or the cause

3.      Moral evaluation – how to feel

4.      Treatment recommendation – what to do

Framing also is how you think about a certain story. 

For the article "Colorado's School Shooting---Over in 80 Seconds" the problem is clear, there was a shooting at a High school. From reading the article we learn of the shooter’s name and of his proposed target (which was later identified as the librarian). The cause of the shooting was that the shooter (Pierson) was asking for a librarian, who was his target. The librarian who also runs the debate team had disciplined Pierson a month before the attack. The moral evaluation of this tragedy makes for readers and those informed to feel many things, Sheriff Grayson Robinson called the tragedy ‘evil’, a word that might make readers feel something of hatred for what happened. After learning of the victim (Claire Davis) who was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ you feel heartbroken. You also think about her parents and what they must be going through knowing their daughter has been shot. You wonder how different things would have been if she was not sitting where she was when she was ‘shot point-blank in the head’. You also could feel angry at the situation as a whole, thinking that something like this should have never happened, especially in a town where Columbine High School is so close. Sure this 80 second tragedy had quick response from the deputy sheriff who worked at the school, but it should have never happened in the first place. From these feelings we can work on the treatment of the situation. We can learn from something like this. Take notes from the quickness of the sheriff to end it. Learn from actions of the shooter, wonder what things led him to do something like this, what really provoked him. Above all the best treatment would be to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

This is just one article out of many that covered this tragedy. I know just from reading this article and many others that certain parts of this tragedy were left out. It then becomes the responsibility of the consumer to find other articles and make sure that they are getting the most accurate accounts of what happened. Knowledge is power and knowledge of something like this can help ensure that it never happens again.

  

Extra! From the Author: As this happened so near and dear to my heart I just want to say, how comforting it was to see my community help out everyone involved in this. As a community we began to heal quickly after this happened and I have never been more proud to have been a Warrior. The reminder, “Choose to Love” (a phrase that the Davis family came up with after this sits in front of the school in Clarity Commons (a garden built to remember Claire), reminding all who see it to in fact, choose love. Something so simple, yet so meaningful for our community.

 

Words Words Words (week#6)

When you see an article with a title of, “The Changing Face of Feminism” you know just from the word “feminism” that the article will in some way explain that word. That word in the title is framing the way you will read it. Framing is selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text. In a way, it is allowing your mind to bring up all you know about that certain word it could be a stereotype of what you know about feminists and then you end up reading the article with a lens of what you believe a feminist thinks acts or looks like.

Maybe when you saw that word an image of what you think a feminist looks like popped into your head. You now end up reading the article with that picture in your mind, not being open to what another person who calls themselves a feminist looks like.

One word has now set out how you will read the article. Who knew that words had that sort of power? 

Well I challenge you to rid your brain of the stereotypes that come from certain words or phrases so that you can read articles in the news with an open mind, it may be hard but I believe in you. You are able to read feminism with an open mind you have achieved the first part of what the article is trying to do, which is promote a particular problem/definition.

Click on the link to read the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/06/changing-face-feminism_n_6436856.html

After reading the first couple of paragraphs you can tell what the cause of the article is, they want you the reader to understand that feminism is becoming more of a widely used term in today’s society. Everyone from celebrities like, Beyonce to high school teachers who are quoted in the article are using the term. Then the article takes a turn to show you the moral evaluation of how others are thinking of the word. This puts you as the reader in a place where you wonder how that makes you feel. Then the article lays out plain and simple what the next steps are to take regarding the word feminism.

The article tries to change the preconceived notions and negative connotations that you knew or learned about the word feminism and it pushes to recreate it into a more positive way and a more inclusive understanding of the word. 

Check out my next post to get a better understanding of media frames