CMNS220 - Reality TV: Gender

Transcript

1. understanding television 220
2. Promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEqM2L8wL8 The decline in traditional “masculine” jobs has led to a rise in insecurity in the American male psyche. Increasingly marginalized in the postindustrial (feminine) service economy of contemporary neoliberal capitalism, American men, Faludi suggests, are suffering a crisis of masculinity BETRAYAL OF THE AMERICAN MAN 01 220
3. David Savran has suggested that the phnomena of white male injury “represent[s] an attempt on the part of white men to recoup the losses they have allegedly suffered at the hands of those women and persons of color who, in fact, have had to pay for the economic and social prosperity that white men have historically enjoyed” WHITE MALE INJURY 01 220
4. THE IDEOLOGY OF AMERICAN CHOPPER 01 220 • The authentic, rebellious outlaw biker as signifier for freedom (for middle class consumers). • The self made man: individualism in a classless society • Recovery as a masculine strenght • Intellectual, feminine, creative work Vs Real work (transormation of physical labor into commodity spectacle)
5. THE IDEOLOGY OF AMERICAN CHOPPER 01 220 American Chopper presents an idealized realm of masculine interaction that reproduces traditionally coded divisions of public and private, masculine and feminine, labor and leisure while updating those divisions in the face of the corrosive pressures of the neoliberal service economy
6. IRONY BRIBE 01 220 The Bachelor, Promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tjUiW1IllA The irony bribe corresponds to the paradoxical epistemology of reality television; viewers can regard the program as "real’’ and "not-real’’ and therefore worth viewing and worthless at the same time.
7. IRONY BRIBE 01 220 The Bachelor invites two kinds of investment simultaneously: the pleasure of the romantic fantasy and the pleasure of irony in recognizing the fantasy’s folly Audiences maintain simultaneous earnest investment in and ‘‘winking, playful distance’’ toward the program. This oscillation of stance signals a textual strategy that I label the irony bribe.
8. IRONY BRIBE AND SELF CONTAINED CRITICISM 01 220 Irony bribe is a strategic mechanism of a cultural text that invites audiences to identify with the pleasures of the reaction against the taking seriously of a patently ideological fantasy (such as faith in true love as a source of women’s agency).
9. REALITY TV: LIFE IN VITRO 01 220 Andrejevic and Colby (2006) note that reality programs offer therapeutic truths about human nature and identity, stripped of social or historical context. Like in lab experiments, reality shows recreate life experiences in vitro. Stripped of social or historical context, reality shows are interpreted as the recreation of reality. We know they are not real, but we take their dynamics as true, plausible representations of what real life is.
10. If you want to discuss your ideas or review your Short/Term paper with me , send an email asking to schedule an appointment during office hours. You can find me in Room K-8661 on Monday, from 13,30 to 14.20 OFFICE HOURS 01 220
11. K-8661 on Monday, from 13,30 to 14.20 alusoli@sfu.ca Alberto Lusoli twitter.com/albertolusoli #CMNS220 You can also find me at: * See you next week