FPU - Media and Culture - Links

Traditional Religion/Spiritual Systems and Modern Fears:

http://egregores.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-exactly-is-it-about-traditional.html

Star Wars A Religion in Czechoslovakia:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/18/star-wars-a-religion-in-czech-republic_n_1156516.html

Climate Change's Brutal Truth:

http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-12-05-the-brutal-logic-of-climate-change

Occupy Boston - Statement of Solidatiry with Indigenous Peoples:

http://www.occupyboston.org/2011/10/09/occupy-boston-ratifies-memorandum-of-solidarity-with-indigenous-peoples/

FPU - Gender and Media Representation - Links

Occupy Boston Women's Caucus:

http://twitter.com/#!/@OBWomen

Diva-licious:

http://www.slideshare.net/RedHeadedDivaK/embracing-your-inner-diva-cool-confidence-created

Strange Doin's in TV Land

I just walked into my media center (!), turned on the tv and saw Don Rickles dressed in a wide-brimmed black southwestern-style Native American hat with fake black hair and long braids in an indescribable woody interior store decorated garishly with Native American clothing and "war bonnets". A few scenes later, Betty White made reference to having lived on a reservation, delivering veiled innuendo about "wild horses".

I can only imagine what cultural madness led up to these strange televisual moments on the TV Land original sitcom, "Hot In Cleveland".

"Hell On Wheels"

AMC has been cutting the edges of television with shows like "Breaking Bad", "Mad Men" and other original programming. This fall has seen the start of the moody macabre "The Walking Dead" and a deftly crafted, but largely disappointing "Hell On Wheels". Their offerings look amazing on the screen, but their edge is getting a bit dulled with the hollow "Hell On Wheels".

Led by a fiendish and historically dramaturgical Colm Meaney, embattled and festering Dominique McElligott, tortured hunk Anson Mount and Common as the more-than-stereotypically-uneloquent Common as the color commentary for the 1865 manifest destiny redux, "Hell On Wheels" is sure to please the audience niche that is hungering for yet another funkified soap opera with just about any backdrop premise to throw sepia-tone televisual paint on.

One will be, as I was, highly disappointed if one is to assume "Hell" will reveal a new way of looking at post-Civil war social politics complete with raiding injuns, who like in most backward depictions of indigenous people, say nothing to each other, relegating them to savagery and no sign of intellect. As the Native American attack on the settlers begins, the man (no, the Native American guy) who would kill McElligott's surveryor-speculator husband hunts the pair down in the woods moving like a caricature of a very graceful C3PO with a tomahawk. This show seems to have nothing new to say and the horrid point is that it simply has a lot of old things to say. HOW comes across as yet another opportunity to have a vehicle to say the word "nigger", run Native peoples through the white privilege lens and give culturally anxious viewers a cathartic opportunity to engage in what Toni Morrison calls "race talk", racial discourse without social decisiveness.

Not that modern television has ever been known to be a largely socially responsible proposition (Kardashians notwithstanding), but HOW has the chance to engage some of the most vexing challenges of past and present USAmerican society. Even though the script feels mature and the cinematography luxurious, the content is horrendously non-functional for anyone other than those committed to 1986 high school text book history, those for whom white privilege goes down like a piece of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

So far, just fresh out of episode one, HOW looks like a socio-political dud, even though Common, playing an African ex-slave, freed as it were, gets to slit the throat of a thoroughly unlikable European work gang boss...and with a very big, sharp knife. But that's just really good cherry glaze on a very old and dry cheesecake. If you're looking for a textural duplicate of "There Will Be Blood" (sans the black gold, texas tea) , you're on your way, but the story lacks the pathos and grit to hold enlightened attentions.

But my trusty VCR will be watching it for the next three sundays. Unluckily, I just might have to watch it, too.

http://www.amctv.com/shows/hell-on-wheels

Episode 3: Clearly a teleplay filled to the brim with the warm remembrances of manifest destiny's finest fantasies, HOW continues to disappoint, but never fails to be unsurprising in it's sameness with old high school history text books. HOW continues to break no new ground, but reveals itself to be an eighteen-hundred and something soap opera with a few interesting presentations. Like many non-functional narratives of this ilk, the issues of racism, slavery, anti-indigeny, religious imperialism, etc,... are raised, but never fully expounded upon, as if the wrtiers don't have any political and cultural perspective or they've only read old high school history books or....well....they include no members from indigenous, African, non-christian/monotheistic or female populations. An assumption here is that people steeped in white privilege are again released upon their laptops to write stories about people who are not them, who they do not understand and who they are not qualified to advocate for - if that is even an intention in this time-consuming bit of pre-industrial programming.

A christianized Native man, Joseph Black Moon played by Eddie Spears, agonizes over the revelation that his brother is responsible for shooting an arrow or two into a lone European settler-woman. His noble pastor/minister/tormentor counsels him sternly to sublimate this truth and "tell no one". We later hear an impassioned speech by Colm Meaney's character, Thomas "Doc" Durant, in the canvas chapel about the ultimate righteousness of the christian path and the hopeless nature of the Indian pathology as Spears looks on penitently. HOW drags us through a brickish moment as Common's character, Elam Ferguson, attempts to claim his American dream of equality by seeking to solicit the services of one of the camp prostitutes. He is summarily laughed at by the European men who challenge his presence there and the prostitute who, post-laughter, seems to soften to the suggestion of the intention of possibility of the idea of the struggle for Black liberation - but maybe when everybody's not looking.

Unless this televisual bucket of maple syrup in the mid-February forests of New Hampshire (I had to retool the old tome of molasses in winter as this show is cliche' enough, another cliche would have been too much) finds its reason for living by episode seven, I'm not so sure that HOW has a chance in, well, hell to find, well, a reason for living at all.

Episode #next to last (phew!): Beginning with a melodramatic rout of the "renegades" that were frustrating the efforts of Big Iron to ply its way across the plains, the power of the cinematography and writing starts to pale in the subsequent encore showing of this episode. Backed by an ambiguous soundtrack song, probably felt to be highly clever in post-production, the slick, slo-mo shoot-em-up leaves the band of First nations warriors lying dead strewn across the soon-too-be-exploited earth. Yes, that's probably how, generally, those battles might have gone, but the editorializing of the history seemed to do nothing for viewers in a world challenged by decades of stable stereotypes, narrow-minded history and a currently hidden legacy of continued exploitation of Native American nations across the breadth and depth of Turtle Island.

Deepening the storyline a few inches under the surface, the christianized Black Moon ends up killing his brother, the same person that shot McElligott's character in the shoulder in an earlier episode. Hmmmmm. That one's too easy to return fire on. After a rare scene of inter-generational intimacy in a Native American family, Black Moon returns to the railway encampment to find the minister's daughter waiting for him to return, having done so every night since his departure. It seems AMC is hot on pressing cultural taboo in the sexual realm without having the iron railway...well....balls to fire harder salvoes at the pathology of capitalist manifest destiny and cultural genocide. Black Moon's return gets truly trippy as he begins to share his regret and mourning for the killing of his brother at his own hands - quickly cut short by the kisses of the minister's daughter. Called that one.

On that note, a little earlier, we see Common's character laying in social sin with the Native American prostitute (um.....sin because the European workers at the camp consider all the prostitutes to be their property and privilege - which earned Common an unsuccessful hanging/lynching in the earlier episode...in case you were wondering ) whom he entreats to be his steady girl. Again, this is not an occurrence that would have been unknown to the widening Western swath being ripped into the western plains. The issue that is given rise here is the location of the native American and African ( = post-slavery slaves as per AMC) women. Part of the definition of a stereotype, and particularly cultural (aka racial) ones, is the absence of supporting cultural communities and most often intra-cultural partners. Hell On Wheels is no better than Bonanza, The Andy Griffith Show or Friends at deepening the characters of their cultural tokens.

To make matters worse, HOW hit an interestingly dissonant note when it made a rousing event of the successful completion of the first section of the railway. Given the deep pathos and challenging cultural grit that AMC thought they were creating, one might think that the soundtrack and the narrative treatment of that moment might have some of the dark tones that they paint across most of the rest of the series. It was all too easy and exposed the possibly unconscious validation of European cultural and economic exploitation that it seemed their contrived slickitude sought to evade.

Even this"deeply" ( = shallowly as per this writer) into the series, Hell On Wheels continues to disappoint, underwhelm and beg for cultural contrition and gives us nothing more than hell on reels other than the standard, normal machinations of the viral spread of the Machine Nation.

Final Episode: (this is cause for celebration)
Common's "Elam Ferguson" character (remember, Ferguson is a "freed" African who was formerly enslaved): "You told me something once, the only thing that set me free, 'You gotta let go of the past".

This, one of the defining lines of the series, undergirds the larger context of colonial apologetics and denial of modern, current presence of oppressive socio-political systems. It is the perfect, classic white privilege script establishing (over and over, again and again) the abdication of responsibility around the legacy of racism, cultural genocide, enslavement, colonialism and imperialism.

Only seconds later, after the above tidbit of psycho-social wisdom, Ferguson told his fellow African rail worker that he needed to take care of his "own self" as opposed to confirming the request of that worker to have Ferguson's leadership shared in a communal context, providing guidance for the (historically) beleaguered displaced indigenous Africans now turned into day-laborers for land and rail barons. Ferguson walks away from his people and affirms the freedom-making words of the European enslaver, turned foreman (Anson Mount's "Cullen Bohannon" character). This is not a subtle message and it is a common one. This is standard regressive western cinema genre fare. This narrative is directly unusable by a society that is in the need of transformation.

And it seems that HOW's last word about Native people is that the unprodigal son of the native nation gets to dance with the now mad, homicidal preacher's daughter? It was entirely anti-climactic to have the last episode provide this narrative coda for what could have been a promising presence of characters indigenous to Turtle Island - the christianized Native American man gets to embody genocidal complicity, removal, assimilation and the payoff of self-hatred in his intimate dance with the European daughter of the decidedly pathologically unstable preacher.

Hell On Wheels has been nothing if not simply a story about European colonialism on Turtle Island with African and Native Americans as backdrop. This is nothing at all new and that is a shame as it makes HOW a nice-looking social wast of time and a pat retelling of retrograde narratives that steep us further into the status quo.

Worse yet, Hell On Wheels has been re-upped for yet another most likely horrendously laborious season in the fall of 2012. AND...then there's the encore presentation immediately after the final episode - just in case you hadn't seen how bad the show was the first time around.

~~~~~~

In the larger context, western movies can be generally read as a stable and recurrent narrative of colonial retrenchment and apologetics, marked by deep and clear dismissals of the stories and realities of the oppressed, particularly Native Americans, First Nations peoples, the first and best residents of Turtle Island. The dismissals and disrespect, though, are generously shared with African characters, African peoples when they do appear in these narratives. How generous are our colonial "masters".

The amazingly crafted and enlightening documentary, "Reel Injun", makes it clear that the portrayals of Native American peoples have been largely problematic, narrowly drawn, misleading, disempowering, distracting, while sometimes transforming and recently being formulated and expressed by more and more Native American peoples. One of the troubling points the documentary illuminates is how the visual portrayals have all been lumped under the guise of the Plains nations. The clothing that the characters are wearing functionally strips Native peoples of their real identity as everyone is seen wearing buckskins, headbands and war bonnets. It is said that this is tantamount to stripping all Turtle Islanders of their identity, the ultimate act of colonization.

"Bonanza", one of the most popular and lasting stories of colonialism and settler-colonialism, is a perfect example of this oppressive and dismissive narrative. Peppered with the presence of the doting Chinese Hop Sing (and other odd and sundry Asian characters), random and noble mercurial Africans (with varying relationships to freedom and enslavement) and an unending passel of Banocs (the bad bad guys), Paiutes, "injuns" and half-breeds as the whipping boys and objectifying girls of the redemptive and de facto systems of manifest destiny.

One could spend pages upon pages upon pages describing the repetitive nature of the "injun" caricature and the other attacks on indigenous and disenfranchised peoples, but the wider story is one of disempowerment and resignation for the viewer.  Ward Churchill (...) has pointed out how the temporal balkanization of Turtle Island's indigenous peoples has created a surreality that exists only in the late 19th century, relegating Native culture and waning power figuratively and literally in the past, Hollywood never committing itself to more revolutionary, redemptive, complex or current portrayals and storylines.  There is no American Indian Movement, no Native American scholarship, no linguistic and cultural restoration, no burgeoning cultural art, no reconciliation and recovery from the brutal horror of christian missionary boarding schools, no Winona LaDukes or Wilma Mankillers, No Gitz CrazyBoys or John Mohawks, no Vine Deloria, Jr.s, no UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, no indigenist politics, no dry native humor.

This only serves to submerge the very functional life of Turtle Island indigeny, any chance for substantive political alliance (as there is no one to ally with or any reason to do so in the first place) and to give the de facto nod to any and all political and economic attacks on land, natural resources and cultural sovereignty.  What a better way to continue the Peabody Coal rape of Navajo and Hopi land than to convince the settler-colonial populace that the Navajo and Hopi losses were inevitable anyway (indeed, has anyone ever SEEN a Navajo or a Hopi?).  What a better way to assure that the resistance to Tar Sands oil extraction will be minimal and lacking in sustained resolve.  What a better way to continue the trend of biopiracy, theft and continued possession of cultural artifacts ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ indigenous_peoples_ literature/message/19495 ) and distract the larger world community from caring about the abuse of Native peoples during the 2008 Olympics in Canada or the rampant disappearances of Native and aboriginal women.

The western movie genre represents, in general and in effect, an outmoded, racist, colonial/imperialist set of oppressive narratives that serve no better purpose than to continue the hundreds of years old genocidal story of settler-colonial European holocaust meted out upon the once multitudinous peoples of Turtle Island, of Amerique.  To continue to rehash this terroristic and now tragically tiresome stereotypical story is but a nod to continued cultural destruction.

I thought we knew better than that.  Maybe due to the wild and almost ubiquitous popularity and pathological persistence of the western genre and narrative accoutrement, we simply are no better than that.  After all, old movies and many new ones make good money for already rich media conglomerates. Genocidal holocaust, a la USAmerican settler-colonial propagandistic television and cinema, is alive and well on our screens and in our politically immature hearts.

Spoiler Alert on Season 2 due to start its ride into brimstone on August 12, 2012:
Read everything above this Spoiler Alert.

Is it racism, prejudice or just funny?

I have numerous issues with Scooby Do, believe it or not, but overt moments like this are easier to target as problematic. Just like Harry Potter's narratives, if Scooby was not so popular, my concern would not be so immediate. Any time we see problematic, racist, sexist, heterosexist, anti-indigenous and other kinds of undesirable narratives and semiotic elements in popular media products, we should be highly concerned and willing to engage the outcomes, if not the producers.

And another thing - "LOL racism"?!? The outcomes here are not so cryptic or complex. The thesis of my Masters research paper gains steam here.

Biased Portrayals in Children's TV Persist

Today, on "THIS is for Kids" on WHDH's "THIS" digital channel, I watched a cartoon that featured a European cowboy in Africa, blue gendered gorillas and a Tarzan character with glasses. The female gorilla was amorously chasing the cowboy for some reason (I missed the beginning), then was convinced to wed the male gorilla, presided over by the Tarzan-type character. Some of the action took place in a hut that was perched on the branch of a tree. Just like the more recent Disney version of Tarzan, there were no African people present at all. This absence of Africans in Africa was echoed in a recent past episode of Gadget Boy on the same channel.

The next cartoon featured a caveperson (male) who dressed up as a female dinosaur to lure a tyrannosaurus into a tar pit. He threw a handkerchief on the ground with expectation that the tyrannosaurus would see it and fall in the tar pit in the process. When the rex saw the caveperson, he went cartoonishly ga-ga, with eyes bulging, banging its tail on its head and demonstrably drooling. The rex "fell in love" (clearly only lust) with the caveperson and the narrative continued on portraying the caveperson as a captive housewife, unable to leave the house and placating the husband rex by dusting the house after he got angry at the "wife" for daring to want to escape. The caveperson was scheming to get ouf of the house while the rex sat in an easy chair reading the newspaper and only got free after the rex saw another character it felt attracted to.

(more on this soon)

To Be 'connected" or Not To Be...

"In a world where a good number of us think being connected means having our cell phones, BlackBerries, and iPhones charged, it is likely that we forget about and become disconnected from our immediate environment beyond the technology at our fingertips." - "Red Alert" Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge", Daniel R. Wildcat, pg. 61

"working very hard on a pretty little song of love"

This line and these lyrics are from a song on Hugh Masekela's "Black to the Future" cd/release. Though the lyrics are beautiful and intention and clearly positive in nature, I am most engaged by that line, "working very hard". I feel that phrase very deeply as I attempt to look out of the confines of a limiting and myopic dominant cultural context through filters of confusion, illusion and delusion to a future now of enlightened human community engaged in its own process of spiritual, emotional and socio-politcal validation as empowered beings on an earth spoilt by a temporary, but fundamental break from sanity. I can relate to the writer's suggestion that these beautiful, necessary and essential projections are difficult, that there is hard work involved in the process, not only of the song, but the living out of that content and context of love and harmony.

One might even suggest that these lyrics represent a "pie in the sky" attitude, an air of ungrounded liberalism and a negative connection to "idealism' (I love/hate how capitalist corporatocracy jerks its knee to the very idea of ideals!). If we are to look even a breath beyond the re-grounding of indigenous social and spiritual strength on the earth, the inevitable destruction of rampant patriarchy, sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism and machine-culture (and the inevitable failure of the "inevitability of 'the singularity'"), we would be able to see the harmony, peace and love that this song projects and that each of us has the ability to envision even from within some of our most limiting and limited perspectives. Even the seemingly insane assertions of the recent failed rapture predictions seem to be born of a deep desire to be in a state of harmony, peace and love with the god and saved-ones of their narrow-minded choosings.

How that played or plays out is not so important in this moment as this one phrase that speaks to me, speaks to us of sweat, of toil and frustration, even in the midst of the sonic and reverberant beauty of the song as moves through the air and into my water-based being. It is very telling that even this song is difficult, that coming up with one that the "whole wide world" could sing is a difficult proposition.

It's important to remember the context of the creation of this song. Hugh Masekela is the son of indigenous traditions in a nation, not so different from the United States of America in its intentions and historical similiitudes. Hugh Masekela gave and gives voice to a people grounded historically and spiritually and ancestrally in a place upon which a new and destructive paradigm was violently placed, subverting the sovereignty and cultural power of indigenous peoples in a tremendously wide swath of geographic space on a continent upon which this sort of tragedy was not unfamiliar. Hugh Masekela has given voice to a struggle in a place where even the indigenous name of Azania has become unfamiliar and foreign. So we can be clear, even though Hugh Masekela may not be a Zephania Motopeng or Mangaliso Sobukwe or Stephen Biko, that Masekela is aware of the grounded reality of the dire conditions into which his/our people have been thrust by the machinations of settler-colonialism and capitalism on a continent that Kwame Ture had always asserted would have developed beyond the cultural limitations of the capitalist context due to the near universal and deep cultural engagement of communalism and conscious interdependence.

That Masekela's lyrical songwriter is working "very hard" is understandable and behooves us to consider the hard road ahead as we look into a future in which we can joyfully and fatiguedly say good-bye to discrimination, prejudice, known well, all too well, in the Azanian context. When an Azanian says its hard to write a song of love that the whole wide world to sing - believe them. It also brings to the fore a need to respect that forward and positive vision of something beyond the destructive nature of the present ideological and structural regimes that dominate our unconscious and consciousness and clearly make it difficult to even see over those seemingly distant horizons.

There are trees that we are intimately in relationship with that obfuscate our enraptured view of the sacred forest of our human becoming. And that tree, the same tree that breathes out the very oxygen that we (need to) breathe in, is not in and of itself our enemy. It is our temporocentrism and geocentrism that prevents us from seeing beyond, through and in spite of the necessity to live amongst those ideas, beings and people that often seem to be our immediate, persistent and selfishly-defined vexations.

"I’m working very hard on a pretty little song of love

for everybody to sing

a song of love (for everybody)

for the whole wide world to sing

about love and happiness, peace and harmony...

for the children of tomorrow, the fishes in the sea

the birdies in the sky, for the creatures in the forest and the jungle...

good-bye discrimination...let the world be ruled by love and happiness

good-bye prejudice...good-bye"

It is no small thing that an Azanian is "working very hard" to create and sing that universal human song and it is informative that it is coming yet out of the struggle for liberation of an indigenous people.

And there was a universal song sung on the earth before this recent and temporary derailing of the indigenous world. There was a song sung in all of the forests, across all the plains, from each and every mountaintop, across each lake and river and ocean. There were constant, persistent and abiding songs of love and respect sung about the earthly and the spiritual reality of life and the concomitant challenges that that reality daily revealed. There was an indigenous human song that resounded clearly, mirroring the heart beat, the pulse of the Great Mother earth, having been borne of it, in it and in harmony and resonance with it. There is still a song of indigeny that lies within all of us. We are borne of it, in spite of the disrespect of it and with all wondrous and idealist hope and possibility that we can again be in harmony and resonance with it. There is yet a song of love, of peace and harmony that the whole wide world can sing precisely and simply because there was and remains a dwindling connection to a multiplicity of songs of love, peace and harmony that the whole world sang for the children of our Ancestors' tomorrows, for the fishes of the sea, the birds in the sky, the creatures of the forests and the jungles.

We ARE the children of our Ancestors' tomorrows.

When we (re)learn these, our songs of love and harmony once again, we will realize that our children will learn them quite quickly, so much so that we will come to the easy assumption that they already knew them somewhere in their bones, in their DNA. And as we sit with them, beaming with pride at the hope, power and wisdom in their voices, we will come to the understanding that the human Ancestral song in their bones, in their DNA, had to come through us. We will then truly know that we simply forgot to remember the songs still alive in our indigenous human soul, that we are carriers yet and still of those songs of harmony and peace and that they were, are and will remain songs of love.

May we receive sacred assistance from all directions to work very, very hard, again, on these songs, better still, the song of love that the whole wide world can sing.

(posted also as such at http://indigeny-energetics.blogspot.com and on facebook)

Conventions In Alternative Media - Franklin Pierce University-Pierce Arrow blog post

http://piercearrow.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/conventions-in-alternative-media-ukumbwa-sauti/

"Masai: The Rain Warriors" film review

The following is a review written for the film "Masai: The Rain Warriors" as submitted to alibris.com and as posted on my Indigeny and Energetics blog (http://indigeny-energetics.blogspot.com)

""Masai: The Rain Warriors" is a beautifully, sensitively shot and rendered film that seems to have its feet firmly and fluidly grounded in the warm red earth of Kenya. All too often, when a film produced in Europe or North America about Africa or indigenous people reveals itself on screen, it exposes so much of the patronizing nature of the dominant political and cultural colonial discourse, telling more a story about the teller than the subject. The lens of "Masai" at once becomes the viewpoint of the Masai themselves, showing their challenging and tender, intimate indigenous life in the context of being the subject of deep consideration and not the object of brash, patronizing scrutiny for the sake of assuaging neo-colonial guilt (e.g., "Dances with Wolves") or for mere financial gain (e.g., "Avatar").

This look into the life of the Masai is refreshing, empowering and informative, enabling the viewer to genuinely feel as if they have "been there" for a time and had a common experience, if only through a cinematic window. There is much of the indigenous experience of life that is illuminated AND validated here, not held up for narrative and audience ridicule in conflicting cultural statements (done very well in "Avatar").



The story is simple, compelling, ultimately human and spiritually-inspired. The journey of the young warriors at the behest of their wise elders is a powerful connection to the legacy of respect for those who have earned life's tenure on this earth. It is immediately heart-warming to see youth not only carry their traditional culture with genuine and functional passion, but to also acknowledge deeply their elders AND their youngers, seen so beautifully in a ritual scene before they head out into the savannah to hunt down Vitchua, the uber-lion that embodies their supreme god. The path of these warriors is marked well by a masculine sensitivity unconventional only to modern colonial (this includes the USAmerica!) and colonized mindsets.



In addition to this newly empowering, though antique, way of being and becoming men, the positive story of womanhood and femininity is also embedded in the dreamy awakening of one of the lead warriors' into the troupe's desert salvation. The confirmation of the wise woman healer and her importance to the life of not only the village, but our world, enlivening the divine feminine in real-time, is very entrenched in this film.

"Masai" is an important cultural statement. Though we are still in need of validating and distributing widely the stories of indigeny by indigenous people in a modern world that does not yet remember itself and see itself as the progeny OF indigeny, "Masai" is a tactile and real expression of a part of the indigenous experience that is not only enlightening, but entertaining and emotionally moving. This is a good story told well about a subject often not represented with compassion and clarity.

Expect to have a cinematic experience that deepens understanding of the human experience. We need more of that."

That 70's Show: The Cultural Horror Show That Is Fez

(from "Cultural Bias in Prime Time Television", pg. 151)

Fez, played by Wilmer Valderrama, was the program’s infantilized, hypersexual ethnic Other, cute in his playfulness and socio-cultural ignorance, much like a three year old who said the word “tittie” for the first time - every day. Fez, like that three year old, might have engendered laughter, but Fez was not funny.

The program samples included an episode that provided a rare look into the shallow waters of Fez’s world, safe for viewers to walk through without fear of learning something new about the world or at least that of this one character. The episode trundled through each musical vignette laboriously and without any real passion, essentially a series of music videos all positioned to give exposition to another of Fez’s wants and desires as a young man from an undisclosed country who was constantly thinking about sex (or its absence) and candy. The episode seemed to be an unconscious display of the writers’ desire to keep Fez from achieving his innermost goals, whether as a young, lusty, Latin almost-lover (given, also a stereotype, but a more self-assured one) that he might have been or the emasculated, infantilized, de-nationalized clown that he really was.

The episode featured songs like The Joker (Steve Miller Band), Shake Your Groove Thing (Peaches and Herb), So Happy Together (The Turtles) and Sing (The Carpenters). The songs were performed as dream sequence production numbers with low-tech star wipes, smoke machines and shiny polyester outfits. The song vignettes were all dreams conjured by Fez as we waited impatiently for his “friends” to come to the school choral musical recital that he was a part of, presided over by 70’s rock idol Roger Daltrey, playing a pompous, brash, though also culturally unaware Brit music director, Mr. Wilkinson. Fez’s frustrations deepened as his “friends” failed to show while he waited before the recital, lapsing every so often into another musical rendition of what he thought the world should be like. Even Red exclaimed before Fez (and viewer) lapsed into another dream song, “Aw jeez, not another one!” (02/#6). Fez got to the point where he sincerely doubted his friendships, but turned it inward, calling himself a “goofy foreign kid” that no one wanted to be around (Program Sample 02/#6). Red, Eric’s father, gladly validated Fez’s feelings for him and was possibly the most egalitarian character on the program, never giving anybody a break, particularly his son or anyone seemingly not born in the United States of America or vociferously loyal to it.

Fez’s daydreams seemed to betray him as the physical performances were lackluster and the singing was poor. There was no hint of “sweetening” to raise the recorded quality of the vocals. None of the actors were accomplished or even fair singers to be performing as such. The pedestrian performances might have been produced to decrease the separation between skilled performer and presumably less skilled viewer. Fez was disappointed in his “friends” as the viewers may have been in the characters’ performance of the music segments. The story cut away at one point to find the gang smoking marijuana in Eric’s basement. They discussed how they didn’t want to go to the concert, completely dismissive of the idea that Fez would have any feelings about their actions. The program’s orientation to (or away from) Fez became apparent through the voice of Eric as they got caught up in their own pot-induced anti-Fez fervor. Each increased note of mockery was punctuated by a laugh track, the “OK sign” for viewer acceptance or dismissal of content, whichever came easier. Eric stated clearly in a close-up shot, saying, “That idiot actually thinks I’m his friend [Eric laughs]. Like I care. Iwish he were dead. [laugh track] Hey, we should kill him [louder laugh track]” (02/#6). No explanation or apology was ever made for their declarations against Fez, save for their excuse for their lateness - they were busy toilet-papering Wilkinson’s house and brought Fez his decapitated mailbox, presumably as a sign of their “friendship” and support for him. Wilkinson saw his mailbox in Fez’s hands, took it, aghast, and vowed a weak reprisal. The gang looked none too concerned, actually happy that they had “gotten him” in this way (which included a bag of dog excrement on his front steps and a symbol drawn on his door with some kind of cream or paste, interestingly enough - a peace sign).

Fez did at one point in this same episode strike a cord of nationalism and pride for the heretofore-unnamed country of his birth and its people. Wilkinson walked away from him after having leveled a barrage of insults and patronizing comments. Fez responded, “The British have always hated my people. We won the war, buddy. Get over it! Ah, good one, Fez. [laugh track]”. Fez, at least, got what he wanted - his “friends” with him at the concert. They did in fact go to the concert after all, but the ideological, socio-cultural and relational distance with which the narrative kept Fez from his “friends” was always there, too. Fez was allowed to share space with the “White Wisconsin Others”, but it seemed he could only get close to them in his cartoonish dreams.

The character of Fez was reminiscent of two of Willie Best’s characters, the “elevator boy’ Charlie” in My Little Margie and Willie in The Trouble with Father. Best, in the former “repeatedly bugged his eyes at the slightest provocation and looked stunned by the most ordinary of occurrences” (Bogle, 2001, p. 44). Bogle went on to say that “Best’s Charlie becomes delirious over the sight of the two [teen boy and girl] kissing good night. Widening his eyes, he goes into a romantic swoon. Apparently, he’s never experienced love himself nor known much about sexual desire (or fulfilling it)” (2001, p. 44). Bogle went on to say about Best in The Trouble with Father, “Again cast as a likable childlike dunce, he’s Willie, the family handyman, a nifty tagalong playmate for the family’s adolescent daughter Jackie. Mostly called upon to react and observe, he rarely initiates any action” (2001, p. 45). Much of this rang true for Fez. Fez was the consummate child, often swooning at the thought of candy or other ultimately simple things. This response could have been an expression of an immigrant’s stereotypical adoration for anything (United States of) American, an ideological frame of reference that would be easy to understand coming from a network like Fox, so deeply conglomerated and conservative in politics (Greenwald, 2004). Fez’s response was more likely the expression of a child. Fez was almost as enraptured by candy as he was for the prospect of sex. His simplistic reactions were the butt of the explicit and implicit joke. His dunce status was defined in every episode and his constant swoon and persistent, but contrived, lisp was always present to reinforce the consumption of his character as an ignorant child. If Fez walked on camera licking a gigantic lollipop and wearing knee pants, neither the audience nor the other characters would have thought anything of it.

Fez also showed his penchant for shallow, self-centered baby-isms when Wilkinson relegated him punitively to the back row during the recital, to which Fez retorted, “The back row is for the untalented and the ugly [laugh track]” (02/#6). Fez also stood his ground beforehand when Wilkinson tried to get Fez to understand the finer points of music appreciation. Wilkinson asked, “Have you ever been moved to tears by the warbling timbre of your own voice?”. Fez responded, “No - because I am a man! [laugh track]”, the laugh track almost bubbled over into a reserved, though macho cheer of support for his assertion of mainstream, narrow masculinity.

Fez, while at the school dance, was in the stairwell, along with three other couples, making out with a female dork stereotype. When word of the tornado warning reached them, Fez responded, “Oh no, I’m going to die a virgin!”. His partner expressed that it could be their last day on earth so they decided to “do it” and ran off to yet another stairwell. Word reached them later that the tornado warning had been lifted, though, before they got the chance to “do it”. His partner, then with a renewed sense of hope, snorted, chuckled and waddled off (literally) leaving Fez to tantrum before the Creator. Fez exclaimed, “Oh you can make a tornado, but you can’t make me do it! Oh you are not a just god!!” (02/#1).

The group’s flashback to their first meetings in the yearbook episode was telling of the characters’ and the programs relationship to this ethnic “Other” in the cast, the lone non-White token character for almost the whole run of the show. Fez was found hanging in a closet by his pants, preyed upon by cruel jocks. Kelso’s first response was to throw a gym ball at him. There was no major outcry to his treatment as the only “foreign exchange student” seemingly in all of Point Place or all of Wisconsin according to this program. Their empathy for Fez was underwhelming, all in the interest of the laugh track, ratings, repeat viewership and the bottom line. After they finally helped him down, Hyde asked him his name. Fez began to recite a litany of names (stereotypical and real for many Latinos/as), but as he did so, the school bell rang and obscured the viewer from hearing his name. Hyde responded, “I’m never gonna remember that”. It was not apparent whether Hyde heard the name or not, but it was apparent that he didn’t care to know his name or anything else about him.

The message was clear in all of the occurrences of Fez on screen that what was foreign was unwelcome in that world. Difference would not be tolerated and would be submerged for the greater ignorance of the self-centered (read ethnocentric) community. Fez was the butt of jokes from others and his own self-condemnation. He was the target of marijuana-induced assertions of hatred by people he called “friends”. He was neglected and disrespected off-hand. Intolerance of difference, of a different culture, a different national origin, was accepted wholesale by the characters and by the program itself. Fez might have been the best example of the worst that That 70’s Show had to offer teenage aspirational viewers looking for cues regarding how they should act and fit in - or allow others to fit in - or not - in this society.

That 70's Show: Alcohol and Youth

(from "Cultural Bias in Prime Time Television", pg. 143)

That 70’s Show/FOX

Brooks and Marsh (1999) presented That 70’s Show in the following way:

“Set in rural Point Place, Wisconsin, in 1976, this bright sitcom lampooned the activities of high school junior Eric Foreman and his friends during the height of the disco era. The other featured teens were Donna, the sexy redhead who lived next door and was sweet on Eric; hunky Kelso, who was incredibly naive and gullible; Jackie, Kelso’s spoiled girlfriend; Hyde, a counter-culture conspiracy theorist; and Fez, a wide-eyed foreign exchange student. Signs of the times were everywhere: leisure suits, platform shoes, acid rock, long hair, and streaking.Eric’s mother, Kitty, was a slightly flighty nurse, and his dad, Red, had recently been reduced to part-time work at the plant. His sister, Laurie, was a college freshman who, in February, was flunking out of the University of Wisconsin. Donna’s pudgy, gross father, Bob, owned an appliance store and hired Red to work for him over the Christmas holidays. Much of the action took place in the Foreman basement, where the kids hung out.” (p. 1014)

Mediascope (2004) described the program with a little more candor and mentioned a regular risk behavior element:

“Set amid the fads and culture of the 1970s (an era many teens today find hilariously funny), this half-hour sitcom’s treatment of universal teenage issues has made it extremely popular for both males and females. The show follows the lives of an eclectic group of teenage friends as they deal with the challenges of growing up, smoking pot, and seeking independence from their often clueless parents.” (p. iii)

Mediascope (2004) went on to say about the depiction of marijuana use in a particular episode not sampled in this study:

“The third reference [to substance abuse] was more substantive, and occurred in an episode of That ‘70’s Show, a series with a reputation for its frequent portrayal of implied marijuana use among teen and college-age characters. The show often portrays the kids acting goofy and stoned with lots of smoke in the air-they aren’t actually shown smoking, but it is clear from our observations that the teen audience members “know” what’s going on...The pot use is not glamorized, but neither are any anti-use statements made or negative effects portrayed; the absence of condemnation makes pot smoking seem normal and acceptable.” (p. 168)

Alcohol usage was also a major, regular element of the program’s narratives, supported by research and episodes viewed outside of this study. Program sample analysis revealed no scenes depicting alcohol consumption. The use of alcohol or other drugs was not a primary cultural analytical parameter, but was important enough to report on due to its cultural use in United States of American society by teenagers and its use as a cultural rite of passage for so many teenagers across the country, across class, culture/race and gender (Myers, 1993). Mediascope provided continued information on this element within the narratives of That 70’s Show and reported the following:

“The most problematic from the standpoint of those who would wish to discourage [underage] drinking occurs in That ‘70’s Show, in which the teens of the house and their friends organize a “kegger” in their basement hangout. The kids drink beer and the party is fun. Moreover, when the father, Red, comes down to the party and sees the drinking, he only mutters a fatalistic, “Oh, well, “ in effect shrugging it off.” (2004, p. 169)

This might have been enough perspective on the issue, but Mediascope went on to describe a deeper presence and acceptance of alcohol usage in the show’s narratives:

“It is important to note that alcohol is central to the lives of both Red and his wife, Kitty. In another episode, Red celebrates the time when he and Kitty go together by mixing Manhattans for the two of them (Kitty had been drunk on Manhattans when they met). The overall picture painted by these two episodes (and many others in the series) is that alcohol is a central, enjoyable part of life, and that it carries, at most, the negative effect of a hangover the next day.” (2004, p. 169)

Mediascope’s report was troubling enough as a depiction of a regular and risky behavior in a prime time television show popular with teenagers with aspirational viewing habits. Deeper insight into the relationship between this show’s continued narrative and substance use/abuse came with the observation of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth study (2004) from which the list of programs was found for this study. The CAMY study identified That 70’s Show as the program of the “disproportionate six” that showed the greatest amount of advertisements for alcoholic beverages (2004, p. 7). The only show of the fifteen cited in the study that had more alcohol ads was Fear Factor. The data was clear, though, circumstantial, evidence that, indeed and in deed, the influence of the advertiser was at work in a pernicious and integral way in the narratives of this particular prime time program, a pattern reported by Johnston (2000). This relationship, illuminated by research and practical program analysis, was a negative one when the socio-cultural result was hypothesized.

Cultural Media Literacy

(from "Cultural Bias in Prime Time Television and Teenage Viewers: Cultural Media Literacy for High School and Higher Education", pg.196)

Cultural Media Literacy, a development borne of this study, was an important and necessary advancement in the growth of general media literacy education, research and organization. While most media literacy focused adequately on the dynamics of medium production and distribution, how it worked visually, graphically and/or sonically and possible effects in society (Strasburger & Wilson, 2002), these efforts did not show a marked trend toward deeper discussion of particular social issues as a whole. All of the aforementioned organizations and efforts were spectacular undertakings and deserve to be supported and grown. The discourse must have at some point advanced more deeply into the core of the social dynamic, the people themselves. That core was the source or container of the conflict and/or challenge in values and dominant life practice around which the discussion about media and television revolved. That human core was the locus of hope for the ultimate growth in positive human development.

Cultural Media Literacy sought to advance the discussion of television in
particular and mass communications media in general as a serious motive social force, but also to raise issue with the society’s grasp of its own negative and positive tendencies, to help redefine and broaden its understanding of itself and its pattern of cultural consumption and production. The media, the empty television stations, dark movie theaters or unlit fiber-optic internet cables were not the criminals, but the ways in which they had been manipulated by some people and consumed and used by so many more could have been considered as such. The hammer was not responsible for whether it was used as a tool for construction of home or a weapon of destruction of life, so the media in general and television in particular were also powerful, desirable tools of constructive change and transformation, almost innocent by themselves until imbued with the higher intentions of the creator and consumer alike.

Cultural Media Literacy defined conventional media literacy issues and elements as important, but only a part of the larger discussion that must happen with regard to mass communications in any society. Aside from the deleterious, anti-social forces and consequences of corporate media conglomeration, within Cultural Media Literacy, the media were simply the carriers of the message and these messages are important to society’s ability to observe itself, analyze its tendencies, whether realistic or fantastic, fictional or non-fictional, and make functional, practical decisions, actions and changes in its forward motion through time. Without a substantive discussion about the actual elements that television could only raise issue about or narrow discourse on, any society would only have been spinning its wheels with regard to mentioning mass communications media, cultural issues and social responsibility and positive social development.

Cultural Media Literacy defined culture and society as an organic and embodied human force that was simply and gloriously a macrocosm of the dynamism of the individual human being. Just as the individual must have been able to have insight into its own reality, tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, so must have society as a whole been able to look at itself and through informed observation and contemplative insight been able to lessen its pathologies and increase the effects of the best elements that it had to offer itself.

Cultural Media Literacy assumed that people cared enough about other people that we should have been actively and constantly engaged in each other’s development for the good of the society and each individual within it. This concept was essential for any conscious and active society to move forward, progressively and intelligently. The history of countless cultures pointed to the necessity of this one to, like them, make informed and conscious choices about its future, in the interest of those who would carry it forward. Teenagers were the beneficiaries of our greatest failures and achievements. They found information, crystal clear and deeply flawed on the millions of small screens lit by the culturally biased images given robust life in prime time television.

TV or not TV...

Here's just some of the skinny on the ol' cathode ray tube:

98% of United States of American homes have televisions. 1

TVs are on for an average of 7 hrs. and 40 mins. per day in each USA household 2

Children think the roles of secretary (79 per cent), boss (71 per cent), doctor (67 per cent) and police officer (53 per cent) on television are usually played by white people, while the roles of criminal (59 per cent) and maid or janitor (35 per cent) are usually played by African-Americans. 3

Teenagers and pre-teens with TVs in their bedroom are more likely to use drubs, smoke cigarettes, binge drink and have sex. 4

56% of 13-17 year-olds have TVs in their bedrooms 5

Says who?!

References:
1-Nielsen Media Research, 2000
2-Nielsen Media Research, 2000
3-Children Now, 1998
4-University of California, 2005
5-Gentile & Wash, 2002

Media Power Is In Your Hands!

Things WE can do to take control of our media culture:

FOR YOURSELF:
1.Consciously choose the media you engage with.
2.Be a critical and active viewer of media messages and images.
3.Question what you see (or what you don’t see) in the media.
4.Word of mouth.Add media issues and your opinions on them to everyday conversation.

WITH THE MEDIA INDUSTRY:
5.Learn about the structure and history of the media industry. Read: "Rich Media,Poor Democracy" by Robert McChesney, "The Media Monopoly" by Ben Bagdikian
6.Contact media industry executives and inform them of your opinions and dissatisfactions with their products.

WITH THE INDEPENDENT MEDIA:
7.Seek out independent films through festivals,stores,and theaters.
8.Support independent media with donations and advocacy.
9.Gather news from independent sources (Internet,Television,Radio).

WITH YOUR LOCAL MEDIA:
10.Use the Editorial/Opinion section of your local newspaper to voice your opinions and raise awareness.
11.Get involved at your local cable and/or radio station.
12.Join a media education list-serv or subscribe to E-newsletters to stay informed.

WITHIN YOUR COMMUNITY:
13.Start a youth video production program and get the projects aired on local cable access
14.Organize a media education week.
(See www.mediaed.org/events/articles/organizefor details.) 15.Hold a public screening of MEF videos and encourage discussion.
16.Advocate for and/or teach media literacy in your community or school.

WITH THE GOVERNMENT:
17.Contact local government officials about legislation focusing on media issues and reform.
18.VOTE with media issues in mind.
19.Support FCC regulations on the media industry.
20.Raise awareness about the importance of media reform for other social movements
(domestic violence,environmental degradation,etc.).


The preceding information was created by the Media Education Foundation and is available on their website. They produce amazing materials and I have used many of their videos in presentations and college classes.
Media Education Foundation can be reached at:
60 Masonic St., Northampton MA 01060
800.897.0089, 413.584.8500
www.mediaed.org

Cultural Media Literacy in a Democratically-Challenged Society

...built upon the voice of each individual. How is your voice heard? Corporate-controlled media does not speak in your interest.
The people of the United States of America are deep in the process of expressing and embodying their democratic tendencies. This country and its people have a long way to go in this respect. People everywhere are searching for their collective voice.

Democracy is a set of principles, organizational structures and collective behaviors. It is a dynamic process that behooves us to be conscious and fully informed and socially activated. We are challenged to find a predominant validation of consciousness, clear information or ethical social action within the abyss-mal caverns of television.

We are likewise challenged to find it within the structures of mainstream United States (of America) society. We constantly butt our heads against top-down thinking and trends at work, our schools as well as in our information sources like television. We are advertised as individualistic consumers as opposed to collective thinkers and creators - which is what democracy requires. So what then is the role of media in this society?

Cultural Media Literacy is a vital and underemphasized necessity in a world in which popular opinion and, therefore, action or inaction is influenced by ever more powerful corporate media conglomerates. How do we as media consumers come to understand the growing seriousness of this issue?

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1) Become aware of your tv watching habits.
- limit viewing to specific choices
2) Get information from a variety of sources.
- don't forget to READ!
3) View with a discriminating, critical eye AND ear.
- information isn't true just because it's on tv
4) Watch with friends and family and discuss after.
- collective experiences breed deeper understanding
5) Learn how tv messages/programs are constructed
- book a Cultural Media Literacy workshop TODAY! : )

Cultural Bias Lives in Prime Time Television!

...at least in June of 2006 when I completed my Master's Degree and my research paper:
"Cultural Bias in Prime Time Television and Teenage Viewers: Cultural Media Literacy for High School and Higher Education"

It is my contention that these biases have changed to some degree, but have stayed stable as a negative cultural presence in televisual communications.

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Years of observing content and characterization in television programming of all types, along with frequent and continuing academic study of television and other media, have brought me to understand that there are deep problems inherent in our TV watching behavior. Not only are some of the oldest stereotypes and relational behavior patterns still existent in the medium, but the ubiquity and pervasiveness of the media in general has increased also. Add continued negative portrayals with deeper incursion into the human experience and we have an equation that adds up to problems of social proportions.

Our society still struggles with challenges around culture and race, sex and gender issues. sexual orientation, ability and agism. In addition, our consciousness of environmental issues, democracy, health, water and food and other social issues is hampered by the dearth of substantive reporting and coverage of these important elements of human life.

If we did not still experience deep-seated problems with class, violence and intolerance, many of the television programs, stories and messages would be of little concern, but for their entertainment value. The reality of the cultural life of United States of American society behooves us to look more deeply and critically at the form and function of our most compelling medium of social communication - television, the king of all media.

Though the internet is increasingly becoming important for the mass consumption of moving image programming, the source of that product still resides in the television studios of the media conglomerates, now dwindling in number, but growing speedily in size....and social influence. I ask you to spend some time to look over the content of my research paper, consider my critique and findings and, if you will, join my Yahoo group and look at other sources of information to gain perspective on this important issue. Feel free to contact me by email to ask questions or provide further insight on your own findings, formal or informal. We must transform, not only the process of our consumption of media, but of our creation of human culture and cultural content, from an unconscious endeavor to a vibrant and conscious dynamic, capable of highlighting and validating the very highest values of human life, love, action and spirit, something woefully lacking in the media most often consumed by this society.

"Cultural Bias in Prime Time Television and Teenage Viewers: Cultural Media Literacy for High School and Higher Education"

Teenagers, as formative adults and aspirational viewers, look to prime time television programming to assist them with defining their roles, behavior and social expectations. Television continues to project characters and storylines steeped in cultural bias. Studies revealed that the programming showed persistent, overt and subtle, negative stereotypes of numerical minorities, women and young people. Current trends in corporate media conglomeration, centralization of control over all media outlets, help explain the challenges of the teen media and television environment. Teenagers are falling prey to the prejudiced characterizations, negative portrayals, wholesale omissions of sub-cultural populations and advertiser-driven balkanization of television audiences. The primary objective of this study was to qualitatively assess the level of televisual bias and segregation that is validating oppressive ideas and behavior that threaten the cultural life of the United States of America. Media literacy education, with a focus on communal and cultural issues is a positive, though still largely latent force, that can help to counteract harmful human messages that often lie hidden in the technically sophisticated, though narrowly conceived programming. Prime time programming watched heavily by teenagers was recorded and analyzed, observing five cultural parameters: Culture/National Origin/Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Age and Ability. By exploring these categories of sub-cultural presentation, patterns of portrayals were found that gave perspective to practical issues currently challenging social cohesiveness. This qualitative study gave rise to a cultural media literacy presentation, created as a proactive outgrowth of this research in the interest of addressing the issues of social discord, geared for high school and college students and adaptable for adult audiences.

Why Cultural Media Literacy?

Research by Children Now (1998) showed that children found it important to see characters that looked like them. It was also found that seeing those images helped contribute to their sense of self-esteem. As adults, as Dates and Barlow (1993) found, we strongly tend to watch television that reflects who we are. This means that people of European descent (Whites) tend to watch shows that feature Europeans and that Africans (Blacks) tend to watch shows that feature Africans. European viewers have been found to change the channel when they perceive that a program is about Africans (a show that features substantial
numbers of African characters). Individual shows and whole cable channels are geared toward smaller segments of the society. Viewing tendencies are narrowed, hence the opportunity for learning about those not directly like us is decreased. These findings point us to important issues when considering the importance of positive cultural portrayals and the viewing habits of people in a society still marked by racism, classism and sexism.

George Gerbner speaks of the human storytelling process being hijacked with the advent of electronic communication, especially with the development of corporate media conglomeration (companies such as Newscorp/Fox, Viacom, Disney and/or Time Warner). This change is detrimental to the long and short term development of the individual and the collective. In addition, the comprehension and understanding of the value of cultural diversity will not be fully realized until we begin to tell our own stories from and for a human frame of reference rather than a financial one, one championed by the strong influence of the ever-present advertisers. After all, the bottom line should be what is best for you, not what is best for money. The hypothesis I present to you today is that it is media and the capital that drive them that should serve the human, not the human serving media and its advertiser-controlled capital.

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"Michael Eisner, former CEO of Walt Disney Company said in a corporate memo, “We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective”
("Mickey Mouse Monopoly", Sun & Picker, 2001, Commercializing Children’s Culture section)"
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Understanding the interrelationship between the forces of corporate capital, media content, character portrayals and relationships and media effects is key to gaining the perspective needed by media consumers in a media-heavy society such as this one.