More Calatrava pics from #Milwaukee
Spring at the Calatrava. Wings up. #Milwaukee
When the verdict for the Steubenville, OH rape case came in, it was natural that the internet responded. The internet, after all, is largely credited for bringing this case to light. Multiple critiques of the case’s coverage have shown that “rape culture” is dominant in reporters’ portrayals of the outcome. Rape culture is explained as a culture where “people are surrounded with images, language, laws, and other everyday phenomena that validate and perpetuate, rape.”
The following example from CNN highlights how rape culture is evident in the coverage of this story. The anchor in this segment begins by saying that “two star football players” have been found guilty of raping a West Virginia teenager. The setup for this story sets the tone for the approach: This is the story of how a verdict affects the lives of two star football players; it is not the story of how the decisions made by two young men to rape an unconscious teenager changed their own lives and hers forever. Most importantly, it frames the results as something that happened to them; not something that happened to her.
The reporter explains “it was incredibly emotional” and difficult to witness how two young men that had such promising futures watched as “their life fell apart.” The victim is barely mentioned in this story. Instead, viewers are presented with a very sympathetic look at two young men whose bright, bright futures were tragically ripped away by this situation.
So, what makes this an exceptional piece of rape culture is how viewers are implored to sympathize with and feel sorry for the perpetrators of this heinous crime. That both the anchor and the reporter are female only adds to the irony.
Nerds 1, Super Bowl 0: #Lightsout as a site of negotiation
When the lights went out in the Superdome for Superbowl XLVII, Twitter erupted. During the blackout, users generated a staggering 285,000 tweets per minute—more than at any other point during the game. An analysis of tweets containing the #LightsOut hashtag revealed an interested trend: Pop culture references. Interestingly, these tweets renegotiate the Super Bowl narrative as a form of storytelling—specific to their referenced pop culture text—under the shared theme of a hashtag. Take for example the tweet: “@ArryPottah: The power went out at the Super Bowl. Too bad you Muggles don’t have Lumos. #lightsout #poweroutage” This tweet uses the Harry Potter pejorative term for non-magical humans “Muggles” along with “Lumos,” the name of a spell, to appropriate the Super Bowl narrative into a Potter storyline. Similar tactics were displayed across the tweets that made references to pop culture titles (Batman, Hunger Games, etc.). Thus #lightsout allowed potentially marginalized “Geek culture” communities to appropriate the Super Bowl narrative away from the classic machismo, consumerist rhetoric to one of their own.
Does a bear poop in the woods? Yes. But it also dances like no one is watching.
I wasn’t intending to do another Walking Dead post, but I just have to. Please bear with me. I am an avid reader and sometime participant in TWD fan forums. This last episode focused heavily on the female character Michonne (picture above).
I saw in one of the forums a poster thanking the writers of the episode for “softening up Michonne.” Although at this point in the series, Michonne hasn’t been used to her full potential, she is one of the female characters who still has a strong presence. Her character oozes mystique and danger and her ninja-like qualities are the frequent source of discussion on boards. No one wants to tangle with Michonne. I suppose that’s why I found the comments so jarring. “Softening up” Michonne seems contrary to her entire existence, but then we are back to the same point as last week, but from a different angle: Female characters on TV must conform to gender norms or they run the risk of alienating viewers.
To be fair, I think the author of the comment was more or less speaking towards the character development we finally got to see, but his/her choice of words seemed revealing.
You are looking at two images of the same character. The Walking Dead’s Andrea is one of the most hated characters on the show. As a fan of the comic this is especially difficult to stomach. Nevertheless, a comparison of the pictures lends insight into why TV Andrea is so despised: She can’t hold a candle to comic book Andrea.
In both story lines, Andrea becomes an expert shot. The drawing above places Andrea in a power stance. The determined look on her face shows that she means business. Her clothes are not revealing, and appear functional in her task. Her hair is pulled back, out of her eyes, also functional. In short, Andrea looks like a badass.
TV Andrea somehow manages to have sexy hair, no matter what the situation, even when it’s filthy as in this picture. The shirt hanging off her shoulder creates a vulnerability and sexuality in her appearance that are just not there in the comic Andrea. TV Andrea is placed at an angle and is looking towards the camera, which I feel, lends to the vulnerability she seems to be presenting.
To avoid any spoilers, I will just say that the depictions in these images represent how the respective characters are developed. It’s unfortunate the strongest comic book women (Andrea, Michonne) are watered down to better fit stereotypes on TV.
Facebook recently turned on my graph search, and I’ve been having fun playing around with various searches and figuring out just what it’s capable of doing. However, the privacy concerns surrounding the new search have raised many eyebrows, my own included, so I was prompted to go through my own previous likes to make sure I hadn’t done anything to embarrass myself (too much). Overall, I’ve found the graph search to be more useful than creepy (i.e., Restaurants in Chicago that my friends like), but I did find that I had once liked “Throwing inanimate objects at people.” I then remembered that a friend of mine had posted a comment about how when he was a kid he’d throw things when he was mad and it turned into a joke about types of things that have been thrown or could be thrown. It was all in good fun, and it resulted, somewhere in the process, in me liking “Throwing inanimate objects at people.” This whole incidence happened over a year ago, and I completely forgot that I had liked the public page. So, when I came to find that my name was returned in search results that look for people who angrily throw things, I realized how completely decontextualized the results can be. I don’t literally “like” throwing objects at people, but the backstory is removed, so the literal like is all that remains. It’s making me think twice about clicking “like” on anything going forward and has caused me to rethink every like I clicked on in the past.
