1-4-6 Written Analysis Whitney Houston

            I decided to pick Whitney Houston for my written analysis this week.  She was a very famous pop culture icon.  I picked to do Whitney Houston this week because it is big news that she was found dead in her hotel room this week.  Whitney was a huge pop icon and now that she has died at such a young age she has become somewhat of a stereotype.  She can now fit that stereotype that famous people live their life recklessly and a lot of the time their death is due to drugs.  Whitney Houston’s death was still unknown, but many people suspect her death to be drug related.

            My most interesting findings with this topic is that she can fit so many different theories with pop culture now that she has died.  When she was alive she was a huge pop icon, and she was in the category of a celebrity.  People looked up to her and wanted what she had and wanted to look how she looked.  A lot of people wanted to be able to sing like her to.  A lot of her fans envied her because she was so talented.  Now that she has died and the rumors have started to spread, she has turned into somewhat of a stereotype for a celebrity.

            I will think of Whitney Houston differently now because of this analysis.  Before believing what someone has wrote about her, and people saying how she died I will wait and see what the true reason is.  Yes, she might have done drugs during her life, but it doesn’t mean she needs to be put in that stereotype, she could of died from natural causes.  You really have to be careful what you believe when you read stories about famous people in this situation.

Written Analysis 1-4-5

                The popular culture topic I chose for this week is the movie The Incredibles. This movie was targeted towards kids and adults, and got a ton of good responses.  In this module we discussed formulas, and this movie falls into the typical superhero formula layout.  The only difference in this movie is that it is not about just one superhero, it is about a whole family of superheroes.

                The movie starts out where the superheroes have it all.  They save people’s lives and are living at large.  Then of course someone tries to sue one of them and they all have to go into hiding.  After many years as you watch the movie you can see that Mr. Incredible is not adjusting well to being a normal person.  His whole family is in trouble, the kids get in trouble at school, the parents fight all the time.  Mr. Incredible tries to get his life back with a secret job but ends up getting him and his family in life threatening trouble.  They are all down and out, and it doesn’t look they any of them will make it.  But of course the superheroes rise up and beat the bad guy, and the town loves them all for it.  They even get to come out of hiding.

                The insights I take away from applying these theories to my topic is that when you are watching a superhero movie, you should just bet that you will see the good guy win.  This is just how is happens, and when it doesn’t happen there is usually a sequel so that the good guy can make a comeback.  I believe superhero movies always do this because it is what people want to see.  I know I have said this before, but people always want to see a good guy get beaten down and then overcome all his hardships and win.  This always makes the little guy feel all warm and fuzzy.

                

Spider-Man in Love: A psychoanalytic Interpretation

APA Journal Article Analysis  (Fuller)

Journal Article Analysis

Spider-Man in Love: A psychoanalytic Interpretation

Megan Fuller

HUMN 240

Harlan Schottenstein

February 1, 2012

Spider-Man in Love:

 A psychoanalytic Interpretation

            In the journal article Spider-Man in Love: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation, it talks about love in many different forms.  It looks through the eyes of Peter Park, aka Spider-Man and sees how he loves and pursues his love in his two different forms.  It also looks through MJ’s eyes and sees how she interprets love throughout the movie.  This journal article describes what typical love movies portrait compared to the Spider-Man movies.

            This article is intended for Marvel comic’s movie lovers, and also viewers that are in to traditional and untraditional love stories.  I would summarize this journal article by saying the men in MJ’s life are portraying her father figure.  She rejects male after male because of the way her father treated her growing up.  Spider-Man usually ends up confronting these men as his enemies in the movie.  Even though Spider-Man is brave and faces these men that are blatantly not good for MJ, Peter Parker always treats MJ with respect and is always there for her, either in Spider-Man or Peter Parker

            The style of this article was very well organized, but a little drawn out.  This was a very long journal article that seemed to mention the same things over and over again.  I can remember multiple times where I felt like I was reading the same exact paragraph that I read a few pages earlier.  So yes, the article was very well organized but was not at all easy to read.

            The key ideas I take away from this article is that true love stories come in all different types of forms.  Spider-Man is the perfect man for MJ because when he gets his Spider-Man abilities he becomes very strong and brave.  He stands up for himself and protects the people he

loves.  But since Spider-Man was Peter Parker for so long he is also a very loving and caring man.  He knows how to treat a woman, so when combined he becomes the perfect person.

            I completely agree with all the authors’ main points in this journal article.  He goes through many different styles of love and how these styles of love are portrayed in almost every love story movie.  He goes into depth about why the love in the Spider-Man movies is different and that the love in these movies can be interpreted bad love and good love.  MJ is constantly haunted of her horrible father through the bad men she dates, and Peter Parker constantly tries to save and help her, and be there for her emotionally.  It takes a very long time for MJ to realize that she is truly in love with Peter Parker, but by that time Peter feels he needs to seclude himself from his loved ones because he is afraid of them getting hurt.  So these torn emotions go all the way through the first movie and don’t really end till the last scene in the third movie.

            I think this article is very important for people to read because the love story in this movie is more realistic than most love story movies.  This movie shows love, hurt, torn feelings, jealousy, etc.  It shows the tug of war love perception between MJ and Peter Parker.  When Peter Parker is ready for MJ she already has a new man in her life that is just like her father.  When MJ is ready for Peter Parker, he is too afraid she will get hurt because of his secret identity.  This is how love happens in real life sometimes.  It’s not always just rainbows and sunshine; sometimes you have to work hard for what or who you really want.  I think the author of this article does a great job describing the love story in the Spider-Man movies.

References

Kaplan, R. L. K. (2011). Spider-man in love: A psychoanalytic interpretation. The journal of

            Popular Culture, 44(2),

Heroes and Celebrity's 1-4-4

My popular culture topic for this week is one hero and one celebrity.  For heroes I pick US soldiers, and for celebrity’s I picked Channing Tatum.  Pretty much all the theories from this week’s readings support both of these pop culture topics.

Like I said, I picked US Soldiers for modern day heroes.  They show tremendous courage every day.  They stand up for people who can’t or chose not to.  They selflessly serve every day to protect people they don’t even know.  They are brave, strong, and most of the time loving.  I picked Channing Tatum for my celebrity because he has gotten very popular lately from his movies.  He has played in a lot of love stories and action movies like GI Joe, where he plays a soldier.  Girls love to look at him, and men want to be him.  People pay to see him act, and also pay for him to be on posters and other things like that.  He is a celebrity because people watching him made him a celebrity.  People showed their interest in him and his career skyrocketed.

There are many insights I take away from applying this week’s theories to my topics.  I find it crazy to think that an actual US soldier that fights day to day and supports our country doesn’t get as much attention as a celebrity like Channing Tatum, who just pretends to be a soldier in a modern day movie.  It really makes you think about where people’s attention lies. Don’t get me wrong, Channing Tatum is a great actor and very attractive in my eyes, but does he deserve more attention than a 18 year old boy overseas?  That is just my thought.

               

                

Ear Stretching (Written Analysis 1-4-3)

The pop culture topic I chose for this week is ear stretching, or as a lot of people call it, gauging.  This has become a popular trend now a day, especially in the younger audience.  Theories that apply to this pop culture topic are rituals and stereotypes. 

                Some Indian tribes stretch their ears as a rite of passage.  They start when they are young adults and continue to stretch their ears throughout their life.  This goes into the category of rituals.  These tribes do this to their men tribe members and teach each generation to do it.  Indian tribes believe stretching their ears gives them special abilities or keeps their tribe safe.

                In the modern community a lot of people, mostly young adults or pre-teens have been gauging their ears.  This is a very popular trend now and isn’t categorized as a ritual, but these gauges do cause a lot of stereotypes.  Some jobs find these ear rings nonprofessional and make employees take them out.  A lot of people look at kids with gauges and categorized them as punks, or unprofessional.  This is unacceptable, it is just a trend that has caught on and in most kids eyes it is just a form of fashion.

                When I started thinking about this topic and put it in perspective it really made me think.  People judge to quickly and put people in a certain stereotype.   I personally have gauges in my ears and have been judged to be a punk.  But in reality I am a full time student, a loving mom, and serve the country in the Army.  So people should think before placing people in certain categories. 

1-4-2 Analysis 1

The iPad 2 could have been considered a myth 20 years ago, but today it is just considered an icon in popular culture.  20 years ago our computers were still huge, and the thought of a handheld tablet doing the same thing as huge computers and more was just unrealistic.   I remember my dad always saying when I was young “In the future we will be driving flying cars, and carry around computers like on Star Trek.  Obviously this myth back in the day has become a reality, and is now an icon in today’s world.

I think the myth’s back in the day about a so called handheld computer is why we have the iPad 2 today.  Someone had to dream about it before it could become a reality.  In today’s world we have surpassed some expectations, but we also don’t have flying cars yet.  With the iPad 2 you can have all your information at your fingertips and this icon has become a huge “want” by many students, teachers, and professionals.

When I think back to when I was young listening to my dad rabble on about the future, I always thought he was being ridiculous.  I always thought it was a myth that something like the iPad 2 would ever exist.  But now that I am alive while a tablet PC has come out and works very well, I can see how easily a myth can become a current day icon.

ICON ANALYSIS

The 3 contemporary icons I chose are THE Ohio State University, Lady Ga Ga, and Twitter.  THE Ohio State University is a college like any other but is huge around Ohio because of its sport teams.  This University teaches classes, has dorms, like any college but because of their sports teams, especially football, their school logo can be found on pretty much anything now. The next icon is Lady GaGa, she is a highly popular singer now and sings for her own personal beliefs.  She wears crazy meat dresses, and has song lyrics that catch people by surprise.  But she is a huge icon now-a-days.  The last one I picked is Twitter.  Twitter is huge right now, people constantly updating what they did or are doing.  They even set it up so Twitter posts automatically go to Facebook.  Half of the websites you visit now, you can always share with Twitter.

I chose these 3 icons because they are all very different, but are all very popular at this time.  It is crazy to look at three different icons, and look at how different they are but know that they are all part of pop culture.  It is crazy to think that maybe one day Lady Ga Ga will sing at an Ohio State football game and people will Twitter about it.

THE Ohio State means a lot to me because my family has always been huge fans of the football team.  If you even mention Michigan in my dads house, you might get kicked out.  Lady Ga Ga has gotten me through a ton of rough times because for some reason my 1 year old son will instantly stop screaming if I put on Poker Face.  Twitter is honestly a little annoying to me.  I feel like I can't ever get away from it.  Web pages are always asking me to share what I am looking at and Twitter. Blah Blah Blah.  Privacy is somewhat out the window with this one.