With good reason, we talk (and joke) a lot about what it
means to be Black, or Native American, or Hispanic or Asian, or a member of any
given historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic group in the United States.
But how often do we explore what it means to be white, in humor or in social
studies?
Folk singer Patty Larkin laments being "a bit uptight... on account of I'm white."
One punch line answer to that question is, “All the time,” of course, since history and popular culture in America are dominated by white privilege. However, it’s rare to call out being white as an identity with its own stereotypes, group commonalities and limiting expectations—and rarer to do it in a funny and self-deprecating way, as (white) folk singer Patty Larkin does in this 1990 live track. An analysis of this song could make an interesting opening activity for a unit on racial and ethnic identity in a high school or college media class for mostly white groups of learners as well as for mixed groups or groups with mostly one other ethnicity (perhaps a welcome change to see a white person aware, and mildly critical, of her whiteness).
Click on highlighted lyrics above for discussion ideas, or sign in to Genius to add your own comments to the annotation.
[AFTER THE JUMP, some backstory on how this song came up recently, and a brief reflection on the importance of studying media representations of white identity]
When mainstream media spews ignorant views, what can you do? Well, the Women's Soccer national team from Norway decided to show just how stupid it is to assume that women can not compete in sports as compelling entertainers and dynamic athletes. They made this hilarious video (below) in response to commentary from a Sports Illustrated columnist about the Women's World Cup not being worth watching, (and going further to say all women's sports are not worth watching). The video demonstrates a classic creative tactic for dealing with dummies--just pretend all the absurd assumptions are true by dramatizing the idiocy to reveal the ignorance for what it is--and it is truly hilarious.
This video makes a merry model for media literate civic engagement that advanced teens and young adults could enjoy trying out as a way to address ignorant views on issues they care about. I recommend analyzing this video by focusing on these two questions:
What ignorant assumptions about women soccer players and athletes are ironically portrayed in the video?
What techniques does the video use to deliver the irony (discuss each joke)?
Satire often involves flawlessly portraying a respected style of communication, here an investigative news report expose', and requires characters to perform absurdity as if it were commonplace (which isn't so hard since it so often is!). There are many excellent guides on the web for composing satire (get started with this or this). After analyzing this video, I think it would be a blast to ask your learning group to make their own satirical video or skit to make the haters look silly (call the assignment: Make the Haters Look Silly).
Check out ideas for making satirical takedowns of haters after the jump, but before that, I just have to say that this flagrant sexism from Sports Illustrated isn't a huge surprise. Still, it's especially infuriating amidst the most exciting FIFA Women's World Cup yet (and this is from a die hard Michelle Akers fan who has been following since its inception in 1991). The U.S. women just found their groove tonight in an inspired win over Germany to advance to the final, and my whole household of extended family was rockin! My brother made us all jerseys with different players (mine is an Akers throwback and my two year old daughter wears Wambach!), and we have loved seeing women from all over the world leave it all on the field in dazzling displays of passion and skill. So, this next video isn't as great for media literacy development (the style is simple snarky sarcasm rather than elaborate satire), but the snark is so satisfying to see after enduring the news about mainstream media missing the boat (and worse), again. As a special treat, just for the laughs and retribution, enjoy this clip reuniting ex-SaturdayNightLive news anchors Amy Poehler and Seth Myers in a rant against ignorant attitudes about women's sports.
[AFTER THE JUMP, ideas for creating your own satirical responses to ignorant views prevalent in media and society]
This week's joke of the week came to us from a fortune cookie I cracked open after a decent meal of moo shoo pork following NAMLE 2015 (National Association for Media Literacy Education conference. I cringed and cackled as I read the message that struck to the heart of both the hopes and fears of my identity as a media literacy advocate. An existential masterpiece!
Fortune hits home for media literacy advocates
I think this fortune has the quality I most highly esteem in humor: sentiment that is both ironic and sincere at the same time. If I may paraphrase others paraphrasing Mark Twain, the surest sign of a rare intelligence is the capacity to consider contradicting notions simultaneously as valuable and valid. Do you feel respected and/or disrespected and/or lacking respect as a media educator, all at once? I sure do! I can't count the times I have been patted on the back for doing something "so important" and "so necessary" for learners of all different age groups and settings, feeling good for a few minutes, and then realizing that the pat on the back comes with no room in the curricula, no funding, no supporting efforts and no growth in the participatory community for doing and expanding media literacy. Like much of the best comedy, this fortune cookie delivered hope, some hidden truth, and a slap in the face all in one neat little package.
Friday night, the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) awarded the collection of short films We the Economy its "Media Literate Media" honor. The award is "designed to interest mainstream media in doing, covering or including media literacy in their work by recognizing outstanding contributions made by mainstream media professionals with national reach." At the awards ceremony, the short film, The Unbelievably Sweet Alpacas by Adam McKay, co-founder of the Funny or Die website. I loved the film short, but I was puzzled about its connection to ML. Take a look at the video let us know your thoughts on this question in the comments below:
How is this short film "doing, covering or including" media literacy? What makes this "Media Literate Media?"
Just to make sure I wasn't totally crazy and out on my own with being confused about the media literacy connection, I asked the people sitting near me at the NAMLE 2015 awards ceremony what the film short had to do with media literacy, and the answers I got ranged from "I don't know" to "Nothing."
"If media literacy means anything that's critical and media, then yes, it includes media literacy." -- Dr. Grazi-Prego
Because I like the video itself so much, I watched it with some other colleagues and friends the next night, after the NAMLE conference concluded, and posed the question above. The first response got a lot of laughs among our group, from future long time ML4ML guest pundit, Dr. Grazi-Prego, "If media literacy means anything that's critical and media, then yes, it includes media literacy. They're only posing one perspective. I almost saw it as the opposite of media literacy. But what do I know, I'm just a doctor [of Media & Communication]." Certainly, the video would make a great text for media literacy analysis because of its clever techniques in delivering a complicated message about important issues, but I had to agree that the video itself seemed to be promoting the transmission of knowledge from a particular perspective with strong appeals to authority ("most economic experts agree").
Maybe we're missing something (we usually are). What's your take? [Share in comments below].
[After the jump, I share a funny exchange with colleagues and friends upon a second viewing after the NAMLE conference, and I consider whether our puzzlement is a troubling symptom for the field]
I'm not saying you're an idiot if you don't use this post to teach about my favorite rhetorical device, but I think you'll find this classic Daily Show clip from 1999 both hilarious and useful for making media literacy learners aware of apophasis, or assertion by denial, if you're not an idiot (see what I did there!). The comedy in the clip comes from correspondents ironically critiquing news media for focusing on critiquing news media, for example: "Media talking about media makes me sick." See if you can note each instance of apophasis in the clip, and I'll list my notes after the jump below.
I remember a philosophy professor explaining the power of apophasis in relation to the power of suggestion as he told us, "Don't think of pink elephants." And, of course, everyone did. Linguistic signifiers of negation may frame our understanding, but they do not negate our attention to the images we see or hear expressed. Becoming sensitive to persuasive rhetorical devices supports learners in developing heightened awareness of such media techniques, but I wonder whether this awareness has any mitigating effect on the persuasiveness of the message or whether it affects our view of a speaker's credibility. Once you start to notice apophasis, you see it and hear it everywhere, particularly in political discourse. And, as the clip above shows, you can use its simple irony to great humorous effect. However, I don't think I'd have learners practice using the rhetorical device themselves since it ultimately seems deceitful to me. Perhaps the way to go would be to start a discussion about how learners feel about the use of apophasis in communication--is it ethical, deceitful, effective, justifiable, etc.? Then, maybe you could use a tool like Mediabreakerto expose egregious uses of apophasis in politics, news, or advertisements.
Still, studying apophasis raises a perennial issue in media education about studying harmful media messages in order to recognize (to avoid) and perhaps mitigate them, a dilemma captured in Vance Degeneres's comment,
"I have a clip, but I should warn you, it involves shocking sensationalism that should not be shown except as an example of what not to show."
I suppose the solution to the pedagogical dilemma around whether or not to show bad media to "innoculate" learners lies in balance and shared agency. I think that we need to learn to question and recognize techniques in all sorts of media messages, and that we might be better off selecting texts for analysis and messages/modes for media productions collectively, with our learning group, or at least taking turns, with an eye for balancing our exposure to positive and negative models of communication, and for developing ways for determining such value. It's tough to keep learning open, collaborative, reflective, creative and critical, but I think it's worth the effort, not that I'm saying you're a lazy disgrace to the profession if you don't try to do so.
[AFTER THE JUMP, my list of examples of apophasis from the classic Daily Show clip above]
Why are we watching sitcoms and reading comics in class? Am I really learning something important by talking about movies and memes? Students can be just as confused about the prospect of studying popular culture as teachers committed to the canon of great literature in a given discipline.
Rather than arguing the case or justifying pop through analysis, I suggest jumping into the confusion with a clip from Louis CK's show that puts the pleasures of high art in sharp relief against a backdrop of grotesque burlesque. Use the clip below from Louie to discuss the following important questions for media literacy (that can apply in any media analysis):
How and why do different people find pleasure (or revulsion) in this media text?
What does pleasure from this media text afford the individual (do for you or for other people)--personally, socially and culturally?
How might this media text appeal differently to members of different taste cultures or discourse communities (groups with identities built around common ways of thinking, appearing and communicating; e.g., fans of Louie, art aficionados, homeless advocates, high school teachers, media literacy educators, etc.)? Why?
Now that is a way to kick off a discussion about taste cultures! Asking these sorts of questions lead to discussion of how culture constructs identities and the role our tastes play in the friends we make, the jobs we pursue, and the parts of the world we explore or avoid. In addition to using the questions above to examine the contrast between each of the performances in the clip, the violin player's and the homeless man's, it's also worth exploring how each comments on the other through their juxtaposition. For me, the classical beauty of the violin piece creates an almost operatic, tragic quality to the homeless man's bath, and gives me ethical pangs about how we can enjoy and spend money on such high art while people we pass everyday on the street continue to suffer such indignity. The homeless bath also has its own beauty and honesty, and absurdity that is as hard for me to turn away from as it is to look at. It makes me think of all the ways we find pleasure in watching others suffer, especially in online video, and the presence of the violinist makes me wish I could overcome or transcend those impulses--but the honesty and brazen display of vulgar and debased humanity in the homeless man's public shower makes me marvel at his resilience and value his display as somehow noble, and I begin to re-imagine my sickened guffaw as a new kind of laughter, rather than laughing at him, laughing with the homeless man at the absurdities of elevated culture and taste itself. Anyhow, you can see how articulating responses to the clip might get interesting and lead to some discovery about your own and others' tastes.
[AFTER THE JUMP, I suggest having learners create their own high/low culture video mashups, and discuss moving beyond historical tension in media education]
If you are teaching a media studies, sociology or arts course that considers theories of race, identity or performativity, and you don't take time to discuss the Rachel Dolezal NAACP fiasco in the news, well, then either your syllabus is too rigid or you are a fool. Fortunately, we suffer fools gladly at ML4ML, and have just the clip to kick you into a wisely foolish discussion of this fascinating case of a woman born of White parents, who identifies as Black, and became the Vice President of the Spokane, WA chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As you watch the clip below, consider using the following analysis prompts:
What are the three settings/personas selected to represent the views from the Black community, and what aspects or archetypes of Black culture do they satirize?
How do the correspondents question or support the host's race identity/performance at the end of the clip, and what do these jokes have to say about how we judge racial authenticity?
What does the Black Emergency Technician's focus on Dolezal's hair say about the performance of race?
What are the White Amnesty Advocate's arguments for accepting the "world's first Black convert" on a "path to Black citizenship," what makes them funny, and how do they relate to real issues and views?
How does the White-Black-Woman Hunter's claim that "this is a conspiracy that white people have been hiding for years... fake Black people are everywhere" relate to reality?
Learners are likely to have strong reactions to the Dolezal story. I suggest asking all to write down their opinions of her situation in response to a straight news clip or in depth article about the fiasco, and then to phrase their opinions in the form of a question. This can take the sting out of some inflammatory views, and sometimes turn strong reactions into curiosity [but be prepared to redirect persistent confrontational simplifications, like "Why is she so crazy?"]. Then, once everyone has a basic idea of the news story, take a look at some comedy versions, like the Daily Show and Nightly Show, to see what is funny to people and why.
I think it's important to privilege Black comics' views (and news sources) in this inquiry since Black identity has been subjugated historically, and dominant media representations are still ultimately controlled predominantly by wealthy white men. It's also key to consider Dolezal's own voice, and the NAACP organizational response. Then, if it suits your learning situation, it'd be great to look at this news story, and its satirical critiques, through lenses of identity theories, which I have found to be useful to learners in discussing race.
However, I'd be a bit wary in how I'd use this clip in relation to performative identity theories; I'd guess that learners might easily conflate performance with lying, or pretending, as many may see Dolezal as consciously putting on airs to deceive. To help give learners some language and concepts for discussion and analysis of the issues raised by this news story, I'd probably use a cocktail of Stuart Hall's notion of race as floating signifier and racial permutations of Judith Butler's gender performativity theory (or research like this), balanced by more pop culture and biological perspectives as explored by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Finding Your Rootsseries on PBS.
How do you feel about using humor to address this issue? [Doesn't it seem inevitable?] How would you design inquiry and discussion of the Rachel Dolezal news story?
Much like puppets, cartoons can offer opportunities to examine complicated and controversial issues through comedy and allegory that offer critical distance from the embodied engagement with human actors in video. McTucky Fried High is a compelling, often funny, new animated web series that uses fast food characters to portray LBGTQ issues among teens at school. Viewing this series may not fly in socially conservative educational communities, but in moderate or progressive communities, the series offers media literacy educators of teens and young adults an opportunity to laugh about and discuss the trials and tribulations around sexual identity in high school. The following Vialogue post invites discussion while modeling prompts for media literacy inquiry useful for exploring gay identity representation and for discussing how the McTucky Fried High culture relates to your learners' reality, with the following key questions:
How do students assume gay people are oppressed at McTucky High? How are they actually oppressed?
How does it seem they are supported?
How is gay identity exploited by students?
How do these representations of oppression, support and exploitation compare to the reality at your school?
I was especially excited to see these cartoons after reading parts of Lauren Berliner's dissertation, Making It Better: LGBT Youth and New Pedagogies of Media Production(2013), where she critiques identity-based youth media production projects like the It Gets Better Campaign for "interpellating queer youth into fixed, homogenous, subject positions" and "conflating video visibility with action, expression, and power" (p. 230). Part of her critique called my attention to the power of remaining unseen or unnamed (as gay, or what have you), which well-meaning youth media production activities may disrupt by making learners perform or embody their beliefs on video. The McTucky Fried High web series offers not only a rich media text for analysis of LGBTQ issues from a variety of points of view, which students may or may not take up at their own discretion, but it also suggests animation as a medium for youth production activities addressing identity issues.
[More after the jump on how cartoons allow learners to confront identity issues with distance from embodiment in media literacy analysis and production; and a bit on the tension in MLE around educators taking up particular political positions]
Puppets, especially puppets portraying adult situations, can create a heightened sense of awareness about the construction of narrative and character as well as about our own meaning making and communication processes. I guess that's in part why therapists use them, and why they make storytelling funnier, as they certainly do in this series of web videos, Tales From Tinder, on stories from people's personal experiences of using the Tinder dating app--often with calamitous results.
For an adult learning group or college class, a discussion of how using puppets to tell these personal stories of dating misadventure offers an opportunity to examine the communication technique as well as the pitfalls of dating apps like Tinder. The audio is from interviews with Tinder users from around the world of different genders and sexualities. The themes are mature, for sure, and some of the language is profane, so be warned. However, it is fascinating to ask:
How does the use of puppets affect the story and the storyteller?
How does this web series comment on Tinder and other digital apps for dating?
How do you feel about mixing dating and digital media?
Sharing stories of misadventure in social media, and dramatizing the story and storytelling with puppets could make for a fun media literacy lesson as well, empowering learners to reflect on and share experiences through production while creating a collective examination of protectionist themes around the potential dangers of digital media use. My previous post on the muppets offers more reflection on how puppets and parody may support media literacy, and an earlier post about Tinder offers some ideas for creating critiques of new media. Thanks to the Junkee blog for pointing us towards this fascinating Tales from Tinder project from Melbourne-based TV producer Emma Watts.
The Muppet Show is back this fall in primetime on network TV and poised to call our attention to all the media production techniques our current popular sitcoms use to make us laugh and reinforce our notions of personal and cultural identity:
The original Muppet Show was appointment TV every week for my family in the late 70s, but it wasn't until this particular moment (below) in The Muppet Movie that I realized how those fuzzy puppets had been teaching me all along about the construction of media and representation of culture and identity. Use this post to prompt the following questions:
How did you become media literate?
What popular media supported your media literacy development?
How does parody call attention to media techniques and representations?
In anticipation of the return of The Muppets to primetime network TV this fall, I reflect on this pivotal personal moment of critical distance, and discuss why parody in puppetry can be effective for media literacy development, as the new version of the show plans to lampoon confessional-style sitcoms like TheOffice and Modern Family while using the format of TV production sitcoms like 30 Rock that call attention to the making of a late night comedy show.
But first, let's set the scene. A darkened movie theater in Baltimore, 1979, I was six years old, and completely enthralled in the journey of Kermit the Frog (and his "weirdo" friends) to Hollywood with their goal of "making millions of people happy" and the love story between Kermit & Ms. Piggy that had unfolded over the past 45 minutes, which was falling apart before my eyes on the screen. And then...
Aha! This is all a movie, and a movie made by the characters on screen, no less! My young mind was blown! At that moment, I had a flood of awareness about all the ways that the movies and shows I watched were made to tell stories to audiences. I noticed the people around me in the theater watching, just like the muppets on screen watched the movie they had made in the story on screen. For the first time, I wanted to make a movie myself--at that moment, one where Piggy and Kermit would just be friends and go play with the other muppets (because the romance was making me a little uncomfortable!).
Parody Pulls Back the Curtain
This moment was the key for me that unlocked the constructed-ness of many other shows and movies, starting with the original Muppet Show, which was a parody of the most popular TV format of the 1970s, the variety show, but it offered backstage scenes of the producer (Kermit) and cast with audience commentary (remember the two old guys, Statler and Waldorf, wisecracking in the balcony, and the call and response moment in the opening theme song with the audience singing, "Why don't you get things started"). I began to see how the muppets were always making fun of how entertainment was made, always showing the seams in the otherwise seamless media representations in which TV and movies immersed me. Whether by singing slightly off key or subverting my expectations (like Gonzo's failed trumpet blast to start every show), the muppets always called my attention to my own expectations about how stories should unfold and I started to realize that those parodied TV shows and movies created those expectations, and that you could play with them and do things differently. I started to see how everything that the muppets did was making fun of popular culture, which I often encountered for the first time through their comedy. I think this had the effect of making me see everything as made by someone for some purpose, and that the purpose could be subverted or changed--and that subversion is fun!
[After the jump, more on pop culture parody as provocateur of critical autonomy, how the muppets made me question notions of race and gender, and ideas for making puppet parodies for ML]
As my seasonal allergies rage, I thought I'd revisit a Daily Show segment from late May that begins by satirizing the outrageously exaggerated descriptions in news coverage of pollen.
"Pollen Tsunami definitely sounds like a real scientific term...
I don't even need to check it; I trust you, you're the news."
The clip (below) has all the elements of great critique and satire, using its own hyperbole to call out the news as well as historical perspective, evidence in multiple examples, appeals to authority, and all that good stuff we need to understand for our media literacy and rhetorical skills. But instead of Stewart ending with the usual media watchdog routine of chastising the news for subverting its own cause and exacerbating fear in an already legitimately fearful public, the clip turns on itself in a remarkable critique of its own cynical humor. Take a look, and I'll share some thoughts about the importance of this warning about the dangers of cynicism towards the media that we educators risk when we focus learning exclusively on demystifying messages through analysis. Without taking care to involve support for media production and civic action in our pedagogy, teaching media literacy through humorous media (the whole basis of this blog) may run the same risk of making media-smart-asses rather than media-smart-citizens.
It seems that Stewart's joke on himself shows how a cynical view, making fun of the news for always sacrificing the truth to sensationalism, can be misleading, incorrect, and unproductive. The research of Paul Mihailidis has shown that media literacy courses focused on critical analysis risk fostering cynical attitudes towards news and civic engagement in students. While this clip above makes a fantastic illustration, and discussion piece, for exercising media literacy to demystify news constructions and distortions of reality, its final messages reinforce the dubious and cynical attitude that the big ironic twist calls attention to as dangerous in Stewart's own approach. Not only does the clip call attention to the difficulties in trusting representations of scientific evidence as reflecting reality, when a positive alternative solution finally emerges from the surprise guest spokesperson for the Athsma and Allergy Foundation of America, Stewart dismisses it with a shrug, hopelessly resigned to our future of being "drown" in "oceans of snot." Stewart's job is being funny while opening eyes to some truths, and he does his job here. Our job as media educators is to do a bit more, I think, to inspire learners to act and support the notion that taking action can lead to positive change. Healthy skepticism does not slide into toxic cynicism; the health in healthy skepticism of media comes when it leads to productive choices and when it inspires informed action. So, can this sort of humor inspire healthy skepticism? What would you do to balance the cynical side of satire supporting media literacy analysis?
[After the jump, against my better judgment, I have posted a vialogues link with ideas for leading a close analysis of the clip--see if you can use it for good!]
This short video below of an art installation is hilarious if you know what the Tinder App is, and most young folks (say, ages 10-30) that use mobile media do know about it. For those familiar with Tinder, the message about the app is pretty clear, and for media literacy educators it offers an opportunity beyond discussing dating apps to challenge and inspire learners to create their own artwork that expresses their feelings or views on a particular type of media device, app, or use.
If you don't know what Tinder is, the tweens, adolescents, young adults and skeevy over 35's in your life can tell you--though I wouldn't recommend introducing the topic with kids under high school age unless it's already a thing with them. It's a dating app for touch screen mobile phones where you swipe right if you approve of the photo and short bio of the person who appears, or left to see the next person. You may then choose to contact those you swipe right to meet in person or to chat by text or by phone.
I suppose analyzing the metaphor is the right way to start; however, remind learners that you're not doing it to kill the humor, but so that they might be inspired to create their own visual metaphors for some media use that they feel strongly about that we may use uncritically or take for granted. So, um... it's a piece of raw meat repeatedly swiping right on a touch screen phone loaded with the Tinder app--what could it possibly mean?!? You could let that discussion drift into safety and ethical questions around dating apps like Tinder (if you swipe right for that sort of thing), or you could focus on creating visual metaphors for other media uses by breaking learners into creative teams to: 1) choose an app, game, media use, or some such media related behavior they feel strongly about; 2) describe the media app/use/behavior and express their feelings in a sentence or two; 3) develop a visual metaphor to communicate their view of the media app/use/behavior; 4) realize the visual metaphor in their own artwork; 5) if everyone is into it, have a small show of your work for your greater learning community, or post to someplace online (and send us a link!).
The installation above was a video project created in the Netherlends by video game design student Marcello Gomez Maureira. Thanks to boingboing for sharing!
For more on Tinder try this or this... and lots more out there, too.
We hear a lot of concern about how folks focus too much on their phones and not enough on the people and events right in front of them in real life, but we seldom balance that annoyance with recognition of how our everywhere access to digital media may enhance our real life experience.
"How do you appreciate a thing and google it at the same time? That's no way to live a life."
The clip below, from a recent episode of Louie, pokes fun at our kneejerk negativity, subverting common parental assumptions about their kids' mobile media use. As I'll discuss below, the clip makes a great bait and switch discussion piece for exploding assumptions and exploring the important media literacy questions: Does our cell phone use create attention deficit or enhancement? Do our mobile media disorder or enrich our experience?
[After the jump, ideas for leading discussion of the clip, and for writing a comic scene subverting generational expectations about media use]
My sister-in-law cracked me up inadvertently with this one-liner, which made me realize just how much knowledge of pop culture is at the ready in my head enabling me to laugh at the mixed up references in the joke.
We were talking about summer blockbuster movies, and she expressed worry over the realism of special effects in Jurassic Park: "It's like c'mon, Shakespeare, you can make a better shark!" I burst out laughing, as did the others in the room. Turns out, she meant to say "Spielberg" (the director of the first Jurassic Park movie), instead of "Shakespeare" (the Elizabethan English writer with the frilly collar and the "To be or not to be" and whatnot), and she meant "dinosaur," the scary creatures from the distant past brought to life in Jurassic Park, instead of "shark" (the scary creature terrorizing swimmers in Jaws). The interesting part, for somebody who thinks about media literacy all the time (me), is that we all instantly knew what she meant to say through the context of our conversation (a new Jurassic Park movie is just coming out this summer) and recognized the errors as humorously related to her intentions. To get the joke, we had to know Spielberg directed Jurassic Park and Jaws. We had to know that each film starred scary, realistic creatures--dinosaurs and sharks respectively. And, we had to know Shakespeare as the emblem of high culture entertainment and art through wordcraft in plays, in contrast to our knowledge of Spielberg's fame for visual entertainment blockbuster flicks of fear and adventure. But we didn't just have to know it, we had to know it instantly, or as humor researchers say, we had to know it for "Just-in-Time" psychological processing (for more, see Hurley, Dennet, & Adams), so that we could recognize, and laugh at, the mix up. It boggles my mind how much pop culture knowledge we must carry around, ready for access at all times. It's an important thing to sensitize teachers and learners to when we begin to teach about popular culture and about how to think critically about its role in our lives. So, why not challenge your group of learners to notice how much pop culture knowledge they must activate "Just-in-time" to get a joke or to laugh at something funny. You could start by relating your own story, or this story--see if anyone laughs or gets what might be funny about it, and congratulate the others who don't have a clue for investing their precious brain power in other cultural resources! Make it a contest to see who can notice the funniest moment involving the most pop culture references (rate the former by vote, and the latter by number of things you have to know from pop culture). The exercise could lead from an appreciation of the extent of what we know, to an exploration of what we should do about and with it...
What do you do when you feel disrespected by the views of a protesting crowd making a spectacle of their intolerance? In the face of insults from southern California protestors demanding tougher illegal immigration enforcement, the guy in the first video discussed below decided to burst into a joyful dance and wave a Mexican flag to elicit enthusiastic responses from passersby. This video makes a great discussion piece about the power of joy and laughter to subvert angry media messages.
People in the U.S. exercise their rights to free speech and public assembly, which includes protests expressing intolerant, racist and xenophobic views. When we encounter such expressions that oppose the basic notions of tolerance and respect upon which we design education for participation in pluralistic democracy, what can we do? We can talk back, fighting fire with fire, showing the same passion and outrage in expressing our own beliefs. But is anger as good as laughter for combatting hate?
The video above had been uploaded by an angry protestor to make fun of the joyful dancer, but was picked up by news agencies and blogs that celebrated the dancer's action, making this a rich topic for exploring the potential for using humor to counter intolerant views in civic action and viral video--and it offers great connections for considering core media literacy concepts of author's purposes versus the different ways people may understand, and repurpose, messages. The notion of humor trumping hate in public performances caught on video reminded me of a favorite moment for comparison where, last year, angry soccer fans directed racist chants at Barcelona FC star Dani Alves, and then this happened:
A video posted by DanialvesD2 My Twitter (@danid2ois) on
As shown in this second video, when someone throws a banana at Alves while he prepared to take a corner kick, instead of responding with anger or leaving the field as other stars have done, Alves picked up the fruit, peeled it and ate it, then kicked the ball to resume play. Here, instead of a user-generated video involving everyday folks picked up by mass media, we see competing messages of hate and humor from sports fans and a celebrity athlete broadcast in mass media, then excerpted for viral sharing by bloggers and digital media users. Last spring when this happened, Alves posted the video on Instagram, and he and his teammates and celebrity friends began to circulate their own viral tweets and Instagram posts with pictures of themselves and their families eating bananas with the hashtag #weareallmokeys and #SayNoToRacism. What a way to take the sting out of that insult!
[More after the jump with suggestions for leading analytic discussion and follow up production activities for young adults in any learning setting interested in understanding how to construct effective counter-messages in digital media and how to engage in civic action...]
If you connect ML4ML with all your facebook friends, we promise to always wish you a happy birthday with lots of exclamation points, clever punctuation, and emojis, when prompted by an alert message, unless we forget or have something else to do--which you will be totally okay with because we don't really know each other anyway, we just like some of the same things, maybe. Yeah, emerging online behavior norms and interpersonal ethics are pretty tricky. If we are going to have any hope of sorting out the emotional confusion between our close friends and myriad acquaintances that our social media apps refer to as our "friends," we need to activate our digital media literacies. With help from musical parody act, Garfunkel and Oates, let's see how laughing with their song "Happy Birthday to My Loose Acquaintance" can help us consider some key questions about emerging interpersonal ethics.
"We coexist in a mutually unstated /unattached cohesion that facebook created... to keep our minor affinity with minimal maintenance"
This song has a couple of brilliant moments, like the lyrics in the caption above, that offer tight definitions of what Internet scholars call "loose ties," connections to people that only exist through shared interests or other mutual acquaintances, often supported or created by digital algorithms in social networking apps and maintained with minimal attention and effort. This post offers resources for using the Garfunkel & Oates song to explore the value of loose tie relationships in social media, and how they affect our behavior, beliefs and attitudes towards friendship. First, enjoy a hot minute of crack-up from G&O: Above is my Vialogues post with the embedded video featuring my annotated discussion questions and comments, and here is a link to a pdf of those notes. I have also uploaded the lyrics text, and my annotated questions/comments to Genius (embedded below), the awesome annotation app that I highly recommend (there is a way to get a free educator account to restrict the annotation/ discussion to your group's work, but my post is public). So, you can 1) focus on the lyrics conversation through Genius if that works best for your group, 2) start a group Vialogue of your own (or add to mine); or 3) do the group analysis analog, without tech, using the annotated printout pdf to support discussion for a group viewing or listening session. I also did a Vialogue post of just the lyrics, and here is a link to a pdf of the lyrics.
Once you've had a good discussion of this song, it can make for a nice model of how parody can be constructive (and instructive). Making funny songs is actually really hard (I'll reflect on my own experience in a musical comedy writing workshop in an upcoming post), but young media makers often strive to make their peers laugh through mocking familiar behaviors in the style of pop culture media they enjoy. It's hard to fine good models of doing parody to spark constructive discussion--so, this sort of video/song and discussion provide an opportunity to link analysis to learner's own production interests. Look for a post soon about some strategies for making musical comedy. Often the best question to ask is the simplest; so, I recommend asking: Why is it funny? Ask for any given joke, like the line "Happy birthday dear person who I sort of know." The typical response is that it’s funny cuz it’s true. But that’s pretty weak. Push for better articulation. For this song, I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s funny because it seems like a contradiction ["dear person” instead of friend, who I “sort of know”] that many of us use without thinking about it. This makes us conscious of our error, and the inconsistency is funny (partly because it’s safe too, since so many people do it, we’re not feeling like the outcast or feeling like we’re cruelly singling others out). It’s nice to know we are wired to get pleasure from finding out our own mistakes and foibles.
Is your screen time out of control? It's tough to judge how our own digital media use is affecting us, but it's easy to judge characters on sitcoms--that's what they're there for! As far as I know, last week's episode of ABC's Modern Family (Season 6, Episode 16, "Connection Lost")was the first major network sitcom broadcast to set its comedy completely within the ubiquitous screens its characters use to communicate with each other.
Last week's Modern Family episode unfolds entirely on Claire's laptop screen, shot on Apple devices, portrayed in "real time"--ripe for media literacy inquiry.
This fantastic farce of misapprehension, misplaced assumptions, and dubious online ethics offers an opportunity for us to reflect on how digital environments have become a new norm as a setting for our daily dramas.
The gags call our attention to the limitations of the media we use to communicate and problem-solve, and to how they may complicate our attempts to understand and represent ourselves and each other. There's a central theme around parental surveillance, or as Haley says to her mom, "It's called privacy--Google it!" The production choices--sliding between frames, opening and closing windows, using natural sound from other media--all heighten the hilarity (IMHO), and it's in real time; so, I think we can look at this as innovative from an artistic perspective. It can also be seen as a relentless informercial for Apple products, which were used to shoot entire the episode and provide the context for show's dramatic action--the ultimate target for some analysis of native advertising techniques (but wait, Apple says they did not pay a penny!...). This is a mess for media literacy inquiry if there ever was one!
I think this whole episode is worth a group viewing, and can be used to connect with a wide range of media literacy issues for high school, college and adult learners in English or media studies classes. It's a great way to start an exploration of new literacies, multimodality, new media literacies, or critical media literacy in teacher education classes. Youth media groups and media arts classes can also benefit from studying the production techniques used in this episode to represent online experience in a televisual medium (in this regard, it's also great for comparison to this Portlandia clip discussed in a prior post). My (bad) instinct is to try to do it all, to milk a text with such rich possibilities for all its worth, and to offer multiple paths for diverse interests that we jigsaw together. So, after the jump, I'll set up a series of interest groups with particular things to look for and discuss in this episode, and you pick and choose to focus on what will work for you and yours. Deal? Deal.
Where have you been? Well, as you can see from yesterday's new post, ML4ML is back! Our beloved blog has been on hiatus while I finished my dissertation contributing to the history of media literacy--here's a clip of my defense:
Whoops! That was just an approximation of the process brought to you by the funny folks at BYUtv's Studio C, but dissertation defenses do get a bit medieval, and literally reach back to medieval times. My advisor literally told me to "Bring a sword," and that she loves "the ritual," which many describe in terms of brutality and torture. Speaking of which, I won't get it into what my historical research is about here--it's not funny enough, yet. But I will offer the following clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to emphasize the importance of context, and in particular historical context.
Obama: I'm a single mom, and at the end of the month,
it's really hard for me to pay the bills.
Stewart: That's not why you lost. Actually, that joke was brought to you by Context.
Context, look at how silly the world would be without Context.
In this post (after the jump), I recommend using the Daily Show clip below to remind us how much knowledge it takes for jokes about current events in the news to make sense (this clip is from just last November, the day after the GOP won back the U.S. Congress in overwhelming fashion in the midterm elections), and how accurate representation is not just about showing real images and quoting accurately.
With the Department of Justice report on the Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department released this week, media literacy educators everywhere should be supporting learners in analyzing how news producers and audiences are responding and representing the findings in relation to media representation of race and social justice. Beyond analysis, it is vitally important for students to see how their work and participation matters.
On the Harry Potter Alliance's successful protest of Warner Bros. to ensure all chocolate with Harry Potter's likeness was fair trade, Wilmore quipped: "After Ferguson and Garner, it bugs me a little bit that in 2014 this is the only chocolate that got justice... But my point is, they succeeded. Okay, so they can work. There is hope."
Without a connection to civic engagement, media literacy analysis can lead students to feel cynical about their own power to make change. But often, learners are already cynical about politics and have little awareness of how their own participation, online and off, can and does have an impact. In this post, we'll look closely at some comedy about anti-racism protests to start discussion of our own feelings about civic engagement. On his debut show on MLK day, Nightly host Larry Wilmore posed questions about the "State of the Black protest." Just as Wilmore used his jokes about protests to set up the topic for his panel, the segment offers media literacy educators a compelling way to engage learners in media analysis of Wilmore's comedy to launch subsequent discussion of how students feel about protests, which are media events themselves, and about other forms of engagement for emerging digital citizens.
Wilmore's humor considers both cynicism and hope for effective civic action while provocatively connecting to issues of social justice and race representation in media. Through analyzing the following segment (posted with suggestions after the jump), your group will be primed to discuss a range of questions linking their media literacy with civic engagement: What issues are worth public protest? What can/do/should protests achieve (expression of outrage, articulation of demands, public awareness, tangible change, an outlet to diffuse violent uprising)? What methods should protests take (including in the digital sphere)? What level of disruption of daily life do protests merit? How/when should news media cover public protests (and when should you spread the word or participate)? Can protests today address race issues effectively? What other sorts of civic action can make change in response to public issues, particularly issues involving Black men and law enforcement? How does your digital participation matter when you represent yourself and your views, and when you pay attention, comment, share or otherwise engage with these issues? Suggestions and examples for connecting media analysis of the clip to these larger questions about civic action, social justice, race and media representation--all appear after the jump below the embedded clip.
