Blog Week 9

After watching the movie Tough Guise I was kind of taken aback by the harsh criticism Jackson Katz uses against males and some of the holes in a few of his arguments. While I agree with the overall point of the video I found that some of the points that Katz brought to attention only weakened his argument. The one that stood out strongly in my mind was his use of sports as personifying the tough guise image. Firstly he brought up the point of hockey and baseball fights and how it is negatively impacting this generation by glorifying violence and enforcing a tough guy image. Hockey and baseball have both been around for over 100 years now and to say that fighting is negatively affecting the youth of today makes one question why every other generation that has grown up watching and playing these sports has not been affected. Hockey especially has been cleaned up immensely in the past ten years with harsher penalties and suspensions for fighting and a focus more on the goal scoring side of the sport. Another sport analogy Katz uses is the menacing football coach that won’t let players show emotion and forces them to “be a man”. After playing football for 6 years I did not have a single coach that told me to “be a man” if I was injured. The priority of all the coaches in my experience was to make sure the athlete was not seriously injured and they would never tell someone to play through an injury they thought to be serious. Another stat that Katz used to support the tough guise argument was that 99.8% of all rapes are carried out by males. While I’m not discounting this stat, it is very one sided because it is nearly impossible for a woman to rape a man because of the physics of sexual intercourse. The other stats that Katz provided in the video are appalling and definitely need to be dealt with I just find the rape statistic to be a one sided falsification of the issue. Another example of Katz showing only one side of the actual story is his use of Cuba Gooding Jr. in Boyz in the Hood. This whole genre of movies including Boyz in the Hood, Juice, South Central and Menace II Society glorify and display the images of violence that Katz himself is arguing against. He uses a clip from Juice to show the tough guy persona at the beginning of the film and then uses a movie with an almost exact plot to try and justify his argument at the end of the film. My last argument about the Tough Guise video is that Katz brought attention to the “rise” in gay bashing. I feel that looking back historically the gay and lesbian community has been accepted now more than ever. The whole persona of gays and lesbians is shown in a much different light than years past and I think that society as a whole is much more accepting. While there are still many people that are anti-gay and lesbian I personally believe that they are now the minority and with more time will come more acceptance. In closing, I am not disagreeing with Jackson Katz’s stand on the subject of the tough guise that many males display and if anything totally agree with his argument but I feel that some of the points he brought to light were not entirely truthful and were used to sway the viewers opinion. This is very clearly a problem in our society that can be seen on a daily basis and Katz has done an excellent job of bringing the issues to light.

Blog Week 8

Although there are many atrocities that happen while living on the street, I feel that most of the hip hop artists of today are glorifying the violence. It almost seems that if you’re not from the “ghetto” or haven’t been to jail that your career as a hip hop artist will never succeed. Some artists have even taken advantage of this fact and produced their records while in jail in hopes of boosting their record sales. The show Trailer Park Boys does a humorous but very true parody of this situation in which the rapper in the park is forced to live under his trailer so no one finds out that he actually didn’t go to jail and simply got off with community service. Notoriety is even further exaggerated by the media which prides itself on publishing articles about famous people going to jail. As young artists start out in the music industry they could only hope for the same amount of free press that a rapper would get if he went to jail. When middle-class kids start listening to this music they get a false sense of the law and think that this type of behaviour is okay. While these types of lyrics have a negative influence on society they also push out many of the talented artists that actually have something to say. Listening to hip hop right now is so repetitive because the only thing people are rapping about is how much drugs they’ve sold, how many guns they have or how much bling they’ve amassed. When artists glorifying violence and drugs outsell artists with actual talent and a message behind them it is a sad time for the music industry.

Blog Week 7

After reading the comment in the subculture and counterculture slideshow about how music was one of the most important means in expressing the values of the hippie culture it makes one think that music has always been a significant source of popular culture for every generation. Dating back a few hundred years people entertained themselves with live music, opera’s and plays but they were reserved almost strictly for the wealthy. Looking back to some of the earlier slideshows these people of high culture influenced what became popular culture (hegemony) as technological advancements allowed the lower class citizens more leisure time. As time went on popular culture was shaped by different styles of music and people now can relate these types of music to what was fashionable “back in the day”. When one thinks about the prohibition era after World War I they usually conjure up an image of the Speakeasy where copious amounts of alcohol are being served with someone playing a high tempo song on the piano. Another image that one might conjure up when thinking about this time period is a family gathered around the radio as a modern day family might gather around the television. After that came jazz which started out as a subculture but worked its way into popular culture and opened the door for rock and roll. After the success of people like Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, rock and roll worked its way into popular culture especially with the younger generations. As tension began to rise in the US with the Vietnam War, racism and sexual inequalities, the hippie generation took their style of music and brought it to the masses with open air concerts, radio stations and anti war demonstrations. After the peace and love music of the hippies came hard rock from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Kiss and Black Sabbath that again influenced popular culture. Disco came shortly after hard rock with grunge and hip hop following closely behind them. Every generation has had its own particular style of music which in turn has influenced popular culture of that time. While almost all of these styles of music became popular within a subculture they all became part of popular culture very quickly and helped influence society at that time. The music of these time periods influenced every aspect of popular culture including clothing, movies, books and whole lifestyles. Even looking at people today one can pick out who listens to what kinds of music simply by the way they dress and act. In short, I think that music has been and always will be one of the most significant sources of popular culture.