Stick it to us

One night a few months ago, I was watching Global news and they had a piece that hit me hard; it consisted of was an EHS worker playing with dogs and asking for someone to adopt one. I have seen this type of piece a hundred different times, but for some reason this particular one made me take action and start volunteering.

Why now, considering I have been an animal lover my whole life, did these messages on my television get me moving? Two days before I saw the news segment, a friend of mine adopted a dog and directed me to the Humane Society's website so I could see what her new dog looked like. While browsing, I noticed the link "volunteer opportunities". I did not read it at the time; however, when I saw the news segment, the link on the website popped back into my head and that weekend I signed up to help.

Benjamin states the reproducibility of art can be revolutionary because it brings art and people closer together by creating tactile experience, or shock, on bodies thus leading to action (pg. 238). Baudrillard states reproducibility of art creates apathy, not action, in the masses because the media constantly throws massive amounts of accelerating information towards us, but because we are not capable of taking it all in, the information decellerates when it hits us, leading not to a tactile experience but to apathy and indifference; we feel we have no control over what we see. Although the views seem oppositional, I think both are correct; each just describes various points on the path to action or non-action. We cannot deny that shock exists, because we all felt it when watching the scene from the "L Word" in class, but we also cannot deny the apathy we all feel towards the events we see on TV everyday. I am interested in why certain shocks initiate action and others do not. I believe there is a space between shock and apathy where action can be initiated, but that space needs to be filled with recognizable resources if action is to be activated instead of apathy/inaction. Why did my tactile experience of sympathy, which I feel every time I see a news segment like the one mentioned above, stick around this time and cause action instead of my regular apathetic inaction? It stuck because I recognized I had the resources to do something about it; a website. I think both theories are correct because both can happen; reproducibility of art, here the repeated dog segment, can make me into Benjamin's active subject or Baudrillard's apathetic one. On the path of action versus inaction, there is a fork in the road after tactile experience; if I recognize that I can make a legitimate difference in a situation with the resources available to me, I will take the revolutionary path, but if I do not recognize such resources, my path will lead to apathy. The reproducibility of art will only be revolutionary if somehow the masses can internalize the knowledge that resources for change are always available, they just need to be discovered most of the time.

My head is spinning...

Congrats to all my fellow steppers out there! That was definately a first for me, and I'm really happy I didn't drop the class like I was tempted to do (sorry Tapley, but I was terrified). I still have banana stuck in the groove of my boot.

I was reading Dr. Tapley's blog and I started to get confused because I was thinking about Baudrillard at the same time. We were the first to ever feministep, so we made history in a way. We also are taking the time to reflect on the event by blogging about it...but we also split apart the event, into fragments, to broadcast ourselves on youtube. To me, it seems we "stepped" out of hyper-reality for a brief moment and created history (and this is where I'm confused), but by breaking it up and copying it, is that reality erased and replaced by hyper-reality again so the history of it no longer exists? Does Baudrillard think it is possible to ever be outside the image sphere? If I am taking part in an event and reflecting on it, thus making it significant according to Baudrillard, but at the same time my actions are being recorded/broken apart so as to form an image for mass consumption, my consumption included, am I in reality and hyper-reality simultaneously? This idea is confusing to me because I remember steppin, for example, when it actually happened, I remember thinking about how much fun it was and how I did something that had never been done before, but I also remember how I looked jumping around on Jordan's camera. We fragmented ourselves, copied ourselves, and in doing so changed our (significant) history into a simulation for entertainment for youtube consumers. They can watch us, maybe find us interesting, but then move on to a video of a squirrel fighting a cat and never think about feministeppin again. Their apathy and lack of reflection equals our lack of significance according to Baudrillard, and thus we have become just another image. Would Baudrillard agree with this, and if not why not?

Thanks anyone who is brave enough to respond to my confusion...

I like candy, can I lick your lollipop?

I just finished reading all the other blogs, and it's nice to know I'm not the only one who came out of that class confused. I as well have to congratulate Dr. Tapley on giving me an experience I have never had before...blaring misogynistic music through the halls of Humanities. Frickin' Wicked.

I guess I wasn't confused so much as I was mystified by everything in class. Before the class, I would have completely agreed with the people who said "Fiddy" has no idea what he is doing; he is just a pawn in the Eminem and Dr. Dre chess game we like to call the music industry. He is just a sexist pig, now packaged with a shiny bow on his magic stick, who objectifies women to make a quick, and large, buck. Now, after class, I'm not so sure. Dr. Tapley asked the question, "Why couldn't/wouldn't a black male want to fight back against the white establishment that has been stereotyping him, and his ancestors, for his entire life. Why wouldn't he want to throw it all back at them by re-appropriating those exact stereotypes and making them points of his power?" I made the assumption 50 cent is not conscious of his actions, and now I realize in making that assumption I was buying into the ideology that has been holding back black males so long; an uneducated, ex-gangster cannot create his own image, it must have been created for him by someone else, in this case Dr. Dre. It makes perfect sense that he, and all of the other black male rappers who have similar lyrics, would want to use empowering nihilism to take back the power that has been stolen from them by the dominant white ideology. I have no way of knowing what 50's intentions are, so why did I think that I did? I don't know what I think about this misogynistic music now, but at least now I'm thinking about it and not dismissing it. I do have to say that I have always thought that all mainstream stars, whether they be music or film stars, are created/molded by corporations. Can someone be an empowered nihilist and a commodity at the same time? My answer is yes, but how it all works exactly I'm still confused about. I think my eyes are beginning to glaze over, bye.

Nobody puts baby in a corner...

When I got home from class on Thursday night, I tried to watch the season premier of the "The Office", which I thought I had taped, but unfortunately my mom programmed the VCR to tape Grey's Anatomy, so I was screwed. Having nothing to do, I started thinking about what I should write in my upcoming blog.

As I was going through my notes, the first concept that jumped out at me was, "...worker as Automaton." I completely agree that many workers are too tired after a long day to want to even think, let alone actively question and possibly resist the messages being fed in their eyes and ears through television. In my own experience as a waitress, working 12 hour days with a ten minute break to eat if I'm lucky, I have no energy to anything when I get home, so I watch TV. TV soothes and lulls me into a relaxing zombie state. I see the commercials, and even the familiar programming I'm watching, but very rarely do I analyze anything I see when I am this state. I just soak it up and the next time I'm at Wal-Mart, for some reason I feel I must buy the Gillette razors and not the generic ones because generic=not as good. Mimi White's point that people get pleasure from TV is relevant here; although capitalism may be manipulating what I know to be my needs, I like my zombieness (is that a word?), so I trade off thinking about the fact that the hegemonic ideals of the culture industry are permeating my brain, through commercials for Gillette and sitcoms like Friends, for pleasure. However, I also agree with White that although we are affected by everything around us, we are also active agents within our surroundings; we are not fixed/forced to watch anything. I choose to watch zombifying shows when I finish working, but at other times I also choose to watch programs I feel are actually entertaining and socially conscious; "The Colbert Report" is a perfect example. As a comedy show I find it extremely funny, but it is also a social satire on the U.S. Republican party and the Bush administration, so in it's own strange way it is fighting against the white conservative hegemonic ideal. I have choice and I affect the world around me, but that does not mean that at times I do not become an Automaton and just let the world grab me and work it's lulling messages of smooth legs and must-have haircuts into my overworked brain.

This is the beginning of a beautiful blog....

Why do I feel compelled to create a feminist blog? My main reason is (that Dr. Tapley is making me) that I feel that this blog will create a great place for me to learn and, for once, to actually get to know some of my fellow students. In this week's reading, Rhodes suggests that the participation of any feminist, whether she be second wave or third wave, online can and will help to grow space for women to write and engage with other feminist writings, away from the traditionally stifling male-dominated world of print. In this new space women will be heard by each other as well as become more visible to the rest of the world. I want my blog to be a part of this new online arena. In Rhodes' article, Brail states that the more women that post online the harder we will be to ignore. I agree with this statement because in any movement, higher numbers equals more progress, even if the progress is simply that the movement becomes more visible. I hope my blog does not only enhance my understanding of feminist thought, but also, through the use of images, sounds, and the critical analysis of popular culture, creates more visibility for the the feminist movement by the addition of my, and our, voice.

My name is Kelly by the way, and this is Odie, my dog... oh, and that's not me with the gun.