Leah Feutz- Media and Representation Post

Leah Feutz- Cultural Globalization: Media and Representation Post

            The Tomlinson article discussed Dallas as a “symbol of American cultural imperialism”, and was very interesting in articulating the difference between the more objective view of the text as a product of a “mass culture industry” and a subjective understanding of how it is actually experienced by viewers (45). Tomlinson writes how specific studies of Dallas viewers (by Ang in a Dutch women’s magazine and by Katz and Liebes) challenge the idea that these shows have an immediate affect on viewers. Instead, these studies illuminate that audiences can be more self-aware and critical consumers of these cultural texts. Ang found that viewers had a “high level of disapproval for the cultural values of Dallas”, and that sometimes they tried to justify watching the show as more of an ironic consumption, or else they didn’t feel the need to justify and instead accepted that they could enjoy the show just for its connection to the “melodramatic imagination” (46). I notice this type of tendency even within the United States, where people often have shows they watch as “guilty pleasures” and sometimes try to prove that they know the show is stupid or fake, but that they can still enjoy in a more frivolous way. We don’t have to accept the values in shows like the Real Housewives or whatever as our own, and instead we often watch these types of programs with the same “irony” that Ang discusses. Overall, Ang sees the audience of shows like Dallas as more critical than traditional discourse has allowed; people don’t just accept cultural imperialism.

In their study, Katz and Liebes describe watching shows like Dallas as not just “an isolated individual practice, but one in which social interaction…is a vital part of the interpretive and evaluative process” (48). More importantly than this, people don’t just watch shows and accept their cultural values. Instead, they view these shows through their own cultural lens, and subsequent judgment is based in their own sense of morality and results in “an actual reinforcement of the audience’s own cultural values” (49). In other words, people “‘[negotiate]’ with the text” instead of just a one-way translation of values from screen to viewer (49). I liked that these studies bring to light that response to these types of cultural imperialism are “more active and critical”, as opposed to assuming that people are ignorant or passive recipients (50).

I think it is interesting, however, to compare this view of audiences to that found in the Becker article, which found that disordered eating was much more prevalent with increased exposure to (western) television. In this way, TV is one of the “specific cultural mechanisms that [mediates] disordered eating” (1). Maybe there is a difference in what we are susceptible to and what has an impact on us as viewers, and that something as personal as the body can be greatly influenced by what we see on our screens. I think it is also extremely difficult to have any acceptance of one’s own body type when images of women are predominated by a certain type of shape, in a much more pervasive way than just representing one type of culture or way of life in TV shows. The value of a certain type of body is abundantly clear, whereas there is more of a nuance to the different types of cultures and values that we have exposure to on television. I think that together, the Tomlinson and the Becker articles tell us that we should not underestimate the agency of the audience nor the power of the medium of television. I wonder, however, if it is so clear that shows and movies can have a huge affect on eating disorders, why there is not more of a movement to present a more diverse body type on the screen. Or, at least, give consumers a way to be more critical of what they are seeing, and try to counteract the power that these images can have on young girls (and on boys as well). The Gorney article “Machisma” takes another view of the audience, and does place a little more emphasis on the power of the viewer in interpreting messages from the media. I think this reinforces the idea that perhaps, people are more susceptible to certain messaging in certain contexts, and that many different factors can affect what has staying power and what we look at with a critical eye.

The Stadtler article on Lagaan highlights how its “cross-cultural appeal” gained it an Oscar nomination as well as many “glowing reviews and…unprecedented box-office success overseas” (518). Overall, films like Lagaan are an important part of how diaspora scholars understand the potential for these types of cultural expressions to “reach a global audience” and for perceptions to be shifting and changing in response to widened exposure. It is interesting to me that the cricket game in the movie “functions on a variety of levels”, both in the structure of the story and also in giving audiences across cultures who participate in this sport something within the film to identify with. The author notes how films like this, with a basic plotline similar to a David and Goliath type story, translate across many different cultures and makes for a broad base of appeal. As Kena points out, these types of stories have universal appeal, and also have implications for which films will be successful both at home and abroad.

 Finally, the Bruner article moves on to talk about tourism, and how it involves a homogenization of local realities as well as targeting certain types of tourists and crafting their experience in wherever they are visiting. I think that the very idea of taking a “vacation” means that people want to experience a more simplistic view of a certain location, and that they don’t want to necessarily “explore similarities and differences…embrace complexity…[and] open up to new possibilities” (903). I am not really sure how the “questioning gaze” that Burner describes is possible to engender in people, because that seems contradictory to what people want to be doing while they are on vacation. I have the sense that most people want to feel that they pay for a full experience, inclusive of returning home with an understanding of where they have been and a feeling of being more cultured and worldly. People don’t generally want to undermine this type of confidence with sentiments that they only saw one part of a culture, or that their experience in another country wasn’t necessarily genuine or true to actual cultural realities. There is something to be said for the lucrative business of tourism and of resorts, cruises, etc, and so as long as there is money in simplifying or “dumbing down” cultures in some ways, it will probably continue. I am glad, however, that this article illuminates that this is an important topic to discuss and to come to understand, and even if I have my doubts about the possibility of tourism in Africa and across the world changing to reflect these values, it doesn’t make them unworthy of pursuing.