5-1: Weekly Written Analysis 5

Since this is my last chance to write an analysis for this class, I m going to focus on what is popular or I think is popular for our culture us today.

First of all, since the summer is almost here, people are lining toward buying grilling products. I went shopping the other day, and I notices that all stores I end up going to that day have made grills, grilling cooking books, and even meat designed for grilling in the front section of their stores. Yes, we got it grilling is in fact a very hot thing for most families this season! Even when I watched the Food Network channel, they always have their top chefs present a new trick or two on how to Barbeque your pork ribs or lamp shops. I am big fun on cooking, and I can wait till Sunday to enjoy a picnic journey while grilling hot-dogs with my husband.

Moreover, our culture during the summer season enjoys reducing the hot and humid air with some Ice-Cream. Like it says “we all scream form ice-cream”. From ice-cream cone to banana- split ice-cream is one of top rated sales in the country. As a child or even today, it is something I always crave for whenever going out on a hot summer day. Again, when shopping the other day, ice-cream was put on sale through all brands. It was a good opportunity to get my favorite Belgian chocolate brand and stock in my freezer. In addition, each time I have been driving by Rita's in Henderson rd, I have seen a lot of customers in lines waiting for their turn to get some flavored ice. This is very busy and we are not even in summer yet.

Furthermore, when you associate summer with popular culture, you have to think of the pool and the beach. All people tend to cool off and even gain some tan while swimming in refreshing water. Of course, there is certain rituals and clothing involved with such culture. All individual has to dress up accordantly: flip- flap, hats, short, and t-shirt. Also, when you watch TV or read magazine, you will find the media and marketing playing a major role in passing along the swimming and summer rituals to all of us.

There are more activities and rituals that individuals follow during the summer. Airline also benefit from the season as prices sometimes doubled. Vacations to exotic places including Miami of course are on the radar for most people to enjoy the atmosphere of the summer and just appreciate oneself.

4-1: Weekly Written Analysis 4

For this week analysis I m going to continue on the super hero theme and introduce a Managa character I enjoy following. Since last year, my husband has introduced me to the Manga Bleach series by Tide Kubo. The main Character of this series is Ichigo Kurosaki. He is portrait as the ultimate defender of Karakura town.

This Manga covers the story of a normal fifteen old teenager boy who lost his mom at an early age. While growing up, he discovered his ability to see and communicate with spirituals. After being in contact with so many spiritual, he has awaken energy within himself and made his soul exposed to the evil hollows who want to absorb his delicious soul. At the same time, he was introduced to a Soul Reapers (death god) Rukia Kuchiki who transferred almost all of her Shinigami powers in order to protect Ichigo and his family against the hollows that attacked him. With his new power, Ichigo has gained enormous extermination powers and become a Soul Reapers to protect his town and help all spirituals beings cross over to the Social Society where souls live after death.

Rukia Kuchiki as a result lost all her powers and become a normal human that guide Ichigo through his quest to defend the town. However, with her transferring her powers to a mortal human, she was called back to Social Society and condemned to death for her forbidden action. Ichigo has changed his quest to rescue Rukia and transport her back to Karakura town. In his new quest, he has to battle with captain level Soul Reapers (Shinigami) who are far stronger than himself. For that reason he has to train himself to overpass their powers. Therefore, he achieved a Bankai level that only captain level Shinigamies can attend. As a result he was able to rescue Rukia to only discover that the reason of her execution was to unseal the Hukuko powers. Those powers were to be used by Captain Aizen a formal Shinigami captain to break the barrier between Shinigamies and Hollows and create a more powerful species: the Espada. In addition, Aizen want to use all the hundred thousand human souls from Kurakura town to create the King key and destroy Social society as a whole.

Moreover, Ichigo has united with his former enemies from Social Society to rescue the two worlds and save all innocents lives from Aizen evil plans. He has conducted himself into intensive training with the help of his town friends and become aware of the hollowfication process with which he becomes a dual Hollow and Shinigami.

The series is still is published weekly every Thursday since 2001. In this week episode Ichigo has entered the final battle with Aizen to discover that the former captain’s power is a way superior to himself. Finally, after his dad’s speech of how he can be sorry for not trying to save his town, his friends, and his family if Aizen successes with the execution of his plans. Ichigo has gain strength and decide to enter the battle with all he got till the end.

I am still waiting on how Ichigo can strategize the battle on his favor and save the world from an ultimate destruction. He always gain his strength from wanting to protect his friends and loved ones, and I m sure that he will manage to achieve piece once more in Social Society and Kurarkura Town.

Reference:
Kubo, T (2010). Bleach. Jump Commics. Volume 1-10. Sheisha. Japan

Assignment 1-3 : Journal Article Analysis

For this week assignment, I was required to select an article from the Journal of Popular Culture. The purpose here was to have every single member of the class read an article and shares the findings in the class’ blogs. As a result we all should become up to date of what is considered pop culture among us today. The article I was able to found was about a sea sponge at the bottom of the sea “SpongeBob SquarePants: Pop Culture Tsunami or More?” by Johan Lee Rice. The purpose of this article was to show “how does SB function as a children’s show” and what does a viewer gain from it (Rice).

At first, the author started describing the lead role of his character SpongeBob (SB) in the show that is intended for children between two and twelve but viewed by audiences from different ages. (Rice) “It is the top-rated children’s show on network and cable “(Rice). He also included the role of the other main characters along with their relationship to the SB “His friend Patrick Starfish, his boss Mr. Krabbs, his surly neighbor Squidward, his pet snail Gary, a friend Sandy the Squirrel who lives under the sea” (Rice).

Moreover, Rice has moved to underline SB marketing role in generating over than $750 million in products alone (Rice). Also, SB is considered as ‘‘a marketer’s dream come true’’ (Rice). From party decoration to video games SB is always a hot sell for all ages (Rice). Its marketing achievement is a derivative from the success of the television show (Rice).
After the informative introduction, Rice begins his analysis on what kind of shows attracts the audience. In his analysis, it shows that “gender is more of a factor” as boys are attracted to violence and action while girls are attracted to clarity and innocuousness (Rice). In addition, there are five different types of shows that server different purpose including: superhero, social relations, slapstick, magazine format, and adventure (Rice). Along with the types, there are five structures in fictional shows including: “ironic (rhetoric of the loser, like Archie Bunker), mimetic (slice of life, like Happy Days), leader centered (take charge central character, like the Cosby Show), romantic (ordinary people placed in extraordinary situations, like Miami Vice), and mythic (mystical experience, like Star Trek)” (Rice).

Moreover, the studies conducted to analysis the children most watches shows have revealed that children want to watch mythic and leader fictional shows (Rice). After combining the five types with the five structures of shows, SB is found to combine all of the five types “ironic and mimetic types are most apparent, but elements of the others are present” and as a result, SB is one of the most popular shows appealing to audience from all ages (Rice). In addition, “SB exists as a show of many types for many people, including adults” (Rice). Even though SB is not of magazine format type, it still can fulfill the education role that Barney and Sesame Street play in teaching children morals and good values (Rice). Along that, SB can also teach humanitarian values such as fear, love and friendship (Rice). Also, for adults, the show is intended to wipe off stress and help individuals relax while enjoying another adventure at the Bikini Bottom (Rice). More than that, SB is considered as “very culture oriented in a metaphoric way” (Rice). In other words, everyone can enjoy a laugh or two while watching culture circumstance of everyday life taking ironic turns against the normal in our society (Rice).

In addition and in order to validate his finding, a questionnaire about SB was done among participant from three different categories that involve eighty one K-4 grade, sixty nine high school, and thirty five college undergrads students (Rice). The result driving from the questionnaire shows that K-4 students love to watch the show more than three times a week while making SB as the main loveable character. Also, the high school students were in favor of watching the show while making Patrick the star fish as their favorite character. In the hand, the college students tend not to watch the show as often as the rest of the interviewed groups. Such result has confirmed the fact that “the claims made about the attraction to the ironic loser who teaches real-life lessons, a mimetic force” (Rice). Also, it looks like adult tend to watch the show in or order to escape versus children who learn from watching the show.

SB is one of my favorite shows that I tend to watch occasionally. The SB characters promote so many good values and morals. It is also a representation for innocence and bravery. Last year, I watched a movie called “The Invention of Lying” and it was talking about the first person lying at a time when the truth was the only way of communication among individuals. I found that the movie morals were similar to the character of SB as the later never lies or shows any attention to harm anyone. And that is the key of why myself and others admire and continue to watch the SB show

Refrence:
Jonah, R. (2009). SpongeBob SquarePants: Pop Culture Tsunami or More? Journal of Popular Culture Volume 42, Issue: 6. P 1092-1114. Retrieved on June 1st 2010 from: http://0-journals.ohiolink.edu.olinkserver.franklin.edu/ejc/article.cgi?issn=00223840&issue=v42i0006&article=1092_sspctom

Weekly Written Analysis 3

In this week analysis, I am going to address a very common stereotype that most people worldwide associate with Arabs. Basically, for most people Arabs are Muslims and Muslims are Arabs. I will try to focus on explaining this stereotype.
First of all, Arabs and Muslim live pretty much all over the world. In an Arabic country such as Egypt for example, 10% of its citizens are Arab Christians. The same in Lebanon, most of the population are Christian Arabs. In Morocco and Oman for example, there is a minority of Arab Hebrews. What I am trying to say is that not every Arab is Muslim.
In other hand, through the media, we are very familiar that countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and China have a big majority of Muslims; however all of them are none of Arabic origins. Islam is a religion; anybody anywhere in the world is free to join any religious group he/she wants. An individual if convinced by the ritual and concept of the Islamic religion have the right to join Islam and adopted it as a religion. As a result, a non Arab can be found Muslim by choice of faith.
Moreover, being an Arab is more biological related than a personal choice. No one choose his/her race. One can be born in an Arabian society with an Arabian father or mother. Truthfully, a child is coined as an Arabian if and only if the father is Arabian. Otherwise, the child will have Arabian origins but labeled on his/her father race.
Also, when the child is born it is up to the parent to decide on the religion he/she will be following. If the father is Muslim and the mom is Christian for example, it will still be up to the parent to lean on one believe and avoid confusing the child. It is a decision that the parent need to take prior having children. Sometimes, the child can grow and decide to not follow the religion of the parent. At this point, the person is going in a journey seeking believes and peace of the heart.
Arabs can falsely be stereotype by Muslim. Not all the Arabs are Muslims while not all the Muslims are Arabs.

Weekly Written Analysis 2

For this week analysis, it was very hard to choose one icon or one myth among the millions that exist and summarize my taught. I decided rather to concentrate on my move this week and comeback to this analysis at a later stage. Today, we had the cable guy finally come in and activate our Internet and cable. Surprisingly, when my husband was flipping through the channels, he stopped at one and said "it has been a while since I saw this movie". The movie Dragon was about the cultural icon Bruce Lee. I finally found my icon for this analysis.

When the name Bruce Lee come to mind, we think about Kung Fu, Karate, China, martial arts, street fighting, and amazing action movies. But how all of these words come to refer to one singleton person? It all happens when Bruce lee's family decide to send their fourth child Bruce Lee to his country of birth USA in order for him to continue his education and avoid the street fighting trouble with local crime groups in Hong Kong. Soon after he was engaged in the University of Washington, he started teaching the arts of martial fighting for the university students as well as for the locals. Later, he met the love of his life Linda Emery and the mother of his two children.

More over, Bruce Lee is not only an icon but rather a life legend. People all over the world when ever asked about China, they associate the country to the image of Bruce Lee. As a child my brother had posters all over his room of Bruce Lee and China Wall. He has this idea, that one day he can fly over to China and learn how to fight like the legend.

Furthermore, American action movies has taken a significant shift with the introduction of Chinese martial arts. Bruce has featured in five memorial movies in which he wrote The Big Boss and produced Way of the Dragon. He had also fought against famous American names such as Karim Abdul-Jabbar and Chuck Norris. He has made himself as the icon of the fastest and talented fighter in the films industry.

I m not a big fun of action movies, but I always love to watch Bruce Lee movies. I like the fact that all of his movies show authentic fights and his character is always of protective nature. I believe that even though we lost Bruce Lee at a younger age, his contribution for the world will always remain a legend and an example to follow.

Reference:

Wikipedia (2010). Bruce Lee. Wikipedia. Retrived on May 30 2010 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_lee

Assignment 2-2

According the popular culture, an Icon is an artistic visual representation or symbol of anything considered popular, model, or just part of the culture. For example, when talking about pop music, Michael Jackson can be considered as the icon that represents this type of music. For this Analysis, I m going to focus on three icons: McDonalds, Lexus, and Bobby flay.

First of all, McDonalds is the main icon of fast food in our culture. Anywhere in the world, and whenever anyone wants to get food in a timely manner, then McDonalds is the answer to this quest. In addition, our culture is defined as a fast food culture. We want to be able to buy a quick sandwich and go back to work as time is really limited. This icon brings a lot of success and production to me as individual and to the society as whole. When people from other countries talked to me about McDonalds it makes me proud to be an American. People think that USA is the only country capable of creating the most successful franchise of all times. In other words, McDonalds is not only an icon of fast food but to also successful franchise.

Moreover, Lexus can be defined as an icon that represents luxury in automotives. Whenever an individual is seeking comfort and luxury in driving, then Lexus is the brand to buy to accommodate the person’s desire. It is also an icon of priced automotives. When buying cars, if price is one of the factors, then Lexus might not be the right choice. I think that Lexus is a style icon as well. The same way a person chooses to buy a shirt or a pair of shoes, the person also can chooses the type of car desired. . I m a Lexus admirers, and I found that this icon is in fact a true representation of luxury and design. I can’t wait to get one :-)

The last icon of this analysis is a food name that has made a great change in the cooking industry. Bobby Flay is the icon of the best American cuisine. It is also the icon of iron chef and art of cooking. His name associated with anything and everything related to cooking. Whenever an individual want to impress his significant other, then the person can search for the closest Bobby Flay restaurant or research the Internet for one of his recipes. I enjoy the art of cooking, and I found that Bobby Flay has some really good recipes that can really change the way people eat.

It is hard to imagine life without a cell phone today. They are in use in one form or another everywhere I've ever been. It's hard to believe but 15 years ago they were an oddity owned by only a few with a special need or who could afford them. Just like any new technology, they have quickly become indispensible.