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.

Assignment 1-4: Weekly Written Analysis 1

Almost every one today has a cellular phone. But the question here is not having a phone in hand but rather what kind of phone they have. For this weekly journal, I m going to focus on analyzing why people try to acquire the fanciest and most loaded technological phone in the market and how does it transform their private and public life.

I m going to start this analysis with a small story of my eleven years old niece. Since two years ago, my niece has made it public to the entire family that she needs help getting a phone. I was curious, and I wanted to found out the story behind her necessity. She told me that all her friends have one and that was the only way for her to keep in touch with her friends at school. But she added that the phone must be a camera and MP3. She just remind me on my time in high school when emails and IMs was the most popular technology for all students to look cool.

The story of my niece is a reflection of all teenagers in the American society and ironically adults as well. It becomes a trend that all adults in our society must buy a smart phone with texting, messaging, emailing, and internet capabilities. From chapter five of Common Culture, the authors have mentioned “personal culture” as the new term to describe individuals taking their customized culture no matter where they go.
Moreover, concurrence between Telecommunication companies to release the top of the line smart phone is highly appreciated by customers. AT&T for example was able to secure the exclusive iphone deal from Apple and therefore has achieved a major lead in the race with all of its competitors.

Imagine the life of any one without his/her personal culture (cellular phone). It would be very difficult for a lot of people to walk without a phone that hold their contact number, organize their appointment, facilitate their online queries, help entertain their brains, share their video or photo memories, and communicate their daily blogs or minutes twiter.

Reference:

Petracca, M & Sorapure, M. (2007). Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture. (5th ed.). University of California at Santa Barbara. New Jersy, NJ: Pearson.

Assignment 1-2

Before taking this class and if someone asked me what I know about Popular Culture, I would say that it is anything and everything that is considered popular within a culture. However from reading Common Culture by Micheal and Madeleine I was introduced to the scholar dilemma meaning of the word itself. No matter if you are rich or poor, educated or not, from an upper class or lower class, Popular Culture is shared within every single member of a group at a defined period of time. For example, with the advances in technology, three dimensional movies are becoming more and more popular among everyone in this world. I remember when the movie Avatar was released; it took me four tries to be able to secure a ticket to the 3D IMAX version of the movie. I even had to be one hour early just to secure a seat in the theatre. Everyone was standing on the line waiting to see the movie including members from different regions, different believes, different casts, and different ages sharing the love of the Popular Culture of 3-D movies.

The Book of Common Culture has underlined some interesting explanations about the advantages and the disadvantage of studying Popular Culture. I agree with the fact that one should study Eliot rather than Elvis in an effort to get high culture meaning and background knowledge. However, studying Elvis will help us understanding who we are as culture and what we do as a society. Every era has it is own icons that shows us how we evolve as a culture.

Popular Culture evolves with time and one should understand and follow the evolution of its evolvement to achieve individual as well as corporate success. Jobs can be a direct implication of the changes in popular culture. For example, in the past someone like Elvis did not need to have a webpage or blog to list all of the singer activities. But today, Lady Gaga will require having such technology medium available. And therefore people go to school and try to acquire the knowledge needed to work in webpage development. Corporations in the other hand try to study the market to determine what is considered hot and try to achieve it. Time and circumstances are very important factors in their study. I think that in the future cellular phone will be the major medium of advertizing for celebrities and popular artifacts.

I choose the pyramid as one of the most important artifact in all times. It is considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World that no one knows how it was built nor by whom. Even today, a lot of people still buy pictures and artifact of the pyramids to decorate their homes or offices. Also, if you ask anyone about Egypt, the first thing that comes to mind the pyramids and how great will it be to go and visit.

Reference:Petracca, M & Sorapure, M. (2007). Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture. (5th ed.). University of California at Santa Barbara. New Jersy, NJ: Pearson.