Recession no barrier to cosmetic procedures

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Aboriginal youth protest 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games

A more personal perspective on the 2010 olypimics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrQzHXS-seQ

Educating Rita

While discussing the idea of Hegemony and capitalism in class, I came across a wonderful and knowledgeable movie that talks about class and the idea of productivity discussed through Judith Butler. Judith Butler developed a perspective on performativity. This term basically describes an individual who attempts to emulate an image which he/she is trying to achieve. In the context of this movie, Rita a middle class wife decides to go back to school to gain knowledge through literature. She meets a professor at the University whom was willing to help tutor her to achieve a passing grade on her exams. In the movie you see Rita get close with the professor, becoming comfortable enough through inviting each other to dinner. When Rita was invited for dinner she searched long and hard to find the perfect outfit and practised how she would present herself through her composure and fashion. The idea of pretending and acting like something else is Judith’s Butlers idea of performativity. .

For movie details, click here

The Beginning of the End of US Hegemony - Class War & the G20 London Summit

Provided is a powerful video created to depict the beginning of hegemony in USA. With some information presented through my blog discussing biomedicalization and the easy access the economically wealthy have, this video acknowledges the capitalist economy and the unequal power people have within different class systems. The most intriguing part of the video is shown at 4:50 Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke was asked a question regarding who received money, who was told the information and who got the money and shockingly he was not able to respond with an adequate answer. Take a look and let me know your thoughts.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTHjNc1CSJk

Cultural Studies

This week’s course reading was “Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony
Walkman”. The reading discusses why and how cultural practices have come to play a major role in our lives. It also introduces concepts involved in performing cultural studies. The reading use’s the example of a Sony Walkman. The walkman is a cultural object and is analyzed through a cultural circuit. Mentioned throughout the reading are five major cultural processes that together constitute a cultural circuit that can be used to study any cultural text or artefact. These five major cultural processes are; representation, identity, production, consumption and regulation. The point of this research is to discover how cultural studies can be used to make sense of everyday life.


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Cultural Hegemony: Facebook Edition

Why are we influenced to be this way, why do I like skinny jeans, straight hair, Blackberry’s and Mac computers? Why am I embarrassed of using my Sony Mp3 player while everyone else is busy flashing their newest IPod? Is it me? Did I set these standards? If it’s not me, who’s doing this?
Through the readings of Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, I have finally understood these questions...


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Fetishization of medical progress

I have found an interesting video on YouTube discussing briefly the existence of biomedicine and its impact on society today. The speaker Paul Root Wolpe argues about the anti-aging crisis rising in our society today. Take a look.
What do you think? Is Hegemony a big part of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYgTY_1XKs

BioMedicine

A topic that interests me a lot is the idea of bio-Medicalization. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, it “describes the increasingly complex multisited, multidirectional processes of Medicalization, both extended and reconstituted through the new social forms of highly techno-scientific biomedicine” (American Sociological Review, 2003). Basically it’s an in depth understanding of an individual’s natural biology, there aging process and cosmetic issues on how biomedicine is the means of curing any insecurity. My professor provided our class with a review which discusses bio-medicalization and its impact today. The article is pretty interesting, take a look at it and see if you can make any connections to the idea of Hegemony.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1519765
If you are interested in the full article let me know and ill send it via e-mail.

Site Problems.

Sorry minor site problems for a bit, but it was resolved none-the-less. Thanks for the patients.

Paulo Freire

In class today we had watched a short film “Who’s Paulo Freire?” The movie was taken at Freire Charter High school. The film was a short documentary that displayed the children of the school on search of finding out why there school is named after him and what has he accomplished in life to deserve that honour...

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Cowboys and Indians

Racial discrimination has been the route of many problems historically. The differences between different groups of people are what help stimulate racism. Ideally if everyone was considered equal and people saw past distinct traits then the world could be a better, controlled and equal environment. This is what many countries have been striving for and are attempting to illustrate the achievement of. But on a realistic note, people assumed things would have changed by the 20th century but, there are still much more improvements to be accomplished....

Read more about Cowboys and Indians