Create A Superhero!

My superhero is named Talia Tauber, often known as The Muse. She is a female humanoid shape shifter. She identifies as female, but because she is a shape shifter she can become any gender. Her birthplace is unknown; she was found floating in a boat in the area known as The Bermuda Triangle in 1983 when she was a baby. Her birth date is celebrated on the date she was found, December 21 1983. Talia was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Tauber and grew up in Florida, but has moved around a lot in her adult life. She was the perfect child growing up, but as she got older she began to encounter problems. She became ‘too’ popular wherever she went and people would become jealous of her and other’s attention toward her. As she grew, she was better able to understand and experiment with her powers. She ran away when she was 17 and lived a secluded life until she fully understood her powers. After her bad experiences, she vowed to live a normal life unless she was helping people. She now works as a librarian in a small town but will probably move soon, as she never feels at home where ever she is.

Talia is able to shape shift into any human form. She is also able to read minds and inspire or even persuade people. She rarely gets into people’s minds to change their thoughts, unless entirely necessary. The origins of her superpowers are unknown, but she has had them since birth. As she got older, they became more prevalent. Talia finds it difficult to control her powers in large groups of people. There have been mass breakouts of hysteria and riots because of her.  In her day to day life, Talia lives in a very average form. She tries to blend in and does not want to be noticed. The form that she appears to the people she helps is completely dependent on what they need to see. She does not have a ‘costume’ and she has been described by those that have seen her as ‘beauty incarnate’ but it is not always physical beauty.

Talia’s goals are to help everyday people. She wants to create a better world where more people are free to express their creativity and be self-confident. The villains that Talia must combat are advertisers, magazines, the beauty industry, and bureaucracies that try to stifle individuality and creativity. Superheroes are not part of the everyday thought of the people within Talia’s society. She herself is not ‘known’ as a superhero. She is often referenced by various people, but they do not understand that she is the same muse for everybody. If Talia were to become known as a superhero there could be various problems. One of them would be that everyone would want a piece of her. If she made herself known, she would have no life of her own, but be a slave to other people’s needs. Another potential problem that Talia fears is that if people knew that she was the one who inspired them, they might feel their thoughts about themselves or whatever it is they created are not genuine. This is not the case, however, as she does not inspire anything that is not already present in a person, she simply brings things out in people. 

Talia is necessary because she brings out the best in society. With corruption more visible than ever and cynical attitudes at an all-time high, Talia represents the ultimate truth in beauty, art, justice and love. Every time she inspires, even if it is simply self confidence in a really shy kid, she brings the world to slightly better place.  Without her, the corruption and mass ideals about beauty and creativity would strive and individual creativity would perish.  Talia’s true identity is put on a back-burner for the good of society. She does get to live a somewhat normal life, but it is not her true life in her true form. She gives up this life with the hope to create links through all class, gender and race issues so that everybody is seen for their true and personal worth despite ignorant cultural attitudes.

The Elephant Man Project

Earlier today my group gave its presentation for The Elephant Man (play not movie) in our popular culture class. It took us a while to actually figure out what we were going to do for the presentation, especially because our group was so large. We eventually settled on doing a Who Wants to be a Millionaire style game with a group discussion at the end.

Before we decided on that specific presentation, we thought a lot about the ideas, themes and symbols within the text. I did a lot of research into the advent of popularity of freak shows in Victorian England, the reasons for its popularity, and how it can relate to the current culture of our society. I thought about the movie Freaks and some of the famous freaks of yesteryear like Violet and Daisy Hilton, Frank Lentini, and Schlitzie the Pinhead to name a few.  I looked into various current pop culture 'freaks' that we are incredibly fascinated with and the ways in which they are similar to the original side show freaks and if they serve the same functions, and what those functions were.

After one group meeting (I was not able to attend because I was at work) it was realized that we were thinking about our presentation in terms of a lot of lecturing which was not the point of this project, so we needed to re-plan and come up with something to get more classroom involvement. After emailing back and forth a couple of us had a meeting where it was decided that we would present a  'Who Wants to be an Elephant Man' game. We each came up with five questions of varying difficulty, which unfortunately were not difficult enough. From that point we had, and I attended, two more meetings to divvy up the duties for the actual presentation. During one of the meetings I helped to shape the final question in order to allow for other group members work to be tied in to our new presentation in a meaningful way. During the actual presentation I was one of the people that asked questions during the game and led some of the discussion afterwards with the class.

I feel like because our group was so large, it was difficult to meet with everybody because of so many conflicting schedules, but ultimately we came out with a good product. Everybody was responsible for creating questions and saying at least a blurb during the actual presentation. Overall I feel like we incorporated all of our members and tried to create something that was not an entire waste of time for the students.

Badvertising

A lot goes into the advertisement for a product. A lot of hidden, or sometimes not so hidden, messages about beauty, class, education, what have you. Advertisements are created to speak to us in ways that aren't always apparent, and can often be subliminal. This week in my pop culture class we were each given an advert from a magazine and had to break it down. What did the image, placement, text, etc say? How did it say it? Why did it say it? Like I talked about in my previous post, advertisers pray on the fact that people will always want something to make themselves feel good, be better, be more attractive, cool or smarter.

I got an add for a shaving cream, EOS shaving cream to be exact (the same people that make those awesome little egg shaped lip balms). The name itself, 'Evolution of Smooth,' states that this stuff is the top of the line, most advanced product in smoothness. It showed an extreme closeup of a really smooth leg with frilly, twirly writing that said something about making your legs smile. It was a very feminine ad trying to get women, who always want happy legs, to buy their product.

There was another leg shaving ad that was discussed in class that had a different idea and a different message. The other one showed a beautifully tan blond, in a gold dress and a gold room, clearly going out for a night on the town. She had a coy smile and was looking slightly down, the way you do when a cute guy gives you a compliment and you blush and look down. To me, this ad had an entirely different attitude. The first one made me feel like the benefit would be for myself alone. My body would be happy, healthy, simple and smooth. There were no connotations of a social life or sex or popularity. They both are very effective in selling similar products, but are clearly selling to different women.

Every time I think of advertising, I can't help but think of the Josie and The Pussycats movie and the extreme form of advertisement  present (subliminal mind control anyone?). Although the ads we encounter on a daily basis are not this bad, it is similar and can be dangerous waters when people people become too susceptible to these ads.

Ya Got Trouble!

 The Music Man centers on Harold Hill, a creative entrepreneur who makes his living traveling to different towns selling an idea. His particular idea is music. One day, he finds himself in River City, Iowa (which looks eerily like Main St USA in Disneyland). He starts an uproarious song and dance over a brand new pool table that is sure to start trouble with a capitol T for this little town. Enter sales pitch! He makes the townsfolk believe their children are destined for a life of immorality if they do not find another way to keep them occupied.

The way this particular salesman sells his product is by instilling fear in people and making them think they need him and his product. By doing this, he is creating the demand for his supply of items. He is ensuring that what he has to sell will be the next big thing with this group of people.

This is a reflection of how mass media works in our world today. Whether it is in advertising for products, news or campaigns for political ideals, the idea of “need” is always present. When a group of people thinks they need something, even if it is just a need to look cool, they will strive to attain it.

Take any popular brand of anything and watch a commercial for it. You must buy it. It may benefit your health, your luck with the other sex, your popularity or your business. But what ever it is, the creators and advertisers know that you will buy it because you have this constant need to have.

If you use Old Spice, your cool factor will go out of the roof! This guy is the ultimate mans man, and you could smell just like him. Heck, you might even be able to do all the awesome things he does.

Even though this product doesn’t sell fear, it still sells an idea similar to that in Music Man. You, the consumer, NEED this product. Not everything that gets advertised like this makes it into popular culture, but when it is clever enough it often does. The Old Spice campaign has been parodied and discussed over and over again. This is how many things in society move into the pop culture realm. There is a demand created for something, however momentarily.

When you think about the mechanics behind media and pop culture, things start to seem fake and you may feel cynical about it. However, the power is still in the hands of the mass consumers of culture. Advertisers can have as many tricks up their sleeves as they want, but the human mind cannot ultimately be understood by an equation. Some things will catch on and become insanely popular, and some things will not. It all depends on the climate and mood of the society at a given time. 

What's Going On?

So, a little about myself. My name is Meagan and I am a senior at CSUN (California State University Northridge), majoring in liberal studies and minoring in theatre (tech/design). I love extravagance, cats, music, costumes, arts and crafts, high heel shoes, Aaron Sorkin shows, Disney movies, literature (Steven King novels too), art, and things that sparkle, to name a few. I am 23 years old and as most my age, lost as far as what I want to do with my life, other than wear lots of glitter and make people smile. Maybe I could have a career as a drag queen?

This is my very first blog, which is pretty exciting. I have somehow completely missed this blogging trend, which doesn't say much for my pop culture savvy. Despite being a total noob, I will do my best to explore the phenomenon that is POPULAR CULTURE while I work my way through English 313 and this blog. 

So, what is this "pop culture" that we always hear people praising, damning, questioning or referencing? Like many other extremely important terms, there is not really a set definition. After a quick google search, popular culture seems to mean:
-"the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture" (wikipedia)
-"cultural activities or commercial products reflecting, suited to, or aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people" (dictionary.com)
-"the lifestyle and tastes of the majority of mostly younger people" (urbandictionary.com)

And pretty much all of these guys:

(Can you name them all?)

Now, these all are pretty similar in what they are saying. Popular culture, as the name suggests, is what is popular within a society at a given time. It is all of the things that are trendy, current and generally accepted by the youth of a society. But what are these "things." This is where it gets difficult to define. Music, theatre, movies, art, memes, websites, images, television, fashion, comics, beauty, mass media, attitudes, language, movements, dance...the list goes on and on. It seems impossible to list all the "things" that create pop culture, but people can always tell when something is pop culture. Like this blog title suggests, pop culture is also ever changing. Something that is popular one minute, will be "so five minutes ago" pretty soon. Pop culture is fickle, and for many it truly is 15 minutes of fame. 

It is my goal to discuss many of the things that constitute pop culture and how they influence myself, and society as a whole. Like most American youth I spend A LOT of time slogging through pop culture images in my day to day life. I hope, through this academic exploration, to better understand how these things play out in my life. In what ways do they control, or liberate, or confine? Am I a product of these things, or are they a refection of me? How are other cultures influenced by OUR pop culture, or vice versa? Are we dealing with a global pop culture phenomenon more so with the explosion of the internet?

If these things sound interesting, stick around while I work my way through this crazy culture of ours. If not....I'll probably post some pretty fun cat pictures too....

Bye.