Shared Sensibilites?

I would be lying if I said I fully understood or presently understand the concept of “shared sensibilities” as discussed in Bell Hooks article Postmodern Blackness. After class on Thursday I left with that “did I miss something?” feeling everyone experiences when a concept or idea seems out of their intellectual reach. Never the less, upon retuning home I began reanalyzing these ideas in order to locate some understanding for myself. Subsequently, I came to the realization that “shared sensibilities” is the opportunity in which members of minority racial, religious, and gender communities-all having experienced prejudicial judgements and stereotypes-find unity and strength in the commonality of minority alienation.

Current hip-hop and rap artists like 50-cent and Lil’ Kim, originating from lower-class Black families, are individuals who have found accord in their experiences of poverty, ghettos, alcoholism, and violence. Through their lyrics they capitalize on stereotypes that for generations have told African Americans they are primitive and will never amount to anything other than drug dealers, prostitutes, and poor wage earners. Artists like 50-cent and Lil’ Kim are reappropriating, reclaiming, and exaggerating these stereotype in order to regain their subjectivity while simultaneously makeing a huge profit . Whether you agree or disagree with their lyrical message you can't dispute the impact it has had on both the Balck and White communties in the United States and Canada; their message is powerful and commands atttention and as such cannot be ignored.

Kelly Mac.

You, Me and TV

In analyzing the Adorno and Horkheimer piece, The Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, it became apparent that television and media aim to alter the social and consumer conscious of viewers. It is this alternation of consciousness that enables the “ruling block,” defined as advertising executives, production companies, and advertisers, to benefit from television programming as it guarantees their product or service a niche within the consumer framework of the viewing audience[1]. While considered, by many, an outlet of enjoyment and pleasure, television is more than an evening escape from the monotony of everyday life. Television is not a “no strings attached” service provided by production companies but rather an industry that centers on profit and, in Marxist terms, the control of the proletariat by the bourgeoisies. TV programming forces the “whole world [to] pass through the filter of the cultural industry;” and as a result, an individual's understanding of their needs for goods, services, and even an answer to the meaning of life is constructed under the hegemonic presence of the ruling elite (Adorno and Horkheimer, 126).

For many, the “cultural industry” as defined by mass media “is the embodiment of authoritative pronouncements” within their lives and the lives of others (Adorno and Horkheimer, 147). How often have we heard ourselves or someone else say “I saw it on television?” Unfortunately, the answer to this question is “too often.” Those living within the western world have come to accept television and film as the sole creator of popular cultural. Within the twenty first century mass media defines an individuals understanding of family, politics, religion, education, and our relationship to the rest of the world by the click of the remote. While this ideological dominance is often an outlet for capitalist ideals, it too provides a positive platform in which negative, stereotypical, and prejudicial attitudes may be challenged and awareness of global concerns made possible. Just think, how much less would you or I know about global events if we could no longer turn on the six o’clock news, pick up a news paper, or go online? Television programming, like any other medium, has benefits and drawbacks and as a result needs to be evaluated and discussed from a critical perspective before any fact is accepted as truth. This week I challenge you to ask the question “What have I accepted as truth as produced, on mass, by the cultural industry today?”

Kelly Mac.

[1] The expression “ruling block” was taken from Dr. Heather Tapleys lecture on the Adorno and Horkheimer article The Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.

Vision Statement

I have never actually written a Vision Statement before but in pondering this task I remembered the following quote:

This is my Purpose
To make as meaningful as possible
This life that has been bestowed upon me
…to live in such a way
That I may be proud of myself
To act in such a way
That some part of me lives on
-Author Unknown

These words challenge me to post entries that are creative, honest, and critically evaluated. Over the next ten weeks, in response to the readings, discussion, and comments made in Women Studies 320, I will reevaluate and confront my own “beliefs that are taken as “natural” when in fact they perpetuate the status quo, continue the class system of oppression” and patriarchal domination that permeates western culture today (White, 165). It is my hope, through the creation of this Blog, that my thoughts and ideas may “serve as a springboard for subversive [feminist] thought” and will be an encouragement for others to do the same (Cixous, 337).

Kelly Mac.

Sources:
The Laugh of the Medusa, Helene Cixous

Ideological Analysis and Television, Mimi White