Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord

In this blog we will discuss and expand on the concept of Mcdonaldization, yes that is an actual word, at least for this blog post and this book on pop culture. Mcdonaldization is a way of thinking about contemporary forms of capitalist production. In more simple terms it is the process of creating phenomena and making sure they are accessible to as many people as possible, as efficiently possible through routinizing the way it is marketed and obtained. This is done with four different components involved: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control through Nonhuman Technology and Deskilling of the Labor Force. As mentioned in the book “Pop Culture Freaks” Harry Potter, while it was just coming out, was distributed to every major bookseller and that the series would be featured in some way in the front or even outside the store.  It became such a phenomenon that the series had 64 different publishers just to make sure as many copies as possible were produced and sent to all major book sellers.  Another pop culture phenomenon can be seen in Star Wars and how ridiculous their marketing is. It would be a challenge to find someone in almost any country that has not at least heard of Star Wars, they have so much money put into merchandising and advertisements that there is no way to really avoid at least hearing about it. Mcdonaldization causes an issue by giving big corporations that own the companies that serve as publishers or  media outlets even more power with the way media is obtained and produced with no credit being given to the laborers that work at the printing presses for the most popular book series or the people who create the merchandise for companies like Lucas Films. Not only do they get a lot less recognition and credit but their jobs have become a lot more mindless and require a lot less skill than they did say 20-30 years ago. A downside that comes with culture phenomena is the copy cat effect of everyone copying the same marketing strategies or creativity put behind something like Star Wars, The Percy Jackson series, or Harry Potter. This only hurts the labor force all around the world when big companies see the mostly automatic and skill-less process of spreading these forms of media across the globe and taking more power away from the laborer.  Not only does that happen, but whatever industry the phenomena is involved in will likely see a drop in quality due to everyone trying to achieve the famous status of the pop culture legends in their respective industry.

~Protect the penguins! and I have never used the word phenomena or phenomenon this much throughout my life

The purpose of this blog is to show how sexuality and pop culture create the sociological norms constantly seen in society that cause individuals to feel isolated and feel like they do not have role in society and relate it to Star Wars and the society depicted across the movies.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim thinks that the moments when society is in rapid change and refuses to settle on social norms, or what is generally accepted and valued. When the economy, political scene, and the culture is constantly changing and never settles it can cause people to feel like they do not fit in or have a purpose in the society at hand. Instead of the suicide rates spiking or increasing due to depression, loss, or loneliness, increases are usually seen because of anomie. Anomie is the normlessness that can be observed in our society recently without a lot of traditions and values being thrown out to create new ones which also get thrown out and continue in a cycle, until society makes up its mind and puts it’s foot down on societal norms. In Star Wars Anakin Skywalker who is a Jdi suffers from a dilemma of being a Jedi knight, but going against the values of the order by pursuing his love interest with Padme. Later on in the series this relationship with Padme is what leads to Anakin being emotionally unstable and betraying the order for the hope of saving Padme from suffering the same fate as his Mother. Anakin never really fit into the society of the Jedi like most of the members did, he was known for being a lot more brash, reckless, and emotional. As well as being extremely strong in the force at a young age and having the pressure of being the “chosen one” from an old prophecy and being expected to live to very high expectations. Anakin was not caught in a rapidly changing society but he was caught in a society that would not bend its norms to accommodate him and refused to extend him the help and guidance he needed to continue down the right path, instead of the path of becoming Darth Vader. Even without a rapidly changing society, an individual undergoing the process of finding themselves and dealing with loss can find it really easy to fall out of the ongoing loop of society and feel outcast-ed. Once this happens individuals who already stand out a lot feel even more isolated from society and tend to lash out at those close to them or society as a whole for causing them to feel like that. Is it the rapid burst of change in society that causes the feeling of isolation and loss of purpose or is it a person who is very different from most who cant find their place in society due to their own misgivings and insecurities to be who they truly are regardless of how society reacts?

Regardless of light and dark, carve out your own path in life ~Keishawn

Diversity is a topic many sociologist, film makers, politicians, and the common person have debated heavily over and present differing opinions on the subject. Diversity is the composition of something that has multiple elements, usually referring to race of people involved. It is stated that white people, or Caucasians, are the most privileged group in the United States. Not only that they also make up the majority of the roles in Pop Culture here in the United States. Although other races have been steadily involved in more roles in extremely prominent movies. In the Star Wars franchise there were almost no characters that were not white, but now it is rare to see a movie in the franchise does not have multiple races in prominent roles and side roles in the movies. Diversity has become a lot more sought after in recent movies but all of the attention towards the topic has not been good. In a sense Scarlet Johansson, who played the lead in Ghost in The Shell, received a tremendous amount of hate because of her being white and playing a lead that was an Asian woman in the source content.  This could be seen as diversifying roles by freeing the perceived requirement that if the source has an Asian lead the lead in the adaptation needs to be Asian as well. Getting rid of that perceived obligation and expectation opens up the door for a lot more talent to emerge from all sorts of backgrounds and races. I see this increase in diversity as a really good thing in concept, but in practice I feel like it can really hurt movies or  shows if better talent is just dropped simply to increase the diversity in a production. The opposite end of this obsession with increasing diversity are movies like Black Panther which was praised for its all black cast but also turned a lot of people away by them not feeling like they can relate to the movie or theme if they are not black. Another example of the products of this craze for diversity backfiring would be the situation with the character Rose in The Last Jedi. The actor received a insurmountable amount of hate on social media from “fans” of Star Wars that were upset at her characters writing in the film. A lot of people hate the character because of her Rose not having very good writing behind her character or not being integrated well is from the result of focusing more on the race of the actor playing a character, instead of making the character interesting and relate-able to the general audience and possible fans that have not yet been introduced to the Franchise. Diversity is always seen as a good thing, but do you think its having more of a positive or negative impact on Pop Culture as a whole?

Stay classy everyone ~Keishawn

Brief Introduction: My name is Keishawn Smith, and I enjoy basketball, playing guitar, listening to music, video games, and I am a big star wars fan (safe assumption to make when you look at the class I am in) I am from Chesapeake, Virginia which is a similar area to Farmville, just a bit more urban.

The purpose of this blog is to take the concept of high culture and apply it to the Star Wars universe  for the second blog post in “Star Wars and Pop Culture.” High culture in our general society is drawn in a comparison to the perceived high culture

The definition of high culture is a privileged set of cultural goods like paintings, classical music, literature, and other forms of creative expression.  Usually the “rich” or wealthy are the ones commonly seen appreciating or partaking in high culture. As most things in high culture are expensive or hard to come by, it makes sense that the majority of the people who enjoy high culture are the wealthy ones due to the exclusivity. In the Star Wars universe the Jedi could be seen as the wealthy of the galaxy, but not necessarily for their money, but for their ideals and the stigma around their place in society. Jedi are similar to monks in that they do not believe heavily in relationships or making decisions out of emotion and promote logic and reasoning for everything. The Jedi also have a big emphasis on literature in their culture and are seen by others as snobby or inhuman due to their lack of emotion when dealing with other species or political issues that involve them. Not everyone is fit to be a Jedi which makes it a coveted and generally well respected “job” or lifestyle and makes the Jedi heroes that the children of the galaxy look up to. Now one of the things the Jedi can relate to with the books definition of high culture is their promotion on creativity and finding different ways of situations. For instance Obi-Wan Kenobi using the Jedi mind trick in the infamous scene to avoid any casualties or unnecessary violence to escape. If I was to define high culture I would say its the smaller percentile of a community who have an emphasis on certain values and virtues, literature, and have a degree of pacifism and a focus on oneself intertwined in their beliefs. Due to all those things they typically view themselves as above the people who fall in the other categories of culture. Whether they know it or not the Jedi have placed themselves above the average person in their society and have a perceived moral high ground over the citizens and innocent they look over. Meditation is also a large part of Jedi society to achieve peace with themselves and any emotional turmoil they might be suffering from.  In this way the Jedi serve as the example of high culture in the Star Wars universe. In our society today, what do you consider to be high culture, whether it be values, professions, ideals, or place in society?

I would say tea is a bit of a high culture thing as well ~Keishawn

Brief Introduction: My name is Keishawn Smith, and I enjoy basketball, playing guitar, listening to music, video games, and a big star wars fan (safe assumption to make when you look at the class I am in) I am from Chesapeake, Virginia which is a similar area to Farmville, just a bit more urban.

A Reflection on Effects of Society and Pop Culture

In what ways do you think society has affected your perspective and your lifestyle? Pop Culture and Society have always had an interesting relationship with each other. A good way to understand the relationship between the two would be the reflection theory. The reflection theory is a sociological approach to literature and other forms of cultural objects. It is often represented with a diamond where creators produce what they think we (the consumers/receivers) want, receivers consume the products and cultural objects that affect the social world we live in. For instance, the societal focus on the only ideal female image being the Victoria Secret models you see on TV and reality TV stars like Kim Kardashian being praised creates a standard practically unreachable for the average person to meet. Failure to meet this standard causes a lot of women to suffer from low self-confidence and feel insecure about themselves and their bodies. In this example,the society and culture that has that such a large focus on ridiculous bodies and appearances affects the people involved as well as invested in pop culture. Another instance would be the prevalence of superheroes in modern media and the reception of the concept in pop culture. A few years ago, being a big Batman or Ironfist fan would result in being a called a nerd, or in more drastic cases, being alienated from a friend group or social cliche. Compare that to now where almost everyone is very open about any interest in superheroes and Marvel and DC movies are huge successes all around (except for maybe Justice League). People on sports teams that would have had a scaled down experience of the Glee members from the show and how they were treated on the show are now very open about it with teammates. NFL stars have even made references to Dragon Ball characters as touchdown dances. All of these examples show how the reflection theory fits in to the general flow of society by the pushing and backing of what creators think consumers want as well as how cultural objects play a large part in shaping pop culture.

God Bless ~Keishawn

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Title is self explanatory