The star image of Brett Favre

I just received today the newest issue of Sports Illustrated. On the cover is Brett Favre, quarterback of the NFL's Green Bay Packers who the magazine just awarded their "Sportsman of the Year." (article) As we have been discussing stars and celebrities in class, I decided to take a closer look at the star personality of Favre.

Favre is categorized as a star, rather than a celebrity, because he has a special talent for playing the game of football. His star image has grown and evolved over his years of playing football. Football is what our text calls the "primary circulation" of his star image. Favre gained exposure simply by playing the game. His "secondary circulation" are the interviews, photo shoots, autograph sessions, advertisements, etc., that increase his star image even more.

Favre's star image has been controlled and monitored by his agent and the league over his years of playing football, just like we talked about how the Beatles had a carefully constructed image. The NFL and other professional sports leagues are so much about business nowadays that it is important to positively promote themselves. The textbook talks about "bankability" and how the media industry sees stars as financial commodities. When he entered the league, Favre was marketed as a fresh, young quarterback and the future of the NFL. The league has been successful as he has contributed in selling countless tickets and jerseys over his 17 year career.

Today, Favre can be seen in a commercial for Wrangler Jeans where he is playing backyard football and getting a little dirty. Obviously, Wrangler chose him for a reason as did his agent accept the offer to sponsor the product. This is part of the mythos we talked about. Because of what Favre represents, a blue collar, hard working, all American type of guy, he is a perfect fit for Wrangler's ideals that represent the same thing. Also, Favre fits because of his status in the league as a veteran. The commercial gives the feeling of a nostalgic Sunday afternoon of touch football, which he could not have done as a rookie.

So Favre has a carefully constructed star image that has been defined by his talent, controlled by the media, monitored by his agent and has constantly changed over time and will continue to change as he retires from the game of football and moves into the entertainment culture.

Stars and Celebrities in athletics

I'm not one for the star and celebrity gossip. However, I could probably tell you something unique or interesting about any college basketball player, coach or team because I follow it that closely. Obviously, basketball is my number one passion and I am on the path to a career in broadcasting so it is kind of my job to know names, facts and stats. But while reading the chapter on stars and celebrities, I had to ask myself why I am so obsessed with athletics and famous athletes.

I have gone to the NCAA Final Four for the last four years. I go to all the events like the three-point and dunk contests, all-star games, coaches convention and the works. Even just walking around the cities, I have run into big-time college basketball coaches. My first Final Four in San Antonio, I was a sophomore in high school. I was so excited seeing all these famous players and coaches around me at these events. I got autographs and took pictures like crazy. The players especially, I thought they were gods. I was awstruck.

Now after having been to four Final Fours, I have gotten more used to seeing famous players and coaches and better understand that they are regular people just like me. I am less into the autographs and pictures when I see players, but rather engage in a conversation with them like I would with any other human being. I know I will value a conversation much more than I would a piece of paper with a signature. I also know they have a lot going on during the weekend and I always tell them thanks for taking the time to meet me. Plus last year I realized that althought I met a Division I player and I am a Division III player, we were both freshmen and I was actually older than him. This helped me put things into perspective.

Anyway, relating all this back to the chapter, I agree that the media creates sports figures as an ideological system of entertainment, and it does a darn good job of it, at least to me. The media has hooked me on college basketball and has taken my money the last four years. All the tv and newspaper and internet exposure createds financial gain for media companies and universities. People pay for season tickets just to watch two teams try and put a ball into a circular ring more times than the other. It's quite silly when you think about it. Yet I am completely absorbed in this game. This just goes to show how much power and influence the media can have on people.

Masculinity in media

Something that really caught my attention in class the other day was when I heard the possibility that with science, one day there would be no need for men on this planet because women could reproduce for themselves. That was a scary thought.

Watching a basketball game on television last night, I decided to pay closer attention to the commercials than I normally do. Products that were advertised were pickup trucks, fast food, credit cards and beer. Obviously, the media knows that on a sports channel, the majority of the audience is male and they design their ads sell to them. In the commercials, men were usually portrayed in ways that showed as if they were in control of a situation.

Next I looked through the ads in a Sports Illustrated magazine. I found those to sell HD TVs, iPods, tool sets, watches, SUVs and cologne. The same principles from tv ads applied to the magazine ads. These usually pictured a well-known athlete with the product, also looking as if he were powerful, rugged and in control. Or, for example, in the cologne ad the athlete was made to look sexy lying in the woods with his shirt unbuttoned and a woman leaning on him. I don't know about other men, but when I occasionally put on cologne I don't end up like this.

So adding a male athlete to endorse a product certainly sells to other men reading the magazine. How about the ad at the very end of the magazine that showed racecar driver Danica Patrick, who is a woman, looking tough to sell an antifreeze product? This one is interesting to me because, although I don't follow racing, I know that most men either love her or hate her for succeeding as a woman in a male sport. So I'm not sure if most men see this ad and want to go buy the product or refuse to buy anything from this company now because Patrick is a sponsor.

Paying attention to commericals and ads can give you some good sources of masculinity. If you look beyond what is on the surface and break it down, you can always find a subtle clue. Advertisers spend a lot of time on their ads and everything the choose to put in it has been carefully thought out. So look a little closer next time you are watching tv or reading a magazine.

Jay-Z's new album fits structural patterns

Jay-Z, president of Def Jam Recordings, announced his retirement from rapping four years ago. However, he ended it last winter when he came out with his Kingdom Come cd. He has just ended his retirement a second time.

Jay-Z was inspired by the new movie American Gangster, out in theatres now, which he saw in an early screening over the summer. The movie stars Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe in 1970's Harlem in the midst of a heroin investigation. This caught the attention of Jay-Z, who grew up in Brooklyn, and reminded him of his young adult life on the streets. So Jay-Z went to work creating his cd also titlted American Gangster. It was released Tuesday after the movie's first weekend in theatres.

What intrigued me the most about Jay-Z's new record though, was something that he did differently than his past albums. He put together the 13-song album as a story arc of what his life might have been like if he had not taken the path as rapper. In a USA Today article, he stated that American Gangster is meant to be listened to as a single work.

"It's a concept album, not a collection of singles, and I want it heard in the way I intended it. A painter doesn't sell a section of a painting. He sells a whole body of work."

Jay-Z's past albums have been collections of hit singles, for the most part. American Gangster is different. The account follows structural patterns that we have studied in class the past week. It has a beginning, where Jay-Z's character is in a stable situation, but then comes a disruption where he makes some bad decisions involving illegal acts. He goes through a series of events in which he learns from, and there is a definite resolution, which is up for interpretation on whether the character grows from his mistakes or falls back into the trap where he started.

So the record fits character patterns as well as narrative structures. It has a clear beginning, middle and end. Jay-Z has taken some steps to prevent fans from listening to the album out of order. He chose not to release the cd to sites that let users to download and purchase songs one by one. There are two bonus songs that have been released but are not part of the story arc.

I think it is a very cool idea that Jay-Z decided to design his cd as a narrative. It is something new and fresh and just another example of how narrative structures are used in society, especially in the entertainment business. I was also interested in what Andrew Keen had to say Thursday night about the music industry and how the internet has affected it and will continue to shape it. I have not yet heard American Gangster but am extremely excited and looking forward to doing so very soon.

Narrative analysis of Dan in Real Life

Last Friday night I went with my family to see the new movie Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche and Dane Cook. After reading chapter 16 and discussing narrative structure in class, I decided to take a closer look at the movie and analyze it according to the lessons in the textbook.

Dan (Carell) is the main character who is an advice columnist and a single parent of three daughters. He lost his wife four years ago and is doing a fine job of raising a family alone. This is the stable situation of the narrative. It sets up the story for what is to come next.

Dan takes his daughters on a trip to the family cabin for a weekend with their relatives. Dan ends up meeting an attractice woman named Marie (Binoche) at a bookstore and gets her phone number after spending an afternoon together. This is the first woman that Dan has had such strong feelings for since his wife passed away. He is feeling pretty good on his way home. Back at the cabin, Dan's brother Mitch (Cook) is excited for Dan to meet his new girlfriend that he is crazy about. Enter Marie and our disruption of the stable situation.

Now the narrative has its plot line. This disruption has the viewers making predictions about what happens next and how the film will end, which is just what the director wants to keep the audience involved. Understably, this conflict makes for some awkward and humerous scenes between Dan, Marie and Mitch. I don't want to give away the end of the movie, but there are other minor conflicts and a few smaller plot lines going on before the eventual resolution (stable situation 2).

Dan also goes under a character growth pattern that is outlined in the textbook and parallels the narrative structure. We see Dan as somewhat of a flawed character in the beginning, even though he is in a stable situation. Then his character experiences a problem, which is the same as the disruption. Next, Dan undergoes a series of tests a growth, which in the end makes him a better character during his stable situation 2.

Overall I thought this was a good movie. It followed narrative and character structures in a logical way that kept me as an audience member interested in the story. I really started to feel for Dan's character by the end. I would classify it as a romantic comedy. Carell and Cook excelled in their roles showing versatility beyond just comedy.

Breaking down American Beauty

"Look closer" is the tagline of the movie American Beauty. This phrase fits the movie very well. When you look closer at each character in the film, you discover something they are hiding or another side of them. For example, when Angela is around others she acts like she is better than everyone because of her looks. She makes fun of others and bosses people around, even her own friend Jane. However, in the end we find out the reason she acts this way is because she is insecure. She feels the need to put others down to feel better about herself.

Ricky is another character who we find has a deeper side to him. Angela and Jane see him as a creep at first because of the way he acts, mainly saying strange things and videotaping Jane from a distance. But Jane sees something interesting in him when she says, "He's so confident." She eventually gets to know Ricky very well and they start dating. She discovers he is very emotional and has a very demanding military father. Jane is also drawn to Ricky because she is also seen as somewhat of an outcast.

By the end of the film we see a new side of all the main characters. The deconstruction of these ideologies is a major theme of the movie. Each character of has their own system of ideas that goes through a transformation when they learn something about theirselves by the end. What is the American Dream? This is what Lester and his family ask themselves. They have a nice house in a nice neighborhood and the parents have nice jobs; their lives are fairly normal. This is exactly the problem. Lester, Carolyn and Jane all feel like they are stuck in a normal, average life that isn't going anywhere, up or down. They all have different ways of coping. Lester starts working out to impress Angela, Carolyn has an affair, Jane has a relationship with Ricky. In the end they all realize that their life is fine the way it is. This is examplified by the plastic bag that Ricky videotaped. It is a simple object floating in the wind. It is a metaphor for the way the family lives material lives. But it is empty, and Ricky thinks this is beautiful. This suggests that their lives are beautiful without the material things in them. All they need is each other.

Culture jamming and advertising

Looking for an idea this week, I decided to further explore culture jamming after we talked about Zach's blog on Wednesday and because the idea intrigued me in terms of how meanings are changed in texts. I eventually entered a website that was all about culture jamming. The site's opening statement explains that, "Most people still function under this rationalist model: 'Change will come if enough people understand the problem rationally and intellectually.'"

The site then argues that rationality and itellect are no longer adequate tools by themselves and that it is a struggle to understand meanings of texts. The site has a very negative opinion of the media calling it "poisonous, symbolic system," and focuses mainly on the advertising aspect of the media. Something that really made sense to me was it's view of how advertising has evolved. The site states how, in the beginning, the simple goal of advertising was to inform people about the product. However, it evolved into what it is today. The focus of advertising today is portraying the people who use the product and not the product itself. Advertising has become so much more that what is on the surface.

I agree that advertising is now a very complex way of sending a message. If one digs deep enough into the text, they will likely find numerous ideologies presented. Adveritsers do this on purpose. They spend a lot of time and money into developing an ad until they feel it demonstrates what they want it to. There are subtle things that are directed to get consumers to buy their product. But I feel like advertisers are selling themselves or a lifestyle more than they are selling a product. That's how advertisers approach it, I think. I am not a professional advertiser or makereter, but these are the ideas if have come to understand through many of the communication classes I have taken thus far.

Back to culture jamming...The site describes this as the introduction of radical ideas. We defined it as taking pleasurable texts and reworking them to send a new message. The site is dedicated to taking some popular ads and messages in today's corporate world and reworking them to have new meanings that are often comical but also catch your attention and make you think about what is really behind the ad.

Black music exploited for hundreds of years

I want to expand on an idea we talked about in class on Monday, Oct. 8. Our discussion that day was centered on dominant ideology and doing ideological work. I believe it was Brian who gave us an example to illustrate the point. He said something like hip-hop music was created by African Americans as a form of their own entertainment but has since been exploited as mainstream culture by the media. by That was all that was said Monday; I made a small note of it in case I wanted to turn it into something bigger for a blog idea. My wish was granted when Wednesday we analyzed three different songs and their meanings. We noted again how hip-hop music was initially a way for blacks to talk about things they dealt with growing up: poverty, bad neighborhoods, crime, drugs, sex, etc. This was their way of expressing themselves through their own form of music.

Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that this type of music could become popular and make someone rich. So hip-hop became more and more popular and became mainstream culture. On page 174 of our text it reads, "Althusser wanted to understand how ideology was transmitted socially, how it was that people took and accepted the values of the dominant groups even if these views might not be in everyone's interests." I think this applies to hip-hop because it wasn't accepted in social culture by the dominant groups at first. But once the media said it was ok, it was like the rest of society felt it was ok to accept it.

This topic overlapped a little bit with my African American Literature class. We talked about how blacks created other types of music in the same way that they created hip-hop. Even as far back as slavery, blacks would sing songs of the struggles. This would eventually become the first wave of blues music, which like hip-hop was eventually accepted by others, in this case whites. Whites then dominated the blues genre, while blacks kept creating new ways to express themselves. They also came up with soul and jazz music. Whatever type of music African Americans come up with for their own uses, they eventually are taken over, controlled, and tweaked by the media and the rest of society.

Young people becoming desensitized to news

My journalism class recently discussed our thoughts about why statistics show that most teenagers and 20-somethings pay hardly any attention to what is going on in the world. This group of people are receiving less news than ever before in history, despite having the most access to news ever in history.

In class we are reading a book called "Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News," by David T.Z. Mindich. All types of news, print, broadcast, and internet, are all in decline in young audiences. Mindich gives several reasons for this change in news consumption. One reason is because of the internet and it's easy access to news and entertainment of all types, it is easy for people to become "selective consumers" of news. In other words, it makes it easier for people to only read what they want to read, selecting topics that interest them and shutting out news that doesn't. The problem is often people shut out the news that is most important.
This problem concerns many people because these young people will someday be leading this world we live in. The group of people that pay the most attention to news, according to Mindich, are wealthy, white, educated elderly. However, this group has the most reason to be complacent. This is what news companies refer to as the Catch-22: Why cover young people if in your news if they don't watch you? But why should they watch you if you don't cover them?

The areas of news that are most avoided by young people are politics and national conflicts. An idea came to me in our class discussion about "desensitization," a term in which we have also discussed before in our class. Desensitization is the concept that long term exposure to media can make audiences progressively less sensitive or responsive to images and messages that made a strong impression when first encountered. I think that young people have become desensitized to news about the was in Iraq because of constant, daily coverage. Every time we arepresented with something about Iraq, we become less and less interested and caring. We are now at the point where we are totally desensitized from it having any impact on us whatsoever.

Another reason for declining numbers is negative news. There is a saying that "if it bleeds, it leads." This refers to news giving negative stories, such as deaths, more coverage than others. They think that this will grab the audience's attention but in my opinion people tune out to negative news.

I admit that I don't pay as much attention to news as I could or should. I read the headlines on the front page of a newspaper and generally go right to the sports section next because that is what interests me. In class we agreed that in college, students have so many things going on that it is hard to keep up with the news. After college we thought we would all pick it up, however statistics show that we won't because of the habits we are creating now. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. Only time will tell.

Rick Reilly sends a message to his readers

Each week I rush to the library to read the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. Unlike most readers who read the cover then flip to the first page, I on the other hand go to the back page before all else. This is because one of my favorite journalists, Rick Reilly, has occupied this page with his weekly columns for as long as I can remember.

Reilly isn't the normal sports journalist, however, which is why I like his stuff so much. He doesn't do the same old, tired topics all the time. He strives to find unique and interesting personal stories by making the extra effort to look for and research them. In Reilly's view, every person has a story to tell, whether they are famous or not. He rarely covers professional sports in his writings, instead opting for areas that don't receive the publicity they deserve. One can find Reilly giving due to Division III athletics, cheerleading or special olympics, among other topics.

In this week's edition, Reilly writes about a 60 year old man from a small town in Vermont with cerebral palsy named Buth Varno. Varno has attended almost every Middlebury College football and basketball game since he was a teenager. It is a tradition that begun when he was 13 that students from the college would drive to his house to pick up him and his wheelchair to take him to whichever athletic event. He sits field/courtside every game and has even given pre-game speeches to the teams. He loves the tradition at Middlebury: "These kids care about me. They don't have to, but they do. I don't know what I'd do without them."

I think it's great that Reilly takes the time to look for and write these emotional, feel-good stories that otherwise would never be heard or told. He goes beyond sports to show that there is so much more to them than just the athletes. I think this is the message or "dominant reading" that Reilly tries to imply each week. That is what he wants his readers to take away. His column is how he reflects/constructs reality. He links the media to the real world in this way as well. His column is his discourse, the way in which his ideas are expressed. His readers will interpret his text in their own way each week on the last page of SI.

Petar Jankovic performance

For this week's blog, I am going to talk about a forum event I attended this week and how it relates to our class discussions. I went to see Petar Jankovic perform classical guitar Tuesday night and he was incredible. He was definitely a master of classical guitar and it was obvious to detect his passion while playing for his audience. I can't even begin to think about how many times he has strummed a guitar while practicing in order to play perfection. Just watching his hands move so fast but yet so gracefully was amazing all by itselft.

Jankovic's performance was also a text, since we learned that anything thing that can be interpreted or "read" is considered a text. In class we used a wedding ring as an example. By itselft, it is just a piece of metal. However, when it is put under textual analysis it has a much larger meaning. It symbolizes marriage, a lifelong committment, not available, off the market, taken, etc. Jankovic's performace was also had a deeper meaning that what was on the surface. He was simply a man with a piece of wood with strings on it but he was able to make magnificent sounds through his instrument.

While listening to Jankovic play, I tried to envision what his music was expressing since there were no lyrics. I imagined such things as sunsets and Spanish people dancing and felt things like loneliness and calmness. Just as texts have dominant readings and alternative readings, interpretations of Jankovic's music differ from person to person depending on how they read his text.

We also discussed semiology, the science of signs and study of sign systems. Sings are similar to texts. This is what I came up with when I applied semiology to Jankovic's performance. The sign was the music that Jankovic was playing, the signifier was Jankovic and his guitar, and the signified was whatever meaning the members of the audience were constructing.

As we see, semiology can be a great tool to use for media analysis. It's advantages include its practicality, which gives us guidlines of what to look for when we face an image. It also compares the wider social and cultural meanings of the sign or text. What I like best is that by breaking signs into signifiers and signifieds helps to understand that texts are constructions of meaning. Jankovic's text was amazing and I'm pretty sure that was agreed on by the entire audience.

Media constructing the music industry

This week's blog is focusing on the ongoing, heated debate between hip-hop artists Kanye West and 50 Cent. How does this relate to mass media you ask? Keep reading.
In case you have been hiding under a rock recently, the two stars both coincidently released their third studio albums on Sept. 11, generating much excitement by their fans and the media. While the two are not the most sworn of enemies, the media has constructed this event as a battle, a showdown between two very popular rappers with two very different styles. Kanye's forte is with cunning lyrics and new sounds while 50 is more aggressive with traditionally booming beats.
I read a fantastic article in Rolling Stone magazine that interviewed each artist and discussed their thoughts and feelings about their own new record as well as their counterpart's and the relationship between them. This week in class we discussed how the media constructs and re-presents reality to us. This event would have received much attention without the media blowing it up as a contest, but by plotting the two against each other the media was able to make this into one of the biggest stories in entertainment this year.
A little background before we move on: Regardless of whether you like hip-hop or not, the media has given it a negative context. Not all hip-hop is dirty and filled with swear words, as the media portrays it. Older generations loathe it and resist to even call it "music." Well music is a text constructed by the media, and texts have multiple meanings according to the personal perspectives of who is reading them. Anyway, the hip-hop industry has seen a major drop in popularity and sales in the past couple years (ironically since these artists released the second albums). So this was a perfect opportunity for the media to hype it up as a battle for hip-hop resurrection. And if some of you are reading this and thinking this isn't that big of a deal, why would Rolling Stone put Fiddy and KW on the cover of their prestigious magazine if it wasn't?
I guess the media's plan has worked though. I personally have been reading anything and everything I can about these two in the last few weeks and still can't get enough and I know I'm not the only one. I have each of their albums (Kanye's Graduation and 50's Curtis) and have been listening to them constantly since they came out simultaneously on Tuesday.
When Kanye was asked about releasing his album on Sept. 11 he responded, "I was a little worried about that day, because I didn't want to be offensive to anyone, to act like I was neglecting that. But people also want to celebrate and have a good time and have something to uplift their spirits. And I believe that my music is inspirational, so it's the perfect album to come out on a day like that. " Just another example of a media-constructed event. Sept. 11, 2006 was constructed by the media as a big deal because of it's fifth anniversary. This year it was like, ok, we can respect the date but it is time to move on with our lives and be happy. That is what Kanye is talking about.
Contrary to what most media producers have said about the relationship between these artists, Rolling Stone indicates that they was no tension between them whatsoever when they were together for their interviews and photo shoot. They each respect what each other is doing for hip-hop culture as a whole, pushing it forward. "It's the competitive nature of hip-hop. The competitive nature doesn't exist in other art forms. We've gotta compete," 50 said. He even claimed that if he didn't sell more albums than Kanye on Sept. 11 that he would retire from rapping, which added more pressure to the situation and gave the media more to work with as listeners flocked to record stores Tuesday.
No matter which artist sold more records, they are both responsible for bringing hip-hop back into the spotlight of the music industry and entertainment world, even if it is only for a few weeks, despite what the media is trying to do to it.

Fashion as communication

I came across an article in the entertainment section in yesterday's USA Today newspaper that featured the band Maroon 5. However, instead of focusing on the band's music, this article was all about the band's unique sense of fashion. I glanced at the article and contemplated reading it. The first thing that came to mind was all of the negatives of reading the article, such as it's seemingly unimportant topic and that it would probably be a waste of my time (which I was already running short on because I had class in 20 minutes and still had the entire sports section to cover).
Yet despite these initial insticts, I found myself being sucked into the entertainment trap as I was already halfway through the introductory paragraph and so continued to read on to the end of the article. Plus I like the band's music.
The band was in New York City rehearsing for Fashion Rocks, a publicity concert that connects fashion and music. I proved my initial thoughts wrong after I finished the article though, because it provoked a deeper thought within me. In class we had just talked about the different forms of communication and I realized; fashion is a form of communication.
Now this may seem like a simple idea to grasp, and it is. I always thought of fashion as a way of self-expression but it had never really occurred to me that what you wear communicates a message to others.
Then I went even deeper into this and thought about all non-verbal communication. I have heard things like non-verbal communication is responsible for more than half of all communication that takes place. Usually people think of speaking and language as the most basic form of communication, but there is so much more than just what people say.
When thinking about mass media and entertainment, there is so much emphasis on what people wear, especially stars and celebrities. They have their own images to maintain and they are constantly in the spotlight. What they wear is a big part of who they are.
Society has evolved and created norms (and stereotypes) that have to do with fashion, and these change throughout different time periods. Certain styles go in and out of popularity.
Music and fashion will always have a strong connection between them. The bandmates all play the same music, but all have different tastes when it comes to fashion. Lead singer Adam Levine: "People in bands, they're spending just as much time thinking about what they're going to wear as what they're going to play...People are going to think this is all very pretentious, the words that are coming out of my mouth, but fashion is some kind of self-expression."
Keep rocking fashion and rocking out mates.