http://m.vice.com/read/whoa-dude-are-we-inside-a-computer-right-now-0000329-v19n9
Because everything is perceived via our senses, things we think are real could all just be figments of our imagination or someone else’s imagination according to this article I read a while back. We have no proof that any of the things around us are real, we have conscious thought but our perceived reality can be altered also, like when we take drugs and hallucinate.
These two advertisements use visual metaphor to carry communicate a message and persuade the buyer of the car or tyre’s qualities and to persuade them to buy the product. We understand the first ad to be saying the car is powerful, has Muscle and grunt. The audience that this ad would appeal to are the type of people that already associate cars as a vehicle of power, rather than someone who sees the car as a vehicle for mere transport.
The myth of the body as a machine is also incorporated here because the audience understand the concept, in my culture where the body is seen more as a spiritual balance between elements this advertisement may not have made the same statement, and rather than clarify the concept of power, made it more allusive.
In movies Africa and Africans are portrayed to be uncivilized or warlords. Its true that these things exist in Africa, but very very rarely (I can’t think of any hollywood movie I’ve watched that shows the developed parts of the country) do you see buildings and cities of Africa. Its always the poor bush lands with naked people, or scenes of disorder and corruption.
In the latest Casino Royale Africa still hasn’t advanced from its developing country depiction. I know that I personally thought all of Africa was like what they depicted in movies because that was all i’d ever see about the country. I was also genuinely a little surprised when I googled “Africa city” into Google images.
Johannesburg skyline
le surprised to realize there ARE cities just like ours in Africa and there ARE people who do normal, everyday things like hang out with friends, go to university, etc.
Being Chinese I recognize a lot of racial stereotypes the Western world have about Asian culture and their people.
As a child i’d often get the question “do you know kung fu?” This racial stereotype is an older portray of the Chinese but it is still very much around in media and advertisers to this to their advantage. The image created by the Kung Fu Asian is that of a crazy, angry and senseless, often brutal and violent Easterner. I guess this feds into the myth of the other and how there are good people and there are bad people in the world, and most often than not it is always the other that are bad, they are less civilized, less human. This is seen in Chinese culture also; in old war film the Westerners are portrayed as brutal animals that take what isn’t theirs, eg. a wealthy family’s beautiful daughter.
I would say that all cultures use racial stereotypes to create the ‘us’ and the ‘other.’ The consequences that come with these portrayal of other cultures is the impression that the people in the other culture are ALL like that, and if the racial stereotype is considered negative then the effects how we read and understand the ‘other’ when we see one. These racial stereotypes feed into what we are used to and effect what connotations or assumptions we have about someone.
So these are the racial stereotypes I can list at off the top of my head about Asian people. I probably noticed them because I am Chinese and grew up in Western culture so am able to see the contrast and stupidity of some of the stereotypes, but I personally think (having spoken to a lot of my non-asian friends about this) that if you weren’t a Chinese, you wouldn’t recognize these portrayals of race as a bit exaggerated or in some cases totally arbitrary, because it’s hard. Without experiencing the other culture first hand, its hard to know what stereotypes have some truth.
So here is the list:
Asians speak very poor English – connotations of stupidity are created here.
Asians have glasses and sit in front of the computer, study all day, and are really nerdy.
Asian women don’t have much sexuality. (And there are rarely many beautiful Asian women that are in lead roles in TV shows such as Gossip girl, 90210 etc)
Asians are loud and crazy.
and at the other end of the spectrum we have:
Asians are really good at kungfu and are very stern, cold blooded people- (the mean main child actor in the modern karate kid springs to mind)
Where are all the good looking, normal Asian people in film?? Also there are very little Asian men who are portrayed in a ‘manly’ way. You wouldn’t see an Asian man in an advertisement for the Marlborough man.
Also I remember having a discussion with my mum a few years back about the parts of China they used to film when talking about China in the news. Even though a particular news story had nothing to do with poverty or rural life (it was about pollution, I think this was around the time of the Beijing Olympics) they shot a very old man with two teeth left, sitting on a step outside what looked like the local food market. Even though Beijing is one of the most developed cities in China, they chose THAT scene, with that man. Not saying anything is wrong with the man, but back then, when China was still a rising country not quite on the world stage yet, I remember complaining that 3 News too often gave the wrong image of China, filming the poor parts and the older generation, which gave the impression that China was still an old country, undeveloped and poor, when in reality it was thriving and on its way to power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K10-K757WY
I thought this was interesting because it shows some of the trends that we use to read people make statements about them. The things signified by the signs- such as what they wear, what they say and how they act, guide the audience’s answers and there are a few signs that everyone agreed upon that indicated whether the person was stupid, this may be because certain signs carry connotations that the audience all share have being brought up in a similar culture.
The majority of pedestrians that wore collar shirts and had glasses were voted to NOT be stupid, the sign of a collared shirt often symbolizes upper class which in turn signifies success and smarts.
The older crowd was generally voted to NOT be stupid.
The next few paragraphs are my own interpretation of how and why the audience came to those conclusions (I came to similar conclusions ) about the pedestrians.
The first pedestrian -the girl : hair untamed, unstyled, wearing a t-shirt that makes a statement about vampires – we’re reading this as communicating she enjoys teenage fiction romance novels and likes them enough to broadcast the fact to the world, doesn’t care too much for fashion, isn’t too fussed about her appearance which leads us to think that she doesn’t have a much status which in turn carries the connotation of being stupid.
The third pedestrian (Michael)- The first thing you notice with Michael is the way he speaks, this ones a special case, because there’s a third element involved, I said no I don’t think he’s stupid because even if I thought he was stupid, I guessed that he wouldn’t think the same way about himself. The signs that suggest he believes in his intelligence are the way he speaks, the way he dresses, and the way he is standing. He speaks very assertively but also quite defensively- this suggests to us that he is quite cocky and a bit egotistical. He dresses himself in a white shirt with a collar with a beige jacket on top which also has a collar. He is dressed in a way that is meant to be smart/formal but in a way which says I didn’t try too hard, I tried only a little. And also the way he is standing; facing his body away from the person talking to him, signifies to me that he is ready to leave if required, he wants to portray himself as a busy man. This might also suggest that he thinks he’s better than the person interviewing him, that the interviewee isn’t worthy of his full attention.
When you sit in public transport there are certain unspoken rules and etiquette that everyone goes by. For example if the bus is getting full, sit in the window seat so that people don’t have to ask you to move over to sit on a chair. There was one afternoon where I caught the bus and sat in the back row. A lady came in a sat in front of me on the aisle seat, which meant no one could sit in the window seat next to her unless she moved.
As the bus got full, she didn’t move. It got to the point where there were 5 people standing up on the bus, either unaware there was an empty seat next to her or too shy to ask her to move. At this point I was personally offended by her, I was thinking how rude and arrogant! Its common sense to move over so that people can sit down. Obviously it wasn’t just me that took personal offence to the situation as a man next to me shouted really loudly “there’s an empty seat back here” to the people standing up.
A few elements were at work here.
The lady seemed to have no superego that made her think it was socially moral to move over and give people access to her seat, since superego is the voice of parents and society, an explanation of her behavior could be her parents didn’t teach her to be polite and mind over, or because she looked foreign, she grew up with different beliefs and value systems that made her act the way she did.
The man who spoke up seems like he had an internal conflict within himself in which the id won. His superego would have recognized that she was being inconsiderate, but he waited a long time to speak up, so his ego must have been thinking- if she hasn’t moved would I be just as rude as her to speak up, ultimately subtly telling her to move, and being her ‘parent?’ whilst his id was saying – just do it.
And within me there was an internal conflict also. I recognized her lack of bus etiquette and wanted the situation to change (my superego), which meant I had to speak up, but if I did speak up what would happen? (my ego was assessing the situation) would she and other people think I was just as rude and sticking my nose in where it wasn’t required?
The Western culture uses the thumbs up as a friendly and positive sign. However in some cultures the thumbs up is a extremely insulting because what it means is “Up yours.”
So while this innocent gesture of a thumbs up signifies positive energy, or encouragement and the like, it signifies something completely different in another culture, because in their culture the sign was given a different meaning agreed upon by their culture. Signs and what they signify are affected by the kind of culture we grow up in since signifiers are based on what we know and what kind of associations we are used to seeing.
Also, because i’m Chinese I use a few hands gestures that the Chinese use that Westerners don’t understand and I always forget it when signifing the number six with hand signs. Instead of a hand of five fingers plus an index finger on the other hand, the Chinese symbolize the number six by using a thumb and a pinkie up in the air. Its strange because I’ve never been able to correct this assumption that westerners understand my hand gesture and use it automatically to signify six.
Another advertisement that screened before a YouTube clip I was watching.
Another media definition of ‘Manly’ and what it is to be a man. I’m not too sure what the program is about but it’s obviously got to do with hunting and living off the land and all that good hearty manly stuff. There are a lot of depictions of males in media as being tough, in touch with the land, able to survive using their natural smarts. They also always seem to be good at something that requires tools and hands. Eg. the DIY Kiwi male is a popular myth that’s fed to men. This image as opposed to women who are depicted as the soft, gentle ones puts the power with the male because it makes it look like the males are the ones that can make a REAL contribution to society and its advancement, since they BUILD, they MAKE, whilst females…well, they can cook nice mashed potatoes.
I got on the bus the other day and there was just a random adhesive hook, those 3M ones you always see advertised, stuck onto the interior wall of the bus. It was so prominent because it was out of place, and also it was stuck upside down.
Because the hook was on a bus and upside down, its meaning changed for me because it’s context changed. If I’d seen that hanging on a public toilet wall, or a corridor somewhere I may have missed it completely, or it would have just been ‘that plastic thing I can hang coats on,’ but take it out of its usual context and the hook now has a different meaning- it has a story. Why was it there, why was it upside down, who and what kind of person placed it there?
The hook is the content but it has no definitive meaning without context.
Ways of seeing 