Archive for July, 2007
“It’s Our Job to Know Stuff”: The Epistemology of CSI
Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Associate Professor of English and Media Studies, Pomona College — July 30th, 2007|
This compilation of brief clips begins with a paradigmatic scene from episode 101 of CSI, "Cool Change," which lays out the show's most basic philosophical premises: "It's our job to know stuff," Grissom points out, but the importance of the origins of that knowledge is made clear as well. When Sara hints that Grissom might have relied on computer simulations for his data rather than tossing dummies off a building, Grissom responds somewhat defensively: "No, thank you. I'm a scientist. I li [...]
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Of Niggas and Citizens: Mobilizing Strategies on The Boondocks and the Rhetoric of Blame
Avi Santo, Old Dominion University — July 27th, 2007|
Satire often points a critical finger at the centers of power. Sometimes the dominant culture will satirize itself, and sometimes in-groups will use satire to justify their elevated status over particular out-groups, but in many instances, satire requires a combined sense of marginalization and superiority to be effective. Satire works best when normative/dominant values are ridiculed by those who perceive themselves to be unjustly pushed to the periphery. On television, satire rarely begins at [...]
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Making Sense of South Park, or Is a Snuke in a Sniz more than a Snuke in a Sniz?
Ethan Thompson, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi — July 26th, 2007|
South Park has parlayed crude animation and crude content into a highly efficient mode of producing social satire. Episodes can be generated in less than a week, meaning the show can be far more topical than the vast majority of narrative television. And while SNL, TDS, or Colbert Report may take satiric swipes at controversial material, there seems to be something about immersing controversy in a narrative context that is...special? What about South Park as an episodic narrative distinguishes i [...]
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Apology to Americans: The Borders of Television Satire
Serra Tinic, University of Alberta — July 25th, 2007|
Satire is often defined as a moralistic mode of address that critiques the missteps and hypocrisies of those who wield cultural and political authority. It is a tactic of resistance for those who sit outside the circles of power and its success depends on the complicity of an audience of cultural insiders who are privy to the codes needed to “get the joke.” Consequently, satire is seen to be one of the most culturally specific forms of discourse as it speaks to issues of social cohesion and [...]
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On Political Satire: ‘Ha-Ha’ Funny or Contemptuously So?
Jeffrey P. Jones, Associate Professor Department of Communication & Theatre Arts Old Dominion University — July 24th, 2007|
Satire is not necessarily funny. Gulliver’s Travels is a familiar example of that truism. But television is not literature, and hence, the entertainment demands of the medium often require satire to be “ha-ha” funny. Or at least that is what television critics expected from the Half-Hour News Hour, a Daily Show rip-off which debuted on Fox News several months ago, when they lambasted the show. Similarly with Comedy Central’s Lil’ Bush, an animated series that centers on a juvenile [...]
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Throwing Out the Welcome Mat: Guests and Victims on Television Satire
Jonathan Gray, Fordham University — July 23rd, 2007|
Two strategies for involving public figures. The Simpsons offers public figures a chance to look humble and laid back, in exchange for a slight tinge of subversive attack (Blair as the misfit Mr. Bean even as he tries to be James Bond). Chris Morris’s Brasseye (1997), meanwhile, was a biting social satire and news journal parody that created public service groups dedicated to fighting ludicrously conceived social problems. Public figures then came to the slaughter, unwittingly participati [...]
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Virtual Funeral Crashing
Dave Parry, Assistant Professor of Emerging Media and Communications. University of Texas at Dallas — July 20th, 2007|
While I show many short clips throughout the semester to my classes, no clip has perhaps elicited more divergent and emotionally invested responses than this one. This clip is just a portion of a much longer one (the longer one is a bit higher quality). A woman who was an avid player of World of Warcraft died in real life. Unable to attend her real funeral, her Warcraft friends decided to have one online (set to the solemn music). However, another rival faction heard about this, and decided t [...]
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Video Game Wii-ealism
Matthew Thomas Payne, University of Texas at Austin — July 19th, 2007|
On June 19, 2007, more than two years after RESIDENT EVIL 4 (RE4) was first released on the Nintendo Gamecube, the game’s developer and publisher, Capcom, ported their highly acclaimed horror title to Nintendo’s “next generation” platform, the Wii. The notable media buzz that the Wii generated last November was due in no small part to the system’s unique non-gamepad-style wireless controller--the Wii Remote (or Wiimote)--which promised to amplify the physicality of gameplay, appeal to [...]
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Do Agent-avatars Dream of Embodied Sheep? Subjectivity and Subjugation in the Virtual World of Prometeus – The Media Revolution
Richard Edwards, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, School of Informatics — July 18th, 2007|
Prometeus, a video manifesto created by Casaleggio Associati, is reminiscent of Sloan and Thompson's EPIC 2015. Both videos produce futuristic visions predicated on the potential power and unbridled growth of today's new media giants, especially Google and Amazon.com. Both EPIC 2015 and Prometeus portray a future where today's largest net-based companies merge into one entity that impacts and controls all aspects of everyday life (EPIC 2015 memorably calls the new conglomerate "Googlezon.") Narr [...]
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What Happens in Vegas
Derek Kompare, Southern Methodist University — July 31st, 2007