Assignment 3 Idea

Ideas for Assignment 3:

Phenomenon – Child Pageants

(People in Melbourne protesting against the staging of a child beauty pageant in 2011, taken from http://theconversation.edu.au/little-miss-innocent-anxious-adults-await-australias-first-child-beauty-pageant-1209)

There is a lot of public opinion that beauty pageants (for adult women) encourages sexual objectification of women and destroys everything that feminists stand for. This is much worse for children: childhood is supposedly the age of innocence, yet we pit young girls against one another in a contest of superficial beauty. We incorporate the wrong messages about beauty by imposing our “ideals” of beauty on their young fragile minds, possibly leading to more problems of anorexia and other health problems in young girls, as well as a desire to undergo plastic surgery.

What exactly is the point of organizing beauty pageants for children in the first place? What does this tell us about our society, our concept of beauty, and the kind of values and culture we want to teach our children? I hope to be able to find deeper answers to these questions by probing further into this topic.

a little intro to my second assignment...

For my assignment, I plan to focus on the character of Harriman F. Spritzer, the President of Ultra Clutch Hairspray and sponsor of the Corny Collins Show in the movie, Hairspray. Using John Street’s article, “Showbusiness of a Serious Kind”, the role of the sponsor can be further examined with Spritzer’s words and actions in the movie as evidence.

Original quote: “Mrs. Von Tussle, Negro Day every day? That chubby Communist girl and kissing on the mouth with possibly parted lips... I assure you, controversy is not what Ultra Clutch wishes to promote.” [In the 2007 movie, it was simply “I want that chubby Communist girl off my show!”]

This quote from Spritzer shows the significance of the sponsor in manipulating the content of the program to achieve their objective. In order to continue receiving funding, the Corny Collins show has to go with his wishes; i.e. portray a “good” image of Ultra Clutch to his – supportive of white superiority, encouraging homogeneity and rejecting any idea of integration.

Additionally, the fact that he asked Tracy to stay on the show after realizing how popular she was with the townsfolk was purely to develop his own agenda: to earn profits and good publicity for his brand of products. The prize is just a tool to him. He uses the prize to shape the perception of people towards his product: that it is trendy. All the “nicest” kids in town use it. So you should use it too if you want to be cool.

He also fired Velma Von Tussle off the show when it was broadcasted live on television that she had messed with the voting system to make sure her daughter, Amber, would win the Miss Hairspray contest. He does not take sides. The only thing that matters to him is the reputation of his product.

The Strange Power of Prizes (Gunther, 2009)
(From: http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/12/02/the-strange-power-of-prizes/)

"Awards are for adults, he said. Prizes are for kids.
The strange power of prizes just may be that they make us feel like kids again."

What is the difference between a prize and an award? Aren't they mostly used synonymously?

Anyway, I like how this article presents the simple and positive side of prizes. All along we have seen prizes as some form of formula for success that is imposed on us as a standard which we should attempt to match up to (e.g. a film that wins an Oscar or a book that wins the Booker must be the definition of fantastic. Hence, to gain recognition, we have to make movies/write books in that same style) Here, the writer talks about prizes being a motivational force and incentive that pushes people to work harder and achieve greater things for the sake of mankind, not just in the field of science, but in terms of economic growth as well. In some cases, it can even allow people to accomplish what may not be beneficial to the individual in an economic sense: the Progressive Automotive Prize aims to "inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change". People may still delve deep into research in this area in order to win the prize, although in reality most people are still not very receptive of environmentally friendly cars like these, thus there might not be much revenue earned from marketing such a product to the world.

Compared to movies and literature awards which can be rather subjective with their vague criteria, it is prehaps easier in the area of science to say what deserves an award like the Nobel Prize and what does not... or is it? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34712701/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/weird-science-awards/ The Weird Science Awards show discoveries and experiments that seem ridiculous and nonsensical, yet they also show potential for research that may prove to be of immense benefit to humankind. For instance, making glow-in-the-dark puppies is a step towards researching genetics that may cure human diseases in the future.

Anyway, back to something that we've been discussing during lessons:

Gunther mentions that "prizes add pizzazz and drama to scientific research, which can otherwise be a bit dull". We are critical of the Booker for being so recognized just because it never fails to be plagued by scandals. People are drawn in to find out more about it because of this dramatism. Yet, it can actually be a positive force in the field of science. Many people who do not realise the importance and benefits of science in our world do sit up and take notice (well, take MORE notice, anyway...) when the Nobel Prize winners for the various scientific categories are announced, along with their discoveries. This draws attention to research and makes people see how far mankind has progressed. This serves as good publicity for the field. :)

Reading Dwight Macdonald's "A Theory of Mass Culture" 

To clarify about yesterday’s point for Q3:

Under the heading “Gresham’s Law in Culture”, Macdonald specified that Folk Art was different from mass culture as we know it today, in a sense that Folk Art “had its own special quality” and was born as a unique culture from the common people, as opposed to High Art, which was a unique culture created by the rich. This was expounded by Siu Yi in her discussion of the previous question (using the private-little-garden-versus-great-formal-park analogy). My point is that after democracy was introduced, there is no longer that fine line between the two cultures any longer and everything (high culture and folk culture) has been mashed together in a new culture known as kitsch throughout this article.

What I gathered from the reading of this was that Folk Art had been “commercialized” and turned into mass culture for everyone. (Zul raised a nice example about Taiwanese culture being incorporated into street fashion.) But mass culture tries to include the rich upper classes as well, and to appeal to them, some elements of High Culture have to be incorporated into mass culture. Thus, I said that mass culture has an element of trying to be like High Culture, and in doing so it has turned into something that belongs to neither category; something crass.

In that sense, trying to cater to every kind of audience without discrimination is threatening the existence of High Culture (“bad stuff drives out the good”). Macdonald is extremely critical of kitsch, which he calls “(at best) a vulgarized reflection of High Culture”.

Macdonald now moves on to discuss the concept of kitsch instead of Folk Art, and the main differences between kitsch and High Culture are as follows:

While High Art is specifically for the appreciation of the aristocracy, kitsch is for everyone. It is far easier to understand and to create than High Art is; thus it is more popular. Additionally, while High Art is open to interpretation from various perspectives, kitsch has already been interpreted for the reader.

I apologize for causing confusion by commenting without explaining. J

“The Case Against Awards; Why the Wrong Person Always Wins”
(By Jonathan Chait, published 19 October 2009)

This article presents the view that awards are always given out to the wrong people. However, while some interesting examples are raised about how awards are given out to seemingly undeserving people, the writer fails to prove that awards are ALWAYS given out to the wrong people. He completely disregards any examples of people who are actually “deserving” and are “correctly awarded”, such as the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the organization, “Doctors Without Borders” (Medecins Sans Frontieres), for their international work in treating the injured and saving lives in war-torn countries.

While Chait agrees that awards are presented to people based on a very subjective judgment (“Declaring one great work of art superior to others is like having an official ranking for best ice cream flavor”), he does not seem to realize that he himself is being very biased. His language is sometimes sarcastic to mock the prize committees for their seemingly ill-made decisions:

·    “This year, the committee decided to give it to Obama because, well, he seems like such a nice young man.” – He clearly disagrees with the prize committee’s decision and mocks them by making them seem silly with this comment.

·    “What do people expect? It’s not like they gave the award to Hitler.” – He says that as long as the prize committee does not award a murderer the peace prize, we should all just be contented with the outcome, while implying that we should lower our standards and give up hope that awards will ever be given out to “rightfully deserving” people.

Actually, in retrospect, perhaps we are all biased in some way. I agree with the writer that a lot of world-renowned prizes are rather vague in criteria, such that there is no way to decide on a clear winner from the multitude of factors that are brought into consideration. For example, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."¹ Should the prize go to a medical researcher who discovered a cure for cancer, an environmental activist who persuaded politicians to work together in cutting down their countries’ carbon dioxide emissions, or a Prime Minister of a country who managed to negotiate with others to achieve peace in their war-torn region? Who is to say which type of work is MOST beneficial to Mankind?

I do not think that there is a perfect solution to this problem. After all, everyone has differing opinions and for every award, everyone has different ideas about who is most deserving. (At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, there were people who cheered for Taylor Swift when she was announced the winner, and there were people who cheered for Beyonce as well when Kanye West praised her music videos.) Perhaps we place too much emphasis on material awards and achievements, and this is what we should be more worried about.

¹ ("The Nobel Peace Prize: From Negotiations to Human Rights". Nobelprize.org. 13 Jan 2012 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/sejersted/)

Reflections

For Putin, a Peace Prize for a Decision to Go to War
(By Edward Wong, published 15 November 2011)

The prize committee members admire Putin’s heavy-handed approach in quelling the terrorist forces of Chechnya. Yet the writer puts down the prize committee in his article and mocks the Confucius Peace Prize as being an unknown and silly award that no one cares for. Perhaps he cannot accept their opinion that true peace is gained through war. The decision made by the committee to award Putin a peace prize would probably seem like a ridiculous one to him (and probably to the Westerners in general), who think the ideal peace prize-winner should be one who abhors violence and achieve unity through “nobler” means.