The Terrorist

There are many facets of social identities at work in the myth of the terrorist constructed in George W. Bush's address and Dick Cheney's interview. The two most noticeable social identities were race and class.

The terrorists are from Al-Queda. They are extremists which is an Islamic practice.

Class was heavily talked about in Dick Cheney's interview with Tim Russert. Dick Cheney states that Osama Bin Laden's hatred against the United States and his taking illegal actions to destroy and force the United States to withdraw from that part of the world, must have something to do with his background, his own upbringing. Osama Bin Laden is from an upperclass family.He is the son of one of the wealthiest Saudi families. The power that his family had probably influenced him in many ways. Since Osama Bin Laden has a lot of money and wealth, it can purchase power along with it. He can pay people to do evil in parts of the world he doesn't like, such in this case, the United States. The fact that his family is rich because they are business people would have stereotyped their parents as neglecting individuals who only focused their attention on their business and wealth.

Sexuality as a social identity also comes in play. George W. Bush claims in his speech, "The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that had been rejected by Muslim scholars and the bast majority of Muslim cleric, a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of  Islam." He calls their teachings as being perverted which is a very sexual word. The word alone means an altering of something from its original state and it is usually something bad. The word perverted from the google dictionary means "characterized by sexually abnormal and unacceptable practices or tendencies." This is just basically saying that the terrorists are practicing something illegal and that it is very bad. Calling someone perverted can be very offensive in many ways and this does not do any better than in Al-Queda's practices. The terrorists hate the freedom the United States offers and wants to destroy it. 

In George W. Bush's speech, he also calls the Al-Queda and their supporters barbarians. This is an indicator of race which is "Arabness" as a social identity. They are called barbarians because they don't like freedom being offered in different countries in the world in the newer centuries. They are thinking in the old ways that everybody should be controlled by the government. Osama Bin Laden wants to be the head of the government and own his country so he prevents freedom in his people for them to obey him and listen to his orders.

One of the blogs that talk heavily about terrorism is 
http://universalcritique.blogspot.com/2012/12/constitutional-rights-terrorists.html

The Rush Hour Trilogy

The Rush Hour Trilogy is one example of Pop Culture that repeats one of the stereotypes in which Michael Omi talks about in his "The Living Color: Race and American Culture." The three movies portray Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, both minorities, as the main characters. The films stereotype them according to their races, Jackie Chan as an Asian-American Kung-fu master and Chris Tucker as an African-American gangster.

Jackie Chan has a Chinese accent even when speaking in English. This stereotypes Asians as minorities who have a hard time speaking in English. He is paired with the motor-mouth Chris Tucker in order to balance and keep the films lively. This stereotypes African-Americans as very fast thinking and talking English speakers. In the films, Jackie Chan is the fighter and problem solver while Chris Tucker is the blabbermouth and the clown. It is proven in the Trilogies that the Asian race and the African race are completely different or even the opposite of each other.

Jackie Chan is also a lot smaller than Chris Tucker who is around six foot. Chris Tucker is also buff and Jackie Chan just looks like another normal short asian man. Asians had always been stereotyped to look alike and so there is also a scene in one of the Trilogies where Chris Tucker was fighting against five other asian men with Jackie Chan and Chris had almost punched Jackie by accident thinking he was one of the bad guys. Chris Tucker explains that all asians looked alike. However, Jackie Chan is a lot smarter and he solves problems by logically thinking while Chris Tucker just complains and fights when he is told to. Pairing these two together creates problems which is entertaining and the reason why this trilogy is so popular among different groups of people. This film is entertaining due to the racial and ethnic differences among the minorities in the United States.

Evey as the Final Girl

My topic for the research paper is based on the myth of the final girl. I think this applies very well to the main female character of the political thriller film "V for Vendetta" named Evey Hammond. Evey is shown in many scenes of the movie with the characteristics of the final girl seen in horror films. She doesn't die in the film despite the fact that her connections with the "countries worst enemy" were threatening her very existence.

Her character progresses throughout the film with more confidence and bravery through her sufferings. She is weak, scared, and ambiguous at first but through her experiences, she is able to pick herself up and think of that as a positive thing. There is a scene in the movie in which she was tortured and left and locked in a cell with a black bag over her head. This was due to her connections with V, the main character who is against the country's political system, and she was tortured to tell his whereabouts to the corrupted government. She was at first very scared but she doesn't give in.

According to Holly Devor's Gender Blending, Evey is seen as very masculine here which is a huge characteristic of the final girl. Devor suggests that masculinity is more concerned with egoistic dominance and femininity as striving for cooperation or communion. In Evey's situation, she forced herself to not give in to the corrupted government because it would affect the lives of others. The government would kill those that oppose them. Instead of giving up and letting the government control her through use of torture, Evey gains confidence in her decision to stand against them when she reads a letter from Valarie, a prisoner from the adjoining cell. Valarie was an aspiring actress that died in a tragic death because she was condemned for being a lesbian. This encouraged Evey to stop supporting the evil government due to being terrified of them and terrified of death. She can no longer be threatened by death. She can’t be manipulated by the government anymore.

The setting of this film is set in the United Kingdom under the fascist regime of the Norsefire party. Homosexuals, political offenders, and other undesirables were imprisoned in concentration camps and tortured there. Valerie's letter inspired Evey to overcome her fear and out-right oppose the corrupted government. She is seen masculating herself this way throughout the entire film. She loses her girlish characteristics (also shown in the scene of her head being shaved) and survives to the end. Evey is strong and doesn't portray the typical stereotypes of females. In Men, Women and Chainsaws by Holly Devor, the final girl is described as she either survives throughout the entire film or is the last to die. I’m going to use the entire book and even the Final Girl chapter in order to persuade the readers about the similar characteristics that both Evey and the Final Girl portray.

Who do you like want to Unbutton?

Levi's has always been one of the top jean companies worldwide. It loves to advertisement internationally using different celebrities for different countries. An example would this printed ad from Korea.

(Picture from http://haloyo.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/korean-levis-premium-collection-stars-song-hye-kyo-and-some-token-dude/)

It features a Korean actress named Song Hye Kyo who is also known for being the best face of her country. This technique of Levi's of using very popular celebrities to draw in attention is very intelligent and simple. Even though it is not well thought out, its simplicity of the best face of Korea wearing their jeans make other ladies desire one for their own. The others would think that if they had jeans like that, they'd look like her or look just as good as her.
However, back to the point, one advertisement from Levi's that really interested me was one of their advertisements from their Levi's 501 Live Unbuttoned collection.

 

(Picture from http://adoholik.com/2009/03/20/levis-latte/)

 

This printed ad features a very attractive young girl on the streets of the city. It looks like she is in Broadway, Manhattan with all the taxis and New York City style houses around her. There are also garbage cans, streetlights, and poles with graffiti all over it. The first thing I saw before anything else was the font in red in the center of the ad. It reads the Boy who makes my morning latte. At first, I was very confused but I looked around the ad and I figured out it was an answer to a question. The question was Who do you want to unbutton? And the answer was the Boy who makes my morning latte. It seems that the girl is waiting for her coffee outside the coffee shop flirtatiously and that the person making the latte inside is the boy she likes. As you notice on the ad, her answer of who she wants to unbutton is also in handwritten letters in script in red. This can mean that she is very girly and in a romantic mood.
The very attractive girl is also looking straight at the camera. This tells us that she is not any different from us. It is very possible any one of us could have a little crush on someone that works at Starbucks. Or better yet, the question of who do you want to unbutton can be relatable to all of us. Levi's uses sex appeal very often in their advertisements especially towards the younger generation. They also use attractive models so that we could either look up to or want to be him or her. In this ad, the girl is wearing a laid back top with their boyfriend jeans. She is attractive, tall, and very fit and even though she is wearing the most simple clothes, she still looks good. I think the simplicity of the woman is portrayed because it brings out a youth spectrum of all generations. The younger we are, the less we need to cover. Thus, bring out the simplicity suggests the romance of the younger generation. Her laid back posture and the I don't care look on her face symbolizes the ways of the twenty first century women. She is showing her masculine look that women couldn't back in the old centuries. The showing of her skin also signifies that she has power and confidence and the will to do whatever she wants.
This advertisement uses both fear and desire to grab the attention of its consumers. The masculinity shown from the female model from the advertisement is suggesting that men might like women with a sense of power or confidence. It could also mean that women that lacks that won't make it big in the world such as those in the older centuries. An example is that Femininity isn't suggested when having a crush on somebody because men like a more masculine women. In the end, this advertisement is just telling us to buy their jeans so we could look like the women in the advertisement so that our love confession would succeed.

Silence of Love: Thai Life Insurance

Sigmund Freud's Uncanny and Jack Solomon's Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising is similar in a sense that they both involve either the unconscious or subconscious feelings of fear and desire. The only difference is that Sigmund Freud goes deep into the uncomfortably familiar (such as Déjà vu) while on the other hand Jack Solomon criticizes what is there. In other words, Sigmund Freud talks about things that cannot be explained or proven while Jack Solomon critiques on how and why things happen. Solomon criticizes advertisements and why the creators of them would use that sort of method to gain favor of its audiences.

One advertisement that interests me deeply is Silence of Love: Thai Life Insurance Commercial that has gone viral and created an internet sensation. 

I can see why this life insurance commercial got so popular all over the world. Wait, I shouldn't have told you that it was a commercial because now you won't feel as emotional. My story tells it all. The first time I saw this commercial, I thought it was the trailer of a very sad movie. It was one of the first time I ever cried over a film or better yet, a commercial, and a life insurance commercial at that. However, I took back what I felt at the end when three words showed up, "Thai Life Insurance." This made me feel like I made a fool out of myself. I got all emotional and then..."Thai Life Insurance?!" I can't believe I cried so hard over a commercial.

This advertisement depicts the story of a mute father and his love for his daughter and even though he couldn't do what the other father's could do (such as talk) he still had unconditional love for her like normal fathers had for their kids. The quote that got me hard was at the end that "There is no best dad in the world, only the one that loves you more than anything." The reason why this commercial was so depressing for me was that I can relate to it and others as well. We all have the one and only father in the world and although he is not perfect, he still loves us no matter who or what we are like no other. This commercial is telling us to get their insurance by enforcing the "we never know what we have until it's gone" spectrum. I was not referring to the girl that does not know how great of a father she had and lost but I meant by the girl's father. According to this commercial, the father does not know that he'd suddenly die and leave his daughter so in order to look after her, he should buy an insurance so that his daughter would have an easier life by herself. To buy an insurance is to die with a compensation that would benefit his daughter. It's another way of looking after your loved ones even after death. 

According to Solomon, the American Dream is based on the society of class. Advertisements are usually based on the class difference. This commercial is portraying a very poor family both in physical and emotional situations. They don't live in a big house, their clothes don't look any more expensive, and they obviously aren't happy people. This family of two is on the lower end of the class and I think this is because this insurance company wants to let people know that their insurance is affordable. If they can afford life insurance, most people would be able to. In other words, you should buy the insurance to fit in with the whole society because everybody can get it. The commercial also aims these kinds of situations at everybody. Everyone has a beloved one that they want to protect and this commercial is solely based on that fact. It's like asking you (the consumer) how much you really love them cause if you love them enough, you would buy this life insurance to protect them.

(Image from http://www.kaplansky.com/insurance-quotes/life-insurance) 

(Image from http://www.cumberlandinsurance.com/w2/?page_id=143)

Insurance companies use images and commercials such as these to leave a mark on our subconscious minds that insurance can keep a family happy and relaxed together with nothing to worry about. We can have fun with our family without having to think about what lies in the future for us. Even when we can no longer look after them (such as the case of the mute father and his daughter) insurance can give us confidence that our loved ones are protected with the most valuable thing in the world.

It is also very significant that Life Insurance advertisements both produces the fears and desires in our minds. We all fear that our loved ones would have nothing if we are gone or in other words we fear that we have no life insurance. We also want that life insurance because we have fear for not having one. Fear can lead to desire and what we desire is to isolate the cause of that fear.