Comic Books :)

So today I’d like to talk about comic books, why they’re influential in our media, past and present. Why they are popular, and sometimes why there’s a stigma surrounding them.

Comic books, sometimes refered to as graphic novels, are a way to encompass all five of our senses, in a print capacity, with an emphasis on the visual plane. For example, the main stimulus we’re given is visual panels that tell a story from picture to picture. Diolouge, sound effects, texture, and smell, are all added in a cognitive way, either using written words, or visual examples.

In many ways, the comic book form, much like traditional literature, is a way for us to be presented with a story and use our imagination to complete the rest. In another media relation, comic books also resemble film styles, and more importantly, film editing. Each panel represents a cut, and the story, as a whole, is presented to us along the same lines of suspended disbelief as most films. For example, when we watch a movie, between scenes, as well as before the beginning of the movie, and after the end, we assume that other information exists regarding our character, and we imagine it thusly.

To narrow that down even more. Let’s say we were given a movie where the person wakes up, gets dressed, goes to the store, comes home from the store, puts there groceries away, and gets back in bed. End movie. We assume and use our imagination between those particular scenes to fill in the characters story. We also imagine what the character did the night before, why they woke up to go to the grocery store, why they went back to bed, and what will they do when they wake up.

Comics operate in the same way, without the visual stimulus of movement. They give us a slice of the story, within which, we fill in the details with our imagination. Thus is the appeal to the comic book genre, a combination of stimuli ranging from the word imagery of literature, to the editing techniques of modern film.

Comics have seen a resurgence in the media as well, especially with film adaptions becoming more common. Many different markets are capitalizing on this market like never before. Comics also have a stigma of being a hobby of the young and under developed, and it’s true to some extent. The two major developers of comic books, Marvel and DC, feature characters that gladly prance about in the time hardened spandex costumes (I wore one for Bear Halloween, not as comfortable as they look). However, the subject matter of these materials is rarely ever geared towards a young audience. These companies tend to make materials for that younger audience, (The Super Hero Squad (Marvel), Batman: The Brave and The Bold (DC)), but rarely in their original media, i.e. the graphic novel.

There are some comic book companies that cater mainly to adults as well. Vertigo would be a great example of a company that produces high maturity level content (mainly for language, drug content, gore, and nudity). Comic books rated “R,” if that makes more sense Vertigo puts out a number of extremely unique comics that rarely follow the generic superhero formula. Two titles that I recommend (for mature audiences) are Fables: a story about popular public domain fairy tales, forced from their homes and into the modern world to live in secret and establish their own town, and 100 Bullets: a story about an agent named “Graves” who give people a chance to take their lives back with an attache case with a gun and 100 untraceable bullets.

Comic books are wonderful and inovative medium. If you say you don’t like comic books, what that means is you just haven’t found the right book for you

~The Bear!~

Marvel

DC

Vertigo

I ain’t ‘fraid o’ no ghost!

Hello world

Today, I feel inspired to talk about something a little bit different. Don’t fret, though, the media is a source from which we document our lives, to a degree, and this is a topic that has inspired art, movies, documentaries, and literature for centuries.

That’s right, I’m talking about ghosts today, or more pointedly, the paranormal. I’ve had a good deal of experience with the paranormal in my time here at Fredonia. Also, if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past five years, you may have noticed the huge spike in paranormal programming, not only in the Television industry, but in the film, documentary, and literature industries as well. So why is that? A pseudo-science that has that much draw in order to make it profitable to make that much creative content? For starters, the idea of the paranormal goes back to some of the first accounts of written text, and almost all known cultures have had some association with the paranormal.

So the question is: Are these legitimate claims? Or is this BS made up for ratings, and to comfort our fear of death? Religious assertions aside, there’s a great deal of evidence to suggest that paranormal activity exists, legitimately. Now, I wouldn’t argue against that, but how can it be explained? Is it a scientific phenomenon that we have yet to put our finger on? Or is it simply perversions of our senses, taking place merely in the mind? These are questions that simply aren’t answered yet. What is evident is that our cultural curiosity to find and explain these events has translated into a multitude of mediums. Legitimate ghost hunting groups exists almost anywhere you could think to look for them. Many major networks carry their own ghost hunting shows, including Sci-Fi, Discovery, Cartoon Network, The Travel Channel, A&E, and multiple others. It’s a curious trend that’s has people asking questions.

I personally have had two legitimate paranormal experiences that I cannot, for the life of me, explain away. There are many other more questionable experiences I’ve had in my ghost hunts, but these two will stay with me for a long time to come. For your own references, both experiences occurred in Rockafeller, right on the Fredonia Campus. This isn’t uncommon, either. In the Fredonia area, I’ve spoken with a great number of people who have admitted to having Paranormal Experiences. Some locations supposed to be haunted are The White Inn, BJ’s, the abandoned Funeral Home on Central Ave, and multiple residences.

It’s easy to pass this trend off as a fad, or something created to prey on the senses of superstitious people. However, if you are one of the many people who’ve experienced something they can’t explain away, it’s easy to understand the appeal of trying to know the unknown. Even Bears get scared sometimes, but don’t be afraid of the paranormal, and if you’re skeptic about the experience that some of this media offers, why not try hunting for yourself, and come to the conclusion yourself? Take the polls!

Spookily-Yours,

~The Bear~

Advertising…and you!

So we’ve talked about the advertising business in many of my previous articles. We all know what it is, if I were to ask you, “What is advertising?” You’d most certainly have an answer. Lately I’ve painted a picture of the advertising advertising “>business as a blatantly negative piece of our culture, but in our culture it’s almost impossible for an action to be good or bad, purely. It’s many times a gray area, such is advertising. The word ethics is one that’s hotly debated in the advertising industry. When we’re thinking about an ad campaign or a particular product identity, that’s when we have to step back and ask the question “Is this ethical?” We can’t simply look at the advertising industry as a whole and define it as something culturally destructive.

In fact, since the ad industry is so product driven, new ads are constantly being produced, and in some way it is the most honest portrayal of our cultural generation. For example, what is the best way to put yourself mentally in WWII-America? Usually we look at propaganda, news broadcasts, and advertising to help us understand the group mentality of an era.

The slippery slope that comes with mass media is the fact that you have all this information, flowing like a river, that’s supposed to theoretically reach every person, but there is a very small percentage of people who actually control the dam. We have only the top of the industry giving us our information.

This is why the internet age has ushered in a new sense of freedom for media in general. What would the newspapers say if they new that I, a mere bear, were attempting to educate (or maybe merely pontificate to) people out there in the world. Well I know what I would tell them, but alas, the FCC would not approve (but who gives two shits about them anyway

Anyway, I think with advertising it comes down to social responsibility. The people with power have the responsibility to use it ethically. Is it okay to perpetuate the idea that drinking leads to sex? It’s an assumption that we see in most liquor commercials. However, many ad agencies ask the question “Is it okay to use sex to sell our product?” and answer “no.” However, sex isn’t the only unethical pitfall in advertising. Would it be ethical to advertise a type of shoe that costs 120 dollars, in a poor urban demographic? Well, it’s happened before, and there was even a report of one child killing another child for these shoes.

Life and death, it may seem dramatic, but the stakes of affecting another individuals life is very high. Now, does that mean that every media decision should be considered life and death? No. There were many other factors that contributed to that tragic death. But adding a stimulus like that to an urban culture that already has a weak foundation is truly unethical.

Advertising many times sends unethical messages to its audience, if we were to stop and consider this messages, which are many times delivered subliminally, we might be able to, as a culture to stand up and say “enough.” However, many forms of advertising do good for the community, many big name product chains use their profits to donate to charity or help in their local community. Not-For-Profit advertising is another major player in the advertising game. Since they exist not purely for profit, the work they create is usually geared towards helping an individual, instead of getting an individual to buy a product. At the end of the day advertising is a slippery slope, one that affects millions on a daily basis. However, it’s a slope that not all of us have to fall down.

~The Bear!~

Gender Roles in the Media!

So I touched briefly on the topic of gender roles that exist in our media back when we were talking about juxtaposition. I cited a few examples, such as beer commercials, and advertising for cleaning products. I’d like to start this conversation, however, with an idea of what gender is. Gender is the roles and social dialogues that one person acts out according to the customs they’re raised in. Gender is also a completely different term than sex. The sexual organ that we are born with determines our sex, but it doesn’t determine our gender. Culture defines gender. If one looks at any other culture, outside of European descendants, then you would see different gender roles, even if only slightly different then our own.

So we’ve determined that culture determines gender, not the sex of the individual. That being said, how does the media influence these gender roles, and is it a positive influence? Even in our more modern society the masculine gender is generally perceived as the power gender, with the feminine being manipulated as the weaker gender. This has two extremely harmful effect. It ingrains in us a view of the feminine being weak, and the masculine being strong. This negatively affects men and women. Women are discounted and many times short-changed. Men are overestimated, and their abilities often fall short of any praise or notability.

These gender roles that our society perpetuates is helped along by the media. The two examples I used before were, a beer commercial and a cleaning product commercial. Men are many times treated as irrational and minimalistic in the media. Men are almost always the focus of beer commercials. They are shown as playboy, stooges that only are out to drink and to have sex with women. That being said, the woman in these commercials are always smiling and always open to the man whose drinking the “right beer.” What the media is saying culturally is that the men should be drinking and having sex, and that the pretty girls should just smile and be sexy. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a bar, but the women are rarely smiling.

Now the cleaning product commercial is another example of blatant gender outlining by the media. Men are again, if even showed at all, are shown as a caricature of “bafoonary” and ignorance. In these cases the woman swoops in using the cleaning product to save the day by cleaning the mess. Men are portrayed this way to define a clear separation between who should be the one cleaning, and why. Other times men are left completely out of the equation in general. The job is show with a woman by herself, or with small children, in a household setting, using this product to take care of the children or triumph over household dirt adversity. Is this really the picture we’re allowing the media to paint? I was under the impression that in today’s job market a woman was encouraged to succeed in the workplace, not stay at home and clean up after the kids. I also know quite a few single Dad’s that could use those cleaning supplies as well.

The comparisons of gender in media goes FAR beyond these examples. There are cultural reflections in every piece of media that collaborate with gender stereotypes. Music, TV, Film, and Literature are no exceptions. This isn’t to say that some media doesn’t project the negative gender stereotypes, or work to correct them. However, whether a positive image of gender, or negative, media always makes some commentary on gender. It’s important to make sure that commentary is socially responsible and not perpetuating a foolish gender power differential.

In the bear kingdom, the male and female bears work together in love and harmony. The only stereotype we align to is the fact that we LOVE honey. It’s so delicious.

I digress, be conscious of your media, and know that the only ethical criteria for judging a persons merit, despite their gender, is how they treat others…and how well they nuzzle.

~The Bear!~

*Stereotypes in The Media

*How many of these stereotypes are perpetuated by the media?

*And this is just frightening

Movie Magic…?

So my discussion today is centered around the question, “Why cinema?” What is it about this particular form of cultural entertainment that has us paying the inflated cost of nine fifty a pop for us to sit in the dark for hours watching still images flash in front of our eyes at roughly 24 frames per second?

Let me say right now that the reasons, at least in my bear mind, are culturally relative as well as aesthetically relative. The beginning of film began around the turn of the 20th century with the development of basic picture and film equipment. The discovery that when we see 24 still images per second, we perceive it as motion, was a key development as well. Well for bears it only takes 23, but that’s another story. As film developed it became a revolutionary form of entertainment. Something that the world had never seen before. In fact at one of the first public showing of filmed material, when a train was shown coming towards the camera, some individuals stood up and attempted to leap out of the way of the “oncoming” train.

As film practices were refined and feature films started to be produced it became a high class form of social entertainment. To this day, one of the most crucial facets of the movie industry is that it’s social entertainment. Like plays, or opera, the movies are meant to be enjoyed in conjunction with other human beings. This is a precedent that developed from the early conception of the medium, and I would suggest, is a crucial part of the movie going appeal.

Think for a moment of the last time you went to see a movie? Who were you with? It is extremely unlikely that anyone would answer that question: “no one.” Not impossible, but unlikely. Different genre’s also have different cultural connotations, which may or may not depend on gender. Action movies are usually viewed with friends, generally for males. Romantic comedies may be seen with friends, in a generally female sense. Horror movies are sometimes considered date movies. These are all stereotypes for sure, but there’s some truth to them too. I know this bear went to see “Spiderman 2″ on his first date (and she was a beautiful bear let me tell you). Most individuals have probably been on a date to the movies as well. It’s a cultural norm.

Aesthetically speaking, the entire visual entertainment industry is adapting to fit the parameters of the movie business. Many home entertainment systems emulate the theater experience with increasingly larger screens and louder surround sound units. That being said, the theater still offers a contained space where a person can easily “suspend disbelief.” The contained environment that the theater presents is a cool, dark, area. The sound surrounds the viewer and is amplified to an extreme level. The screen itself is larger than any average person could feasibly fit into their home. When someone asks an individual “Hey did you ever see District 9?” A person may regretfully reply “Yeah, but not in the theater.” This is because the movie theater gives us an experience that is almost impossible to recreate in other venues.

So all in all, is it worth the cost of admission? Movies are a century old staple of our culture. They are an unrivaled social and aesthetic experience that have been shocking and awing the citizens of America, and the world in general, for the past three generations. To some, the content being produced may not be up to par, but more than likely there is a movie being released every year that aligns with the tastes of every American. All in all, when we shell out nine bucks, we’re not just paying to be entertained. We’re paying for the experience of what has been a continuing, and constantly growing, cultural revolution. That being said, use discretion when deciding what movies you do decide to see, and never forget about the magic of the movies.

~The Bear

What the *bleep*…!

What the *bleep* indeed. Today, I’m going to be discussing censorship in today’s media, the pro’s, the con’s, the truths, and the myths. In the real world that we experience with our eyes and ears, walking down the street censorship isn’t something that we think about, normally. Personally, when I’m hungry, I don’t look around and think: “How will the children feel that this big burly bear is eating Bambi’s mom’s still undulating heart.” The world isn’t censored traditionally. When a car accident occurs wary mothers may cover their childrens eyes, but censorship as a whole is a blatantly human method of controlling content. That statement sounds very liberal in nature. Control of content is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s the intent behind the control that makes censorship controversial.

Censorship has some very negative connotations. There are still countries (many of which have their own species of bear) whose governments censors all of their media in hopes of controlling the masses, simultaneously destroying diversity. Here in America that’s a different story all together. The government doesn’t attempt to control their masses through the media. That being said, censorship still exists in our media today. When someone thinks of censorship they think FCC. The FCC functions to control profanity, nudity, functioning practices, and other general practicums of the radio/TV mass mediums. The FCC is an institution that gets a bad rap, but the FCC is a central institution that creates an air of general fairness and professionalism in mass media. While the extent of their control is debatable, the FCC does represent legitimized and regulated public censorship of content. Other forms of censorship do exist in our media community, and these forms are less regulated and more called into question.

The first form I’m gonna talk about is self censorship. Some media institutions self regulate content. This is an important media practice, but it depends on the nature of the regulation. Is the company regulating their content because their parent company is threatening to cut them off? Or is the company regulating content because they are trying to preserve the integrity of their genre? Self censorship is a component of all media that most individuals should be aware of. News media practices self-censorship on the basis of cost-effectiveness, and political orientation, as well. There are appropriate times for this, but, that being said, it can also be used in an unethical manor.

Pressure for censorship, or censorship purely on the basis of content is censorship that is unacceptable. I have had many conversations with individuals about the gruesome nature of horror movies. People believe that by even having art, film, and literature that some would deem offensive in the market place, is irresponsible. However, what is truly irresponsible is censoring content that you don’t agree with, or that you don’t understand, purely on that basis. Many individuals that don’t appreciate the horror genre, feel like it is unnecessary violence in our media, and is a waste of time. Talk to any avid fan of the genre and you could easily understand it’s merits, and why its a necessary to represent it in the market place. This is just one example, but think for a moment on some piece of media that you find arbitrary and put yourself outside of your own perspective and try to see the merit in it existing and being presented to an audience. If I could give anyone any advice, its be aware of the market in which you reside, be aware of the political goals of the organization that’s presenting you with content, and make your own ethical decisions about what censoring means to you, and what in the media is ethical censorship and unethical censorship.

~The Bear *growl!*

For some more resources on censored content and pro’s and con’s of censorship, check the links below

Project Censored

Pro’s and Con’s of Censorship!

You’re listening to…THE RADIO!

However, that statement might not be accurate for much longer if Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins has his way. Radio is one of the oldest and most treasured media of our nation, and many others. I remember my days as a cub, huddled around the radio transmitter and using our highly tuned bear ears to listen to the latest artists and personalities offer up their musings on life and culture. Radio as a medium has suffered a great deal in this particular technological climate. In the past twenty years the radio industry has struggled to re-carve it’s niche in the media market that the internet has consumed. Despite the struggles, the radio market continues to exist despite their constant swim in deep waters. Internet Radio options and satellite productions have attempted to adapt, as well as the failed marketing attempt of HD-Radio to combat HD-TV. This is the climate for radio today, a steady industry, but a struggling industry.

That being said, radio is a predominately music oriented media. Working closely with record labels and artists, the radio still serves a necessary function in the media world. A complex balance between the music industry and radio has existed for some time. However, a new act that is being supported by Billy Corgan, called the Performance Rights Act, is being proposed that would force terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to authors and artists for the right to play music on their station. The argument is that internet radio pays royalties, so why not terrestrial radio?

“Simply put, if a station plays a song, both the author and the performer should be paid,” he continued. “These particular performances must have value to the stations or they wouldn’t be playing them.” -Billy Corgan

A valid point. The songs by these artists do have value to radio, but this value has always been balanced by the free advertising that radio provides by playing the artists songs. This in turn advertises the artists and in theory boosts sales for the artist. So in this case, who should be paying who? Should radio be paying for the value of the artists song, when in turn the artist is getting free advertising? This act seems to be another example of The Music Industry, which is also struggling in this “internet download” rage, trying to use musicians as a scapegoat for making more money.

That being said, if this act were to pass it would decimate the already struggling industry that is terrestrial radio. When this situation is broken down, it becomes an issue of money and business, over fellowship between mediums. Artists need radio, internet or otherwise, to promote their music and their message. Radio needs the music industry to provide them with structure and content. In the past these two industries worked together to provide mutually beneficial services that promote music as an art and form of entertainment. With this new act being proposed, it destroys that beneficial relationship and creates another greed-mongering tornado of who can exploit who in order to make more money. A tragic example of money being valued over art. Even more tragic is Billy Corgan allowing his identity to be at the forefront of this befuddling attempt to drive a wedge between the artists and one of America’s oldest medias.

Read more about the Performance Rights Act here:

The Performance Rights Act

~The Bear!