Anne Johnson
Caps 5
Encoding is a powerful tool. It is basically subliminal
messaging. Martin and Nakayama define it as the construction of textual meaning
by popular culture institutions (Martin & Nakayama, 364). The owners and
creators of popular cultural get to decide what messages to spread to the
population.
I don't watch television very often. For this CAPS blog, I
chose to write about the movie Red Dawn. “Television…has a powerful social
function- to serve as a forum for dealing with social issues” (Martin &
Nakayama, 363). During this movie, the two main white male characters had a
racially diverse group of friends. That is, except Asian friends. All of their friends
were fighters and useful, but were not the main characters. It is also
interesting that only the white friends were put on the movie poster. I thought
it was interesting that the bad characters were North Korean. Today, North
Korea is often villainized in the media. This movie just furthered racist
assumptions that all North Koreans are militaristic and want to take over the United
States.
I believe this is important and relevant because no one
global power or group of people ever is as black or white, or as easily
stereotyped as we would like them to be. This movie is perpetuating a harmful
ideology about North Korea, and Asia itself. It furthermore portrays two straight,
white males as the heroes, again. Like we haven’t seen that, ten million times
before.
Reference:
1.
Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th
ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn_(2012_film)
I completely agree that there is a huge belief in society today that all North Koreans are bad, and basically just want to go to war. I think the way North Koreans live really just shows how different cultures can be from each other. Even though here in the US there are a ton different beliefs and cultures, we are still able to do what we want (as long as it is legal) rather than live under someone else's really strict rules. As far as hero's I think that Hollywood is aiming to make money from straight, white males who all at some level wish to be admired like a super hero either for strength or intelligence or something along those lines. By creating movies that will allow the viewer to find something that represents themselves in that hero it just makes it easier for Hollywood to make more money. I never realize how prevalent stereotypes are in are society until I really start to think about the generalizations that are made. So many sterotypes aren't really made knowingly. Influences such as movies, books, and tv impact them so much.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
ReplyDeleteYou have some really interesting points! I think it is crazy that only the white males were put on the poster....What is this encoding in people's minds? That white, American men hold power and influence. From a global perspective, what is this teaching those of other races and cultures? To dislike themselves or to feel powerless? The idea of a "hero" is one that has been very overdone with a single demographic. It would be nice to see heros in the media that are come from different racial/cultural/value systems.
Nice blog!
-Carly