Cameron Crowe’s Romantic Comedy Jerry McGuire, although probably best known for its satirical depiction of life in a fast-paced sports agency and memorable line of “show me the money,” belted out by NFL hopeful Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Jerry McGuire also does a very respectable job of hitting on all the cliché constructions of love that Americans enjoy watching.
Here is the clip, because it is truly fantastic:
As the movie opens, Jerry McGuire (Tom Cruise) is engaged to Avery Bishop (Kelly Preston), and it becomes obvious to the audience that their relationship is most likely doomed to fail, as their relationship appears to be built solely on physical attraction and a love of money. Indeed it fails, as Cruise is first fired from his work, and later blows a deal with a potentially lucrative client. Their relationship ends in a pretty comical altercation, as Preston smacks Cruise in the face after Cruise dumps her for not being supportive enough.
At this point, the character of Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), has already been introduced, and as Cruise’s relationship with Preston comes to a close, his relationship with Zellweger begins to heat up. Zellweger was initially drawn to, or even childishly enamored with, Cruise when he published a soul-bearing altruistic manifesto, “The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business," which ultimately gets Cruise fired from his position at his agency.
This following series of relationships, character development, and conceptions of love eerily echo what McDonald outlines in Chapter 3 of ‘The Sex Comedy” as a typical 1950s ‘Sex Comedy’ plot: Only when a man “ceases to be the sexually aggressive he-man he has habitually been” can he win his woman over by “becoming nicer, more loving […] the insights he has gained while not being a wolf” (McDonald, 48). Crowe is attempting to illustrate that being fired from his job, blowing a deal, and loosing his fiancée has caused Cruise to hit rock bottom. The only way Cruise can climb back out out is through becoming a more sensitive, father-like figure.
Crowe’s portrayal of love is right in line with most other typical romantic American comedies. First, it is heterosexual. Secondly, for love to exist, the successful, powerful male must attract an emotionally weaker woman, but only once the man learns a bit of humility can the couple co-exist happily. Furthermore, women who yearn for success, money or power, typically male attributes, are demonized and doomed to fail.
Lastly, it should be noted that Crowe uses the nuclear family as a stabilizing mechanism in all of the movies successful relationships. Part of the reason Cruise ultimately stays with Zellweger is due to the relationship he develops with her son, Ray, (Jonathan Lipnicki). Secondly, Gooding Jr.’s family is portrayed as a boisterous but extremely loving African American family, serving as an extremely solid support system for Gooding Jr. and his career. Cultural studies historian Cantor would believe that this is a classic and cliché depiction of a functional American family, suggesting that “we seek solutions to social problems within the family (by making it responsible for ‘crime’ or ‘social care’ (Baker, 48). Along these lines, Crowe too appears to suggest that the family is the best support structure to turn to when the going gets tough.
Its classic portrayals of love and relationships aside, I do think that Jerry McGuire is a terrific and enjoyable film. Maybe I’ve been duped think in just that manor, but, for now, that’s ok with me.
Works Cited:
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2008. Print.
McDonald. Chapter 3: “The Sex Comedy.”
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
A Santa Monica Ethnography - Pete's Coffee
July 25,th 2011 – 7:30 AM
Lined neatly with Ficus trees, hybrid vehicles, and a medley of restaurants, coffee shops and retail stores, a sleepy Montana Avenue cuts right through the through the northern edge of Santa Monica, and Santa Monica likes to wake up with coffee. One ½ mile stretch of Montana avenue between 7th Street and 15th Street manages to nestle six unique coffee stops: three Starbucks, two independent coffee houses, and one Pete’s Coffee, all of which have significant lines by 7:30 AM. I’ve chosen to sit with my skim cappuccino right outside of Pete’s coffee at the corner of 14th Street and Montana Avenue. It is a July Monday in Santa Monica, and the temperature sits at pleasant 65 degrees while the summer heat is kept at bay by the groggy marine-layer.
The 7:30 coffee crowd is looking to get their pre-work jolt. All the customers are dressed smartly: some in suits, most just wearing business casual and sporting an iPhone or Blackberry. At this point, the crowd seems to be about 70% male, 30% female, the average age appearing to rest somewhere between 30 and 50 years. The movement of people and out of Pete’s remains steady and constant, but at 7:50 AM new phenomenon begins.
Women in their late twenties to early forties begin to appear, dressed without fail in black, athletic leggings and a brightly colored athletic top, ready to show up to the 8:00 AM workout at one of the three workout studios on Montana Avenue (yoga, Pilates or spinning to chose from). The women chat happily with one another as they make there way to their exercise studio of choice.
As 8:15 rolls around, the line at Pete’s begins to shorten (temporarily) and the hum of young professionals and pre-workout chatter is replaced by the growing bustle of traffic on Montana Avenue. Dogs begin to show up on the streets, some being walked, others being jogged, stores and restaurants begin the process of opening, and that sleepy marine-layer begins to be challenged by the first rays of the sun.
At the corner of 15th and Montana lies one of Santa Monica’s two Whole Foods, and from I sit I have a clear view of the parking lot. At around 8:35, I watch a new Lexus coupe narrowly miss backing into a truck making its morning delivery. As the coupe makes its way out of the parking lot, I see straight through the driver’s side window. The driver was most certainly texting.
To his credit, this is what he has to deal with (shot in mostly in this same Whole Foods)
Things remain more or less the same on Montana until 9:00 rolls around: A new group of women dressed in athletic garb comes to replace the dignifiedly sweaty group that is leaving, but more interesting is a new group of women in late twenties to thirties (and some men, although few) shuttling their children into the preschool that lies just down the block from Pete’s. It’s around this time that I abandon my Pete’s post and begin to walk home. As I pass by the preschool, a blonde woman in her early thirties is struggling to open the door to the preschool, as one of her hands is handling a box of arts and crafts while the other is attempting to handle her energized four-year-old. I stop to help her open the door, and she flashes a brief smile my way, followed with a “Why thank you.”
“No problem,“ I reply. “I’m actually an alumnus here.”
She forces at my remark laugh and begins to march her son through the door two the preschool. Two seconds later she turns around and asks me,
“If you don’t mind me asking, what elementary school did you end up going to?”
When I look back on my 1.5-hour stint in front of Pete’s Coffee, the first question that comes to mind is why are all these people buying coffee, and more specifically, why are all these people buying coffee when it would be faster and cheaper to make it at home? It seems that the majority of Pete’s early morning customers are busy professionals, so why would they waste up to (at times) ten minutes of their morning waiting in line for a relatively overpriced cup of coffee.
It would seem to me that the value of being seen holding a cup of Pete’s coffee must outweigh the marginal benefits of the time and money that would be saved by making one’s coffee at home. In Santa Monica, a morning coffee cup must be just as much an expression of individuality as is a the brand of suit or type of car that one might drive; to clarify, the act of being seen walking around with a cup of Pete’s or Starbucks coffee is intended to make a statement. In his work, Cultural Studies, Chris Baker would disagree, paraphrasing the arguments of Adorno and Horkheimer to say that these morning cups of coffee “while purporting to be democratic, individualistic, and diversified are in actuality authoritarian, conformist and highly standardized (Baker, 49-51). Little do these Santa Monicans realize that they are being manipulated by a “commodity based culture,” whose “primary purpose is to be purchased” (49), when they think they are just getting a cup of joe.
The second notable observation appeared to be the disparate gender roles that became apparent as the morning went on. It appeared as though the majority of men on Montana avenue were picking up there coffee before heading to work, whereas women tended to either be heading to exercise class or dropping off their young children at preschool. So why is it that the majority of Santa Monica women choose to either exercise or attend to the children rather than attempt pursue a career in the working world?
Simone de Beauvoir would claim that these women never even stop to think about the possibility that they could be their family’s sole breadwinner, as western society has historically established the precedent of male as the primary sex and woman as secondary. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir claims “Woman has ovaries, a uterus: these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within her own nature” (de Beauvoir, 2). Based only on the fact a woman physically has the organs to bear children, society has assigned her (arbitrarily, de Beauvoir asserts) the role of caretaker, as well as any and all things society deems to be ‘female.’ Whether it be by staying at home to attend to the children, or through donning black leggings whenever she may head to spin class, the female sex has unquestionably ascribed to its role as the other sex, and all the societal mores that come attached to it.
Furthermore, in Santa Monica, the nuclear family is king. If Montana Avenue were to be Fox TV’s next reality show, the views of Cantor with regard to American television (1991) would echo eerily true – a snapshot of Montana Avenue on a weekday morning would “demonize the majority of us who do not live in nuclear families,” and it would “support the main institution of the patriarchal oppression of women” (48). It appears that the successful Santa Monica man leaves his home early to head to work, while his successful partner heads either to exercise class or to take the children to school (perhaps she may head to work later). It seems that women are relegated to the domestic sphere and responsibilities, where they either tend to the family’s children or their own personal image, as the men head out to the professional world.
Works Cited:
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2008. Print.
de Beauvoir, Simone. "The Second Sex: Woman as Other (1949)." Marxists Internet Archive. Web. 02 Aug. 2011..
Lined neatly with Ficus trees, hybrid vehicles, and a medley of restaurants, coffee shops and retail stores, a sleepy Montana Avenue cuts right through the through the northern edge of Santa Monica, and Santa Monica likes to wake up with coffee. One ½ mile stretch of Montana avenue between 7th Street and 15th Street manages to nestle six unique coffee stops: three Starbucks, two independent coffee houses, and one Pete’s Coffee, all of which have significant lines by 7:30 AM. I’ve chosen to sit with my skim cappuccino right outside of Pete’s coffee at the corner of 14th Street and Montana Avenue. It is a July Monday in Santa Monica, and the temperature sits at pleasant 65 degrees while the summer heat is kept at bay by the groggy marine-layer.
The 7:30 coffee crowd is looking to get their pre-work jolt. All the customers are dressed smartly: some in suits, most just wearing business casual and sporting an iPhone or Blackberry. At this point, the crowd seems to be about 70% male, 30% female, the average age appearing to rest somewhere between 30 and 50 years. The movement of people and out of Pete’s remains steady and constant, but at 7:50 AM new phenomenon begins.
Women in their late twenties to early forties begin to appear, dressed without fail in black, athletic leggings and a brightly colored athletic top, ready to show up to the 8:00 AM workout at one of the three workout studios on Montana Avenue (yoga, Pilates or spinning to chose from). The women chat happily with one another as they make there way to their exercise studio of choice.
As 8:15 rolls around, the line at Pete’s begins to shorten (temporarily) and the hum of young professionals and pre-workout chatter is replaced by the growing bustle of traffic on Montana Avenue. Dogs begin to show up on the streets, some being walked, others being jogged, stores and restaurants begin the process of opening, and that sleepy marine-layer begins to be challenged by the first rays of the sun.
At the corner of 15th and Montana lies one of Santa Monica’s two Whole Foods, and from I sit I have a clear view of the parking lot. At around 8:35, I watch a new Lexus coupe narrowly miss backing into a truck making its morning delivery. As the coupe makes its way out of the parking lot, I see straight through the driver’s side window. The driver was most certainly texting.
To his credit, this is what he has to deal with (shot in mostly in this same Whole Foods)
Things remain more or less the same on Montana until 9:00 rolls around: A new group of women dressed in athletic garb comes to replace the dignifiedly sweaty group that is leaving, but more interesting is a new group of women in late twenties to thirties (and some men, although few) shuttling their children into the preschool that lies just down the block from Pete’s. It’s around this time that I abandon my Pete’s post and begin to walk home. As I pass by the preschool, a blonde woman in her early thirties is struggling to open the door to the preschool, as one of her hands is handling a box of arts and crafts while the other is attempting to handle her energized four-year-old. I stop to help her open the door, and she flashes a brief smile my way, followed with a “Why thank you.”
“No problem,“ I reply. “I’m actually an alumnus here.”
She forces at my remark laugh and begins to march her son through the door two the preschool. Two seconds later she turns around and asks me,
“If you don’t mind me asking, what elementary school did you end up going to?”
When I look back on my 1.5-hour stint in front of Pete’s Coffee, the first question that comes to mind is why are all these people buying coffee, and more specifically, why are all these people buying coffee when it would be faster and cheaper to make it at home? It seems that the majority of Pete’s early morning customers are busy professionals, so why would they waste up to (at times) ten minutes of their morning waiting in line for a relatively overpriced cup of coffee.
It would seem to me that the value of being seen holding a cup of Pete’s coffee must outweigh the marginal benefits of the time and money that would be saved by making one’s coffee at home. In Santa Monica, a morning coffee cup must be just as much an expression of individuality as is a the brand of suit or type of car that one might drive; to clarify, the act of being seen walking around with a cup of Pete’s or Starbucks coffee is intended to make a statement. In his work, Cultural Studies, Chris Baker would disagree, paraphrasing the arguments of Adorno and Horkheimer to say that these morning cups of coffee “while purporting to be democratic, individualistic, and diversified are in actuality authoritarian, conformist and highly standardized (Baker, 49-51). Little do these Santa Monicans realize that they are being manipulated by a “commodity based culture,” whose “primary purpose is to be purchased” (49), when they think they are just getting a cup of joe.
The second notable observation appeared to be the disparate gender roles that became apparent as the morning went on. It appeared as though the majority of men on Montana avenue were picking up there coffee before heading to work, whereas women tended to either be heading to exercise class or dropping off their young children at preschool. So why is it that the majority of Santa Monica women choose to either exercise or attend to the children rather than attempt pursue a career in the working world?
Simone de Beauvoir would claim that these women never even stop to think about the possibility that they could be their family’s sole breadwinner, as western society has historically established the precedent of male as the primary sex and woman as secondary. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir claims “Woman has ovaries, a uterus: these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within her own nature” (de Beauvoir, 2). Based only on the fact a woman physically has the organs to bear children, society has assigned her (arbitrarily, de Beauvoir asserts) the role of caretaker, as well as any and all things society deems to be ‘female.’ Whether it be by staying at home to attend to the children, or through donning black leggings whenever she may head to spin class, the female sex has unquestionably ascribed to its role as the other sex, and all the societal mores that come attached to it.
Furthermore, in Santa Monica, the nuclear family is king. If Montana Avenue were to be Fox TV’s next reality show, the views of Cantor with regard to American television (1991) would echo eerily true – a snapshot of Montana Avenue on a weekday morning would “demonize the majority of us who do not live in nuclear families,” and it would “support the main institution of the patriarchal oppression of women” (48). It appears that the successful Santa Monica man leaves his home early to head to work, while his successful partner heads either to exercise class or to take the children to school (perhaps she may head to work later). It seems that women are relegated to the domestic sphere and responsibilities, where they either tend to the family’s children or their own personal image, as the men head out to the professional world.
Works Cited:
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2008. Print.
de Beauvoir, Simone. "The Second Sex: Woman as Other (1949)." Marxists Internet Archive. Web. 02 Aug. 2011.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Popular Culture - an Introduction
"What exactly is 'Popular Culture?'" you might ask if you were to fall upon my humble blog and perchance glance across the title of its first entry. Hungry for a definition, mildly interested, or perhaps just searching for a way to pass the time while Modern Family takes a commercial break, your eyes might skim down the page trying to find a clarification or two. Well, if this were the case, you would be a bit out of luck –for now, that is. Popular Culture is a bit tricky; In fact, in the past few days I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around an all-encompassing definition that does justice to something so amorphous yet pervasive as Popular Culture. But, as the next few weeks go by (and as this blog gets more awesome looking), I do hope to hope to sharpen my understanding of Popular Culture. If things go really well, maybe Wikipedia will be boasting a new author on its Popular Culture page.
So, where to begin? In its broadest sense, Popular Culture is concerned with what society consumes on a day-to-day basis: things that we like to watch on TV and in the movies, what we like to listen to and what we eat, the brands we choose to wear and the cars we choose to ride in. Additionally, the study popular culture attempts to take those choices glean our values and preferences as a society from them. But this too is a large number of things to tackle in with one definition, and because of this, certain scholars have taken a shot at defining popular culture further by attempting to dissect it into two branches: High Culture and Low Culture.
Culture from above, or high context culture, can be viewed as that which is deemed to be 'art' by those in the dominant economic classes, whereas low context culture is the lifeblood of the lower and working classes. To put it in a modern perspective, knowing that non-blended Chilean Sauvignon Blancs are much less acidic than their New Zealand counterparts, or having an appreciation for both Vivaldi and Stan Getz, or perhaps just being able to definitively know that Paul Cézanne was really the best artist of the 1800s (definitely not Monet... ew), could all be tidbits of knowledge taken from a high context culture. In contrast, things such as an ice cold Bud Light™, the latest Blink-182 album, or Justin Bieber's latest hoodie-and-jeans combination would all be darlings culture from below.
Culture from Above:
Culture from Below:
So, it would appear that high context culture decides upon its darlings after years of deliberation and careful thought and critique (maybe there is even a secret rubric involved), while in contrast the lower context cultural objects seem to be organically created and then embraced by the masses. Some authors go as far as to say that those in power play a hand in creating objects of low context culture as a means of keeping the lower classes content and subjugated: “mass culture […] is a tool of domination, a way for capitalism to offer ephemeral gratification to people condemned to lives of work” (Rivkin and Ryan, 1026).If this interests you, check our "The Politics of Culture" by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan.
I find that last part a bit extreme, but nonetheless it is pretty interesting to think about. All this is a lot to swallow for a first bite out of popular culture. But all-in-all, popular culture doesn't taste half bad- especially if it's chilled Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.
Rivkin, Julie, and Machael Ryan, eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998.
So, where to begin? In its broadest sense, Popular Culture is concerned with what society consumes on a day-to-day basis: things that we like to watch on TV and in the movies, what we like to listen to and what we eat, the brands we choose to wear and the cars we choose to ride in. Additionally, the study popular culture attempts to take those choices glean our values and preferences as a society from them. But this too is a large number of things to tackle in with one definition, and because of this, certain scholars have taken a shot at defining popular culture further by attempting to dissect it into two branches: High Culture and Low Culture.
Culture from above, or high context culture, can be viewed as that which is deemed to be 'art' by those in the dominant economic classes, whereas low context culture is the lifeblood of the lower and working classes. To put it in a modern perspective, knowing that non-blended Chilean Sauvignon Blancs are much less acidic than their New Zealand counterparts, or having an appreciation for both Vivaldi and Stan Getz, or perhaps just being able to definitively know that Paul Cézanne was really the best artist of the 1800s (definitely not Monet... ew), could all be tidbits of knowledge taken from a high context culture. In contrast, things such as an ice cold Bud Light™, the latest Blink-182 album, or Justin Bieber's latest hoodie-and-jeans combination would all be darlings culture from below.
Culture from Above:
Culture from Below:
So, it would appear that high context culture decides upon its darlings after years of deliberation and careful thought and critique (maybe there is even a secret rubric involved), while in contrast the lower context cultural objects seem to be organically created and then embraced by the masses. Some authors go as far as to say that those in power play a hand in creating objects of low context culture as a means of keeping the lower classes content and subjugated: “mass culture […] is a tool of domination, a way for capitalism to offer ephemeral gratification to people condemned to lives of work” (Rivkin and Ryan, 1026).If this interests you, check our "The Politics of Culture" by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan.
I find that last part a bit extreme, but nonetheless it is pretty interesting to think about. All this is a lot to swallow for a first bite out of popular culture. But all-in-all, popular culture doesn't taste half bad- especially if it's chilled Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.
Rivkin, Julie, and Machael Ryan, eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998.
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