bell hooks Cultural Criticsm and Transformation
The overall ideas that bell hooks presents are very interesting. Popular culture is very influential, and it is important to examine it from a critical perspective. I also really liked the idea of the "enlightened witness," and I think it has direct bearing on our goals within this particular course. Literacy is really important to how anyone interprets anything, because literacy can directly provide the framework to analyze and interpret images and ideas that we encounter every day.
It is really weird to hear about the influence of literacy from someone who has really influenced the way that I analyze things!
The examples of 'Doing Cultural Criticism' were very helpful to me because images from the films or events bell hooks is discussing are used in a way that shows why she thinks what she thinks about things. I was also really relieved to know that someone else was disturbed by the movie Kids, because that movie is really troubling to me. I had not considered the voyeur's gaze before this video, but I think it is a valid point.
I am also really glad that bell hooks talks about rap during the movie because it provides a really good connection to the reading required for class this week. I agree that most media discussions of rap are not fair -- the media only focuses on the most extremely negative performers or performances and totally ignores people engaging more positive representations. This is unfair for a number of reasons. First, as bell hooks mentions, rap is a really diverse music genre with all kinds of different representations of people. Second, there are a number of rock songs made by white men that are at least as misogynistic as anything in rap music. Finally, the media is already always manufacturing a negative image of Black men, and the reporting on rap adds fuel to this fire. Not to mention, no one is asking why suburban kids want to listen to these kinds of representations of women.