South Park? Yes.

I was contemplating this topic for so long, and I knew that there were a million different things I could choose, but when it came down to actually remembering one to focus on under pressure, I was having difficulty. So many films, songs, and works of art offer blatant social criticism, and I couldn’t think of a measly one, until I went to watch my nightly South Park episodes on Netflix with my boyfriend…it dawned on me. How didn’t I think of this before?
            Okay, so South Park isn’t exactly a “work of art” or anything, but since it’s so loosely defined in this topic, I would say that it counts as art. It’s an expression of emotion intended to entertain an audience and prove a point. If plays, films, advertising, and songs are art pieces, then why not a television show? As long as it’s not a reality show that wasn’t well prepared and based on a script, I think it can fit under the classification. South Park may be raunchy in the eyes of many, but it is still a comedy that has influenced our generation.
            South Park goes places that many wouldn’t dare to go in today’s society. They hit on social issues that many wouldn’t bring up in a even the most casual conversations for the sake of being “politically correct” or seeming bias or irrational, and they don’t discriminate with their bashings, either.  This show will focus on issues in today’s world that are sometimes overlooked or misunderstood by the majority of the population, and brings them to light in a humorous fashion. I think that one of the best, if not the absolute best way to convey a message is through humor, especially in this generation. Not too many care about the political mumbo-jumbo and are bored by even the slightest indication of it, but South Park can capture the attention of even the least intellectuals and steer them into thinking a certain way. Can this be bad? Possibly, since South Park mostly focuses on the faults of the government or certain happenings, but they also focus on the fault of the people for not understanding or correctly interpreting social situations.
            The people of South Park, especially the adults are often shown overreacting or misunderstanding a situation in a way that is relatable to society. Sure, they go a bit over the top with the plots and actions, but that’s where humor plays it’s role, and they are often very real issues. In one episode, “The China Problem,” it shows the townspeople portraying the irrational American fear of the Chinese, and this is a common theme in episodes. The irrational racism of Americans is brought to light and is a very influential form of social commentary.
            They bring political issues out of the dark too, there are episodes pertaining to Osama Bin Laden as well as just about every president or political figure. South Park definitely provides a humorous form of social criticism in every episode, some more serious than others. And I think that it really is influential, because I, for one, don’t know much about political issues because they are of disinterest to me, but when I see a South Park episode I don’t want to sit there and just automatically conform to their point of view, so I research the situation to get some background info on what they’re talking about. So, I can see where it can be dangerous for the show to target not only intellectuals, but the “not so intellectual” side of our country, but either way they get the point across.
            My questions are: What are your thoughts on the significance of South Park in our generation beyond that of a humorous, obscene television show, IF you have any at all? And do you think that the way that they approach their target audience is appropriate or crafty? And, obviously, it is targeting a limited audience, but, for the purpose it serves, is this a large enough span of individuals, since it is definitely covering a larger audience than many social criticisms?

Marley

Absurdity

At first glance, the absurdist movement seems silly and childish. After all, how can you call this art? To some this is nothing but a strangely placed urinal. And yes, that is exactly what it is, and exactly the first impression the artist wants out of his audience. It is not until further reflection that the work's meaning is revealed. Artists of the absurdist movement are not necessarily striving for beauty, but instead for social commentary on the definition of art.

An upside down urinal on the street is commonly thought of as garbage, just awaiting the dumpster; however, what happens when this everyday object is put in a museum? If people pay to see it, does that make it art? Anything can be called art if it is seen through the correct medium. To define art, we would have to make so many specifications that the creativity of the institution would be lost. Perhaps, there is no purpose to discussing definition of art. After all, if someone wants to build beer can pyramid and call it art, there is no stopping him.

So what is the cultural significance of art if anyone can do it? The answer is obviously too complex for one analysis; however, in my own opinion, art is more of a personal journey for the artist than a business deal or occupation. It is about freedom and political statements and emotions and life events. Museum art, however, is a completely different story.

If people are going to pay to see a masterpiece, I believe they should see something outstanding, something virtuosic. If I go to a museum, I want to be impressed by an amazing photograph, or a statue that is pure perfection. I don't want to see a urinal tipped on its side that made it into the museum because someone famous happened to do the tipping. That would be more personal art, or as said before, a social commentary on the definition of art - a piece better saved for the internet.

To define art is surely an impossible task, that is for certain; however, the question remains, is it our job as a society to pass judgment on what type of stylistic works belong in which venues? Or perhaps, it is up to the artist to decide whether his work is personal, commercial, or a combination of the two. Regardless, I feel that the absurdist movement exists as a platform for these questions rather than a mode of expressing creativity. It is for the sake of the questions that this movement continues to grow.

The Art of Satire

Satire is defined as a literary or art form in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, and wit.  It has numerous forms; one popular form used in our society today is through television programs.   For example, “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” both have a huge following and their main purpose it to point out how ridiculous a politician or a cause is using irony, derision, and wit, also known as satire. 

Satire plays such an important part in our society.  It addresses social critiques in an interesting and clever way that makes most people not only laugh at the audacity of the irony presented in many situations but also makes people interested enough to stop and think about the how these individual situations can directly impact us and whether or not we agree or disagree with the issues presented.  It gives us a chance to decide whether or not it seems like an issue is large enough on a social scale to start debating, discussing, addressing any worries or concerns, and even wanting to go so far as to push for social change.

I’ll be completely honest. I. LOVE. Satire.  I feel one of the best ways to get a point across in today’s society is to first of all being able to grab an audience’s attention, and since we are so distracted by so many different innovative technological things, it’s more difficult than ever to get people to stop for just a moment and think about some of the social issues around them in society even if they don’t directly effect us.   While the original main purpose of satire wasn’t necessarily intended to present an ironic situation as humorous, I definitely know that satire has been able to thrive a lot by exploiting the humor behind the irony of many political candidates and social issues.  And also, I don’t know about everyone else, I feel awesome when I see a satirical picture or watch “The Colbert Report” and it manages to perfectly describe how I feel about a situation.  For instance, I loved all the satire against Rick Santorum back when he was still running for president.

The fact that satire is used widely as political propaganda doesn’t make it any less of an art form.  There are people who would rather express their ideas in a more entertaining fashion such as a comedy show or drawing a thought provoking picture than just write words on a paper or a quick speech, and actually we can consider those actions to be art as well.  Art can really just be defined as simply taking some aspect of the world around us and transforming it into some creative form that is meaningful to us personally. 

Now if we want to debate whether or not satire brings social good for a society, I think it does.  Granted, it will at some point or another offend someone, but in terms of promoting and debating different ideas in an entertaining format, I don't think there’s really a better way of going about it.  Also, if someone were to mock my ideologies, point out the irony, or address some flaw, that would give me the drive to confront such mockeries rather than just accept someone else’s ideologies as their own opinions.

Now what I want to know do you agree that satire is indeed an art form? And if you do, do you feel that it also promotes social good?  Or perhaps, does satire do more harm on society than good?  Is satire ultimately productive or counterproductive to progress in a society?

What's Art For? Whatever You Want.

                  The idea of art is all based on perception in my opinion.  Music, painting, writing, as well as everything else along those lines are all subjective, which is why people have so many different tastes.  I do not believe there is a one lone, true “goal” towards which all art is created either as many different artists with different reasons for what they do.  One artist may work to make an audience laugh or be entertained while another is attempting to start a revolutionary coup d’etat in his or her country

I saw a film earlier in the quarter called RiP!: A Remix Manifesto about how the copyright laws have become progressively and ridiculously more strict in the past decades on creative property of artists.  The prime example used in the documentary was mash-up artist Girl Talk, and his utilization of pieces of other artists’ music to make a new product and call them his own (Ex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bMM7tGV9MI).  While, Girl Talk’s goal is simply to entertain and make half naked women and sweaty bros dance til heart attack, the film itself is an artistic piece created to raise awareness about a claimed issue and get people thinking or choosing sides.

                  Although this specific example may not cause the social change it would like -simply because the laws won’t bend so easily- it is still having a go at the unreasonable “grey areas” of our government’s rules on copyright.  At the same time, it is also informing a specific group of society (music pirates, mash-up artists, cartoonists, etc.) what exactly is going on.  As a musician, I never really knew what was going on with big corporation ownership and creative licenses.

For instance, a little day care center was sued for having Disney characters painted on some of the walls.  The irony is that, Mr. Walt Disney borrowed almost every idea he turned into an animated film from past creations (Alice in Wonderland, Steamboat Willie, Fantasia).  Once that point is dropped, I am now against these bullshit copyright laws and want to get angry at “The Man” and protest and on and on. You get the point...

On the other hand, you have the purpose of entertainment and leisure, which really doesn’t have to be explained.  This is why we have our Ke$ha, our Justin Beiber, our T-pain, and reality TV.  People would probably avoid shit like that if art was only used to become smarter or make changes in the world.  Though I put those select artists and concepts in a negative light, 50 years from now, Ke$ha will be there on the out-dated technology that is the Compact Disc to show a newer generation what we were working with.  God forbid if there are any reruns of Jersey Shore, our kids will gain perspective. And therein, laugh at us (hopefully).

                  Lastly, I wanted to address the idea of efficacy and reproduction stated in the final bullet of the assignment:

A friend of mine recently released an EP with his new musical project, Wooden Teeth.  I had heard a few of their originals that were awesome pieces, but one that was really exciting to hear was the group’s cover of “My Girl” by The Temptations (http://woodenteeth.bandcamp.com/track/my-girl-cover-by-temptations).  With a driving, almost dub-reggae rhythm, and pretty, delay guitar based melodies, the song is a whole new look on the Motown classic, and an enjoyable one at that.

If by some crazy chance that there is a person who hates the original, classic cut of “My Girl,” the Wooden Teeth cover may still come through to the weird guy that is unimpressed by The Temptations as the best song he’s ever heard.  The accessibility is increased thanks to a re-creation of an old masterpiece.  The Girl Talk song I have posted above can hold the same concept. A girl could hate Black Sabbath and love Ludacris. When she hears how Girl Talk has portrayed the two artists, she may be tickled pink by Sabbath in such a light.

I've only got one obvious discussion question that might spark a debate: Given that people agree with the first sentence of this post, is art so subjective as to allow one to claim that a 5th grader's artwork on the fridge rivals that of a Michael Angelo or a Pablo Picasso? If there is a line to be drawn, how can one decide where? 

-Jon

Sorry for the Wait

Hello fellow bloggers,

I apologize for not getting my blog post in on time... I don't want you to think I'm a careless crackhead or anything, because I'm not. I am, however, a procrastinator, but that is beside the point. My very educated mother decided that the family should go on a random beach trip to Hilton Head on Thursday, and I didn't get back until last night at ungodly hours. I couldn't figure out how to do any of this on my iPhone because I'm new to the technological team, so I do apologize, it won't happen again. I'll probably post something tonight regarding the recent SOPA and PIPA censorship issues, which seem to be a major impending form of containment in recent times. Blogs are swimming with complaints and opinions concerning the issue, because, it would, in a sense, be a "blogger" genocide. I think this is a very obvious containment of a cultural norm, and the fact that the government was even slightly considering passing some sort of bill regarding this issue is a blantant display of ignorance to how important it is that the internet ISN'T censored, and how important the people in charge of websites and technology really are to today's society. They hosted blackouts on many websites in January to protest these issues, and it's amazing what the people are capable of. Anyway, I do apologize again, you all can stone me to death in the town square later if you wish.

Marley

Infection Control

I think we are all in agreement. Containment can be horrible when used to keep women in the household doing the dishes or slow down the civil rights movement; however, what about infectious disease? Is it possible to use containment in a good way to protect the common good? The blog, " CDC recommends polio boosters for travelers to 44 countries " explains the nature of polio and for which countries a vaccination is required. It also explains the dangerous effects of polio, including respiratory paralysis, and the immediacy of attaining a vaccine when traveling. The goal of the CDC is to keep polio at bay in the countries where it already exists. Perhaps without even knowing it, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is promoting a form of containment.

In this light, it appears that containment can save lives and increase global prosperity by protecting outsiders from local disease. This blog specifically looks at polio in "countries at risk for reestablishment." The vaccine is supposed to protect travelers from this sometimes life-threatening disease. Polio can cause paralysis and is most commonly spread through throat secretions. In this case, I believe containment is not only a good idea, but also a necessary precaution.

But what about those who happen to live in these "at risk" countries? Is it our job to provide the vaccine just because we can? Indeed, doing this would save many lives of children - where polio is most common - but just giving people what they need will not help them grow as a civilization. Many organizations (Doctors without Borders, etc) do help out by providing essential medicine because it seems so cruel to withhold it from those in need; however, the reverse is true. The cruelty lies in providing things like vaccinations or primary care and allowing people to become dependent. In the short run, it is wonderful to save a life; in the long run, this can lead to false hope and crippling disease.

So, how do we help? What can we possibly do to end diseases like polio if providing the vaccine will only cause dependency on foreign aid? If the right answer was out there, we would live free of infectious disease already. However, I believe certain steps can be taken to begin the process of ousting some unfortunate aspects of third world civilization. For instance, funding a training program for doctors or setting up hand-washing stations could lead to more knowledge about disease and a cleaner environment.

Certainly, this cannot be fixed overnight. For now, containment of polio and other infectious diseases seems to be the only viable solution. In class, we have only looked at containment in a negative way, but I would like to suggest a discussion in which we look at containment positively. After all, where would we be if not for vaccines that prevent diseases like polio, H1N1 (commonly known as swine flu), and HPV?

Containment of Women and Adolescents

            Blog post “Governor Walker repeals equal pay, bans abortion coverage, mandates abstinence,” essentially screams containment of women and adolescents through state legislation in Wisconsin. Apparently 50 bills were passed on April 5^th, some of them made getting an abortion harder to obtain for women. While it seems like the doctor speaking privately with the patient to make sure she is not being coerced into the abortion is really just a way for the doctor to have a chance to coerce the women out of the abortion. Another bill passed was what the blog implies: sex education teachers don’t have to address contraception in lectures and are instead expected to emphasize that abstinence is the ONLY way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

             I honestly believed a year ago, that for the most part, we, as a country, had moved past such nonsensical topics such as debating women’s rights (minus the abortion issue), and sex education in public schools.  I thought it was an understanding that a women has the right to decide what happens to her own body without outside influence in the form of laws and legislation mandating otherwise, and that more knowledge gives people the power to make better informed decisions.  However, I guess that’s not the case. 

            Lately, I’ve begun noticing that there are certain groups of people in this country who want to contain women. They do not want to present women with opportunities to have other options when they get pregnant or even to prevent a pregnancy.   Apparently, despite how far our society has come we still have politicians and people who feel that women aren’t competent enough to be the primary decision makers for themselves.  Or maybe it’s the fear that women will finally become fully equal to men. Maybe there’s even a greater fear that women could even surpass men. Maybe there's a fear that women would be the ones in charge of this country if they had the option to completely control their ability to have children when and where they so choose, and thus allow them to also advance further in the workplace. In the past a woman was expected to quit work, settle down, get married, and have a family if she got pregnant, essentially ending her work career, which also gave grounds for gender discrimination in the work place, such as unequal pay between genders for the same work.

            Obviously women can’t be eliminated though. The human race would be unable to reproduce especially since cloning humans isn’t anywhere close to being perfected.  So the only solution to having control of something, or in this case someone, is to contain it.  And what better way to contain a group of people than to make it either illegal, make it incredibly difficult to obtain abortions, or even worse, contain the younger generations so they don’t even get to learn about sex and all the different forms of contraception that help make sex safer. 

           

            If anything this ignorance is going to result in negative consequences for our society.  I would predict a rise in teen pregnancies both from lack of access to abortions and overall ignorance to the dangers of unprotected sex (and after they’ve been at an all time low since 1946!), and sexually transmitted diseases.  Not giving future generations all the information we possibly can will lead them to be easily misinformed from other more unreliable sources, such as their peers who also won’t know the whole truth, to the Internet (because for all the good the Internet provides there is a lot of information that is also incorrect as well, or at least unreal expectations that porn provides).

            Essentially, while these bills aren't the most outrageous legislation to have been passed in this country, I would like to stress that this is how widespread containment can begin.  Without fighting back for individual rights, we'll become slaves to own government, which is the very government that prides itself for supposedly being governed by the people.

            So my questions are:

            1) Do you feel that some members of society trying to push against affordable contraception for women and other affordable preventive services, such as those provided by Planned Parenthood, are trying to contain women for an ulterior motive (such as wanting women to be more oriented to housewives), or religious based motives, or even simply they personally don’t want to pay the tax-dollars that go into such programs?

            2) While it is completely constitutional for states to make laws for their own school systems, do you feel any potential containment presented to any group of people will do more harm than good to society in the long run? Or can containment be a good thing for society? Is some level of containment good for some societies?

--Kasey Ostarello--

U.S. & North Korea Containment

                  On Friday, April 13, North Korea attempted to launch some satellite-rocket against the word of the rest of the world.  Although it failed, Barack Obama has decided that the U.S. may need to engage the issue.  He explains that, “…they made a decision that they have to live with…We can’t keep trying to help them help themselves.” Hilary Clinton has been attempting to gather N. Korea for talks but explains that each time anyone tries to intervene with their affairs, their behavior only gets worse. All in all, after violating two Security Council resolutions, the U.S. is pushing for tough condemnation of North Korea.

                  With all other countries against the launch of this satellite and the North Korea launching regardless, another instance of necessary containment seems to be at hand here.  In another blog article by CNN, it is stated that this attempted launch is a clear signal that N. Korea may be on the verge of an underground nuclear testing, threatening many nations of the world.  Obama rightfully so sees that allowing North Korea to continue with such misbehavior will only encourage the same until North Korea becomes a clear and present danger to what peace currently exists.

                  If there is no containment of North Korea by the U.S. or the rest of the U.N., then the safety of the people is at stake.  As we mentioned in class recently, containment culture has received a horrible name from its Cold War beginnings.  In many situations, it absolutely deserves that name.  But in some drastic scenarios, containment must be employed for the greater good.  In this instance – albeit at worst – the lack of U.S. control over North Korea could cause a threat that builds into nuclear war.  Once this happens, then the bad-name containment can be expected to most definitely make a return, as war time containment is much more propagandistic and deft towards the people taking it in.

                  It’s ironic that I myself am taking sides with the U.S. in their world super power actions, seeing as I generally find our country’s intervention over the line and sometimes for the wrong reason.  Let it be known that I am not the most knowledgeable person of international news either.  This makes me wonder whether or not North Korea is even a threat at all.  Are they actually attempting to conquer the world?  All the accounts within the CNN blog are from U.S. officials and there’s been no opportunity to get an account of what North Korea has perceived of us (Is North Korea being difficult, or is our government not hearing them out?).  From the way these few articles are written and framed, it does seem that way.  It does seem strange however, that I myself have seemed to miss any word on the fact that this was in progress at all.  If it is such a possibly dangerous ordeal, I feel it should have held more chatter around this campus (which is the only way I – who reads no blogs or news, who watches no television – would hear of such a thing).

                  To sum it up, if we are being told the total truth, then the containment of North Korea must be called for. However, if we are missing some pieces of the story, then perhaps we have some questions to ask ourselves, here on the home front.

-Jon McAllister

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/13/u-s-could-shift-to-containment-strategy-for-north-korea/