Culture Jamming is a effective way to illustrate how dominant ideologies are changing. The famous painting American Gothic, by Grant Wood is a classic representation of the social values in the United States during that particular time period (1930's) Culture Jams have been useful in demonstrating the chaging social ideals, in this case from religious farmers to materialistic consumers. In the classic image the American couple are represented as simple farmers who have no material possessions except their wooden house, the clothes on their back and their pitchfork. The Culture Jammed picture depicts a modern American with fancy clothes and accessories, an abundance of technologies (car, cell phone, satalite dish) and an American with more leisure time (the golf club replacing the pitchfork) To take it a step further this classic painting has been jammed several times over.
Everyone can recongize Paris Hilton and her sidekick Nicole Richie; and how they have
highly sexulaized the image of the American. This parody shows how some American values have shifted from hard work to no need to work... if your hot.
To see more American Gothic parodies go to:
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=American+Gothic&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=
Danger Powers
Some of this information has been paraphrased from Practices of Looking; An Introduction to Visual Culture. Written by Marita Struken an Lisa Cartwright
I actually think it's sad that someone created this artwork to capture a time in a simpler life and ironically, it is used as a model for selling sex (because really, what else does Nicole Richie or Paris Hilton do other than produce mass sex tape?)using a title (The Simple Life) that perfectly suits the depiction of the original artwork.
ReplyDeleteIt's also nauseating that people like Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton become famous for ACTUALLY working for something for once, what NORMAL non-celebrities do everyday. What kind of message is this sending to young girls? If you show some skin, manual labour is done for you.
Wow! Thanks so much for giving us a comprehensive look at what culture jams are. I loved the second version of American Gothic. It's so interesting to see how life has changed, and how people in America truly have become a consumer culture. From rags to riches, from grueling work to having leisure time, its really cool to see how lives were so completely different.
ReplyDelete- Keekers
I searched through a few more images and found a version of the American Gothic with the heads of Barack and Michelle Obama. The image was entitled 'New Americans' and I found it to be particularly interesting because it dealt with the issue of race. It reminded me to examine the first image, which featured the two white farmers as perhaps the dominant ideal or 'typical' American. As the first African American president to be elected in the United States, the Obama image presents a different version of the American.
ReplyDeleteIt leads me to wonder; is the image of the typical American slowly becoming more diverse and beginning to encompass the many different races that actually exist in reality?? Or is the white American still the dominant image and culture jamming images such as this continue to resist and complicate this ideal? Thanks for sharing such a great culture jam!!
Aubrey B.
Good questions Aubrey B. Some argue that Obamas strength lies in the fact that he is 'white enough' not to upset the voters [see recent comments attributed to Senate House Leader Harry Reid in Mark Halperin's recent book "Game Change"].
ReplyDeleteThe Doctor
While the ideal perpetuated in the Hilton and Ritchie is strikingly apparent it seems to me that it is just echoing the ideal perpetuated by the original. The representation of the couple exemplifies the idea of the women's place in the home by positioning her behind the husband. By doing this is it not also trivializing women's work as some thing that goes on in the background that is unimportant in contrast to the physical/ manual labour of men? I think the horrible message that's being perpetuated by the Ritchie and Hilton image is well rooted in cultural beliefs and ideals.
ReplyDeleteMiss Frizz