Mental Illness and Stigma

Alicia T. sent us this promotional material for "Psycho Teddy." I can't tell if it's an actual stuffed bear, a cartoon character (see video below from youtube and purchase the ring tone if you so desire), or both.



Text:

We’re letting our Pulse members in on the latest craze… he’s cute, he’s cuddly, he’s a great dancer, but he is also insane… don’t call him at a bad time, or you may trigger a psychotic episode!

Apart from that, he really is a very sociable, well traveled, well connected Teddy, who is storming up the charts and fast becoming the world’s favorite bear.

I think he goes psycho about 1/3rd of the way in. Enjoy!



Thanks Alicia T!

Also in mental illness: kipnapping ads get pulled after protests.

Safer Sex In Spain: Differing Opinions

Alex in Spain sent us some links to this safer sex ad campaign. I think the image below is particularly interesting. In the U.S. anyway, we rarely see safer sex principles being applied to oral sex. Also, I much prefer the musical instrument metaphor to the gun metaphor.


Thanks Alex!

More safer sex campaigns: Milwaukee, New York, the United Kingdom, and France and Germany.

GWEN ADDS: I want to point out Oxydo is a sunglasses company. I think these images are advertisements for their sunglasses, not a safe-sex campaign. Here are two more posters:

Notice that in all of these, the woman is a faceless body to have sex with, whereas the guy is presumably supposed to be cool because he's wearing sunglasses. I'm not sure it's an AIDS awareness campaign at all--I think it's actually an ad campaign for Oxydo, and "protected" sex means wearing their sunglasses. They add the AIDS ribbon at the bottom to make a connection to anti-AIDS campaigns. See Copyranter's discussion here. Did anyone else notice the musical score in the first image is for "The Magic Flute"?

So there you go, folks--polysemy in action. People read images differently, and not always as the creator intended. This might be a unique AIDS-awareness campaign, or it might just be an ad that makes a superficial nod to AIDS awareness.

Modernizing Alvin And The Chipmunks

Alvin and the Chipmunks was remade in 2007. Are these chipmunks modernized? Urbanized? Racialized? All of the above?

"Stronger Woman" Compared To...?

This is Jewel's new video for her song "Stronger Woman." I can't figure out if Jewel thinks that all women are essentially the same (in the sense that we need to throw off patriarchy) or that contemporary American women are superior (and all women, then and now, should aspire to be like us... oh yeah, and by "us" I mean young, gorgeous, thin, white, blonde women who "love" themselves). In either case, I don't like it:

Janet Jackson On And In BlackBook

I guess her new album is called "Discipline" and these images are supposed to invoke sadomasochism, but it just looks like another picture of a Black woman in bondage to me.

Popular Songs Represented In Figures And Charts

This post is dedicated to Gary Sandefur and all my other long lost UW karaoke kids.

If you teach methods, you might find these figures will add a little pizzazz to your discussions of how to present findings. They may not all be exactly, perfectly, like totally accurate. :)

Nelly - Air Force Ones:



Beck - Where It's At:


The Beatles - All You Need Is Love:


Aqua - Barbie Girl:


Prince - When Doves Cry:


Various Artists - Don't Cry For Me Argentina (why not Sinead O'Connor?)



Simon and Garfunkel - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover



Notorious B.I.G. - Mo Money Mo Problems:



Kelis - Milkshake:



Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive:


Beastie Boys - Three MC's and One DJ:



Naughty By Nature - O.P.P.:


50 Cent - In Da Club:


All these and more can be found here and here.

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In Honor Of The Superbowl...

...Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction (Superbowl 2003).

Here's the video (don't blink!):



I use this story along with this image to illustrate agenda setting. Because the media made such a huge deal about this, it was something that most people talked about with at least one other person and an issue on which most people formed an opinion. (I like the two-second video because it shows just how quick it was.) I contrast it alongside some genuinely newsworthy event that no one noticed because it didn't get covered and no one, now, remembers. (Richard mentions, by the way, that there were a ton of erectile dysfunction commercials during the superbowl that year that did not attract media outrage.)

Thanks to Ang! I stole the picture and the idea of using this issue to talk about agenda setting from her years ago.

Racialization

Gwen recently pointed out to me the fact that pit bulls have replaced handguns on the covers of rap and hip hop albums. This is an excellent example of racialization: the process by which something comes to have racial meaning in a society.




Of course, this is not just about race, it's about gender too. Here's Missy Elliot appropriating the masculinity attributed to the pit bull:

And you know when Weird Al does it, it's really happening:


Here's an essay, by the way, that I wrote for The Huffington Post (at Gwen's urging and with her help) about the scandal involving Michael Vick's dog fighting:

The Secret Brotherhood Between Dog Fighting and Football

More Commercialization of Racist Hip-Hop Stereotypes

This candy is on sale at a Circle K around the corner from me. They're candy gold-and-diamond teeth you can wear. Ick.

what is it?

Does corporate America not know what to do with hip hop, or does hip hop not know what to do with corporate America? Or, do they both know exactly what they are doing?