Bye Bye Betty. “So long, and thank you for the fish” (ahem, dissertation)

Today’s top story, at least until Obama takes the stage for his first State of the Union Address, is the unveiling of Apple’s iPad, an unfortunate name choice, but it’s Apple, so who cares! Still, I will remember January 27, 2010 as the day when ABC finally canceled Ugly Betty. Yup… it happened. I had been expecting it for months, ever since they moved it to Fridays and then switched it to Thursdays. And the thing is that even though I’m writing my dissertation about Ugly Betty, I’m not sad at all. I mean, maybe I should be, because Betty and I have been through a lot, but I’m not.

The show started off big. It was the most watched new comedy of the 06-07 season. I got drawn into it because it brought together topics I’m really interested in: immigration and its myths, identity construction, and the political economy of television.

By studying Betty, I’ve learned about myths. In fact, I’ve spent too much time familiarizing myself with the myths of American immigration, getting some historical perspective, and becoming, let’s say, a little more philosophical. Now, it has come to the point where, to explain my views about Betty as, essentially, a reproduction of the myth of the melting pot, I feel the need to quote Machiavelli, Barthes, Levi-Strauss, Cassirer, and even Plato. And I’ve been asked “what does any of that have to do with Ugly Betty?” All I can say is that, in my mind, it does. In my mind, I see Betty as the little immigrant girl that could because she assimilated, and isn’t that what immigrants are told to do? Isn’t that what Emma Lazarus hoped for? Even Frederick Jackson Turner, who is not someone you think about when you ponder American immigration, believed that immigrants had to assimilate, to go through a crucible of sorts, before they emerged on the other side as full-fledged Americans.

But that was only the first season. After that, the myth faded away. It was better to focus on Betty’s love life, or lack-thereof. Romance fit the schedule a lot better. After all, Betty was opening for Meredith and McDreamy, and block programming is all about keeping it consistent.

When that happened, Betty lost me as a fan. She still had me as a researcher, but my loyalties went elsewhere, to Fringe, and to NCIS, where at least I didn’t feel sold out as much. I still watched, reluctantly, until I just could not stomach it anymore.

Now ABC is saying it wants to give fans a proper send off. They’ll probably have her marry. That’s how original Betty La Fea ended, after all, and it would be fitting for the American Betty to follow suit.

So long Betty, and thank you for the dissertation.

Filed under: My comments, ABC, Dissertation, Frederick Jackson Turner, Immigrants in Popular Culture., Immigration, Pop Culture, Popular Culture, Ugly Betty

Final Reflections

It’s fair to say that you learn as much from teaching a class than from taking it. I am now on both sides, and it was always my biggest hope that someday I’d get to design something of my own. I had definite ideas, and I thought that all of them were awesome. However, the best laid plans should be subordinate to the realities of the classroom. I really hope that I made that leap with my students.

My initial thought was to have them blog, and to blog myself. Wow! I realized very early on that producing an (on average) 1000 word short essay every two days was quite the feat. I also realized that I was working through concepts that had challenged me since my first year in graduate school. Yes, I had the hegemonic ideology down pat, but I really owe my students a debt of gratitude.

YOU MADE ME FIND THE INSPIRATION FOR THE KEY CHAPTER OF MY DISSERTATION. Really… had I not worked so hard on the posts about the frontier myth, and immigration, it would have taken longer to realize how long of a history recurring myths have, and how intertwined they are. Frederick Jackson Turner addressed immigration, and I don’t think I would have seen the relationship had it not been for this blog.

There are things I would have done differently, and the next time around, I certainly will. First, I would have left the last film review open from the get go, instead of trying to fit it into a pre-assigned topic. By pure happenstance, I ended up leaving it open anyway, and I think it was far more satisfactory for everyone involved. I was able to see, as we neared the end of the quarter, what students were most interested in, and  that was a good thing in terms of how this course would be re-designed in the future.

Another thing I would change is that I would allow re-writes on blog posts. If we think about blogging as an educational experience, how are we supposed to learn if we don’t have the ability to edit? I think that re-visiting previous work, and improving it, should be part of the course design.

More, later.

Filed under: Course matters, My comments, Course matters, evaluation, pedagogy

This week’s blog of note (and I totally should do this more often!) – Dave Edmunds on 007

Dave Edmunds does an excellent job in linking the 007 mystique to the myth of the Frontier. It doesn’t matter that James Bond is neither a “cowboy” nor and “American.” He still exemplifies the qualities of the frontiersman. Here is an excerpt:

This reflects the style of hero chronicled in classic American Western film and explained through the frontier myth. In many 007 films, Bond is found combating and defeating a foreign force. Whether it’s an assassin spy or a leader set on world domination, Bond villains are exploits of another “alien” culture and presented in roles that combat Bond’s character in more ways than one. Bond represents the traditional American “force” onto the rest of the world, similar to how early Western heroes would fight their enemies. Throughout his film series, Bond is shown inflicting terror and “justice” upon the rest of the world and the foreign villains he is faced with, symbolically representing American expansion of the world (Edmunds, Sept 28, 2009).

You can read the complete post here.

Filed under: My comments, Student blogs, student blogs of note

Lessons learned in Milwaukee @ AoIR Conference.

“Best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men” can explode in your face. I was supposed to arrive in Milwaukee yesterday at around 1 PM for the Association of Internet Researchers conference. Instead, I ended up missing my flight and being stuck in Detroit, where I was treated to some very strange public art. They probably figured that having thousands of travelers swoosh around on those belts, in a tunnel decorated in Plexiglas and lights, while serenaded by esoteric music, was soothing. It was not. Frankly, it was just plain strange, and unnerving.

But I finally did make it, and I learned something: never underestimate how long it will take you to clear security checkpoints, and make sure your cab picks you up at the right address. Otherwise, you end up somewhere you never expected to go. “Best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men”.

Of course, that is not the most important thing I learned from attending this conference. I presented a paper on Family Guy and online fandom. My argument was that we should consider the ways in which corporate websites structure fan participation. I’m not sure how I did in the delivery, basically because I can’t remember presenting. Conference presentations get my adrenaline pumping, and that tends to erase all memories.

Except for the important ones, mind you. Today, I learned about communication design. The cliff notes version thereof is that websites are designed to support specific functions. For example, we don’t go to twitter to stream video; we go there to link video. Furthermore, communication and participation themselves can be designed to support specific practices. By this I mean that the ways in which we invite participation to a site may influence the responses that we receive, and what people end up doing there. I will definitely be reading up on that, so I can understand it better. It will be very useful for my dissertation.

The other important thing I learned today involved the #ir10  back channel. I had heard about back channels before, but had never used them so extensively. I found myself twittering incessantly about what was going on in the sessions I attended, and was also able to keep tabs what was going on in other sessions. Moreover, I think I could write a fair reconstruction of the ideas that stood out for me the most if I go back to my twitter feed. Here are some highlights:

• Social networking may not be as social as I thought. Design issues limit users ability to converse coherently (Panel on Convergent Media).
• When activist use social media, they using something they have limited control over. Bandwidth, accessibility, and especially terms of use can constrict the potential of social media. However, even if social networking sites are not perfect, they should not be dismiss (Panel on collective action).
• New trend of advertising targeting women. Technology products promise serenity now, and the Palm Pre is like a Quaalude (Feminist Political Economy panel).

• According to @michaelzimmer Discussion of AoIR research ethics guidelines boiled down to this: “don’t be a dick”. I wasn’t there, so I’ll take his word for it. Plus, good advice for life anyway.
  
• Here’s a post from the back channel @janelle_ward: Brilliant! Geek Feminism Blog asks “Where are all the men bloggers?” http://bit.ly/15daAd
• If your presentation is about immigration, and you get a question about zombies, smile and nod. “Best laid schemes o’ mice n’ men.” Robert Burns was right.
• Sex on Second Life. It’s not surprising. Humans are sexual beings. The question to ask is what the implications are. What does it tell us about the division (arbitrary) between Real Life and Second Life? Your avatar does not make decisions; you do (is that from Nakamura?)
• We — academics, that is — need to pay more attention to writing out our methods. Academic writing and publishing is also about teaching others about research practices. If we limit ourselves to statements like “this is an autoethnography,” we are falling short.
• Blackbird, a web browser for African Americans?
  

Fantastic conference. Great learning experience. Definitely a lot for me to think about.

Filed under: My comments, #ir10, AoIR

This week’s blog of note: Nathan Connin on Pandora

Slowly, I’m making my way through the blogs. Here is an interesting take on the high culture vs low culture polemic, by Nathan Connin.

Filed under: My comments, Student blogs, student blogs of note

The evolution of dance

Erika Gruner has some very good observations on The Evolution of Dance, perhaps one of the most famous internet memes.

Here’s the original video, in case you don’t remember it.

Kudos Erika!

Filed under: My comments, Student blogs, comments, student blogs of note