This Post is Not Yet Rated

I haven't seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated but I feel like I should before our first paper is due.

Pragmatic Analysis:  The government should do everything it can to make the industry better until that includes doing stuff I don't want it to do.  The whole pragmatic ideology is beautiful in its simplicity, but therein lies the problem: it's too simple to critique, and too simple to work.  How can we argue for a pragmatic ideology when the "pragmatic" solution would look different for every single individual?  Like in our discussion in class, several people argued that news should be regulated to be more accurate, to be held to a higher accountability.  But the thing is, that accountability will serve some interest or another, thus defeating its own purpose.

I liked the part of the text that nodded to relativism, which provides an implicit connection to cultural studies. However, I have to say that I think relativism has become too ingrained into our culture.  Or, to be more pragmatically specific, my biased worldview has led me to conclude that I would be happier with a little less relativism in our media.  Example: in a news piece on ANY issue with "two sides", the station will give a microphone to people on both of those sides, regardless of what they have to contribute to the conversation.

I'm also looking forward to the back and forth in class on intellectual property.  I'm a pirate, I admit it.  And like every single other person in my generation, I've created this little justification in my head that makes me able to do it without any guilt.  My justification is that I spend money on concert tickets and vinyl albums instead of on the CDs that I pirate, and that makes it okay because I'm supporting the artist.  I also have the secondary justification of saying that if I couldn't pirate music I would just listen to the radio or less music anyway.  Like a lot of issues, my stance and the stance I've observed in a lot of people is one of convenience--I want the regulation that would be most convenient to me.  Of course, this means that when I write something, no one will buy a used copy of my book and no one will upload the ebook to a torrent site, but it's okay for me to get a TV series off The Pirate Bay because "Damnit, they should've been on Netflix already."

Again, repeating myself, problem with pragmatism is the vague line of what consequences and contingencies are the ones we should be considering.

I do like this book a lot.  I'm glad they keep it fresh with some modern references.  Enjoyed the nod to George Carlin in the FCC words bit.  I always think it's ridiculous that I can go see torture porn (Hostel, Saw, etc.) in the theater, but male genitalia won't appear in the Cinemark up the street more than MAYBE once a year.

The Rhetorical and Cultural Studies chapters were a LOT of repetition from other classes, so not going to linger on them.  The clustering concept from rhetorical analysis was useful and new though, and will help me in my paper writing.

One conversation I would like to have that is touched on in the Cultural Studies chapter is about "whitewashing" of African Americans in the Cosby Show.  If a modern show came out like the Cosby Show, would it still be whitewashing?  Or was it only whitewashing in the context of there not being more "black" shows about African Americans?  I'm not sure I can agree with the concept that the Cosby Show hurt race relations more than it helped them, despite being "whitewashed."

To expound:  Is Modern Family's gay couple a "straightwashed" experience that is hurting the gay movement because it tries to fit homosexuality into as meek a package as possible?

Does this line of thinking limit portrayals of a diverse population?

I don't know.