"So What!"

While reading John Fiske's "Television Culture," I was able to relate to most of his observations. He talks about the ideology behind the attempts television consciously makes for their audience. He begins by discussing the "codes of television." Fiske writes, "A code is a rule-governed system of signs, whose rules and conventions are shared amongst members of a culture, and which is used to generate and circulate meanings in for that culture" ( Fiske 1088). He brings to the reader's attention the various codes of romance, villainy, patriarchy, society, capitalism, etc that film uses. There are implicit and explicit codes. Fiske claims, "the codes of class, race, and morality are working less openly and more questionably:their ideological work is to naturalize the correlation of lower class, non American with the less attractive, less moral, and therefore villainous..." (Fiske 1093). Furthermore, in "Televesion Culture" Fiske finds feminist relations between the heroine and villainess. Both women "pretty themselves [while] the men are planning" (Fiske 1093). You see the patriarchal code being put into play here in a society where there the value of men is placed higher than that of women.

What message is television trying to give us?

Is it a culture of its own?

Does society imitate television's ideology or does television imitate reality?

I believe television does imitate reality and the different social norms and hierarchies, but has a negative way of re-enforcing the capitalist class distinctions. There is a type casting of gender and race that stretches the already existing stereotypes.

So we know all these facts about film codes and ideology; is it something that will ever change?

Fiske, John. "Television Culture."

Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg?

Does life imitate Seinfeld or does Seinfeld imitate life? The main characters, Jerry, George, Cramer and Elaine have their own language. The language, euphemisms and manner of insider speaking can be called signs. One could see culture as a system of signs. Jacques Derrida and Ferdinand de Saussure were structuralists who focused on signs. For example, Saussure said that the signifier, cat, visually brings an image to our heads. This image signifies the mental idea of the signifier. My idea of a cat is connected to the image I have in my head. Now the word cat or the pronunciation of cat might mean something else depending on the country or culture you are in. Therefore the relationship between the signifier and signified is arbitrary, because a context is needed. Context changes between different people and cultures. Saussure says there is an arbitrary relationship between signs based on context, but he also says that there is a moment of PRESENCE where CAT means CAT. On the other hand, Derrida says there is no moment of PRESENCE. He says signs are always unstable and in play.

Now I will raise the question, "Does Seinfeld use a language that we all globally understand or does it depend on the culture and society we present Seinfeld too?"

I believe that in the United States, Seinfeld, has a moment of presence like Saussure states, but it might not be the same when you change the context of whom it is being presented to. Someone in France or India will not understand the inside joke unless that person is semi aquatinted with the language Seinfeld uses.

Also, does Seinfeld imitate real life? I don't believe this question is important. Of course the writer of Seinfeld was influenced by the culture and people around him, therefore he might have created Seinfeld based on his aesthetic talent, but he created it out of the society he was a part of. Seinfeld is both an entity of its own as well as a compilation of cultural and societal influences.

My Daily Time, Space and Place Geography

Anthony Giddens writes that there is a social division in cutlure called front space and back space. Front space is where we put up a front; where we formally put on a show to look presentable to others in the front space environment. Back space is where we relax and take the layer of make up off our face or prepare for the next layer we need to put on.

Depending on the time of day, we move through time and space. I wake up daily in my back space which is my home and get ready for school. I drive my car to school and park. My morning coffee creates a more keen working environment for me, since it is early in the morning. As I do this I cross paths with a variety of different people and limitations. Some days I need to take a different route to school. Other days I do not have enough time to wait in life for coffee.

As school comes to an end I get back into my car and drive to work. My work space is completely different than my school space. In school I feel free, enlightened, liberated with education. At work I feel constrained to observing the limitations and social structure of a male dominated capitalistic surrounding. The funny thing is, the dominant males are the authoritative ones, but not the intelligent ones. I encounter the same colleagues, speak to worried clients, and sit in front of my melancholy desk day after day.

As I drive home to begin my homework, I find myself somewhere between time and space. Not enough time in the day and not enough space for me to catch my breath.

The Post-Modern Self

Language is the only way to get through to the self. Without language there would be no understanding of the self. We are the result of many things. The Post-Modern self is a fragmented self. The person you think you are is an assembly of so many small montages, pieced together to create a whole. Not only is the self created, it is "rearrang[ed], transform[ed] and correct[ed]" (Bordo 1099). With all the technology available to us today, god as the creator has been replaced by surgeons. This rhetoric of choice and technology has allowed people (mostly women) to constantly find a reason to be dissatisfied with their bodies. This dissatisfaction leads to the post-modern plastic discourse. In this discourse, "all sense of history and all ability ( or inclination) to sustain cultural criticism, to make the distinctions and discriminations which would permit such criticism, have disappeared" (Bordo 1104). This means that because the post-modern self is relative, no one passes judgement anymore. There is this "you do what you want and I'll do what I want" attitude in the air. This no longer allows there to be an underlying truth. This causes the post-modern angst created by people walking around with an invisible veil. These people seem respectful towards the actions, comments and opinions of individual others, but under that veil is their true opinions that are bottled up.

"Television is of course, the great teacher here, our prime modeler of plastic pluralism" (Bordo 1104). Instead of judging each other or setting limits for this post-modern self, we find the television to be a better role model. As long as someone on TV says it looks beautiful, or it'll make everything okay, than it is worthy of being mimicked. Technology has taken the role of human to human contact. The post-modern self has a dialogic relationship with the TV rather than with humans. This is a major tragedy!

Bordo, Susan. "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture."