Polyphonic Spree or Snuggie commercial? You be the judge.

There is a plague sweeping our land; a terrible ill that cannot be stopped. We’re being attacked by the Snuggie. The Sunggie is an evil piece of cloth, in some circles known as a harmless blanket, with a menacing addition: sleeves.

Ok. It’s not exactly that terrifying, but it is pretty silly. I’m sure you’ve seen the infomercial — they seem to be everywhere lately. The thing about it is, and I’m sure someone on marketing side figured this out and was snickering the whole time, the thing looks like a freaking cult robe. I’m talking, full on drink the Kool-Aid cult. Throughout the infomercial people wearing the Snuggie are doing normal things — watching TV, reading books, roasting marshmellows — but because they’re wearing the Snuggie it looks like it’s all cult activity.

It actually reminds me of the first time I saw the Polyphonic Spree. I was watching Conan O’Brien back when Light and Day was being used for the VW commercials. Anyway, they were on Conan wearing their robes and playing happy music while bouncing balls in the air. I decided right then and there that the Polyphonic Spree was a cult. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I mean they seemed happy.

Flash forward back to the Snuggie. Now I could be wrong, and I probably am, but what if the Snuggie was the marketing end of the Polyphonic Spree? A new way to get people to think the robes are acceptable, so they can return to the mainstream and peddle their wears? Probably not. But it’d be cool, right?

The Snuggie Commercial

Polyphonic Spree at FSU

Over the last few days I have decided, despite my better judgement, to give Twitter a try. After reading Nick’s breakdown of the service I figured it might be worth a spin. After all, communicating with people is a good thing. Though after a few days of use I have really only come to one conclusion: whoever invested in this service should be really disappointed.

According to the CrunchBase, Twitter has $5.4 million dollars of investment capital running the show and 17 employees. The question I have, is with all the money and people how can the service be down almost as often as it’s up? Sure, they show a cute little graphic to say their sorry for the downtime, but what’s the point? It has been a nice means of communicating with some people through the @reply and direct message feature and by syncing with Facebook for general status updates. Though the system seems to pick and choose which updates are actually shown to me, which kind of defeats the purpose. I can see how it’d be pretty easy to become addicted to Twitter, as many people are, but it’s hard to keep using it with all the issues. I’ll continue to use Twitter and give it the benefit of the doubt. Surely they are in the middle of some sort of upgrade, or something. I mean, with all the money they have, these issues are just a sign of growth, right?

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is the upcoming movie from the very talented and funny Kevin Smith. I had heard about the movie a while back and finally, last night (or really this morning) the teaser trailer was released. It looks pretty funny, and seems to be about exactly what the title implies. But what caught my eye is the design of the website. It seems the cork board idea is spreading, or hitting the big time, or… something, I don’t know. Be warned, the trailer is intended for audiences of 18 and over and is completely uncensored. If you’re over 18 head over and check it out and just remember where you saw the design first.

Like Whitney Houston, we believe the children are our future, which is why the sexual politics of Judd Apatow’s adolescent romp left us so depressed.

While I don’t think Superbad will doom this generation, I do think that most female roles tend to be a bit stereotypical. Cinematical blogger Monika Bartyzel said it best with the following:

The female star may be professionally successful, but she’s neurotic. Or she is obsessed with beauty and fashion. Or she wants to have a family. The lady butt-kicker might be tough, but she’s also half-naked, or doomed, or… Each female protagonist might have modern aspects, but there’s almost always a stereotypical aspect tacked along with it.

All of this talk about misogynistic films reminded me of a paper I wrote for the Multicultural Film class I took at Florida State about the male gaze, which is the idea that male directors tend to cast scantily clad female leads for stereotypical roles because they are more pleasing to look at. So, in honor of full disclosure, you’ll find the entire paper (three pages) and my thoughts on the male gaze below. Enjoy

The Male Gaze – April 2005

When Jessica Alba’s character Nancy is introduced to the audience in the film Sin City she is dancing at a sleazy saloon wearing not much more then a pair of chaps and cowboy boots. The camera pans around and focuses on Alba’s body as she gyrates, pleasing both the on-screen patrons and the audience watching in the theater. This focus on the feminine body is not limited to Sin City, it is actually a common trait known as the ‘male gaze.’ This notion of the gaze stems from what Sigmund Freud referred to as scophphilia, or “the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects.” [Chandler, pg. 1] This notion is then applied to film as male directors produce “representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view.” [Chandler, pg. 1]

A film we watched in class that gives in to the traditional male gaze is Mean Girls. Here the focus is a small group of highly attractive high school girls — affectionately known as ‘The Plastics’ — lead by Lindsay Lohan’s character Cady. The film is full of toe-to-head panning body shots of the girls, particularly when initially introduced to the audience or after Cady undergoes her indoctrination into The Plastics. Director of Mean Girls, as well as another Lohan centered film called Freaky Friday, Mark Waters explains his use of the gaze: “When I find myself reading scripts I find the female stories just grab me more. It’s not a conscious choice. I think it comes back to in directing you basically have to wake up early in the morning and get up and shine a bunch of lights in a camera. It’s better if it’s a pretty girl than the sweaty guy. It helps you get out of bed in to work.”[Lybarger, pg. 3]

However, the male gaze is not limited solely to film. The series of graphic novels by Frank Miller that Sin City draws its inspiration features curvy female characters, often nude or carrying weapons, on almost every-other page. Gail Houston states that desire “motivates all speech, culture, and human behavior.” [Houston, pg. 249] Thus, a conclusion can be drawn that the gaze, whether in film or other forms of media, stems from human desire.

One facet of the male gaze as it relates to film can partially be blamed on typecasting. Typecasting, or actors “playing similar kinds of characters from film to film,”[Belton, pg. 98] locks actors into archetypes of individuals typically relying on stereotypes. When it comes to men, a prime example would be Bruce Willis. He is always the action hero that ends the movie bloodied and bruised with a few dead bodies under his belt. However, female actors tend to be typecast in roles that feature their bodies. Referring back to Jessica Alba, before the showing of Sin City a trailer ran for an upcoming movie which she stars called Into the Blue. Here images of a bikini-clad Alba diving underwater filled the screen. Couple that with Alba’s dance routine in Sin City and it is safe to say that she is being cast for her physical features.

Though, is all this talk about the male gaze and how it tends to dictate the filmmaking process bad? Well, not exactly. Again referring to Jessica Alba, in both Sin City and in a television show which she was the star, Dark Angel — where Alba played a genetically engineered teenaged girl who could break into anywhere and always wore black spandex while doing so — despite being objectified Alba was shown as a strong character and always came out on top of the situation. In Dark Angel she was constantly fighting for a cause greater then herself and towards the end of Sin City she was shown as having a tremendously strong will as she resisted her captor. Looking back at Lindsay Lohan, she is shown in Mean Girls as standing up for what is right and unifying her high school at the end of the film.

The male gaze drives everything seen in a film. Marcia Pally explains that “film depends on a series of looks — yours, the director’s, the hero’s — with the gaze goes the entire construction of cinema, from the list of characters to the way we see them.” [Pally, pg. 253] Because in this culture where sex seems to sell just about everything from movies to soap it is safe to assume that the male gaze will be ingrained with the filmmaking process for a long time to come. Though more and more the heroine is fighting for injustice or representing a goodness that only a female can bring to film — she just happens to be wearing a miniskirt while doing so.

Bibliography

Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture: Second Edition. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2005.

Cahill, Ann J. “Feminist Pleasure and Feminine Beautification.” Multicultural Film: Essays Spring/Summer 2005. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005. 259-76.

Chandler, Daniel. “Laura Mulvey on Film Spectatorship.” Notes on ‘The Gaze.’ Accessed 4 April 2005. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze09.html.

Dark Angel: Season One. Dir./Pro. James Cameron. Pref. Jessica Alba, Michael Weatherly, John Savage. DVD. 20th Century Fox Television, 2000.

Houston, Gail T. “Psychoanalytic Criticism.” Multicultural Film: Essays Spring/Summer 2005. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005. 241-52.

Lybarger, Dan. “Mean Girls: How to Be a Cool Misfit.” Interview with Mark Waters—Nitrate Online. Accessed 4 April 2005. http://www.nitrateonline.com/2004/fmeangirls.html.

Mean Girls. Dir. Mark S. Waters. Perf. Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert. DVD. Paramount Pictures, 2004.

Miller, Frank. Sin City: The Hard Goodbye. New York: Dark Horse, 2005.

Pally, Marcia. “Object of the Game.” Multicultural Film: Essays Spring/Summer 2005. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005. 253-58.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Accessed 4 April. 2005. http://www.imdb.com/.

Sin City. Dir. Robert Rodriquez. Pref. Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba. Theater. Troublemaker Studios, 2005.

(Via Cinematical and IFC)

Any time you can distinguish yourself with a distinctive name or a distinctive characteristic that sticks out in people’s minds, that’s going to be the best solution.

This quest for distinctive characteristics is driving people do some very interesting things. I’m sure you’ve already heard that potential employers are googling applicant names to see what comes up (all you psycho MySpacers with all your bulletins and pictures from that totally awesome party last year be warned). The “vanity searching” doesn’t stop there. Apparently some authors are starting to include their middle name in publications so that they are easier to find among search engine results and parents-to-be are searching potential name combinations to see if their child will be unique — based solely on google positioning, of course and not, you know, personality and character.

So what’s in a name? If you google Justin Cox, my name in case you don’t really know what you’re reading, you’ll see that I’m the number one result which, of course, makes me the coolest Justin Cox to have ever lived in the history of the planet. If you are somehow able to skip the first result and peruse some of the other 3 million results, you’ll find Justin Cox: the Photographer, Justin Cox: the Hockey Player, Justin Cox: the Graduate Assistant, Justin Cox: the Socyberty Author, Justin Cox: the Graphic Designer, Justin Cox: the Evangelist, Justin Cox: the Editor-at-Large, Justin Cox: the Recovering American, Justin Cox: the Cox Built Owner, and well I think you get the point.

It’s good to see that in this technology age where privacy doesn’t actually exist I’m the coolest Justin Cox in the world.

I remember waking up like any other day. I remember turning on CNN while I got ready for class. I remember muting the television so it didn’t wake my roommate. I remember it being a normal morning. I remember seeing smoke coming out of one of the World Trade Center towers. I remember thinking it was a fire while I brushed my teeth. I remember going to class.

I remember sitting in College Algebra and watching a few people leave talking on their cell phones. I remember thinking it was rude. I remember coming home and finding out what was really happening. I remember watching the final tower fall.

I remember sitting in my neighbors room with about ten other people glued to CNN. I remember one of them saying they knew someone on one of the planes. I remember Aaron Brown trying to make sense of what was happening. I remember yelling at my roommate for making insensitive comments. I remember him holding a football. I remember using the words “thousands of people died.” I remember him leaving.

I remember trying to call my parents and not being able to. I remember finally getting through. I remember them being worried. I remember trying not to sound scared.

I remember fighter jets flying overhead in Tallahassee. I remember the state capitol building being evacuated. I remember someone saying people were trying to kill the Bush family and Jeb was a target. I remember not knowing what to believe.

I remember reports coming from the Pentagon. I remember seeing nothing but fire and destruction. I remember CNN graphics recreating the plane crashing through all five rings. I remember the flag hanging from the rubble.

I remember the field in Pennsylvania where flight 93 crashed. I remember “Let’s Roll.” I remember thinking the people on that plane were heroes.

I remember Air Force One being escored by fighter jets. I remember Mayor Giuliani pulling New York City together as best as he could. I remember seeing every New Yorker the press could get in front of the camera telling their story. I remember people jumping out of the towers.

I remember one of my neighbors wanting to join the Army. I remember another playing somber music on his violin. I remember being numb.

I remember the aftermath and the clean up. I remember holes left in the Pentagon and in the ground of New York City. I remember trucks leaving the hole day and night filled with debris. I remember thinking it would never end.

I remember politics and conspiracy theories. I remember being angry with some of the beliefs. I remember patriotism and the Patriot Act. I remember seeing the American flag more then I had before. I remember people actually caring about one another, at least for a little while.

I remember what happened on September 11th, 2001. I remember it changed the world forever. I remember thinking this will be for me what the the moon landing was for my parents. I remember being saddened about that. I remember thinking it would be a day I never forget. I was right.

Before these Olympic Games I thought Curling was just a weird sport that was easy to make fun of. I mean they take this 42 pound rock and slide it across a sheet of ice trying to hit a target. At the same time some other people use a broom and sweep the ice trying to effect the movement of the rock. But after watching a few rounds, some of them even live thanks to CNBC and a day off, I pretty much understand the sport. There are some detailed rules that I don’t know, but I understand the basics — just enough to make it fascinating.

It’s all about the large target area on the other side of the ice, it’s called the House. At the end of the End, the team with the closest rock (shot rock) to the center (button) gets a point for ever stone they have inside the house that is closer than the other team’s closest rock. The strategy comes in when one team puts up a guard rock trying to make the shot to the house more difficult. The question then becomes “do you peel away the guard or curl around it and aim for the house?”

As I mentioned above, the US Women’s Team is lead by the beautiful Cassie Johnson and her older sister Jamie. This, of course, is part of the reason that I became hooked on the sport. Though, they have been eliminated from the Olympic tournament. They finished a sad 2 and 8, but you can’t win them all and the US has never won a Curling medal anyway. However, the US Men’s Team has made it to the Medal Round. They play Canada today and if they win, they play in the gold medal game. If they loose, they can play for bronze.

Curling is exciting and if you don’t believe me, just turn on CNBC at 5pm and check it out.

UPDATE (2/24/06):

Today, February 24th, the US Men’s Team won the first American curling medal ever! They beat Great Britain 8-6 today to pick up the bronze medal!

The first reason is simply that there aren’t any movies that people are willing to spend money on. The general crop of movies lately sucks. There aren’t any blockbusters action picks like an Independence Day or dramas like a Forrest Gump. Occasionally a film of that caliber comes along but they are few and far between and more often then not only seen in art houses–if at all. Of course there are a few exceptions. Star Wars earned over 370 million dollars this summer–but that is because it carried the name Star Wars. Cinderella Man, hyped as the year’s first great Oscar contender, flopped earning just under 60 million dollars. It is as if the taste of Hollywood and the general moviegoer have become out of sync over the last few years.

Theaters themselves are also to blame for poor attendance. I don’t know about you, but when I go to the movies and spend my six dollars to rent my chosen seat for two hours of time, I do not want to be inundated with advertisements for twenty minutes prior to the start of the film. Trailers are one thing; I welcome them as they are sometimes more interesting then the movie. But a Coke commercial followed by a recruiting ad for the Army? Come on, if I wanted to see those I would have just stayed home. The worst offender of this is Regal Cinemas. They actually have a “pre show” before the trailers they call the “Twenty.” It’s twenty minutes of crap–TV show commercials and “behind the scenes” looks at musical acts, all filled with advertising of course. For this reason I avoid Regal Cinemas if at all possible. If I had it my way, there would be no pre-show advertising. This, however, may lead to another nail in Hollywood’s proverbial coffin.

If you have seen a big budget action movie over the last few years, you may have noticed the ridiculous amount of product placement therein. Minority Report, iRobot, and this year’s The Island are big offenders. Each film features low angled, panning shots of a particular car–a car that in each case happened to be recently released to the market. For instance, in The Island–a so-so social commentary on bioethics staring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson–there are shots of the Dodge Charger, Dodge Magnum, and the Cadillac Cien concept. The Island also contains focused shots on bottles of Aquafina water, Miller beer and Reebok sneakers. I don’t think Hollywood will ever stoop as low as The Truman Show parodied, where the actor takes a moment to talk about the benefits of a certain product–though you never know. If they continue to loose money from ticket sales, they will continue to look for sources of revenue from other arenas, one of which will be product placement.

No matter what their choice of remedy, Hollywood needs to do something to curtail it’s slipping returns at the box office. I for one enjoy seeing a film on the big screen with speakers at every possible angle. Though if the films continue to be of poorer quality and they continue to be filled with ads both prior too and during, I just might start waiting for DVD as well.

But, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I worked. Well, I did work at not working and I must say I was pretty good at that. Ok, let me lay it down for you. For a good majority of the time I worked, er, spent at Publix a good five or so of my friends from school were also on the payroll. We had that store wired. I could walk in there right now and tell you which isle’s have “dummy” surveillance cameras and which have actual ones. I know the managers routines, how much money the store takes in a day, I know… well, now that I think about it, I know some pretty valuable information for my friends in the crime business. But anyway, we used our knowledge for good, not ill.

I would start the day by clocking in exactly seven minutes late because the system worked so that it rounded to the closest seven minutes. Seven minutes late was rounded down to being on time. In turn, I would also clock out exactly seven minutes early; thus maximizing my pay per time spent.

A good majority of my on-the-clock time was spent in the parking lot, “getting carts.” This is where the magic happened; and by magic I mean trouble. We, my friends and I, often played a game in which we would dare each other to do things; we called it “I Dare You.” It started simple like set off our car alarms for a period of time or lie down in the road but then quickly evolved. I don’t want to say that I once got a guy (our valedictorian no doubt) to urinate in the parking lot bushes or that we collectively hung a cart vertically from the tree, but we did.

Though, sometimes we did actually do what we were in the parking lot to do, and that was get carts. One night, around Christmas time, two other guys and myself brought in 148 carts at one time. It was a train of carts about 20 parking spaces long and was a mother to push, but we did it’the managers didn’t like the fact that we had to stop traffic in front of the store to bring them in, but what did we care. Getting carts also meant walking around the block to make sure our carts didn’t wonder off to various bus stops, this was usually about a forty five minute venture.

After it got too hot to be outside, or if it was raining, or the managers were, I would return to the store and well, again do nothing. If I had been told to clean something, I would go back to the mop room. Now this place had this really cool chemical dispensing system for all the various cleaning supplies. No matter what I had been told to clean, I would mix up the same chemical solution which was taught to me by my friend the valedictorian. It consisted of glass cleaner, surface disinfectant, water, and floor stripper. Now the floor stripper chemical was solely to be used in these giant waxing machines because of it’s extremely hazardous to ones skin properties, but that was the secret ingredient, its what did all the dirty work. After about ten minutes of playing in the back, I would “clean” whatever I had been sent out the clean. No matter how small the task, I made sure the job took a good twenty minutes, even if it was just a window or something. A bathroom cleaning took a good hour and a half, a checkout lane, thirty minutes a piece. Though, the managers (who undoubtedly hated all of us) were notorious for giving us ridiculous cleaning tasks just to stay busy. These included cleaning the break room, cleaning the tile on the side of the building in front of the store, and yes, mopping the handicap parking spaces.

Another fun, and time consuming task, was a little thing called blocking. This was basically pulling all items on a particular shelf to the front so that it was a smooth block. I guess the wonderful managers thought that a more visually appealing isle would cause people to buy more food, who knows. Anyway, blocking took up a lot of time. Especially when you were blocking the paper towels so that your friend could lie down behind the stacked paper towels on the shelf and hit them out at people passing by. That was fun.

As you can rightly see, I did a lot of stuff other than actually servicing the front. Though, I did a lot of public service while on the clock at Publix. This included changing a tire for some old woman who didn’t know how, chasing a bank robber, and investigating a hit and run for a manager–even though he insisted that I didn’t and spend my time bagging instead. It’s a wonder I was never fired.

But alas, my time at Publix ended senior year when I moved on to bigger and better things–though, come to think I never actually quit, I just told the manager that hated me I got a new job. Now, I don’t encourage current employees of the “Where Shopping is a Pleasure” supermarket to take my former practices to action, I can’t be held responsible for that. But, do go and have fun. Create your own ways to spend your time and, above all, keep the managers under the impression that you are not only doing what you are supposed to but you are enjoying it.

Now I’ve got you don’t I? Popular culture, a PC many times worse than the evil virus known as political correctness, is now so ingrained into our way of life that it effects us every single day in multiple ways, namely trends, fads, gossip, etc. Lets take these one at a time, in order of severity of course.

Gossip is the most identifiable result of popular culture. What do you people talk about around the proverbial water cooler? Well, if you stand there for more than twenty three and a half seconds I guarantee you that right after you find out that your boss is buying hookers with a company credit card something having to do with J-Lo’s ass, who’s currently sleeping with who among the set of Friends, or weather Fred Dirst is currently with Britney or Christina… I’m sorry X-Tina will come up. Don’t believe me, try it out tomorrow. Go to work and bring your certified spy equipment and monitor the conversations of that hot coworker you want to, er work with.

The second result of pop culture is that of fads. What exactly is a fad? Well, simply put a fad is something that is “taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time; a craze” (my props to the one and only Dictionary.com). You all know ‘em, you just choose to forget them–another result of PC which I will address later. Fads that have come and gone over the past years are Bennie Babies, smoking, and the one and only annoying Furbee’s. Oh the humanity. LPC side note: Upon conducting research for this article I came across this extremely interesting video entitled Furbee Luv–aparantly Furbee’s like it rough.

The final result of popular culture on Justin’s List-O-Coolness are trends. A trend is basically a fad that stands the test of time and becomes our reality. If this were PC’s only side effect, pop culture would still be able to run the world; this is how extremely powerful trends are. Sometimes, however, it is very hard to tell the difference between a fad and a trend. You may think the Macarena was a trend but I’m sorry my friend, it was only a fad. Trends aren’t usually noticed because it takes so long for them to develop. Think about it though. Some of the latest trends are that of everyone choosing to be healthy and work out and stuff. Another trend is that of low rise jeans, well you know, I guess you could attribute that to the health trend. I mean if everyone is healthier and thinner and sexier then of course their clothes are going to be smaller and lower… or maybe i’ve gotten dumber as I’ve written this articler.

Ok, so earlier I said that another result of pop culture is that we forget stuff very quickly. Don’t believe me, here, I’ll prove it to you: Proof. This shows how powerful PC is. Take for example when you go to the movies these days, you always go and see the big blockbusters. A great example of this is the recent rise and fall of The Hulk. Ok, so first let me preface this by saying I have yet to see the big green guy on the big screen, but from what I hear the movie sucked more than those girls down on OBT. Anyway, last weekend was opening weekend for The Hulk and millions of people went and saw it. Why? Well for many reasons but the biggest being that “The Incredible Hulk” was a huge comic book back in the day. On opening weekend the angry green man man made just over $60 million dollars. This weekend, it’s second weekend in the theater, The Hulk’s profits dropped 70% to a whopping $18 million. Sad isn’t it. Within the next handful of weeks, maybe three, The Hulk will be gone… as will the hopes for a sequel. But you know, that’s the result you get for playing with popular culture.

Playing with pop culture is like playing with fire. Though, just like fire, PC is kind of hard to avoid. Today people know more about the lives of celebrities than the lives of their own neighbors. People are more interested in what Halle Barry ate for dinner last night than what their kids are doing at four in the morning. Think I’m off my rocker and spent too much time in front of the computer today? Well, probably but some variation on that theme is true. If it weren’t tv shows like Entertainment Tonight would go off the air.

Anyway, point is that popular culture has slowly and quietly taken over the world. It now has it’s clutches on all of us. But you know, I don’t really care. I mean its not a bad thing or anything. In fact, it’s kinda cool. I mean it gives my website purpose. If it weren’t for movies and politics and stuff like that, I don’t know what this website would be about. And so as I conclude this extremely poignant and well thought out article–haha, right–I am giving you, the reader a gift. Below you can download the very desktop wall paper I use on my computer here. I call it the Lone Palm Pop Culture Wallpaper of Doom and created it shortly after I redesigned the title bar for the website. It’s pretty much a testament to hot celebrities, movies, and other forms of pop culture. Hope you like it.

Lone Palm Pop Culture Wallpaper of Doom