Your Assignment
For this essay you will critically examine a cultural issue in order to make a specific argument about our culture. You can approach this essay from the issue or from a specific artifact. For example, remember how Carolyn Muhlstein discusses Barbie in “Role Model Barbie: Now and Forever” in order to make an argument about gender stereotypes in our culture. Or think of how Lui’s discussion of Rhianna, Twilight, and John Travolta allow her to enter larger conversations about domestic violence, double-standards in gender, and homophobia in America. Make your life easier and choose a cultural issue and artifact with which you are already familiar. You can analyze a TV show, a movie, a clothing line, a toy, a celebrity, or anything that you feel you can really dig into. Make sure you’re getting at the bigger cultural issue at hand. Remember, the examples are great, but the analysis comes from digging into the societal problem more so than the example itself. What is this examples displaying?
Cultural Analysis Essay Part II: Resistance
You have selected an issue and artifact and have begun your analysis. Ultimately, you are examining an existing dominant narrative or dominant stereotype in our culture such as narratives surrounding race, gender, class, success, sexuality, relationships, education, desire, beauty, love, or technology.
Keep thinking about how these dominant narratives connect to specific issues like beauty standards and gender expectations, poverty or immigration, or even ideas like the American Dream.
Once you’ve introduced and analyzed the issue(s), then find an alternate story—a story that challenges the dominant story, one that resists the dominant narrative. In other words, is there something within our culture and/or media that questions or rejects rigid gender stereotypes? Find examples of people and/or things going against or breaking the rules of the cultural norms you’re arguing about. Make it hopeful! It’s one thing to simply write an essay that exposes and analyzes issues, but why stop there? Why not find another way of being in the world even if it takes a conscious effort to combat the stereotypical messages out there. Eventually, these stories of resistance will become the dominant stories, and we will all experience change.
*Note: it’s possible that your essay will begin with the resistance; however, you will need to introduce and analyze that which is being resisted. There is no formula for organization here. This prompt merely outlines the basic elements of your essay.
Technical Details
• 7-9 pages, not including works cited page, 2300-3200 words
• MLA, annotated bibliography, works cited page
• Minimum of 4 sources—2 must come from the academic databases. Max: 6 sources
My Prompt Proposal
Pop Culture Analysis Proposal: Disney Channels Affect on their Young Actors and Audience
Artifact:
In the early 2000s there were many girl Disney TV stars that we idolized as young girls. Disney Stars like Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and Miley Cyrus have since come out and said that during the time of their TV shows they struggled with their physical appearance and mental health while in the spotlight of the public eye. Individuals were constantly watching them and bosses and executives would comment on weight, looks, performance, etc. They were held to a certain image that they had to upkeep which led to issues for them like eating disorders and mental illness while also leaving the audience with an unrealistic definition of beauty.
Larger Conversation:
How our culture is critical on young women’s looks and doesn’t acknowledge the lasting affects of it physically and mentally.
My Thoughts so Far:
The problems that these young actresses on Disney channel struggled with in the public eye are also problems individuals not in the public eye struggle with daily. In this essay I am going to talk about how speaking up more and advocating more for issues like body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and unrealistic beauty standards can lead to awareness and show importance on why we in society need to stop being overly critical. I will talk about the importance of acknowledging these hardships and not blaming the individual but realizing what we as a society can do to put an end to this.
Questions for Further Research:
Do these networks or our society realize the long lasting consequences of setting these standards? How can we openly talk about this issue as a society without making excuses and instead making changes? How can we better understand and show future generations that you don’t have to fit a specific mold? Pop Culture