"System of Objects," and The Romantic Comedy

“System of Objects,” and the Romantic Comedy.

In Baudrillard’s article “The System of Objects,” he states that we

as a people and a culture consume products not because we are a passive species hoping to absorb and assimilate into one giant uniform mass audience; but we actively consume objects because they are a

manipulation of signs that our culture finds meaningful. If this is true then the Romantic Comedy is just one manipulation that our culture

finds to be meaningful as applied to how our society should mate with

the opposite sex. Through McDonalds reasoning the romantic comedy genre has been classified as a lighthearted expression of a couple falling in love with each other, while battling or competing with one another in order to successfully find their perfect mate. The Sex comedy like the romantic comedy does place emphasis on competition for specific mates but also expresses the former attitudes of society and how women were to be the celestial virgins while men were allowed to be promiscuous with their sexuality. One thing I found disturbing was the blatant shock towards the Doctors studies of women’s sexuality. How is it that in the 1950’s it was acceptable for men to sleep around, while all the women were to be seen as virgins. They must have known that if the men were loosing their virginity it wasn’t amongst themselves, but with the opposite sex. So why was it so shocking to them to find out that 50% of women were not virgins during that time. How else did they think men were getting

experienced? Another thing I found interesting is that if we as a mass

audience consumes the romcoms and the sex comedies are we actively hoping our relationships are going to mirror what is seen on the screen? If this is to be true we must wake up and realize life and relationships are not meant to be lighthearted. The mass consumption of romcoms is an escape from actually having to talk to one another while in the courting phase of a relationship and is used passively as a device/ means to defer the situation at hand. We as a mass audience watch these movies to feel better about our own relationships and find comfort in the message the movies are trying to promote. Life needs to be seen as reality and not a romantic comedy. Things don’t always work out in the end. Boy and girl don’t always live happily ever after, and in fact boy and girl don’t even have to meet. It can be girl girl, boy boy or whatever the individual prefers. The ideologies promoted should be seen for what they are and not used as propaganda as how we should model our lives.

Questios of Culture and Ideology

In Chapter 2 Barker goes over the ideas of high and low culture and how popular culture is a variant of both meshed together. Barker also gives examples of Culture and social formations as well as Gramsci’s theory. Gramsci states that culture is created and constructed based on the ideals and standards of those of the high class. Ideologies and hegemony are thus created by the class with the most power and their standards and enforced among the lower classes and societies. Barker goes over both Marx’s theory of culture and Gramsci, as well as others who believe that culture is based on a hierarchy of social standards that are created in order from the highest class to the lower. He states that “Culture is a corporeal force tied into the socially organized production of the material conditions of existence.”(Pg.55) His analysis thus demonstrates the differences in culture between low and high class, based on the superstructure in Marxists theory.

Woman As Other

Simone de Beauvoir states; " we are told that femininity is in danger, we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human beings not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must shared in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity." In her Article Woman as Other, Simone de Beavoir clearly deliniates the difference between the two sexes, by stating that we know what women are based solely on the fact that they are not men. We are (speaking in a womans perspective) not defined by our accomplishments such like men are, but based on the fact that we accomplished things and we are women. Or so she states. Beauvior suggests that women have had no clear and deliniated history like other cultures but have merely hung on to the threads of our counterparts accomplishments, earnings and social standing. To be a woman is is to be unkown. She asks; " If today femininity no longer exists, then it never existed. But does the word woman, then, have no specific content?" Then if women are no longer measured by their soft and alluring tendencies how will we ever accomplish anything. Will time cease to exist in a world where women ban together and reject nurtuting loving and feminine qualities. Will our bread become extinct and sold on the black market because to be feminine is to be taboo? Has the idea of the feminine woman become so pase' and threatened by feminist views that the notion of a woman has lost its meaning, or are we still subordinized by hegemonic standards that define our roles. Not likely especially when a woman cannot be defined as a woman without having any of the attributes. Without feminine qualities would suggest an immitation and possibly being manly, and it would be a cry to compare a woman to a man when biologically it states that she is not one, because she does not have the parts. So Then Simone de Beauvior what is a woman? And how do we define her?

Impressions of Pop Culture

Hi, my name is Stephanie Camarena. I am a post grad student trying to

get into the creative writing masters program, and I am taking this

class because I have heard great things about this class and the professor. 

As for the first class and its discussion, I don’t think I have ever, in

all my years at CSUN, have had a more interesting or fun first day of

class. I personally found both movie options very interesting with regards to the topic.

The radical romance to me is something that hints at a risque idea and tries to

make people see it in a new light, after all that is how the idea of pop culture was created.

Making something popular out of an obscure topic and putting a spin on it that makes it acceptable for all.