Today in class we’re opening up by going Klingon Style! (And if you want to know more about the Gangnam Style phenomenon, check out these guest posts from Charley Reed!
Klingon Style Parody Video
Today in class we’re opening up by going Klingon Style! (And if you want to know more about the Gangnam Style phenomenon, check out these guest posts from Charley Reed!
Klingon Style Parody Video
Today’s pre-class video is brought to you from outer space by former Canadian astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, Cmdr. Chris Hadfield. He recorded this video of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” while on the ISS in 2013. You can get the whole story on this video here.
Space Oddity by Chris Hadfield
The level of Photoshopping going on at Fashion/Beauty/Lifestyle magazines has been an ongoing controversy, with performers such as Adele, Kelly Clarkson and Kate Winslet being made almost unrecognizable as photo editors try to make the curvy stars’ bodies comply with fashion magazine standards of beauty.
So it should be no surprise when Lena Dunham, star of HBO’s series Girls, posed for Vogue that the question would start being raised as to how authentic her images were. Dunham, in case you’ve missed the story, is famous for being naked in Girls — a lot — and that her tattooed body is celebrated/criticized for being an alternative to conventional standards of Hollywood beauty.
So… when the Dunham issue of Vogue came out, the blog Jezebel, which has a lot to say on Photoshopping, offered $10,000 to anyone who would supply them with the original, unedited images of Dunham so people could see how Dunham’s body was manipulated.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long to get someone to supply Jezebel with the images. Interestingly enough, while the photos themselves were highly manipulated (i.e. entirely new backgrounds added) the New York Times points out that there was surprisingly little done to Dunham herself.
Dunham told Slate following the publication of the original images that she had no problem with what Vogue had done with the photos, and that she understands and appreciates that difference between reality and what is published in a fashion magazine:
A fashion magazine is like a beautiful fantasy. Vogue isn’t the place that we go to look at realistic women, Vogue is the place that we go to look at beautiful clothes and fancy places and escapism and so I feel like if the story reflects me and I happen to be wearing a beautiful Prada dress and surrounded by beautiful men and dogs, what’s the problem? If they want to see what I really look like go watch the show that I make every single week.
What do you think? Is Jezebel standing up for women by publishing the unedited photos of Dunham? Or are they, as some claim, bullying Dunham, who has made her career of flouting conventionality?
(Oh, and by the way, the photos of Dunham are by famed photog Annie Leibovitz, because… of course they are.)
Today’s video is from artist/illustrator Tommy Kane, and I’m playing it in honor of the fact my eldest returns home from Korea tomorrow where he’s been working for the last year.
Oscar nominations were announced bright and early this morning, with several surprises in what is widely considered to be one of the tightest fields in years. Gravity and American Hustle led the nominations with 10 nods each, followed by 12 Years a Slave with nine. Here’s my reaction:
My pre-class video for today is a music video from the awesome band They Might Be Giants.
I wasn’t able to watch the Golden Globes Awards broadcast Sunday night, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t still be entertained by it. Here’s what you missed if you didn’t watch:
The wonderful introduction to the show by co-hosts Tina Fey and Amy Pohler has been posted by online. (Please note, this is not a monologue. Mono means one. Tina and Amy make two…)
Part 1
Part 2
Actress Jaqueline Bisset was a hot mess during her acceptance speech for best supporting actress in a series, mini-series or TV movie:
Someone at E! had a very strange idea of what constituted a “fun fact” about actor Michael J. Fox. Because what’s more fun than Parkinson’s Disease? (E! obviously apologized, but really, who thought that was a good idea?)
And finally, no one had better commentary on the Golden Globes than Sarcastic Rover from the surface of Mars:
I usually have a pre-class video running as students assemble for my Global Media Literacy class. While I generally collect these videos over on my Tumblr, this semester I’m going to try to post all the ones I use to the blog.
For Day 1, I played a great little short film called CATCH, which is a stop-motion animation shot entirely with Google Glass.
As you no doubt have heard in the last few days, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in a lot of hot water over actions by his staff in closing several lanes of traffic on the George Washington Bridge this fall. My goal here is to not analyze the political fallout from this case, but rather to look at what can we learn here from the media literacy perspective: