Popular Culture Artifact

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On interesting aspect in our current popular culture is the role that Mass Media play in our today’s society. Definitively entertainment and media have a large impact on society. Particularly, movies are a reflection of how the real world is. Humor, drama and action are used in movies to represent events that normally occur in our life such violence, war, love, drug use, etc. Everywhere you go you can hear people singing the top songs of the moment. It is very common see young people spending hours in line waiting for concert tickets or kids asking their parents buy the new video game. As well as 1,000s of dollars goes into media and electronics every week. Surely each of us would like to have the best cel phone with digital camera. People dress and label themselves by what they listen and see from their favorite singers, bands or actors. According Popular Culture & Food trends article, “Food is part of popular culture, and the beliefs, trends and practices in a culture affect as well its eating practices”. The mentioned aspects above lead to me to create my popular culture artifact. The next few pages will show how those aspects of our popular culture such icons, myths, celebrities and some values are incorporated into of popular culture artifact of my creation. In order to accede to this new website you can visit http://highstars.wetpaint.com/.

References Entertainment. Retrieved March 24, 2009 from http://www.usd230.k12.ks.us/espictt/entertainment/Entertainment.html/

Journal Article Analysis
Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred
Article’s author is Amos St.Germain from Wentworth Institute of Technology. He basically provides a summary of the book. Amos St. Germain identifies key elements and condenses important information into his analysis. Through this article the author describes as this book shows through its chapters as religion and popular culture are related under different points of view. In his first paragraph he also recommends this book for its interesting content.
Through the condensed summary provided by Amos we see how the author of this book relates religion to different elements from the popular culture. This book considers ways in which American cultural products have played an important role in creating contradictory religious identities. For example, he mentions the relation between Bible and modern American Christianity. It analysis makes sense of the relationship between Christianity and American popular culture analyzing the various ways in which Christians in the United States read and interpret Bible in the United States.
Amos as well shows in this article how religion and sports in the United States are related. For example, he mention to Roger Angell which is a known by his several memorable essays in baseball. Advertising is other element of our popular culture that according with Amos is reflected in the third chapter of this book. He mention to Kate Moss who is a known fashion model that appears in famous advertising campaigns. Guess jeans is as well other representative element of American Cultue mentioned in this boook. Movies and TVreligious programming are analyzed by the author of this book mentioning for example Mel Gibson’s film The passion of Christ(2004).
Finally, Amos try to convence us with this article to read this interesting, well written, and entertainment book. He consider that Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred contributes to popular cultures studies. Religion, sports, advertising, popular music, known films, and popular video games are some of the elements of popular culture that are closely related to religion under the analysis done by Richard W. Santana and Gregory Erickson, Jefferson, NC: McFarland in this book.


Reference
Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred. Richard W.Santana and Gregory Erickson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
Franklin University database Article by Amos St. Germain (2007) American Cultural Studies.

Reference of Journal Article

The article I chose from The Journal of Popular Culture is Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred. This article contains an interesting analysis of religion & Popular Culture and such this book contributes to Popular Culture Studies. Analyis by, Amos St. Germain from Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Reference


Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred. Richard W.

Santana and Gregory Erickson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Weekly written Analysis 5

The Popular Culture topic of my choice this time is tattoo. Tattoo is a permanent marking made by inserting ink into the layers of skin to change the pigment for decorative or other reasons. I think that tattoos have a inherent message of our society through time, incorporating the elements of popular culture. Tattoos have served in many diverse cultures as symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, sexual lures, pledges of love, punishment, amulets, protection and as the marks of rites. Tattoo is a universal phenomenon, every tattoo means something to the person who has it but definitively they also mean something of our society.

Ritual Development

I think we make rituals out of everything such celebrating holidays with family, shaking hands with friends and strangers. Inauguration of President, graduations, the Independence Day, New Years, the Olympics opening ceremonies are examples of rituals in our society. Religion has ritual. Those rituals are procedures for conducting religious ceremonies. Family rituals are activities involving most or all members of the family which occur episodically. Those behaviors have a symbolic meaning for family members.

We can see rituals remain an important and enduring aspect of our daily life. Society has both retained traditional rituals and accepted new ones. However, a ritual that is right for me might not be for my neighbors. The most common rituals around the world are often celebrations, which include such things as the birth of a baby, weddings and marriages, and then death.

Weekly written Analysis 3

"Kite Runner"

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is the story of the friendship between a wealthy Afghan boy and the son of his father's servant. According The Kite Runner official Website, The Kite Runner has shipped over four million copies and spent more than two years on the "New York Times" bestseller list. I was not familiar with the Afghan culture but I read the novel two years ago and last month I watch the movie.

The Kite Runner is the shattering first novel by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan doctor who received political asylum in 1980 as civil conflict devastated his homeland. The story also offers a first hand account of the social and political turmoil that the Soviet invasion wrought upon the entire country. This story gave me a new feel for what Afghanistan used to be like and the level of devastation humans can wreak on each other and a society. I found a good story of loyalty, cowardice, betrayal and redemption, with a brief insight in the recent history of Afghanistan.
The Kite Runner was transformed into a film production. In both novel and film form, “The Kite Runner” recounts a simple yet shrewd story about that favorite American pastime: self-improvement.

The Kite Runner is about the price of peace, both personal and political, and what we knowingly destroy in our hope of achieving that, be it friends, democracy or ourselves. Over the last three decades, Afghanistan has been ceaselessly battered by Communist rule, Soviet occupation, the Mujahideen and a democracy that became a rule of terror. I suggest that one should take part in both reading and watching The Kite Runner.

Reference
Parks, J. (2008, December 18). Kabul - The Kite Runner. Retrieved March 2, 2009, from http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/

Assignment 2-1 weekly written Analysis 2

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire comes away as the big winner of the 2009 Academy awards, capturing eight Oscars. The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. Eighteen year old guy is having an amazing answering streak on the Indian version of the television game show; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" This movie was one of the best movies that I have seen so far. This is an excellent movie. While it is clearly an Indian cast and setting, the language is English. It's a very clever fusion of Hollywood & Bollywood. The cinematography was stunning, the music was great, the characters very engaging, and the plot was excellent, with an ending that tied up everything beautifully. I recommend to watch this great movie.