scholarly journals The New Real: Iggy Azalea and the Reality Performance

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Morrissey
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Creative Potential ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
The Real ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Whiteness Theory

Questions of realness, authenticity, and legitimacy, are deeply invested in a politics of identity that polices the purity of its central categories. The creative potential of performative modes such as rap performance and reality television is thus complicated by expectations of authenticity that are frequently embroiled in broader projects of identity delineation and regulation. This paper considers correlations between hip hop culture’s ethos of realness and authenticity, and the ‘real’ as manifested in the cultural phenomenon of reality television, for the ways in which they are bound by but also strive to reconfigure the limits of realness. With particular attention to the work and self-styling of Australian female rapper Iggy Azalea, I emphasise the tension between performance and authenticity, and point to the ostensibly disparate subcultural forms of hip hop and reality television as distinctly engaged in the renegotiation of this tension. I invoke the critical imperatives of whiteness theory to critique the normative channels of realness that remain at the forefront of hip hop’s self-conceptualisation and general promotion, in particular the role of gender and race in the construction of hip hop authenticity. I then examine reality television and its relationship with shame and intimacy as crucial to understanding its devalued status in studies of television and popular culture more broadly. Ultimately, I propose the explorations of ‘real’ in these works as indicative of a contemporary shift in the evaluation and justification of authenticity that points to a revised appreciation of the power of performativity.

“I Still Don’t Understand Award Shows”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Colley
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Racial Microaggressions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fashion Designer ◽  
Changing Role

This chapter examines the evolution of the rapper, producer, fashion designer, and reluctant reality television personality Kanye West. An artist whose subject matter addresses personal anxieties and self-doubt in ways seldom seen in mainstream rap, West engages fame and celebrity in conflicting and often incongruous ways. Through the amateur creation and distribution of memes, gifs, hashtags, and other “viral” cultural articles, the public plays an unprecedented role in the construction—and destruction—of celebrity. Exploitation of this process, in which West consciously engages, constitutes a unique enactment of celebrity work. West’s interaction with the notion of celebrity—as an antihero, an activist, and an icon—speaks both to the changing role of hip hop in mainstream American culture and to the ongoing racial microaggressions of “post-race” America toward influential black celebrity.

The Truth We Can't Afford to Ignore

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-72
Author(s):  
Danielle Ligocki ◽  
Martha Ann Wilkins
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
School Community ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
School Students ◽  
Literacy Strategies ◽  
Participatory Literacy

Popular media has become a central aspect of life for many individuals. With that exposure to media comes imagery that contains messages both covert and overt that are readily consumed by the viewers. Adolescents are especially influenced by these images because of their frequency and use of media. This study addresses the ways in which middle school students interpret and internalize stereotypical imagery found in popular culture, specifically reality television, and examines the role of the teacher and greater school community in helping students to identify and mediate stereotypical images. Through participatory literacy strategies, classrooms everywhere can become an educative, critical, thoughtful space for both students and teacher.

Televisual diplomacy: I am the Ambassador and Danish nation branding at home and abroad

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-447
Author(s):  
Robert A Saunders ◽  
Joel Vessels
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Culture Form ◽  
The Us ◽  
At Home

In a time when the current US president came to office via a career in reality television, it seems unnecessary to argue that popular culture and International Relations intersect in meaningful and dramatic ways. Operating from this premise, mass-mediating the act of diplomacy via a television series presents a fecund object of analysis that questions many of the myths surrounding what we call the ‘diplomatic community’. Consequently, this article is interested in the geopolitical interposition of Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) via the popular culture form of reality television. We achieve this through a close reading of the DR series I am the Ambassador/Jeg er ambassadøren fra Amerika (2014–2016), ‘starring’ the real US ambassador to Denmark. We situate Ambassador within the evolving space of ‘new diplomacy’ through an evaluation of how it imagines, popularises, and expands ‘everyday’ sites of diplomacy via mass-mediation. However, as we argue, the series – when viewed holistically – says more about the Danish state and its people than it does about the role of the US ambassador, thus functioning as a tool of nation branding as much at home as abroad.

scholarly journals The absent piece of skin: Gendered, racialized and territorial inscriptions of sexual violence during the Bangladesh war

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1572-1601 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAYANIKA MOOKHERJEE
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper addresses how the wombs of women and the absent skin on the circumcised penises of men become the predominant sites on which racialized and gendered discourses operating during the Bangladesh War are inscribed. This is explored by examining instances of sexual violence by Pakistani soldiers and their local Bengali collaborators. The prevalence of these discourses in colonial documents about the Bengali Muslims underscores the role of history, the politics of identity and in the process, establishes its link with the rapes of Bangladeshi women and men. Through this, the relationship between sexual violence and historical contexts is highlighted. I locate the accounts of male violations by the West Pakistani army within the historical and colonial discourses relating to the construction of the Bengali Muslim and its intertextual, contemporary citational references in photographs and interviews.I draw on Judith Butler's and Marilyn Strathern's work on gendering and performativity to address the citational role of various practices of discourses of gender and race within colonial documents and its application in a newer context of colonization and sexual violence of women and men during wars. The role of photographs and image-making is intrinsic to these practices. The open semiotic of the photographs allows an exploration of the territorial identities within these images and leads to traces of the silence relating to male violations. Through an examination of the silence surrounding male sexual violence vis-à-vis the emphasis on the rape of women in independent Bangladesh, it is argued that these racialized and gendered discourses are intricately associated to the link between sexuality and the state in relation to masculinity.

Irony, Conflict, and Tragedy in Cultural Analysis: Hip-Hop between Bourdieu and Nietzsche

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Berard ◽  
James K. Meeker
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cultural Critique ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Middle Way

Culture has increasingly been analyzed ironically in relation to social conflict, emphasizing themes of ideology, co-optation, and complicity in reproducing inequalities. Arguably the most sophisticated ironic cultural critique is provided by Bourdieu. Bourdieu’s critique is often criticized for reductionism, but without pursuing what is neglected by ironic reductionism. Nietzsche provides a remarkable counterpoint, offering both seminal resources for modern social criticism, and profound reflections on culture’s potential to affirm life with integrity and authenticity. Nietzsche’s analysis of classical Greek tragedy suggests how culture can collectively affirm life through art without illusions. The relative emphases and insights of these two critics are contrasted here in relation to the cultural phenomenon of hip-hop, addressing latent ideological baggage but also its social activism and tragic-realist aesthetic. Grounded in this discussion of hip-hop as predictably compromised, but also incisively defiant and painfully honest, a challenge is posed for cultural analysis to be critical without being dismissive of existential and aesthetic questions, or blind to the potentials of popular culture. Culture is neither as derivative as much social criticism would suggest, nor as autonomous as many artists and art critics would suggest. Cultural studies therefore must find a middle way, navigating between cynicism and naiveté.

Intersections

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chadwick Auriol Gaspard
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Skill Sets ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Artistic Director ◽  
New System

Hip Hop is a cultural phenomenon that is constantly evolving and has made a worldwide impact in a short time. While it continues to change Hip Hop at its core remains the same. Victor Quijada artistic director of the Rubberband Dance company posed the question of “What more could Hip Hop be”. With those words in mind the focus of my research is to examine the movement and concepts/ideologies of the breakdancing subculture of Hip Hop; to create a fusion with contemporary dance. As such a brand-new system of movement with its own concepts and life could be created. The dance world is continuously shifting, and different skill sets, as well as ideologies, have been valued at different times and places. This exploration will challenge the mainstream ideals of what is currently considered “technique” and “foundation”

BERTA’ARUF DENGAN TILAWAH LANGGAM JAWA

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Muhammad Yaser Arafat
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Reading Practice ◽  
The Real ◽  
Musical Genres

This paper seeks to study the recitation of the Qur'an with the recitation of Javanese style as an interpretation in the reading. The recitation of the Javanese style is done by reciting the Qur'an by using the rhythm of the spiritual sound art treasury of Sekar Macapat. The recitation of Javanese style is not an insult to the Qur'an. Reading practice is not the same as chanting the Qur'an with the rhythm of Arabic songs, dangdut, punk, hip-hop, and other types of musical genres. the recitation of the Qur'an with the Javanese rhythm derived from Sekar Macapat is a good, beautiful, and more important, suluki. it means that the recitation of Javanese style is an act of reciting the Qur'an as well as a cultured act, which aims to draw closer to Allah Almighty, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and to connect himself to the spiritual genealogy of the saints in Java. therefore, I call it "Jawi's recitation," which in Javanese spiritual treasury means one who has understood the real reality (al-Haq).

Social Explanation: Structures, Stories, and Ontology. A Reply to Díaz León, Saul, and Sterken

Disputatio ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (50) ◽  
pp. 245-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Haslanger
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
Social Explanation ◽  
Critical Social

Abstract In response to commentaries by Esa Díaz León, Jennifer Saul, and Ra- chel Sterken, I develop more fully my views on the role of structure in social and metaphysical explanation. Although I believe that social agency, quite generally, occurs within practices and structures, the relevance of structure depends on the sort of questions we are asking and what interventions we are considering. The emphasis on questions is also relevant in considering metaphysical and meta-metaphysical is- sues about realism with respect to gender and race. I aim to demon- strate that tools we develop in the context of critical social theory can change the questions we ask, what forms of explanation are called for, and how we do philosophy.

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