PERGESERAN MAKNA MITOS NILAI SPIRITUAL KEBUDAYAAN ONDEL-ONDEL PADA KEPERCAYAAN MASYARAKAT BETAWI ZAMAN DAHULU DAN ZAMAN SEKARANG

Ondel-ondel is a cultural performance of the Betawi people passed down from generation to generation. However, the problem that occurs is that along with the development of the era, ondel-ondel is no longer a sacred object and is no longer used for ritual offerings and the loss of cultural values of the ancestors. The purpose of making this journal is to find out the shift in the meaning of the ondel-ondel cultural myth to the beliefs of the people of Jakarta. The method used in this study uses a qualitative approach and data collection techniques use interview techniques, observation and analysis of various journals or literature studies. The subject of this research was conducted on 4 people, namely a number of the Jakarta community about their views on the shift in the meaning of the myth of ondel-ondel art. In this day and age, ondel-ondel shows are very easy to find, especially on roadside areas in Jakarta. Unlike the old days, ondel-ondel was only displayed when there were certain events such as a traditional Betawi wedding. The result of this research is that there are differences and shifts in the meaning of ondel-ondel cultural myths. In ancient times ondel-ondel was only displayed during certain events. And people in ancient times tend to still believe in the existing ondel-ondel cultural myths. Unlike the current era, ondel-ondel is used as a means of getting money. The benefit of this research is to find out what values have been lost from previous cultures and be able to take good positive values taught in previous cultures without taking the negative values found in the past culture. It is enough to make historical knowledge to remember existing history. This study concludes that there has been a shift in meaning in the myth of ondel-ondel culture and sadly it occurs due to the pressure of economic factors.

Medievalism Goes Commercial

Many of the extant analytical models for music in advertising used in academia build off of the work of David Huron and Nicholas Cook. Their work, along with many other studies, have laid a solid framework for examining music in a single advertisement. This chapter explores the usefulness of register theory as a methodology for meta-analysis, exploring conceptual relationships between multiple advertisements using the same music. To that end, the chapter postulates the register of “epic” as a conceptual space to draw connections between recent uses of “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra in contemporary multimedia. Building on the application of cognitive pragmatics to music laid out in works by Lawrence Zbikowski and register theory of Michael Long, the chapter offers analyses of advertisements for a variety of companies, including Hershey’s, Domino’s, and Walgreens, among others. In each case the chapter explores how these various advertisements use existing music to tap into cultural myths of romanticized pasts and idealized futures, related to each other through the idea of epic, and in the process aims to show how register theory can offer a meta-conceptual space for analyzing multimedia objects that are inherently intertextual.

Beautiful Deaths and Heard Gazes

Viewers frequently encounter “normative” prescriptions and perceptions through photographs of how images depicting death and dying should loo and, cognitively, how those images ought to be received. In such encounters, varying fundamental views or cultural myths surrounding death and dying, how it is envisioned, how it is, literally, pictured dictate a particular way of seeing and being. This article considers visual representations made of individuals who choose to enact Death With Dignity provisions to end their lives on their own terms and on their own time line. By an interrogation of a corpus of DWD images, the author investigates how such representations challenge a particular cultural logic. This reconsideration may lead to an awareness; a reasoning, creating a space in which reality is constructed beneath the viewer’s gaze. Such a reality, relies on an embodied or pragmatic aesthetic and is co-constituted by expressions of power that emanate from image and viewer. The author dubs this modality the heard gaze; a vision in which the past, present, and future are fused and subject becomes object or vessel of understanding by perceiving a visual, auditory “cue”.

Cowboy Cops and Black Lives Matter: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and the Great White West[ern]

The racial framework of Martin McDonagh’s 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri rests at the intersection of three persistent cultural myths—the Frontier Myth, the hero cowboy myth and the myth of white supremacy. There has been much criticism of the portrayal of black characters in the film, and particularly the lack of significant black characters in a film that sports a solid undercurrent of racial politics. While the black characters in the film occupy a small amount of screen time, this paper argues that the film’s treatment of black characters, including their absence, puts on display the cultural dysfunction of racial politics in the US, especially in rural America, and particularly in Missouri. The film’s subversion of the cowboy hero instead reveals the disturbing reality of the Frontier Myth and its dependence on racism and white supremacy for validation. In its unmasking of myth, Three Billboards challenges the illusion of a glorious Western past that never existed and at the same time supports racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Teaching the Bible and Popular Media as Part of Contemporary Rape Culture

This essay explores pedagogical strategies for addressing rape culture in biblical studies courses, employing Genesis 34 and Judges 19–21 as primary texts. The first section discusses the nature of popular culture and its impact on gender. The following four sections highlight cultural myths about sexual assault by focusing on significant biblical texts and incorporating aspects of popular media to facilitate conversations about rape culture. The conclusion summarizes the main points and encourage further studies that combine the study of popular media and biblical texts. Overall, the essay contributes to the reading and teaching of the Bible within contemporary rape culture so that students become critical interpreters of biblical texts, as they become resistant readers of past and present rape culture.

The Aftermath and the Aftermyth: Learning From Memoirists Who Experienced Sexual Assault While at University

There is an abundance of research on the health consequences of sexual assault during university, but less attention has been paid to how sexual assault also shapes women’s everyday lives. To develop an understanding of the everyday aftermath of sexual assault, we used narrative inquiry to analyze how women textually represent everyday living after sexual assault during university within four memoirs. Memoirists discussed their lives as significantly changed and worked to repair their lives after sexual assault by engaging in a range of everyday activities. Although no single behavioral response was described, some memoirists were perceived as deviant if they engaged in behaviors that contradicted prevailing cultural myths and expectations about how one should behave after sexual assault. We need to create room for women to engage in personal, idiosyncratic responses if we are to challenge restrictive standards for doing in the aftermath of sexual assault during university.

Artificial Life

In this article, we explore how the history and myths about Artificial Life (AL) inform the pursuit and reception of contemporary AL technologies. First, we show that long before the contemporary fields of robotics and genomics, ancient civilizations attempted to create AL in the magical and religious pursuits of automata and alchemy. Next, we explore four persistent cultural myths surrounding AL—namely, those of Pygmalion, Golem, Frankenstein, and Metropolis. These myths offer several insights into why humanity is both fascinated with and fearful of AL. Thereafter, we distinguish contemporary approaches to AL, including biochemical or “wet” approaches (e.g., artificial organs), electromechanical or “hard” approaches (e.g., robot companions), and software-based or “soft” approaches (e.g., digital voice assistants). We also outline an emerging approach to AL that combines all three of the preceding approaches in pursuit of “transhumanism.” We then map out how the four historical myths surrounding AL shape modern society’s reception of the four contemporary AL pursuits. Doing so reveals the enduring human fears that must be addressed through careful development of ethical guidelines for public policy that ensure human safety, dignity, and morality. We end with two sets of questions for future research: one supportive of AL and one more skeptical and cautious.