America: Untapped and Bountiful

The idea of endless untapped bounty, abundance, wealth is undoubtedly a great American idea. This idea parallels the great American ideas of freedom and natural rights, initiative, autonomy, restricted government, independence and self-reliance.

These aforementioned “American” ideas are often equated with the historical and social context of the American people. Geographers, historians and sociologists agree that the geography of the New World’s great continent proved central in the formation of these American notions of liberty, independence, and limited government: the great oceans that distanced America from the armies of Europe brought economic and political independence; the broad lands that reduced the effectiveness of governance, promoted freedom; the lack of population and competing interests resulting from resource competition proved intensive governance ineffective; the great lands and expanse of uninhabited lands resulted in the freedom to be left alone, act as one felt, and access resources to generate wealth.

The abundance of America started with its very discovery by Europeans, overcrowded on a continent, desperate for resources and land. Explorers wrote of its magnificent forests, and “uninhabited” coastlines for the taking. Explorers landed on the Americas, claiming the continent and all on it, as theirs. The race for this abundance began.

This idea, from its very beginning, played out initially to be a myth – pilgrims arriving in the United States starved, ran out of gunpowder, could not grow crops, and did not find iron ore for tools. However, this idea and its more modern variation (discussed later) was most fundamental in America's attraction of immigrants from all over the world.

The abundance of America continued to set this land apart from others’. In the American War of Independence, the abundance of America became tied to the very strength of America and Americans – almost a form of patriotism. Thomas Paine, an America Revolutionary Thinker said in Common Sense: “ Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural produce. We need go abroad for nothing. More land there is yet unoccupied, which…may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant support of government. No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this…The infant state of the Colonies…is an argument in favor of independence. We are sufficiently numerous…” Paine even goes so far as to say that America’s natural plenty grants it the right to be independent, and is a testament to the strength of America.

The expansion of the United States beyond the confines of New England forests and Virginian hills meant unlimited resources for human inhabitation. The Ohio Territories, with its natural forests and waterways, provided the first taste of natural wealth for Americans. America immediately more than doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase, opening up vast prairies with Bison and lush Louisiana wetlands. The Oregon Territories and Mexican Cession opened up Americans to more mineral wealth and land before Americans even settled the plains. John Wayne summarized the current mentality of Americans best when he said: “I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves”. Aside from the politics, the underlying assumptions had not changed: that “this great country” had “new land” enough for “great numbers of people”.

Many of the initial descriptions of the frontier, with its resources were imaginary: fictitious depictions made by those on the eastern seaboard. One 19th century American drawing depicted the West as nude women tending an endless garden – both metaphors for endless resource utilization. One 19th century Illinois newspaper editor said this about the west: “Shall this garden of beauty lie dormant in its wild and useless luxuriance? Not only for our own use, but for the use of man.”

The California Gold Rush prompted the first great migration to the West, preceded only by the Westward migration of a band of Latter-Day Saints escaping religious persecution. Notions of gold in the East created a great stir, prompted by exaggerations of Western mineral wealth. [example] The new available land, combined with the Homestead Act, allowed every American to access vast amounts of land. In the Land Run of 1889, fifty thousand people rushed from the borders of Oklahoma to claim their 160 acres of the vast Unassigned Lands; like a marathon, men and women charged onto these “free lands” upon the blow of the Army’s whistle . Popular campaigns had been launched to open these lands. Within several hours of the opening, Oklahoma City and Guiterm had been established, organized, settled with ten thousand residents. At the closing of the frontier, Celebrity Historian Frederick J. Turner held in this ”frontier thesis” that the American character arrived from the abundance of free land, water, and forest; the settling of free land produced the very American traits of self-reliance, individualism, inventiveness, restless energy, mobility, materialism, and optimism.
Turner was concerned that the closing of the frontier would mean the end of this American idea. Isaiah Bowman wrote in Foreign Affairs:
“The pioneer is no longer a man armed with only a rifle and an axe…in a clearing in the forest. He is not only equipped in a totally different manner, sometimes even with modern machinery, but his incentives are no longer the same…it is a question whether the pioneer spirit as manifest in the west-ward spread of settlers in the united States still exists or weather it has passed out.”
While the west-ward spread may have ended, pioneer-spirit in the modern day, produced by the narrative of a great, untapped American abundance, has not. The 1970s energy crisis revived the idea of great American abundance in the public sphere.

Ronald Reagan ran in the 1980 election promising to further utilize America’s abundant potential in energy resources. In one portion of his nomination acceptance speech, Reagan said: “It is impossible to capture in words the splendor of this vast continent…America must get to work producing more energy. Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched…the economic prosperity of our people is a fundamental part of our environment.”

Noted Geographer XX once said ““No other area of the earth’s crust of similar size will ever match of exceed in quantity and variety the vast mineral wealth of the United States. Our people have had the skills necessary to utilize this rich endowment in building the industrial might of America. The United States is the world’s leading producer and consumer of minerals.” However, since the closing of the frontier, the population of our lands, and the consumption of our resources, this noble American idea may no longer be valid. The Geographer continued: “The heavy drain on our resources in the past is beginning to show up in declining or state production rates…We are a have-not nation in many essential commodities…The impact of depletion is showing up in the United States in no uncertain terms.”

The dawning reality of dwindling reserves and idea of American abundance was tossed around in the American public during the 2008 election year. The blunt, bumper-sticker catchphrase “Drill Baby, Drill” became a talking point of the most prominent conservative politicians. Its popularity among traditionalist-conservatives led to a Reaganesque revival of the need to put the idea of untapped bounty to work – to utilize America’s “vast” resources. This message resonated so deeply in Americans that offshore oil exploration was soon authorized in A.N.W.R. and the southern Atlantic Seaboard.

As America, and the West especially, base less of their wealth and production on raw materials, the idea of natural material abundance may have morphed into material consumer abundance, and the idea of plentiful economic wealth and opportunity.

Michelle Obama, at a rally for the President of the United States, used an allegory of a pie to present an alternative to this idea. She lectured to the crowd: “The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more.”


Glenn Beck, the foremost conservative TV talk show host, repeated this very fundamental, individualist frontier idea of abundance: “Success and money -- it's not finite. This is America…You've got to look at money and success as the ocean…Let's stop thinking about pieces of pie…this is America. We're a freaking bakery. Bake more. Make as many pies as you want.”

The United States Chamber of Commerce launched this advertisement campaign in its attempt to appeal to this fundamental American idea for legitimacy.



A two minute commercial depicting the following shots was also aired.

“Unravel three hundred million individual economies”

Notice the frequent scenes of American entrepreneurs, embodying the pioneer spirit through their work and accomplishment, standing before the abundance of their produce and material inputs. While the advertisement promotes the idea of ‘dreaming big’, it does so by appealing to the material and opportunistic abundance harnessed by the American entrepreneurial pioneer. In many ways, these two American figures, the pioneer and entrepreneur, are connected in their quest to tap the plentiful, great, vast America.

Desperate Housewives flaunts stereotypes, as usual

http://hd.openv.com/tv_play-hdteleplay_20100223_7172500.html

Desperate Housewives is obviously of a different caliber than Mad Men: the former being more like a comic soap-opera, the latter being a cable drama. However, narratives about gender and family roles form the foundation of both of these shows. While both shows provide a satire of the gender stereotypes of the era, the more comic nature of Desperate Housewives’ drama means that it often provides satire through the breakdown of these gender roles in the situation. The acknowledgment of these stereotypes, and the sometimes contradicting reality, is what we should look at in Episode 15.

Episode 15 peeks into the widest range of gender and family stereotypes relevant to Media Studies in Season Six. I strongly encourage anyone to watch it. The drama in this episode is more independent from other episodes, and understandable by those who don’t follow the show.

The episode is broken down based around Robin’s interaction with each “desperate housewife” in the show.

The single Robin is portrayed as a sexual object from scene one merely because of her beauty.

The first meeting she has with the married couples presents the first stereotype about married male and female roles with regards to their interaction with external women. The men flock to her side to court her, as the wives both resent her and their men’s overwhelming sexual urges. With the scene of the women in the kitchen vilifying the single beautiful woman as a threat to their marriages, the situation could not be more similar to the birthday party in Mad Men.

Interestingly, throughout the entire show, the men and “teenage boys” are not expected to be modest, responsible, and held accountable for their interaction with Robin. In the following scenes, the parents do not hold their teenage boy accountable through punishment for wanting to solicit sex and stare at a woman, but rather acknowledge his inability to control himself with “hormones holding his brain hostage” and breach of morality. She instead confronts Robin about “putting on a show” for the boy, as if she is responsible for the boy’s sexual thoughts.

In that scene, the wife holds a wooden spoon for cooking the whole time, and she keeps the husband’s “immoral” fantasy of pre-marital sex in check. 1950s family sitcoms -- sound familiar?

Lynette and Tom Scavo interact in the living room fulfilling both gender roles: domestic woman with baby folding laundry, working man in office attire on the couch dictating to the woman. The comedy lies in that she rejects that stereotype, but quickly falls back into the female stereotype by being bought off with jewelry, and by offering sex as a gift to the husband. The comedy lies in the fact that the strong-willed Lynette rejects the stereotype. She rejects the idea of the jewelry (a physical manifestation of the husband’s breadwinner-ship and desire to please the wife) much like Betty subtly does to Don Draper’s gift of an elegant watch. This relationship is an example of the gendered social contract of marriage in The Way We Never Were: a wife’s domesticity and sex in exchange for the husband’s security and providing for a lifestyle.

The next comedy again lies in gender roles - the fact that Robin doesn’t know anything about baking and cakes, and that she greatly idolizes those who are more domestic than her. This satire only exists because the stereotype is that women learn how to bake cakes – a symbol for domesticity. The satire continues in "Susan and the stripper" when Susan heats microwaved food for her husband since she is unable to cook. She is unable to cook and soothe her husband - this makes Susan feel awkward since she, within one minute, failed to fulfill two obligations expected by the stereotype of a wife.

The following comedy lies in the inability for the wife to arouse her husband and offer sex, as  being able to do so successfully is seen as a given in the traditional role of a wife. The satire also comes from the character of Bree – being an untraditional housewife: the breadwinner, the more responsible, the more mobile one in the marriage.

The story goes on, and these narratives play out on Wisteria Lane. But the narratives that tie the episode together, and to Media Studies, are narratives about the gendered contract of marriage, and gendered distribution of responsibility for work, marriage, and sexual urges. 

Piracy, Technology, Media

In nostalgic continuance of winter term, I stumbled upon a Huffington Post commentary The End of Hollywood as We Know It. It argues that "this is not a happy time to be an entertainment industry executive", because technology allows people to defeat advertising, leads to piracy, and perpetuates the idea that content should be free. Googled anyone?


The argument is supported by a hyper-linked news story that was reported by the Post that day: Limewire, the world's largest content-sharing network, was determined by a New York Federal Judge to be held responsible for copyright infringement for not cracking down on Limewire user's sharing of copyrighted content (the downloading of which makes up a bulk of its traffic).


The implications of this ruling are great - social networking and chat such as Google Wave/Chat, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger/Spaces, Yahoo may also face suits by media industries for not cracking down on the  sharing of copyrighted songs or photos. Will email also soon become required to include screening for copyrighted content sharing? What does this mean for internet privacy? 


Just two weeks ago, in a news story buried pages deep, in a tiny column, on the New York Times, the internet-control power-grab by the FCC was said to have moved forward after it used the tactic of reclassifying the internet broadband as traditional phone networks. This gives it the power to regulate broadband distribution, without congressional approval, despite having been denied that right after a Federal Court of Appeals case, Comcast vs. FCC, in April. Under these guidelines, it does not have the power to regulate content, but it certainly does have the power to regulate content distribution - such as copyrighted material. I'm no legal scholar, but does the FCC have the capacity to take the initiative and become a federal executive-branch internet policeman? It seems so. 


What about content? A the Columbia Basin Herald put it "have no fear, for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski...has said that “FCC policies should not include regulating Internet content.” There's nothing more reassuring than when a federal official asks you to rest your trust in federal self-restriction and moderation. 


Not to blow the story out of proportion, but the implications of the Limewire-piracy lawsuit and FCC power grab may be signaling a change in how the free media ecosystems interact with our human need for control. Excuse the pun, but is this a change to be hoped for?

American Heroes, World Heroes (under construction)

“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.” - Bob Dylan


“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” - Joesph Campbell 


These two quotes combined present the essence of heroism: taking upon responsibility for a greater cause. The only variable in this equation is the cause; the extraordinary cause that one seeks has to be respected by a population in order for the defined hero to become their heroic figure. 


Because people are social beings and consolidate their emotions and identities through/into a group's, peoples throughout history have collectively taken upon a cause, or idolized a certain cause. The heroes of these peoples are those that have taken upon the responsibility of that cause, for whenever it existed.


There are universal causes heroes fight for: the protection of "innocent life", sacrificing for or defending the "virtuous" or "helpless", pursuit of "justice" for "criminals", and the similar 'conquest over "evil forces"'.  


These quoted phrases have different meanings to different peoples around the world, but these causes form the foundation for causes which mankind's heroes have striven to achieve.


What are the American causes?


We can extrapolate these causes from the three foundations, with the application of American culture and values.


Americans can generally agree that children and civilians are innocent - while nearly universal, this view is particularly entrenched in the United States, in the face of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, where slaughter of  citizens is not tolerated. 


Justice can mean so many things in world, let alone in America. Some Americans think of justice in a re-distributive sense; most think of it as equality under the law; all think of it as punishing people for their crimes. How Americans define 'crimes' starts to involve American culture and history more than anything. Our puritan-based values vilify stealing, lying, arrogance, rape, murder (when not in the name of God), superstition. Our nation, founded on ideas of liberty and the inalienable rights of man, arising from the American Revolution, vilify oppression and inequality. The helpless in American's eyes tend to be the poor, the widowed, the homeless/landless, the children, and in their own category, women. The evil forces in American belief tend to be the aforementioned criminals. However, the historical development of United States has produced certain "evils" that still ring in the minds of Americans today: the untamed frontier, hostile Native American tribes, Hispanics, Nazis, Japanese, Communists - essentially, the savageness of humankind and nature.


Thus, our heroes thus become figures that fight these savages, defend the rule of law and our puritan traditions, protect women and children, while remaining honest and humble. Firefighters, policemen, soldiers, the romanticized Cowboy, and the charitable, become our American heroes.


What about other peoples?


China during the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, desperately needed heroes. Heroes are inseparable from and actually form a sense of national identity. They give the population a sense of purpose, a cause based on the universal causes. The state searched desperately for heroes. Naturally, the personality cult of Mao and his fellow Part leaders become natural heroes - they embodied the ideals and causes of the nation - but were ultimately unrelatable to the everyday struggles and routines of common people. 

China found this hero in Leifeng - an army private raised by a Communist Party orphanage. Chairman Mao started a national campaign after his death to recognize Leifeng as the greatest national hero. Using staged photographs and a fake diary, the media/state claimed that he worked selflessly, lived modestly, defended the Chinese people, and served his national government. Chinese today still recognize Leifeng as the pinnacle embodiment of altruism and patriotism. His death, caused by being hit by an object from an army truck collision, occurred during service, and is thus seen as a national hero for sacrificing his life in service for the nation - making sacrifice for the good.

Warrior Bush and Rumstud

A montage of the iconic images of George W. Bush in his role of America's heroic leader.

Thanksgiving at Baghdad Intl Airport

Bush and firefighter Bob Beckwith on ruins of Ground Zero (referenced by Faludi)

President Bush's visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 to announce "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq saw the President become hero/soldier

Bush walking on deck of carrier as if pilot officer

Bush in jumpsuit alongside "fellow" fighter pilots

Bush posing with flight-deck crew

Bush in New Orleans after Katrina not only posed with firefighters and relief workers, but seemed to want to get down and dirty with them in the rescue efforts.

Bush rolls up his sleeves, "getting to work" with firefighters

Bush with National Guard holding chainsaw

Bush in New Orleans post-Katrina on April 27, 2006 repairing homes during National Volunteer Week

Images of President Bush at home on his Crawford, Texas ranch become supplemental to his masculine heroic image. Blogs such as "Manly's Republic" use this to align Bush and Reagan as opposites of more, what one reader called, "metrosexual" political leaders.

Below is a magazine cover I stumbled across that's highly relevant to Susan Faludi's "Cowboys of Yesterday".    Title: "Love After 9/11" Enjoy.

Being a man in Amenica

What is a man, other than a human with a male physique? Our culture, supported by our innate need for ideals, created an ideal of manhood by selecting goals in every category (fashion, activities, speech, and emotions) that are to be pursued only by men. The idea of “being” a man is therefore defined by the degree to which a male can pursue and identify with these “man-like” ideals.

This ideal of manhood is disconnected from the reality of “being” a man, since each individual man has a wide range of lifestyles, interests, identities, many of which are dissimilar from the goals identified by manhood.

Being a man in a highly physical American consumer culture relates as much to the consumption of ideas, products and identities as much as gender roles at various stages of life. We will look at this consumption aspect first.

Media Consumption

Generations obsessed over Indiana Jones 

The media consumption in line with solid manhood focuses around three genres: action/adventure, comedy, and thriller/horror. While American men openly enjoy two quick blinks of romance buried in an action show/movie/book/comic/song, romance is viewed as excessively feminine by American culture, which opposes the idea of manhood. Comedy is masculine (note clips shown in film trailers) if it arrives at the expense of another’s manhood and honor (which supports one’s own ego).

Activities

Sports, violence (not that they are mutually exclusive) form the base for all activities that verify manhood. I recall a poll of American high-school students that revealed most men and less than half of women view sports as a competition, while most women and few men viewed as mainly about exercise or fun. An online Newsweek feature said:

“War has been, for almost all peoples and all times, the purest test of manhood…How many men, over how many millennia, have wanted to know how they would do in combat? Would they be brave and fight? Or would they cringe and run?”

The attraction of sport lies in conflict

Physical, individual confrontation tie all games, weapons and guns, all sports, militarism, “bigger-and-better” arms-race consumerism, and betting/gambling together to manhood. What men mean/become to themselves and each other is achieved through tests of manhood – competitions of courage, intimidation and physical strength. This is why women who engage in this are seen as unfeminine – reference lack of female professional sports, Hillary Clinton, Merkel, Thatcher, and female suicide bombers on the cover of the New York Times.

Adolescence/Independence

The young man, independent man, plays a different role and thus is a different man than a married man. His ideal role can be evaluated from present-day television dramas that highlight or exaggerate realities of American culture and lifestyle.

Desperate Housewives follows and develops a range of adolescent and independent male characters; Andrew, Preston and Porter are the most consistent ones,appearing for countless seasons. The young  men create a narrative of manhood through their interactions with masculine activities or culture.