The Overlooked Role of a Cyberbully

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My parasocial relationship with Chris Hardwick

As we went through our section on geek culture, I kept thinking back to Chris Hardwick. For those of you who live under a rock and still aren't familiar with him, he's basically geek culture's counterpart to celebrity culture's Ryan Seacrest. But he's way, way cooler than that Seacrest guy.

Chris Hardwick has been all over the place. Among other shows, he's hosted MTV's Singled Out, G4's Web Soup, AMC's Talking Dead,  The Nerdist on BBC America and The Nerdist podcast. What area of TV has this man not ventured into, seriously? He's also a hilarious stand-up comedian. 

If you haven't noticed by now, I'm a big fan of his. Although I rarely refer to him by just his first name on first reference. Besides watching his shows almost religiously, I follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Getting a glimpse into his life also gives me a glimpse of his personality and how he is "in real life." He'll post random thoughts on Twitter and photos of him and his girlfriend on Instagram. These are the types of things my friends post all the time on social media.

On "Talking Dead" this past Sunday, Chris Hardwick spoke of his father's sudden death the day before. Following that announcement he advised viewers to appreciate their families, especially with the holidays coming up. The very personal announcement and advice was very touching and felt as if he were talking to each viewer individually. Because I regularly receive his updates on social media and it feels like I almost know him, it really did feel as if he were speaking directly to me.

I think that was when I realized that I have a parasocial relationship with Chris Hardwick. Really, you could have a parasocial relationship with any celebrity or public figure you follow on social media. So while I follow him on Twitter and Instagram, I still hadn't really recognized before then that it was a parasocial relationship -  or at least I didn't recognize it's extent. 

The NFL and the military

After watching "Not Just a Game" in today's class I realized the numerous connections between the National Football League and the military. I wasn't surprised to hear Dave Zirin's argument about sports and politics. Politics are involved in almost every aspect of life, it not all aspects. But I guess I had never recognized how connected the two really are.

I don't oppose the honoring of soldiers during games. In fact, I totally support it. After all, these brave men and women do risk their lives for us. It's the propaganda that is thrown around during games that kind of bothers me - the throwing of propaganda at us when we're not really aware of it because we're focused on the game. As it was discussed, I agree that this propaganda is a form of creating "virtual citizen soldiers."

George Carlin's military analogy of football made it easy to see how it is that the two overlap. But with so much propaganda and honoring of military men and women in the NFL, it's hard to grasp the fact that NFL players have outrageous salaries compared to soldiers. 

The average salary for an NFL player is $1.9 million, compared to the $18,194-$28,285 pay for a soldier with less than two years of experience. To me, this is absolutely ridiculous. The fact that the bravery and sacrifice of these soldiers is being used as propaganda is just ridiculous when they're paid so little. Why is it that we pay NFL players way more than the men and women who are sacrificing it all for us?  

While I understand that heroic stories of U.S. soldiers may increase support for the military and increase recruitment, it's just wrong to basically take advantage of their stories and sacrifice. 

Strong Female Characters: Disney Princesses vs. Hayao Miyazaki

While killing time on the internet yesterday, I came across an article on Wired titled "Great Geek Debates: Disney Princesses vs. Hayao Miyazaki." The author, Erik Wecks, a father of three girls, says: 

"I have found [Miyazaki's] work to provide a needed vaccine for my girls against the creeping illness of princess-itis."

After acknowledging that Disney owns the distribution rights for the English dubs of Miyazaki's films, Wecks goes on to list the three reasons why he'd rather have his daughters pretend to be a Miyazaki heroine rather than a Disney princess:

1. Archetypes vs. Characters. "Almost all the actions of Disney princesses still seem to be defined in relationship to their man." In contrast, lead female characters in Miyazaki films "have interests, a life, and a personality beyond their relationships with men"

2. Attraction vs. relationship. "In every film from the Disney princess industrial complex, romance is based upon the laws of attraction, dare I say, based upon sexuality."

3. Untrustworthy parents versus high-functioning families. "Finally, in almost every movie from the Disney princess industrial complex, the parents are either absent or the problem in some way or another. From repressive fathers to evil step-mothers, bad parenting is often the problem for a Disney princess. By the end of the film, rebellion from these constraining forces always proves to be the liberating and correct answer for a young princess.

The 2 photos above perfectly illustrate Disney's princesses vs. Miyazaki's heroines. Source.

I'd have to say, I totally agree with Weck's argument. In my two favorite films by Miyazaki, "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro," the lead characters are young girls whose bravery helps them achieve their goal. These characters aren't just strong or brave, though. They're smart, funny, curious, committed, decisive. They're more than just a cute face. In "Spirited Away," Chihiro's interest in Haku takes a back seat to the goal, which is saving her parents. While Haku helps her along the way, their friendship/relationship is never really the center of attention. 

I've also always admired that Miyazaki's characters fall for each other because of personality - not looks. As Weck points out, the lovebirds in Miyazaki's "Ponyo" are 2 five-year-olds, but it's still a great example of how two people develop a close bond through their personalities and their experiences together rather than just because they think the other person is good-looking. 

While Disney princess movies have shifted a bit and show more proactive characters like Mulan and Fiona, they are still motivated by the guy they like. And honestly, I think they're all beauty and no brains. The independence that Miyazaki's characters show is something all young girls should be exposed to and look up to.

Women in Geek Culture

       I cannot describe enough how excited I am to be discussing "geek girls" in our lecture on Friday. Growing up I spent a lot of time hanging out with my older brother, who was just five years older than me. We often watched Dragon Ball Z and shows based on superheroes/comic books, watched movies by Hayao Miyazaki, and played a variety of video games on almost every game console you can think of.

       

       While I'll admit my brother played a role in my interest in these types of shows, movies and games, it bothers me when guys assume there is no way I developed these interests on my own. Being a girl, it's typically assumed that I always chose to play with Barbies instead of picking up a Playstation controller or my brother's Game Gear. Or it's assumed I was too busy reading the latest issue of a gossip magazine to consider reading Game Informer instead.

       In my own experiences and from what I've seen online, women often have to defend their identity as a "geek" or "nerd." Women have to prove that they're "true" members of the geek culture - God forbid a girl doesn't know every villain in the Marvel universe.

       But even once a woman has been accepted into the geek culture, she still has to maintain the level of femininity that is expected in our society in general. If you look at cosplay trends, women's costumes are usually pretty revealing - but this is partly influenced by how women are objectified in comics, manga and video games. 

Just do a Google Images search of "cosplay" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Or, just search Olivia Munn, Morgan Webb or Felicia Day on Google and you'll find a variety of blogs and articles on the (positive or negative) popularity of celebrity female geeks. 

I'll highlight two readings I found interesting:

1. "Morgan Webb, Feminism and Cultural Capital in Web 2.0" - a blog post on why female personalities are compelled to market their sexuality

2. "Booth babes need not apply" - an article on CNN's Geek Out! section on how true geek girls further the community, unlike models hired to be personalities on mainstream geek outlets (ex: Olivia Munn)

      ** interesting quote by the author about the relationship between pretty geek girls and geek guys:

"As a guy, I find it repugnant that, due to my interests in comic books, sci-fi, fantasy and role playing games, video games and toys, I am supposed to feel honored that a pretty girl is in my presence. It's insulting."

On a side note: Christina Blanch recently spoke about comics and their cultural context for the Department of English's Marilyn K. Cory Speaker Series. She teaches Gender Through Comic Books, an online course offered at Ball State. She's done some pretty awesome work worth checking out. Not to mention she's co-author of the web comic "The Damnation of Charlie Wormwood" and co-owner of Alter Ego Comics in Downtown Muncie!

The truth is we just don't care

In these last couple of days of talking about class and reality T.V., people have given their reasons as to why they do or don't like shows like Honey Boo Boo, Real Housewives and Duck Dynasty. Whether we do or don't approve of what these reality stars are doing, we watch these shows regardless and justify it with various reasons.

I think we ultimately don't really care how immoral, selfish, or weird these people's behavior is. A line that has really stuck with me is from our We are all "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" reading:

"Something or another is burning down, and regardless of what, if anything, gets built to replace it, we probably don't really give a damn anymore, and the view from here is nice, anyway."

If we don't approve of the Honey Boo Boos and Real Housewives of the world, we watch the show anyway because it 1) gives examples that support our belief that these are not good people and 2) make us think that we are better. 

So what if Honey Boo Boo's family acts trashy or ignorant? So what if the families of Duck Dynasty and Real Housewives spend money excessively?

They are them and we are us. If the cameras were put on us, we surely wouldn't act the way they do. And as we reassure ourselves that we are much better people than them, we continue watching these reality stars go about their lives because we truly just don't care.

Androgyny and gender roles

During last week's discussion on gender roles and our expectations, Prof. McCauliff mentioned how sometimes people get scared or bothered when we don't conform to gender roles and stereotypes. The moment she said that I immediately thought of the movie It's Pat. If you're not familiar with the film, it is based on the androgynous Saturday Night Live character Pat, whose sex is never revealed in the show or film.The film shows Pat developing a relationship with Chris, who is also androgynous.

SNL sketches that featured Pat focused on how people couldn't tell what Pat's sex was. In the film, Pat's neighbor Kyle spends way too much of his time trying to coerce Pat into revealing his/her sex. He basically creeps on Pat consistently and even steals his/her laptop diary in hopes of finding out if Pat is male or female. 

Although the film is a comedy, I think Kyle's persistent need to figure out Pat's sex speaks to how much it really can bother people when an individual doesn't conform to what is expected of their gender. Did Kyle really have to go out of his way to figure out Pat's sex? I think he would have survived and continued living his life just fine without ever knowing. Oddly, at the beginning of the movie Pat seems to be completely oblivious to other people's perceptions of him/her.

The film teases the audience by setting up scenes in a way that makes them think they'll finally know the truth. The clip below shows a few scenes that highlight how androgynous the SNL character is portrayed to be.