I generally found Merchants of Cool to be quite insightful, but on one point I found it rather hyperbolic. One of the experts interviewed as part of the documentary compared American teens to Africa and the corporations marketing to them to European imperialists. The essential problem with this analogy is that modern teens can choose not to be exploited. The inhabitants of Africa could not simply decide to not be affected by Western conquest, but to a degree we can choose to do exactly that. The mook will always exist as a stereotype in media marketed to teenagers, but I can (and do) choose not to watch that media. (In my case this really isn't even that difficult, as I find the kind of media inhabited by mooks to be quite boring). Likewise, the fact that what is fashionable is chosen by a few large corporations doesn't really matter to someone (like me) whose clothing decisions don't factor in what's "cool" on any given day. It's certainly possible to be exploited by the corporate advertising juggernaut (and many teens are) but it's also possible to escape from it. Most of the entertainment media I consume are webcomics, podcasts, Youtube videos, etc. which have very little direct influence from large corporations. Even when I do watch movies or TV shows, I deliberately avoid those that perpetuate the stereotypes created by companies in their quest to define teen culture. In short, we as the consumers do have the ability to defend ourselves from the commercialization of culture (and the class for which I'm writing this is a significant help in that regard), and it is our choice whether or not we exercise this option. We are being exploited, but it is entirely within our power to avoid this exploitation.
MissRepresentation was an excellent documentary. Before watching it, I was already aware of many of the problems with the representation of women in media which it illuminates, but I was still impressed at how comprehensive and powerful its argument was. However, I disagree with the film on one major point: I do not think that media content should be further regulated by the government or any other organization, even with the purpose of reducing the objectification of women. To see why this kind of regulation could be so problematic, it is helpful to look at the history of media censorship in the United States. From 1930 to 1968, almost all American movies were produced under the Motion Picture Production Code , a set of rules governing what could be shown onscreen. The rules were intended to safeguard public virtue by eliminating immoral content from the media and were created by the film industry itself to preempt government regulation. While the idea of such a code may seem l...
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