Blog Post Three: Your Choice (Due with Module 15)

Students will choose a popular cultural text and create a 500 – 750-word post describing, analyzing, and evaluating it. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to: albums, movies, video games, television shows, songs, musicians, TV/movie stars, policies that affect popular culture, media technology, etc. Popular cultural text (or texts) discussed cannot be part of assigned cultural content.

To achieve core area objectives, students will be asked to pay special attention to the following questions:

• How does what you have learned from class apply to the cultural object? (Critical Thinking)
• In what way does the production of the cultural object affect the final product? (Critical Thinking)
• How is the artist/author/musician/actor/director/etc. (artist for short) positioned in society (race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, disability)? (Social Responsibility)
• How does the artist’s position in society affect the production, consumption, interpretation and reception of the object? (Social Responsibility)
• How does the object represent an ethical position? If an ethical position appears to be missing, what could be the reasons that it is missing? (Personal Responsibility)

Answer preview

Popular culture has played a significant role in expressing different ideas, attitudes, and responsibilities within society. The song by Kendrick Lamar, referred to as “the blacker the berry,” for instance, represents a good case study of the applicability of popular culture in addressing different concerns in the society. The song sends a strong reflection against the practice of racism that has been rampant within the modern community. The blacks have frequently been subjected to negative stereotypes and abused primarily based on their race. This, however, should not be the case…