Monday, April 18, 2011

Group Project

Structuralism is a subject that I particularly don't understand completely but after the research I did with my group I have a better understanding. So here it goes again. We go back to the "burrito." When a person hears the this or sees it, it becomes a metal image. and it depends on the culture where is reproduce. The identifier is the sound of the word being said in the mind but the identified can be two different things a small donkey or a tortilla wrapped meal. Lets take this a little further and realized that globalization has blurred some cultural contexts. the word "burrito" here and in lets say Mexico means the same thing now because the meal came to symbolize cheap food like that of Taco Bell. The sound of the word is the perfect example of how it has evolve into a hybrid of Spanish and English also loosely called Spanglish pronunciation. So "burrito" doesn't need a person to roll their Rs anymore but neither does it take on an "English" accent. I found it interesting that Saussure's theory helped other studies developed such as anthropology and psychoanalysis. Language is more of a symbol rather than a method to name things.

Hot Momma

Psychoanalysis
The fixation of today society with "hot" moms can be explain clearly with Sigmund Freud's Oedipus Complex. What can we say regarding these images of the two famous women? Is it art? is it the representation of motherhood in its naked glory? or is it the oppressed desired of men for their mothers? Lets assume that after the free love movement many children became fatherless and grew up confused about the world. The most confused were the boys whom never had the anxiety of becoming castrated by their biological father but by their step dad or other males in their society. For them it wasn't clear how to redirect their desired for mommy. They went in the search for "love" in a woman but unfortunately they only found women that had no desired to nurture them and hookers. So we now have a generation of men chasing older women or is it the other way around? Women chasing youth and business making lots of money from them. T-shirts with the letters "MILF" an acronym for Mother I'd like to umm have intercourse with, wore by plenty of celebrity moms and other women. Advertisement does such a good job in making Demi Moore and Britney Spears look terribly sexy even in their late stages of pregnancy that it makes one wonder if their aim is to show the beauty motherhood  or to satisfy the fetishism of a few men? This said, lets go back to the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego.  So if the men desiring mothers have a certain anxiety of loosing their penis or desiring their mother and are in a constant battle with their conscious and their unconscious. A battle between to control the Id. Yet if we looked at ads. They are aim to trigger the unconscious. A men is afraid of loosing his penis like his mother has and tried to find reassurance. To answer the question of identity we go to Jacques Lacan. He said that the "I as we experience in psychoanalysis."is an identity that is continuous throughout life. The desire is redirected to hot moms. Media helps continue this feelings. So the "real" to Lacan would be the pure desired of the mother, or a mother figure. The "imaginary" the man's or boy's identity and the symbolic would be the word "MILF. Our society cannot explain this phenomena but we clearly find creative ways to name it. Its a very sexy world we live in.