“Racism and media” touches directly the problem of ideology, since the media’s main sphere of operations is the production and transformation of ideologies.” (Stuart Hall) In “The Whites of Their Eyes”, Hall addresses how the media perceives race. Dear White People is one very prominent post racial show currently trending on Netflix. This show shows insight to people dealing with race, identity, and truly finding themselves in such a progressive time. Despite the show being boycotted for being racist and anti-white after just the release of a trailer, they went through with the release. At the end of the day this show showed people a true post racial society.

Adornot and Horkneimer have a theory that mean with today technology advances and with the lose of religion has led to chaos. Industry like radio, films, and magazines creates this monopoly of mass culture deception. Which is based how who has the technology power are than able to control how it will be use and for what. For instance, today Google has an enormous power over today society. It impacted how society uses Google as a way of containing information 24/7. It controls YouTube since YouTube is a subsidiaries of Google. Adornot and Horkneimer explain how in today industries its all about mass production to all audiences, even if they have a low income. Which results in allowing them to continue to manipulate us and grow stronger.

Now for those you have not read this article, Adornot and Horkneimer, describes the power of these industries similar to Germany fascist as they tried controlled every aspect of information at that time. Well Adornot and Horkneimer that the industries are using films, radio, and magazines to control us. Adornot and Horkneimer talk mostly about the film industries and how they rob us from our own functions. They create films that has different actors, place, time but they truth is that the plot is always the same. For example, we all know the story of Cinderella, we know the Disney version from the 1950 and the 2015 version and the movies A Cinderella Story starring Hilary Duff, Another Cinderella Story with Selena Gomez, Ever After: A Cinderella Story starring Drew Barrymore, Cinderella 1997 version starring Whitney Houston, Whoopi Goldberg, Brandy Norwood, and last but least Victor Garber, A Cinderella Story: Once Upon A Song with Lucy Hale, and lastly A Cinderella Story: If the show fits starring with Sofia Carson. As you can read, there has been many films created though history that even though they have different actors and in different time they have the same freaking plot. Which is one of the point of Adornot and Horkneimer are making.

          Ball in The Family is a reality TV show that is only shown on Facebook of the Ball family. The Ball family is a mixed family of basketball boys that are all born to go pro. LaVar and Tina Ball, who is the parents of three committed basketball players Lonzo, LiAngelo , and LaMelo. The show is based on these three boys as they pursue a professional career in basketball and making it to the NBA. This reality TV show allows stereotypes be present from the beginning of episode one to future episodes.

          Gareth Palmer writes, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition An American Fairy Tale” focusing on how some reality TV shows gives the oppression that “The programme is, in short, a fairy tale where magic is represented by selfless communities, free goods, labour, and dreams coming true” (51). Basically saying that only certain people can be choose for the privilege to have their dreams come true. Which in the TV show “Ball in The Family” is described in those exact words that Palmer writes. In the show they base it off of a stereotype that since these three boys are half black they should be good in basketball and make to the NBA. Which they increase that stereotype as the oldest son Lonzo makes it to the NBA and plays with the Lakers. The other two brothers are following under Lonzo’s footsteps to make it to the pros.

           Not only are the Ball’s family committed to basketball but they also, fall into the category that Palmer described is family is big foundation to these reality TV shows. In the show they explain that not only is this family perfect, but things never are truly perfect. As Tina Ball had a sever stroke that took a toll on the Ball Brothers. Seeing their mother have difficulties in walking and speaking hits them hard because as they know their career is first to everything they want to but that aside to be there for their mother. Giving into another stereotype of boys being a “Momma’s boy” that any boy would do anything for their mother and make that public to the world.

          Palmer asserts, “While the working class learn taste, the petit bourgeois learn about ‘real people’ (i.e. the sort of people they would not normally ever encounter in their lives as designers for the rich and famous)” (53). This quote relates to the Ball’s Family because since they are considered mixed (half white & black) they would not have the money like the Kardashian’s to make their own clothing brand and make up line as well. Yet, in the show the Ball’s family have their own clothing/shoe brand called “Big Baller Brand” and they are famous for their brand and has become wealthy off of it and the career’s of the Ball Brothers as well. Also, with this type of publicity and fame this family is somewhat the same with the Kardashian’s yet they work hard to get to where they are, especially for the Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo. For example, in one of the episode as LiAngelo enters college (UCLA) his father buys him a Ferrari to show him that if he keeps his grades in check and basketball on point these “gifts” will be given to them for the hard work they put in. 

Subculture is defined as, “the expressive forms and rituals of those subordinate groups... who are alternately dismissed, denounced, and canonized; treated at different times as threats to the public order and as harmless buffoons.” While reading the article by Dick Hebdige, one can learn a lot about how different subcultures during different times made an impact on the society they lived in. Specifically looking at subcultures in music, we can see how these different groups affected the people living in that society. For example, we will take a look at the grunge movement and the hippy movement for my blog post. Homology is defined in this article as, “the symbolic fit between the values and lifestyles of a group, its subjective experience and the musical forms it uses to express or reinforce its focal concerns.” In other words, homology is how a subculture can be defined, it includes certain objects the group might promote, the types of music they listen to, and the events that they will go to. Going with my example of grunge, we can take a look at their homology and describe the group as unaffected by what others thought of them. The entire grunge movement was to do what you wanted, their wardrobe usually consisting of clashing colors and bright dyed hair. People involved in grunge believed that if you had a problem with them, that was your problem and not something they had to concern themselves with. They did not care how they looked or what they did, they simply wanted to do whatever they wanted. Subcultures can be so influential at a point in time, we can see the grunge movement affecting people all around the world. It allowed people to have an outlet where they could be heard and accepted for who they were and not what someone else wanted them to be. If we take another example being the hippy movement in the 1960′s, we can look at bands like The Beatles as being extremely influential. During their later years, The Beatles preached free love and drug use, which is what the hippy movement was about. Its homology being “hallucinogenic drugs and acid rock which made the hippy culture cohere as a ‘whole way of life’ for individual hippies.” The hippy movement was influential because it stood for something a lot of people during the time period never knew, peace. With wars plaguing the US, people wanted some peace. So they went against the government and rioted to get what they wanted. Subcultures always stand for a change, people find where they fit in based on subcultures, and even today we can find many subcultures existing at the same point in time. The peace sign can be now seen as an object of hippy culture, and that becomes part of its homology. We connect the peace sign with the hippies, maybe not as much anymore, but at the time it was a very dominant signal to the free love movement. All subcultures create some sort of influence in society, they all look for some sort of change. Some of them, like the hippies, wanted change for peace. Others like the grunge movement wanted to rebel against the norms of society. In conclusion, subcultures are an extremely important form of individualism. By promoting a certain subculture or group you become those beliefs and ideologies. So many people look for acceptance in subculture, because they are surrounded by like minded individuals. 

Let’s talk politics. (groan) Anyone else ever noticed that politics is one of the most obviously uniform sectors in media? Politicians do not stray from the normal, because the American people do not. Political posters, ads, and campaigns all look exactly the same—same color schemes, short logos, videos of the candidate speaking—and the way in which they speak and debate, the way they interact with people does not vary much either. While I cannot speak about politicians as a whole, in order to see change, that is where we must begin.

The saying “every vote matters” is neither true nor false. Every vote is counted, and every vote adds to the big picture. However when candidates are simply puppets of those really in power, and those really in power are those who have money, and those who have money will be able to hold onto their power no matter who is elected, no every vote doesn’t matter, because we aren’t given the options to make it really count. We continue to put people in office who are selected as appropriate candidates by those in power before us “commoners” are even able to hear about them.

This is our own fault as a society. We have allowed our system to dwindle down to a two-party system, because we like to have everything presented to us, we like to be told what to do without being “outright” told. Our options are limited because we have allowed the power systems to fool us into thinking that the only capable candidates are those who can spend millions of dollars on advertising. We are offered other options, but without the money behind them, most people are too lazy to put in the effort to research someone who isn’t thrown in their face.

Being involved, or not involved in today’s political climate is much less about what you can actually accomplish, but about the label you can take on. Why does this matter, how does this impact us? The only way to change it, the only way to make this system fair to the 99% of people living in America who don’t have piles of money is to spread awareness, to support other less popular candidates, and to stop falling into the traps set for us, to not allow ourselves to be filtered and labeled so easily. If you don’t believe after watching the 2016 election that our government’s politics is simply high-stakes monopoly, if you don’t believe that your vote is less about freedom and more about restricting you to something, branding you and labeling which side of money you stand with, you are not paying attention.