In today’s class I really enjoyed the dialogue that I had with my fellow classmates. I feel like we all connected ideas that helped us understand the theorist a little better. One part of class that I enjoyed was when we connected CMC 100 to one of Hebdige quotes about the how the hegemonic powers deal with the “other”. In this part of the class, we discussed how people of power exoticize the “other” in order to neutralize the “disturbance” the subculture causes. While learning about this section on of my fellow classmates connected this concept to our CMC 100 content analysis projects. From here, I connected Hebdige’s concept directly to how we see the exoticization in beauty magazines. In high fashion magazines we see exoticization of cultures constantly. I remember when I did my content analysis for CMC 100, I saw that African American beauty was determined by their exotic “tribal” ancestry. Most of the African American models were dressed in ancestral tribal clothing that included different kinds of animal prints. With looking at this project and applying it to Hebdidge theory, I can understand how exoticization can be seen as an issue within our cultural dynamics.
As an African American woman, the term exotic has always bugged me. This is because people that are not of color would comment and tell me “oh you’re so exotic looking. What race are you?”. When I was younger, I would think that being called “exotic” would be a good thing, but now that I am taking this class, I know that this is an unconscious strategy to deal with “the other”. It’s almost scary to think about all of the things that we talk in class (so I don’t think about it if I don’t have to), but I am happy that I have the chance to be conscious about our twisted society.
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