“We pasteurized,
we processed,
we manipulated this cheese until it suited our purposes,this was engineered cheese...”
This is an excerpt from the poem we read this week, “ America, its gotta be the cheese” by slam poet Aton Kadosh.In the poem he makes the unique observation that American culture is similar to pasturized American cheese. And, as odd as the comparison is, I agree with him, we as Americans believe that our “cheese” which is our culture, is the best in the world, even though many of us have never ventured to expose themselves to another culture. This specific quote speaks to the fact that we have engineered our culture to broadcast to the world what we want them to see American culture as. American Culture has been manipulated by the corporations to suit its purposes, which is something that was spoken about in Culture Jam as well. Kale Lasn talks specifically about how corporations in America have taken over our lives as citizens and dictated what we are supposed to like and dislike. I agree with him to a point about this, I think that there are many Americans out there who focus only on what mainstream media tells them they should and should not consume. However, there are some people, like myself and my friends and others in our country, that do no care about mainstream media and what some corporate hot shot says we should be wearing this week.
The part that I found most interesting in Culture Jam was the chapter titled “your corporate connection,” that Lasn uses to talk about the influence of corporate America on young, and even older, American's views of themselves. He talks about how “objectification distorts a person's sense of worth (p.74).” This quote and chapter goes back to the idea that both Lasn and Kadosh are trying to get across in through both prose and poetry: that corporate America has been slowly taking over American's lives and dictating what they should eat, wear, watch, listen to and act like.
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"Corporate America has been slowly taking over American's lives and dictating what they should eat, wear, watch, listen to and act like."
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned, you do not care about mainstream media. Do you purposefully detach yourself from this media? If so, how do you and why is it important for you to do so?
I did like the connection with corporate America too. Corporate does dictated what we eat, wear, and along with many other things. But we let them do that. It is not like we speak up and say we not going to wear Nike sneakers or Hollister shirt. The more they push their ads and commercials, the more we just feed into the corporate America. They just learn how to manipulate people so they can continue to make money.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you're saying. corporate america has taken over but we don't do much to stop them. so they may be starting the brainwashing but we could try not to buy into it.
ReplyDeleteI think that corporations have less to do with taking over our country than the government does. Maybe we'll talk about that later, maybe not. But, alas, I guess we can lump the government, corporations, and all the other bad stuff into the term "the man" and go from there. I think "the man" is "...slowly taking over American's lives and dictating what they should eat, wear, watch, listen to and act like." I may not agree that it to the point that the American public is hopeless, but still, "the man" is bringin us down!
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