Critique #3: bell hooks on Cultural Criticism

ONLINE LESSON:  Please complete this lesson prior to class on Weds. Oct. 10th.

Create a new blog and title it:  Critique #3: bell hooks

Watch these two videos by bell hooks, a cultural critic:

 As you watch, pay particular attention (in the second video) to what hooks means when she discusses Motivated Representations in the media.  What are "motivated representations?"  While hooks' examples are dated (by your standards), what connections can you make to the media that you've seen or "consumed" most recently?  Where do you see motivated representations?  How does hooks' discussion of "motivated representations" connect to Kilbourne's ideas that all images are "constructed," not real? 

In her video hooks says: 
"Part of the power of Cultural Criticism is to say that there really is a conscious manipulation of representations. Media is not about magical thinking, it's not about pure imagination or creativity, it's about people consciously knowing what kinds of images will create a certain impact [on viewers]."

Similarly, in the video you watched on masculinity in Disney movies, Dr. Justin Lewis, professor of Journalism, is quoted saying:

"[The Media] is about creating a certain environment of images that we grow up in and become used to. After awhile, these images begin to [slowly and cumulatively] shape what we know and what we understand about the world."

In your blog, Critique #3: bell hooks, write about what these quotes mean.  What is your understanding of motivated representations, and more importantly, where do you see them? What is hooks trying to say?  For your third critique, choose any MOVIE, and discuss any representations you see there. How is the representation "motivated" and in what way is the image "constructed"?  Link clips to this movie in your blog. 

Finally, view the blogs of at least three of your peers, and leave comments and feedback in these blogs.

This blog is due before class on Weds. Oct. 10