X Files Ethnography

Ok, to be honest, I am a little nervous about even started this post.  I am what is called an X-Phile, one who really, really loves the X-Files.  I have been a lover since I was 11 years old and it that love has only strengthened since.  Honestly, I love the show and love to discuss it and the many, many themes that come up in it.  So, I am not entirely sure if this is an ethnography since I am one of the people being studied, but let’s do this anyway, it will give me a chance to write about the X-Files.

So, I am a member of an X-Files fan site on fanpop.  I read the questions posed to my fellow Philes, answer when I deem the question legitimate, and literally swear out loud when I read a post that I consider utterly absurd, i.e. “Yes!!!  Mulder and Scully were totally meant to be together!”   Uh, no, they were not, you foolish excuse for a Phile.  Have you seen what their relationship came from?  Did you watch its development?  Do you think any marriage or committed relationship could comfortably contain all of that?  Have you ever even watched a fricken episode??!!  God!  NO, you are wrong.  They were not meant to be together like THAT.  It is hard for me to be objective.

Anyways, Philes allow themselves to be absorbed into the show.  They care deeply for the characters, judge them when they are doing something wrong, forgive them for their faults, care for their families, embrace their weaknesses, and I could go on.  We discuss these things.  As Philes, we discuss the characters like they were our own children and we only want what is best for them, but we know that they will have to live their own lives. 

Anyone I know who is a true Phile watches the show in the same way, silent.  Whereas other shows demand commentary, the X-Files does not, at least while the episode is showing.  That is why we talk online.  The X-Files and the internet have a close relationship.  It was one of the first shows whose followers capitalized on chat rooms for discussion of episodes.  Yah, the followers can be a bit subterranean.  Silence is key to watching episodes because there is so much there.  If the plot is weak—yes, they occasionally are—then you are listening for Mulder’s quirky one liners, watching for Scully’s exasperated face when she realizes that Mulder is in over his head and she needs to dig him out, or listening for the subtle changes in music done so masterfully by Mark Snow.  When others talk during the episodes, well, tempers tend to flare.  Now, if these uneXposed viewers genuinely want to know what is going on, then we will be happy to fill them in, but they should not expect our full attention or complete answers, until after the show.

Philes are open minded.  The show deals with both sides of many issues: spirituality/science, platonic/erotic love, revenge/forgiveness, so on and so on.  These are big issues and the X-Files deals with them carefully.  The show has actually helped me to become more tolerant of some issues.

I could go on but it would be better to talk about this in person.

What the media doesn't show us about New York

So, as usual I could not figure out how to work the technology needed for the assignment.  Voicethread duped me, so this is what I have instead.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1024&bih=882&q=upstate+new+york&gbv=2&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=upstate+&gs_rfai=

Follow this URL and you will come to photographs of Upstate New York.  Last summer I worked in Upstate New York and was shocked.  My whole life I had only been shown picture of NYC, as most of us have.  As far as I was aware, Upstate New York did not exist.  When I got there I was amazed to see lush fields, valleys, farms, and areas that looked as unpopulated as the most serene areas of Wyoming.  Needless to say, I fell in love.

Later that month I visited NYC and got my fill of what I had already seen on Sex in the City, numerous numerous movies, The Apprentice, and hundreds of commercials.  That was the New York that I knew existed.  Bright lights, loud people, nutso traffic, and a pizza parlor on every corner.  I soon missed the tranquility of Upstate New York.

I spoke to a number of New Yorkers about the term "Upstate".  Most of them said, "Upstate is anything that isn't NYC."  To which I asked, "But there is so much to it!  It is big and beautiful and... well... so much bigger than NYC."  To which many replied, and I am not joking, "But who really cares about all that?  Who cares about anything outside of NYC."  We have everything you ever want right here in the city."  I was shocked.  Now, to be fair, I was talking to folks who had a lot of NYC pride and who looked at me like I was a camel when I told them I was from Minnesota.  "Where?"  "Minnesota."  "West of here, right."  "Uh, yah.  Everything other than New Jersey is west of here."  The people that I spoke to in NYC fit the media representations of the people that I saw on TV and in the movies, unfortunately.  But the land that I saw while biking through Keene Valley, Lake Tahoe, and Lake Champlain were not the media representations of what I saw when "New York" was displayed on TV and in the movies.

Thanks to the media, the name New York has come to mean strictly the Big Apple, not the entire state.  When Alicia Keyes sings, "Let's hear it for New York!  New York!  New York!" I do not think that she means the lush fields with grazing bovine.  And the big NY on the Yankees cap, I am curious as to how many of the quiet and content elderly people who put me up in Keene Valley put that on par with the American flag.  I think it is safe to say that many "New Yorkas'" do.

My use of Facebook

I got on the Facebook bandwagon late.  By late I mean halfway through my junior year of college.  I remember I was sitting in the "computer lab" of the community house I was staying at in Nicaragua while I was studying abroad and one of my fellow classmates was shocked to hear that I did not know what Facebook was.  She quickly helped me set up an account and the rest is history.

When I started using Facebook I will admit that I sunk my teeth in.  I saw it as a canvas for telling the entire world, or whoever was interested in reading, who I was and what I was all about.  My interests included EVERY SINGLE THING I enjoyed doing, plus some quirky things that I though would make people think that I was clever.  For example, one of my interests was something like, "teaching the world about poetry on bathroom stall walls."  Yah, really smooth Ted.  Real smooth.  My list of favorite movies and music were equally detailed as was my list of favorite quotes.  Basically, I wanted people to be able to find out whatever they wanted about me simply by looking at my Facebook page.

When I wasn't stroking my own ego with Facebook, I was attempting to reconnect with high school friends who had gone elsewhere for college or who had simply moved elsewhere for whatever reason.  It was very useful for that.  I did reconnect with a number of people.  It was so convenient to be able to find anyone, anywhere simply by typing their name into a huge search.  Once we were friends, I could ask them for their numbers so that we could reconnect over the phone and in some cases even reconnect in person.  This was very useful and I do owe a big thanks to Facebook for helping me to get in touch with people who I probably wouldn't have otherwise reconnected with.

Once I graduated from college I began using Facebook to stay in touch with friends who had moved.  A lot of times a full phone call wasn't necessary just to tell a friend that I heard a song that reminded me of them, and texts cost money.  I was also able to look through my friends photographs to see what they had been up to, but as expected, most of them were of my friends at bars.  Yah, Facebook has a plethoa of drunk photos.

For two years I worked with an Americorps position where I was stationed in a school working with high school students who were trying to get into college.  Once they graduated from high school and moved onto college, Facebook allowed me to stay in touch with them.  When they needed a letter of recommendation, they posted on my wall.  When they had a question about financial aid, they sent me a message.  When they posted incriminating photos of them doing God knows what, I was able to report those photos to Facebook and tell me former students to stop being stupid and think about how those photos could affect them in the future.  Yep, Facebook allowed me to be a watchdog.

I still use Facebook to stay in touch with friends, organize events, and occasionally post a random tidbit about my day, but I use it much less than I used to.  Well, not much less, but less.  I do still get bored while doing assignments.  To be honest, I checked Facebook once while I was writing this post.

The Bad News Bears and Americana Lesson plan

So, the original Bad News Bears is one of my favorite movies.  Not just because I love baseball or quick witted children.  I feel that the movie uses a great deal of social commentary to show the hypocrisy behind American culture, which is great.  The scene linked below is the final scene from the movie.  Let me fill you in on what has happened up until now.  So, Buttermaker, the teams coach, has lead this ragtag group of misfits to the little league championships, though not always in the most honest ways.  For example, he finds a ringer to put on the team and he encourages some of his players to step in front of pitches so that they can get on base.  Yah, he is pretty sneaky.  Anyways, the Bears make it to the finals and end up losing to the league Goliaths, the Yankees.  The following scene is what happens after they lose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1-zBIIvl5g

The lesson plan follows as so:

Ask students what words they think of when they hear the word baseball.  You will probably have students say things like hotdogs, summer, little league, the national anthem.  Stuff like that.  Next, ask them what they have learned about good sportsmanship.  Not all students will have something to offer on this since probably not all students played sports as a kid.  Either way, lead the discussion in the direction of what you have learned about good sportsmanship i.e. play by the rules, be a gracious winner, don't be a sore loser, shake hands after the game, etc. 

Next, discuss with students what they hear about sports in the media.  Steroids, dog fighting rings, rape charges, sexting (sooo recent), so on and so on. 

The discussion here can lead into ideals vs. reality.  Baseball, America's pasttime.  Little league, sunflower seeds, dirt on your pants.  But is that all there is to it?  The Bad News Bears says no.  It gives us a stark contrast to the ideal.  Beer slugging youngsters, a shabby looking good, bad sportsmanship, and foul mouthed kids.  And as the camera pans out in the last scene what does the viewer see waving in the breeze?  The red, white, and blue.

Analysis of Six Feet Under

This is a little out of order.  I should have posted this at the same time that I posted it on Ning.  Oh well.  Here it is.

It worked this time. http://ant.umn.edu/vae.php?pid=1285254481

Here's to Karl Marx and baseball

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_OxCHyLLkU

Marxist approach to Miller High Life commercial

Whereas Budweiser assures the nation’s television viewers that “This Bud’s for you,” Miller High Life chooses to tell the nation through witty commercials that High life is for, to use a Marxist term, the proletariat.  In the following commercial, everyone’s favorite beer regulator crashes a bourgeois version of a “baseball game” to confiscate their beer and inform them that Miller High Life was not made for snobs the likes of them.  A bit snobbish in itself, but I support it.

As the commercial begins we see three working class High Life employees speed walking into a baseball stadium clearly on a mission.  The leader directs them to the skybox, “Right up here in section la de da,” suggesting his predisposed distaste for the people inside.  He then asks the very well-dressed patrons if any of them know what inning it is.  Confused—practically unaware that they are at a baseball game—they look at each other, each their cheese cubes, and continue to talk on their cell phones.  These people represent the bourgeois who are more interested in their own worlds of business talk than the baseball game that they supposedly came to watch.  Recognizing their ignorance, the proletariat High Life employee commands his fellow High Life employees to remove the “working class” Miller High Lifes from the bouge premises.  While in the skybox, the proletariat leader attempts to yell out his opinion on the game, but it unable to since the skybox is enclosed in glass, a representation of class separation: “Man, they (my fellow working-class baseball fans) can’t even hear me through this glass!”  He then expresses, “I need to smell a hotdog (working-class American cuisine) or something.  Just to know that I am alive!” 

The proletariat High Life employee leaves with his fellow employees and the confiscated Miller High Lifes and enters the bleachers where he is among the rowdy working-class fans.  Once their he passes out Miller High Lifes to everyone, just like a true Maxist.

Questions for classroom discussion (of course I probably wouldn’t use a beer commercial with my students”

-Who do the High Life employees represent?

-Who do the skybox patrons represent?

-What does this commercial tell you about Miller High Life’s intended consumers?

-What other products do you know of that are aimed at this consumer pool?

-What is the significance of the setting of the commercial?

Historical approach to Miller High Life commercial

The setting of the commercial is an outdoor baseball game.  Baseball is called America’s pastime.  Long before the multimillion dollar contracts of recent history, baseball player made meager wages and most often had to hold additional jobs just to survive financially.  Baseball was classic Americana. 

Miller High Life wants to remind its target consumers that it is an American beer.  It intends to instill some good ol’ fashioned American pride in its consumers.  In our current political and economical situation, the upper class is blamed for many of our nation’s problems.  This elite class is often viewed as too good to associate with the likes of the middle and lower classes, the true fans of baseball.  Think of the historical pictures of young boys playing pick-up games in some American city alley.  Think of movies such as The Sandlot and The Natural.  Working class kids and the dashing farmboy: classic Americana.  Outdoor baseball brings these memories to the minds of many Americans, and High Life wants to be associated with those memories.

Questions for class:

-What does baseball represent for you?

-What does High Life intend to say about its product being popular at a baseball game?