May hegemonic appropriation continue! (jorge rant)

4/15/2013

4 Comments

 
Peace y'all,

First off, want to take this moment to acknowledge the most recent violent acts occurring in the Boston area. I am not entirely immersed as to what various bloggers, social media sites, et al. are saying on the tragic event right now, but at the very least this is disgusting and at most, a disgrace to the appreciation of human life and ecology...

In regards to the world of AMST 507, I found this interesting article on the Advocate.com. It really painted a lasting image for myself. It connects to class concepts and theories we have discussed such as IP, cultural appropriation, neoliberal capitalist commodification, and well simply the complexities of social movements in the current capitalist moment.

Rachel: Does this mean gay rights are that much more obtainable? I wonder what the 'It Gets Better' campaign will blog about this.

Tiffany: Does it matter that Nike is merely a sport athletics company? I mean, isn't it about time that corporations step 'out of their bounds' and begin advertising for entities besides their own? Wait, this is already happening, right?

Wish y'all the best of luck as we wind down the spring semester. My sincerest forms of solidarity for any of you who have family/relatives/friends in the NE area living in the contemporary capitalist moment--of fear and terror.
4 Comments
kim christen
4/16/2013 07:42:06 am

wow--so Nike wants to OWN both the out-gay-athlete and the narrative surrounding how that coming out is mobilized and monitized. I knew Nike was bold but this is beyond -- they are putting all their cards on the table here and basically bribing someone to come out and win the prize....

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Tiffany
4/16/2013 09:38:28 am

erg, Nike. Being at UOregon for three years (a "Nike" campus that gets personal attention from "Uncle" Phil Knight, who is an alum), I have fairly strong feelings about Nike's corporate tactics in general, and I definitely agree with Kim's word: bribe. They seem to basically be saying, "We want to buy your gay." If Nike as a corporate entity really gave a crap about supporting LGBT agendas, they wouldn't have to rely on trying to lure an athlete to come out...there are other ways for corporations to make statements that will provide them with more "brand recognition" and profit.

In this neoliberal environment, I don't expect large corporations to do anything that won't in some way help their brand recognition (Dove's still at it with their "Real Beauty" campaign: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/doves-real-beauty-sketches-ad-campaign-video_n_3088071.html) and eventually make them a profit. That's understandable, and in some ways I can actually appreciate what Dove is doing (despite the fact that they have contributed to the very thing they're now trying to fight), but Nike's "hunt" for an out gay athlete strikes me as so over the top that it may wind up hurting them. We shall see.

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Tiffany
4/16/2013 09:58:21 am

Also, because I'm still thinking about this, the Dove brand is owned by Unilever, which also puts out the Axe product line. So there's that. The Axe campaign has typically used sex and misogyny to sell to men, and it could be argued that Dove then uses this "Real Beauty" campaign to prey upon many women's fears and low-self esteem (again, encouraged by Dove and other companies in the "beauty" business) to sell the Dove brand.

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10/1/2013 05:55:56 am

I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.

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