If you were to ask me to build a house, I wouldn't know the first thing about how to do that. Asking me to decorate a room is ten times easier for me to achieve. I have parameters, boundaries, light, expectation. This research paper is my first attempt to build a house. My fear is that it will be built out of sticks, and the big bad wolf of expectation will blow it down.
Like any good house, your paper needs something solid to stand on. In searching for a good topic to create the foundation of my paper, I realized I had too much to choose from. I became overwhelmed with so much information to process, it was like standing in the middle of a field trying to pick the best spot to break ground. I had to go back to the beginning and read all my posts and response papers one by one to see where I could begin...again.
One aspect of this class that really intrigued me was how a commercials attempted to speak to consumers through denotative and connotative means. Since that segment, I have never looked at advertising the same. As I plodded along through the world of not-really-free internet for more sources of information, I began to wonder... if so many things were considered tasteless and inappropriate for public viewing, how did they make it to the internet, or the shelves at the grocers, our televisions, or t-shirts for that matter? What did this say about us as consumers? If it's so bad, why doesn't anyone do anything about it? I realized that I was looking in the wrong direction. I finally had my question...
How does censorship depict social norms?
This, to me, is a great question. Ads from 40 years ago are completely different than they are today. If there was a beauty product showing too much skin, it was either stricken from television, or shown at night only. Now, you can buy milk, bread, and the most recent copy of where, in all caps and bold print, you can find out the most up to day sexual positions that will drive your boyfriend crazy! All wrapped in a pretty cover picturing a completely nude (and pregnant) Demi Moore. That raised quite a stink! If it was so bad, why wasn't it censored? Whose job was it to censor these "atrocities" made public? Or, did the public really want to be shocked? This is what I want to know.
As a society, we strive very hard to create the "good neighbor" ideal within ourselves. We also believe that we know better than our neighbor what is good for society as a whole. We think we have all the answers... so we hide our Victoria Secret catalogs from our children, make sure they don't watch certain things on television, buy them the latest shoot-em-up game (at least their isn't nudity or sex), judge someone by what they have decided to wear that day or by what they "liked" on FB, make healthier decisions for dinner, quit smoking and drink more red wine... all in the name of what is socially "normal" today.
