Kip Austin Hinton

it was very funny. and repulsive. and, somehow, sweet. that's the schtick: this guy is so sweet, seems so sincere (even when he's spouting hate against Jews and women), that people want to give him the benefit of the doubt. and then he pushes it to far over the edge of acceptability, people are forced to reject him anyway. the concept exploits people's tendency to think the best of people. on the other hand, some of those he talked to, egged on, are hateful motherfucks who deserve to be revealed for what they are and ostracized. my feeling is that most of the audience understood that borat's hate speech was a put-on, and they didn't take pleasure in the hate itself as much as in seeing people's discomfort. whether it is socially a "good" thing or not is open to debate. the jewish couple in the film, they are so friendly and nice, it is obvious Cohen chose them for this reason. and the anti-semites and gay-bashers in the film talk like morons (the rodeo...

did a presentation on Douglas Kellner's book, Media Culture . focus on what is called - by Cultural Studies writers, at least - "the Text": any creation that can be watched, read, listened to, or otherwise consumed in a cultural (rather than nutritive) way. movies, sitcoms, the news, fashion magazines, videogames, hip hop, action figures, and cappuccinos* are all Texts. - The Text: Kellner's Multiperspectival Reading (presentation slides) Texts are things with legible cultural content , which can be "read" for intentional as well as ideological messages. there is always context. everything created was created by somebody, and their understandings of culture can be expressed - and everything consumed is consumed by somebody, and their understandings of culture can also be expressed. example: the song "Dixie" was, it turns out, quite possibly written by the Snowden family , popular Free Black performers in Ohio, during the Civil War era. they never...