Racism and Harassment in American Animated Sitcoms Essay

Racism and Harassment in American Animated Sitcoms - Essay Example In the late 90s, two animated sitcoms were launched which based their humor on criticizing U.S. cultures and current events, usually on politics and black comedy. Much of the AMESA related satire started after the 9/11 incident in 2001, wherein the representations of the aforementioned adopted a negative and racist tone (207). This kind of representation was based on the genealogy of â€Å"Orientalism† and â€Å"Islamophobia† that positions people, places, and ideology conceptualized as Arab, Middle Eastern, South Asian and even of Muslim to be inferior with the â€Å"tripartite relationship of Whiteness, Christianity, and U.S. Nationalism† also referred to as the â€Å"White Racial Frame† (207). Popular animated television sitcoms in the U.S. adopt its own unique approaches on â€Å"hyper-irony and manic-satire† (228). South Park is a U.S. animated television series which is created, written and voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Hughey 229). â €Å"It satirizes many aspects of U.S. ... to produce comedy, biting social and political commentary, and counter-hegemony (208), thus making it an important study point in understanding the relationship between satirical humor and social relationships and interaction, the â€Å"forms of irony that involves system of domination and resistance, such as racism and nationalism†(208), and lastly, on the reaffirmation and normalization of social relations through popular media (208). There is great influence in media representations. According to the American Psychological Association, the absence of sufficient materials that provide information of the views of a certain group would result in a blind acceptance of the television representation of the group (214). A psychologist from UCLA suggests that a vast effect of the media on the perception by children of a minority group is highly influenced by the way it is shown in the television (214). An example of a long term effect this kind of shows has is the occurrence of wor kplace bullying (Fox 439). According to Suzy Fox (439), bullying â€Å"is an umbrella concept for these various conceptualizations of ill-treatment and hostile behavior toward people at work, ranging from most subtle, even unconscious incivilities to the most blatant, intentional emotional abuse.† This also includes single incidents and especially those of escalating patterns of behavior (439). Recent studies identified two types of bullying, general bullying and racial/ethnic bullying. In general bullying, behaviors happen to anyone with no reference to its race or ethnicity while racial/ethnic bullying occurs with reference to race and ethnicity (439). In addition, another aspect of bullying is also introduced which is the particular dynamic of abusive supervision, also known as supervisory

Le Corbusier, Cubism and Social Connections to Picasso and Gertrude Research Paper

Le Corbusier, Cubism and Social Connections to Picasso and Gertrude Stein - Research Paper Example Like all complex works of art, his life too is seemingly contradicting and open to multiple interpretations. If Picasso shocked the world of painting by departing from the practice of imitating nature, Le Corbusier took the revolution a step ahead with his ideal notions about the advent of machine age and his stark depiction of the precision and sharpness which the machine age represented. It comes as no surprise that these two icons of the artistic world met and were influenced by each other’s ideas. On the contrary, the interactions between Le Corbusier and the American writer, Gertrude Stein were not all too pleasant thanks to their differences of opinion. However, despite their personal differences, it remains undisputable that these interactions influenced Le Corbusier in more ways than one. The first encounter of Corbusier with Picasso probably happened in the early 1920s before he bought Picasso’s The Bottle of Rum in a sale held in Paris. His view of this work a s an arrangement of planes supported by verticals was probably the first architectural interpretation of the work. During later phases of his life as an architect, Corbusier also translated and extended the depiction of volumes in Picasso’s cubist works into buildings displaying his respect for Picasso. However, much before Corbusier bought The Bottle of Rum, he had written to Picasso on numerous occasions. Apparently, Picasso too had shown some interest towards the maverick architect thanks to his occasional ventures into the architectural domain. Following Picasso’s success in using the void to represent a solid, Corbusier added the spatial element to modern architecture using elements such as a half-transparent, curved wall. This was the time when the cultural preferences of artists underwent a drastic change thanks to the widespread impact of the First World War. Picasso, along with his fellow supporters of Cubism like Braque, abandoned the art form to return to th e more traditional practices of neoclassicism. Futurism, which was used as a medium to adulate the machinery, violence and the war, was rejected by the strongest of its supporters. Corbusier, on the other hand was spending the wartime away from Paris in the seclusion of the La-Chaux-de-Fonds Art school. While teaching in this school, he also worked on employing the modernist techniques in architecture. During this period, he also completed designing the ‘Domino’ House project. The open floor plan comprising of slender, reinforced concrete columns and the interconnecting stairways would be a permanent feature of all his future works (Moos 2009). Having considered himself as primarily being a painter before being an architect, Le Corbusier understood the relationship between architecture, painting and sculpture. Since he believed that architecture should be used to signify the increasing industrialization and resolve social problems, he experimented on new ways of unifyin g painting and sculpture with architecture. However, in doing so, he did not compromise on the autonomous statuses of each of these forms (Cohen 2005). Now, being a painter himself, he was heavily influenced by Cubism which rejected the age old practices of imitating nature and was being used by painters such as Picasso and Braque for portraying multiple perspectives in their paintings and adding a realistic spirit to the paintings. Having begun among a group of painters, Cubism had also spread to different mediums such as literature and sculpture. Gertrude Stein, the celebrated American author had incorporated Cubist techniques in several of her works such as ‘