American Born Chinese and William Hung

I thought the connection Yang made to William Hung in American Born Chinese was interesting. I have been asked to post this and hope that for those that did not see the connection will see it! The panel when Chin-Kee is singing She Bang on the Library table seems to come from an actual person named William Hung. He was a contestant for American Idol in 2004. He is Chinese and not a very good singer, but he seemed to capture the attention of the American public and became super popular. I have put up a link for you to see the youtube video of his audition so you can see how it connects to the graphic novel.

William Hung Audition

Merchant of Cool

I found this program very interesting. I think that in a world where adolescents are constantly exposed to media, commercials, etc. that the feedback loop is unavoidable. As much as it bothers me that old executives and advertisers control youth I do not see how we could escape it. The media sells us what teens are, or what they should be. As a viewer we see these images and live up to them so as not to be out of the loop. It is a big circle. That is exactly why they created young adult archetypes of the "mook" and the "mid-drift." Although teens may not actually be like these characters we see them as cool on television, and therefore we idealize them and want to act like them. By acting like them this perpetutates the cycle and means that the media has to always keep pushing the enveleope. The media has to make these archtypes even more crude, crazy, risque, etc to keep up with the youth. The question is when do things go to far? The show seems to think that it has already gone too far because even the act of rebellion has become commercialized and marketed. Although this is a interesting topic to discuss I do not think that this is by any means a new phenemona. Ever since there has been advertising, and media it has affected youth culture. I do not think the report shows how past generations have been affected by the same kind of commercialism, etc. In the 50s there was a show American Band Stand, which promoted songs and bands through a television show much like TRL. That affected what the youth was listening to. You always have bands that do not just sell music but sell an image. During Madonna time period you had girls that wanted to dress like her, and in turn companies sold things that modled after her style. I do not think any of this is new...maybe it has just become even more of a big business with more people getting paid and benefiting(the artists, execs; not the youth).

On another note I was kind of shocked that a program that is fighting against how youth have no voice and no control did just that. The only real people interviewed seemed to be old people. There were very few interviews with the youth and how they felt the media affected them. I think that maybe the youth should have had more of a voice in this report.

Book Recommendation

When I try to look back on the past books I read I feel like very few were really young adult novels because in school they tend to have you read more classics.

In my ninth grade English class though my teacher picked 4 to 5 young adult novels and had a chose one that we wanted to read. We then formed groups based on the novel that we choose and had like book groups in class were we discussed different things that happened in our books every week and then when the book was finished we did a final project as a group. (I included this for those that might be interested in how these novels can be incorporated in a new way into the classroom) Anyways the book I picked was "Speak". This book is written by Laurie Halse Anderson (the same author of Wintergirls that was read to us on the first day of class). The book discusses how a young girl comes to terms with something horrible that happens to her in the beginning. It is all about how she grows as a character, while navigating through high school. It had some intense content that could be considered inapproriate in a classroom. However I thought the way it was used in our classroom was better because we really only had to discuss the issues in our groups and not as a whole class. Overall the book was very good and even was made into a lifetime movie. Kristen Stewart plays the main character Melinda.

On another note I was walking around my placement class today, which is 8th graders and I saw that one of the girls was reading Does My Head Look Big in This. I enjoyed talking to her about the book and felt like I could connect with her because we had read the same thing!