MTV Real World 20 Casting Call -They're looking for people with aspirations AND goals!

For those of you with relevant reality tv blog topics and/or an interest, here's a challenge for your final blog assignment (or those of you in desperate need of extra credit - you know who you are!)...

As absurd as this one sounds...albeit much more challenging than it sounds too...here's your alternative to blogging in text for your final blog assignment related to gender and power/empowerment through representation:

Submit your audition tape to me and Bunim/Murray to audition for the Real World...
To make it count for your final blog post, you have to actually want to audition (eh hem...and it'll be obvious to me if you're not sincere) and you need to highlight you...not sensationalized...not stereotypical reality tv/real world [insert explicative here]:
1. Be yourself
2. Tell them about your actual goals and aspirations
3. They are (supposedly) looking for a new cast that isn't the norm---so bring gender, race, class, sexuality and your awareness of these issues into the forefront of your presentation of yourself...how can you make reality tv on the real world different from what it has been? Why has your study of gender and pop culture made you perfect to provide this different role?
4. I'm sure being at a top US college will help you too; however, what is it that makes you different from the celebrity-obsessed, fame seeking norm that this tv genre has come to depend for its cast?
5. Your tape must be sent as an audition tape and be clearly representative of the concepts you've learned this semester. You actually need to want to pursue this venue for social change for this to be a viable final assignment... we can talk if you're interested in doing this one :o)

Guess what? It's still related to power and empowerment through representation!

MTV Real World 20 Casting Call - May be the Last Season MTV Real World Road Rules News Blog: "Bunim-Murray has recently announced they are casting for the 20th and what may be the last MTV Real World season.

The on-site casting location schedule will be posted here but until that time you can submit a video with these Real World Audition Tape Tips.

Real World Sydney, being the 19th season, started filming in February 2007 and MTV is only contracted for 20 seasons which as of yet has not been extended further.

The details on what the producers are looking for from the applicants is listed below:

For Real World’s upcoming 20th season, we are searching for cast members with career and life goals that they want to pursue in a major metropolitan city.

Aspiring actors, models, dancers, filmmakers, musicians, athletes, artists, journalists, stylists, and fashion designers are particularly encouraged to apply, as well anyone else with interesting career goals and a passion to succeed."

Blog Post #5 for Friday 4/6/07 Updated

Friday (4/6/07) Blog Post #5 Now with more options to choose from!

- How has your blog-topic made news? When it has been the subject of the news, how has it been depicted? Specifically, when your topic is the subject of the news/media, how do you see the news/media depict gender, race, class, etc in your topic in relation to the reason that it made the news? In other words, does race, class, gender, etc factor into the reason that the topic became "newsworthy?"

Use at least one class reading and read/watch at least one source of news/media that relates to your topic (when it made news) to analyze this portrayal of your topic by the news/media. Find an example of "mainstream" news for this assignment. Make sure you link to the news/media source if it can be found online or cite it w/ your citation of the course reading you used at the end of the blog post.

Another issue that at least one person brought up on the index cards* was the topics for the blog posts. I want to keep the topics linked to the course readings and class discussions; however, I also want you to pursue areas that are of interest to you (which, hopefully your topic is one already) and blog on those areas of interest as well.

Therefore, for blog post #5, in addition to the original topic of mainstream news issues/coverage of your topic, as currently listed on the SOCS welcome page, you can instead opt to pursue one of the following areas to analyze in relation to your topic:

-Motherhood (great for the topics on female celebrities- mother or not- and for topics on gender and advertising, as well as many of the TV shows chosen as topics for the blogs)
-Infamous Celebrity (as opposed to fame/famous- what constructs notoriety in pop culture?)
-The roles of violence as a technique of social control (we've covered so many- from "Hidden Politics,"
"Homophobia in Straight Men," "Wielding Masculinity Inside Abu Garib," to earlier pieces such as
"King Kong & the White Woman," "Lay theories of Media Effects," and also "The More You Subtract, The More
"You Add")
-Heterosexism (the notion that 2 sexes = 2 genders = marriage between 2 people of opposite sex/gender =
procreation)

Each of the topics above relates directly to recent readings and can (but doesn't have to) replace the topic of your blog-topic in the news.

The requirements remain the same (keep it under 5-6 paragraphs w/ one course reading cited, etc) as the original assignment.

Hope this gives everyone a bit more freedom to scrutinize popular culture :o)
-Jessie

*Yesterday in class, I handed everyone a blank index card and asked the class to alert me to ideas/issues to help me know what will benefit them the most from this class--on top of an adversion to the more technical side of the blog experiment, which I can totally understand, this issue appeared on a couple index cards...just to clarify the index cards for those who were absent yesterday or not in this course at all!

The Lesson: Hollywood Stars Attend Obama Fundraiser

Celebrealitics (still working on this one...celebs and politics...?)
Yet another of pop culture's many incarnations...stars from a variety of industries, and the political
(or...when the right-wing haters of the liberal Hollywood-ers get upset for celeb activism...but then the right-wingers are the ones who get the stars to run (and win!...go figure!) for actual public office (whether these officials ever do much...in terms of change...is debatable...just watch last week's Daily Show coverage of CSPAN....yeah...not much there!). Bash Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins (hell...burn Jane Fonda at the stake if you listen to most of Fox's "news-ish" teleprompter readers) and then elect Reagan and Mr. Terminator...yeah...okay?
Pop culture is politics and politics is pop culture...
That's today's lesson!
Hollywood Stars Attend Obama Fundraiser
(and that's the link to the source of today's lesson above)