Plagiarism is taking credit for someone else’s work and presenting it as your original idea. Remixing is different because you actually piece together someone else’s work and change it up with your own creative spin then present it as new again. Plagiarism is different than remixing, because remixing uses work that is familiar on purpose to draw on the emotions of a previous audience to create interest. Remix redelivers the work in a new form.
Chapter 8
The preception of the typical black male in America is a negative stereotype. Hollywood has embraced many leading males as an icon for cool. However, the idea of cool is often remixed from African American males and adapted for white male roles in films. Rice compares white male figures form various roles to that of black males and clearly relates the negetive undertones that are culturally biased. Males are depicted as one with strength, dominant and sexual in nature. Critic Norman Mailer wrote back in the late 1950’s how unsettled whites took on an alternative lifestyle adapting from the stereotyped black male. Mailer called these “White Negro’s” who took on the language and fashion of those depicted in society.He mentions how blacks were thought of in relation to animal predators and how these thoughts influenced the outlook of an entire race. Cool is then what we see and how the media plays upon these images. Rice further depicts the characteristics of the “angry black man” and how a detached black man from society is viewed. He gives us a look at the music industry and how violence protrayed in lyrics and videos have become such a phenomena. Infact hip hop figures that portray violence and Gangsta images have become very popular images for consumers.
Tupac became an even bigger icon once he was killed than when he was recording. Rice gives a great bit of information on how a prized boxer Ali reinvented himself despite they way the media had depicted him as an angry black man. The stereotypes and negetive coverage seemed to provide Ali with addition strength. He used his image along with his witty speech to reinvent the angry black male image he had been given by the medai. He created a new self identity that has prevailed today. Another example given was Spike Lee, who created films that were very different than the mainstream that depicted how entertainment still holds negetive stereotypes and how the minority are still discriminated against. He trys to bring awareness through his films to many viewers.
Chapter 9
Rice makes several arguments about how rituals are like myths. We uses them to make our lifes more pleasant and liveable. They are survival tools and apart of us. Kim Connor describes how social oppression has lead to attitudes changing to adapt to the environment. Many of the oppressed feel that it is necessary to attach themselves with street life as a way to become accepted or distingush themselves as cool. Many youth groups have come to relate toughness and gangsta pride as a way to deal with their lives. Capturing a cool pose is a way of dealing with the lifestyles that many are living through.
