Response 3: Cowboys and Monsters

Nobody wants to be the same, and capitalism acknowledges that. In Thomas Frank’s article on capitalism, he describes its alteration into something that promotes being special or one of a kind, a change from its former ideas of conformity. The ‘Marlboro Man’ commercials were released at the turning point of capitalism ideology. The lonesome cowboy was not seen as an anti-socialist loser with no real place in society, because he didn’t need to socialize. The cowboy displays individualism- something modern American society deeply admires and tries so hard to depict; the cowboy also represents America itself: a country, so powerful, a paradigm to others, which treads on its own. Other nations can’t help but to stop and stare in awe at its magnificent beauty and power, some try to criticize it but they can’t- because America doesn’t care (not that it needs to). The country, like the cowboy, is too busy being itself that it doesn’t need to follow others or turn around to see its never ending followers, he is the hero of the story. In the passage by Anneli Rufus, the author describes how a cowboy represents the ideal American life of independence, and how Marlboro uses that image for its advertisements to promote anti-conformity and increase its sales (Especially its foreign sales where people yearn for the American Dream).

The main argument in “All About That Race” by Terry Smith is how Childish Gambino displays themes of race, identity and being lost in his album ‘Because the Internet’ and establishes these themes using symbolism (of a monster/animal), a motif of danger (a looming threat in all/most videos), and, in some videos, loops showing a shift or halt in time. These music videos by Donald Glover differ in genre from other hip-hop videos due to how the music videos of an album are somehow inter-connected, the representation of the composer’s lyrics to the music video, and how both the lyrics and the video show a deeper meaning of race and identity (creating, one may say, a genre of ‘journey’) instead of the cliché boy and girl conflict/passion. Albeit genres can help familiarize with what there is to expect in the works, it also creates constraints and expectations which can encumber and limit the work of an artist. Making sure that the genre is consistent is no easy task, and letting that task go might upset, intrigue, or simply confuse the entertained.