My mediated artifact is the horoscope section from Seventeen Magazine. With respect to advertisement, the page is clearly targeted towards teenage girls (if the title of the magazine did not give it away). The color scheme is an assortment of reds and oranges and the “genres” are: girl talk, hot parties, flirty fun, crazy drama and amazing makeover. These are many of the themes found in stereotypical teenage girl movies like Clueless (shocker). In addition, the horoscopes themselves are written for a heterosexual female because the “cutie” who is going to start flirting with you around the 15th is explicitly stated to be a guy. Also, the issues presented in each of the signs are mostly related to “girl” problems. For example, “Ever since your BFF started dating one guy seriously, you’ve been so jealous,” and “You and cutie outside your circle have been texting like crazy, and the messages are getting flirty! But when he doesn’t reply at the start of the month, you’ll begin to doubt your bond.” In the media, girls are presented as more jealous, nit picky, and insecure about dating situations and these horoscopes are re-enforcing those stereotypes. But, can I really complain? The horoscope section is usually the first thing I read when I get a new magazine, so clearly the writers have done something right. The double sword of stereotypes is that even though they are overly simplified, they do hold some value of truth. So, although I am poking fun at my own gender a bit, I do enjoy those movies and fall into the trap of what I am “supposed” to like.
I think there is some truth to horoscopes in the sense that your sign can reveal parts of your personality. But, the ones found online and in magazines have become horribly cliched and manipulated by the media to target a specific demographic (women) and play off of their insecurities. They don’t reveal any personality traits, they just make up vague events that can be interpreted so broadly that many of the horoscopes do come true. For Leo this month, a friend is complaining and by mid-month you are energized to help her. Well, who doesn’t have a friend that complains? Especially in October when midterms are coming up (and remember this magazine is for highschool/college women). And, as a friend, you should support and energize him/her. So, the Leo horoscope is able to apply to just about anyone.
However, not only do horoscopes mediate me, but I also mediate it. There have been times when I’ve manipulated my own life so that it fits with the horoscope given (disclaimer: this was at an earlier and more naive time in my life). So, if my horoscope of the day said, “Be adventurous! The rewards will pay off,” in the next decision I made I would strongly consider taking the adventurous route.
In amNewYork (a free daily newspaper in NYC), the horoscope section includes a "ranking" for each sign that predicts how well/smoothly your day will be. It runs on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being a "perfect" day. In middle school, I was naively obsessed with the numbers that if I received a low number I would feel as if the day was already crummy, while in reality it all depended on perspective.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember if we talked about this in class but this mirrors the reaction of the characters in Philip K. Dick's "The Man In The High Castle". The i Ching mediated the lives of the characters but only because the characters mediated the i Ching. The advice in the i Ching was so vague that the characters could interpret it as whatever they wanted, molding it to their own lives. Through doing so they, ultimately, were the ones to make the decisions, yet they still felt as if the i Ching was deciding their fates. In this way the i Ching mediated them, because they allowed it to possess power over their decisions. In the same way those who read horoscopes mold theirs to their life, yet the horoscope still dictates how they are looking at the situation.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing I'd considered bringing to class on Thursday was Linda Goodman's book of Sun Signs. I actually read it a while back and really enjoyed it. I've always found the idea that the world can be broadly categorized into 12 kinda of people a little hard to digest but I used to be surprised by how true they seemed to be. But like we discussed in class (and Casey brings up a good analogy with The Man in the High Castle), what we tend to do is associate the sun sign description with someone we know and mediate them to fit one another.
ReplyDeleteOne other point I wanted to bring up was that Linda Goodman's book tends to show every trait in positive light. For example, she says,
"Aquarians don't have the best memories in the world, but then they really don't need to memorize much, since they seem to pick up knowledge out of thin air, with some kind of invisible antennae. Why should they clutter their minds with information they may never need, when they can reach out by osmosis and grasp just about anything they want?"
when basically all she's saying is that Aquarians are absent-minded. This is for obvious reasons that every reader will probably read his/her own zodiac sign first and she doesn't want to turn the roughly 1 billion Aquarians off by telling them they're absent-minded. So, even if we choose to believe in the science of astrology and that we can predict personal traits by an individual's sun signs, how we choose to interpret these traits is mediated by Linda Goodman.