Simone
Is television influential enough to shape how people behave?
Cara
Does consumerism kill creativity?
Danielle
Do you think TV reinforces inequality instead of providing companionship and entertainment for women? Do you believe that it is detrimental rather than beneficial?
Zach
Mankekar states that "the women I worked with were able to critique televisual discourses at the same time they intimately engaged with them." As American's do we also perform this idea? Do we watch and critique television, but still consume it at a high rate?
Collin
"... we learn about life from the emotions that television's discourses arouse in us." Is this view commonly shared by those who frequently watch television (outside of the novel)?
Chris
"Television created a site where relations of inequality were crystallized and reinscribed" (52). Do you observe this in your own household, residence hall, or in American society? How is the dynamic similar or different?
Meredith
How does femininity play a role in the racial, religious, and socioeconomic understandings of culture in India? In other words, do you always "notice" gender when reading Mankekar's text?
Brandon
Do you think India views TV as more of an instructional and learning resource compared to the United States where it is somewhat recreational in that people watch the most mindless and dumbest things?
Margaret
Mankekar writes that television is able to connect everyday life with politics by "constructing 'an image of the unified nation, built around the experiences that we are all assumed to share, as members of families.'" Is this construct on the same normative level of gender?
Laquan
How does television aid in the relationship between popular culture and subversiveness?
Greg
It is apparent that the influence of the television in India has a large role in the structure of a family; however, is it also possible that this influence can lead to subversive behaviors that could also re-shape families in a way that creates tension among members?
Beth
is popular culture, specifically television, always created to increase hegemonic ideologies of the dominant social class? can it ever enable social mobility?
Suzanne
Does television's aptitude for generalizing culture, like it's depiction of Southern Indians vs. Northern Indians, cause further divides between the two or is it simply easier for viewers to understand whats going on or where a character is from? Should the matter be considered a serious issue that is strengthening stereotypes or just media exaggeration?
Kristyn
Mankekar is obviously very intelligent. Do you think other common citizens realize the social power and influence that Tamas has?
Cara
What does it mean to create a "feminist ethnography"? What makes a "feminist" approach different?
Lauren
What makes viewing an interpretation of a movie or another piece of art more popular or interesting than the actual piece of art?
Allison P.
In Be Kind Rewind, Jerry and Mike created "Sweded" movies to replace the lost originals. These movies soon become more popular than the originals and develop a sort of cult following. What does this say about pop culture and the constant replacing of old with new?
Suzanne
Can communities really come together or make a change with the influence and help of film or television media like they do in the movie?
Matt
In the movie, they construct a fictional history of Fats Waller in the neighborhood, which serves to bring them together. Does the fictitious nature hurt the solidarity of the group, since its based on a lie, or strengthen it, as the had to work together to create the history?
Ivan
Were the videos that were being put out part of a developing counter-culture, or since they used real movies as their models, does that make them part of pop culture?
Beth
Is what we can remember and recreate all that is important in popular culture? Can popular culture really be condensed to twenty minutes?