American culture and the consumption (patterns) of American youth in television, film, and other entertainment venues
Mommy I want that!" When discussing how American culture 'corrupts' children, the first words to come to mind are usually four letter words, or words pertaining to highly sexualized scenarios. Yet the culture of American capitalist cultural consumption is if anything more omnipresent and equally damaging to American children. It has created a legacy of conspicuous consumption of unnecessary consumer products over the course of the past, present, and future of American television and culture. It is likely to continue to affect the minds of children, creating a generation who believes they are what they buy, rather than what they believe -- "Generation Bling! Bling!" As the generation to come after Generations X and Y are often called. Identity is being reduced to a commodity rather than a real culture of art, literacy, and moral judgment.
Children may still be barred from rated R (for restricted) films without a parent, their parents may install parental controls on their AOL accounts, yet children every day tune into cartoons that function essentially as half-hour long advertisements for plastic products and foods devoid of nutritional content. Great Britain recently banned advertising for, "burgers, crisps, fizzy drinks and even some breakfast cereals" during children's television shows, to forstall the corruption of its youth by advertising that preyed upon young and impressionable minds, stomachs, and palates. The government of Tony Blair answered cries regarding how one could define junk food by asking the British version fo the FDA, the "Food Standards Agency" to create a series of "lists based on sugar, salt and fat content." Thus, "items breaching prescribed limits," were banned during children's programming time.
However, England has a common law rather than a constitutional tradition, and thus no formal First Amendment. In contrast, in one ruling known as United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Incorporated, a law was invalidated that required cable television operators broadcasting channels "primarily dedicated to sexually-oriented programming" to "fully scramble or otherwise fully block" those channels or to limit their transmission to hours when children are unlikely to be viewing, set by administrative regulation as between 10 p.m. And 6 a.m. (Rotunda, 2003) In other words, even though the United States...
American Culture America is the land of contradictions: fast-food restaurants with low-carb menus; prefabricated pizza parlors next to organic juice stands; "Trading Spouses" and "Trading Spaces." With an income disparity as large as most third-world nations, the United States has clearly become a land of contrasts. Nowhere was this contrast as clearly visible as in the last presidential election. Perhaps more than any other in recent history, the 2004 results elucidated
American culture is the result of different social forces mixed together to create something unique: a society which is based on impermanence and change, always looking to the future for something better. There is always something better, something that will help create the perfect society just around the corner, about to hit the market. Because of this view that the future will be better than the present, Americans are rarely
American Culture and the institutionalization of the 'sage' in the American political discourse -- are sages necessary? According to the philosopher Plato, the ideal form of governance was not a raucous democracy, along the lines of the ancient Athenian state or polis. Nor would the ideal form of government take the guise of a modern republic, where popular sentiment was judiciously filtered through the wisdom of elected officials. Instead, under Plato's
American Culture and Values American culture highly regards individuality compared to many other cultures. For this reason, it is more difficult to distinguish the dominant values, beliefs, and traditions of American life, because the lives of Americans differ so much, depending on their race, class and beliefs. Tracy Ore, John Langston Gwaltney and Lillian Rubin each add a unique perspective to the values that dominate our culture. Ore makes an excellent point
Food advertising is even worse, because while a parent might be able to avoid the toy store, in the grocery store he or she is subject to food masquerading as a toy. The only possible resistance is not taking the child shopping, which forces the parent to deprive the child of a parent-bonding experience where he or she could teach the child about budgeting and nutritional food. The AAP study
Any other expression of love is considered to be abnormal and therefore not legally valid. In the past, interracial marriages were illegal because they did not conform to the national standard of legitimate love. Many of the normative behaviors we take for granted were at one time forbidden: such as women being able to vote or own businesses. Although minorities have become more visible in American culture recently, a dominant
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