Technology Diary – 9/19

Like Caroline, television is one of the technologies in Panem that I use today in the United States. However, I thought it would interesting to explore the issue of “voyeurism” of reality television. The idea of The Hunger Games is that of punishment of the twelve districts for rebelling, serving “as a yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated” (Collins, 18). However, while it serves as punishment for the twenty-four children/young adults that participate every year, whether they die in the Games or suffer from emotional trauma for winning, for the citizens of the Capitol and the people watching in the twelve districts of Panem, The Hunger Games serves as entertainment.

During the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss is extremely aware that there is an audience watching her every move. After being hidden and overhearing the conversation between Peeta and the Career Tributes, she knew that “the minute I hit the ground, I’m guaranteed a close-up” and that the “audience will have been besides themselves, knowing that I was in the tree , that I overheard the Careers talking” (Collins, 163). In addition to being watched constantly, the Gamemakers have the ability to control the fates of the tributes, as they are able to create action when the Games are becoming mundane. For example, Katniss realized that the “unnatural” blaze that surrounded her were “human-made, machine-made, Gamemaker-made” (Collins, 173). Lastly, Katniss understands that the audience loves romance, the idea of the “star-crossed lovers” from District 12 could save their lives when she and Peeta almost consume the poisonous nightlock berries, since she knows that “without a victor, the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers’ faces” (Collins, 344).

The viewing of the Hunger Games is not unlike reality television programming today. Now the audience can watch the every move of the participant (as in the case of Big Brother’s live feed of HouseGuests). Gamemakers and viewers hold the key to a player’s fate (i.e. American Idol, Dancing with the Stars). Americans feed off of drama presented on reality television. According to Psychology Today, “Reality TV allows Americans to fantasize about gaining status through automatic fame.” Similarly, one can say people in Panem fantasize about living in danger through the Hunger Games. This would especially be true for the children who are old enough to get reaped and must prepare for next year in case they are chosen. For the citizens of the Capitol, it may be for similar reasons, except they’ll never be in danger of ever participating in the Hunger Games.

Technology Diary 9/19

*Late post because I changed my topic halfway through…*

The technology I would like to focus on this week is fashion or clothing in general. I admit that clothes are not the first thing that comes to my mind when I use the word, “technology.” It seems to have been with us, humans, since our evolutionary ancestors lost their thick body hair and needed something external for protection. In short, clothing has been with us for a very long time especially if you compare it to computers or smart phones. Not to say that clothing does not include “technological advances:” we can look at the huge range of fabrics that were invented in the last hundred years and the importance and effects of clothing related technologies such as the cotton gin that inevitably crops up in every American history class.

However, you can definitely apply the framework Rosser used in discussing feminism and technology to clothing and fashion. The perspectives about women in the technology workforce can be applied to clothing especially at the manufacturing level. Issues about the workforce that makes clothing are the same as the ones about the workforce that makes our electronics (highly gendered and colored, issues of pay, safety and health…the past garment factory fires this year). The question of technology design in clothing and fashion might seem like the opposite of the issues Rosser raises, but it can be agreed upon that there is a gender skew in both industries and a point of interest would be how women are viewed and treated in the male dominated technological design field and how men are viewed and treated in the female dominated clothing design field. The last part of Rosser’s framework, technology use, probably brings up the most obvious gendered aspects in the technology of clothing and fashion.

I am not dismissing other parts of what de Lauretis calls “representation,” which as a process and product constitutes the construction of gender, such as posture, language, actions, roles, and the other countless things we use to represent gender. However, at least in our society and culture, I feel that clothing is a huge component in this (physical) representation. There is the easy fruit: which gender can wear certain clothing items (suits, pants vs. dresses, skirts) or colors or styles, etc. without being called out in our normalizing society. I also argue that clothing/ fashion framed as technological use is a huge component in The Hunger Games. There is a reason why there is a role of a stylist for the Games and it seems that they receive as much attention as the role of mentors from the tributes as well as the amount of detail Katniss/ Suzanne Collins gives to descriptions of the various outfits in the book. The book also seems to bring up two views toward fashion/ clothing as technological use relevant to our society and culture.

The first view would be that fashion is frivolous. It is obvious that Katniss distains the residents of the Capitol by calling out on their devotion to their clothes, make up, and use of surgery to alter their bodies and preserve the image of youth. It is no surprise that Katniss warms up to and respects Cinna, who is described as being much less flamboyant, when at best she would view the rest of the prep team as “an affectionate trio of pets at the end of a particularly difficult day” (Collins, 2008, p. 253). Attuned with our class’s discussion, class is a huge cause of this view: residents of Districts like District 12 have to worry about getting enough food for the day, not which outfit to wear that day. However, the view that fashion is frivolous seems tied to gendered views found in our own society and culture. Katniss overhears one of the Careers complaining, “[Katniss] seemed pretty simpleminded to me. Every time I think about her spinning around in that dress, I want to puke” (Collins, 2008, p. 162). This statement has similar connotations about fashion/ attention to clothing (especially by a female) to the ones brought up in our society such as being a simpleton, materialistic, and unimportant. There is also a tie to the view that females are inherently more interested in fashion, clothing, and appearances even though all sexes and genders use this technology. This is probably also connected to the generalization that almost anything where women supposedly dominate is cast off as less important, serious, etc.

The other view present in The Hunger Games can be seen as the flip side: fashion is political, especially as a tool. Despite, Katniss’s distaste for the seemingly frivolous prep concerning her apperance for the pre-Games ceremonies, she takes Haymitch’s advice to let the stylists do whatever they want to heart. She admits that Cinna’s design choices results in “a very calculated look” and “nothing Cinna designs is arbitrary” (Collins, 2008, p. 355). It is obvious that fashion/ clothing is an important strategy of survival especially for tributes that are disadvantaged from lack of training with weapons and physical strength. The flaming outfits for Katniss and Peeta in the Opening ceremonies were meant to be eye catching to rally up interest in the audience that will lead to sponsors. The fact that the stylists for Katniss and Peeta decided that all the outfits worn by them (even in their “downtime”) should match or complement each other was meant to promote the two as a pair, a deviance from the all for one mentality of the Games and later as visual backing of them as lovers. This theme seems to continue in the rest of the trilogy (spoilers courtesy of Wikipedia) as fashion/ clothing becomes a point of resistance beyond the Hunger Games.

A side note (as if this post is not long enough, sorry), I mentioned in the forum that I never read the trilogy before this course or even watched the movie, but it is hard to not miss the promotion for the upcoming movie, Catching Fire. To me there seems to be slant towards promoting the trilogy through high fashion/ costumes and some quick googling revealed that a fashion line tied to the movie is being launched. I wonder if this tie-in/ marketing technique (introduction of capitalism and consumerism into this conversation) plays down the political and resistance themes of the trilogy and throws fashion/ clothing as technology into the frivolous category.

Technology Diary 1

One thing that has really caught my attention lately are computers and being able to use a computer and deal with software etc. There seems to be this assumption that girls aren’t as good as guys when it comes to using computers and fixing problems related to it. I remember when I went on vacation with my friends to California and we encountered flight issues due to the plane having mechanical problems. Because of this we had to go to customer service and request for a flight change. While we were waiting online my friend noticed that all the employees were female and automatically said, this is going to take forever, cause they’re all woman so they probably won’t be able to fix our problem as fast. Honestly I was offended at the moment, and was shocked by his assumptions. Due to this we got into a heated debate and then when we finally got to the counter, one of the woman had issues with the computer and needed another women to help her fix it. My friend was quick to point it out to me how she as a woman made a mistake but paid no attention to the fact that it has been another woman to fix the issue.

The computer software industry is definitely dominated by men even today, but it has somehow turned into a women are incompetent with computers situation. Even my brother automatically assumes that if there’s an issue with the computer then the issue must be with me and my inability to use it correctly. In my household it seems as if when I fix something with the computer, I was probably lucky but on the other hand my brother is known as the computer pro. It makes me wonder if other females are put down in terms of their technological capabilities by guys, even guys that they are close with.

But it also makes me wonder if this problem is caused by us and the way society is. I for one am guilty of asking my guy friends on more than one occasion to fix technological issues even when I’m fully capable of figuring out how to fix it myself, and have female friends who are just as capable of helping me out. From what I’ve seen it’s quite common for girls to ask guys to help them out with this kind of stuff but very rare the other way around. So it makes me wonder if I myself have built this generalization.

Technology Diary (9/12)

I also wanted to discuss some of the issues that riddle the video gamer subculture like Pranitha. Being a woman and being accepted in the geek culture is like a Catch 22. You’re one of two tropes; you’re either good-looking and seeking male attention or you’re unattractive and completely shamed for not looking like a comic book heroine. Either way, you’re not a true fan. The subculture is just so blatantly and unapologetically sexist in the way that women are hostilely interrogated to prove their knowledge of a fandom. Why can’t women be accepted as fans instead of having to prove it? Men are automatically assumed to be genuinely interested and accepted.

This issue is also rooted in how gendered the gaming industry is and has always been. From a young age, toy retailers advertise video games heavily as a masculine hobby. The outrageous violence and themes of war and car chases and explosions are deemed “masculine” things than make boys into men. Mostly all the women portrayed in video games are scantily clothed and used as sex objects. In Grand Theft Auto, a player gets points for raping a woman on the street! Not only does this tell young boys that it’s okay to dehumanize women and they’ll be rewarded for it, but it also speaks to the kind of power and hyper-masculinity that characterizes the male gender.

Fans are not the only ones that suffer from sexism in this subculture; designers face a sexist industry as well. Jean-Max Morris, video game developer, faced this problem when he tried to get a company to sell his game, Remember Me. Remember Me is a video game with a strong female protagonist dressed appropriately for her missions as she tries to regain her lost memories by hacking others’ and remixing them. His game was rejected on the premise that having a female protagonist wouldn’t sell and that Nilin, the main character, would have to be gendered as a male. The reasoning that men are the only ones who should be playing video games, and these men only want to play as other men completely ignore and reject all the female gamers. Not surprisingly, women are not properly represented in this industry simply because games targeting them are already considered dead on arrival when really they’re not even given the chance to be funded and released.

It speaks volumes how an 18-25 male market is considered the prime target audience when an all women market is still considered niche.

If you’re a female gamer or just want to watch a funny girl’s spin on the sexist industry, I recommend this!