i'm gonna wash that soap right outta my life...

soap operas.

i can admit that i have been an infrequent watcher of "the young and the restless," and for many, many years have wondered why. why do i enjoy the drama? why am i, at times, on the verge of what feels like an addiction? my soap habit is tempered by the fact that i am rarely home at 4:00 to watch it, and that i can't be bothered to PVR it. it could also be that i know that i'll be able to pick up where i left off on my next viewing, even if it's not for another year.

i know why. this type of story is geared to those are looking for the eternal dialogue, and are willing to overlook the lack of resolution to the story. it's why it's not strange that nick and phyllis will most likely break up, and that he may go back to his ex-wife sharon, with whom he shares an uncomfortable amount of sexual tension...why it's not strange that victor has been married to nikki at least 3 times, and ashley twice....why separated children always seem to find their way to their real parents...and why, despite all of the horrible things that people continue to do to each other, i shamefully continue to watch.

what do i know now? i know that there is never going to be a resolution. they are not going to fill in the blanks, or give me that "happily-ever-after" outcome that my romantic heart yearns for. they will keep dragging me long for the next half century, while the adults never age, the children age 10 years overnight, and days in genoa city seem to last entire weeks on the show. i know that i want the eternal dialogue, and can overlook the lack of resolution.

as jaigris pointed out this week, soap operas provide "endless disruptions in plot lines provide characters with opportunity for focus on dialogue and relationship, as opposed to action." i need to drill down on this one a little bit...

in thinking about it, do you see any hint of the pattern of "real" life in that reflection?

i do.

if i think about it enough, and strip away the moral issues, adultery, greed, and selfishness, the plotline of a soap opera is not dissimilar to my life. i'm hardly a great example of daily adventure, and i do seem to be more focused on dialogue and relationship, than on action. as much as i wish my life was as exciting as "24," it seems like soaps are more like my life...occasional drama, sprinkled with an occasional joyous event. there are happy times and sad, but most of all, it's about people. and most of the plotlines of my life are still unresolved...i could go on for pages about my life's drama, but in the end, it all comes down to relationship and dialogue, too. or lack thereof.

my consciousness is peaked, and i'm sensing that it's time to let go of the soaps - not because i'm worried about what damage i will incur from it's observation, but because i wonder...what is the point of watching something that's not much different than my real life on a theoretical level? and if i'm basically living a tamed-down version of a soap opera anyways, why don't i go out and actually live it, instead of watching it?

a little psycho...

it is fascinating to read Sigmund Freud's work firsthand. to see his words and to wonder about his thoughts as he wrote them. the ideas of the unconscious, ego, and psychoanalysis are so commonly used that one tends to forget that about a century ago, they were unknown.

i enjoyed reading about the dream-work. understanding what lies beneath the surface of my dreams has caused me many a moment of wonder this week. like...why did i dream that i was trying to ride uphill on my bike while barely moving my legs? i'm guessing it's my subconscious wish that riding bikes uphill would be easier! or...why did i dream that one of our new paramedics was tending to my broken arm? i'm guessing that one is foreshadowing the likelihood of more broken bones (i'm a bit klutzy!), and that jamey was the last person i saw as i left work that day.

so what does it all mean?

a lot more goes on in our subconscious than i ever realized! i can see how subliminal advertising could work (in theory), and why the public outrage was so extreme when Vicary's "study" was released. surely mind control is something that is just in fiction? i do have my doubts our ability to be truly manipulated, unless we have completely closed our minds. to use freud's ideas, i think that the superego is patrolling our sub-conscious mind, looking for opportunities to defend our boundaries. i think of that being similar to the conscience, or as i think in my spiritual life, the Holy Spirit, and the way that we are guarded by that inner voice saying that something is amiss.

this week, now that i have been on the alert for subliminal messages entering my brain, i have noticed a lot of product placement in tv shows. i don't know when the last time was that i watched a show that didn't feature a prominent display of a label, such as GMC or Pepsi.

it made me think - i suppose that product placement isn't subliminal because my conscious mind is processing what I am seeing? or is it, because i'm seeing it as a part of a bigger picture that i am trying to put together? i think not, because in the end, they're not telling me to buy a GMC directly, they are using the power of suggestion to cause me to think about GMC in general, while I am enjoying my show.

either way i slice it, i don't feel subliminally manipulated, though, because seeing a thousand Pepsi ads doesn't make me like it more than Coke, and i wouldn't trade my BMW for all of the GMC vehicles on TV!

just in case i thought i could somehow escape being trapped by branding... ;)

this week's readings are TOUGH! i spent a good part of my reading time confused. am i smart enough to get my degree when i can't read my text book? it doesn't seem like i can make heads or tails of sentences like, "In order to grasp what follows, it is essential to realize that both he who is writing these lines and the reader who reads them are themselves subjects, and therefore ideological subjects (a tauntological proposition), i.e. that the author and the reader of these lines both live 'spontaneously or 'naturally' in ideology in the sense in which I have said that 'man is an ideological animal by nature.' (Althusser, 2009, p. 309)

so, in my very feeble attempt to understand what this sentence means, i have tried to translate.

"To understand everything else that follows, it is important to recognize that both writer and reader are subjects of a "systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture" (Merriam Webster), where both live nauturally as ideological beings.

now, with all that work for one sentence of one reading, how on earth will i wrap my mind around codes, and sign-signifier-signified-referent?

i'm scared.

but one thing i have decided - i don't really care if jean baudrillard is correct and we are living in a world that is hyperreal. honestly, it's the only world i know, and deep inside, i feel comfortable with that.

my world, whether real or not, involves the pain and emotion of experience. as much as it hurts, it does feel real. like this young man who is now experiencing not only physical pain from his injuries, but will also experience the emotional trauma of missing his family members, and the haunting memory of being the only survivor in a major disaster. my heart breaks for him, and i would only wish that if this world is, in fact, hyperreal, there would be some way to spare him some of this pain.

do we live in the matrix?

i'm pretty sure i don't...but then again, can i really be sure of anything, if i believe jean baudrillard?

aaah! this one is twisting my mind around like cotton candy on a stick!

what happened to the war on terror?

well, apparently, it's alive and well. last week, i was very surprised to see the war on terror represented by a woman in a burqa on cnn. in fact, the term can hardly be considered "surprise." mortification, disappointment, outrage. i suppose those words describe my feelings a little more accurately.

now, in light of our recent readings about the media being in a position to tell me what to think about, rather than necessarily what to think, i chose to do just that. i want to think about this issue. i don't want to forget the fact that while i sit so comfortably in my relative peace and freedom, she might not have either. she might go to sleep tonight wondering if she will wake up in the morning, or what the impact of all of the violence around her will have on her children. she might wish that she could attend a university program at royal roads. she might wish to be loved.

or she might smile. and under her burqa, she might feel joy. she might hug her child or kiss her husband. she might feel contentment. she might see beauty in the warmth of the sunrise.

she is not a terrorist.

WHY did cnn choose to use an image of a woman in a burqa to represent terrorism and all of the horrible things that go along with it? WHY did they visually assign blame to a woman who likely had nothing to do with times square, or car bombs, or radical ideology? WHY did they associate an unrelated facet of afghani culture with terrorist plots and hatred towards americans? WHAT does this mean for our society? HOW did that image make it through the 5 filters of propaganda to make it to my tv? WHEN will our culture stop profiling and villifying all middle-easterners as terrorists?

does this have a shade of 1930s nazi germany? do images of middle-easterners with text suggesting that they have terrorist connections create a subtle fear in the north american populace, and create justification for our own hatred? i refuse to believe that others are the cause of all of my problems.

i decided that, this week, i'm going to expect the media to use propaganda for peace, and i'm going to find an example of it. there must be some, right, edward bernays? i hope you're right.