I’m glad that I had the chance to re-watch the music videos of both “Formation” and “This is America.” Now that I am more critical of the things I watch, I saw a few arguments or references to events in history that each video makes. For instance, in “Formation,” one argument that Beyoncé makes is that women can be the “breadwinners” of their household and treat their significant other with luxuries- i.e., taking them out to pricey restaurants or allowing them to shop for name-brand clothing items. This argument is in response to how – at least, in America – our gender norms and roles of masculinity and femininity condition us to think that men are generally the “breadwinners” in the relationship who are then expected and responsible for keeping their women happy by giving them money to spend on things they desire. Similarly, in “This is America,” when he shoots the church members singing in the choir, my mind immediately leaped to the 2015 shooting that took place at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In the article that analyzed this specific scene of the music video, I believe that the purpose of that scene was to argue that historically, churches were a sacred and safe place for Black Americans to find shelter in. Now, they have been desecrated and can no longer offer the last veil of protection Black Americans had against the ills of racism and discrimination, especially when the two are present in police brutality.

On another note, I do feel that if both videos were marketed to the larger American society, then some messages will get lost in translation. If not for the articles we had to help unpack what went on in these music videos and my lived experiences of being Black in America, I do not think that I would have gained the insights I mentioned earlier. With this in mind, how can works of pop culture communicate complex messages without most audiences missing the point and just viewing the work as mere entertainment? Even while thinking that most Black Americans will understand the messages in both videos, I recognize that despite my low-income background, I am privileged – to an extent – because I attend an elite university, which has afforded me substantial academic opportunities than my peers back home who attend less elite and underfunded educational institutions. In other words, while I may be in a position to understand the complexities of what happens in both music videos, my peers may not have the academic tools, such as being literate or evaluating complex arguments and their inferences, to deduce their own conclusion of things rather than accepting works of pop culture at face value.

I remembered how much differently I read the yellow wallpaper after discussing the content around it. The first time, I did not really know what to look for or how to approach the writing, but after reading it once I knew what it should’ve been about, i read it so differently. So in approaching today’s work, I wanted to read the evaluations first, to give myself context for the music video. The first thing I thought was interesting was that in her music video “formation” Beyonce and directors made such an obvious point to integrate her specific roots into the video. With Louisiana police cars, references to hurricane Katrina, and other Cajun and Texan references, it definitely set the scene for me to first thing about the deep south. Next, I am glad I read the evaluation first, as it claimed that this music video made a goal of “recentering history around black women”. I think I would have gotten this message even if i had not read the context evaluation before, but i think this had an even greater effect on me because I knew to look for it. Specifically, I found it unique that Beyonce and directors used old white slave time clothing to dress themselves, and create a change from the past, as black women were dressed as white women used to dress in the times of slavery. This video definitely put the focus on the power and authority of the black female, and with or without the context reading, it was very obvious and evident.

The Beyonce video was really cool, I’ve never seen it before. I really liked how it seemed to be set in a time period where white people had a lot of power, but Beyonce flipped the script and had all black people dressed as white people were dressed in that time. It was really cool to see how the video was worked to have black people take back the power in that setting. Ford wrote that Beyonce’s lyrics were a way for her to claim her power, that she has earned her spot among the greats (196). Another really interesting part to me was that Beyonce had a different hair style in every scene which I think is a huge part of black women culture and really cool to see in the video. She didn’t have to do it but she did, and I just thought it was cool to see.

Childish Gambino’s This is America video was one I watched a lot when it first came out. It is one that is hard to look away from. The most intriguing but also kinda scary part was all the kids in school uniforms. It reminds me a lot of all the school shootings across the US and also makes me think of how desensitized society is to all of these school shootings. As Osman says, the school children’s “inattentiveness to the horrors behind them is both appalling and familiar” (40). It is a really scary thought that we just hear about these shootings and just add them to the list, without any real action being taken. This year alone, the US has had 150 mass shootings (Wikipedia) and that number is super high for less than 4 months into the year but it literally felt like just a number when I wrote it down. That’s a really scary thought that personally I am so desensitized to the violence in the US.

Dr. Bezio’s choice to have us watch the music videos for “Formation” by Beyonce and “This is America” by Childish Gambino was a great and necessary one. I personally usually find an affinity with music because of its beat, tune, or mood, instead of the lyrics. Often times I find that the words fade away, making it harder to discern the messages latent within the music unless a piece is listened to many times. The use of a music video allows for another dimension for the viewer to learn and appreciate the messages the piece is pushing. The images tell their own story just as the lyrics and tune do. When taken separately each tells a unique story, but when they are combined the listener/viewer can see the whole picture.

“This is America” is a song I had listened too many times before this assignment. I understood the message of the song that being black oppression and violence towards the African-American community being ingrained in American society. However, watching the music video for the first time caused me to have a greater appreciation of the message. The visual stimulus makes the gun-shot sounds more powerful and Donald Glover’s cheerful, relaxed smile and posture creates a stark contrast to the lyrics and actions depicted. The suddenness of Childish Gambino shooting the guitar player, and later the choir is stunning. Without the visual stimulus, those actions are far less personal simply because we have no idea who is shot when only listening to the song. By putting faces (smiling ones at that) to the sounds of gun fire that inevitably signify tragedy, the listener cannot think of the violence perpetrated against the black community as abstract. Additionally, the calm manor in which Childish Gambino carries out the killings is disturbing. That is obviously the point. His expressions make it seem as if the tragedies are common everyday occurrences that should not surprise. Unfortunately that is the reality we live in right now. While police shootings still surprise the nation when the occur, the surprise and shock is lessened by its repetitiveness. Childish Gambino does a great job at highlighting the complacency that the majority of America has towards solving the issues outlined in his music video. It is now up to the nation to understand that America should not stand for violence and hate.

Reading about both Childish Gambino and Beyonce’s music and then watching the videos was very interesting. I felt that the reading set up what we were about to watch, which I really enjoyed. I honestly am the type of person to like music based on its tune and beat, rather than its words, not to say the words don’t matter at all. The reading about Beyonce told us that her message was that the future of visual art is black. This was something I was able to view in her “Formation” music video. Her video went back and forth between portraying a poor black community and herself in the luxurious life she lives. One lyric that stuck out to me was “you just may be a black Bill Gates in the making” I felt that she was saying that this is where she came from, and their future could look like this too. I also think it’s important that she says “black” Bill Gates. I think this emphasizes that white people are innately like Bill Gates or projected to be successful. At the end she is show laying on a cop car that is drowning and at the very end she is submerged with the car. I think this portrayed that she was protesting against police brutality.

In the reading about Childish Gambino’s we were told that we would see violence against black bodies. The music video takes place in what seems to be a parking garage of some sort. In different parts of the garage are different scenes portraying a black community. The one that stuck out to me most was when it showed the scene with the church choir. They were all smiling while singing and then all of a sudden Childish Gambino shot them all and says “This is America” For me it was very obvious that he was portraying the horrors that happen and protesting against violence.

I really liked today’s podcast about close-reading and how it related to the last podcast about storytelling in popular culture. All throughout high school I was told to closely read my reading assignments but my teachers failed to explain what they actually meant. This podcast put all of that into perspective. Now I understand the importance of close-reading and how it takes all of the little factors of whatever you are reading or watching to understand the overall narrative and messages. Understanding close-reading more clearly helped me understand The Yellow Wallpaper. While I have read it before, this time I was better able to understand the underlying themes that were written between the lines. While at first it simply seems like a woman discussing her life, marriage and illness, it quickly becomes clear the real theme of the story is how women used to be oppressed and treated in society. The author is continuously told what is best for her from her trusted doctor, aka her husband. I think a very important theme that I understood from the reading is the discussion of mental health. I only understood the theme of mental health further after listening to the podcast and how Gilman struggled with postpartum depression. This reading clearly exemplifies how mental health used to be thought about and how it was “treated” by doctors. These messages which used to be the reality of America have continued to influence how mental health is thought about by society. Something that I have learned in my psychology classes is that today the biggest barrier for people wanting to seek help with mental health issues is stigma. The continued relevance that the narrative of The Yellow Wallpaper still has today explains why this story and its messages matters.

As Dr. Bezio mentioned in the podcast, I believe that close reading is one of the fundamental skills that one needs in this world. Entertainment and the messages that come with it are universal, influencing nearly every part of our day whether we are aware of it or not. The ability to analyze the meanings, whether they are overt or hidden, behind the media we consume allows you to form your own opinions about the messages being communicated rather than subconsciously assuming the opinion the author or director wants you to. Put more simply, close reading allows you to see through the BS of something and into the truth behind it, which you can then form your opinion around. I believe that the six steps that Dr. Bezio outlined in the podcast should be taught to all students, maybe in an introductory english class or something similar, to show them the proper way to analyze what they read and watch in their everyday lives. That way, less people would be unknowingly manipulated by the content that they choose to consume.

As for The Yellow Wallpaper, I had previously read it in a high school English class during a unit about short stories. Reading it for the second time, after listening to the podcast and the context it gave, created a very different narrative than the one I had previously read. Knowing none of the context behind the work, I assumed it was simply a horror story about a woman who had been trapped in the attic by her husband, I saw only the fiction and not the truth behind it. However, after reading it again with the context, I see that it is a complex interpretation of how women were historically  treated, especially mentally ill women. It is not only an interesting and engaging story, but also a nuanced feminist commentary. Without the close reading skills and context provided by the podcast, I would have missed this more important meeting hidden behind the story.

My mom is a high school English teacher, so I had heard of The Yellow Wallpaper before in one of our conversations, but I had never actually read it. Being my first time, I actually had to go back and read through the short story a couple of times because the ending was a little confusing. The first time I read it, I was definitely getting lots of undertones of feminist values and the role of women in that time period. Mental illnesses were not taken as seriously as they are now, especially in women. As for the narrator, she obviously had something going on, but her husband and brother were convincing her the entire time that she was actually just having a “moment” and that she would feel better soon. I think this invalidates a lot of the feelings and emotions that she was going through, which only made her condition worse. I especially feel that the husband did a horrible job being there for his spouse. What kind of husband tells their wife to start feeling better for his sake?

By the end of the short story, the narrator was practically obsessed with the yellow wallpaper, and had determined that a woman was stuck behind it. The way the light shone across the wallpaper had given her clues on how the woman moves, and in turn, how to get her out. I thought it was very telling that she ended up turning into a version of the woman in the wall. Her husband’s reaction was also very telling, in that he obviously did not realize the extent of her condition because he was so focused on her improvement to a fault. I think that this piece of literature did a great job acknowledging the hard place women find themselves in when it comes to mental illness, where a lot of our emotions are summed up to exactly that: that we’re just too emotional. It’s a dangerous setup, leading many to find their condition getting worse the more one invalidates their emotions. This is an extreme example of what can happen to a woman.

I think the story The Yellow Wallpaper was a good example of how entertainment always has a lesson or a deeper meaning within it. In The Yellow Wallpaper’s case, the deeper meaning had to do with the oppression of women in seemingly “happy” marriages and, further, the downplaying and repression of mental illnesses in women and especially women who are supposed to be a part of “high society.” Doctors call the narrator “hysterical” and encourage her husband, John, to almost “capture” her within this room with yellow wallpaper. When she takes a disliking to the wallpaper, he refuses to change it or take it down, believing it would be giving in to her wills and worsen her symptoms. Obviously, the narrator needed much more professional care and was suffering from severe depression and possibly OCD and depersonalization.

There’s a significant difference between the narrator and her husband in terms of personality; the narrator (the wife) is much more emotional, feeling, intuitive, and she sees things below the surface. John, the husband, however, is much more practical and closed-minded and can’t interpret the things his wife is interpreting and seeing. There’s such a disconnect here that nothing eventually gets resolved.

I think The Yellow Wallpaper also shows how our narratives and minds can attack themselves, convincing us that we can’t be healed or fixed. And this concept just multiplies as anxiety and depression increase, leading to this constant cycle that, without help, is nearly impossible to escape from. I think this story really showed that descent and what contributes to such a descent, and I think the author did an especially good job of showing it from the perspective of the individual falling into that descent, how helpless they feel when no one around them believes or understands them.

While this podcast was very confusing to me at times, the topic of close reading and symbols/symbolism really spoke to me. I believe that today most people do not utilize close reading in almost every aspect of life. I also believe that people abuse close reading in the sense that they only practice this when interested or when trying to make/prove a point. I think this is extremely dangerous especially with the control that social media has on people. The old saying “don’t believe everything you see and hear,” is often disregarded. People fail to fact-check the outlets in which they receive both significant and insignificant information. A prime example of this is what is happening with COVID vaccine distribution. Over the past year and a half 500k Americans have died from COVID yet people fail to educate themselves about the virus, which has led to the politicization of the virus. With the recent pulling of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine people are freaking out and spreading rumors like wildfire that the J&J vaccine will kill you or even give you COVID. People are failing to utilize close reading. Instead, people are continuing to freak out when in reality the data does not lie. Close reading must be utilized more than it is.

Symbolism is present all throughout life. When I think of symbolism I often think of the emotions that come with different symbols. Symbols bring out emotions that help us understand a moment, location, or action. Symbols can be extremely powerful, especially in the darkest of times. Symbols can also bring out immense fear and hatred. All in all, symbolism can be extremely impactful.