Sharpe's Gold

This one is an interesting one, with pseudo-Aztecs in Conquistador armour up in the mountains in the middle of the usual wars. It skims very close to being a different genre than the others, more horror than war story, though of course war is full of horrors anyway. I thought about fic to push it that extra bit, add some actual monsters, maybe some aztec gods intervening. But then I thought, it really doesn't need it. Its all just that bit more horrific if the stupid bastards are doing all that just for choosing it.

Of course, I usually avoid human serial killer stories for just that reason.


The only thing I would like to do is give Ellie and her Ma a connection to the Watchers, or something else that would give them skills that would push them being there from 'bloody stupid' to 'plan with remote chance of success'. Basically they went out and got themselves killed, with a last minute reprive from... I was going to say no doing of their own, but shagging the guy who rescued them certainly helps to motivate, so perhaps a bit of traditional womanly skill went into it.


Was a bit sad though, Sharpe falling for her, because it looked more like he was falling for an echo. Liked the parts that were just like his late wife, the shooting and riding around in trousers. Didn't so much see the parts where she was very young and rather a lot like all those officers who buy their way into the war and haven't a clue what they're getting into.


Sharpe is one of those fandoms where slash goggles are barely needed. He likes women best when they're just like soldiers, only with tits. Isn't much of a stretch to figure sometimes the tits aren't a deciding factor.

Laughing now

Haralambos & Holborn "Sociology Themes and Practices" 6th edition p855
Turkle (1988) argues that women 'use their rejection of computers... to assert something about themselves as women ... It is a way to say that it is not appropriate to have a close relationship with a machine.' The computer is a cultural symbol of what a woman is not. In rejecting computers women are rejecting something they see as gender-coded.

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Is sending reviews of textbooks to the publisher likely to be useful? I mean, this book we bought to do our sociology studies with doesn't actually have what we need for this unit in it. They should be told.
Apparently this is the first edition that even had a chapter on the media. (!) They therefore haven't had as much time to get it right yet.
Would telling them where I think they went wrong be... as rude as it sounds? I mean I'm only an Access student. Then again, though I'm only an Access student, I still have knowledge which isn't in the book.

Hmmm.

Sexuality and audience reception

So all the sections are about identifiable groups such as sociology worries about, class gender ethnicity age disability.
Except for sexuality. It seems rather confused what that section should be about. Instead of a group, its about the activity, TV showing lots of sex.

By the logic of other sections, it should talk about hetero and LGBT groups and how the representation is different and how the reception is different.

H&H p856
This section was 100% about people watching people have sex, and none at all about reception of LGBT representation.

Actually, it was about hetero people watching hetero porn.

And how men and women are both aroused when the sex is consensual, but women react differently to depictions of rape.
It doesn't flat out say it, but does that mean the study found men getting turned on by rape? Creepy much?

It starts off about 'age of audience'
because younger viewers have little or no real-life experience of sex and they are more susceptible to influence - they are blank sheets on which the media can write. Older viewers, however, with real-world experience, are thought to be more media-literate, and so receive and interpret messages about sexuality in a more discerning way. Some studies have concluded, for example, that in the absence of other sources of information, 'the sexual lessons young viewers derive from television foster an inaccurate image of sex that can lead to unrealistic expectations, frustration and dissatisfaction' (Gunter, 1995).

Okay, extrapolating back from that, and from previous sections, I attempt to work out what the section *should* be about -
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Why doesn't the book have this stuff actually written down in it? Stupid book. Talking about the wrong thing. Now I'm left to wonder if I'm getting it all wrong, instead of being left more educated.



Also, I'm trying out these theories like they're the structure, and class-gender-ethnicity-whatever are the variables, and I can just plug in a new variable (group) and apply the theory over there instead. But if that were that simple, why would they have different chapters on it all? And I lack research to point at too.

I sulk.

And plan library exploration.

not-actually-class and gender and audience reception

The section about 'class and audience reception' p858 mixes it together with gender. Actually, is mostly about gender. Which is interesting, yes, but not what the subject heading is about!
Really, I keep on getting told off for not sticking to my titles, now the stupid textbook isn't either. Tell off textbook!

Its mostly stuff like saying men watch more sport and science fiction, mostly in an all male context. Women in an all female or on their own context watch weepy romance.

Somebody probably got paid for this research.

They looked at 30 women. 30 seems like a very achievable sample size. But I don't know what they did, if they did a questionnaire or watched them or what.
It surely ought to say, just to be useful! I mean if this is all self report, then what it is finding out isn't video *use*, it is as much about what is *valued*. People might report only what was expected! Need to know the details of the study to know what particular difficulties there might be.

This whole chapter is light on the 'evaluate' thing that the other chapters have. Annoyance!

Anyways, now in my head I'm designing questions to ask about LGBT viewers. Obviously there would need to be more than two categories for gender, for a start. And then we could find out if gay guys also watch sport or SF or weepy romance. With studying.

Somebody surely did that? Somewhere?

It reckons science fiction is male and fantasy is female.
F&SF is all smudged together round the edges, gets shelved together, so how is it figuring that?
Would 'Buffy' be in either category?

I want to poke the data to see how it figures these things. Partly because they seem stupid things to figure. I mean look at all of the people I know who are into Stargate or any Trek or whatever - women everywhere! And, yeah, statistically valid sample issues. So I can't just say they're wrong.
But I can wonder. I suppose I'd have to look up in the bibliography and poke around for the study... Ann Gray (1992) Video Playtime, Routledge, London. So it is a book. There's a 1987 and 1999 one of roughly similar sounding titles too. Interesting.


The bit about class - what its supposed to be about - looks a bit interesting, with conclusions like "The higher the social class, the more concern there was about children using the television and video 'too much' and the more effort was made to control their use. The lower the social class, the more television and video were an accepted (and dominant) part of life and conversation. The higher the social class, the more preference there was for 'classics' and British productions (a perceived sign of quality)."
But the comparison is between professional and skilled non-manual, not the whole spectrum of classes. It don't even divide up like class does in most of the rest of the book. Elsewhere they talk middle vs working. That isn't what they talk about here. Irritation.

It also says "In all classes women tended to give control of the viewing to men", and talks about viewing in the context of family, male+female, or male only or female only. Does that mean it is comparing only 30 nuclear families? The ones with a male and a female and children? But the families chapter said they make up only a quarter of households, iirc. Yup, table 8.7 p495, couple with dependend children, 23%. Studies on nuclear families are therefore studying the minority, even if most people are part of a nuclear family at some time. There was a ton in the section on conjugal roles that pointed out weaknesses in studies. I'm wondering how many of those weaknesses apply to this here video watching study. I'd have to hunt down the book to find out.

This chapter has some very muddled sections, it really does.



Is possible I'm also in a cranky mood.


... er, any of you that don't want to read sociology stuff... sorry...

(no subject)

'Monkey' at the moment has most of the characters turned into babies (bathed in the fountain of youth too long). Is the result cuteness? No, it is getting sold. To a freak show and some cannibals.

I *like* this show.

(no subject)

Thinking about the kinds of things I come on here and whine about in sociology:

To start with, I didn't know what the words meant. Or what the lessons were about. Or much of anything, so I flapped around a lot.

Now I complain the book doesn't have enough in it, and keep on pulling things in from units we did half the year ago and connecting bits together.

I'd say that indicates some actual learning, that does.

Nifty!