WK 4 Form, Genre, Rhetoric, Doxa, Interpellation, Othering, American dream

Form – the creation and satisfaction of desire. As I understood, what it does is create a certain event which makes us expect something to happen, and, in the end, makes that something happen. For example, in horror movies when everything starts getting darker or when the music tempo becomes faster, we expect a jumpscare or something scary to happen, and it usually does. Another example may be a chapter name with a word unknown to the reader, and the reader finding the meaning of that word in the text below.

Genre - a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content. There are many genres of movies and each one of them has features, scenes and problems we all expect. For instance, in every horror movie we expect certain character tropes such as the “fool”, a character which makes fun of everything, is loud, sometimes annoying, and is there for comedic effect, and he usually dies. Other things we might expect in horror movies are running away from someone or something, tripping and falling, jumpscares, seeing something scary in the mirror, dolls becoming alive, children doing creepy things and so on.
In romantic comedies and teenage movies we usually expect to see “the new girl”, mean cheerleaders, impossible love interests which somehow become possible, love, arguing, tears and a happy end.
The point is that the genres are there to tell us what to expect from a certain movie or book.

Rhetoric – a speech or writing intended to be effective and influence people. Examples of rhetoric can often be found in literature, politics, and advertising for specific emphasis and effect-incorporating a variety of figurative language techniques depending upon the desired result. Political speeches often use rhetoric to evoke emotional responses in the audience. One famous example would be Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. "Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."

Doxa - refers to any constructed aspects of a culture that its members do not significantly challenge or critically reflect upon. These are all the aspect left unquestioned and we look at them as being “common sense”.

Interpellation – a process by which individuals are made to be members of ideology. For example, a man is taught to be the head of the house, strong, persistent, sometimes “cold” and not emotional, even though we know that each and one of us has feelings and a will to express them.

Othering – the process of marginalizing minorities by defining them in relationship to the white majority. This functions as the norm of the natural order. For example, when talking about comedians such as Bill Burr, Zach Galifianakis or Bo Burnham, no one refers to them as “white comedians”, but if the names like Reggie Watts, Terry Crews or Dave Chappelle are mentioned, they are automatically put in the “black comedians” group.

American dream - the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone. The American Dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work, rather than by chance.