WK8 Material culture: Television and Cultural forms

My television-viewing habits have changed a lot over time. When I was younger, my brother and I used to watch cartoons all the time, there were Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob, Pokémon, TMNT and many more. We would watch them together and sometimes with our parents who used to buy us many different DVDs. Whenever there was a new movie, we would watch it together.

When I was around eleven or twelve, I got into anime for a while. I used to watch Naruto, Mermaid Melody, Tokyo Mew Mew, and so on. I would usually watch these by myself or sometimes with my friend.

In my teenage years I started watching the TV by myself. Of course, I was still watching it with my brother, parents or friends sometimes, but I preferred doing it alone. I used to watch the DisneyXD channel all the time and this is where I actually learned a lot of English. There were also channels like VH1 and MTV where I kept in touch with the popular music and music videos.

After this I gradually stopped watching television. I had a TV in my room that would just stay there for no reason at all, until I decided I really don’t need it anymore and put it away. I started watching movies, TV series, anime, cartoons and whatever I wanted online. There are no commercials which last for like half an hour, I don’t have to be in front of the TV at the exact time when the movie is supposed to play, I can pause and rewind it whenever I want to.

But even with the Internet and the hundreds of thousands of movies available at any time, I don’t really seem to watch them often. When I want to watch something, I usually use the torrent sites and download it. Nowadays I rarely watch anything with my family, as everyone has their own plans and it rarely occurs that we all have a free evening when we can get together and watch a movie, so I usually watch it by myself.

Watching television was more of a social activity before than it is now. In the past, the whole family would gather up in front of the TV and watch it together, and today, this happens pretty rarely. Nowadays everyone has their own computer, phone, tablet, and can watch whatever they want whenever they want. I prefer watching things alone, as, when in a group of friends, it is usually hard to find something that everyone wants to watch.

 

MAD MEN

The TV series Mad Men shows how the American society used to be in the 1960s. The old stereotypes of the gender roles are shown; men were superior and the bosses whom women had to listen to, as they depended on them entirely.
A lot of time has passed since the 1960s and a lot of things have changed when it comes to gender roles. Women are no longer treated as a possession and have their rights, like everyone should. But, even today, even after this much time, in some places, women are still fighting for their rights and equality.