Adorno was critical of radio as a medium as it led to the commodification and standardisation of music that was supposed to be a form of high culture to him. The advent of radio thus resulted in undesirable effects on both music and consumers as the commodified music will no longer be able to stimulate the human minds, hence allowing for the dulling and manipulation of the masses.
To Adorno, the unidirectionality of radio denies listeners any agency and choice. This view is contentious as the masses do have the choice to either tune to other radio stations or choose not to listen to radio entirely. This is especially true today. With the advent of the Internet, we have more choices, ranging from online radio stations to other music players such as Spotify. His fear of music being commodified and standardized is also not entirely applicable as there are websites such as streetvoice.com where users can upload their own music creations.
Edwin Lee Xian Ming
Adorno argues that the accessibility of great music afforded to the masses via the creation of the radio would cause said music to lose what Walter Benjamin terms as their “essence or aura”, and would therefore cease to be “great” music.
While respecting his opinion on the loss of essence due to the massification of music in the era of the radio, I have to disagree with regards to the implicit loss of status of the music. In next week’s article, Raymond Williams postulates that technology is often a reflection of society’s needs. The radio was designed to fulfil a social need in its era – families wanted durable goods that would enable them to experience the world and rest after work. I would argue that the net benefit brought about by the massification of good music outweighed whatever loss of essence it experienced.
Elix Lee
For Adorno, there is this dilemma of having the radio bring good music to the masses, which will make the good music massified, and thus, not good music anymore. In this sense, good music loses its essence/aura (cf Benjamin). Nonetheless, do the masses have a choice? When we tune in to the radio, we do not have a choice over the music they play. Adorno is critical of this convenience that radio brings to us.
For Doane, time is the main content of cinema. Cinema puts in sequence various stills/frames and transcends time by fixing it. Cinema allows for immunability as the images once captured, never dies (similar to photography). Cinema is about representation of time – the way which time is constituted.
Mulvey talks about the male gaze as the woman is made the bearer of meaning, not the maker of meaning. Her existence is always attached to the male figure. The notion of taking others as objects and subjecting them to a controlling gaze is very guilty of the production of a male gaze. the male protagonist functions for the spectator as the screen surrogate. The male gaze is an effect of the structure of cinema and of being a spectator (not a biological effect: because one is male and therefore has the male gaze).
Kelyn Phua
Ardorno argues that radio music is standardized and produces pseudo-individualism. I agree with this because the radio often plays songs that are known as ‘popular’. The station determines what you listen. Even if you don’t like the song, you can’t press skip. After listening to it repeatedly on the radio, you may grow to like it. Of course this probably holds more truth back then when they didn’t have iPods. In today’s context, one will be more inclined to listen to the YouTube MV with more views. To a certain extent, we still are attracted to what’s ‘popular’ (therefore we dont really choose, but are inclined to choose what others choose).
What struck me the most about Adorno’s article was the part where it says radio music has ‘a soporific effect upon social consciousness’. This reminds me of Marx and how people are in ‘false consciousness’ I agree that music is has become more like a commodity. It is standardized, mass produced, and sold for profit (albums, repackaged version of albums, concerts). Emphasis is placed less on music, but the overall package. This can be seen in Korean popular music where people not only focus on music, but the whole appearance (dance, looks etc). People begin to like the music because of the artiste (I wouldn’t really call them musicians) and this allows for more profit-making opportunities like producing movies like the Justin Bieber or Jonas Brothers movie. Corporations make use of fan culture to bring in higher profits.
Apart from cinema, Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ can be examined through other forms of media. By taking selfies, females are constant reproducers of the ‘male gaze’. They find pleasure in being objects of desire, subjects of a controlling and curious gaze. But females too, find pleasure in looking. Who do you think young men are taking selfies/pictures of their muscles for? From viewing characters in films as objects, men and women alike evaluate themselves as objects from the point of an outsider. This is no longer only the work of the directors of film, but of the individual. Humans, instead of identifying with a character in a movie to possess a woman, can satisfy the wish for pleasure looking almost anywhere now (advertisements, internet, social media).
Bryan Chia Yong Siang
In this world where everything can be commodified: from the mass produced products we use in our daily lives, such as the electronic devices which we are using now to read this; to even the medicine manufactured for our complex biological system to enhance our living experience, Capitalism has been deeply entrenched in our lives.
Radio, the once bulky rectangular-shaped instrument, has gradually reduced its size over the years. Today, a physical radio instrument can rarely be spotted as it has now become a program – one which has integrated into other instruments such as our car and handphones. The radio can be considered one of the greatest inventions of all as it brought music into everyone – where music in Adorno’s argument was a privilege for the minorities who know how to appreciate them.
Adorno argued that music is being commodified as it is being mass produced through the radio. I would actually link this to Benjamin’s notion of aura – where Art itself does not just serve as an appeasement to the eye. Instead, it also unveils historical values embedded within the art. Likewise for music, it is not the sound produced by the mechanical system inside the radio which allows for true music appreciation but perhaps, it’s the sound produced by the musical instruments which allows for the appreciation.
People in the preceding generations are claiming that music in the recent years is no longer as good as it was in the past. Many of the pop songs have lost a sense of sentimentality – where lyrics were once romanticized and musical instruments were still used to produce the music. Let us reflect upon music nowadays. Taking the K-pop wave as an example, many of the performances were lip-synced – where the artists do not really sing but just simulate the mouth as if they were. On top of that, we would also realise many of their voices are different when they sing live on stage. One of possible justification could be the use of a technology called auto-tune – a program which modifies the original vocal of the artists. Such technology would empower anyone who aspires to be a music artist to create their own “music” and further commodify music.
The process of commodification would not only be true for music, but for films as well. The producers aim to produce films which are profitable for them. The “male gaze” which was mentioned in Mulvey’s reading was not exactly intriguing for me. My primary justification for the presence erotic females to be in films would be, to target the larger male markets, where the males were the pillar of financial resources back then, and such incorporation would entice them to watch it. It is the profit which the producers are interested in after all.
Koh Hui Yi
In Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Mulvey talks about how woman have their functions to play in the cinema. Woman onscreen plays a passive role and this influences the male’s voyeuristic gaze towards them in the film. Mulvey stresses on the symbolic meaning of the women with the first linked to the “castration threat” and the second to the “a child into the symbolic”. Woman are the images that man fantasies on and obsesses on as they watch the film. This is reflective of the patriarchal system in place at that time where men dominates the system and women remain submissive to men. In fact, the structure of this gender relation in the film is reflective of that of the past patriarchal society. Yet, this is continuing in our postmodern society. We see US shows like gossip girls, American pie, advertisements all around us that focused on phallocentrism. Many US shows are also centered on males who are ordinary, nerds, geeks who aim to get “hot girls” which are way out of their leagues. This is reflective of what Mulvey calls as male erotic ego. Women are dressed sexily, scantily to attract male audiences and to provide them with such erotic pleasure. In this sense, women are viewed to be objects and dehumanized.
Brandon Lye
I feel that in this week’s reading, Adorno makes a great point with his idea that radio music has led to the decline of music as an art form. There are many instances and signs that music is increasingly being commoditized. Adorno’s writing was done in the 1940s however, and I would like to use his viewpoint to analyze contemporary society.
Today, there are many more platforms for listening to music, such as spotify, bandcamp, youtube etc. Adorno mentioned that listeners back then have the illusion of choice of what music they want to be listening to. In contemporary society, I would argue that this is not an illusion, that listeners do have many choices. The problem here then, is that there are far too many choices. Independent artists and musicians are throwing up releases onto bandcamp and youtube everyday, and there is simply an overwhelming flow of information.
Because of this problem of overchoice then, music with institutional support and backing would still likely be the ones that finds its way to listeners’ ears. Some of these artists may actually make great, brilliant music, but it would take a lot of trouble to actually sift through all the bull-crap to find something that you really like. But at least there are greater avenues now for independent musicians to let their voices and talent be heard.
Ng Shi Yao
The question Adorno puts forth is a valuable one, “how can good music be conveyed to the largest possible audience?” However, what he is failing to recognize is the subjectivity of art. HE cites Beethoven and other famous composers as epitome of art in its true form- with ‘aura’. However, these examples are one-dimensional and do not present art in her variety of forms and genres.
Inarguably, listening habits are standardized through song plugging, a practice which broke down all remnants of spontaneity. Standardization resulted in a regression in quality of hearing, such that the listener was docile and afraid of anything new. He critiqued the specific kind of mass culture produced under monopoly capitalism, that it led to the degradation of serious art in its true form through the rise of popular culture and mass production.
I do agree with Adorno in his assertion that popular music functions as a commodity. The popular songs of current billboards represent a lack of commonality and originality. It is merely a product of profit-driven capitalists who directs the song in a particular way, in which they deem fit for the top of the charts.
However, I do not fully agree with his view that the radio is a standardized production of the field and listeners have no choice but to listen, when the songs are played on the radio. He talks about the illusion of free choice which listeners have, when in fact individualism is seemingly absent. In the radio and music industry, listeners do have a choice to decide what they want to listen to. For example, classical music lovers would have the option of tuning in to a classical radio station. Even though music has been commoditized and evolved from classical tunes to the auto-tuned ones today, it has allowed music to be available to all. Specifically, classical music which was previously only made available to the rich aristocrats and upper-class.
Tiara Robyn Chew
According to Adorno in “A Social Critique of Radio Music”, music in modern, technologised society has become standardised and commoditised. What used to be a marker of privilege and elitism has now become accessible to nearly everyone, with its wide availability across the radio and several other online applications and websites. For instance, you no longer need to have a radio, as in the machine in order to listen to music, you could access radio channels in cars, on mobile phones, on the websites of radio stations. now constant repetition on the radio has cheapened the experience of listening to music. Additionally, on top of the radio, there are also websites like youtube, to access music on demand, as well as free applications like Spotify. With which listeners can even customise playlists of their favourite songs. Thus this much wider accessibility has ‘cheapened’ the experience of listening to music. Adorno also mentioned the radio’s ‘power’ in shaping thoughts and ideas about what is popular, through repetition of music and musical listings, which is very much relevant today considering musical listings are common and widespread on the internet (Billboard, Pop Music Charts etc). Furthermore, Awards shows like the Annual Grammys serve to reinforce these notions of what is popular in the music industry. The issue of the masses being passive consumers is debatable, although the fact that there are many songs in existence that share ‘same chords’ and are being reproduced widely through covers, mashups and the like all over the internet, seems to show the passivity of listeners, in accepting what appears to be new and unique music but is really common and repetitive (For example, Norwegian Recycling, covering a mashup of ‘I’m Yours’, ‘Collide’, “Superman”, “Always Getting Over You”, “All That I Need” and “Here Without You” in How Six Songs Collide.)
#MUHAMMAD FAISAL BIN ZAINAL ABIDEN#
Adorno believes that the commercialisation of music would lead to passive listeners. Music would be apart of mass culture where it would dumbed-down to the common denominator for the consumption of everyone. It would be repetitive and standardised. The days of classical music, where the music had any artistic value, were long gone.
I would say that Adorno’s statements were unfair as there are some music today that are critiques of social reality. Anti-establishment band ‘Anti-Flag’ write songs on American hegemony, the evils of capitalism and repressive governments. Even the King of Pop Michael Jackson has written some meaningful songs. Among them are ‘Black and White’ where he gives a positive outlook on society’s rejection of capitalism and ‘Man in the Mirror’, a song a song with a great life message – ‘change yourself and the world will look a better place’. Many songs also reflect the society we live in today. ‘Changes’ by Tupac, one of my favourite songs, has a somewhat prophetic verse where he says ‘Although it seems heaven sent, we ain’t ready for a black president’. 10 years after the song came out, the US did have a black president. But as Tupac said in his song, ‘Some things will never change’, referring to the hidden and structural racism still in place in the world today.
Melissa Koh
Upon examination of Laura Mulvey’s “male gaze”, it has led me to reflect upon the existence of the “female gaze”. We are definitely still living in a patriarchal society, but I believe that in this modern age, there are attempts at women empowerment. One such attempt might be the emergence of the “female gaze”, where the audience places oneself in the shoes of a woman and view things through a woman’s perspective. In films, it might be done in an attempt to connect with a female audience. An example in modern films might be the emphasis of a man’s physique that would more or less appeal to women; superheroes such as Captain America and Spiderman in film wearing skin tight suits. There is also the increase of shirtless scenes in many films, with the cameras often lingering on a man’s abs or toned muscles for a substantial amount of time, much like how in the “male gaze”, the camera focuses on a woman’s legs or bosom. Some examples include how the character Jacob in the Twilight films spend more than half the film running around half naked, as do many of the male characters in Magic Mike. However, this idea of the female gaze may be nothing more than an attempt to tap onto the female audience for profit, and not for the empowerment of women.
Poh Yang Ann
Adorno, in A Social Critique of Radio Music, is very critical of the way radio and music has been studied. He stresses that in order to understand radio and its problems, we have to take into account the social conditions and structures of the society. To begin with, Adorno postulates that music has been commoditized. Music, in order words, is profit-oriented. This relates to the second premise that there is a tendency of a monopolized production of standardized goods. Then, there is a further tendency that the unbalance of power between producers (and distributors) and consumers and within the producers (and distributors) would be self-propagating e.g. through ideological means. Lastly, Adorno speaks of the inherent potentials of radio as musical reproduction that have been misplaced through its passivity. The abovementioned dovetails to the idea that, unconsciously, the consumers of radio music are placed in a repression position in relations to the larger broadcasting networks. Adorno goes further to argue that consumers are under the illusion that they are presented with choices of music. Consumers do not realize that the choices available are ultimately the dictates of the corporations and institutions (that are beyond their reach least control). To be clear, the principle of mass production hence standardization limit the otherwise richness of variation. A system whereby alternatives are constraint is not sustainable. It is in this instance that Adorno highlights the importance of the illusion of choice: “The less the listener has to choose, the more is he made to believe that he has a choice” (p.234).
Doane, unlike Adorno who focuses on radio, buttress her argument on cinema and capturing devices. She makes a linkage between cinema, time and modernity. She argues that cinema embodies the way time has been rationalized in modernity. Time, as she explains, is valued insofar as it can be quantified and measured. She traces the history and claims that the popularization of pocket watches, standardization of time, scientific management of time (Taylorism) were aimed at making time homogeneous, linear and visible. However, the tendency of rationalization is accompanied by the antagonistic tendency of contingency – both of which are structurally indispensable ideologies of capitalistic modernization. It is in this light that cinema draws its significance – ‘to perfectly represent the contingent, to provide the pure record of time” (p.22). The cinema – the technologies and the products – makes possible the archivability of time and of presence.
Mulvey discerns how cinema embodies and propagates the dominant ideologies or the society. Females, as she argues, are in a patriarchal society, a signifier for the males and as a “bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning” (p.58). The dynamics of the cinema is structurally reflective of the way the hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The cinema offers two forms of pleasures: scopophilia (pleasure in gazing at others or simply voyeurism) and narcissism (pleasure in viewing oneself). From these two forms of pleasure comes the construction of the male as active and female as passive entity. Women are, in other words, portrayed as a sexual object to be displayed, exhibited and looked at. The result is that in cinema and in the show projected on the screen, the males are in direct scopophilic contact with the females and by identification with the male lead actor, they can indirectly possess the females. This works to deepen the sexual discrimination and imbalance in the society.
Adorno was critical of radio as a medium as it led to the commodification and standardisation of music that was supposed to be a form of high culture to him. The advent of radio thus resulted in undesirable effects on both music and consumers as the commodified music will no longer be able to stimulate the human minds, hence allowing for the dulling and manipulation of the masses.
To Adorno, the unidirectionality of radio denies listeners any agency and choice. This view is contentious as the masses do have the choice to either tune to other radio stations or choose not to listen to radio entirely. This is especially true today. With the advent of the Internet, we have more choices, ranging from online radio stations to other music players such as Spotify. His fear of music being commodified and standardized is also not entirely applicable as there are websites such as streetvoice.com where users can upload their own music creations.
Adorno argues that the accessibility of great music afforded to the masses via the creation of the radio would cause said music to lose what Walter Benjamin terms as their “essence or aura”, and would therefore cease to be “great” music.
While respecting his opinion on the loss of essence due to the massification of music in the era of the radio, I have to disagree with regards to the implicit loss of status of the music. In next week’s article, Raymond Williams postulates that technology is often a reflection of society’s needs. The radio was designed to fulfil a social need in its era – families wanted durable goods that would enable them to experience the world and rest after work. I would argue that the net benefit brought about by the massification of good music outweighed whatever loss of essence it experienced.
For Adorno, there is this dilemma of having the radio bring good music to the masses, which will make the good music massified, and thus, not good music anymore. In this sense, good music loses its essence/aura (cf Benjamin). Nonetheless, do the masses have a choice? When we tune in to the radio, we do not have a choice over the music they play. Adorno is critical of this convenience that radio brings to us.
For Doane, time is the main content of cinema. Cinema puts in sequence various stills/frames and transcends time by fixing it. Cinema allows for immunability as the images once captured, never dies (similar to photography). Cinema is about representation of time – the way which time is constituted.
Mulvey talks about the male gaze as the woman is made the bearer of meaning, not the maker of meaning. Her existence is always attached to the male figure. The notion of taking others as objects and subjecting them to a controlling gaze is very guilty of the production of a male gaze. the male protagonist functions for the spectator as the screen surrogate. The male gaze is an effect of the structure of cinema and of being a spectator (not a biological effect: because one is male and therefore has the male gaze).
Ardorno argues that radio music is standardized and produces pseudo-individualism. I agree with this because the radio often plays songs that are known as ‘popular’. The station determines what you listen. Even if you don’t like the song, you can’t press skip. After listening to it repeatedly on the radio, you may grow to like it. Of course this probably holds more truth back then when they didn’t have iPods. In today’s context, one will be more inclined to listen to the YouTube MV with more views. To a certain extent, we still are attracted to what’s ‘popular’ (therefore we dont really choose, but are inclined to choose what others choose).
What struck me the most about Adorno’s article was the part where it says radio music has ‘a soporific effect upon social consciousness’. This reminds me of Marx and how people are in ‘false consciousness’ I agree that music is has become more like a commodity. It is standardized, mass produced, and sold for profit (albums, repackaged version of albums, concerts). Emphasis is placed less on music, but the overall package. This can be seen in Korean popular music where people not only focus on music, but the whole appearance (dance, looks etc). People begin to like the music because of the artiste (I wouldn’t really call them musicians) and this allows for more profit-making opportunities like producing movies like the Justin Bieber or Jonas Brothers movie. Corporations make use of fan culture to bring in higher profits.
Apart from cinema, Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ can be examined through other forms of media. By taking selfies, females are constant reproducers of the ‘male gaze’. They find pleasure in being objects of desire, subjects of a controlling and curious gaze. But females too, find pleasure in looking. Who do you think young men are taking selfies/pictures of their muscles for? From viewing characters in films as objects, men and women alike evaluate themselves as objects from the point of an outsider. This is no longer only the work of the directors of film, but of the individual. Humans, instead of identifying with a character in a movie to possess a woman, can satisfy the wish for pleasure looking almost anywhere now (advertisements, internet, social media).
In this world where everything can be commodified: from the mass produced products we use in our daily lives, such as the electronic devices which we are using now to read this; to even the medicine manufactured for our complex biological system to enhance our living experience, Capitalism has been deeply entrenched in our lives.
Radio, the once bulky rectangular-shaped instrument, has gradually reduced its size over the years. Today, a physical radio instrument can rarely be spotted as it has now become a program – one which has integrated into other instruments such as our car and handphones. The radio can be considered one of the greatest inventions of all as it brought music into everyone – where music in Adorno’s argument was a privilege for the minorities who know how to appreciate them.
Adorno argued that music is being commodified as it is being mass produced through the radio. I would actually link this to Benjamin’s notion of aura – where Art itself does not just serve as an appeasement to the eye. Instead, it also unveils historical values embedded within the art. Likewise for music, it is not the sound produced by the mechanical system inside the radio which allows for true music appreciation but perhaps, it’s the sound produced by the musical instruments which allows for the appreciation.
People in the preceding generations are claiming that music in the recent years is no longer as good as it was in the past. Many of the pop songs have lost a sense of sentimentality – where lyrics were once romanticized and musical instruments were still used to produce the music. Let us reflect upon music nowadays. Taking the K-pop wave as an example, many of the performances were lip-synced – where the artists do not really sing but just simulate the mouth as if they were. On top of that, we would also realise many of their voices are different when they sing live on stage. One of possible justification could be the use of a technology called auto-tune – a program which modifies the original vocal of the artists. Such technology would empower anyone who aspires to be a music artist to create their own “music” and further commodify music.
The process of commodification would not only be true for music, but for films as well. The producers aim to produce films which are profitable for them. The “male gaze” which was mentioned in Mulvey’s reading was not exactly intriguing for me. My primary justification for the presence erotic females to be in films would be, to target the larger male markets, where the males were the pillar of financial resources back then, and such incorporation would entice them to watch it. It is the profit which the producers are interested in after all.
In Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Mulvey talks about how woman have their functions to play in the cinema. Woman onscreen plays a passive role and this influences the male’s voyeuristic gaze towards them in the film. Mulvey stresses on the symbolic meaning of the women with the first linked to the “castration threat” and the second to the “a child into the symbolic”. Woman are the images that man fantasies on and obsesses on as they watch the film. This is reflective of the patriarchal system in place at that time where men dominates the system and women remain submissive to men. In fact, the structure of this gender relation in the film is reflective of that of the past patriarchal society. Yet, this is continuing in our postmodern society. We see US shows like gossip girls, American pie, advertisements all around us that focused on phallocentrism. Many US shows are also centered on males who are ordinary, nerds, geeks who aim to get “hot girls” which are way out of their leagues. This is reflective of what Mulvey calls as male erotic ego. Women are dressed sexily, scantily to attract male audiences and to provide them with such erotic pleasure. In this sense, women are viewed to be objects and dehumanized.
I feel that in this week’s reading, Adorno makes a great point with his idea that radio music has led to the decline of music as an art form. There are many instances and signs that music is increasingly being commoditized. Adorno’s writing was done in the 1940s however, and I would like to use his viewpoint to analyze contemporary society.
Today, there are many more platforms for listening to music, such as spotify, bandcamp, youtube etc. Adorno mentioned that listeners back then have the illusion of choice of what music they want to be listening to. In contemporary society, I would argue that this is not an illusion, that listeners do have many choices. The problem here then, is that there are far too many choices. Independent artists and musicians are throwing up releases onto bandcamp and youtube everyday, and there is simply an overwhelming flow of information.
Because of this problem of overchoice then, music with institutional support and backing would still likely be the ones that finds its way to listeners’ ears. Some of these artists may actually make great, brilliant music, but it would take a lot of trouble to actually sift through all the bull-crap to find something that you really like. But at least there are greater avenues now for independent musicians to let their voices and talent be heard.
The question Adorno puts forth is a valuable one, “how can good music be conveyed to the largest possible audience?” However, what he is failing to recognize is the subjectivity of art. HE cites Beethoven and other famous composers as epitome of art in its true form- with ‘aura’. However, these examples are one-dimensional and do not present art in her variety of forms and genres.
Inarguably, listening habits are standardized through song plugging, a practice which broke down all remnants of spontaneity. Standardization resulted in a regression in quality of hearing, such that the listener was docile and afraid of anything new. He critiqued the specific kind of mass culture produced under monopoly capitalism, that it led to the degradation of serious art in its true form through the rise of popular culture and mass production.
I do agree with Adorno in his assertion that popular music functions as a commodity. The popular songs of current billboards represent a lack of commonality and originality. It is merely a product of profit-driven capitalists who directs the song in a particular way, in which they deem fit for the top of the charts.
However, I do not fully agree with his view that the radio is a standardized production of the field and listeners have no choice but to listen, when the songs are played on the radio. He talks about the illusion of free choice which listeners have, when in fact individualism is seemingly absent. In the radio and music industry, listeners do have a choice to decide what they want to listen to. For example, classical music lovers would have the option of tuning in to a classical radio station. Even though music has been commoditized and evolved from classical tunes to the auto-tuned ones today, it has allowed music to be available to all. Specifically, classical music which was previously only made available to the rich aristocrats and upper-class.
According to Adorno in “A Social Critique of Radio Music”, music in modern, technologised society has become standardised and commoditised. What used to be a marker of privilege and elitism has now become accessible to nearly everyone, with its wide availability across the radio and several other online applications and websites. For instance, you no longer need to have a radio, as in the machine in order to listen to music, you could access radio channels in cars, on mobile phones, on the websites of radio stations. now constant repetition on the radio has cheapened the experience of listening to music. Additionally, on top of the radio, there are also websites like youtube, to access music on demand, as well as free applications like Spotify. With which listeners can even customise playlists of their favourite songs. Thus this much wider accessibility has ‘cheapened’ the experience of listening to music. Adorno also mentioned the radio’s ‘power’ in shaping thoughts and ideas about what is popular, through repetition of music and musical listings, which is very much relevant today considering musical listings are common and widespread on the internet (Billboard, Pop Music Charts etc). Furthermore, Awards shows like the Annual Grammys serve to reinforce these notions of what is popular in the music industry. The issue of the masses being passive consumers is debatable, although the fact that there are many songs in existence that share ‘same chords’ and are being reproduced widely through covers, mashups and the like all over the internet, seems to show the passivity of listeners, in accepting what appears to be new and unique music but is really common and repetitive (For example, Norwegian Recycling, covering a mashup of ‘I’m Yours’, ‘Collide’, “Superman”, “Always Getting Over You”, “All That I Need” and “Here Without You” in How Six Songs Collide.)
Adorno believes that the commercialisation of music would lead to passive listeners. Music would be apart of mass culture where it would dumbed-down to the common denominator for the consumption of everyone. It would be repetitive and standardised. The days of classical music, where the music had any artistic value, were long gone.
I would say that Adorno’s statements were unfair as there are some music today that are critiques of social reality. Anti-establishment band ‘Anti-Flag’ write songs on American hegemony, the evils of capitalism and repressive governments. Even the King of Pop Michael Jackson has written some meaningful songs. Among them are ‘Black and White’ where he gives a positive outlook on society’s rejection of capitalism and ‘Man in the Mirror’, a song a song with a great life message – ‘change yourself and the world will look a better place’. Many songs also reflect the society we live in today. ‘Changes’ by Tupac, one of my favourite songs, has a somewhat prophetic verse where he says ‘Although it seems heaven sent, we ain’t ready for a black president’. 10 years after the song came out, the US did have a black president. But as Tupac said in his song, ‘Some things will never change’, referring to the hidden and structural racism still in place in the world today.
Upon examination of Laura Mulvey’s “male gaze”, it has led me to reflect upon the existence of the “female gaze”. We are definitely still living in a patriarchal society, but I believe that in this modern age, there are attempts at women empowerment. One such attempt might be the emergence of the “female gaze”, where the audience places oneself in the shoes of a woman and view things through a woman’s perspective. In films, it might be done in an attempt to connect with a female audience. An example in modern films might be the emphasis of a man’s physique that would more or less appeal to women; superheroes such as Captain America and Spiderman in film wearing skin tight suits. There is also the increase of shirtless scenes in many films, with the cameras often lingering on a man’s abs or toned muscles for a substantial amount of time, much like how in the “male gaze”, the camera focuses on a woman’s legs or bosom. Some examples include how the character Jacob in the Twilight films spend more than half the film running around half naked, as do many of the male characters in Magic Mike. However, this idea of the female gaze may be nothing more than an attempt to tap onto the female audience for profit, and not for the empowerment of women.
Adorno, in A Social Critique of Radio Music, is very critical of the way radio and music has been studied. He stresses that in order to understand radio and its problems, we have to take into account the social conditions and structures of the society. To begin with, Adorno postulates that music has been commoditized. Music, in order words, is profit-oriented. This relates to the second premise that there is a tendency of a monopolized production of standardized goods. Then, there is a further tendency that the unbalance of power between producers (and distributors) and consumers and within the producers (and distributors) would be self-propagating e.g. through ideological means. Lastly, Adorno speaks of the inherent potentials of radio as musical reproduction that have been misplaced through its passivity. The abovementioned dovetails to the idea that, unconsciously, the consumers of radio music are placed in a repression position in relations to the larger broadcasting networks. Adorno goes further to argue that consumers are under the illusion that they are presented with choices of music. Consumers do not realize that the choices available are ultimately the dictates of the corporations and institutions (that are beyond their reach least control). To be clear, the principle of mass production hence standardization limit the otherwise richness of variation. A system whereby alternatives are constraint is not sustainable. It is in this instance that Adorno highlights the importance of the illusion of choice: “The less the listener has to choose, the more is he made to believe that he has a choice” (p.234).
Doane, unlike Adorno who focuses on radio, buttress her argument on cinema and capturing devices. She makes a linkage between cinema, time and modernity. She argues that cinema embodies the way time has been rationalized in modernity. Time, as she explains, is valued insofar as it can be quantified and measured. She traces the history and claims that the popularization of pocket watches, standardization of time, scientific management of time (Taylorism) were aimed at making time homogeneous, linear and visible. However, the tendency of rationalization is accompanied by the antagonistic tendency of contingency – both of which are structurally indispensable ideologies of capitalistic modernization. It is in this light that cinema draws its significance – ‘to perfectly represent the contingent, to provide the pure record of time” (p.22). The cinema – the technologies and the products – makes possible the archivability of time and of presence.
Mulvey discerns how cinema embodies and propagates the dominant ideologies or the society. Females, as she argues, are in a patriarchal society, a signifier for the males and as a “bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning” (p.58). The dynamics of the cinema is structurally reflective of the way the hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The cinema offers two forms of pleasures: scopophilia (pleasure in gazing at others or simply voyeurism) and narcissism (pleasure in viewing oneself). From these two forms of pleasure comes the construction of the male as active and female as passive entity. Women are, in other words, portrayed as a sexual object to be displayed, exhibited and looked at. The result is that in cinema and in the show projected on the screen, the males are in direct scopophilic contact with the females and by identification with the male lead actor, they can indirectly possess the females. This works to deepen the sexual discrimination and imbalance in the society.