Observations at fieldsite

1. What’s going on in the field site? A group of girl’s ages 5-7 years old are on break in between the swimsuit and formal wear preparing themselves for the next competition.
2. How do the members of the subculture interact with each other? The little girls are in different rooms getting ready for the next part of the pageant, mothers are either doing their daughters makeup and running through the routine with the girls.
3. Make a list of terminology used at the field site with which you might be unfamiliar. Crossover, meat market, falsies, extensions, and bear.
4. What details, behaviors, and surroundings did you have questions about? How much time the girls had to get ready, if their parents were allowed to direct them through their shows, what did the judges look at the most, was jealously a big part of the pageants, and did the girls really enjoy what they were doing.
5. Find at least one person at your field site you can speak to and ask them a question about something you observed that you didn't understand. I observed that there were books on a table showing all of the girl’s pictures and what they have won, so I asked one of the mothers and she said that I was so that the girls and the mothers could take a look at their competition.

Act V

What makes this a job fieldsite? It’s in prison where the inmates live, where they met, and where the play takes place.

What observations does the author make to give us a better understanding of the subculture? He talks to the inmates about their feelings toward the characters they play and how they relate to them, and about their crimes, and about their lives.

What interview techniques does the author use to understand the subculture? The author almost always uses the question and answer technique, as well as narrative technique

What are the norms and values of the subculture? We see a hierarchy as a value in the prison as one of the prisoners refers to himself as the blue whale and the others as guppies. Also as a norm of this subculture we see the inmates are checked every time they enter and leave practice. The education of the men is also a norm in the prison

Subculture: Child Pageants

Topic: Child pageants

Sources:
Banet-Weiser, Sarah. The most beautiful girl in the world; beauty pageants and national identity
Berkeley: University of California Press, c1999.


King O’ Riain, Rebecca Chiyoko. Pure beauty: judging race in Japanese American beauty pageants.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c2006.


Hilbodlt-Stolley, Lise. “Pretty Babies: EBSCOhost: Academic Search Complete. Feb99. March 13, 2008
< http://wfxsearchgalileo.webfeat.org/wfsearch/search?cid=11222 >

Living Dolls. Dir. Shari Cookson. Perf. Swan Bronner and Robin Browne.
HBO, 13 May 2001.


Crawford, Mary, Gregory Kerwin, Gurung Alka. “Globalizing Beauty: Attitudes of beauty pageants among
Nepali women. Volume 18. Issue 1. (Feb 2008). P61-86, p26

Reflection: I really liked the summary of the Living Dolls documentary that was shown on HBO. It seems like it will be quite interesting, because reading an article or a book is not the same thing as actually seeing it. By watching this film I can the interactions between the girls, mothers, judges, and outsiders and even their attitudes and behavior. Also this documentary will be useful to me in my research because I can observe the work that’s goes into these pageants, the preparations the make the girls look pretty and money spent on these pageants. This source could also be useful in the sense that I could learn a lot more about this subculture than I know right now.

Lolita

Researching a topic you know nothing about can be quite interesting. I choose the word Lolita to research, because it sounded familiar like I had heard somewhere else before. The source I choose first was the Oxford dictionary, in which I looked up the word or name Lolita. What I found was Lolita was “the name of a novel (1958) and its main character by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) about a precocious schoolgirl seduced by a middle-aged man, used to designate people and situations resembling those in the book”. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1) I also found that the novel Lolita was also a film, by looking at a movie review for the film. The review called Lolita a film worth seeing, it also stated “She still isn't the 12-year-old of the book, but Dominique Swain is an adolescent killer, and Jeremy Irons does some nice suffering.” (Kauffmann, 26) Also by looking at the Oxford dictionary it describes different ways in which the term Lolita has been used in history starting in the year 1959. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1). The website sparknotes has a lot of resourceful information on the novel Lolita, it displays the context of the novel, and it has summaries of each chapter in good detail, character analyses, review questions and further reading. ( Sparknotes) I did research on the author of Lolita and found Vladimir Nabokov was the author who wrote Lolita, he was born in Russia, The Nabokov’s family was known for their high culture and commitment to public service. In 1940 Vladimir moved to the United States where he began writing in English which he really didn’t like doing. Though his passion was not writing in English, one of Vladimir best work Lolita was written in English. (Vladimir Nabokov). The resource I used was again a type of dictionary, but in this dictionary I found a actually definition of the word Lolita it says “a precociously seductive girl” (Merriam Webster Online).

Snoop Dogg Research

The first website that came to my mind while looking for information on Snoop Dogg was MTV. Why, because I know that MTV is constantly updated on artist’s songs and videos. Next I decided to visit his official home page , because I knew I could get all the information about his life and all the albums, songs, and videos he has done and there names and years, official homepages are usually greatly detailed. I visited his Myspace page because I knew I could see what people and fans wrote to him, and I could see his latest videos, and other videos pertaining to him. I also visited the Wikipedia to see if any information was changed about him, since anyone is free post what the want on Wikipedia. Last I decided to take a look at a fans page that had been made for Snoop so I could get a taste into the fans life and what they had posted about Snoop and his career. The disadvantage of looking at MTV is that its entertainment based which means it’s likely to show and talk about his mistakes rather then his achievements. The advantage of looking at his official homepage is that it’s more likely to show his achievements in the music business. Taking a look at Myspace has a disadvantage because everything on the page will be in the artist’s benefit, and an advantage would be the fans comments and postings. Wikipedia would definitely be a disadvantage because the information stated on this website could be wrong. Last looking at a fans page is a disadvantage, because you will only get the fans view, which will contain all positive things.

Hip Hop America

The book Hip Hop America by George Nelson talks about the history of Hip Hop starting from the 70’s to present day Hip Hop culture that affects fashion, movies, sports, and advertising. I know that this book would be interesting to me because it explains the history of Hip Hop which I know so little about and would like to learn more about. It also talks about different themes that are known in the Hip Hop culture like language, drugs, incarceration, and entrepreneurship , which would interest me to learn more about these themes and there affects on the Hip Hop culture. This book also has a interview with Sean Combs in it a key player in the Hip Hop world and it would be nice to read his opinions on the present day Hip Hop Culture. George Nelson the author of this book is a considered one the most knowledgeable hip hop writers on the planet. Nelson is a good candidate for writing this book, because he is a longtime music and cultural critic , and he has been a major key role figure in the developments of Hip Hop. As said before, Nelson knows the history of hip hop like the back of his hand from beginning to present day. He also grew up in the era when it was started so he personal experiences from being there at that time in history.

Dizzee Rascal

Dylan Mills, professional known as Dizzee Rascal is an England based rapper, who incorporates different styles like garage MCing, conventional rap, grime and ragga, with extremely eclectic samples and more exotic styles to create his own blend of music. Dizzee Rascal was introduced to music production by his school teacher who took interest in him. Dizzee Rascal is also known for his fast rapping style that can be compared to the rapper Twister in America. Through Dizzee’s life there were many happy and sad moments. Dizzee Rascal grew up in the East End of London were as a young teenager he was arrested for stealing cars. In his life Dizzee won numerous awards and stayed on the top charts with his hits. In 2003 Dizzee was stabbed five times, tabloids liked the stabbing to a feud going on between Dizzee and So Solid Crew. Dizzee Rascal has made five albums so far in his and is still going with his 2007 hit song “Flex”. By just giving a brief overview into Dizzee Rascal’s life one can see many similarities between him and the Hip Hop Culture in America. First Dizzee was introduced to music by school teacher, usually there is always someone cares whether it be a teacher, parent, sibling, or someone already in the music world who gives a lending to that person to get started. Second, we see Dizzee Rascal created his own persona in the rap industry, no two rappers are alike, and Dizzee adds different unique styles to his music making it his own. Third, in a lot of his songs Dizzee raps about situations going on in his life and around him whether they be good or bad, which is quite similar to old school Hip Hop in America. Last, the incident in which Dizzee Rascal was stabbed fives is common especially in the America Hip Hop culture whether it’s for the publicity or real “beef” as they call it in the Hip Hop culture.