Symbolic Order and Co-opting

One of the concepts we discussed in lecture this week was symbolic order, and the very first thing I thought of after learning about it was an article I once read about the Twilight saga. The article was basically making fun of the books for their lack of character development. Bella, who is the main character, is merely described as a young awkward teenager with brown hair and brown eyes, and as for a physical description that is about as far as it goes. Some criticize Stephenie Meyer for her lack of character development; however, I would have to say that she is pretty much a genius because it is exactly this lack of character development that makes almost every teenage girl fall in love with the story. Like many other young women I also fell in love with the series because of the exciting love story between Bella and Edward, or so I thought. However, after reading this article about the series I realized that the reason I love the story so much is because I can see myself in Bella. The lack of description and development of Bella allows for almost every girl to see themselves in Bella. The story becomes so much more enjoyable when you can see yourself in that character, and in the case of Twilight, every girl reads the story and immediately falls in love with it because they believe that if Bella, who is just like them, can fall in love with someone like Edward then it could happen to them too. So in terms of symbolic order, the more we can see ourselves in Bella, the more validation we have that we too can find love like she and Edward has. The Twilight series is just one example of the symbolic order. We see the symbolic order all over the media because one key to marketing is making consumers believe that they need a certain product, and the way to do that is by hiring actors who are similar to the targeted consumers. When I think about symbolic order, one specific commercial comes to mind. Recently I saw a commercial where there was a woman who appeared to be racially ambiguous and she was talking about how she was hired by this company to be a spokeswoman because she was racially ambiguous and that way she could attract a wider variety of women to the product. I do not even remember what the commercial was advertising for, but called out the fact that companies use symbolic order to get people to buy their products. Basically symbolic order revolves around the fact that people have insecurities and because of those insecurities people feel the need to find self validation in the media.
Aside from symbolic order, we also spent a majority of lecture this week talking about co-opting. There are so many images and symbols in our culture that people do not even realize were originally borrowed from other cultures. Other times we see images that we know are borrowed, but yet we don’t realize that they are misrepresentations of other cultures. After watching the film “In whose Honor” it was clear that the University did not realize they were misrepresenting the chief until one woman who was a Native American found the misrepresentation offensive. Like we talked about, co-opting can be freedom for some while oppression for others. So while the university students and staff found the chief mascot to be inspirational others were hurt by the misrepresentation. When I think about co-opting, I do not really think there is anything wrong with it. I believe that all of the things we borrow from other cultures are done so out of admiration and as a way to expand our own culture. After all, there is a saying that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. However, in the case of the chief mascot is imitation truly flattery or is it just plain offensive? Well, at first I thought that the woman who was offended by the mascot was just being too sensitive and that she was blowing it out of proportion. However, it wasn’t until after she explained that the costume and dance performed at half-time was part of a religious ceremony that I began to think differently. I immediately tried to think what it would be like for me if some aspect of my religion were displayed as a form of entertainment at a sports event. I tried to picture what it would be like if a priest was the mascot. All I could think about was that even if they said they were honoring Catholicism that there is no way it could be sincere honor because many of the people “honoring” the priest aren’t even Catholic and don’t understand the significance. I think that if I were in the same position I would be offended because it would seem like they were mocking my religion. So in terms of whether the University was in the right or wrong, I feel that it was wrong for them to have the chief as a mascot because they needed to recognize that what they were using as a form of entertainment was a distortion of a religious ceremony, and in our society today that is unacceptable. I think that co-opting can be a good thing if the images and symbols borrowed from other cultures are not misrepresented, but in the case of the chief mascot, I think the university was wrong because unless everyone was taught the same values and customs as native Americans, there is just no way they could truly understand and honor the chief properly.