Sometimes you just have to laugh.  Sex is used to sell the most ridiculous things, like organ donation.  It’s like marketers think we’ve Pavlov’s dogs.  Show a sexy woman (’cause sexy women = sex) and, rumor has it, people will buy.

When Renée sent in this photograph of a storefront display aiming at selling ovens, I felt compelled to share its ridiculousness with you.  Begin snark:

Ovens are hot.  Get it.  They’re “hot.”  LOL.  Put her in lingerie, sit her ass on the oven door, add a fire-red wig, and surround her with thermometers.  Add the words, “HOT! HOT! HOT!”  Maybe if we really overdo it with the metaphor, no one will notice how stupid this is.

Enjoy:

NEWS:

Gwen and I are finishing up our semesters and looking back at a wonderful year with all of you!

Some highlights:

We were granted an innovation in teaching award from the Pacific Sociological Association and have been nominated for awards from the American Sociological Association and the Pop Culture / American Culture Association.  Plus David Mayeda was kind enough to review us for Teaching Sociology.

We started accepting proposals for guest posts.

We broke the 10,000 friend barrier on Facebook.  (And we think over 3,500 on Twitter is nothing to shake a stick at.)

We just barely almost didn’t quite reach 750,000 visits in one month.  But darn were we close!

We entered a partial syndication agreement with the historic Ms. magazine.

We broke a story that ended with Abercrombie Kids pulling their push-up bikini top for kids.  Read the original post and our summary.

We managed to fool a few of you on April Fool’s Day (scroll to bottom).

And we let you all in on the mystery that is Dmitriy T.M.

Sociologists, Gwen and I will be at ASA, SWS, and SSSP this August. So please say “hello” if you see us or look us up in the programs. We’ll be giving a talk or two.

KUDOS:

Special thanks to Jon Smadja, Velanie Williams, Norma Morella for all their hard work on the blog.  We couldn’t do it without you.

And thanks for reading everyone!  We’re looking forward to a productive summer and another record-breaking year!

Andrew Slater sent in an interesting example of the mocking of rap music.  The mocking occurs in a re-make of Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” about the excitement of going on out Friday night.  Black’s low-budget music video went viral, shooting her into stardom, or at least celebrity.  The song is a standard teeny-bop pop song, complete with rap interlude.

The re-make, produced by the Community Christian Church, features a so-called “Sadie Black” singing about “Sunday” instead of Friday, and extolling the pleasures of worship. Slater noticed, however, that the entire re-make is more-or-less truthful to the original, except for the rap section. In the re-make, “BP” and “Master E” appear to make fun of rappers.  It’s a very different effect when compared to the straightforward mimickry of Sadie B.

Screen shots (original and re-make respectively):

Videos (rap sections starts at 2:30 and, um, 2:30 respectively):

A quick Google image search suggests that Prince William and the to-be Princess Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton conform to Western culture’s expectation that a man be sufficiently taller than his woman.  Not so for Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  In light of today’s royal nuptials, I thought I’d re-post this fav of mine. Originally cross-posted at Jezebel.

In the U.S. and the U.K., one of the most unbreakable rules of mating involves height. He must be taller than her, preferably significantly taller. Men and women often pick one another in such a way that any given couple follows this rule even if, given random assortment, some couples would involve women who the same height or taller than their male partners.

Rumor has it, though I can’t prove it, that Hollywood routinely puts leading men in platform boots or on stools so that they appear appropriately tall relative to their leading ladies.

Philip Cohen, however, alerted me to a case that can be nicely shown: Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  As these photographs show, Charles was about the same height as Diana, perhaps even shorter.

(Daily Mail)

When Charles and Diana were posed together formally, however, they were typically arranged so as to suggest that he was significantly taller than her, or at least to disguise the fact that he was not.

A photo from their engagement announcement with Charles on a step behind her:

(BBC)

And more:

(Family Inequality)

This effort to make Charles appear taller is a social commitment to the idea that men are taller and women shorter. When our own bodies, and our chosen mates, don’t follow this rule, sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to preserve the illusion.

What is the fiscal relationship between the Royal Family of the United Kingdom and its taxpayers?  I have no idea.

Accordingly, I have no idea as to the accuracy of this 5-minute summary, made by CGP Grey (via), but it was entertaining and, I imagine, contains a least a kernel of truth:

U.K. readers, what say you?  (Transcript after the jump.)

Look. At. That.

What a waste. That queen, living it off the government in her castles with her corgis. (and gin) Just how much does this cost to maintain?

The answer: 40 million pounds.

That’s about 65 pence per person per year of tax money going to the royal family.

Sure, It’s still twenty-three pence short of a complete shield, but it might be more than you want to pay.

Any after all, those are your coins. Why does the queen get to steal them?

Well, it’s a little complicated.

The story starts with this guy: King George the third, most well known as the monarch who lost the United States for the Empire.

Less well known – but far more interesting – is he likely suffered from a mental illness called Porphyria which has the unusual side effect of transforming your poop from it’s normal boring brown to a delightful shade of purple.

But I digress – back to the the reason the Royals get tax money.

King George was having trouble paying his bills and had racked up debt.

While he did own huge tracts of land, the profit from their rental was too small to cover his expenses.

He offered a deal to parliament: for the rest of his life he would surrender the profits from the rents on his land in exchange for getting a fixed annual salary and having his debts removed.

Parliament took him up on the deal, guessing that the profits from the rents would pay off long-term.

Just how well did parliament do? Back to the present let’s compare their profits and losses by using a tenner to represent 10 million pounds.

The cost to maintain the royal family today is 40 million pounds per year.

But the revenue paid to the UK from the royal lands is 200 million.

200 million in revenue subtract 40 million in salary costs equals 160 million pounds in profit.

That’s right: The United Kingdom earns 160 million pounds in profit, every year from the Royal Family.

So stop all your moaning about the Royal family and how much they cost and how worthless they are. The Royal Family is Great for Great Britain.

Doing the individual’s math again:

160 million pounds divided by 62 million people is about 2 pounds and 60 pence.

Because of the Royal Family, your taxes are actually 2 pounds and 60 pence cheaper each year than they would otherwise be.

But perhaps that’s not enough for you because you’re a real greedy geezer. Why not kick they royals out and keep 100% of the revenue.

Because it’s still their land. King George the crazy wasn’t crazy enough to give up everything, just the profits.

But it wasn’t only him: every Monarch since King George the third has voluntarily turned over the profits from their land to the United Kingdom. Again: Voluntarily.

If the government stopped paying the Royal Family’s living and state expenses the Royals would be forced to take back the profits from their land. And your taxes, dear Monarchy-haters, would go UP not DOWN.

Plus 160 million is just the easily measurable money the United Kingdom makes from the royal family.

Don’t forget their huge indirect golden goose: tourists.

Annoying though they might be to the locals by blocking the tube and refusing to stand on the right, they dump buckets of money on the UK to see the sights, travel ludicrously short distances by public transport, and generally act silly a long way from home.

Sure not everything they come to see is royal, but the most expensive stuff is.

And who are the biggest spenders? The Yanks.

After they’ve finished buying maple syrup & cheap, pharmaceuticals, Tijuanaian professional services & illegal pharmaceuticals, where do they go next?

The United Kingdom.

Americans fly across an ocean to see a land filled with Castles that aren’t plastic.

And why do the Americans think Frances castles are so boring and stinky and the UK’s castles so awesome? Because real monarchs still use them.

The tower of London is so stunning to visitors because the Royal Crest on the Yeomen Warders Uniform is real. It’s not a lame historical re-enactment or modern LARPing.

It’s the embodiment of the living, breathing queen.

Everywhere you look she’s sprinkled fairy dust on banal objects to make them magically attractive to tourists.

12 million of whom visit every year spending 7,000 million pounds.

Which suddenly makes those direct profits look like rather small change.

But perhaps you don’t care than the monarchs are a perpetual GOLD MINE for the UK. You’re a Republican and you dislike like the royal family because of their political power. After all, the government gets all its right to rule through the crown, not the people.

And yes, I’ll grant you that back in the head-choppy days of yore, this was a legitimate concern, but the modern queen isn’t a dangerous political lion but a declawed kitten.

Her powers are limited to a kabuki theater act of approving what parliament wants to do anyway.

Remove the royal family from government and fundamentally nothing would be different except now you wouldn’t live in the magical United Kingdom but the rather dull United Republic of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A.K.A URESWNI for short. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

But, maybe I’m wrong – perhaps the queen is a political ticking time bomb, just waiting for her chance to declare random wars and devolve parliaments for the lulz.

But until that day comes.

God save the queen.

I invite you to spend seven minutes listening to Baratunde Thurston explaining what, exactly, is wrong with the fact that Barack Obama was hounded into releasing his long form birth certificate.  He does a wonderful job of historicizing the requirement that Obama prove that he is an American (to a man such as Donald Trump), at the same time that he explains why this questioning of Obama’s citizenship is deeply hurtful to all Black Americans and their allies.

Via BoingBoing.  Transcript after the jump (via Racialicious).

It’s been a very difficult morning for me. Got the news that President Obama released his long-form birth certificate due to the increasing media circus surrounding claims that he is not one of us. That he is not an American. And it comes at a very interesting time for many reasons, one of which is, it’s April 27 2011 and this just happened. So that’s really interesting to me. Also because I’m reading, right now, a book by Manning Marable called Malcolm X a life of reinvention and he unearths a lot of amazing detail and correspondence around this exceptional American. But through this book you also get a window into the civil rights movement throughout this country’s history – especially the 40s 50s and 60s and you are reminded if you read this book or see a documentary special or know anything about the complete history of the United States, you’re reminded of the extraordinary level of sacrifice that has been involved in allowing all Americans to exist as, be treated as, participate as Americans. To be that which they are took a lot of work. A lot of tears, a lot of pain, a lot of death.

There were people who dropped out of their ordinary lives, sacrificed their personal safety, their reputation, their ability to earn money, to intervene on behalf of those who they also saw as American. They got on buses and Freedom Rides. They sat in, they died in waves and waves of domestic terrorism so that someone like me could go to a voting booth and not be asked by some racist poll worker to pay a tax or prove that my grandfather wasn’t a slave or pass a literacy test that got increasingly difficult the more I passed it. And today, the President of the United States had to prove that he was an American, to the satisfaction of the 75 percent of Iowa republicans who doubt that or the 43 percent of National Republicans who believe that or the one heinous low-class individual who took credit for it after: Donald Trump.

A man who was given every advantage – who inherited millions and lost it all twice but had that opportunity because no one’s ever had to ask him to prove anything. A man who lacks intelligence, compassion, common sense, respect, decency, or an understanding of WHAT THE FUCK it means to be an American that he would come out moments after the President of the United States – and I stress that: the President – released his long-form birth certificate – and Donald Trump comes out moments later and says, “I’m really proud of myself – but it shouldn’t have taken so long. I wanna see the birth certificate for myself. I want to test it for authenticity. I don’t want the press asking me about birth certificates anymore.”

I find it hard to summarize in mere words the amount of pain and rage this incident has caused. It’s humiliating – not just to Barack Obama, not just to the office of the President, not just to Black Americans who died and those who supported our quest for freedom. It’s embarrassing to the entire nation that we would sit and let this nation. We have all been debased by this incident. By a charlatan, by a con man, by a mere promoter of himself. And for him to take credit for this, and for him to revel in it, and yet not be satisfied makes him no better than a Klansman. No better than a Bull Connor. No better than an anonymous, privileged white man in the 1950s who, regardless of his position in society, knew his position was higher than that of a common nigger. And that is what the fuck Donald Trump has done to the President of the United States. To the office of the President of the United States. To me. And to you.

I am disgusted. I have cried, because I know my own ancestors paid a very high price, and never would have imagined that we might have the President that we do, but certainly, part of their joy in the ancestral, celestial skies right now has been greatly diminished by what has happened here today. I hope that eventually, not just in the post-mortal world of karma and spiritual justice, Mr. Trump pays an exceptional price. I hope that price comes during his life. To then be able to walk around, a super-free, super-white, super-privileged man lording over all who would pay attention – which is far too many – at what you have done has got to cost you something in this life, as well.

I don’t wanna hear about The Apprentice. I don’t wanna hear about your new cologne. I don’t wanna hear about the new tower you’re building in whatever fuckin’ town. That cologne smells of racism. That tower is built on the blood of disrespected slaves and freedom fighters, and that show is merely a showcase for the dishonor you have brought among anyone who would call themselves an American.

My name is Baratunde Thurston. I’m heartbroken over this.

In one store, you’re a Size 4, in another a Size 8, and in another a Size 10 — all without gaining an ounce.

So starts a New York Times article, forwarded along by Kristin, Valerie, and Dolores.  It features this handy graphic illustrating just how much both sizes and proportions vary from store to store:

It’s interesting that this article is specific to women, as if the sizes and proportions in men’s clothes don’t vary. Hint: they do.

How does “culture” control us?  In her book Talk of Love, Ann Swidler argues that culture has the power to shape our behavior even when we do not internalize the cultural narratives to which we are exposed.  She uses Secretary’s Day, or Administrative Professional’s Day if you’re being politically correct, as an example.

Secretary’s Day is a rather recent faux-holiday that conveniently (for florists, card makers, and candy and cookie bakers) falls between Easter and Mother’s day and mostly serves to bolster capitalist cashflow.  Need a product to show your appreciation?  We’ve got ’em! From cakes to gift baskets to greeting cards.

Like Mother’s Day cards suggest that families would fall apart without mothers to do EVERYTHING, Secretary’s Day cards suggest that an office would be helpless without its administrative assistants:

The holiday is meaningful, of course, only because (like with mothers) we take-for-granted and devalue what adminstrative assistants do everyday every day.  In that sense, the holiday is disingenous and actually exposes that which it claims to resolve.  So there are good reasons for administrative assistants to think it’s bunk, too.

Let’s say that you had a secretary, but you thought that Secretary’s Day was stupid.  Would you still mark the day?

Swidler says you would.

You would if Secretary’s Day was being so ubiquitously advertised and promoted that everyone knew it was Secretary’s Day.  And, if everyone knew that it was, including your administrative assistant, then it makes a statement NOT to mark the day.  Marking the day is the path of least resistance.  Not “showing your appreciation” tells a story about you (you’re not a very nice person) or your adminstrative assistant (who must suck and be a crappy employee).  And there’s nothing you can do about that.

Here’s how Swidler tells it:

…the difficulty is that even the most skeptical, who recognize the trumped up, commercial origins of the occasion, may find themselves trapped by the wide publicity of the code.  If one’s boss won’t even spend a few dollars, does that signal that he or she doesn’t ‘care?  Both bosses and secretaries, however distasteful they may find the holiday, may nonetheless worry about the signal their actions will send.  Indeed, that is the key to semiotic constraints on action.  One is constrained not by internal motives but by knowledge of how one’s actions may be interpreted by others (p. 163).

We don’t just get to act according to what we think and feel.  We have to make decisions about how to act based on how others will interpret our behaviors.  And, often, it’s easier to go along and make the right moves than it is to buck the system that gives our choices meaning.