Textual Poaching

This week’s assignment had us delving into our history and finding media that we have inherited to define who we are. Whether it’s our race, our culture, or our gender, the beliefs we have in our own characteristics are byproducts of the pictures, movies, songs, and videos that have become the “standard” in defining them. Sometimes, this media, while genuine in intent, can miss the mark when they create media that is only for their group, and in doing so offend those of other persuasions. This assignment caused me to think about just what my religion, the LDS faith, has imposed images and “standards” of the Mormon member, and just how silly some of those things are.

I took some of the Mormonads that were so prevalent in the magazines of the church and aimed to illustrate the problems that teens and young adults were going through and how to deal with them. As a young child, however, I was quite disturbed by some of the images they created, and frankly didn’t understand how anyone could be inspired by the cheesy messages and phrases paired with the pictures. I also didn’t ever want my non-member friends to see them because they created such a wacky opinion of Mormons. I attempted to create Mormonads that would be funny, applicable, and also within the realm of normality and pop culture that all can enjoy.

Pairing direct phrases from the original ads with pictures of some of my favorite media, I created pictures, not of better photographical quality, but of better personal expression of both my faith and my lifestyle. Just how the velveteen rabbit may look threadbare and unappealing to outsiders, my pictures may not be the epitome of perfection. I knew that I didn’t need it to be perfect, and I probably couldn’t do it even if I tried. However, below my lack of Photoshop skills is an expression of the personal connections I make between spiritual phrases and principles and their embodiment in the media I enjoy. I can find so much inspiration from Slumdog Millionaire, and these images are my personal representations of the human clay man, the oil hands, and the butter boy. I used both the form of the original ads with the images related to my experiences with those principals to create a new set of media that fully represented my religion.

One representation of this type of textual poaching in modern day society that I can think of is the artist Meghan Trainor. Although I don’t like her music that much, I have seen her take the expectations within music that people have of the “ideal woman” and turn them on their head, creating songs and music videos that use the style and rhythm of modern pop songs and yet reflect the strong, intelligent, and successful woman that she is. I enjoy her rebuking again and again the stereotype of a perfectly slim and subservient girl, and showing just how attractive and real she can be.

I liked this assignment, and I loved being able to look at myself and find something that has influenced me that I was able to change and remix and really make it true to myself.