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Shows that 22 managers indicated a clear preference for obtaining information about popular management ideas through seminar attendance rather than through reading books. Identifies the semiotic code shaping this preference, charts its regularities and inconsistencies, and uncovers several ironies on how this code is used and understood. (SR)

We argue that the HBO series Deadwood reflects post-9/11 angst regarding the domestic and international scenes by simultaneously exploiting and subverting the narrative comfort and cathartic closure characteristic of the traditional American Western. In doing so, we contend, Deadwood functions as a ritual of disquiet that poses three key challenges to the conventions of the American monomythic formula that informs the traditional Western genre. First, there is no Edenic community to redeem. Second, the morality, practicality, and psychological satisfaction associated with retributive justice are called into question. And third, there is the felt loss of a clear moral compass, and with this loss doubts are raised regarding conventional mythic notions of the hero, and indeed of heroism itself.

Recently, Pixar and Disney parted ways, severing a very profitable partnership. The authors of this study argue that this business split is anticipated in and facilitated by the extra textual features included with DVD releases of Pixar films. To illustrate, the authors examine extra features accompanying Pixar's DVD release of Monster's, Inc. This examination identifies how Pixar strategically excluded Disney from such material while at the same time positioning itself as a corporate auteur capable of delivering high quality family friendly entertainment of the kind for which Disney has been famous. This study thus highlights the commercial implications of DVD extra text. Keywords: DVD; Pixar; Disney; Auteur, On November 4, 2003 the video/DVD release of the film Finding Nemo, a computer animated collaboration between Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, set a new sales record for the retail [...]

The DVD format has emerged as the dominant digital means of repackaging films for home consumption. In this essay, we theorize this new viewing experience and identify some of the challenges it poses for the media critic. We argue that the additional material DVDs typically offer, coupled with the format's interactivity, constitute a rhetorically powerful means of directing the consumer's viewing experience and protecting the commercial viability of the product. To illustrate, we offer a critical analysis of the DVD release of the controversial film Fight Club. Our analysis suggests that Fight Club's DVD 'extra text' dissuades the viewer from acknowledging the film's homoerotic elements as representing homosexual experience.

The Cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the product of appropriations authored by both the Aztecs and the Roman Catholic Church, has served as a tool of empowerment, dominion, and accommodation. Central to this contested cult is an indigenous reinvention of the Virgin Mary that is simultaneously index, icon, and symbol. This study demonstrates the difficulties in attempting to selectively appropriate the desirable features of such a sign while excluding those deemed undesirable. In attempting to appropriate certain features of the Virgin it deemed desirable, the authors argue, the Church also annexed aspects of the Aztec religious tradition at odds with the teachings of Catholicism. While Catholicism's attempt to co-opt this Virgin extended the influence of the institutional Catholic Church, the authors suggest, it also undermined the integrity of the faith the Church promotes by fostering a form of popular Catholicism contrary to the teachings and practices of orthodox Catholicism. This study is grounded in data obtained through interviews conducted with pilgrims in the vicinity of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe immediately prior to, during, and after the Virgin's annual feastday (December 12). The authors also draw upon anthropological, historical, and religious studies scholarship to make sense of the pilgrims' beliefs and place them within the broader historical and religious contexts in which they operate. KEY CONCEPTS Appropriation, Aztecs, Codes, Co-optation, Icon, Index, Polysemy, Roman Catholicism, Signs, Socio-semiotics, Symbol

As the twenty-first century approaches, many Westerners have begun to question what social psychologist Kenneth Gergen (1991) calls the 'grand narrative of modernism' (p. 30).(1) As Gergen explains it, this [...]

Recently, the mainstream media have begun to include positive portrayals of gays and lesbians. This essay suggests that these positive portrayals demand critical scrutiny to determine how they redefine mainstream culture and how they serve to challenge and/or reinforce heterosexual bias. In an analysis of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, we examine how a narrative film negotiates the practice of drag and represents gay male 'drag queens' through a progressive refiguring of the monomythic themes which inform the popular genre of Western film.

Rather than relegating the study of rhetoric to the past, and confining it to its traditional analyses of ceremonial, forensic, and political speeches, the author argues that it has much to say to and about contemporary popular culture. Rhetoric enables students to understand how they and their communities are shaped by the economically, culturally, and socially influential products of American popular culture, such as fi lms, television series, and video games. Such knowledge, the author contends, equips students with the media literacy required to make informed decisions when purchasing products, casting a vote, and so on. Some practical advice regarding how to connect rhetorical analyses to American popular culture is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bravo's hit series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has garnered much popular and critical acclaim. While from a Queer theory perspective, Queer Eye's openly gay stars and their easy fraternization with straight men can be celebrated, there are reasons for critical concern. In interrogating the series as an expression of the strategic rhetoric of heteronormativity, we examine how Queer Eye functions as a mediated ritual of rebellion that domesticates Queers, contains Queer sexuality, and places straight men at the sociosexual center. The series thus supports the very heteronormative order it seems to challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bravo's surprise hit series, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy , has attracted a large and loyal viewing audience and garnered a great deal of critical acclaim. Though there is much to celebrate about the show, the authors of this study point out that Queer Eye also represents a new way of containing queers and queer sexuality. This essay argues that this containment is accomplished through a mediated ritual formula that inverts the traditional sequence characteristic of rites of passage and allows queers only temporary and controlled access to the cultural mainstream while ensuring that, in the end, they do not pose any serious threat of socio-sexual contamination by their continued presence there. Further, the authors argue that Queer Eye’ s ritual formula illustrates the construction by mainstream media of a new kind of Closet, which they call “the Loft” because of the term's connection to one of the series’ conventions and because this new Closet simultaneously serves to elevate and contain queers and queer sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that, in campaigning against homosexuality, political and religious conservatives benefit from the familiarizing heteronormative discourse of the very culture against which they have declared war. To illustrate, we offer an analysis of David Fincher's Fight Club in which we show how the film's narrative is structured around a quasireligious ritual that reaffirms heterosexuality at the expense of homosexuality. This ritual, informed by Freud's Oedipal myth, takes the form of a tripartite rite of passage that provides the film's core audience temporary liminal license to explore the homoerotic attraction that lies just beneath the film's celebration of homosocial bonding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]