Hot and cold media + Shana Moulton

Marshall McLuhan’s Hot and Cold Media:

McLuhan works to create a system to classify medias into a binary. Hot media can be described as heavy participation, while cold media can be described as little participation. Although I don’t believe working medias into a dichotomy is beneficial, I do enjoy discussing McLuhan’s analysis of TV (cold) vs. Film (hot). In order to break down the division between TV and Film we’ll have to follow MchLuhan’s ideas on a binary media while taking into consideration ever-evolving technologies.

TV is described as a cold media because of its use of audience participation whether this be as simple as the idea of an audience member game show, or McLuhan’s idea of the viewer being the screen; meaning the viewer’s need to decipher the low quality image, keeping in mind the advances in television since the 1960’s. With that being said, we can still categorize television leaning towards cold because of the use of commercials, which require audience participation to make sales on a product. We can also make reference to TV shows like America’s Next Top Model or American Idol which require viewer participation to make choices that in turn effect the show’s outcome. We can also call TV a cold media because of its characteristics. Generally, TV takes the space of 30 minute slots to explain it’s plotline of a particular episode from beginning to end. Shows like Brady Bunch or Family Guy have a new plot line every episode with no need to catch up on a back story. However, I’d like to make the argument that as we move into the streaming era tv shows are beginning to hold more information. For example, shows like BoJack Horseman or Adventure Time have cunning plot lines which call for major viewer participation. Streaming allows for plot lines to unravel for longer intervals seemingly leading us into metamodernism; the new media shift that calls for less nihilism -- an answer rather than an ending. 

I will also make the argument that Film is becoming more of a cold media because of its hour and a half long intervals for comfortable theater viewing. Even in the sense of trilogies, a HBO TV series still allows for more screening time. All in all, I do not believe we can work medias into binaries - as I believe the same of most any topic. 

Thomas Beard: Now That I’m a Woman Everything is Strange

Shana Moulton’s video work is extremely relatable nostalgia spread throughout generations. It seems as if there is something here for every form of “womanhood,” that is, if you describe womanhood to be the type of robust girlish accumulation of cooking and cleaning it’s shown to be on early TV. Moulton acts as a homemaker shackled to her house duties while doing everything that would be expected of her. Cleaning, shopping, decorating, exercising, even drinking highly advertised pink elixirs. Her garb is eerily similar to that of Dexter’s (Dexter’s Laboratory) mother’s - always to be seen in a teal assemble with some sort of cleaning tool attached. I was immediately struck by the agoraphobic attributes given to her character. A constant need to beautify a space to make it more suitable to never leave. The appropriation of Polly Pocket aesthetics are seen throughout giving an 80’s flare to a genie in a bottle - reimagined as an agoraphobic in a pink plastic compact. What strikes me is Moulton’s ability to create a hyper-realistic, over exaggerated character who most-definitely-probably-my-grandmother-exists. 

Thomas Beard focuses on Moulton's ability to play pretend within a space while alluding to very real actions and attributes of women. He points out the appropriation of womanly emblems (/icons) taken from multiple generations.