2004 Cultural

2004 Entertainment/media important event snippets

The Cultural Obsession with Celebrities

• Below is a clip demonstrating the obsession the Western culture as a whole has with celebrities and how the fashion industry uses this obsession.
  

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Celebrity Controversy in 2004

• Martha Stewart goes to jail for five months because she was convicted of lying to investigators about a stock market sale.

• Controversial Report on the Killian documents regarding President George W. Bush by CBS News Anchor Dan Rather
  
  

• Janet Jackson exposes half of her chest at the 2004 XXXVIII Super Bowl due to a costume malfunctions which sparks outrage among the American people.

Controversial Celebrity Cinema in 2004

• Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is released- this film investigates the President and his administrations war on terrorism.

• Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is released- This film is about the last hours of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
  
  

  

Popular Shows Feature Celebrity Judges and Creates Celebrities

• Project Runway premiers in December in 2004.- This is a show is an American reality competition that focuses on fashion design and designers that airs on the Bravo network.

• The Apprentice premeries in 2004- This show is a reality competion to be a apprentice for Donald Trump.

• American Idol is the highest rated show in 2004. - This show is an American Reality competition that focuses on finding the best singer in America that airs on Fox.

Celebrity Fashion and accessory lines in 2004

• Gwen Stefani fashion Line "LAMB" and other accessories premiere in 2004
  
  


• Nicky Hilton line of purses and other accessories premieres in 2004
  
  

2004 Olympic Game Celebrities

• Michael Phelps- 2004 Olympic Gold medalist
  
  

Celebrity Controversial Talk show host

• Ellen Lee DeGeneres- Daytime Emmy award for best talk show in 2004

Analysis of these Events:

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Entertainment and the media’s impact on culture values have increased over the last couple of years, especially in celebrity entertainment. "In the last couple of decades, the industry which feeds, celebrates and trashes celebrity has flourished" (Glater, The New York Times).Therefore, celebrities have more of an impact on consumers then ever before. These events in 2004 demonstrate the celebrity obsessed nation we have become. This is evident in 2004 when TV shows and even the Olympics created celebrities to keep our hunger satisfied of scrutinizing new people in the spotlight. "Consumers have an insatiable appetite for celebrity news," (Farzad, The New York Times). It seems in 2004 that everything entertainment is celebrity dominated. This celebrity obsession is very shallow and very rooted in vanity.

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The mainstream culture depicted from these important 2004 events shows the values of society going through a transition period. The boundary of American values is being tested. This is evident in the media events that happened in 2004. Movies such as Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore and Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of the Christ, demonstrated in 2004 the changing tides of the American culture. These ripples on the surface of culture have changed the consumer’s preference which is why we have to pay attention to the changing values of the American mainstream culture. Fahrenheit 9/11 demonstrated that many people in America don’t trust the government, which is evident in numerous other sources. The film The Passion of the Christ came out in 2004, when at the same time the first gay marriage is legalized in Massachusetts. But, people are still shocked when Janet Jackson’s breast is exposed at the 2004 super bowl. There is still a fine line in what is wrong or right according to the American moral and value code but the line is getting blurred. These occurrences show the changing period that society was going through in 2004 and is still going through presently.

Sources:

Cann, Richard (2004). Have Style Mags Lost their Gloss? PR Week . Media Analyist Magazine.Copyright 2004 Haymarket Publishing Services Ltd.

Farzad, Roben(2005).To Market a Magazine, Fill It With Celebrity Gossip. Advertising. (2005, August 16). The New York Times National.

Glater, Jonathan D. (2005). Debating the Role of the Celebrity in the system. (2005, June 25). The New York Times National.

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Important Cultural Occurrence:

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In this century, social networking has become a huge phenomenon. Its popularity began increasing when sites such as MySpace and Facebook were founded. Facebook, one of the most popular sites, and now a rival to Myspace, was launched in 2004. When it began its social-networking revolution, it was formally known as ‘The Facebook’. “Experts and investors were inclined to dismiss social networking sites as a mere fad” (Mullaney and Rosedbush) when these sites first started. Facebook has shown its consistent power with young adult consumers. Unlike its various competitors, Facebook started out only being available to college students in the United Sates. Now it has progressed to targeting a diverse array of groups.
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Facebook was set up by a Mark Zuckerberg, who was a sophomore at Harvard University in 2004. Zuckerberg says that Facebook allows “free expression of ideas, enabled by the Web, [and] bridges deep cultural divides” (Holahan). What he means by this is that our culture can be connected in such a way to allows us to expand our cultural perspectives via social-networking.
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This site is important because it “has a unique opportunity to reach a crucial demographic [Y generation] at a key point in their lives” (Holahan). Facebook and other networking sites are highly influential in the American culture for the Y generation.
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Sources
Holahan, Catherine (2008). Facebook: No. 1 Globally. Business Week Online, 00077135.
Retrieved September 25, 2008 by Academic Search Complete database.
Mullaney, Timothy J., Rosedbush, Steve (2006). Social Networking’s Gold Rush. Business Week Online, 00077135. Retrieved September 25, 2008 by Academic Search Complete database.
Alarms sound over Facebook time. (2006, March 09). USA Today, 073474456.