BubbaNub: Hooks

     Racial difference, orientalism, gay window advertising, and our obsession with difference as a whole has recently dominated our society.  As Hooks observes, the media has become the forefront for promoting and playing off of these issues of not diversity, but difference.  Largely, these advertisements still radiate racist and decentralized cultures and beliefs.  There are numerous advertisements that contain white women wearing indigenous garments in everyday situations, therefore destroying the cultural significance and value along with it.  Even racism becomes subliminally acceptable in what are easily offensive messages.

         As I searched around for images pertaining to Hooks, I could not help but think back to my time spent in Japan.  Similar to our obsession with Japanese characters in the United States, Japan runs rampant with English phrases gone wrong.  Lost in translation, popular English phrases become skewed and lose all meaning when inducted into Japanese culture.  This is just as evident as the Japanese T-shirts sold that literally translate to "Stupid American" and yet numerous tourists purchase and wear them around with pride.

      Looking at contemporary examples such as these, it is clear that there exists a certain danger in our obsession with difference.  However, it is not the difference itself that endangers us, but the lack of substance we give it.  In our desire for assimilation we simplify, and remove the very things that spark our interest in difference in the first place.  After that, we are simply left with nostalgic images, ones that we can't remember why exactly we like/accept.