Ace Ventura, 10/29

Since I just realized I wrote my blog on the wrong author, I'll reflect on our class about Adorno and Horkheimer. Much like the theorists that we have read lately, Horkheimer and Adorno talk about ideologies in our society. One particular thing that I found interesting was the fact that fighting these ideologies and attempting to be "different" is almost impossible. This is made evident in the fact that we, as a societal whole, has created "types" of people. People that try to be different we have labeled as "punk" or "hippies" or "emo". By applying a label to these people, we avoid anybody becoming different because they can't escape these ideological categories that we have placed them in to. In this way, it seems that the ruling class is able to stay in power because they can even exert their ideas onto these people that are attempting to break away. This is similar to Benjamin's idea of the "waning of affect". When a person for the first time pushes the ideological envelope and attempts to be different, it can be shocking and definitely draws attention. But once it has been done many times by many different people, it loses its value and can now be put into a category. And this comfortability that we have with reproduction allows us to create a signifier for this type of person so that we can readily identify it.