Iconography of
the U.S.

Find
an icon of the U.S. that imposed upon other cultures in an attempt to persuade or gain favor or to
achieve business purposes.  Using this icon, answer the following questions:

A. What is the icon?

The icon is Six Flags.  It is a very popular amusement park.  Most people would know what the flags stand for just by seeing the image.  

B. How did it become iconic in the U.S.?

Six Flags kept expanding and becoming more and more popular.  Not too many other amusement park companies competed with it.  

C. How is it employed outside of the U.S.?

Currently there are two Six Flags outside of the US, one in Canada and one in Mexico.  There were several in France, Belgium and Spain, but due to lack of money they had to sell them. They wanted to earn more money and become more well known around the world.  Around this same time, DreamWorks and Universal Studios were trying to expand as well.

D. Was the cultural response to this usage positive or negative? Was the U.S. response to this usage positive or negative? Why or why not?

From what I have found, the response was positive both for the U. S and for other cultures.  People enjoy roller coasters and the atmospheres of the parks.  The downfall was that Six Flags was in trouble financially and had to make budget cuts. Now there are only two in other cultures.  They are both going strong and excepted well.  

E. What might have been a more culturally relative?
I think in this case, Six Flags is a very universal icon and place.  It can relate to every culture and can be for everyone.  I am not sure anything could have been more culturally relative.  The only thing I can think of is if instead of having the "Looney Toon" feel, they could have changed the feel to fit the culture that particular park was in.  

Pastiche

Here is an Example of Pastiche in Film. It is the movie Airplane! (1980).

A. How is this pastiche a reworking of the past?

     "Airplane" is a movie that represents past disaster movies as an entirety.  (before 1980).  The plot and the scenes in the movie are similar to and recognizable with previous disaster movies in general.

B. Is this pastiche only or pastiche with parody? How?

     Airplane is pastiche with parody.  It mocks/makes fun of with humor most specifically Zero Hour! but also

     references to Airport 1975, Jaws, 60 Minutes, San Fransisco International Airport, The Untouchable, and From

     Here to Eternity. Those movies were starting to be so familiar, that the initial scared emotion felt when seeing those movies were no longer felt, so the movie Airplane was able to then make a parody out of those past movies. 

C. How is this work a questioning of the status of the original?
     This is a pastiche and not "an original" because Airplane used ideas from several different "original"  disaster movies
      to come up with this one. 

(Visit http://graphjam.com/, which allows users to create graphs that depend on knowledge of popular culture.)

Answer the following questions:

A. How is this pastiche (the individual graphs and the whole site) a reworking of the past?
     Many of the graphs on this site compare things from the past with things of popular culture today. This graph specifically is showing the difference of the originality of past movies verse movies of today, which is also showing in a way that these movies are pastiches.   

B. Is this pastiche only or pastiche with parody? How?

    This is pastiche with parody. It is mocking and adding humor to the situation.  The website it not serious in any way, showing the parody side of site.   Specific graphs are taking specific topics and mocking them.  

C. How is this work a questioning of the status of the original?
     This graph specifically to me is not a pastiche, but the content that it is talking about is one.  It shows how much the content of movies have changed from the past to the present.  Lots of movies now-a-days are pastiches because they take the same ideas from the originals.  So the familiar ideas now-a-days seen from the past initiate a questioning.