Topman Subvertisement
Last week, my group consisting of Faizah, Riphdy and Siqi came together to create a subvertisement of Topman—a popular men’s clothing chain. Instead of how Topman usually parades themselves with male models with small frames, clean and neat looking, flawless skin, “pretty face”, our group decided to redo the cover page of one of their fashion catalogues to portray what a real-life man would look like. We intentionally drifted away from the typical model look for Topman in hopes that we would present the expectations VS reality of men. Here is our finish product! 🙂 The experience was set against time, since we had to finish the activity in class, I think my group was doubtful if we could pull this activity off well, but we ended up really liking how our random burst of ideas led to our finished subvertisement. Major flashback to art and crafts class in primary school, haha!
Ellen DeGeneres, The Ellen Show
Ellen DeGenres is probably a household name in most developed countries, she is an influential character in the media industry and has her very own talk show called The Ellen Show. Her show is one form of a mediated public sphere as it brings people together to discuss, share and exchange ideas, information and feelings about what matters in liberal society, with her(Ellen) being the main mediator. She interacts with her invited guests and live audience on the show, it is not a one-way programme, in contrary we often hear opinions and thoughts voiced out during show. Ellen is able to control what topics to talk about and who to invite over as guests to the show, in this manner she mediates the content of the programme.
Recently there were reports of an episode that aired on the Ellen Show, that resulted in some societal debate. The context of the episode involves Ellen sitting down with invited guest Pharrell Williams—an established singer—to talk about their stands of homosexuality acceptance in society. This conversation was sparked off by Kim Burrell and her homophobic comments that was released recently in a 2 minutes video. Prior to the whole incident, Ellen had invited singers Kim Burrell and Pharrell Williams to perform their song in movie Hidden Figures that was just released as publicity for the movie. Even though the engagement was already confirmed, Ellen decided to cancel the engagement with Kim Burrell after hearing Kim’s opinions on homosexuality, for obvious reasons—Ellen is an activists for the LGBT movement and community, as she herself came out of the closet some years ago. In the episode, only Pharrell appeared, and he performed a different song without Kim Burrell.
In the interview, Ellen explained that “She (Kim Burrell) was doing a Facebook Live and she said some very not nice things about homosexuals. So I didn’t feel like that was good of me to have her on the show, to give her a platform after she’s saying things about me,” Pharrell subsequently added that, “There’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017 and moving on. She’s a fantastic singer… I love her, just like I love everybody else and we all gotta get used to that. We all have to get used to everyone’s differences and understand that this is a big, gigantic, beautiful, colorful world. And it only works with inclusion and empathy.” Both Pharrell and Ellen were able to address the matter from their perspective on the show.
Different news in the country then went on to report the Kim Burrell and Ellen DeGeneres controversy, in addition it also reported the thoughts that Ellen and Pharrell had about this societal issue. This sparked of many thoughts from the public and many went over to change.org to petition against Kim Burrell. The Ellen Show is one example of a mediated sphere in action.
To watch Ellen’s interview click here
REFERENCES
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38505964
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/pharrell-williams-ellen-degeneres-kim-burrell-1201953354/
NICOLE INEZ SHO 
Hi Nichola,
Great job on the subvertisement! I am really intrigued by the creativity and the design elements behind it, now I am like “Damn I wish I was a part of that”.
All jokes aside, I have always loved Ellen’s work. She is definitely an important public figure in American pop-culture, and I always wished that we would have one for our country. Not much of a fan of Pharrel Williams though, but I admire and agree on his moral view on hate speech. I don’t really know who Kim Burrel is, but I have to say that she is rather bold for openly mocking homosexuality. To me everyone has their own opinions, and I don’t exactly know what she said but if she truly holds her opinions very strongly, evidently she made a point of saying them in front of a public audience, then I think there should not be an issue. She should have the rights to speak her mind just as much as Ellen or anyone else who identify themselves as a homosexual, but what happens to her next is entirely on her. Whether people hate it or love it, hate speech or not, its just her opinion.
Opinions are like onions, if you don’t want to cry about it don’t bother yourself with it. Plus they both rhyme lol.
Peace and Unity,
Riph
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Hellos, interesting subvertisment poster from your group, your group done a good job in redoing the cover page of one of their fashion catalogues to show the expectations VS reality of men models, This contrast makes a good start to show that normal looking men that we seen daily in real life can be models too, not necessary just typical good looking face.
The Ellen show is indeed famous and well known to most people, even people like me who does not watch American shows do know some about this talk show. I watched just a few times of this talk show during my NS and find Ellen DeGenres as a quite good host/MC whereby she takes control on the direction of the topics discuss in the show, interact well with her invite guests and audiences as well as listened well to the speaker. I do agree with you that her talk show is one form of a mediated public sphere in this modern age as exchange of ideas, sharing opinions and discussions about almost anything in the society can be found in her talk show.
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Hello, Wahiuz has arrived. Firstly, I’d like to say that your group’s subvertisement idea was a job well done, very creative indeed. The explanation and argument you made in regard to public sphere is really clear, probably crystal even. Using Ellen’s show and herself as an example for a mediated public sphere is an apt choice indeed. And picking out a controversy which occurs within her very own show is a smart move. A homosexual barring a homophobic, the tables surely have turned. To be honest I feel Ellen could have done better. I feel that she should invite Kim onto the show and question the homophobic comments that was made. Rather than keeping things in the dark, should have let it all play out. Anyway great choice of topic.
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