The High Cost of Cool - Essay Example

It has been truly d by Mark Crispin-Miller, Communications New York in the video, The Merchants of Cool, that there is a difference between human research and market research (“The MTV Machine”). It is the market research that is being carried out by television companies like MTV and they are simply researching topics that enhance their own sales promotion (“The MTV Machine”). It has been observed that professional wrestling is the most popular television programme among American kids (“The MTV Machine”).

It is natural that the typical ‘mook’ gets fashioned upon the violent and sexual macho image associated with the wrestler. It is explained in the video that what the popular culture industry does is doing “whatever works … with most people” (“The MTV Machine”). The “prematurely adult” nature of both the “mook” and the “midriff” is a way of giving shape to a consumer at a youngest possible age (“The Midriff”). And on the other hand, the “mook” and “midriff” become the ultimate images of youth (“The Midriff”).

These two terminologies have been explained in the below-given description:The “mook” is a hopelessly immature male whose grotesque and inappropriate antics are elebrated for their transgressions, whereas the “midriff” is a female sexualized beyond her years whose emotional immaturity makes her ripe for inclusion of fantasies for sexual exploration (Ladousa, 51).This self-images propagated among the youth have an influence of their own on the young people but youth culture is too complex a matter to be controlled merely by specific media-promoted self-images.

But still the young people are prone to such stereotyped imagery, to an extent. Natoli has called attention to the fact that the present generation in the US has been called the “Mook and Midriff Generation” (93). Especially, the “mook” and “midriff” culture has a patriarchal message that tells a girl that “your body is your best asset” (“Midriff”). The threat that these images pose to the youth in terms of stereotyping is that “your son or daughter, and grandson or granddaughter is getting hammered with the pressure to be a mook or a midriff” (Pratt, 28).

It can be seen that though the “mook” and “midriff” images are time bound, they are going to have an impact on the teenagers and the children who grow up every moment exposed to the media images of them.Works Cited Ladousa, Chaise, “House Signs and Collegiate Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town”, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. Print.Pratt, Pepper, “Mooks, Midriffs and the Media”, Women’s Journal, April/May 2009. Web. 24 November 2011, http://www.

tnwomensjournal.com/archives/april09/WJ_April_09_pp28-31.pdf The MTV Machine, The Merchants of Cool, 27 February 2001. Web. 24 November 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02s485q70&continuous=1 The Midriff, The Merchants of Cool, 27 February 2001. Web. 24 November 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02s485q70&continuous=1