Analysis Of The Plastic Pink Flamingo A Natural History By Jennifer Price

Materialism is a grievous ailment that many Americans suffer from as a result of America’s grand consumer culture. While materialism is indeed associated with negative connotations, commodities have different cultural influences on certain social groups. For example, a commodity well known to the Asian-American community is Spam. In the 2011 article, “The End of Spam Shame: On Class, Colonialism, and Canned Meat”, Sylvie Kim reminisces over the shame she had for her love of Spam. She draws in connections between Spam and American imperialism to demonstrate to her fellow Asian Americans that they should not be ashamed of their love for Spam as it represents their identity. While a history professor of Wisconson-Madison,

Richard Rodriguez article, “The Chinese in All of Us (1944)”, argues that many different cultures have contributed to making up the American culture. Rodriguez backs up this claim by sharing

Price juxtaposes the American view of the flamingo with other culture’s views of the majestic birds. She says Americans exploited the flamingo, “reproducing it, brightening it, and sending it.” She compares these actions with the reverence other cultures have for the flamingo and determines that Americans tend to pervert and exploit beauty for profit, rather than preserve the original

In her essay, she utilizes irony to add a sarcastic tone in her essay, making the essay more enjoyable for readers to read. An example of this is the use of computer jargon to explain why the pencil is the better tool. Laing states how “the software of a pencil is both cheap and simple” (332) and how you can “render it

Price's use of similes/metaphors reveal her views on American culture. For instance, at the end of her essay, Price compares the plastic flamingo to a real flamingo. However, instead of describing the real flamingo as wading across a sea of water, she describes it as “wading across an inland sea of grass.” (line 61) This shows Americans clouding up the image of a real flamingo in order to suit their own interests. Instead of having flamingos in water like they are meant to be, they make fake flamingos to display on lawns in order to exhibit “leisure and extravagance.” (line 19) Another example would be when Price describes many flamingo based buildings such as motels, restaurants, and lounges that sprang up all across the country in the 1950s. (line 26) She compares these flamingo based buildings to “semiotic sprouts” (line 28) that just shout out “flamingo” in order to take advantage of the flamingo trend. These buildings using the “namesake Flamingo” (line 27) adopted this new trend and threw out the old in order to “stand out” (line 25) and draw in “riches.” (line 22) Thus, this shows the adaption of the new trend, no matter how much it had deviated from the norm, in order

McDonald's, Hollywood, football, Coca-Cola, Disney-all are iconic symbols of American culture. Author, Sarah Vowell, incorporates these iconic symbols throughout her work while also defining and analyzing the American identity. She does this through her book, Take The Cannoli, using language, humor, and history.

According to the material, Americans are taught that their behaviors and choices made come from within themselves. This particular characteristic asserts the position of individualism. Individualism drives Americans to believing that there is uniqueness about themselves and their situation. The belief of emphasizing a human’s ability to choose is strengthened by American cultural narratives. This belief also leads to the fundamental narrative of American culture: Regeneration through regression.

With the signing of NAFTA in 1994, Mexico’s economy destabilized and shattered which caused increased dependence on foreign powers, like the USA, to invest in the economy. This put an emphasis on the globalization of the exchange of goods, services, and ideas. During my trip to Pilsen, I went to a bakery called “Xurro” and found that the whole place was a collection of products from Mexico, the USA, and other countries. They had not only traditional Mexican deserts like churros and Fresas con Crema, but also banana splits and Flaming hot Cheetos (a known American product very popular in Mexico). I also noticed they had an item on the menu called “Mocha Mezcla” which was Abuelita Mexican hot chocolate with a shot of expresso in it. These products are the physical representation of globalization through food; the mix and match of cultures introduces new combinations of goods to be sold and consumed. I observed that the menu was both in English and Spanish; the merging of two languages is indicative of the globalization of language as well as products. Also in the gift shop of the Art Museum, many products were made in China or other nations, although they were meant to represent Mexican heritage; this satisfies customer’s desire to be more “cultured” without being aware of the history and journey that the product has made. However, globalization is anything but a seamless process. Throughout the Museum, I perceived there were many images of American culture mixed with Mexican culture in a negative light. For example, there was a 3D sculpture of the famous Sun Maid Raisins, an American company, logo but the friendly girl on the box was replaced with a skeleton smiling with the words underneath, “SUN MAD Raisins: unnaturally grown with Insecticides, Miticides, Herbicides,

Price’s essay shifts from stating the artistic appeal of plastic flamingos in the 1950s to acknowledging that many American trends are hypocritical. She appeals to logos by stating how flamingos had gone extinct in Florida due to hunters killing them for plumes and meat. She presents this in order

Jennifer Price uses diction to characterize American Culture as materialistic and thoughtless in her first and second paragraphs. To add color to her first paragraph, Price uses a variety of words including “splashed”, “boldness”, “flocking”, “pizzaz” and “playful”. This word choice characterizes the flamingos, and through comparison, American society as valuing glamour and consequently, wealth. In describing the new plastic flamingos Price even goes as far as to describe flamingos as “synonymous with wealth”, and the middle class as “eager” to enjoy the flamingo culture, associated with wealth. She aids her characterization by calling the flamingos “souvenirs”, pointless chotskies that a person brings home to show off and display their wealth. She contrasts this with the irony that flamingos in America had already gone extinct by the nineteenth century. While describing this extinction,

She uses a very elegant word choice in statements like “the Flamingo, had made the bird synonymous with wealth and pizazz…” giving the audience a more in-depth look of just how much the Flamingos were viewed by Americans. Price the delivers “in 1956, right after he signed his first recording contract, Elvis presley bought a pink Cadillac. This detail enhances her credibility by showing the audience that she is very knowledgeable and an expert in her field. The irony comes into play when she mentions “ Americans had hunted flamingos to extinction in Florida in the late 1800s” which taints the reputation of America by creating the image that American society is greedy and irresponsible. She then builds upon this thought by comparing how we treat the Flamingos, and how other cultures treat them “always singled out the Flamingo as special. Early christians associated it with the red phoenix. In ancient Egypt, it symbolized the sun god

In the 1940’s many changes were occurring culturally in the United States, many due to the war that was being fought. In this essay, many of these cultural innovations will be discussed and assessed. As will the events that caused such changes and evolutions in the American culture.

Every single individual on this planet has their own distinctive identity and culture. Our culture helps us identify who we are and where we come from. In today’s world, it appears that cultural diffusion has become a normal part of everyone’s life as cultural trends, beliefs and customs spread quickly from one culture to another. In his poem, “Coca-Cola and Coco Frio,” Martin Espada provides his readers with a great example of cultural diffusion that a boy encounters when he visits his native country, Puerto Rico. The “fat boy” mentioned in the poem is none other than Martin Espada himself (3). By sharing his childhood experience in Puerto Rico, Espada tries to prove that acceptance of other cultures can have a negative impact as people incline to neglect their own cultural values and begin to bear a resemblance to other countries.

Before reading the excerpts from “The Overspent American” I was not familiar with Juliet Schor’s work. While reading however, I saw that her views were different from many of the other authors that we have read so far. When I had finished the reading I found the reading enjoyable and fascinating. The reason that her writing intrigued me was because of her multiple perspectives while writing. Not only does she concentrate on the economics of American people, but she also uses a sociologist lens to show the purchasing habits of our culture. “The Overspent American” focuses on how we as a society have changed our spending patterns from the past. During the 1950s the phrase “keeping up with the Jones’” was coined and it represented Americans trying to outspend their neighbors and friends. For example, my friend buys a boat and I also need to buy a boat to make sure my friends saw me as being wealthy. Today our society as changed in many ways but Schor finds that our spending habits have altered the most since the 1950s. By analyzing and evaluating her work, one can see how Americans spending habits have changed over time and how our economics have been overtaken by television and broadcast media.

In our scientific work we have examined some books, journals, internet sites providing profound analyses of American history, culture, population, and some newspaper and magazine articles devoted to the culture of the country.