Geppi's entertainment Museum

So, I am sure at one point in time we have all imagined a world where we’d grow up to have no problems; or to have no responsibilities but to collect comic books, or our favorite toys, to be in a sense; a “toys-R-us” kid. Today was my day, alongside with my boyfriend, to go to the Geppi’s entertainment Museum, a wonderful and quirky museum dedicated to the collection of items through out the history of pop culture. The museum is a great example of the best “toys-R-us“ kid there ever was, America. The museum itself is a nice and involved dive into the world of pop culture history from it’s earliest routes to today’s t.v. culture. Given an over all gleam, Geppi’s offers a wonderful insight to everyone’s childhood nostalgic memories of their favorite shows and characters. It also give a nice insight into the world of pop culture that molded American culture. Not only do these familiar faces of cartoon characters remind us of our childhood, they also show the ever changing face of the land we live in from the early days of Yellow Kid, where marketing to children was seen as “acceptable”, to Barbie’s of the 1980s who had over gone a complete make over to catch up with the fast pace world of the 80’s and the standards of beauty.

The museum was a fun experience but it was hard to look at every piece since there is so much things that make up American pop culture. The first room we looked at was the collection of comic books, including things such as Batman issue #1 and much more. Comic books are an interesting aspect of American culture because many of these cultural heroes reflect our society and the things that were going on in our society at the time such as the comics of the 40’s which set up American soldiers against Hitler or the Justice League fighting against the Axis of Evil. While many of us find ourselves stimulated by these images of great heroes that have powers supreme to normal people I can’t help but admit that these images bore me with their over stimulated use of this weak vs. the strong, while trying to free themselves of what held them down. Even though comic books do bore me there is a rich and lavish history with comic books and their “taboo” origins to the American public where people were warned to keep their children from them.

Beyond the hall of comics it was interesting to see the older characters that filled the pages of newspapers and the original cells of popular cartoons for Disney. As you worked the one floor museum it was over whelming to be in the center of all the media pressing in to catch your attention. The nice aspect of the museum was that each room went in order by time period. One room was filled with old puppets from the classic Howdy Doody show, to images of I love Lucy which featured one of the strongest female comedian of the time. Another held classic StarWars toys and Magnum P.I. figurines. The museum was a nice mixture of the birth of mass media to the pop culture of today through the artifacts we giggled over, laughing as we remembered toys we played with as kids.

Yet, as much as we did get a good kick out of talking about G.I. Joe, star track board games, and having to peel the boy off the (I’m sure) bullet proof fan boy sensitive glass casing of the comic books, it was fascinating to see how cultural norms change, even if it is slowly, but change so much that it becomes reflected in toys we love as children. Also it was fascinating to see how much we consume as buyers. Buying into the fact that we need things to make us feel complete, whole, and in tact. It also is amazing to think that one person wanted to pressure the childhood of thousands of people by putting these small trinkets on display. Come from a McDonalds pack, or the limited linings of conventions of just toys stuffed into an attic each piece of the museum breathed with it’s own special form of life.

One of my favorite things was to look at all the posters on the walls of the old nickelodeon theatres which covered a wide range of material from mysteries or westerns. These pop art covers are amazing to look at with the way they styled them and the text they used to advertise the “motion photos.” Another one of my favorites was to look at the nickel and dime paperbacks that were made up of detective stories and stories of heart break. These stories allowed people to escape their world for a bit and to enjoy something much more than their own life.

The Geppi museum was a good experience in understand some of how pop culture of American is a living thing that is always changing and will never be one steady thing.

My topic for the semester

The topic that I choose to do for the semester is actually going to be Sailormoon, a familiar show that many of us remember from our middle school days.

I choose to do this because the editing of the show from it's original Japanese language is very interesting in pop culture and how American culture views "cartoons" and what is ok for American audiences to see or not see.

Many gender and episodes were cut from the original show for American audience (such as random fact #1: in every season of the popular show all of the sailor scouts died and were reborn with no memory of their former superhero fighting selves).

Introductions can be so akward, can't they?

I guess the first business in order should be to say Hello.

My name is Katie, yep I'm that funny girl that has blue hair in your class, and I am currently kinda...sorta...a freshman or something like that? I hate to say it but I lack motivation in figuring out what to do with myself as I sit in college limbo land and I am not really sure if I have enough credits to even be consider anything else but a freshman next semester. It's not that I don't care or I'm apathetic, it's just life is just kinda crazy and one step must be taken at a time and I think attending every class is a virtue in itself. I like to take the path a little off to the side and just enjoy the time I do have on this big blue ball we call a planet.

Hm...I like to dance down the walk ways of stores and make people laugh when they get me out of my shell (I'm so hella shy), I love to dance in general, I am a huge nerd who loves to read books, learn about history, hang out in art museums, check out the slick beautiful city of B-more, listen to club and light hearted rap, watch that old skool Japanimation, go to comic stores, play games TERRIBLY (down with the wii!), I babble on, I feel like an idiot allll the time, I admire people of strength.

I have a double major in Anthropology and in Modern Language and Linguistics centered in the area of Japanese (yeaa I'm slick nerd like that). I am also aiming for a minor in Journalism because I hope one day to work for National Geographic the magazine and I lack any hope of doing it right now. If not then I'd like to write and do independent field work in cyber cultures and tattoos (odd I know but the history of tattoos is much more fascinating then you would originally think)

Which is the main reason I am taking this Pop culture class. Despite really enjoying my last class with Professor Snyder pop culture is my main area of focus in Anthropology and instead of playing with wild crazy cultures in the beautiful lush wild life I plan to check out what creates subcultures in pop culture and even the anti-culture subgenres such as the punk, hippie, and not limited to myspace culture that make up and form our current pop culture around us and in many different countries. I think it's important to look at pop culture as a whole and it's a great experience to learn where others come from before us since trends like to make that little loop around, right?

As for my pop culture consumption....hm...I use my computer a lot because I am into a lot of rare and odd things so it's easy to find things I like while using the fast interwebs that we all have come to use every single day. Also, I can not lie I am slightly into those internet trends that go floating around, I will let out a 'wtfmate' or a 'Trogdorrr!' (if you know what this mean then thank you, who ever you are) or even a 'wtfbbq11!1"

I listen to toooooonnnnnnsss of music and find that to be one of my biggest pop culture consumption. Anything and everything from foreign bands to Americano and hip hop and jazz. I am not picky about music and try to take a great interest in finding all kinds of rare music and enjoy the indie scene that has been forming.

I don't watch TV. and neither do any of my room mates basically. I find it kind of boring unless I am watching some kind of special on Discovery and N.G.C. yet I do have some guilty pleasures with it.

Like every American teenager I enjoy using my myspace and my own Lj being able to add people and talk to people all over the world is amazing because it shows you that you're not so alone out there.

For my media project, I am sure most of you can remember this from middle school, I am writing about Sailormoon (yes the girls with magic wands and they fought like girls do) but it will be interesting, promise?


Ok, so that’s me in a nut shell, please enjoy reading this, I’m sorry for taking a moment of your time.