-I'm beginning to wonder how advertising can manipulate society into labeling certain areas of culture as "tasteful" or "distasteful." There is such a wide spectrum of generations that affect society, and I think it's interesting how overtime humans have created and advocated such a visually oriented world focused on what "sells" and what does not. I mean, let's travel back into time... the Egyptians, for example, use to tell stories using hieroglyphics or painted pictures of the afterlife because they thought would ensure their happiness in the life to come. However, in today's society, most views of death (though they do concentrate on a specific form of afterlife, though it may not be the "center" of that religious faith) do not completely revolve around "artistic" representations of the afterlife, but instead (and I assume this view comes from the great Renaissance), our faith, in some sense, comes from individualized thought and personal experience. Emotions and feelings emerge from personal experience. Arts, films and visual aids sometimes connect us to our personal experiences and can even "toy" with our emotions, whether those emotions be neutral or biased. Therefore, it is hard to avoid certain ideologies, because we no longer reason but identify ourselves with emotional experience. So if we let society control our emotions, and we let society use visual aid as a manipulation tool, I wonder if "real" interpretation can exist.
-I wonder if we think that 1. our voices are insignificant or 2. that society will challenge our adopted ideologies, and I say adopted because they came from somewhere. One generation may have a certain way of doing things, for example, a traditional church worship service. Newer generations have in some since "reformed" the church and is bringing it into the new era of "contemporary" style or worship. These new generations could not change the church service if it didn't exist in the first place. Church came from somewhere at sometime, and if you want to get specific, it started somewhere around 100 C.E in Rome... So in a way society can change, but its the initial realization that something needs to be changed that is the kicker.
-Sally Mann does a great job of challenging society's views with her seemingly sensual photographs of her children. Although I find them to be a little disturbing myself, I give her some credit for shocking the world and defying social norms, just as the womans "gaze" caused such controversy when it first appeared in public areas.