The article “A World Brightly Different: Photographic Conventions 1950-1986” mentions, in reference to National Geographic Magazine and their use photos, that “It draws attention, at least implicitly, to things that define ‘us’ in our unmarked and usual state of humanness, that is, as people who dress and act in ‘standard’ ways” (90). Rather than trying to look at the pictures in National Geographic from a different vantage point, we look at the pictures with a Western view, in order to reinforce our way of life as the norm. Looking at those pictures does not make us feel sorry for the pre modern (when compared to the Western culture) people we see; rather it helps us to be content with what we have. All the pictures show happy people and there are no pictures of sadness. Thus, no pity is spared by the viewer for the poor in the pictures, as we assume they are content and fully satisfied with their lifestyle. Instead of analyzing the reality of the pictures, we are encouraged (by the context of the magazine) to appreciate at the pictures as art, as noted in the article, “The act of appreciating them lets the viewer see himself or herself as both human (because the photographed are still recognized as people) and as cultured (because the photograph is like a museum piece, a work of art)” (95). This is why nudity is accepted in National Geographic, because it is ‘appreciated’ as art of an exotic species, where as a topless bather at a beach in
Friday, December 14, 2007
National Geographic
Stereotypes and 'the other'
Debby Thompson discusses the various approaches to acting and portraying race in her article “Is Race a Trope?” She discusses the Naturalistic approach and how it states that an actor “should ‘become’ or ‘be’ the character he/she is playing,” but this does not portray the truth of a character, especially the race of the character. Anna Deavere Smith, on the other hand, believes that Smith “the goal of performance becomes, then, not authenticity but exploration of the gap between self and other, actor and character, as well as of the gaps within our seemingly linear ideological narratives” (130). I believe that this is how truth in a character can come about. In portraying someone’s race, you almost have to be prejudice or racist and label them as ‘the other’, in order to see the differences that make that race. It is not racist to understand that an African American who grew up in the ghetto has a certain way of life, based on his/her experiences, acts very similar to any other African American who grew up in the ghetto, yet both act completely differently than a white suburban male. In portraying another race, the actor has to play into the stereotypes and racial profiling, in order to bring the truth of the character out. As Smith did, you have to perform the person as if they were performing themselves. Ignoring the stereotypes and racism is to ignore race altogether, which as Carroll Smith-Rosenberg (one of Deavere Smith’s characters) states “Ignoring race enables white folks to escape the label "prejudiced and, at the same time, avoid dealing with the very real problem of systemic racism in the American economy” (135). This is apparent in many American films and television shows, where they have different races intermingling without the presence of stereotypes. This sends a mixed message to minorities, as they are influenced to believe that
Confession
In his article “Video Confession” Michael Renov discusses and analyzes the act of confessing. He notes Foucault’s theory that “We…become a singularly confessing society…Western man has become a confessing animal” (193). I think there are two reasons why Western society is a confessing society. The first is that we are a secular society, where we limit our face to face contact and rely on technology for socialization and confessing is a result of people reaching out for attention. Most people do not even know their neighbours, let alone talk to them; instead we rely on online profiles to express ourselves. Also, we are taught to keep our emotions inside and keep most relationships professional, which also leads to us not trusting anyone but ourselves. Secondly, even though we do not communicate face to face, the Western man is under constant surveillance and any secret one has is eventually exposed, which is why we confess. We want to confess before someone else finds out our secret and exposes it, which will make things even worse. Renov also notes that, “confession has been assigned a complex therapeutic value” (194). In a Western world where we have to keep secrets and our emotions inside, confessing is a therapeutic relief.
An example of this is The Chris Myers Show, where athletes are voluntarily interviewed about their life/career, and usually they reveal a secret or explain rumours. An example of this was when retired NBA player John Amaechi went on and publicly admitted he was gay. Societal pressures forced him to keep his secret hidden and his emotions trapped inside. He wasn’t able to tell even his team mates about his true self, so finally, after he retired, he went on numerous talk shows, including the Chris Myers Show, and confessed his secret. He said that feels so much about himself, even though there have been a lot of bad reactions around the NBA. I think that Amaechi decided to come out of the closet because he knew that soon, someone would find out and expose him, but also because he wanted the therapeutic value. He wanted to feel better about himself and not have to hide anymore.
As Renov notes, “it is clear that confession is not only narrativized but commodified,” which is why confessions are always being communicated via television shows because the Western world loves secrets and gossip (196). It is big money t.v., so people, especially celebrities, are encouraged to confess on television. Also, there is something authentic and more believable about seeing someone confess on a televison show that is not apparent in a book or newspaper article.
Renov also talks about the video confession between just two people and I agree with him that is very emotional and effective and with modern technology, the video confession could replace face to face confession. With web cams, editing software and video sharing software, confessing via video could become commonplace.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Family Album
After reading Patricia Holland's article "History, Memory and the Family Album" I really began to think about my own family albums. I had never questioned the pictures in the albums and I had never thought of who might be left out. Like every family, my family has gone through change since I was a child and the pictures I look back at now, are not an accurate portrait of what was to come. As Holland points out in her opening line of this article, "a family snapshot is an act of faith in the future" (1). When I look at a picture of me, my parents and my brothers it's as if it's a picture from a different world. A world that is gone and has now been replaced with a new world. I have no resentments for my parents getting divorced, I am just glad they are happy, but I look at these pictures and wonder what would have been. When we took this picture, we thought we would all be together forever, we had no concept of anything different. All we had was hope and we made that hope tangible by taking a picture of it and storing it in an album. Now almost 20 years later, I look at that picture and I can see the hope pouring out it, but that is all it ever will be, hope. Pictures are supposed to record reality, but all they record is what we 'want' reality to be.
All family albums have people laughing and smiling, no matter what they are doing or what they are going through at the time. Holland notes that "...for however untidy or unsatisfactory the experience, we can ensure that the picture will project the appropriate emotions into the future" (2). We always make sure we smile for the camera and then when we look back at that pictures, we sometimes ask ourselves why we are smiling. Do we even like the person who is taking a picture of us or the person that is smiling beside us? When an outsider looks at that picture, they assume that you are all friends and you are having wonderful time, when in fact, the person beside you could hate you for flirting with his wife or vice versa. We trust pictures because they capture reality, but again is this reality or is this just picture.
This past summer marked 50 years that my grandparents have been married and as a surprise, I made a slideshow of the past 50 years of their lives. I collected family albums from everyone in the family, even my grandparents, although they were not aware. It took me several days to look through the thousands of pictures, and took just as long to pick out the ones I wanted to use. As I was looking through the pictures, I came across one of their wedding day, and their was a strange man in the picture beside my grandfathers mother. I had heard a lot about my great grandmother and have seen lots of pictures of her with my grandfather and his brothers and sisters, but I have never seen this man before. I showed the picture to my father and asked him who that was, and he simply stated that, "that was grandpa's father." I could tell he did know much and what he did know he did not wish to share, so I didn't ask anymore questions, although I had so many I wanted to ask. I could tell that they did not want to talk about it, but why? Everyone in the picture was smiling, even this stranger who is my great grandfather, so why is he not in anymore family albums? I was not going to get the answer anytime soon. Maybe one day I will find out, or maybe he will be forgotten, which may be the intent of those who controlled the family albums. As Holland states, "Each new generation brings new perspectives, new understandings and new forgettings" (1). My father was taught to forget this person, and now that I have found out, I am taught to forget this person. Holland further states later in the article that "...albums contsruct their own versions of family history, in negotiation with the ideal...they will include significant moments and suitable family members and rigorously exclude others" (7). I guess this wasn't a suitable family member to include and it makes me wonder, how many people have been 'forgotten' in the family albums? I would have to do some serious research to find out, but do I want to find out? There must be good reason why they are forgotten; maybe that old stone is better left unturned.
With the modern digital capabilities of photographs and the ease of copying a picture from anywhere on the internet and placing it in your own family album, it has become a lot harder to forget. Even if you delete all of your pictures off of Facebook of you and your ex girlfriend, there could be dozens of copies out there on people's home computers. Facebook and other social networks that display pictures have made the modern family album public, as Holland notes "And yet, this most private of collections is also thoroughly public. Its meanings are social as well as personal" (3). The family album is no longer secluded in a dusty cabinet 3 hours away in your grandparents living room and it is no longer one of kind. Now, it is on the internet for all to see and anyone can have a copy for their own consumption.
The modern ability to easily take, store and copy pictures has taken away from meaning and prestige of the picture itself. One picture doesn't mean much anymore, rather it is the group of 50 pictures that might mean something. Now, instead of having one picture to describe a 4 hour event, you have dozens of pictures that were taken each hour of the event. I can only hope that my great grandchildren can file through the thousands of pictures of me and gain a fair understanding of who I was.
Superstar
Like Terkel's Working, the documentary Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story elaborates on the life behind the working person. The documentary uses Barbie dolls as its characters, which symbolizes the fake and impossible body/lifestyle that a music celebrity has, especially a female. Females in the public eye, especially performers, HAVE to look good. They must be skinny, tall, well endowed, curvy, but not plump and they have to have smooth, clear skin. It is physica
lly impossible for a human being to be shaped the way that Barbie is, yet millions of girls world wide look up to Barbie and do everything they can, even sickening themselves, in an effort to obtain this impossible figure. During a recording session in this documentary, Karen is shown in a dark booth, trying her best to be, in her her own words "Perfect". She makes one small mistake, coughing, and her brother is all over her back, telling her, "Look, we’ll just do it until it’s right. Just do what I tell you, and it will be great." In the entertainment industry, females have an impossible agenda. Their record labels and agents have them on a leash, and they must follow all sorts of orders. They have to put out new albums every year, shoot a bunch of videos, appear in a half a dozen commercials, do a photo shoot every other week, do something for charity once a week (most of us don't do one thing all year) fly all around the world on tour performing a
concert every night, and oh yeah, one more thing...they have to keep their body fat dangerously low. The stress that these young ladies go through is phenomenal and it is not shocking that anorexia and bulimia are such a huge problem today. These 'superstars' are role models for thousands of young girls around the world and when these young girls see their idols skipping meals, they follow right along and do whatever it takes to be like a superstar. This is even more evident today as magazines, movies and television programs are plastered with unhealthy stick thin women and then in the news every week, there is a new female celebrity with an eating disorder. The worst effects are those of the younger female celebrities that walk into a life of unbearable pressure and unattainable tasks. It is no wonder some of these young women resort to a drugs, alcohol abuse and violence.
Although Superstar focuses on two significant issues, eating disorders and the pressures and distortions of the mass media, it is not best used as a detourent for young girls. Since it uses dolls and cheap editing, it may not be taken as serious. Young girls can not identify with the Barbie doll Karen; there is not enough development of her character. There are many other videos that are more appropriate and more effective in teaching young girls about eating disorders. Superstar has become more popular since it has been banned in certain cases, as Hilderbrand notes in his article, "its [Superstar] reception has been significantly influenced by the conditions of its exhibition and circulation, even more so since its withdrawal from legitimate distribution" (61). This swithces the focus of the documentary to bootlegging it and obtaining it, rather than the key moral issues it portrays, as Hilderbrand also notes, "Videotape duplication of the work formally changes the text so that its thematic concerns—mass-media distortion
and its relations to subjective and bodily breakdown—become rendered on the surface" (62). The issues are only viewed at from their face value, deeper meaning is not pursued. Eating disorders and mass media's distortion of the human body are serious issues that have to be addressed. Making a 'mockumentary' using dolls is a start, but more serious attempts should be at the forefront.
Working - Studs Terkel
Even though the stories that the people tell in Working are from 1971 or earlier, I can (and I am sure most people can) relate to their experiences. Terkel does an excellent job at getting these people to open up and tell us vivid stories that allows us understand them and feel for them. He interviews all kinds of people in all kinds of jobs, from a model to a prostitute, and he shows us that they are not that different. The stories of the model and the call girl/prostitute, told by Jill Torrance and Roberta Victor, respectively, have many similarities these jobs have. For instance, Jill mentions that the only reason she became a model was because of the money, she could not turn it down. She recollects when she first started out..."I had fifty cents in my pocket when I got my first job. I worked two hours and made sixty dollars. It was incredible to me...I was getting all this money for smiling and pinning a flower on a guy" (53). This is very similar to Roberta's experience when she first became a call girl, as she says, "Here I was doing absolutely nothing, feeling nothing, and in twenty minutes I was going to walk out with fifty dollars in my pocket. That just made me
feel absolutely marvelous" (59). They both start out for the same reasons and they live the glamour life, but soon enough they also both realize later on how fake and objectified they feel. They both feel worthless and they realized that the money is not worth it anymore and the glamour life is not what they thought it would be. After reading both of them, one also realizes how real of a job being a prostitute is and how crappy of a job being a model is.
Terkel provides his readers a glimpse into all areas of the American workforce and all areas of society. It is inspiring, in the way that it allows people to see that they are not alone, and that others share their pains, whether it be sexual harassment or a lung disease. This book allows us to collectively complain about the workforce, but at the same time we realize that everyone in all types of jobs complain about their jobs. So, we don't feel that bad because almost everyone hates some aspect of their work.