Sunday, October 12, 2008
Week 6 Post
The fluidity of truth in postmodernism has to do with the fact that there is more than one way to view truth. There is not one ultimate truth arrived upon in a medanarrative way anymore. Our culture has become a mix of various stories, and we do not see the world as one great story that encapsulates everything--all of truth. V for Vendetta does this in the fact that there are various stories occurring within the same story. One key part of V for Vendetta is Evey's story. It is separate, in many ways, from V's vendetta against the government and yet her story and her fear feed into the ultimate story of truth--the truth that the government is corrupt and that the people need hope, a hope apart from obedience to the government. During part of the film Evey is made to believe that she is being tortured and imprisoned by the government and then, once she has conquered her fear and is let go from the prison she realizes that she was simply in a room in V's chambers all along--she was never in any "real danger." V reminds Evey of how she used to derive truth from her father's stories... how truth can be found in make believe, pretend, or fantasy. She then comes to see how the fact that she has conquered her fear is in fact real despite the unreal circumstances that caused her to come to that victory. As a Christian, I believe God uses stories to tell us, to teach us truths. Jesus continually used parallels to tell the disciples about the Kingdom of Heaven. We can arrive on a truth--even an absolute truth through various stories (no matter how real they are) within the ultimate story of reality.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Black Looks Review
Whitney Curtis
September 29, 2008
Pop Culture
Tim Posada
Black Looks Review
Bell Hooks writes, “The essays in Black Looks are meant to challenge and unsettle, to disrupt and subvert,” and this is exactly what her book did for me. After reading the first chapters of the book, I felt attacked. I was hurt and certain that I held no part in this white supremacist, racist society. However, slowly I began to realize that this book was not a direct attack on me, but rather a sharing of the real experiences, tragedies, and points-of-view of people that have been marginalized in society—specifically those of black people. I am not a racist and do not consider myself better than anyone, but I am uneducated in the racist ways of this society. This book helped me see that I am naïve in the ways that black people are portrayed in society, and that I have been caught in the “sameness” trap that states that we need to not focus on the differences between races because we are all really the same—we are all human. What I never realized before is: this statement negates the positive differences between races, the differences that create cultures and individuals.
Bell Hooks does an excellent job at teaching the reader and helping us see, whether we are black, white or any other color, the changes that need to occur in society. She opens our eyes to the ongoing undermining and terrorizing of the black community.
What I found very interesting in Hooks writing was the way she addressed the portrayal of women as over sexualized or “mammies.” She states that black women are trapped in a role of “sexuality and desirability” put on them by a white society that suppressed its own sexuality and needed to project it onto the “Other.” This sexuality is seen throughout the media, including Madonna music videos and various films.
I recently saw a romance/drama, and was able to immediately recognize that the character of the black best friend was depicted as the sexually awakened and eager-to-experiment woman, who gives the white main character relationship advice. However, this character is also portrayed as a mammy. Her home is an old-fashioned, southern type beach home. The kitchen has an old refrigerator and a stove and oven from the 1940s. She decorated the house in effort to remember her great grandmother--who was once a slave. And this character has taken care of her white best friend's two children on many occasions.
Another plight discussed by Hooks, that black people and people of other, non-white origin face, is the prospect of being used by whites as “new dishes to enhance the white palate” and will eventually “be eaten, consumed and forgotten.” Madonna is a key person in the “commodifying” of other cultures, especially black culture. She uses black culture as part of her chic beauty and popularity. In her desire to surpass racist culture and show the world that she embraces other cultures she actually portrays blacks in her music videos as slave-like, sexual barbarians.
When reading this book I constantly felt helpless and hopeless against the disappointment I felt in my culture and society for not having come further in this fight against racism, power and domination. But my hope came toward the end of the book when Hooks writes, “…[repositioning] allows for the recognition that progressive white people who are anti-racist might be able to understand the way in which their cultural practice reinscribes white supremacy without promoting paralyzing guilt or denial.”
September 29, 2008
Pop Culture
Tim Posada
Black Looks Review
Bell Hooks writes, “The essays in Black Looks are meant to challenge and unsettle, to disrupt and subvert,” and this is exactly what her book did for me. After reading the first chapters of the book, I felt attacked. I was hurt and certain that I held no part in this white supremacist, racist society. However, slowly I began to realize that this book was not a direct attack on me, but rather a sharing of the real experiences, tragedies, and points-of-view of people that have been marginalized in society—specifically those of black people. I am not a racist and do not consider myself better than anyone, but I am uneducated in the racist ways of this society. This book helped me see that I am naïve in the ways that black people are portrayed in society, and that I have been caught in the “sameness” trap that states that we need to not focus on the differences between races because we are all really the same—we are all human. What I never realized before is: this statement negates the positive differences between races, the differences that create cultures and individuals.
Bell Hooks does an excellent job at teaching the reader and helping us see, whether we are black, white or any other color, the changes that need to occur in society. She opens our eyes to the ongoing undermining and terrorizing of the black community.
What I found very interesting in Hooks writing was the way she addressed the portrayal of women as over sexualized or “mammies.” She states that black women are trapped in a role of “sexuality and desirability” put on them by a white society that suppressed its own sexuality and needed to project it onto the “Other.” This sexuality is seen throughout the media, including Madonna music videos and various films.
I recently saw a romance/drama, and was able to immediately recognize that the character of the black best friend was depicted as the sexually awakened and eager-to-experiment woman, who gives the white main character relationship advice. However, this character is also portrayed as a mammy. Her home is an old-fashioned, southern type beach home. The kitchen has an old refrigerator and a stove and oven from the 1940s. She decorated the house in effort to remember her great grandmother--who was once a slave. And this character has taken care of her white best friend's two children on many occasions.
Another plight discussed by Hooks, that black people and people of other, non-white origin face, is the prospect of being used by whites as “new dishes to enhance the white palate” and will eventually “be eaten, consumed and forgotten.” Madonna is a key person in the “commodifying” of other cultures, especially black culture. She uses black culture as part of her chic beauty and popularity. In her desire to surpass racist culture and show the world that she embraces other cultures she actually portrays blacks in her music videos as slave-like, sexual barbarians.
When reading this book I constantly felt helpless and hopeless against the disappointment I felt in my culture and society for not having come further in this fight against racism, power and domination. But my hope came toward the end of the book when Hooks writes, “…[repositioning] allows for the recognition that progressive white people who are anti-racist might be able to understand the way in which their cultural practice reinscribes white supremacy without promoting paralyzing guilt or denial.”
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Week 4 Discussion
1)What would Jesus Buy did have a valid point--although it was exaggerated--because it depicted the ways in which America is positively run by consumerism--especially the Christmas holiday. It also touched on the sweat shops and the horror humanity side behind this consumer culture. I agree that many times we simply buy things to fill some empty space or some need for identity. It's like we compare our selves and create our identity based on what we do or don't have compared to what other people do or don't have.
2)Fight Club is in many ways a critique on consumer culture. The narrator, Edward Norton's character, is consumed in the beginning of the film with buying various clothes and furniture--he compiles his identity by buying new things. However, it is apparent that he hates this part of his life as he unknowingly creates a second personality--Tyler, or Brad Pitt's character, who is completely adverse to consumer culture and eventually creates a mob type organization to take down commercialized/consumer culture. We realize that Tyler--the psycho second personality that is created by the narrator in an effort to make an identity for himself--something besides his the identity he has built with his consumed products--however this new identity becomes just as destructible as the first.
2)Fight Club is in many ways a critique on consumer culture. The narrator, Edward Norton's character, is consumed in the beginning of the film with buying various clothes and furniture--he compiles his identity by buying new things. However, it is apparent that he hates this part of his life as he unknowingly creates a second personality--Tyler, or Brad Pitt's character, who is completely adverse to consumer culture and eventually creates a mob type organization to take down commercialized/consumer culture. We realize that Tyler--the psycho second personality that is created by the narrator in an effort to make an identity for himself--something besides his the identity he has built with his consumed products--however this new identity becomes just as destructible as the first.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Week 2 Post
Moulin Rouge is significant to the study of pop-culture because it mixes both low and high culture. Musicals have always been considered high culture while pop-music has previously been considered low culture. The mixing of the two automatically made the film almost a cult-classic by appealing to multiple audiences. It also prepared the way for similar films to be created; these films include: Across the Universe and Sweeney Todd. Neibur's model for understanding Christ and culture is inadequate because it is outdated.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A "Happily Ever After" Kind of Girl...
I'm Whit, a good girl who always loved to watch movies on her grandpa's big screen. I grew-up watching fairy tales, Disney movies, Cosby, Full House, and Growing Pains. I have always considered myself a "happily ever after" girl as I have never liked movies that are particularly depressing or gory. And yes, I realize, to my shame, that this means that I have probably not "cultured" myself the way that most young adults my age have. I used to be okay with this and told my friends, "I get enough of the real world outside of the movie theater; when I go see a movie I want it to entertain and uplift, and if it can't do that, then I genuinely enjoy a good numbing." However, within the last year, I have begun to realize that movies, like books and newspapers and magazines can reflect back to us the culture in which we live. Thus, I am trying something new by seeing movies for the sake of what I may learn, as well as, what I may enjoy. My boyfriend loves this; he has always hated the sappy happy endings of my favorite films, and finds it very amusing to watch me squirm and jump out of my seat while we are "engaging" in say, a thriller.
To say the least, I am excited to learn more about the underlying themes and meanings in today's pop culture; playing the analyst has always been one of my favorite roles in life. It doesn't hurt either, that this course will help me attain the number of units I need to graduate this coming May. As of then, I hope to be writing at some low paying publication, and keeping my head afloat while living with my best friend and saving the world one sentence at a time. Writing is my passion, more than movies or any other thing really; although I do feel like I have a certain kindred with movies, and music too, because of the way all three have the potential to stick in people's subconscious and change them from the inside out. I am, as you may have guessed by now, an idealist and a romantic in almost every way. I hope that this course won't ruin me too completely in that, but that I can use it to continue writing about hope even as I write about the depravity.
To say the least, I am excited to learn more about the underlying themes and meanings in today's pop culture; playing the analyst has always been one of my favorite roles in life. It doesn't hurt either, that this course will help me attain the number of units I need to graduate this coming May. As of then, I hope to be writing at some low paying publication, and keeping my head afloat while living with my best friend and saving the world one sentence at a time. Writing is my passion, more than movies or any other thing really; although I do feel like I have a certain kindred with movies, and music too, because of the way all three have the potential to stick in people's subconscious and change them from the inside out. I am, as you may have guessed by now, an idealist and a romantic in almost every way. I hope that this course won't ruin me too completely in that, but that I can use it to continue writing about hope even as I write about the depravity.
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