Using Connections as Tools

In class on Friday we received our final exam prompt.  The question is whether or not anyone is ever NOT making things up and whether or not that mattered.  Lawrence Weschler, the author of the book Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences, believes that it is not possible to see or imagine an object completely independently from something previously viewed.  He gave these two images as examples:

 above: Jasper Johns, Three Flags (1958); below: Joel Meyerowitz, Autumn Afternoon (2001)

He believes that Joel Meyerowitz saw and was channeling the Three Flags in his inspiration for the photo.  While I am not entirely sure that that was the case, I do believe that certain images that spark a connection can make you feel an emotion.  For example, in the above photo taken by Meyerowitz, the colors of red, white and blue pop out and, even if you had never seen the painting Three Flags, a sense of patriotism and America are immediately established. 

Another example occurred in my own life on Friday night.  I was babysitting and the kids wanted to watch The Incredibles, and I was probably as excited as they were.  But when watching the scene where Mr. Incredible was captured, the image stuck out to me.  

I know the image is rather fuzzy, but it was his position that inspired the post.  Upon looking at Mr. Incredible here, there is an immediate sense of his helplessness and persecution.  I realized that it was not only the content of this part in the movie that inspired the emotion, but the way that his pose seemed to link to that of the crucifixion pose.  Because the image of Jesus on the cross has been so engrained in my memory from years of Sunday School and Church, the bridge of the two sparked an emotional connection to what was being shown on the screen.  Just by seeing him in this pose, I had already determined a mental and emotional response to the character being shown.  The connection between the two was used as a tool by the filmmakers to spark a mental response.

To what extent does the repetition of familiar images spark an emotional connection?  And how does this change the way that way we perceive the art and media around us?  

The Power of A Word

In class we have been talking a lot about the new version of Huckleberry Finn.  The "n-word" used 219 in Mark Twain's classic has been replaced by the word "slave".  This change has caused much uproar.  Many people believe that it is a positive change and that it will allow more schools to be able to read the classic novel while others believe that the "n-word" is there to highlight the racism and spark an emotional response in the reader.  I agree with the latter argument.  The "n-word" even in today's culture holds a lot of weight.  Many people, including myself, do not feel comfortable or appropriate using or hearing the word.  The immediate emotional response to the word is used as a tool in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn in order to highlight the racist society of the time and as irony.  I believe that removing this word does not provide a simply cleaner version of the book but makes the book lose a stunning emotional reaction associated with the word.

Human Ownership

In class we were asked to agree or disagree to the statement "Children are their parent's possessions".    Many of the class agreed to this statement saying that legally parents are in charge when their child is in trouble.  Another argument is that the mother has the baby in her womb and therefore is in complete ownership of the child.  I strongly disagree with these statements.  I believe that under no circumstances can a human own another human.  I believe that parents are responsible, legally, financially and otherwise, towards their kids, but never have the right to claim ownership over them.
During the class discussion Mr. Bolos and O'Connor brought up public displays of ownership.  Although not their original point, the class immediately jumped on the conclusion of leash babies.

We have all seen them and been sufficiently creeped out by them.  A direct claim of ownership over someone, the 'leash baby' is an iconic example of parent control and displays of ownership over their children.
When talking about the leash baby, a picture came to my mind from our World History class last year.  When studying Iraq, our teacher taught us about the torture prison Abu Ghraib and the photo from it was stuck in my memory (WARNING: there are frightening and graphic images here- if you choose not to click the links below, there will be little confusion through the rest of the post).  Abu Ghraib was a torture prison in Iraq.  The tortured Iraqi citizens were forced into sexual, painful and humiliating poses while the US soldiers working there snapped photos that were put on facebook and myspace.  The separate link of the photo shows a female US soldier holding a leashed, naked and tortured Iraqi.  The particular photo stuck out to me because of the sense of ownership and control so clearly exhibited through the leash.  The complete control that one human has over another is sickening and whether in a prison in Iraq or with a simple parent child relationship, a human being under no circumstances has ownership over another human being.

Depressive Realism and Society

In class today we talked about the moment when children become adults.  While many people threw out different ideas concerning age and maturity level, living on your own and being independent from your parents, we struggled to find a solid definition of adult.  Is being an adult a state of mind? Is it economic or social? Without the clear idea of what we were discussing, everyone's answers were personal.  Mr. O'Connor told a story about a boy who clearly knew the exact moment he became a man, age eleven.  The class, upon hearing this, immediately laughed thinking the boy was just juvenile and didn't know what he was talking about.  But he could name a specific moment when his father left leaving him as the sole man of the house, thus forcing him out of childhood.  When we first heard this and laughed our views of manhood where dictated by society; a certain age of 18, living solo and supporting yourself financially defined being a man.  Because this boy fit none of these he was immediately labeled as too young to fully comprehend what being a man meant.  The view of society shaped the definition.

While on StumbleUpon over break I came across an interesting phycology article on a concept called Depressive Realism.  It proposes that those people suffering from depression actually have a clearer view on reality than those whose views are skewed by feelings of optimism and personal success.  If this concept  is true and those who are depressed have a better perception of reality then why does society choose to accept the non-depression as sane?  Society choses all of our ideas of normal and sane.  The views of society control who is medicated and who is labeled sane. They chose the definition of being a man and control the views.  Without society's premeditated ideas on the definitions of these certain ideas, there would be no standard to live up to.  Is not having a clear and set standard of normal a positive of negative concept?  How would living without the normal change our views of those around us and require us to use personal experience to define ourselves rather than society?

Thanksgiving Tradition

This Thursday was Thanksgiving.  Happy Thanksgiving all!

When dissecting the holiday many people bring up how history got it wrong with the indians and pilgrims having a big, awesome feast.  I think the most interesting part of this holiday are the traditions.  For most other holidays each family has individual traditions, for example every Christmas my family and I drive around with popcorn to see everyone's Christmas lights on display.  But Thanksgiving is a different holiday because the majority have very similar traditions.  The traditional turkey dinner, with stuffing and sweet potatoes, cranberries and gravy.  They all sit around a large, done-up table for at least 45 minutes and go around saying things that they are thankful for.  These are the typical Thanksgiving traditions of the American family.

Until this Thanksgiving my family had followed these traditions to the letter.  We would cook a giant turducken (kind of the same as a turkey but it is a chicken in a duck in a turkey), the table would be all set, we would each go around and say what we are thankful for and then eat till we feel like we will explode.  This year was different.  With my dad's extended family measuring 15 people this year, and spending Christmas at a rented house in New Jersey, the traditional meal was no longer practical.  

When my mother first told me that we would eat Thanksgiving at a restaurant I was shocked.  I thought it ruined the whole 'spirit' of the holiday.  But in actuality it was one of the best Thanksgivings.  When we got to the restaurant we had the choice of the traditional meal, or ordering off of a menu.  To my surprise, my dad and aunt were the only people to order the traditional option.  Everyone else got pasta, steak, soup, or even sushi (my brother actually did get sushi for Thanksgiving)!  When I asked why after dinner, most everyone confessed that they didn't actually like the whole meal of Thanksgiving.  If the Thanksgiving meal isn't one everyone enjoys than why is it continued year after year?  Are traditions a reflection of society or a counter to the typical tastes and practices of modern life?  And if they are the later why do we as a society keep them up?

Preggo

Hey everyone reading my blog! This is an informal post but it would be great if you could check out my brother's movie: Preggo! I think you all will really like it! You can get to it through youtube on the link below (but no pressure I swear)! Thanks!

Click hereto view!

Harry Potter 7

Like a large percentage of New Trier students, I saw Harry Potter 7: Part 1 at midnight on Thursday.  And like a complete nerd I dressed up, but that is not the point of this blog post.  In class these past weeks we are working on connecting the Crucible to a 'perilous times' period in America's history.  We are using civil liberties limitations to connect our war to the witch trials in the crucible.

I am in the group of the Cold War and it was my job to discuss Senator Joe McCarthy (for background information on the senator click here). A word that appeared often in my research was McCarthyism.  This word did not just apply to that specific era in history but is applied whenever there is endorsement of unfair accusation and evidence against a group of people.  I started to think about the connotations of linking to certain events in history.

I noticed during several instances in Harry Potter that the army for the Ministry of Magic wore red armbands.  The movie mentioned how the government wanted a "pure-blood" society, and the government was seen making propaganda posters against the half-blood and 'mud-blood' wizards.  If you haven't already guessed, there is a very clear link to the Nazi government and their soldiers.

This link evoked a strong emotion towards the actions, that would not have been evident without the link.  It gave a tangible connections to previous thoughts and feelings and applied them to this situation.  It told the audience how to think.  The connotations of Nazis is pure evil.  How does this transfer to the view we are told to have of the Ministry?

How do links to real world events strengthen or weaken fictional stories?  How do connotations applied to the events linked affect the way the work is received?