walkingshadow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
walkingshadow) wrote2005-03-10 04:56 am
walkingshadow) wrote2005-03-10 04:56 am
sign it, "your loving son, Queen Victoria"
I want to make a note for myself: new icons when you get a chance. But this is fatal. All that will happen is I'll make new icons all day and night and into the early morning, and everything I need to do will be shunted to the sides as though I can actually afford it.
The group project took maybe half an hour this week because the assignment was to get someone else's autobiography—that is, give them the camera and let them take their own pictures and tell their own story. All we had to do was select. M. gave the camera to her friend J. who gets everything he needs out of a dumpster: food, clothing, building materials for his dinghy, spare bicycle parts. He does this because he doesn't want to spend money for things he can get for free. From his pictures, he's not the only one who does it, either. A lot of the shots were blurry (we couldn't understand how; not only were they taken in daylight, the camera has an anti-shake feature; perhaps the earth moved) and a lot were repetitive or uninteresting, so we pared it down to six really strong pictures with a good sequence and obvious purpose. Our presentation prompted a startling succession of anecdotes from the class: one girl works at a restaurant where the plates often comes back half-eaten, and one of her coworkers will finish them off (but not she; "I'm not going to eat something that someone I don't know has been touching with their mouth"); the prof knew a bunch of people who lived in a town where Boca Burgers were manufactured (WC? -Ed.) and ate the many that were thrown away; someone related a story they'd recently heard on NPR about a man who started getting all the food for his family from a dumpster—he even moved them to a wealthy resort town because the rich throw things away that are still good when they're only slightly old. It ruined his marriage: his wife couldn't accept that he insisted on giving their children food from a dumpster, and they eventually divorced. One boy offered the story of his friend who would finish off bags of popcorn she found in trashcans, finish other people's plates of food, etc.; she eventually contracted hepatitis. And that was kind of a downer.
We need to conduct (and film) interviews for next week's assignment. We'll have to get together and discuss where we think this project is going (the teleological questions), but J.'s story gave me an overall impression of rescue, and that plus the garbage collector's story two weeks ago suggests we focus heavily on what happens to garbage after we throw it away. M.'s family is involved with an organization called Waste Not, Want Not that collects food from groceries and bakeries at the end of the day and distributes it to the needy. This also has the element of rescue. This is more like, what you can do with things before you resort to throwing them away.
This week's discussion leader brought rice and beans, homemade empanadas, and cookies for lunch. The reading was about Aboriginal Content and Aboriginality in Australian television. We kept relating it back to American television, but that might have been because some of us hadn't read the article. *cough* But we asked, what constitutes "Aboriginal Content"? and who gets to decide? The concept of "embedding," (which the author says "means the interpolation of Aborigines, Aboriginal issues or themes, in programs which are not otherwise identifiable as Aboriginal in content or production particulars") we decided was a bad idea. The result of it tends to be two-pronged (both negative): either stock characters emerge (the token minority) and stereotypes are reinforced, or the integration leads to assimilation: it isn't that the viewer accepts Aborigines, he just ceases to notice them. The other interesting point sprang from this:
This, I said, was the same as the subjectivity-vs.-objectivity construct. Not only is the difference highly suspicious in practice, but in harping on it you miss the point of what's actually being said. And the prof added that sometimes something like fictional tactics or visual representations can be much more effective, emotionally, than documentarian approaches. For one thing, some things are not accessible to film: places that no longer exist or that one is forbidden to return to, dreams, memories—does this make them less real?
We finished the class with two videos. The first was The Silence of the Zapatistas, about indigenous Mexicans demanding rights and services from the government and how they successfully appropriated the established media to do so (which is another thing we brought up while talking about Aboriginal Content and embedding: the problem with engaging with established modes of media—or any established institution—is that you are swallowed up by it and made part of their power structure; you are defined and explored only in terms of how you relate to those in power). The second video was a youth film our prof helped members of the Osage Indian tribe produce. Their product was well-done and well-managed: a good mix of interview subjects, different settings, good colors and fades. Their main preoccupation was with the way Indians are viewed in American society, specifically that they are the only group consigned to a stereotype that is rooted in the past: buckskin clothes, long hair worn straight and braided, feathers and tomahawks, teepees and broken English. They pointed out that they do not go around asking white girls where their long, poofy skirts, big hats, and corsets are. The problem is that when people see Indians outside of those culturally-reinforced trappings, in jeans and makeup, skateboarding and driving cars, they deny them their Indian identity. I felt the dissonance myself as I watched the video, and that's what the video was about. We declared it a success.
The weather was chilly today, and windy, and not cloudy—just gray. An even, unbroken sheet of gray that gave forth no rain and let in no sun. I tried to give blood after class, but for the first time my iron was too low. I went away with matching band-aids on my middle fingers and was told I could come back tomorrow. I went home and ate soup. I'd planned on ordering my poster from Ofoto, but they only print 20" x 30"s on matte paper, and I'm afraid it's going to look horrible. Next order of business is to call around to Kinko's, University Copy, and Target Copy to comparison shop.
Another video in African History, this one on the European scramble for Africa in the early twentieth century. The sheer arrogance involved in carving up a continent and moving into the land to use it for your own ends, with not only disregard but vicious contempt for the people who are already living there is breath-taking. It was just as incredible as the Treaty of Tordesillas. Followed then, of course, the passification aka hammering aka massacre of the Africans who weren't too keen on the British/French/Italians/Dutch sweeping in and demanding obedience and service. The Europeans had the Gatling gun though, which settled things rather quickly. I had to fight not to doze off over my notes when he started lecturing. My handwriting goes all scratchy and small and trails off into non sequiturs. When I got home from class I put myself down for a nap and slept for four hours.
Tomorrow I have to give my LAH prof my topic idea for the short paper. I don't quite have one. At all. That's what I'll be getting up early and floundering for.
The group project took maybe half an hour this week because the assignment was to get someone else's autobiography—that is, give them the camera and let them take their own pictures and tell their own story. All we had to do was select. M. gave the camera to her friend J. who gets everything he needs out of a dumpster: food, clothing, building materials for his dinghy, spare bicycle parts. He does this because he doesn't want to spend money for things he can get for free. From his pictures, he's not the only one who does it, either. A lot of the shots were blurry (we couldn't understand how; not only were they taken in daylight, the camera has an anti-shake feature; perhaps the earth moved) and a lot were repetitive or uninteresting, so we pared it down to six really strong pictures with a good sequence and obvious purpose. Our presentation prompted a startling succession of anecdotes from the class: one girl works at a restaurant where the plates often comes back half-eaten, and one of her coworkers will finish them off (but not she; "I'm not going to eat something that someone I don't know has been touching with their mouth"); the prof knew a bunch of people who lived in a town where Boca Burgers were manufactured (WC? -Ed.) and ate the many that were thrown away; someone related a story they'd recently heard on NPR about a man who started getting all the food for his family from a dumpster—he even moved them to a wealthy resort town because the rich throw things away that are still good when they're only slightly old. It ruined his marriage: his wife couldn't accept that he insisted on giving their children food from a dumpster, and they eventually divorced. One boy offered the story of his friend who would finish off bags of popcorn she found in trashcans, finish other people's plates of food, etc.; she eventually contracted hepatitis. And that was kind of a downer.
We need to conduct (and film) interviews for next week's assignment. We'll have to get together and discuss where we think this project is going (the teleological questions), but J.'s story gave me an overall impression of rescue, and that plus the garbage collector's story two weeks ago suggests we focus heavily on what happens to garbage after we throw it away. M.'s family is involved with an organization called Waste Not, Want Not that collects food from groceries and bakeries at the end of the day and distributes it to the needy. This also has the element of rescue. This is more like, what you can do with things before you resort to throwing them away.
This week's discussion leader brought rice and beans, homemade empanadas, and cookies for lunch. The reading was about Aboriginal Content and Aboriginality in Australian television. We kept relating it back to American television, but that might have been because some of us hadn't read the article. *cough* But we asked, what constitutes "Aboriginal Content"? and who gets to decide? The concept of "embedding," (which the author says "means the interpolation of Aborigines, Aboriginal issues or themes, in programs which are not otherwise identifiable as Aboriginal in content or production particulars") we decided was a bad idea. The result of it tends to be two-pronged (both negative): either stock characters emerge (the token minority) and stereotypes are reinforced, or the integration leads to assimilation: it isn't that the viewer accepts Aborigines, he just ceases to notice them. The other interesting point sprang from this:
I am rejecting here a generic definition of documentary as a particular expository convention which presumes some privileged relationship to the real (a definition still useful in much textual analysis)—because it is assumed that there is a transparency of opposition between truth and fiction (actuality and imagination)—which, I think, obscures the significant issues for theory and practice.
This, I said, was the same as the subjectivity-vs.-objectivity construct. Not only is the difference highly suspicious in practice, but in harping on it you miss the point of what's actually being said. And the prof added that sometimes something like fictional tactics or visual representations can be much more effective, emotionally, than documentarian approaches. For one thing, some things are not accessible to film: places that no longer exist or that one is forbidden to return to, dreams, memories—does this make them less real?
We finished the class with two videos. The first was The Silence of the Zapatistas, about indigenous Mexicans demanding rights and services from the government and how they successfully appropriated the established media to do so (which is another thing we brought up while talking about Aboriginal Content and embedding: the problem with engaging with established modes of media—or any established institution—is that you are swallowed up by it and made part of their power structure; you are defined and explored only in terms of how you relate to those in power). The second video was a youth film our prof helped members of the Osage Indian tribe produce. Their product was well-done and well-managed: a good mix of interview subjects, different settings, good colors and fades. Their main preoccupation was with the way Indians are viewed in American society, specifically that they are the only group consigned to a stereotype that is rooted in the past: buckskin clothes, long hair worn straight and braided, feathers and tomahawks, teepees and broken English. They pointed out that they do not go around asking white girls where their long, poofy skirts, big hats, and corsets are. The problem is that when people see Indians outside of those culturally-reinforced trappings, in jeans and makeup, skateboarding and driving cars, they deny them their Indian identity. I felt the dissonance myself as I watched the video, and that's what the video was about. We declared it a success.
The weather was chilly today, and windy, and not cloudy—just gray. An even, unbroken sheet of gray that gave forth no rain and let in no sun. I tried to give blood after class, but for the first time my iron was too low. I went away with matching band-aids on my middle fingers and was told I could come back tomorrow. I went home and ate soup. I'd planned on ordering my poster from Ofoto, but they only print 20" x 30"s on matte paper, and I'm afraid it's going to look horrible. Next order of business is to call around to Kinko's, University Copy, and Target Copy to comparison shop.
Another video in African History, this one on the European scramble for Africa in the early twentieth century. The sheer arrogance involved in carving up a continent and moving into the land to use it for your own ends, with not only disregard but vicious contempt for the people who are already living there is breath-taking. It was just as incredible as the Treaty of Tordesillas. Followed then, of course, the passification aka hammering aka massacre of the Africans who weren't too keen on the British/French/Italians/Dutch sweeping in and demanding obedience and service. The Europeans had the Gatling gun though, which settled things rather quickly. I had to fight not to doze off over my notes when he started lecturing. My handwriting goes all scratchy and small and trails off into non sequiturs. When I got home from class I put myself down for a nap and slept for four hours.
Tomorrow I have to give my LAH prof my topic idea for the short paper. I don't quite have one. At all. That's what I'll be getting up early and floundering for.