11. Low self-esteem

I think a great example of low self-esteem in popular culture is an episode of the MTV show Made I watched a few years back. The episode was supposed to transform an ugly nerd into a ladies’ man. MTV picked the ugliest, gangliest, awkwardest nerd they could find and paired him up with some ladies’ man guru with muscles and highlights who has probably slept with many women whom he brought home from many bars. In any case, the guru took the nerd to have his hair cut and highlighted, get contacts instead of glasses, special face wash to make his acne go away, etc. He also tried to expose the nerd to “hot” women and teach him pickup lines. He would make him sit on a park bench for hours, examining women and telling the nerd why his ideal “hot chick” was wrong. “Boobs, you want big boobs!” says the guru at one point, to which the nerd replies, “But won’t they get saggy when she gets old?” I think at this point the guru covers his face with his hands. In any case, the nerd never really reaches his full stud potential but I think goes on one somewhat successful date, which I guess is better than no dates. I guess the moral of the story is he thought that going on MTV and exposing himself as a loser to the world would help him get some dates, which he obviously equates with confidence and a good self-image. Clearly this nerd was viewing himself through some macho lens and decided he did not like what he saw because “real men” have muscles, go to bars, and can get many dates/sleep with bar skanks. And apparently going on MTV and embarrassing himself in front of America was supposed to alleviate his low self-esteem and help him get dates. At least he got paid.

12. Objectification

The example I chose of the male gaze is a Movado jewelry ad in InStyle magazine. The ad is introducing the company’s new line of Ono jewelry. The image is of two ball necklaces, one gold and one silver, with a backdrop of a woman’s torso from just above her pubic area and leaves about half an inch of the bottom of her left breast exposed. The torso image has been retouched so that it appears fuzzy so that the necklaces are the main attraction. I think this fits into the category of objectification because the ad is using a woman’s body as a backdrop to jewelry, suggesting that she is the real accessory, not the necklace. I think is also objectifying in that it cuts up her body, only partially showing “the goods” and leaves the viewer wondering what’s “down there” and what’s “up there,” making her body something to be looked at and accessorized rather than fully known.

Derrida

Vocab:

1. exergue-A space on the reverse of a coin or medal, usually below the central design and often giving the date and place of engraving.
2. neopragmatist-Neopragmatism, which focuses on social practice and political experimentation, claims that there is no objective and transcendental standpoint from which to pass judgment and that truth must be relative to specific social contexts and practices.
3. neologism-the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words.
4. pharmakon-No single word in English captures the play of signification of the ancient Greek word, pharmakon. Derrida traces the meanings assigned to pharmakon in Plato’s dialogues: remedy, poison (either the cure or the illness or its cause), philter, drug, recipe, charm, medicine, substance, spell, artificial color, and paint. The word pharmakon is overdetermined, signifying in so many ways that the very notion of signification gets overloaded.
5. ineluctable-incapable of being evaded; inescapable.
6. plenitude-fullness or adequacy in quantity, measure, or degree; abundance.
7. circumscribe-To determine the limits of; define.
8. supervening-To be dependent on a set of facts or properties in such a way that change can occur only after change has occurred in those facts or properties.
9. appurtenance-Something added to another, more important thing; an appendage.
10. elucidate-To give an explanation that serves to clarify.

Close reading:

I am close reading the first paragraph under the “1” on pg. 1827. I am interested in the shift from “I” and “me” in the beginning of the paragraph to “us” and “we” toward the end. Though there is a pronoun shift, I think both show ownership in some way. For example, when Derrida discusses that his reading of the “supplement” is psychoanalytical, he says, “…psychoanaylitic theory itself is for me a collection of texts belonging to my history and my culture.” Here he talks about what psychoanalytic theory is in terms of himself and his own understanding of it. Later, however, he uses collective pronouns to discuss psychoanalytic theory and its relation to the French langugage. He says “Rousseau drew upon a language that was already there–and which is found to be somewhat our own, thus assuring us a certain minimal readability of French literature…” Why the change? Derrida seems to now be defining psychoanalytic theory in terms of a collective person(s) instead of his own personal understanding. But this passage still shows ownership, as he says the language is “somewhat our own,” just as he earlier defined psychoanalytic theory using the phrase, “psychoanalytic theory is itself for me…” earlier.

Wizard of Oz question discussion

In my group, we discussed the symbolism in Wizard of Oz. There are a variety of symbols in the book, we decided, but we focused on the possible political implications of the book. One group member brought it up, but most of us were familiar with the idea that Frank Baum wrote it and disguised it as a children’s book when, really, it was in response to the political climate of his day. Though Baum explicitly states in the introduction that “‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ was written solely to please the children of today,” I think it is possible and even likely that he had other intentions as well.

One group member said she thought that Oz represented the government as a whole and the green glasses he makes his citizens wear represent how the government filters what we hear and see. We all agreed that this could be a possibility. In reality, The Emerald City is not green, but Oz forces everyone to wear green tinted glasses so they think it is. I think this has some Marxist undertones. I think the glasses could represent ideology. Ideology is blinding and forces its adherents to see life through a particular lens. Religion, classism, consumerism—all are ideologies, according to Marx and people view their world through the lens of an ideology to which they prescribe, and do not try to change their world because they either think their conditions are not changeable or their ideology has made them complacent. Says the Wizard, “When you wear green spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you” (144). Dorothy is shocked at this revelation and asks, “But isn’t everything here green?” (143). That is similar to the way ideology, especially the ideology of a particular government system, can make people believe in a false reality.  

The glasses revelation coincides with the dissolution of the Wizard’s character as a whole. Dorothy and co. find him out for what he really is, which is just a man playing tricks on people, admittedly, for his own amusement (144). Nevertheless, the bunch still looks to him to help them fulfill their needs. He obliges, and gives the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion all things that he says will help them achieve what they are lacking. Of course the hay, liquid and silk heart he dishes out to them have to real physical effect on any of them, but it makes them feel better about themselves. Oz knows this, and gets satisfaction out of it: “Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought they wanted” (151). I think this is also similar to Marxism in that leaders can use their ideology to make people feel that if they just follow their lead, they will have everything they need. That is not true, but people still strive for it anyway, and if it makes them feel better to do so, that’s ok with whoever’s in power.

Consumerism is a good example of this because the American government will go on campaigns promoting the meat and dairy industries sometimes or even ethanol fuels and tell people how great it is. We in turn, often think we need whatever it is they are promoting, because we, like the scarecrow are “missing” that thing in our lives. So we and go out and purchase it in droves and the government agencies look good for “educating” us. That way, everyone wins—sort of. Interestingly enough, I just had a similar conversation with my mother. She is always concerned about my health, and with this swine flu craze, she is extra-cautious. She heard a man with the CDC talking on TV claiming that “everyone needs the swine flu vaccine.” Whether or not that is true, she thinks I might need to get this vaccine because a government official is making this claim. But on the other hand, I think the government has to say things like that to cover their butts in case this flu strain does happen to kill a lot of people. In which case, they point to that statement to show how they tried to protect us and it is our own fault for not listening.  The government, like the Wizard, looks like the hero and we can sleep better at night knowing we are vaccinated, or whatever.

Admittedly, I did not look into the political climate of the 1800s, nor do I want to, so I cannot speak much to the assumption that this is a political book. However, I think it is true to an extent that history repeats itself (as some say, look at the Romans and then look at America now) and a lot of what can be interpreted as Marxism in The Wizard of Oz can apply to just about any government today, tomorrow or even across the pond. Government is government and people are people.

Adaptation

This movie was hilarious and sad and ridiculous all at once. I remember when the film first started and all I could hear was Charlie’s voice over the black screen talking about how he was fat and stupid and could never accomplish anything and I just had to laugh. I think it’s great that he acknowledged his inner dialogue-haven’t we all had similar thoughts at one point or another. Especially as a student in the English field and as a writer, it’s easy to relate to his anxiety and writer’s block. I love the twin brother, Donald. He is everything Charlie wants to be: he has the girl, the script, the personality. Charlie is trying to write a movie about flowers, which seems so obvious, but he struggles immensely because he’s overthinking it. Meanwhile, Donald writes a totally obvious, overdone script idea and even uses tips from some formula-script-writing guru–everything Charlie is against. Yet Donald’s obvious ideas are well-receieved and he gains respect while Charlie sweats. I cheated and read about Charlie Kaufman online since we talked so extensively in class about the Charlie/Donald sibling rivalry, and I guess Donald is supposed to represent Charlie’s fears about the movie industry. I think that makes sense because Kaufman’s writing is innovative, but all these crappy movies are box-office hits and he is surrounded by all that hooplah as a film industry employee. It must be pretty disappointing. But he has plenty of prestigious awards to make up for it so, oh well.

I loved the transition of Susan Orlean’s character too because she’s such a stuffy bitch at the beginning and then ends up with a drug addiction and getting arrested in a swamp at the end. She cheats on her husband with a toothless flower-hunting maniac. What a downgrade. I wonder if that’s how crazy affairs like that start. Can that happen to anyone, or do you have to have to have a perfect storm of poor character and unhappiness before you do something that insane? I’d probably cheat on my husband if I was her, though. Her life seems boring. Yeah, she’s a writer for The New Yorker, but she has to deal with all the stupid pretense that goes along with it and then she meets John Laroche, who has all the color her life lacks. She feels like he doesn’t have to pretend. And isn’t that sort of the same thing with Charlie and Donald–one character represents what the other one doesn’t have or thinks they don’t have? John feels like what he’s doing gives him a purpose and he’s totally obsessed with it, which is a pattern in his life. It’s funny–I know people like this, so I can relate. And I think Susan becomes one of his projects/obsessions. Maybe he was just going to throw her away in the end anyway. Or maybe they do really love each other. It’s hard to tell. In any case, he addicted her to drugs so she would keep coming back to him–yeah, that’s probably not love. It smacks of infatuation and obsession, given his history. They’re fascinated with each other. I think that’s the way Donald and Charlie are too. They are also fascinated with each other. If Donald wasn’t interested in the kind of life Charlie has, he wouldn’t have started writing in the first place. Charlie, on the other hand, is astounded that his stupid brother can gain respect with his plebeian scripts, yet they end up helping each other out. I think that’s what this film is about, anyway–relationships. It’s one of the things, anyway. It’s about so many things that I don’t even know.

Barthes

Vocab:

1.  idiosyncratic-a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an individual.
2. milieu-surroundings, esp. of a social or cultural nature.
3. epistemological-a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.
4. hermeneutics-the science of interpretation, esp. of the Scriptures.
5. metonymic-A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.
6. contiguities-a series of things in continuous connection; a continuous mass or extent.
7. filiation-A line of descent; derivation.
8. diffraction-the bending of waves, esp. sound and light waves, around obstacles in their path.
9. anagogical-A mystical interpretation of a word, passage, or text, especially scriptural exegesis that detects allusions to heaven or the afterlife.
10. ludic-playful in an aimless way.

Close Reading:

I chose to close read the 4th numbered passage about the plurality of the Text. Here, Barthe is using the capital-T Text. This is a long, complicated passage that discusses several different things, but I think Barthes is intentional in trying to overwhelm the reader in order to demonstrate the complicated nature of plurality and infinity. The Text, he says, “accompishes the very plural of meaning.” (I can barely wrap my head around that, but in a way, it makes sense.) I will focus on a couple passages in particular. He says the text “answers to” an “explosion, a dissemination,” — showing how the Text penetrates culture. I think the phrasing implies a phallic, masculine view of the text that contradicts Cixous, but nonetheless hints at pleasure (though as we said in class, he plays with the reader’s head, and tries to disguise this pleasurable aspect of reading). To demonstrate plurality, Barthes physically sets the reader on a valley’s edge overlooking an oued (dry streambed). There, “what he perceives is multiple, irreducible, coming from a disconnected, heterogeneous variety of substances and perspectives: lights, colors, vegetation, heat, air, slender explosions of noises, scant cries of children’s voices from over on the other side…” and goes on to say “all of these incidents are half-identifiable: they come from codes which are known but their combination is unique, founds the stroll in a difference repeatable only as a difference. So the Text: it can be it only in its difference…” He sets up the Text as a multi-dimensional, living, breathing thing that is made up of many different, separate but infinitely intertwined elements, like those he names in the previous passage, but in reference to the text those elements are references, citations, and, I think, everything that has ever happened or will ever happen as a result of or in reaction to the Text. They are all “woven” together, as he says, just like a piece of  fabric (textile), which when one considers its composition, is made up of threads, which are made of individual fibers, which are made of molecules, and so on and so forth. So the text, just like fabric (and everything else) is (are) infinite. Along the same lines, circling back to the living aspect of the Text, is what Barthes calls the “plural of demoniacal texture” and refers to the Bible passage about the demon Legion that infected a herd of pigs. So, he argues, the text takes on life by possessing culture like a demon and circulating throughout it, searching for a host. Text both creates culture and is created by it. He says it “will be able to materialize itself more by pluralizing itself,” –infecting the world like a virus. The Text takes life and possesses it and can survive only by infecting another host.

Close Reading: Laugh of the Medusa

The paragraph I close-read from “The Laugh of the Medusa” is as follows:

“Here they are, returning, arriving over and over again, because the unconscious is impregnable. They have wandered around in circles, confined to the narrow room in which they’ve been given a deadly brainwashing. You can incarcerate them, slow them down, get away with the old Apartheid routine, but for a time only. As soon as they begin to speak, at the same time as they’re taught their name, they can be taught that their territory is black: because you are Africa, you are black. Your continent is dark. Dark is dangerous. You can’t see anything in the dark, you’re afraid. Don’t move, you might fall. Most of all, don’t go into the forest. And so we have internalized this horror of the dark.”

I read this as Cixous comparing the “otherness” of the woman to the “otherness” of enslaved Africans. I found the repetition of the word “dark” to have impact. She is talking about the darkness of Africans’ skin, but I also think she is also relating this darkness and resultant otherness with the darkness that can be found as it relates to the feminine. I think it is important to note that this is not the first time she referers to darkness in relation to the woman. Earlier paragraphs are littered with “darkness” phrases that claim that women are kept in the dark about themselves and embody a sort of darkness that they are forced to accept by society (309).She also talks about masturbating in secret-does that not also imply darness? (310). I also think it’s important to address darkness as it relates to the female anatomy, since this text is anti-phallic. The phallus is bold, out-in-the-open, erect. The womb is hidden in a dark place, and the female genitalia are not quite as directly accessible as the male genitalia. So in a sense, to venture into the woman’s “territory” is to venture into the darkness, which is tied up with fear. There is also a strong connection between darkness/blackness and fear here when she talks about Apartheid. Although I do not quite agree with her comparison of women and Africans affected by Apartheid, the comparison is effective in that it enforces that darkness=fear (i.e. “Dark is dangerous,” “you’re afraid,” “horror of the dark”) . Out of fear of the unkown, blacks and women alike are confined to separate spaces in their own societies. Indeed, she says, they are “confined to the narrow room…” She uses the word “incarceration,” as well, and these phrases in conjunction make me think about the misery of imprisonment: how alienating, how separating. Even more forceful is the fact that “they” (women? blacks? both?) are taught from day one not only that they are the other, but that they should be fearful of this otherness and should feel like they do not belong, and in fact, do not belong.

Laugh of the Medusa vocab

1. post-structuralism-a variation of structuralism, often seen as a critique, emphasizing plurality of meaning and instability of concepts that structuralism uses to define society, language, etc.

2. erotogeneity (erotogeneic)- Causing sexual excitement.

3. ebullient-overflowing with fervor, enthusiasm, or excitement; high-spirited.

4. attenuate-to weaken or reduce in force, intensity, effect, quantity, or value.

5. obsequious-servilely compliant or deferential.

6. immured-to confine within or as if within walls; imprison.

7. scotomizing (scotomization)-from psychoanalysis and having its roots in ocular pathology, scotomization describes a lack of awareness of others and leads to misapprehension of reality.

8. naphtha-a colorless, volatile petroleum distillate, usually an intermediate product between gasoline and benzine, used as a solvent, fuel, etc.

9. scission-a cutting, dividing, or splitting; division; separation.

10. vatic-of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a prophet.

11. sublation-to deny or contradict; negate.

12. aphonic-without voice; voiceless.

13. apotrope-objects such as amulets and talismans or other symbols intended to “ward off evil” or “avert or combat evil.

14. timorous-Full of apprehensiveness; timid.

15. incandescence-A high degree of emotion, intensity, or brilliance.

Horkheimer and Adorno Vocab

1.  reification-to regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.

2. inculcate-to impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill.

3. retroactive-operative with respect to past occurrences, as a statute; retrospective.

4. rejoinder-an answer to a reply; response.

5. apocryphal-of questionable authorship or authenticity.

6. ostensibly-outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended.

7. inchoate-not yet completed or fully developed; rudimentary.

8. cognoscenti-persons who have superior knowledge and understanding of a particular field, esp. in the fine arts, literature, and world of fashion.

9. exoteric-not belonging, limited, or pertaining to the inner or select circle, as of disciples or intimates.

10. esoteric-understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite.

11. subsume-to classify, include, or incorporate in a more comprehensive category or under a general principle.

12. sublimate-to make nobler or purer.

13. conciliatory-to make or attempt to make compatible; reconcile.

14. monads-any simple, single-celled organism.

15. beneficence-the doing of good; active goodness or kindness; charity.

Wizard of Oz Reaction

            The novel I read was Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum. Having been a fan of the movie my whole life, as I have said before, I do not know what took me so long to get around to reading the book. In any case, there are quite a few differences between the book and the movie. I have to say, that for such a short book, quite a bit happens. It is a fast-moving story, with Dorothy and her companions flitting from one place to another and back again, only to be confronted by danger, adventure, and other various mishaps at every turn. It is no wonder, then, that the writers of the film version had to adapt the story and leave out quite a few significant events and rearrange the story somewhat. In addition, though it is a pretty fast and easy read, as it was originally intended for a child audience, I have to wonder what kind of 1800’s super-kids were literate enough and capable enough for both reading this story and keeping all the book’s many settings, characters, and events straight. For such a little novel (not even 200 pages!), it is jam-packed with stuff. Oz is a complicated place and dangerous place, indeed.

            In the film version, the danger sequences end at the witch’s castle with Dorothy throwing a bucket of water on the witch, melting her. Though the melting part remains the same in the book, I was surprised when I looked at my book and realized what a good chunk of the novel was still left for me to read after the witch’s death. “What could possibly happen in the next 70 pages?” I thought to myself. One of the stranger interludes that fills up the rest of these 70 pages is the land of the china dolls. I almost could not believe my eyes as I was reading this part, because it was so weird. Apparently, right in the middle of Oz, right after the attacking-trees forest, there is a country within a country made entirely of dishware. The people and their environment are miniature china-doll figures, no higher than Dorothy’s knee, and they move about in their white china wonderland. There are china houses and china churches—even china cows—and probably anything else you would expect in a human town, except everything is breakable. At one point Dorothy upsets a china cow-milking session and the cow knocks over and breaks its china bucket and breaks off its own leg. Weird.