The Wizard of Oz Abroad?

Salman Rushdie's "The Wizard of Oz" explores the inner workings of one of the most popular classic children's film, The Wizard of Oz. The film is probably one of the most well known films in American history, and the pop culture references that come from it are present in many aspects of today's society. When someone talks about ruby slippers, the yellow brick road, or utters the words, "there's no place like home", almost all of us are transported back to the land of oz we know so well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf5svfS_bnc

The link about shows a youtube video was made not long ago which showed a group of Indian children, probably not older than 6 or 7, rehearsing one of the songs from The Wizard of Oz. If Rushdie were to interpret this video, I think he would do it in a similar way as he interpreted the film in his book. Rushdie explains, "The 10-year old who watched The Wizard of Oz at Bombay's metro cinema knew very little about foreign parts and even less about growing up". After this, Rushdie explains the magic that he saw when he first experienced the film, and it is easy to relate that magic and wonder to the children singing in the video. I doubt many of them know a lot about foreign parts and growing up, but they enjoy the movie and music just the same. They crouch down, jump across the stage, some even stare into space, but it is obvious that these children have a relaxed, care-free attitude, as most children do.

In his book, Rushdie goes on the talk about the wonder of this film, its roots and the legacy that it has left on the world. I think Rushdie would say that these children are a part of that legacy. They were born decades after this film was made, in a completely different part of the world and society, and yet they are still participating and keeping the story going. Rushdie states, "In India, it fitted into what was then, and remains today, one of the mainstreams of 'Bollywood' film production. These children are carrying on the Bollywood ideas that have been present in society.

I think Rushdie would also find it interesting that the children are not singing one of the more famous songs from the film, but they are singing one of the more unknown ones. Even though they are not singing one of the more popular songs, it still seems as though the children are enjoying themselves in their rehearsal. Rushdie talks about the authority in the film, "This absence of higher values greatly increases the film's charm, and is an important aspect of its success in creating a world in which nothing is deemed more important than the loves, cares, and needs of human beings." With this quote, Rushdie encompasses the scene with the children singing. Their authority figure, or higher values is not really seen, and the children are encompassed with the charm of the music and everything that surrounds it.

Rushdie explains, "When I first saw The Wizard of Oz it made a writer out of me". Rushdie also explains the profound impacts this film had on him as a child, and what he learned about it as he grew up. I think he would draw parallels from his experiences to the experiences these children are having with the film, and how it is impacting their lives. They are growing up in a semi similar environment that Rushdie grew up in, and as they are getting immersed in this "american" film, it is interesting to think what effects it will have on them as people.

A post modern Mona Lisa...

Theorist Fredric Jameson would surely have some very interesting and thoughts about this image by Matt Groening. This image, imitates what is possibly the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. The main difference between this image and that of the Mona Lisa, is that this image is a cartoon version, and resembles the characters from the television show, The Simpsons.

Jameson would most likely see this image as a postmodern image. It is not a modernist piece because it is not simply a rejection of realism. It is a rejection of realism, but also a critique of it, and the way it is "simpson-ified" makes it based on popular culture, which makes it more postmodern. This image is an example of pastiche, where it mixes historical periods and ideas. The artist uses a very old famous piece of artwork, and cartoonifies it and brings it into the modern world. With postmodern works, many of the ideas and images are old, but they are just being reused in different ways. And that is exactly what is happening in this image. It plays on a very famous painting, and makes it unique. It removes the feeling that most people get when they look at the original mona lisa, and gives an entirely new meaning and feeling to the work.

In his essay, "Posmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism", Jameson states that it is essential to "grasp postmodernism not as a style but rather as a cultural dominant". He relies on the cultural power that a piece has, and that is exactly what is present in this image. Everything about this image is related to culture. And not a culture that is only available to certain groups of people. The Simpsons is a middle class American show. It's seen in households all over the country and the world.

Freud's Take on Jack Bauer

Not a lot of characters on television scream masculinity as well as Jack Bauer of 24 does. He is the head of his family, the typical dominant male, works for the government, usually has a gun in his hand. He functions on the power he has in his position at work, as a male, and the power he has in his household.

One of Freud's big theories is all about the Oedipal Complex, and the repressed thoughts and emotions that live in all of us. Freud would most likely enjoy analyzing Bauer on his many issues. His marriage is falling apart, he can't control his daughter, and his job is taking over his life, just to name a few issues he has. Because of his overt masculinity, Freud might say that Bauer has completely conformed himself to the ideals of the traditional male figure. Freud also focuses on the ideas of repression of feelings that many children experience early in life. According to Freud, children repress painful memories, desires, and impulses into their unconscious mind. Freud might say that Jack Bauer has repressed memories into his unconscious that have made him the masculine figure he is today.

Bauer is a every aggressive person, and uses his aggression to assert his power and dominance over almost every situation he is in. In his home life, Bauer overpowers his wife in every situation, always dominating her and now allowing her to be a head of the family. In his workplace, he answers to no one, and does whatever he sees fit, even if it might not be the morally correct thing to do. And although he is not the head of the government office he works in, he has the power to manipulate and convince just about anyone in the office to do what he wants. Yet, with all of the power Jack Bauer wields, his life is not so neat and tidy. His marriage is falling apart, he can't control his teenage daughter, and he is having an affair with a co-worker. His private life is crumbling, so he has put all of his energy and focus into his job, where he can be masculine, carry a gun, and defend his country.

Is Daily Kos a public sphere?

Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/) describes itself as the premier online political community. Stating that it is a news organization, community, and activist hub. The website also explains that it contains posts by presidents past and present, senators, congressmen, and other prominent elected officials, as well as the common American.

Jurgen Habermas describes a public sphere as a place where private people come together as a public to debate issues of politics. More quotations from Habermas can be found here. Habermas defines the public sphere as "above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public". With this description, Daily Kos is almost positively a public sphere. It is an online meeting place where individuals in society come to share their opinions in a public space.

Habermas also states that in the public sphere "access is granted to all citizens". Now, this statement can be true when applied to the Daily Kos, but only in the sense that it is granted to all citizens that have access to a computer and the internet. And although much of our society today is based upon technology and sharing information, there are large portions of the world that don't have this access and knowledge of sharing information on the web. But one could also argue that this website is predominantly a site used by people in the United States, and its slogan is "The state of the nation", where much of society is capable of accessing this site.

With the majority of society, or at least bourgeois society (as Habermas would put it), on the internet, Daily Kos is a public sphere for the 21st century. Instead of going to town hall meetings and debating in more physical ways, our society does much of its political talking online. Not to say that town hall meetings are obsolete, but the internet is definitely edging them out. Almost every post on Daily Kos is related in some way or another to the political world here in the United States, and most of the comments on these posts or articles also relate to that world. Habermas states that in a public sphere, "Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion-that is, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions-about matters of general interest". This is exactly what Daily Kos allows people to do. Express their opinions about matters of general interest in an unrestricted fashion. Anybody who goes to this website and looks at an entry is allowed to enter their own comments and posts about it. Habermas goes on to say the public sphere "mediates between society and state, in which the public organizes itself of the bearer of public opinion." Daily Kos shows the opinion that the public has organized, and although it does not represent the entire public, it does a decent job a representing a important portion of them. And with a slogan like "state of the nation", Daily Kos does in fact mediate between society and state.

Daily Kos is not the complete, ultimate idea of a public sphere, but then again, does a public sphere exists right now that satisfies all of Habermas's ideas? Advertising, the administrators, and other factors are always going to interfere and influence how public and fair a website is. But when we look realistically, Daily Kos is a concrete example of what a public sphere is in our society.

Roland Barthes and The Sopranos

Roland Barthe's essay "Rhetoric of the Image" describes the numerous ways to interpret images. These ways of interpretation can be applied to every image; including this advertisement for the television show, "The Sopranos".

"The text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching, it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance."

In this advertisement, the text directs the viewer to certain images, and allows them to gather certain ideas based on the text and image, but also to not notice others. The words "Made in America" guide the viewer to the image of the statue of liberty and to make the connection between the two. We see the Statue of Liberty and immediately think of the United States and what that means and what it stands for. The text "the final episodes-April 8th, 8pm" directs us around the ad, but also to the image of the man standing in the ad. The other piece of text also directs us to him, and as Barthes said "remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance". The text in this ad makes us think of the other images in a certain way. We see the United States as a good nation, in a proud sense, and we see the man in the same way. He was made in America.

"Does the image duplicate certain of the informations given in the text by a phenomenon of redundancy, or does the text add a fresh information to the page?"

In this advertisement, the image reinforces the text that is present. The whole idea of "Made in America", as the text describes is perfectly captured in the image of the statue of liberty in the background. When talking about the United States, most people immediately think of our nation's roots...particularily Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. That statue is part of our identity as a nation, and is as well known as being part of America as any other icon we have. It encapsulates what the United States is. Along with this, one of the main characters in the show is the only character on this ad, and while I have only seen one episode of the series, I understand that it is about mobsters in the New Jersey. This "Made in America" text reinforces the idea of the entire show - american mobsters.

The rest of the text adds new information to the page, but also helps by clarifying the other images. The rest of the text, "The final Episodes-April 8th, 8pm", bring in a new set of information to the entire image, but I think it also clarifies what the entire ad is stating. Although this ad is for The Sopranos, it never explicitly says that. There is no logo for the show, or even mention of the name of the show, but by including the text about the final episodes, and combining that with the news that the series was ending, it is fairly easy to draw the conclusion that this advertisement is for that television show.

"The variations in readings is not, however, anarchic; it depends on the different kinds of knowledge - practical, national, cultural, aesthetic - invested in the image and these can be classified, brought into typology."

This quote by Barthes might be one of the most important in my view, when it comes to interpreting an image. When interpreting any image, the knowledge that you have going into the interpretation will make a large difference in the ideas you come away from the image with. Especially with this image, with the Statue of Liberty and the clearly American ideals, if you come from a different country with a different culture, you will most likely interpret this ad differently than someone born and raised in America. Depending on your culture, this ad will give you different impressions. If this ad was presented to someone who doesn't follow television or popular culture (as rare as that may be), they might not be able to interpret that this is an advertisement for the last season of The Sopranos. Barthes says that the vast arrays of interpretations for images is not anarchic, it is not just random and unorganized, but is a reflection of the many different cultures, nations, and ways of thinking that are present in societies around the world. When interpreting any image, people have to understand that a certain portion of the interpretation will be based on the knowledge that a specific person has going into looking at the image. That is what makes each of us unique, and what allows us to have different ideas and interpretations of the same thing or image.

Walter Benjamin and the Blair Witch Project?

“...for the first time – and this is the effect of the film – man has to operate with his whole living person, yet forgoing its aura. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.”

In the Blair Witch Project, the audience is the camera. Unlike a stage show, the audience cannot see everything, and therefore in cinema, we depend on the camera to show us what to look at, and what to focus on. Benjamin states that there can be no replica of aura, and although this is somewhat true, The Blair Witch Project overtly attempts to recapture this aura for the masses. And in my opinion, it has the definite possibility to work. Seeing this for the first time, and not knowing anything about the film, I found myself seriously questioning if it was real or contrived. The beginning of the movie states that three college students went into the woods to make a documentary about the supposed "Blair Witch", went missing, and their footage was found a year later. The entire film tries to capture the feeling of what went on in the woods, and tries to show the audience exactly what happened, and put them in the situation.

Blair Witch attempts to give the audience the feeling of the original aura. By starting the film with a disclaimer that what you are about to see is in fact real, and the film you are about to see was found after this situation actually occurred, the audience sees it as if it were real. Using unknown actors and a rural wooded setting, the audience has little reason to believe this story is made up. The shakiness of the camera work, the old film that is used really makes an effort to show the audience the aura of what the setting and characters are really like. The landscape is not illuminated with fancy studio lighting, it is lit with nothing but what comes on a basic camcorder. It was also said that when filming, the actors playing the three college students were not told what was going to happen, they were actually camping in the woods, had minimal food, and were not told where they were going next. By doing this, the filmmakers really attempt to recreate the aura of the original situation, although they can never get the original aura, they get one that is equally frightening and realistic.

“Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.”

Unlike other films, the Blair Witch Project shows the entire film from one general perspective, that of the three film students making the documentary. We never find out what their families are doing, if they start a search, what is going on outside of where the woods are. We also never see or find out who or what is terrorizing these three students. There are no fragments that come together, just one view from the students cameras. Filming in this way creates a genuine fear in the audience, because they feel as though they are experiencing it. Even the times of confusion, mixed camera angles and shots added to the reality of the film. By concentrating only on these characters, the film captures an immediate sense of realism. The way the scenes were set up, the lighting, the camera work, everything about it made it seem as though it could be real. I had my doubts, as with any film, but I was easily swayed to believe this was in fact reality.

Tokyo Story vs. Classical Hollywood Cinema

Yasujiro Ozu's film Tokyo Story is most definitely not at as exciting as the newest action adventure film, but its slow, almost zen-like narrative made an impression on audiences around the world.

Ozu's film chronicles the journey of an elderly couple visiting their grown children in Tokyo, only to find out that their children are too busy to care for them. The way this story is told is quite different from the way a typical American movie would tell it. Ozu tells the story step by step, in a very slow manner. One could argue that there is hardly any action in this film at all. Unlike the classic Hollywood film, we are not introduced to a main character from the beginning who has a problem that he or she needs to solve by the end of the film. Nor do we specifically see the action that happens in the film, but find out about it through dialogue between other characters. Some of the most important plot elements, such as the mother's death aren't even shown to the audience, we just find out about them through the other characters reactions.

Ozu also differs from American films at the time when he uses very long takes, and shows us a scene where not much is happening. A shot of a woman walking down a street lasts much longer than it would in American movies. American movies show a few seconds, until we understand what is happening, and then moves on to the next action. Ozu takes a different approach and lingers on the the shot for much longer than anticipated. The way he transitions from scene to scene is also different as he uses shots and scenes that don't specifically apply to a situation in the film. Many transitional shots are of spaces and places that we as the audience have never seen in the film, and don't really have a connection with what we have seen.

Probably one of the biggest differences between Ozu's style and the classical Hollywood style is the way he breaks the 180 degree rule. The 180 degree rule basically states that when filming, two characters should be on a 180 degree line that establishes the shot, and puts them on one side of the frame. From then on, the camera must observe this rule by not crossing the line, and therefore changing the relationship of the characters in the shot. Ozu often breaks this rule, which tends to confuse the audience.

In Tokyo Story, Ozu breaks the boundaries of conventional Hollywood cinema, breaking the 180 degree rule, creating new shots, and showing a new approach to the narrative. The result is a very interesting, calm film which opened many eyes to a new way of filmmaking.