tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2203591825889920272024-03-19T04:20:34.776-07:00The Blog with the Crystal PlumageJosie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-1636335153338483812012-02-12T04:48:00.000-08:002012-02-12T04:48:22.135-08:001366884<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">http://1366884.com/blog/ <a href="http://1366884.com/blog/" target="_blank">http://1366884.com/blog/</a> <span style="font-size: x-large;">1366884.com<br />
my website got a new face. </span>its for design, film and illustration folio stuff. but it has links to all of my websites</div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-8489456121838849672011-11-06T02:01:00.000-08:002011-11-06T19:43:51.482-08:00Blog about Sexism. EB games, Deep Seated ignorance and WrestlingWell fuck me dead, its been a few days since this 'EB games is sexist' debacle and ive been pondering the consequences of my actions. In the course of a day we saw the fickle relationship between rage, outrage, and censorship trodden out for us to yet again debate. Ultimately this is a real world example of how pervasive and ingrain sexism still is. The tendency to immediately discredit and shutdown any argument related to feminism is a reaction symptomatic of the greater issue. <br />
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For those of you who missed it, the story starts with a usual 9 to 5 at EB<br />
I head into work on Wednesday morning. Turned on the work rotation tape. An in house EB TV type deal that spurts advertisements and information at people. During my opening procedures I hear tsimilar theme music used in Always Sunny in Philadelphia, curious I look up to see EB games has made its own mock 1950s ‘mans guide to trading’ using Sirkian, melodramatic convention. The add sees a ‘perpetual man-child’ husband having a charlie brown style zone out while his ‘bitch wife’ complains to him that he spends too much money on games. She pops off to the supermarket, because that is what women do. While he pops into EB games, because men play games you see. The clerk states that he overheard their argument, because he is a cunning salesman using everything to his advantage to increase store profits and his KPI. He suggests man-child trades his old games instead of using money. Brilliant thinks the man-child, he does as promoted by the clerk and then uses the money he didn’t spend that day at EB on dinner for bitch-wife. Because women are interested in eating at nice restaurants and not playing games remember. Then the final kicker of a scene sees man-child on a couch playing batman, while bitch-wife dusts behind him. When he asks if he can help at all, bitch-wife replies totally in awe of her generous provider of a man-child that he has already done so much, he should relax. Man-child beams like a cunning hyena into the camera before the weak excuse for a satire comes to an end. <br />
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So. I get a little hot under my white shirt and neckerchief (which i'm told to wear because it is more feminine than the tie) I post to my own facebook that <br />
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God damn EB you have really outdone yourselves with provided negative representations of gender roles, you cunts. Then I mentioned the contents of the video, and swore some more. <br />
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I want to clarify, I do work at EB games. The staff at my store and for the most part all the stores are lovely. This is not about the people at EB, nor even the higher management, this video is simply an anecdotal reason to discuss sexism and how it very much does exist and that it very much does matter. I was asked to take down the status. It was censored, I did sign an agreement not to call EB games cunts while I worked for them. Which, for a business is standard. However I do feel in anger people call other people / entities cunts, and I stand by my outrage. <br />
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A facebook friend who writes for a gaming mag posted it on twitter. EB games picks up on it, games media picks up on it. Kotaku posts an article on it and people go a bit nuts with opinions ranging from ‘but Mad Men does it’ to people agreeing to people dismissing it as an overreaction and as if any woman who finds this offensive is too sensitive. Which as a reaction almost proves the compensatory device most people who align with the majority use for fear of being given this exact treatment .I agree this video is mild, this video is a poor excuse for humour, I understand so fully the concept of satire, homage and how it tried and failed to use (like Mad Men) the historical understanding of 1950s Western sexism as basis for a lighthearted MEN ARE DIFFERENT TO WOMAN LET THE HUMEROUS EXCHANGES BEGIN type advertisement for a company. But I feel the outrage at the tape is symptomatic of a much larger issue with sexism in general. <br />
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The representation of both male and female in this video is dismal, I've had both male and female employees of EB tell me they find it disgusting and lame. There is no doubt that for some this video is laughable as newsworthy, and for some it is completely offensive. Obviously we don’t need to dwell on the fact that we are individuals who react to situations based on biological and learned rational. Yet something has struck a chord. I know for myself as a female employed in a perceivably male dominated field I have found gendered reactions to my service. Now no one here is saying that men and women are the same, in fact the very structure of our neural pathways ensures that information flows differently. It's a given. Yet the gendering of service, items, the self as a woman or girl is not binary, gender is fluid, sex for the most part is not. (of course not forgetting everyone under the transexual rainbow but for the sake of this argument which is looking at gender binaries, the matter of sex can be left for another day) <br />
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I get to work an in environment where some men will immediately ask the male at the counter what they thought of the game they are buying, even if i'm serving them and standing right there. I work in a place where in I pick up the phone and the man on the other end has a technical question they will ask if ‘anyone else is there’ as if to assume my my high pitched voice, a female, I could not possibly help them. I work for a company which prefers it when I wear the feminine version of the uniform. I am allowed to wear pants and a tie, but it is ‘preferred’- almost as loaded as the Machiavellian necessity that I wear the feminine. I even had a man once tell me after I answered he questions about over-clocking and his graphics card that he was surprised I could help. I have been in very tense situations where a man who was so offensively sexist towards me, saying I couldn't possibly understand games or that the representation of females in games is not sometimes sexist that a manager had to step in. Again, this is not all men or all of anyone, if we eradicate generalisations in favour of individualism then we are left with anecdotal experience of the opinion giver. <br />
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In this environment feminism is a dirty word. To align yourself with that is to find yourself berated with all the negative stereotypes that come with it. To face all the predetermined arguments from people unwilling to see that there is any issue at all with being made to feel a second class citizen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reaction to this piece is that Im being overly sensitive, that I’m not experiencing the worst of sexism, that I should wipe my arse with my arts degree and that I should cry elsewhere.Which again would ultimately prove my point that the immediate reaction of those who dismiss claims of sexism do so because of their unwillingness to be separated from the group. The desire to remain in the majority is subconsciously an attempt to remain safe, easily categorised and definable. Its innate, its natural and its often the root of many of humanities flaws. <br />
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And you are right, this is not the worst case of sexism in the world. Myself alone, a woman of 22 and a lower middle class upbringing I’ve had my arse slapped, pinched, grabbed at, Ive been called a whore, a slut a dumb bitch, I've been abused and hurt and taunted and teased and i’m not fucking complaining. I’m stating that sexism is so ubiquitous and pervasive that only the most extreme cases are taken seriously, and the status of the victim is paramount to how much anyone will listen to you. How many men out there have been raped in a taxi? In the common language of my friends, everyone has been raped, what else you got? And if you are thinking, this is a tangent far from EB games having a mildly offensive tape then you are forgetting how inextricably connected everything is. <br />
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The issue with this tape is that in my workplace I have outdated, unfunny, tired excuses for gender roles playing above my head. While I work just that little bit harder to prove myself as 'one of the boys' to men who are unaware of their preconceive bias. The tape, intentional or not enforces disgusting but ubiquitous examples of gender roles for both male and female which should not be encouraged in any work place. We can not control the mind of the individual, we can be annoyed when a large company that employes and targets a female demographic as much as they do male subverts any attempt at females being intrinsically gamers too. You are either a mother or a girlfriend buying games for your male counterpart. If you are a man, you too are supposed to fulfil the EB man-child ideal where you are for some reason married and are at the mercy of your wife who plays the whore, the mother and now the catalyst for trading games. Those of you who say this does not matter are confirming the ignorant and pervasive nature of sexism. These opinions and stereotypes of gender do exist for a reason, that reason being centuries of historical and biological misunderstandings creating gendered lifestyles that are so pervasive that most people are not even aware that they are constructs. Having a tape at your place of work which enforces and reconfirms these roles is so utterly disillusioning I wonder how it past anyones stamp of approval. Im sufficiently sure that this article will provoke further backlash from people who disagree. But what evs, Im going to paint my nails and play Batman Arkam City. <br />
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</div><div>++++++++++++++++++++++</div><div>Further reading </div><div>The Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7GnX7IOGSJA</div><div>http://www.jasperschultz.com/2011/11/04/a-humans-guide-to-eb-games-not-being-sexist/</div><div><br />
</div><div>http://tumblinfeminist.tumblr.com/post/12318608504/so-i-took-on-a-multi-million-dollar-company-eb</div><div><br />
</div><div>http://wii.mmgn.com/News/EBs-awful-A-Mans-Guide-to-Trading-promo</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgba(0, 153, 153, 0.0742188); color: #444444; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;">EB TWITTER: Word on the street is we're not very funny.. we wanna give you the chance to give us a better idea! We'll make a vid of the best idea next:)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgba(0, 153, 153, 0.0742188); color: #444444; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;"><br />
</span></div><div><a class=" twitter-atreply pretty-link" data-screen-name="DrLimimi" href="https://twitter.com/#!/DrLimimi" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 153, 153, 0.0898438); color: #009999; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;"><s style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; opacity: 0.5; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: normal;">DrLimimi</b></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgba(0, 153, 153, 0.0742188); color: #444444; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;"> </span><a class=" twitter-atreply pretty-link" data-screen-name="elizabethdanger" href="https://twitter.com/#!/elizabethdanger" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 153, 153, 0.0898438); color: #009999; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;"><s style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; opacity: 0.5; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: normal;">elizabethdanger</b></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgba(0, 153, 153, 0.0742188); color: #444444; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> Like I said, there is a woman's guide to trading on it's way out.. feel free to check it out when its uploaded:)</span><br />
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</div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-27717771342546540862011-05-26T18:13:00.000-07:002011-05-26T18:13:36.565-07:00Week 12: The endI half expected to be watching battleship Potemkin for the Russian Cinema week<br />
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as a history major nerd, the contextual climate in which films are made always interests me<br />
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I remember sitting in the subject allocation suite (more like a dungeon) uming and ahing about the choice between Russian and Asian cinema subject, unable to decide I went with the sexuality stream of subjects (or 'French and avant guard as it was colloquially known') and like that, the very concept of learning about russian cinema as whisked away from me, all that left was the experience in first year was with Battleship Potemkin (1926). I think we watched it between the effortlessly cool <i>breathless</i>(1960)<i> </i>and Prices' <i>boys dont cry </i>(1999)respectively. In first year broad overview classic course curriculum we brushed over Russian cinema in our hour long lecture, touching on Eisenstein's use of jump cuts and historical significance as a piece of propaganda.<br />
I just rememberer thinking about the Odessa steps scene, oh yeah, they did that in the Untouchables. Cool.<br />
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so now, 4 years later here we are again touching the tip of the iceberg that is Russian national cinema. a brief wikipedian study tells me the Lumière brothers first brought film into Russia during the days of the empire. During the revolution there were many anti-tsarist films and then during the SSR films were heavily censored. It was not until the late 60s and early 70s that the film industry was recognized and gained international attention.Tarkovsky is the director of this weeks film, <i>Ivans childhood</i> (1962) and his first feature film after school. It struck me (and probably everyone) as a beautiful film. You could turn it down and have it playing as the backdrop for something melodramatic.<br />
Continuing this courses 'through the eyes of a child' theme (which makes me think of the paranoid schizophrenic methood, as if being a child is that interesting, pft, pretend to be mad and then look at the world) the film works through the eyes of Ivan, an little orphan who is enlisted to work as a spy for the Russian army during WW2<br />
kinda blows my mind that this was commercially successful at the time, and perhaps that is because it is accessible from its child perspective. but this makes me wonder, if a film like this was released now, would it be successful? It does have explosions, but it also has a strong moral conscious, a subversion of childhood and adulthood and a whole shit tonne of subtext to boot.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeRe9iwlesWdzOc97omtr2UDDudDs0IKikNCLdzujvhu-g68r32KHUlnHPCTMyFJDi7OnTYUXxsjeYnOC_Qx50qd-HnWZjYdJoEkiCDsiCLUV3K1QYklSp_nbZEFLjDvg6_lsNCJvmPVk/s1600/ivanschildhood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeRe9iwlesWdzOc97omtr2UDDudDs0IKikNCLdzujvhu-g68r32KHUlnHPCTMyFJDi7OnTYUXxsjeYnOC_Qx50qd-HnWZjYdJoEkiCDsiCLUV3K1QYklSp_nbZEFLjDvg6_lsNCJvmPVk/s320/ivanschildhood.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">watch out Ivan, artful framing is coming t o get you!</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH78737PSZx893yB1mC-RlNCJ614UlpX7Nsim0xRZe71acfuENJWbdPdL841BRAmYqGSap082YNwlsJSMYwxv-qVUACmKKJVTrkxAOSlHav9FU-VT35WvUs2Hv8MMFRpY0VHKRmjUmxNo/s1600/ivans-childhood-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH78737PSZx893yB1mC-RlNCJ614UlpX7Nsim0xRZe71acfuENJWbdPdL841BRAmYqGSap082YNwlsJSMYwxv-qVUACmKKJVTrkxAOSlHav9FU-VT35WvUs2Hv8MMFRpY0VHKRmjUmxNo/s1600/ivans-childhood-1.jpeg" /></a></div>Ivan oh no! there is use of shadow in the background, its illuminating menacing feelings Ivan! <br />
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Christian symbolism was touched upon in class. Im pretty thankful any time a film maker considers their audience smart enough to not have to shove symbolism in their faces. (IE modern times, what!? the workers are like cattle you say? I see what you have done there) This film uses the subtle symbol to its advantage, I guess this works because those who are looking can find them, but everyone else is not going to miss the story because they don't understand what the hell a chalice represents (WOOOOOMBS ) or a boy and girl being offered up the forbidden fruit (APPPPLEES) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Ceci n'est pas une pipe! after all, it is not real- it is a representation of real, it is film. You can just tape a bunch of cats together. Reality in the cinema, truth, keepin' it real is often strived for in the cinema, as if it of all the art forms can show truth. In </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">objective</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> science there is no truth, in philosophy there is no absolutes, why the shit would film be able to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">achieve</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> this if reality can't even show truth. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">I always say this of Games, and I figured film had moved past that teething period where people could no accept a populist movement as a serious intellectual movement. But now I think about it, how far has film really come. </span></span><br />
No wonder film theory continuously shows and talks about the same examples and gives adulation to the same people over and over, the expanse is too great, if you sat down to watch all those listed films on IMDB, then (even averaging them to a low 120 minutes) it would take 59 years to watch all those movies. And that is without breaks.<br />
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I feel like some sort of summary would be appropriate here for the final blog. But there is no thread I could find besides that of the child's view that ties these weeks together. Oh wait, they are all films- adding to the collective body of work in cinema. IMDB says there are about 260,000 feature films that are listed. Not to mention the TV shows, games, youtube, home movies, and things that are lost to the world, never released and left on the cutting room floor. That is quite the body of work.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">======================================================</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Filmography </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Battleship Potemkin (1925) Sergei Eisenstein </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Boys dont cry (1999) Kimberly Peirce </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Breathless (1960) Jean-Luc Godard </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Ivans Child (1962) Andrey Tarkovsky </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Modern times (1936) Charles Chaplin </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Bibliography and reading</span><br />
<a href="http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/15/ivans_childhood.html">http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/15/ivans_childhood.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.imdb.com/stats">http://www.imdb.com/stats</a><br />
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Peter Wollen's Signs and meaning in the Cinema<br />
<a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YmfU3t6aHW0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA19&dq=auteur+theory+russian+cinema&ots=tFRFnQ-_VB&sig=iKIafDMbZt1z3atAcx_HIfMOZvg#v=onepage&q&f=false">http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YmfU3t6aHW0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA19&dq=auteur+theory+russian+cinema&ots=tFRFnQ-_VB&sig=iKIafDMbZt1z3atAcx_HIfMOZvg#v=onepage&q&f=false</a><br />
on eisensteins aesthetics<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#Semantic_theory_of_truth">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#Semantic_theory_of_truth</a><br />
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The truth of science<br />
<a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SzxsjN3t4i0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=truth+and+reality+in+science&ots=j6LxMe3zOB&sig=7GADWESEktdqMu9ArYVGjuAawhI#v=onepage&q=truth%20and%20reality%20in%20science&f=false">http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SzxsjN3t4i0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=truth+and+reality+in+science&ots=j6LxMe3zOB&sig=7GADWESEktdqMu9ArYVGjuAawhI#v=onepage&q=truth%20and%20reality%20in%20science&f=false</a><br />
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Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-92231814726273284102011-05-17T02:26:00.000-07:002011-05-17T02:26:19.630-07:00Week 11: Auteurs, American Gothic and allll the ladies!<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This week in class we were looking at stylized artifice, madness, ambiguity and desire. Also the contemporary gothic, and auteur theory. Well god damn, that is 20 essays right there. But since I just finished the baby 1000 word essay (with15 sources mind you) I think im done with academic writing for the minute. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When I think of the contemporary gothic I can’t help but think of American Gothic parodies (mm you know, that painting of the man and his daughter lady standing in front of their gothic revival house) Everyone from the Muppets to Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie have appropriated the painting. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Nb8ugu5XGrIYnliuNsquG5TmLbJ-0iebbYcKtjH98eByRWhfdknLywuqBx1ev4MxiK5vPyeRTq4gbvSpao80h1XVV9XhSNrpLgFL41b7LNLJULwshSckCPyCLT3L0s94vLKBB6axcQA/s1600/293.ronson.lohan.art.lc.031609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Nb8ugu5XGrIYnliuNsquG5TmLbJ-0iebbYcKtjH98eByRWhfdknLywuqBx1ev4MxiK5vPyeRTq4gbvSpao80h1XVV9XhSNrpLgFL41b7LNLJULwshSckCPyCLT3L0s94vLKBB6axcQA/s320/293.ronson.lohan.art.lc.031609.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br />
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</o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Nothing more nothing less, styalized artifice seems to be a dirty thing. Not at all in my opinion. We would we be without Burton, Copola, Gillium, Visconti, Araki, Argento, Brooks, Fellini, De palma- and, the filmic example of the week goes to Campion’s ‘The Piano’ <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What a rapturous film. I want to discuss her in terms of auteur theory, but first the notion of previous knowledge. So the Piano has a wonderful score by Michael Nyman, one that I have had on my ipod for years. But ive never seen the film till this week. Im curious as to the impact for individuals and how different the emotion elicited can be for different people. I knew the song, i used to use it to write to, on repeat. Now I think about it it does elicit a silent sadness, but I never would have thought about it in such a cold,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>heartfelt context until I saw the film. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Back to auteur theory and stylized artifice which is a glorious thing. Campion as we were privy to in class has much of her stamp marked on her films. We saw from her early examples Girls own Story (1984) and the later Sweety (1989) the inclusion of many of the same themes from later films. The silent woman, their is something in silence. The focus on female, femaleness and femininity- brutality, causation and fate. The visual similarities which transcend her films seem to be a dichotomous, almost idiosyncratic use of repression and desire and feminine sexuality, lace, long flowing hair, flowing, cold water and silence. But then tightly wound, buttoned up, stiff silence. There is something in the silence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I thought the themes in the Piano were tip top. The idea of what it is to be civilized, your own concept of civility and the savage is questioned as the gentleman becomes the savage and the natives are the most harmonious and civil to one another. Campion also brings up the idea of barriers, language, literal, sexual barriers all working towards some kind of release. As <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ada (Holy Hunter) describes at the end of the film that she dreams of her pianos watery grave and she like to pretend to be drifting above it, which lulls her into a sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I think since the lack of female directors was also mentioned in class, the material which was handled by a female can not be ignored. So post feminism would have you deny this distinction between man and woman, but I think the innate difference bioligcally makes for interesting comparison. Would a man have been as likely to get Ada to be somewhat dressed down (frumpish?) for the majority of the film, surely the gaze was exquisite, the hole in her legging, the barrier even through Adas repressive clothing is visual stimulus. Im not sure a man would have shown the same restraint with the sex scenes, nor with the delicate revealing of Adas sexuality. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though that is undoubtedly a generalization. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
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</o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Personally I’m a great fan of the idea that a directors themes and motifs can be traces throughout their work. Tarintino and feet, Minneli and frames, Argento and having his daughter raped in every movie- we do the same literary appreciation with fine art, literature and music, so film to is legitimised by critical theory. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUqjfG8KD0Y6r5Rf9d_VI5uxoPyZE2b2ql1TtpBwBWKoRZXoSS_2t0ZMi44rO6OHkezTJs8JXIetAuH_NdXLXrYtOgxa07q1JUXmhQ_mac4WrON3vwpqVe1FDH6sVByhaLe_3Sb_T-9E/s1600/asia-argento-sexy-tattoo-31000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUqjfG8KD0Y6r5Rf9d_VI5uxoPyZE2b2ql1TtpBwBWKoRZXoSS_2t0ZMi44rO6OHkezTJs8JXIetAuH_NdXLXrYtOgxa07q1JUXmhQ_mac4WrON3vwpqVe1FDH6sVByhaLe_3Sb_T-9E/s320/asia-argento-sexy-tattoo-31000.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 150%;">(Dario Argentos </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">auteur</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 150%;"> stamps include having his daughter Asia as pictured, raped) </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-76613688210897118212011-05-15T22:08:00.000-07:002011-05-15T22:08:38.344-07:00Week 10: bicycle thieves and being behindSo now im running a week behind. which is great, cause this entry is about neo realism, and if there is a genre which reflects the human condition in greater detail then ill be damned.<br />
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Neo Realism and in particular Italian genre films known as Italian neo realism refer to a genre of films that are characterized by:<br />
being about the working class or poor people<br />
set during the 1940s and early 1950s<br />
dealing with post war life<br />
a reflection and reaction against american studio films<br />
an honest and somewhat jarring depiction of life<br />
themes surrounding poverty, moral considerations of post war life and the conditions of the every day human being.<br />
They often used non actors in supporting role.<br />
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The most intriguing part of the idea of 'neo realism' is that of truth and reality in the cinema. Generally if we study history for a moment, realism tends to be reactionary against things like romanticism, rococo, baroque and other opulent movements. As Levin puts it 'Realism is a recurrent response to the conventions and artifices of an earlier style' or, an oscillation between illusion and disillusionment 1<br />
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Neo realists called for a cinema of realism. This meant making films free from artifice, inspired by real life subjects. But there was no one agreed upon aesthetic code. unlike the new wave film makers in france, the neo realists are not an aesthetically defined genre, though certainly some aesthetic qualities penetrated the movement. Yet these were based in the aproach to film making (on location, smaller budget ect) rather than an effort to garner that design though artifice.<br />
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Neo realism has inextricable ties to the realist movement in literature. The neorealist considers themselves part of the world they records- and that they can change the present to effect the future. 2<br />
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By looking at earlier Italian films, from the silent and fascist era we gain a sense of the burgeoning neorealism movement. Visconti's Ossessione (Obsession) based on 'The postman always rings twice' preempted the neorealist themes. The use of the first person subjective character was ignored by Visconti, who opted for a move objective, omniscient camera view. 3<br />
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L.A noir comes out this week.<br />
its a noir game for 360 and ps3<br />
I gauge peoples reactions from working in a video game store. It seems aparent that there are two types of people who are excited about this game. Those who can't wait to play a game that claims smart, genre driven savvy narrative and themes taken right out of a brian del pama movie. Or those who are just excited to play another game with guns. I wonder how much will be lost on people who play this game without any prior knowledge of the genre. For example, Mafia 2, a game which I found to be a blatant copy of DePalmas' 1987 film 'The Untouchables' (Based on memoirs written by Eliot Ness published in 1957) but others loved being led by the nose down a typical mafia film/ prohibition era film storyline occasionally having to shoot something when prompted.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRpQdXHjs6cYPaSHqE3dHQEZMjLfPg-M6QCiSQy118zNETb6Uqlb8ptndqfNv4cAhvAMp_Mc8JxLaSuKCQ-_T5Bvank-6b6RKPGvurqf3rP7Pojq89mjeZAvd5IhT_ERFbK0MgpaeNi0/s1600/LANoireTribeca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRpQdXHjs6cYPaSHqE3dHQEZMjLfPg-M6QCiSQy118zNETb6Uqlb8ptndqfNv4cAhvAMp_Mc8JxLaSuKCQ-_T5Bvank-6b6RKPGvurqf3rP7Pojq89mjeZAvd5IhT_ERFbK0MgpaeNi0/s320/LANoireTribeca.jpg" width="286" /></a></div><br />
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Rockstar, the games publisher promises something different. They say "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">A</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">mid the post-war boom of Hollywood's Golden Age, Cole Phelps is an LAPD detective thrown headfirst into a city drowning in its own success. Corruption is rampant, the drug trade is exploding, and murder rates are at an all-time high. In his fight to climb the ranks and do what’s right, Phelps must unravel the truth behind a string of arson attacks, racketeering conspiracies and brutal murders, battling the L.A. underworld and even members of his own department to uncover a secret that could shake the city to its rotten core.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Using groundbreaking new animation technology that captures every nuance of an actor's facial performance in astonishing detail, L.A. Noire is a violent crime thriller that blends breathtaking action with true detective work to deliver an unprecedented interactive experience. Search for clues, chase down suspects and interrogate witnesses as you struggle to find the truth in a city where everyone has something to hide." </span></div><div style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></div>but will it fly with gamers, not a film savvy viewership. I hope so, at 109.95 a pop, this better be good. It was the first game to be selected as part of the Tribecca film festival.<br />
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Filmography<br />
1943, Ossessione, Luchino Visconti <br />
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Bibliography<br />
1 Levin, Gates, p. 48<br />
2 Marcus, Italian Flm in the light of Neorealism, introduction, princeton university press<br />
3 Bondanella, Italian Cinema: from neorealism to present. Continuum international publishing group<br />
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http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/252821,la-noire-gets-a-nod-from-the-tribeca-film-festival.aspx<br />
http://www.rockstargames.com/lanoire/features/Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-59374796617207860312011-05-03T04:58:00.000-07:002011-05-03T04:58:33.667-07:00Week 9: Cinema Verite, Zombies and Dead Space<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/zYsTgw6cgEA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
Life is slow, life has bits you wish you could skip. Reality settles in and time is relative. There is nothing you can do. So when the great escape films (and books and art before) move past the point where they are comfortable to be realistic representations of time we are left with cinema verite. Or cinema of truth. (dead space) Obviously there can never be an objective truth, it is impossible, above is an example, a short film I made of the walk I had to take every day from school to home. It was a boring walk, in my small home town. I sped it up almost 200% and left out the sound, putting some classical score over the top. <br />
The point here is although I just filmed exactly what I did, walking home- which is boring for most people but shouldn't that be truth. There is no edits, its just pov. Well of course, the lense itself is a choice, what I focus on what is being filmed and for how long. There is no escaping that all film, because it is filmed is contrived, set out to be and created with intent. Even if there is no edits, no apparent editing there is intent with what has been filmed. And thus it is not objective truth, but perhaps there can be some semblance of an individuals perception of truth. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/sw0MWeaG1TE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My housemates have been watching Dead Set. A TV show I now can appreciate which uses elements which reference and convert the techniques of Verite to television. It follows housemates in the big brother house, after a zombie apocalypse. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">========================================</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Bibliography</div><br />
Jeanne Hall, realism as a style in cinema verite: a critical analysis of primary, 1991, Cinema Journal<br />
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Dead set (2008) Yann Demange and Charlie Brooker, UK Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-76717970437685483492011-05-01T21:46:00.000-07:002011-05-01T21:46:45.967-07:00<span id="internal-source-marker_0.9360310592522847" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This week was destroyed by the filming of my 90 second film. And by destroyed I mean my spare time was filled with working on/ worrying about the impending SEXUAL SCENE in which my sister and housemate would pretend to fuck. Lesson learnt, don't film sex. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In-between the time I was working, or doing homework I managed to see Thor, download a bunch of horror films (Deep Red, Argento, Reanimator, Gorden) And watch some cartoon version of the avengers. I was reading about how dreams are perceptions of reality as opposed to deep seeded manifestations of what happened to you as a BABY, and how Freudian ideals of psychoanalysis are outdated and wrong. I remember learning that at the start of my B.A in my history major. Ironically in my film major we went ahead and read films using psychoanalysis all the time. even I wrote an essay on Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’ and womb envy, knowing full well the fluid shit I was spinning. I guess the disparity between what we collectively ‘know’ and objective truth (which does not exist anyway) interests me. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Euro trash films are amazing. (Very much like the shop on Chapel street which pretty much encapsulates the style) Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein and Andy Warhol presents Frankenstein are two which you can not look past for over the top sets, odd set-ups and bad accents. Interestingly enough the concept of what we know, that most people attribute these films to Warhol, despite the truth, that they were made by Paul Morrissey or Antionio Margheriti (depending on Italian or English prints) Critics note Warhols name is not even in the credits, nor did Morrisey do anything more that aid the films creation. It is believed that Antionio Margheriti is the author of the film, and Warhol who receives credit merely gave the inspiration. </span><br />
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Filmography <br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">David Cronenberg (1986) The Fly </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dario Argento (1975) Deep Red </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Stuart Gorden (1985) Re-Animator </span><br />
Morrissey/ Margheriti (1974) Blood for dracula/ andy warhols dracula <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Bibliography <br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Joan Hawkins,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Cutting Edge: Art-horror and the horrific avant-garde </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2000, U of Minnesota press </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Blood for dracula at E Splatter, URL: </span><a href="http://www.esplatter.com/reviewsatog/bloodfordracula.htm"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.esplatter.com/reviewsatog/bloodfordracula.htm</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-53071466313850849962011-04-19T21:51:00.000-07:002011-04-19T21:51:49.382-07:00Week 8: sexy sexy torture and tip top blogs (plus bonus porn)<div class="MsoNormal">Im trying to beat my own score at nyan cat <a href="http://nyan.cat/">http://nyan.cat/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal">This week i’ve been sick. Woes me bed ridden for all intents and purposes. Getting off stuff is hard. But, thanks to this extra time, i’ve been able to see and dissect more media. This entry will focus on Scream 4 (scre4m) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FmH-XFB7CnUoI13JQteXbDRSdFFpbwXU-VXWFbdwifbWPHVUVI7BwllAyQffoG4VjtwaPgwZFXHQUYYTRCFPB6FOJ3HYvXY2J0HG8Kvp3LgHh3OLWi2cvMluEb-tALA2UGB7eObv7pk/s1600/tumblr_lh9whj2RRF1qzgyxho1_500.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FmH-XFB7CnUoI13JQteXbDRSdFFpbwXU-VXWFbdwifbWPHVUVI7BwllAyQffoG4VjtwaPgwZFXHQUYYTRCFPB6FOJ3HYvXY2J0HG8Kvp3LgHh3OLWi2cvMluEb-tALA2UGB7eObv7pk/s320/tumblr_lh9whj2RRF1qzgyxho1_500.png" width="222" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwEb8ILia7V7OCdBvY4FRjyK0XsLxAyTyG3oFEKNgTlTt-kPVvNzFF4bwgR1CWKVw9e9L5TATNfaknkqOB5H1O6jPbJAKd3oChYSE3UTaS5M6xU-Dkz5Dn9X8ufE_nChYzfql5U-sS2Y/s1600/Hostel2-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwEb8ILia7V7OCdBvY4FRjyK0XsLxAyTyG3oFEKNgTlTt-kPVvNzFF4bwgR1CWKVw9e9L5TATNfaknkqOB5H1O6jPbJAKd3oChYSE3UTaS5M6xU-Dkz5Dn9X8ufE_nChYzfql5U-sS2Y/s320/Hostel2-8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Being your own obstacle to writing sucks. I’m sitting here unable to put anything down on paper except that I can not put anything down on paper. Alas, I shall try. </div><div class="MsoNormal">So we all headed down to Melbourne central Hoyts on a Monday night. The moon was full and covered by a thin layer of mist. We joked about stabbins’ and murderous coming to get us. For us, the horror genre is funny, its kitsch and most of all it is not scary. It is exciting. </div><div class="MsoNormal">As the characters in Scre4m note, we are to savvy to find the rules and conventions of horror scary. Where it fails is that it falls back on traditionalist, bullshit moorings of omg, OLD MAN JENKINS- we never expected you could be the killer. The problem is not as simple as to reverse the reverse psychology. We already expect that, perhaps that is why Scream 4 is so funny. In the wake of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scary movie franchise (which was the Scream films original title) we are just too aware that there is going to be false starts, false endings, ‘fridge doors closing to reveal a harmless character’ . For much of the time we are at whim to the cues of the music. It tells us to feel anticipation, and depending on whether or not you allow it to suck you in, you will be horrified or not by the revelation of the anticipation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9hIeGbbr_C_qN0rZ7qqUwZAh-Qzp05SLGPDsHqVQHKSirSNU4k69scyGbSAeb7tdZ-9QRwuoPhgcWn5QO12mrku9qQHFJYDJysVF52W7pe-EQRq09yBolpnMklXBDlgOizg6Wj8ZBJU/s1600/tumblr_ljsxcguzb01qac0beo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9hIeGbbr_C_qN0rZ7qqUwZAh-Qzp05SLGPDsHqVQHKSirSNU4k69scyGbSAeb7tdZ-9QRwuoPhgcWn5QO12mrku9qQHFJYDJysVF52W7pe-EQRq09yBolpnMklXBDlgOizg6Wj8ZBJU/s320/tumblr_ljsxcguzb01qac0beo1_500.jpg" width="229" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3gL4pY09OAsWZb8Us5BDu90UYWU_EV_LYWj2JjdlwcrxdWX_HUX-WcPLMuwRv0w_u-0CMlIMMUew4yGQwx5A4aZjcAvcPzxcvQYm6CzJ5BJGWWTJF4FQQAHr_2EDhF-paGaoXi4G1OQ/s1600/tumblr_lhz4veYWle1qcd65zo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3gL4pY09OAsWZb8Us5BDu90UYWU_EV_LYWj2JjdlwcrxdWX_HUX-WcPLMuwRv0w_u-0CMlIMMUew4yGQwx5A4aZjcAvcPzxcvQYm6CzJ5BJGWWTJF4FQQAHr_2EDhF-paGaoXi4G1OQ/s320/tumblr_lhz4veYWle1qcd65zo1_500.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">(does it offend you yeah? is it that people consent to these things, or is it that someone took a photo of it? outrage is a fickle as belief) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The horror genre, which we also watched for our screening this week is a sensory genre, it works by its desired impact on its audience. So for some, scream 4 may be a blood bath, but for others with a larger macabre film knowledge it’s a self aware slasher with moderately, to lame killin’s. Simply, this comes back to no one seeing the same movie; individualism here plays the socially contrasted part in what each person sees on the screen. Whereas the innate biological fears of death bring out the collective shocks. Human’s fear of death can manifest in the fear of the unknown, the fear of the self, what you don’t know about yourself. Like the Freudian Ego, Superego and Id. The majority of oneself is hidden in the unconscious unaware part of your brain. Perhaps the failings of scream to be truly scary is that Ghost face is visible and we can see he is the shape of a human, and a relatively weak one at that, given that he gets kicked down by Neve Campbell every fifteen minutes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the lecture some kid seemed disgusted at the idea of torture porn, but he also seemed very uneducated about it. I supposed this is what happens when people just jump into film degrees without any life experience. So like horrors base in literary beginnings torture porn too has been around for centuries. Caligula, Marquis de Sade, I mean Boodfeast was from 1963 for christsakes. The very idea that we linguistically add porn to the torture element is us subconsciously (and for some openly) admitting the sexuality that comes with torture and death. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZ5va_eOPBL3XtAEdP4HHR5NDbGsgeIVHafwD7xTq8_bvlTBXSAyRJAyh7A7JfllSHsgPHmJNvc4-6BSoP1pEQgTKm4wW0jFARXyRRW26ysvMymK4Sf1V7J0fZnVupEdVxA83WMb0oXw/s1600/tumblr_lhbdd8dhvE1qapz6so1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZ5va_eOPBL3XtAEdP4HHR5NDbGsgeIVHafwD7xTq8_bvlTBXSAyRJAyh7A7JfllSHsgPHmJNvc4-6BSoP1pEQgTKm4wW0jFARXyRRW26ysvMymK4Sf1V7J0fZnVupEdVxA83WMb0oXw/s320/tumblr_lhbdd8dhvE1qapz6so1_500.jpg" width="194" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Nk8NMeHo0VNQVZHPXZZhr1v3f4MBM3EHxvtm7dqjgT0AsX7h0Fm3pnwmqHW9TfcCtfgmz88hCxfyAgE9UKZuNs_FPDaWhlEjX9Ml9PXS6N7mffwD2UO632BhHRmafjMQ0RhkxBULpMg/s1600/tumblr_lgb40zXe1V1qa3ofyo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Nk8NMeHo0VNQVZHPXZZhr1v3f4MBM3EHxvtm7dqjgT0AsX7h0Fm3pnwmqHW9TfcCtfgmz88hCxfyAgE9UKZuNs_FPDaWhlEjX9Ml9PXS6N7mffwD2UO632BhHRmafjMQ0RhkxBULpMg/s320/tumblr_lgb40zXe1V1qa3ofyo1_500.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also been reading lots of blogs. Collections of peoples thoughts projected in such a way that their lives look really interesting. I often check Tavi and Gala, but recently I have found a trent in 17-21 year olds blogs to be this sort of fendi feminist riot grrrl amalgamation which don’t really gel with one another. So the blogs I’m looking at: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://intox.tumblr.com/">http://intox.tumblr.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://self-constructed-freak.blogspot.com/">http://self-constructed-freak.blogspot.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://galadarling.com/">http://galadarling.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.thestylerookie.com/">http://www.thestylerookie.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://mollysoda.tumblr.com/">http://mollysoda.tumblr.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://yourmilksinmymouth.tumblr.com/">http://yourmilksinmymouth.tumblr.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://digitalismkills.wordpress.com/">http://digitalismkills.wordpress.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the overall number of blogs out there. <a href="http://www.blogherald.com/2008/02/11/how-many-blogs-are-there-is-someone-still-counting/">http://www.blogherald.com/2008/02/11/how-many-blogs-are-there-is-someone-still-counting/</a><br />
(an interesting article on the legitimacy of blogs)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD__LKClOakNSZ_g2EZZJvDGxQ3qznyQtqyLcAaKy9dkaxhxPiZAUmEqkHxY1i11hG2GyG-1Ju3xu_Zt8z8bcedapulUaDrjWuI4mWYSkQj9NSNB2gNtWY7skPcHfNNPv6_RklodraH2U/s1600/barbie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD__LKClOakNSZ_g2EZZJvDGxQ3qznyQtqyLcAaKy9dkaxhxPiZAUmEqkHxY1i11hG2GyG-1Ju3xu_Zt8z8bcedapulUaDrjWuI4mWYSkQj9NSNB2gNtWY7skPcHfNNPv6_RklodraH2U/s320/barbie.jpg" width="214" /></a>Now this relates to film because like film, television, books, radio- every medium before it the internet strives to be legitimized as a place where art, academics and theoretical practice can be observed. (much like a electrical micro-large-cosm of how the world operates) As if the internet has not been legitimized as a form from which we can extrapolate knowledge. My entire arts degree was foundered online, so much so, in final year of my history major our capstone subject has a task in which we had to find a primary source not online. Everybody groaned and the idea, what- like really got to a place where history dun happened? Are you mad!? </div><div class="MsoNormal">The idea that a blog will one day be used a secondary source probably makes many historians cringe. Like the way it took decades for films to be accepted as texts, and examples of how people were at a particular time (or rather how people during one time, saw people as another) none the less, films are now able to be dissected as art, dissected as modes of reflexive social commentary and ultimately respected generally. Blogs will also become secondary examples of how people of this century chose to present themselves, their interests, and their language. Their interconnectedness and speed with which trends and memes develop and die. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Bibliography </span></div><br />
Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis(London 1991) p. 139<br />
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The Transvestite as MonsterGender Horror in The Silence of the Lambs and PsychoJ Tharp - Journal of Popular Film and Television, 1991 - Routledge<br />
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<a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uLqCRRbx1bsC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=horror+genre&ots=BmRukg2IJO&sig=fj6wecZC9asCfOmDSH6epLXb0vA">The horror genre: from Beelzebub to Blair Witch</a>P Wells - 2000 - books.google.co<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatter_film#Torture_porn">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatter_film#Torture_porn</a><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Pictures </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_12155.html">http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_12155.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://mollysoda.tumblr.com/">http://mollysoda.tumblr.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://intox.tumblr.com/page/2">http://intox.tumblr.com/page/2</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</span></div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-64304095630358137012011-04-14T07:38:00.000-07:002011-04-14T07:39:08.246-07:00Week 7: Of space, you may Sashay away!It’s about four hundred degrees in my bedroom. For the first time, I have a heater. It has made me sleepy and confined me to this room while the rest of the house, including the now permanent lounge-room cubby, become icy death traps. <br />
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The cubby in the lounge, a product of being left alone for too long has been around for three weeks now. The way in which this cave-like, pillow filled window frames our TV I think adds a level of intimacy which previously to the cubby was not there. This got me considering the space in which we watch movies and television. The way in which an audiences’ experience is altered by their surroundings. Generally the space in a contemporary cinema, the room is trying to emulate a non descript, non partial loungeroom-esque feel, with comfy chairs and the availability of overpriced food. The only hall mark of the grand tradition of going to the cinema has become the red curtains, and the often cavernous entrances. Not unlike that of the lounge room cubby. The frame around the screen is bare minimal, often non existent. Purposed to allow you to forget that you are in the cinema, allowing for optimum escapism!<br />
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</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUdkUNjLqmQtZIXrX9omOxiDSnNYFRnqsR3C6NBf4hbfURioONIm2Ql1J-xENh085zjfncNjFBPa57FdZBt-VJOtzaY08jep0cTQwzY5BWBqRh4z9WwJ-AZpuOys9UHqh8kyzGIZLvsU/s1600/imgggdsdf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUdkUNjLqmQtZIXrX9omOxiDSnNYFRnqsR3C6NBf4hbfURioONIm2Ql1J-xENh085zjfncNjFBPa57FdZBt-VJOtzaY08jep0cTQwzY5BWBqRh4z9WwJ-AZpuOys9UHqh8kyzGIZLvsU/s400/imgggdsdf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Screen cap from how I usually watch TV, in a small window while doing other stuff.<br />
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Now contrast this with a girl who sits at home with duel monitors, writing a blog on one and half watching episodes of Twin Peaks on the other. A less immersive experience obviously, yet interesting how the space between the subject and screen influences the complete experience. The difference between watching a horror movie in the dark, after reading about an escaped lunatic in your area and eating dinner with the tv on casually flicked to light fluff news. The screen is ubiquitous in Western, middle class life and yet entirely used by the subject to gratify their own needs. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheXRDjxLngZyOtfQQg8PVSMNEtfVjtshTSCEr8xNlxh0BwJFCiJXWLIr_oAe26UtPKMooq5vIIhMWr2W7NQsq1LiQGuwKxtoJFALG8PL8JKz2j1EYWxuWuAMFeZ7mB7uwpkNYQuZ32vgM/s1600/sdfsd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheXRDjxLngZyOtfQQg8PVSMNEtfVjtshTSCEr8xNlxh0BwJFCiJXWLIr_oAe26UtPKMooq5vIIhMWr2W7NQsq1LiQGuwKxtoJFALG8PL8JKz2j1EYWxuWuAMFeZ7mB7uwpkNYQuZ32vgM/s400/sdfsd.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>The gang from drag race in the illusions interior lounge. Not even going to dissect the naming of that<br />
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This week the third last episode of RuPauls drag race aired on logo. An American pay chanel which shows primarily GLBT themed programming. Drag race emulates Tyra Banks’ America’s next top model format. Gloriously embellished, hilariously dramatized and over the top. Drag race is now in its third cycle. Ru Paul spurts catch phrases such as ‘Shantay, you stay you stay’ ‘Sashay Away’ when ever a contestant is asked to stay or leave during the judging ceremony. This program is interesting on so many levels, gender, class, spatial, reflexive, historically, ironically- but for this entry the idea of the inextricable persona of a star versus character. The make-up artist Sutan Amrull appears on this season’s show as his drag ego Raja. Sutan has since been shown to have a relationship with RuPaul and be well known friends with many of the judges. The other contestants have become aware of this over the season and the desperation in their realising that they cant win has become obvious, even if they have tried to edit it out. This has gone so far as having the Wikipedia page which edits the list of episodes complete saying Raja wins. This is the idea that despite editing and reality tv cover ups, what is shown is still inundated by what the viewer knows. </div><div><br />
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Like watching a movie as a child and then again as an adult, having read about the actors life. Like watching rebel without a cause for the first time as a young child and just enjoying the story. Then again as a teen and understanding the angst, and then again as a young adult film major studying sexuality and enjoying the homoerotic subtext between the Sal Meneo character and Dean. <br />
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This weekend I also attended a pop culture expo. I find the curious, unabashed sexuality depicted rather intriguing. Girls who are generally in t-shirt and jeans find the most revealing outfit and parade around in cosplay. (an amalgamation of costume play) this is not as overt as role playing. I tried cosplay for a few years when I was 14 and 15, and now I feel rather removed from the whole scene. Though as an outsider you can view more objectively what is happening. It is almost like a mating dance between young nerdling and nerdess. Granted many enjoy the challenge of making a costume and replicating their favourite character, the obvious enjoyment of being ‘looked at’ is unavoidable as girls pose (boys too, as Bishonen or beautiful boys are swamped by fangirls) Poses are prepared prior to the event, ones that emphasize a part of the costume or characterization which shows how similar they are to the character they are trying to replicate. These people are interestingly from all walks of life. Though many are from the sub species of nerd which we call weeaboos, that is someone who has a predilection for liking all things Japanese. A convention is a place where you can line up for hours to see Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) walk around in cat ears and a bra and have your photo taken by fat old men and it not be weird. You can even buy entire outfits that are of the ‘Lolita style’ (though no good quality Japanese brad, cheap market knock offs at inflated prices are what are found at the conventions) It is fun to pretend you are an intrepid explorer, doing some post colonial anthropological research into this tribe of anime lovin’ internet people. Conclusions are hard to make without generalising. So I wont. I think a documentary or short film could quite easily be based around this world (granted there already are some) there is lots of material and great characters. <br />
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<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">======================================================</span></div><br />
<br />
<br />
Bibliography <br />
<br />
Spigel, "television in the family circle: the popular reception of a new medium" Logics of Television: essays in cultural criticism <br />
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B. Klinger "the new media aristocrats: home theatre and the film experience" beyong the multiplex: cinema, new technologies and the home<br />
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Filmography<br />
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<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1340920/">Chris McKim</a> Ru Pauls Drag Race. Season 3 <br />
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Ray, Nicholas "rebel without a cause" 1955 <br />
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Pictures<br />
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screen caps from Ru Pauls Drag Race. Season 3 </div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-89702932492550971132011-04-05T23:02:00.000-07:002011-04-05T23:03:11.095-07:00week 6: a week of banal and bananasI read an article this week, about why your blog doesn't deserve to exist. The woman who wrote it seems quite callous, but she raises some good points about the monotony and excessive amount of crap blogs.On that note, here is my poorly formalized, sporadic and ultimately entertaining blog. Written in the style of...<br />
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OMG A MAN IN MY FRONT YARD. read on to find out who he is, why he is there and what happens next! <br />
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This week in class we were looking at other people’s blogs. Besides wishing I had made an amazing diagram of film style and narrative I am fairly content with the CONTENT in my blog. I think this week’s entry will be dictated by the movies we have been watching during class. <br />
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This week between the blood and the tiffany lamp construction I’ve had school. It is the place I go when I’m not living my life, a calm pace and breath of fresh air, we sat in a dark studio and watched Pleasantville, submerged completely in shadow and craning to see the movie from behind the projector. Ah photography, you are quite the subject. <br />
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This was interesting in the context of the cyclical way Pierre Bourdieu suggests we understand texts. Pleasentville I have been watching since I was a child. On an old VHS tape we recorded the entire movie (with some of the adds removed) from the TV. I’m used to this film from my perspective as a eleven year old. And curious to watch the reflexive effect happen so overtly. The film I can now read with three years of film theory shoved down my throat, plus a broader knowledge of history. I see to kill a mocking bird, I see the apartheid, I see middle America and the consumerist society of the 90s. I see the idea of the same problems and different mask in every decade. And I can see how a theory like that of Richard Dyer in Heavenly which postulates that stars who function as particular social categories often find that this image projected to the public is off kilter in comparison to their real life persona makes watching Rhys Witherspoon and Toby Maguire as teenagers rather a strange experience. <br />
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I walked around my suburb today looking for something. There are lots of deep laneways to get lost in. I walked quite far down one today; they usually come to an end. This one kept going, it smelt like piss and there were used towels and paint everywhere. The sun was searing off the high tin shed walls which narrowed the further it went. Too small for a car to fit, I saw a bunch of stray cats mewing and then fleeing on my intrusion. The lane sort of turned a bend, I was walking faster in hope of finding an end, surely just around the corner, and these always end with a crossing to another road. This corner went forever; vines had burnt against the walls making a webby tunnel, which crackled as I brushed hastily past. Covering my ears for fear of unwanted, eight legged intruders trying to lay nests in my brain. A dog snapped at my heels from under a particularly scarce fence which made me jump, the dog snarled and I broke into a run. What if the lane hits a dead end and the dog gets out and mauls me to death and five weeks later someone will find my charred remains burnt from the reflection of the sun on the hot tin. I stopped. Someone had painted at the very dead end of this mammoth lane a face, laughing on the very last fence. All in red and crudely painted, broken glass littered the ground. What a horrible, nightmarish place. I turned around to face an almost vertigo effect, the lane stretching out before me to walk back past the dog, the spiders and the piss. The suburbs are awesome. <br />
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I don’t even want to write about this but it keeps coming up so I guess I will. Suckerpunch. Is it a sexist piece of crap or a liberating romp for women? You know what, it doesn’t fucking matter. All this infantilism talk came around with Lolita (both iterations) as well, and omg shockhoror that actually was about a paedophile (well, a nymphette lover ) you know what society, we have been wanting to have sexy time with young people forever BECAUSE biology dictates you towards wanting someone who has the best chance of making a healthy baby. Granted we should be able to be aware and thus change these desires to more socially acceptable. Big eyes, red cheeks, soft lips and a young face- its not infantilism it is just sexualizing. <br />
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Articles that keep on keepin’ on: <br />
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<a href="http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/movie-reviews/sucker-punch-_-movie-review20110405.aspx?s_rid=age:rainbowstrip:box3:campaign3:content2:05-04:sucker%20punch%20-%20stupid,%20offensive%20and%20sexist:suckerpunchreview-stupid,offensiveandsexist">http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/movie-reviews/sucker-punch-_-movie-review20110405.aspx?s_rid=age:rainbowstrip:box3:campaign3:content2:05-04:sucker%20punch%20-%20stupid,%20offensive%20and%20sexist:suckerpunchreview-stupid,offensiveandsexist</a> <br />
BEST PART:<br />
<blockquote>Here's a different way to experience Sucker Punch: open a bunch of tabs; in one, go to YouTube, load up <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU">Leeroy Jenkins</a>; load up Suicide Girls in another tab; then take a bunch of downers and flick furiously between the two tabs while you play theGodzilla and Spawn soundtracks.</blockquote><blockquote><br />
Then punch yourself in the face. Particularly if you're a woman - that gets Zack Snyder really hot, baby ;)</blockquote><br />
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<a href="http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/incoherent-fantasies/Content?oid=2635095">http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/incoherent-fantasies/Content?oid=2635095</a> <br />
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<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/browning-defends-sexist-sucker-punch-20110403-1cszf.html">http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/browning-defends-sexist-sucker-punch-20110403-1cszf.html</a> <br />
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<a href="http://media.theage.com.au/entertainment/pick-of-the-flicks/pick-of-the-flicks-manic-manga-music-video-2290788.html">http://media.theage.com.au/entertainment/pick-of-the-flicks/pick-of-the-flicks-manic-manga-music-video-2290788.html</a> <br />
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This week I’ve been watching Freddy Mercury documentaries, Twin Peaks, Season 11 of the Simpsons, My wife and Kids, Glowpinksah on youtube, Playing titan quest, eating stir-fry and reading about neurosexism and tiffany lamps. And you know, I can’t really think of anything to say. Over stimulated, over mediated OVER REMEDIATED. This shit is whack. </div><div><br />
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The man was just my landlord snuffling about. thanks for staying with me. :) </div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">======================================================</span></div><br />
Bibliography <br />
Bourdieu, P. 'Outline of a Theory of Practice'Cambridge: Cambridge University <br />
<br />
R Dyer <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oUJ0Qbse7lYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=richard+Dyer&ots=jnluepprkI&sig=p1Be_QS6tEAt3q6f9iRFOSXbst4">Heavenly bodies: Film stars and society</a> - 2004 - books.google.com<br />
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<div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/glowpinkstah#p/u/53/Daq0MiVU5wM">http://www.youtube.com/user/glowpinkstah#p/u/53/Daq0MiVU5wM</a></div><div><br />
</div><div>Pictures<br />
<a href="http://www.tiffany-lamps.de/TIFFANY_LAMP_DOMES/16IN_PEACOCK/A.html">http://www.tiffany-lamps.de/TIFFANY_LAMP_DOMES/16IN_PEACOCK/A.html</a></div><div><a href="http://www.tiffany-lamps.de/TIFFANY_LAMP_DOMES/16IN_PEACOCK/A.html"></a><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://galadarling.com/">http://galadarling.com/</a> </span><br />
<a href="http://pinterest.com/galadarling/girls-girls-girls/">http://pinterest.com/galadarling/girls-girls-girls/</a></div></div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-4172096914540674602011-03-29T21:49:00.000-07:002011-03-29T21:49:48.734-07:00Week 5: short films, shooting and shoegazingI've been staring at my feet a lot this week. Shoegazing they call it. <br />
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Being pensive like some indie kid searching for street cred. Except im just overwhelmed. Over whelmed by what other people have done, overwhelmed by whats already been done, overwhelmed by what there is to come and overwhelmed by what I have to do. <br />
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I guess it is like being over stimulated. Its hard enough to wake up every day and face the daylight, let alone sit on a crowded train, walk through school corridors or talk to people. <br />
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In a perverse way this is all good, the feeling of being swamped leeds me to retract, makes me want to drop out and drink myself to death. And wallowing in pity is always a great way to feel creative, innit!? <br />
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This week I have been watching Greg Araki's teenage apocalypse trilogy. Amazing how I've missed this films. Everything about them I know, the self destructive protagonists are wonderfully self indulgent. (Rose Mcgown plays almost the exact same character in the doom generation as she does in Jaw Breaker) The title makes me think of the bank generation, what Richard Hell thought of his generation. We progressed to the doom generation in the 90s and now what? the fucking boring generation of 'appropriation' and homage. I guess the grass is always greener. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBLq_0j_EAAvNyzlCQM61oeX7E4hV-MnXch57LqFXQbvQHCGKwO1zVLqwz29CFxCVeC5ea6TSwniOEUQiMYpUtDT48mlhiWPA7J4spwFsetfOHCHjWqBpAP2p_7IHPPBtopSsZcfm7iW4/s1600/18847408+%25281%2529.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBLq_0j_EAAvNyzlCQM61oeX7E4hV-MnXch57LqFXQbvQHCGKwO1zVLqwz29CFxCVeC5ea6TSwniOEUQiMYpUtDT48mlhiWPA7J4spwFsetfOHCHjWqBpAP2p_7IHPPBtopSsZcfm7iW4/s320/18847408+%25281%2529.jpg" /></a><br />
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Im reading a couple of books which sort of talk about the new york new wave of film making in the 80s. Deathtripping: the extreme underground makes me sad, sad because im in Melbourne in the 2010s and not in New York during the 80s. You got to make do with what you have. And while living in a squat and drinking everyday is always glamorous in text form, it’s quite a tiring existence in real life. So once you are stuck in uni, with routine and a fixed address you are living this relatively artless existence, and its a little bit scary. <br />
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You can only write what you know. To put yourself into what you make is important. But I feel like all I know is what I remember, because what im doing now is homework and going to bed early. <br />
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This quote from the start of Deathtripping makes it all a little better. <br />
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“as long as people feel the need to explore their desires and urges, free of constraint there will be need for film makers like those of [sic]...the new york underground.” Jack Sargeant <br />
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The problem is that going to film school makes you concerned and aware of the constraints. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLuXU_cuEzrLCq9-CCepcF3wHPSPxi2np5WM_-MIWHbuvbey9hx5o-e59uGI6i3a-fEO0JvatjIXz9RVQrE8E-2V8KWXEL6IPxKhHK_yqIfXYjPsOLCH7jSWn3GS86nAyrqjyshsBv8XY/s1600/IMGP9876.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLuXU_cuEzrLCq9-CCepcF3wHPSPxi2np5WM_-MIWHbuvbey9hx5o-e59uGI6i3a-fEO0JvatjIXz9RVQrE8E-2V8KWXEL6IPxKhHK_yqIfXYjPsOLCH7jSWn3GS86nAyrqjyshsBv8XY/s320/IMGP9876.jpg" /></a><br />
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I also watched Araki's Kaboom since I had free tickets from working at MQFF. (and working a 13 hour day on sunday /death) <br />
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I showed my house mates, who also seemed to really enjoy it. <br />
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Pretty rad. <br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">======================================================</span><br />
<br />
Bibliography<br />
<br />
Sargeant, Jack <i>Deathtripping: the extreme underground </i>(1995) SoftSkull press<br />
<br />
Images<br />
<a href="http://stonedandconfused.myblog.arts.ac.uk/page/2/">http://stonedandconfused.myblog.arts.ac.uk/page/2/</a><br />
<a href="http://www.soundonsight.org/beautiful-new-poster-for-kaboom/">http://www.soundonsight.org/beautiful-new-poster-for-kaboom/</a><br />
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Jack's bibliography. Need to read!<br />
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<div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lens:_Beat_Cinema" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;">Naked Lens: Beat Cinema</a>, revised third edition NYC, <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_Skull" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Soft Skull">Soft Skull</a>, 2008.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Deathtripping: the Extreme Underground, revised third edition NYC, <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_Skull" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Soft Skull">Soft Skull</a>, 2007.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">No Focus: Punk On Film, (co-edited with Chris Barber), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headpress" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;">Headpress</a>, 2006.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Bad Cop / Bad Cop, (as editor), London: Virgin Books, 2003.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Guns, Death, Terror, (as editor), London: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Books" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;">Creation Books</a>, 2002.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Death Cults, (as editor), London: Virgin Books, 2002.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Lost Highways: A History of the Road Movie, (co-edited with Stephanie Watson) London: Creation Books, 2000.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression revised second edition, London: Creation Books, 2000.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Cinema Contra Cinema, Berchem: Fringecore, 1999.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Suture 1, London: Creation Books, 1998.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;"><a class="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Naked_Lens&action=edit&redlink=1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #ba0000; text-decoration: none;" title="The Naked Lens (page does not exist)">The Naked Lens: Beat Cinema</a>, London: Creation Books, 1997.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Born Bad, London: Creation Books, 1996.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;">Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression, London: Creation Books, 1995.</div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;"><br />
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</div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-17121753877241258162011-03-22T17:07:00.000-07:002011-03-22T17:07:00.412-07:00Week 4: Desire's, Drives and Depressing sexual fantasy<div class="MsoNormal">AH, here it comes. The cathartic process of writing down your idea AND CEMENTING IT IN A MALIABLE GOO. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The very depressing story of lass who can’t enjoy her partners love making because she is subconsciously stressed by everyday worries. These manifest in a terrifying dreamscape, and a resolution that blows!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not yet set on a title. I want it to be a reference to surrealism and 1950s romantic comedies, but gosh darn it I just have not yet settled on a title. I’m sure whilst staring whimsically out of train window ill come up with something amazing. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Gratuitous 1920s ‘erotica’ </div><div class="MsoNormal">The opening shot will be a low, close up of the bed legs. The squeaking of the bed will resonate throughout the reality for the protagonist, unnamed young woman A. A cut to her feet and his, dangling over the bed. A cut to her hands tapping on the pillow. A cut to above the bed and just the top of her head moving in time with the squeak. Finally a bird’s eye view of her, from over the mans shoulders. He is into it, she is staring at the ceiling. A cut to her POV. A poster on the ceiling which is a retreat/ holiday poster, also shot in POV perspective. Showing a tree overhead in a sunny yard. Cut back to the girls face, looking sadly at the poster, clearly trying to be detached from the sex. Cut back to the poster. Cut back to her face, and then to the actual tree outside. Then cut back to the girl, who now is laying on her back but on a beach towel. The squeaking sound is used to fade across the difference in the dream scape from reality and turns into the sound of a bird. Audiences are lead to think oh good, she can<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>think about something sexy other than her reality. Led down the garden path so to speak. But when the girl sits up, her subconscious anxiety about all the things she has to do are blocking any semblance of a sexy thought. Mail to be opened, bills to be paid, washing to hang out, cleaning to be done and whatever else can fit in. Slowly the sounds build up, a noise to the beat of the bed squawking starts up again, and begins to go faster. The crux here is an over the sink shot of a massive pile of dirty dishes, she looks on in horror- using jump cuts and cut ins of the horror of domesticity the girl a slow pan out and over the mound to exaggerate their excessiveness. But all the while the beat gets faster. She goes to turn the tap on, SPLASHHHHH</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hold on the splash. Cut back to the poster in her room. Cut back to her face, disappointment. His sigh, her sigh. He flops down on her. She stares directly into the camera. Pat, pat, pat on his back. The final pat cut to black and finish. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I want to make ideally the reality pastel, weird looking and tacky. And the dreamscape a little surreal, stark colours and unusual to visually signify their difference. I want to utilize sound to create a heightened sense of the continuation of her<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>partner ‘giver her one’ and the subconscious to be to blame for her inability to concentrate. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like we talked about in today’s tute, the dominant form of film structure is character driven narrative. The number one drive for character is desire and repression. Like any good binary or conflict you need one for the other. The in my short girl desires to enjoy sex, but the weight and stress of the world makes it impossible for her to focus. I hope it to be at least a little humorous in its strangeness. I like that the conflict is very basic. And the resolution is simple. Though unfinished, I want to leave a sense of literally and metaphorical unfulfillment. I think sex, is a good way as a plot device to have a very definite beginning, middle and end. So too the dreamscape, though contextual, I hope will be a fairly easy thing to fit into the time that is left in the middle. It can be quite short if need be. </div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-20957511043713124302011-03-18T20:12:00.000-07:002011-03-18T20:13:16.588-07:00Week 3: Retrospective reflexivity and melodrama!This week has been intensely marred by the impending doom which is the pitch for our 90 second short film. <br />
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This heavily weighing on my mind, the increased day dreaming has lead to some very unusual places. The content of this week’s blog is a culmination of reading about reflexivity, melodrama and, of course Duke Nukem and his appropriated machismo styling’s. <br />
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To clarify, this week in class we talked about the melodrama. I have been inclined to debate that anything that is edited is a melodrama because it is defined as something exaggerated for effect in relation to narrative and emotional moorings. Reflexivity is the social theory which attempts to understand the cyclical nature in which we move through society. The self referential film is a fantastic example, like choosing to use Liza Minielli and Robert DiNero for New York, New York. This is reflexive because like the characters they play, the audience is aware that Minelli is a cabaret performer and DiNero is a method actor, this reflexive self awareness means the film can suppose the intelligence of its audience, which I think we can all agree is a good thing. <br />
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And Duke, Duke Nukem (I promise all these things tie together, bare with me) <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsH9cGzHg6WbrgH_jv1-o0T1fzqJqj-12C08oyYFDDd8lCfUhqOk5Sy0OLDbtyXK5EfhdLdz4uiNtZg5Z3zEgA9hOzillDOqQFqEU6RFP7tYvPwDsGen917D2lOK85skWCK5CF-sD2do4/s1600/duke-nukem-duke-nukem-women-demotivational-poster-1229543747.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsH9cGzHg6WbrgH_jv1-o0T1fzqJqj-12C08oyYFDDd8lCfUhqOk5Sy0OLDbtyXK5EfhdLdz4uiNtZg5Z3zEgA9hOzillDOqQFqEU6RFP7tYvPwDsGen917D2lOK85skWCK5CF-sD2do4/s320/duke-nukem-duke-nukem-women-demotivational-poster-1229543747.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So Duke is the main character from the series of games made during the 80s and into the very early 90s. He is the heightened sense of masculinity that goes hand in hand with Arnie, Bruce Willis and Rocky Balboa. There has been 14 years since the last Duke Nukem game, and since then, the sweaty teenage boys of the game world have grown up, bought PS3s and gotten girlfriends who also play video games (and now make up a third of the market) Duke has been widely publicised, criticized and demonized depending on who you read or watch. Reviewers tend to lean towards criticizing the upcoming game for being a throw back to sexism, chauvinism and overt masculinity. (as if the realism of call of duty detracts from the lack of female influence) It is because Nukem’ is unashamedly a satire, a self aware game which is doing what so many films have done and throwing back to a well established world of sexploitation for the enjoyment of modern audiences who can laugh and understand the concept. Like the renaissance of exploitation films who admire Russ Meyers use of females as objects or Bruce La Bruce’s free for all of human objectification games too are finally being seen as art and thus finally subjected to the same scholarly application that other forms of literature have been for centuries. <br />
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Like Todd Haynes film ‘Far From Heaven’ (2002) which is a throwback to the Sirkian Melodramas of the 40s and 50s. Duke Nukem wants to be recognised by a smart audience for what it is paying homage to, and not reprimanded as adding to exploitative or negative melodramatic discourse. It is in this vein that I want to explore the idea of reflexivity in retrospect. <br />
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The notion here is that even if during production and contemporary viewing of a film certain elements are not notice that they can be in retrospect recognised as reflexive. This is most prevalent in revisionist and queer theory, which uses a fine tooth comb to search for any inkling of queeness. Rock Hudson is a terrific example of such, used in numerous Sirk Melodramas and most notoriously in the Rock Hudson Doris day combos (such as Pillow Talk, (1959 in which Hudson pretends to be gay) the notion that Hudson was actually gay came out years after these films. Notably the film most heavily drawn from for Todd Haynes homage was Sirks ‘All That Heaven Allows’ (1955) in which Hudson plays the gardener character. Haynes, by making the husband character homosexual his appropriation is positing a correlation between how far has the openness of homosexuality in film come. <br />
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All of this makes for delicious subtext and the very same which gets Duke and his machismo in trouble, because audiences cant accept the self awareness, self reflexivity in a video game like they can in a film. It is horrible that you might have to make a film which is accessible to the lowest common denominator. Which thankfully we do not, IE Lars von Trier. <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;">======================================================</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Filmography</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">All That Heaven Allows (1955) Douglas Sirk. USA</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
Far From Heaven (2002) Todd Haynes. USA <br />
New York, New York (1977) Martin Scorsese. USA <br />
Pillow Talk (1959) Michael Gordon. USA<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Bibliography</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Game Informer. Vol 21, issue 3. Australia </span><br />
</span><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu#cite_ref-0"><span style="color: #0645ad;">^</span></a></span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Bourdieu, P. 'Outline of a Theory of Practice'Cambridge: Cambridge University Press<a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521291644" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position-x: 100%; background-position-y: 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;"><span style="color: #3366bb;">http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521291644</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Picture credits</span><br />
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</span><a href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/archives/2010/03/bob_and_the_beefcake_boys.asp">http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/archives/2010/03/bob_and_the_beefcake_boys.asp</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://www.motifake.com/duke-nukem-duke-nukem-women-demotivational-poster-36197.html">http://www.motifake.com/duke-nukem-duke-nukem-women-demotivational-poster-36197.html</a></div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-53267109763571720522011-03-10T14:33:00.000-08:002011-03-10T14:33:54.807-08:00Week 2. Blog around the narrative cornerThis week encompassed international woman’s day. I hope to draw this rant I wrote on the way to the country into some semblance of an argument on the gender binary. I think since this week in class we watched the 1940 film The Shop around the Corner that perhaps we can use it to illustrate character objectivity and all that shenanigans relating to the progress (or lack of) that we have made. The tangent is large, but the cumulative annoyance and interest in on the topic of the biology and psychology of gender means that a legitimized blog is too good an opportunity to pass up to write about this. <br />
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I wrote this entry on my way to the country. Public transport is a mecca of sudden bursts of blog worthy ideas. <br />
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Obligatory introductory paragraph go! Ernst Lubitsch’s film centers around a store in Budapest where a vivacious woman Klara Novak ( Margaret Sullavan) enters the fray only to find that the mysterious beau she had been romancing via letter is the one and same assistant manager of her new place of employment. The lecture I attended was held in a large lecture theatre the same day. It feels like since the 30 rock episode last week on females undermining other females the vague sense of a building rant has been rising. <br />
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So as I mentioned, this week I attended a public lecture for womans day. Found it all rather ironic since the entire process of Woman’s day seems to ‘other’ us more than necessary. <br />
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Now three years of a liberal arts degree have led me to the conclusion that in this post modern (to some, post-post modern) the individual is ultimate and infinite in possibility. The rampant individualism leads each and every one of us to very distinct ideas, beliefs, values, morals (one and the same for character creation and reason) These differences mean that everyone has an opinion. So when a room full of people who have some alignment with queer, gender or wom*n studies are asked questions based around patriarchy there is bound to be people who become heated. <br />
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Now the typical feminists tend to argue the loudest. I watched with glee as the girl in front of me (one who has been at University for longer than my arts degree and honors year put together but still manages to be enrolled) She had he arm squirming in the air with such fervor and determination to have her say that the forum leader, one Amanda Palmer seemed to delight in ignoring for as long as possible. <br />
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Finally being selected to have her say on the topic the girl stood up and began. The discussion at hand was a loosely guided forum for sexuality and queer studies during a free public lunchtime lecture hosted by Melbourne University. She stood up, and very loudly voiced her opinion on females being oppressed and thanks to patriarchic structures ingrained in western society we are trapped in a system which favours men and yadda yaadda yadda. <br />
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I love it. I love people with crazy ass convictions as old school as Simone de Beauvoir, Christ she was Satres woman (opps faux pas) she did have some good to say. Good old archetype abject single woman. But to repeat it now is again indicative of the progress we SHOULD have made. I would love to say we are in a post feminist world. Where gender is incidental and we can focus on the actual issues, not just defining and arguing about our differences. <br />
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Anecdotal part of the blog for humanizing sake! I stopped shaving for the least feminist reason ever. An old boyfriend told me he liked women how they grew. This was the first time I ever considered not shaving. I used to be a Goth, I shaved my arms, pits, I even shaved my eyebrows, it seemed normal and natural enough to me, since I never even considered not to. <br />
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I remember when I was about 13 I went to a protest march for something or other, not because I believed in the cause, but because it was something to do in this small town. This woman got up to speak to the crowd and holy hello, she waved her arms about revealing her hairy arm pits. I remember giggling and being disgusted. I remember thinking how could she DO THAT!? Has she no shame. <br />
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</div><div>(omg DEVIL! I love how it is that she forgot to shave, not that she chose not to) </div><br />
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It’s almost as if gender and talking about gender is indicative of the actual problem. By hosting these queer and wom*n events we are simply insisting on the differences. We exemplify our different status by screamingly loudly about how marginalized we are. (collective noun, hmm maybe not) <br />
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So it's not as if I was always against shaving, even now I’m hardly against it. I’m all for doing as you please within reason (oh hey slippery slope) and idyllically not being reprimanded for doing so. <br />
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I kept the hair because I already had gone through the transition as 'coming out' as hairy. My friends who had a problem with it had already confronted me. I had already come to terms with men’s reactions to it. I had already found female partners more accepting of the hair, but I think that is because it is apparently a feminist statement. It is a little bit funny that the process of not doing something that grows naturally on me is a statement, but I guess it is. Somewhere between laziness, the luck of having partners who either don’t mind or are supportive and a bit of stubbornness keep this hair around. I’m interested in exploring the different reactions of people around me when it is exposed. A light heated comedic documentary about the way some people are so offended by the whole issue seems like an idea. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJaW1wMHZAJar5cIjiHikPotOI5J-HTvVMCDH2JTbq-LZGt7JCKd3tZAAy6kHO5cOJcoz-Kg3MsXwLEp_J-6Sdn7pDN8TNPt1iz5L3v4Js4UoYoyZBH8VJWqpCwFhrXGf7sS7mueSfcWk/s1600/blog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJaW1wMHZAJar5cIjiHikPotOI5J-HTvVMCDH2JTbq-LZGt7JCKd3tZAAy6kHO5cOJcoz-Kg3MsXwLEp_J-6Sdn7pDN8TNPt1iz5L3v4Js4UoYoyZBH8VJWqpCwFhrXGf7sS7mueSfcWk/s1600/blog4.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(the culprits, HOW COULD SHE DO THIS!)</div><div><br />
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A young girl, 17, stood up near the end of the allotted two hours. She told us at her private school in Ringwood that her principle had overheard her confession of being confused about sexuality to her friend. The principle acted by getting the girl to come to her office, where she was subsequently told she was wrong to think these things and she needed to keep quiet or she would be suspended. <br />
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But it is not exclusively homophobia. People are scared of things that don’t fit boxes. Individuals can have more boxes than others, depending on what they have been exposed to. Humans desire to categorize things, so if a person who is around a lot of the queer community happens to have boxes for transgender, gay, bi, asexual well that just makes sense. Where as someone who has only a vague interaction with the gay community may only have basic gay and straight boxes by which to categorize things. <br />
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And thus things which can't fit, will be reacted to with fear, unnerve, curiosity or disgust. <br />
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In my home town, before any kind of sexual identity developed I remember being spat on out of a car window for being a 'goth' I’ve had people throw things at me, yell at me, tease me and stare. Granted my home town is small, and back then I guess it was new, couldn’t fit me into an acknowledge box and thus I was either of curiosity or disgust. In the good old anonymity of the city walls I became one of many people dressing as I did. And because there were more of us, more boxes are created. Goth, punk, emo, indie, gay, straight, a-sexual, pan-sexual. <br />
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Ive seen girls shunned and teased at punk gigs for being dressed prissy. I've seen Goths laughing behind blonde girls backs at shows. I’ve seen stares of annoyance at people walking into cabaret who look like they don’t belong. Ostensibly, this creation of the other out of the unknown is detrimental to tolerance. <br />
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No one can be forced to create new categorical human boxes. They happen naturally through exposure to multiple sources. <br />
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I asked Amanda if she thought woman undermining other woman was intrinsic to their biology, and if so what we can do to change. I suggested that a conscious choice to not do so seems so depressing. <br />
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<a href="http://allcelebz.blogspot.com/2007/10/danielle-lloyd-shows-off-her-hairy-pits.html">http://allcelebz.blogspot.com/2007/10/danielle-lloyd-shows-off-her-hairy-pits.html</a> <br />
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best line "Normally we like girls all shaved and nice but she looked like a big man so for me it was scary," an unimpressed trainer told the TV crew. <br />
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<a href="http://jezebel.com/#!5516049/leg-work-body-hair-is-not-always-a-statement">http://jezebel.com/#!5516049/leg-work-body-hair-is-not-always-a-statement</a> <br />
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<a href="http://jezebel.com/#!5507283/3-reasons-were-over-amanda-palmer">http://jezebel.com/#!5507283/3-reasons-were-over-amanda-palmer</a> <br />
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She went on a crazy tangent about sexuality, but raised a very good point. some of us are fortunate to have the choice to move out of harm’s way. To align yourself where you can be you, in a group of other people who already have a box which you can sit comfortably in. Reminds me of a great quote from Priscilla. "In some ways the big old city keeps us safe’ Bernadette tells Felicia after she has been beaten to a pulp after going out in drag in a small town. And she is absolutely right. Depending on the company you keep it is easy to forget that teens are still struggling to be openly gay, or that schools can suspend you for your sexuality. This brings me back to the individualism which means that generalizations which are so easy to make are impossible to use in considering the strategy to make any difference towards ignorance. <br />
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This homophobia is deeper than just hating on gays. It’s intrinsic to human nature to be wary of things they can't fit into what they understand. This is why like with all issues of ignorance, education is the answer. That’s why queer forums for queer people, while insightful are really sort of pointless. These are people who are already aware of these things. It is everyone else who needs to be educated about such things. <br />
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S'all pretty crazy<br />
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Filmography<br />
Shop Around the Corner (1940) Ernst Lubitsch. USA <br />
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Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) Adam Eliot. AUS <br />
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Bibliography<br />
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Lacan, Jacques ‘The Mirror Stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience’ 1949, Congress of International Psychoanalysis Futher reading: <a href="http://www.lacanonline.com/index/2010/09/what-does-lacan-say-about-the-mirror-stage-part-i/">http://www.lacanonline.com/index/2010/09/what-does-lacan-say-about-the-mirror-stage-part-i/</a><br />
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Picture credits<br />
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https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes8q5R3IKQwPtx97eN2UsO_uQLbZBebBfCLTStjq1FmvGShRoPV6H7DQW5StM0_cd8vGsI8HqD60H4vzNV2OZoBDbc2Oq1Uwcx7gtnkrP3-vgbg6OO5anJW7k0u9EmgnKm8mfPWw8mYHp/s1600/hairy+armpits.jpg<br />
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<a href="http://www.bellasugar.com/Celebrities-Who-Dont-Shave-8087210">http://www.bellasugar.com/Celebrities-Who-Dont-Shave-8087210</a><br />
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which also asks the hard hitting questions, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #555555; font-family: 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">Do you think you could stop shaving and feel confident? (Or maybe you already are </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #555555; font-family: 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><i style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">au naturel</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #555555; font-family: 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">?) Or is going the free and easy route only for celebrities who are already too glam and rich to care what other people think?"</span><br />
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</div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220359182588992027.post-75679511290037689862011-03-06T04:33:00.000-08:002011-03-06T04:54:17.517-08:00week 1. Of Sunrises and Sexual identitiesOh yeah, always good to start with an alliteration as a title. Makes for a good post. <br />
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So I have started this blog because I like pretty things and blog spot will let me have a background whilst the school sanctioned blog will not. I do hope this does not mean style over substance. For I believe both are integral for living. <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">First week in and we are covering form and filmic language. You can never go past <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bordwell and Thompson</i> for basic film theory. </span> Ultimately what we have in film is a form of representations or semiotics. As a set of conventions, codes and culturally relative expressions, pictures, symbols, anything which conveys meaning. This entry is going to examine form in film though the example of Murnau’s studio piece <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunshine, a tale of two people (1927) </i><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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Firstly I noticed that the film uses the production elements in a clever intertextual way. The referential expressionist styling’s refers to Murnau’s roots in German expressionism. But the subject matter is ostensibly American. There is the base level distinction between city and country and then the binary that is the American studio system and European art cinema. Binaries are an innate form of semiotics. Things are often defined by what they are not; definitions formed by contrast are a very simple way of depicting meaning in film. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7LLkpIBl358QBjUmK36c15woiKl8jgFxo9gdUlsz0hZhtju4C7k959h0n2KsHSOPWtSJ9TX1-OD4nLlcf3LboFujkI2b128mgw-QBL6zh63BOULVmP_WmHY-wNBUmRXU9yu7TZlvo-0/s1600/blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7LLkpIBl358QBjUmK36c15woiKl8jgFxo9gdUlsz0hZhtju4C7k959h0n2KsHSOPWtSJ9TX1-OD4nLlcf3LboFujkI2b128mgw-QBL6zh63BOULVmP_WmHY-wNBUmRXU9yu7TZlvo-0/s320/blog2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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The film, shot in black and white utilizes lighting to allude to characters intentions. The Man (George O’ Brian) cast in shadow and caught in the dark is shown in dark garb. Any time his mind wanders to The Woman from the city, with which he is having an affair the film dramatically casts him in shadow, and in unnatural angles to highlight his philandering. The Wife (Janet Gaynor) is positioned in the household. Shown collectively to fit with the space of the house, her white, light costume is similar to the china and lamp in their small home. The woman from the city (Margaret Livingston) is shown to be a creation of the jazz age. She is shown in a negative light. Literally in moon light, shadow and fog cast her in a melodramatic and deviant way. <br />
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A mid range shot with The Wife and Baby, the then the wife’s tears are intersected with images of the Man and the Woman from the city, all highly melodramatic. But then again, arguably everything in film is melodramatic. Editing is melodrama. The sound elaborates further still, working in unison with editing, framing, acting and mise en scene to emphasise the characters and narrative flow. Even the title cards are overtly theatrical. As ‘drowned’ is mentioned the words slide dramatically down the screen to strengthen the Woman from the cities mischievous plan. <br />
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For all that this film offers in the way of basic film forms, I found it more engaging in a gender studies context. The masculine nature of the Woman from the city was intriguing. No doubt that Flapper’s were crossing heteronormative behavioural patterns during their time. It is fascinating to watch her characters masculine mannerisms and behaviours throughout to film. This in the wake of my attending the Melbourne Queer Film Festival volunteer induction, and seeing an interesting line-up of films on offer. One in particular caught my eye, a fan of trash and exploitation cinema ‘Ticked off trannies with knives” in particular stood out from the myriad of independent films offered this year. Apparently this film begets a new genre; transploitation. Nice ring to it, but it is hardly the first film in which transexuality has been exploited as a anomaly. <i>Wild Zero </i>(2000) and <i>Waiting for Yvette</i> (2008) both arguably exploit the curiosity with intersexuality. Either way, in the words of Mr. Wilde “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOZKT35nINpmlb0rVR0Aec_fCqOMyGkKOF6lVCtC6uS6UkqZx1QwXbD0ajEwTzqoJ1hmfuUNVFEyuA3LRHoDRStHP75J8kwUSLQUapdfa-4wwBFWHZj3vZS8UEkuPjY1Aer2E-3aR_rI/s1600/blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOZKT35nINpmlb0rVR0Aec_fCqOMyGkKOF6lVCtC6uS6UkqZx1QwXbD0ajEwTzqoJ1hmfuUNVFEyuA3LRHoDRStHP75J8kwUSLQUapdfa-4wwBFWHZj3vZS8UEkuPjY1Aer2E-3aR_rI/s320/blog1.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><div><br />
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The most recent episode of 30 Rock was also a biting social satire fraught with gender issues. I love that the episode sees Liz Lemmon being left with the line ‘Gees Liz, you must really hate woman’ after she sabotage’s a new female employees job because of her ostentatious ‘very sexy baby’ version of femininity. The best part is Tina Fey, a powerful and talented writer has now bought out exactly what this episode was suggesting. That women are the ones bringing women down. <br />
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I think the blogsphere has an interesting reaction to the episode, almost like it has been taken at face value. The two articles below have also picked up on that. Does that mean 30 rock was too clever for its audience? <br />
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Tina Fey Backlash <br />
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<a href="http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/04/14/tina_fey_backlash">http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/04/14/tina_fey_backlash</a> <br />
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Feminism in comedy <br />
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<a href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/archives/2011/03/01/guest_post_whither_the_feminist_comedy_fan_by_emilie_spiegel/">http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/archives/2011/03/01/guest_post_whither_the_feminist_comedy_fan_by_emilie_spiegel/</a> <br />
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It seems only natural that something so socially ingrain as gender be represented so frequently in which ever form of media popular at the time. Amazing that even between Sunrise, Trannies with Knives and 30 Rock the issue of femineity and ideals really has not progressed further than overt melodramatic representations of femaleness. And anything else gender where gender is incidental is not needed to be discussed. Probably a case of those who are marginalised screaming the loudest into the blogsphere. <br />
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Filmography<br />
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Waiting for Yevette, (2008) Justin Ross. USA<br />
Wild Zero, (2000) Tetsuro Takeuchi. Japan<br />
Ticked off trannies with knives (2010) Israle Luna. USA<br />
Sunrise: a song of two humans (1927) F.W Murnau. USA<br />
30 Rock: TGS hates women (2011) dir. Beth McCarthy-Miller, writter. Ron Weiner<br />
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Bibliography<br />
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Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kirsten Film art an introduction, 8th edition. Mcgrawhill, International <br />
Laura Mulvey 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, screen, vol. 16, no.3<br />
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Picture credits<br />
Sunrise: a song of two humans (1927) F.W Murnau. USA (screen cap from youtube)<br />
Ticked off trannies with knives (2010) Israle Luna. USA (screen cap from MQFF site)<br />
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</div>Josie Hesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09605824390654537335noreply@blogger.com0