Feeling nostalgic

For this blog, I wanted to hone in on a quote from the Susan Sontag piece that I loved oh so very much. Susan writes, “As photographs give people an imaginery possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure”. (I guess someone else liked this one too since it was marked up!)

Anyways.. My Grandfather, who was very sick, recently passed away. In the weeks that led to his passing, I found myself acting out a ritual I had done on numerous other occassions when death was near. I went hunting through old photo albums to find a picture of my Grandfather that made me feel happy. Carefully, I placed this photo on my nightstand where it was the last thing I saw before going to sleep, and the first when I awoke. It wasn’t like the I did this subconsciously, I obviously knew what I was doing. And on a literal level, it helped me feel somehow nearer to him, despite the hundred some-odd miles that were separating us.

But when I read this particular passage in the Sontag piece, I understood a little more about what I was doing. The insecurities from my Grandpa’s eminent passing were alleviated by placing this tangible, comfortable object in plain sight. It was helping me to cling onto certain memories of the past, yet prepare myself for the inevitable. I recall doing the same thing when two of my pets died last winter, and also when my older sister’s cancer became terminal a few years ago.  As Susan remarks that photography is “a defense against anxiety”, so too, I believe,  is the act of looking at photos. And since taking a photograph is “converting experience into an image”, conversely, looking at an image is converting that image back into experience, or at least the memory of it. To sum it up: “…such talismanic uses of photographs express feeling both sentimental and implicitly magical: they are attemps to contact or lay claim to another reality”.

This article certainly helped me feel a little better (and normal!) about a ritual most people would categorize as morbid. Eventually, these photos of mine find their way back into albums, or sometimes they get framed and placed in a less obvious location. Either way, I’m sure everyone can agree that although sentimental photos may temporarily make us sad, they more than likely make us smile

Visuality and Power

I thought that both leaders did an excellent job this week in providing us with such clarity with the readings. Although previous weeks’ articles were definitely a little heavier, I thought the guys did a really nice job of giving us personal, yet relate-able examples and points for discussion. LOVED the bathroom stalls with no doors story!

I was also particularly drawn to Gross’s piece about figures in the gay community being featured in the media as either a victim or a villain. Last year, a horrible tragedy occurred in the home behind my parents’ home (the house I grew up in).  The owner of the home shot and killed his partner, and then shot and killed himself. The subsequent newspaper articles that were written about them seemed to focus on portraying the one as a hard-partying homosexual villain who killed his lover in a “drunken rage”, while his partner was portrayed as a hard-working, upper-class victim of senseless violence. There just didn’t seem to be any humanity in the way the local media reported on the story. It had to be this “gays gone wild!” spectacle. Gasp! GAY people own guns!?!?

This was extremely disheartening for me, as the town I grew up in is a very gay-friendly and open-minded community. For god sake, it hosts the “Miss Gay Pennsylvania” competition each year. So shouldn’t this story have raised issues on domestic violence, gun control, etc. etc.? Or do these issues only effect “normal” people… aka straight people. Instead, the coverage seemed to suggest that the tragedy was somehow related to, or a result of, a kind of sexual deviance. So sad.

Images and Publics discussions

I’m realizing what a slacker I’ve been in terms of blogging…

Both before and after the fall break, we were focused on the images and publics articles, that dealt mainly with varying conceptions of reality and visuality. Of course after the whole Matrix example, I had to go back home and watch the whole movie. It’s weird how the conversation in class made me pick up on things I’d never noticed before in the movie. Now I see all the little academic/philsophy references, especially in the Animatrix cartoons as well. I can only compare it to when Dr. Hall told my class over the summer that as a society, we categorize people for consumption (making it easier to market and sell)–eversince then I tend to only see the hidden messages in advertsing instead of the overt.

In regards to last night’s discussion, I kept thinking about the power of information that is disseminated via the media, but what about mediums like Twitter and Facebook? I kept coming back to these since they both have the ability to reach a WIDE audience just about instantly. For me this raises problems about authenticity. While the news outlets are able to “skew” information, these social networking sites are able to dissemminate flat-out lies. So is it really relevant to still say that the “most important” information to disemminated through the media? (and I’m considering Twitter and Facebook to be a form of media since there are so many corporate and organization accounts.) WHen you read things on Twitter like, “Kayne West” is dead!–it gives new meaning to the whole concept of the pseudo-event.

 

Lastly, I remember a conversation in Crable’s class about a “TV view of the world”, where we talked about the more you watch TV, the more you tend to have a certain subscribed view of the world, people, events, etc. This theory seemed to be similar to some of the viewpoints in the articles we read for this week. Although, my point (as it was in Crable’s class) was that, aren’t there sub-groups within the TV-watching audience? We had quite the heated discussion about Fox new-viewers last night. So, I’d have to say that people who regularly tune into that particular station, versus people who watch abc constantly (owned by DISNEY), aren’t likely to have the same world views.

Dancing with Diana article

I really enjoyed last week’s piece by Taylor, “Dancing with Diana” probably because the memory of Princess Di’s death was so vivid in my memory. Her take on the way we mourn, as a public, was really intriguing. August 30th, 1997 was my 12th birthday and I had had a sleepover that night with all my friends. The next morning we awoke to the news that Diana had been killed in a car accident and we remained in front of the TV for the next several hours. Later, I called a friend and told her what had happened, listened to her tell her Mom, and then heard the crying in the background. I thought, Wow. I mean, everyone was upset, but crying? It’s not like we knew her! It was sad, but how could her Mom be THAT upset?

So when we discussed the article in class and talked about how absence was somehow more powerful than presence, I agreed. BUT. I also think the media plays a HUGE role in the feelings that develop from the death of someone like Diana. Although… I have trouble wrestling with which came first, the media spectacle or the public frenzy. (Kind of like the chicken or the egg.) It is the public who creates the histeria and the frenzy and the media responds to it, or is it the media that creates the spectacle and the public responds? It’s difficult to say, and the conflict bothers me.

In a world of 24/7 information, the news of a death of a celebrity, political figure, etc. spreads like wildfire. The day Micheal Jackson died, I found out through the status updates of my friends on Facebook. Getting my news from Facebook? C’mon! But it happened, and Michael Jackson’s death became as big and inescapable as Diana’s. The “Hauntology” concept has many sides… I think with all the coverage a famous person’s death receives, there is also the risk of overexposure (as seen in the defaced grafetti images). Not 2 weeks after Michael Jackson’s death did we hear people saying, “I’m sick of hearing about it”. Really? We’re doing it to ourselves people. Wake up! I doubt anyone would say to a friend or a co-worker ,who is grieving the loss of someone, that they are tired of hearing about it. The media is always looking for the next bigger, better story, and unfortunately, death gets caught up in that machine as well.

Semiotics and stuff

So, after reading this week’s Cobley piece, I was happy to find one of the most refreshing things I’ve heard since starting grad school. In the last paragraph, Cobley states, “The negative side of being a hybrid discipline also presents, therefore, an immense opportunity. For students it sometimes seems a Sisyphean task to inuculate one body of theory only to find that it is the subject of a critique by another, or to find that concepts from one discipline are tantalizingly close to another without being precisely congruent”. THANK YOU. (Although yes, I did have to look up what “Sisyphean” meant, and now I know studying com is likened to pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll right back in my face).

Altough I love what I’m studying, sometimes I do feel a little, dare I say, insane? The complexities of what we read sometimes are enough to make my head spin. And just when I think I can say, aha! I’ve got it! Some other theory comes along and totally confuses and/or dismisses what I thought previously. But aparently, I’m not the only one here… just wanted to put that out there!

The aha! moment during this week’s reading came for me, once again, from the Cobley piece. Also, the last paragraph. “…media are plural, having many forms of ownership, technology, and a seemingly limitless array of messages and audiences which differentially decode those messages”. Although I sort of understood his discussion of Pierce’s firstness, secondness, and thirdness, it wasn’t until he spelled it out it this way that I really understood. Communication is ultimately about infinite possibilities of interpretation.

Healthcare speech

So I watched President Obama’s speech on healthcare last night, as I’m sure many others did, and of course my favorite moment was the “YOU LIE!” outburst. I knew immediately that this would become the focal point of all the media coverage on the following day, even stealing some of the spotlight from the actual speech and topic of healthcare reform. Interestingly though, at the time of the speech, you could not see who made the remark. You did, however, get to see the death stare Obama gave. Pelosi looked like she might grow horns out the top of her head. And Biden simply shook his head like a disappointed parent. These images helped to weave the story that would follow.

Sure enough, the “heckler’s” name, Congressman Joe Wilson, and his picture was splattered across every media outlet this morning, both print and video. On CNN.com, his angry open-mouth photo was even contrasted next to a stern-looking Obama photo to emphasize the drama-rama of the moment. Outburts aside, I found this to be a particularly visual speech. Although Obama’s gift as a speaker (in terms of voice) cannot be denied, his prescence, his body language, and even the visuals of the audience really helped make this speech a sucess (at least to me). I’ve always noticed how much Obama uses his hands, particularly the shakey finger-point, but last night he really got into it. I also noted his eye contact, always looking to the left and to the right (demo and repub) and never straight ahead to the camera. Then there was the outburst. When he paused to look at this person, I became uncomfortable even though I was sitting in my own living room. I felt embarassed for this person and slightly, dare I say, afraid of the President? This brought me to our discussion of heros last week. It made me think of how the images and coverage of these images from this event would either breakdown, or reinforce the heroic ideal. For some, the image of Joe Wilson yelling at the President will become something to admire, for others, the images of shock and disapproval from the President, the Speaker of the House, and the Vice President will become something to look up to. Whatever floats you boat. Lastly, there was the stirring portion of the speech dedicated to the late Ted Kennedy. During these emotional remarks, the camera panned to his widow sitting next the the First Lady and various members of the Senate and Congress. It was the visual of Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Biden wiping away a tear (whether real or fake) that really stuck with me. Had this visual component not been incorporated with the speech, its affect would have been completely different.

To be honest, I still don’t really understand all the components of the healthcare bill, but listening, and really watching, this speech has given me a better grasp on the importance of healthcare reform. Don’t want to get too preachy here, so I will go back to eating my lunch. Cya tonite