WEEK 9: CINEMA AND CULTURAL LITERACY

Living in postmodern world, things gets digital everyday and upon the advanced in technology. On representing culture, cinema must possess a great knowledge on cultural literacy. In this journal, I have chosen the film Sydney White where it shows the portrayal of teen’s lives in university, the same live that I am currently living. I feel that as a university student, the set of rules and convention  in fraternity has put pressure on young educated girls to socializes the way they are ask to, to look thin, to put on beautiful clothes, to change their personality to become a sorority sister. Creating  a group of minorities for me is just discrimination, an excuse for human to create glory for themselves by eliminating those who aren’t fit. I always believe that people are made equal, and discrimination is  unethical. The purpose of writing this journal is to investigate how filmmakers understanding of cultural literacy in cinema is the vital role in  representing specific culture. However, I would like to criticize that some cultural literacy might provoke a political point of view as a result of their set of law.

Hirsch’s definition of Cultural Literacy is “the fund of information possessed by all competent readers belonging to a certain culture.”(Hirsch, 1987). In the film “Sydney White”, the filmmaker of this movie inserted teen cultural literacy of “a fraternity or sorority”, a teen cultural literacy of America. The film maker uses the cultural literacy to represent the culture of University lives in USA.

Jane Goodman and Leila Monaghan in their book titled A cultural approach to interpersonal communication: essential reading stated that the definition by Eckert that Fraternity is described as a social club at university in which members is selective, becomes the central organization around which members structure their college lives, especially socially and it is also a community practice. This fraternity is essential in the film “Sydney White”. The rules of fraternity are highlighted by Cynthia Mclemore as it is an intensely well-defined community and its activities are based primarily on talk, meetings and parties. (Goodman, Monaghan, 2007).

 Scene 1 "Sydney White"

Scene 2 " Sydney White"

The first scene above is taken from the film “Sydney White” depicts a fraternity culture living in a big house named “Kappa Phi Nu” shows that they have specific rules and convention that each member need to adopt in order to fit into the fraternity lives. In the scene 1, they must possess a very attractive physique, a perfect skin, a thin body and are able to socialize themselves. In scene 1, Sydney White broke the law of fraternity as stated that she brought an unsuitable date to the date dash as well as cheated during pledge quiz. This action is itself a contradiction of becoming a sorority sister. Due to this specific rule, she is exiled from the privilege social club. This creates political point of view in her perspective, the script writer of this movie creates a political perspective from the main protagonist as a result of the cultural literacy of fraternity. Sydney White portrayed a girl who is unfit to play a social role of a fraternity. She provoke political point of view upon struggling to find the meaning of being a fraternity.

At the end of Scene 1, marks the event when Sydney white is being exiled from being a kappa due to her lack of social roles in finding a proper date, cheated during pledge quiz and for lying about her status as Plumber’s daughter. She struggles to find the meaning of being socially fit to the role of being a sorority sister on what is the real meaning of being a sorority sister. Her socially unfit personality to be questioned, for people not accepting her personality makes and her struggle of humiliation makes her to grow more political than any other characters. Her transition for the kappa house to the geek house, the feel to be eliminated from a privilege club to a geek house, a house for those of the unpopular. Nevertheless, scene 2 also depicts another politics in the characters of the boys in the geek house where they grew political to find their identity, their attractiveness in the middle of all the competition of being the ideal fraternity. The boys struggle to find themselves in a position of the being the unpopular, living in small and ugly house.

Filmmaker must possess a great knowledge in cultural literacy to represent specific culture. By portraying the cultural literacy, a film is able to depict a certain rule of the culture. Only by representing the concept fraternity, filmmaker are able to portray the whole idea of an American University lives. The representation of fraternity is portrayed as a central phenomenon in American University; the set of law of the cultural literacy of fraternity is highlighted that gives viewers the impressions of the real events in American University. Are we or are we not seeing the reality of the culture through cinema? Audiences are able to acquire knowledge on what fraternity is all about and representation allows the impression of the real events of fraternity. Whether or not this representation portrays the real truth about the cultural literacy of fraternity. I want to criticize that this representation of USA university students lives might be biased. Filmmaker only shows the students obsession  about their social role with the prestigious club, this is not what the university live in America is all about. Where are  the cultural literacy of their studies activity.

 In conclusion, we live in modern world where cinema and other digital media give audiences knowledge of a specific culture by using the law that compromises this cultural literacy in order for people to see the culture in the mirror of its representation. The hope of cinema to represent the reality, to act like a mirror to real cultural events of the culture.

References:

Hirsh, E.D. Jr. (1987) Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.Houghton Mifflin Co.Boston

Goodman, Jane E.  Monaghan, Leila. (2007). A cultural approach to interpersonal communication: essential reading (ed).Blackwell Publishing. Oxford

WEEK 8 : PHOTOGRAPHY: RECONCEPTUALISING CULTURE, MEMORY AND SPACE

I use photography to document real events for memory of the past and current lives. For me it is the plain pictures that act to retain or pause a moment to keep it as memory. All this time, It has never crossed my mind that photography can act as a powerful weapon of  photographer’s intention. Photographer that controls what he/she wants to make people see. The power that for me act like a “spell” where it can cause people to be manipulated. Upon learning photography in class, I learn that photography can be seen as a cultural critique that can lure people into criticizing the issues that the photograph raised. Photographers took a picture that depicts a cultural critique in order to lure people’s mind to criticize what he want them to criticize. In this journal, I would like to investigate on how the cultural critique of photography leads to mass persuasion where only by this cultural critique, human minds are easily compelled. How cultural critique change our perception of photography. 

As stated by Liz wells in her book thinking about photography: a critical introduction, Susan Santog discussed photography as trace of reality on interrogated photography in terms of extent to which the image reproduce reality. (Wells,1996)

Indonesian construction workers house in Brunei

Last week, I took a photograph of an Indonesians construction worker's house  in Brunei, this improper construction house is situated about a few miles from my house. My purpose of taking this photograph is to allow the interpretation of audience to see this image as what I want them to see.  My intention is to raise the issue on the cultural critique of capitalism as the driving force in Indonesian government.  As shown in this picture, the denotation shows Indonesian workers seem to be living in an improper house made of zinc in Brunei away from their homeland of Indonesia. This alone connotes the negative ideologies of Indonesian capitalism as the root of their suffrage. Capitalism allows profit to be privately owned, those who are rich, gets richer while those who are poor stays poor. Widening the gap between the rich and the poor. This biased form of government system is exactly what happened in Indonesia as stated by Richard Robinson, “It is capitalism which constitutes the most dynamics social, economic and political force at work in Indonesia today, rapidly and remorselessly uprooting and reshaping the lives of its people”. (Robinson, 2009).

These Indonesian workers are victims of capitalism as they are here, traveling across the sea to live in our country to seek for job opportunities. Living in an improper house in an unpleasant environment , with  no proper water supply, and no proper sewage system. Audiences will easily be moved by what this photography has shown just because I as a photographer  has managed to capture a cultural critique of the image. Audiences will easily be compelled only by seeing images of a cultural critique where this photograph will always be seen as a memory to the inefficiency of Indonesian government on handling unemployment as well as the cruelty of capitalism.

Upon taking this photograph, I have captured a real life scene that enables the portrayal of politics. Here, I have captured the politics of poverty. Politics is defined as the struggle over meaning. Those Indonesia construction workers in my photography depict their struggle over the meaning of success, the difficulties of living in a bad infrastructure house with no facilities to call it a home. How difficult it is to survive in other country, struggling to find the meaning of being in a foreign place. They also face difficulties as they struggle over the meaning of being underachievers. People perception’s on the discourses of construction workers house draws the negative ideologies of this type of house as the destruction of a beautiful environment. This individual struggle to live with the ideologies of people’s perception about them. How it feels like to live in a foreign place made up of unwanted materials, having been seen as an interruption to an environment. All of the political point of view exist due to these individuals being victimized by the cruelty of capitalism. The cultural critique of capitalism that I have shown in this photograph is the causation of their politics.

When taking the picture, I act as a photographer where I possess the power to influence people’s perception. By taking a picture containing a cultural critique, I create such an emotional impact in people’s mind and having the power to compelled people into what I wanted them to criticize.


In conclusion, the historical invention of Joseph Niepce prove to be a powerful weapon  to human's perception. Its powerful yet most deadliest tool of cultural critique has attracted political photographer as well as photojournalist to compelled the public. Photography has put its mark in the world by affecting the lives of each and everyone of us. It has no longer been seen as a trace of reality but as  powerful device that act to shattered our emotions away.


References:

Robinson, Richard (2009).Indonesia: The rise of capitalism. Equinox publishing . Singapore.

Wells, Liz. (1996). Thinking about Photography: a critical introduction ( 3^rded). Routledge. London.

WEEK 7 : VISUAL NARRATIVE AND THE MEDIA

Storytelling is apparent in everybody as a part of their life. My memory of narratives involves my childhood memory of reading and listening to stories. When I was young my grandmother was a very good storyteller, she always read children’s book to me.  I always thought that narrative is as simple as people telling stories, I never have thought about the structure of narrative that allows the interpretation of the meaning and messages. Upon learning the theory of visual narrative, I grew interest on learning about the structure of narrative. The purpose of writing this journal is that I want to investigate the difference between plot and story and  I also want to oppose that the argument regarding post structuralist narrative as the cause of the decline in Meta-narratives in relation to story and plot.

On studying philosophy, I am greatly influence by the philosophy of Rene Descartes, he was a dualist where he argued that mind and body are two separate entity, where he introduced the mind/body dualism.  Simliarly, Story and plot are two separate entity but they are interconnected with each other.

In the book titled Narrative, Plot is defined as the chain of causation which dictates that these events are somehow linked and therefore to be depicted in relation to each other. While story consists of all the events which are to be depicted (Cobley, 2001, p.5).

   Academy Award wining film "Milk"

Scene 1

Scene 2

These are some of the scenes in Sean Penn's portrayal of the  first gay politician , Harvey Milk in the film “Milk”. Story has always been associated with plot, each sequences in the scenes of Milk are linked together as plot to form a story. Each of the scene works like gestalt theory. In the book titled Gestalt psychology in German culture 1890-1967, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka defined gestalt theory as "the experienced objects and relationships that are fundamentally different from the collections of sensations, parts, pieces or sums". (Ash, 1995). Each of the pieces must join together to form a whole. This psychological theory is applied here in plot and story. The pieces is the sequences of events that are causally link to each other which called the plot, this pieces of events must join together to form a whole which is the story.  Scene 1 above shows the opening scene  of the film portrays the celebration of Harvey Milk’s 40^th birthday living in New York City where he met his male lover Scott Smith, where the scene highlights his sexual orientation as homosexual.Scene 2 portray the intimacy of his relationship with his male partner over a dinner. These scenes and other scenes in the movie are causally related to each other to form the story.

Some advertisement do not have a plot, advertisement such as posters have a story but they do dot have any plot.This advertisement does not have a plot. Plot must have a sequence of events that are link together.  "NO SMOKING" advertisement above consists only one event that makes up the totality of the event being depicted which is called story. This advert conveys a story of the dark side of smoking, the health issues that will arise as the effect of smoking. It does not consist of the sequence of events that are link together to for the story. This prove that story and plot are two separate entity and can exist independent of each other. Some genre such as poster advertisement convey a story independent of a plot.

Post structuralism is a movement in philosophy, particularly in French philosophy. Belsey defines it as “a theory or group of theories, concerning the relationship between human beings, the world, and the practice of making and reproducing meanings” (Belsey,2002 p. 5). Quentin Tarantino is famously known as the producer of post structuralist narratives in his film. In his film Kill Bill vol 1, the opening of the film depicts a scene where the main protagonist is shot and covered with blood.  This does not follow Aristotelian narrative because the scene from the beginning of the story looks like the end. I would like to criticize on the argument that post-structuralist leads to the decline in meta-narrative.

By using the example Kill Bill Vol. 1, I would like to argue that that post-structuralist does not cause the decline in meta-narrative because the only change that separates it from traditional narrative is just the structure, but the plot is still intact. In Kill Bill Vol 1, there is a plot where all the sequences of events are link together despite the shift in its structure. Where despite of is destructive structure, it is still accepted by society. If post-structuralist really is the cause for the decline in grand narrative, why would Post-structuralist films such as the matrix, sin city and the inception became the overnight sensations that lure audiences to watch. Why are this movies effective in telling stories to audiences, how can this film receives such a big hit. The drawbacks of Post structuralist in my understanding means in scientific terms as the opportunistic infection to a narrative structure. However, the reason why narrative is suppose to follow beginning, middle and end is because of its reminiscence to real life. I begin to ask myself does virtual world  has to mimic real life?  the  most important purpose of visual narrative is to tell story. Post-structuralist narrative retain  plot and story thus, maintaining its purpose to tell story is for me a good enough reason call it a narrative.

In conclusion, Narrative is the theory designed to tell story, to convey message to audiences. It doesn’t matter how it is presented, there is no correct structure for storytelling. I think, narrative should be seen as a cultural realm. It is the society that will ultimately be the judges upon how narrative is suppose to be told.

References:

Ash, M.(1995).Gestalt psychology in German culture 1890-1967.Cambridge University Press, USA

Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism: A very short introduction.Oxford University Press.Oxford.

Cobley, Paul.( 2001). Narrative. Routledge.london.