Author Archives: DylanMorin

Comments and Criticisms: “The Politics and Semiotics of the Smallest Icons of Popular Culture: Latin American Postage Stamps” by Jack Child

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One of the symptoms of academia’s struggle with defining popular culture is the inclusion and exclusion of many ideas and peoples. What this article made my question is the loose incorporation of stamps as Jack Child argues into the “what is popular culture?” discourse. Ultimately, after reading the Child article, I’m left unconvinced that it has a place in the popular culture discourse of the past or even in this technological age of modern popular culture. One of my larger criticisms of the article is that I do not believe it really gave a full answer as to how stamps are part of the popular culture of Latin America, he even said himself that stamps are products of the government. If we use our loose and flawed current definition of popular culture, as it stands in week two, (I will touch more on the definition later as I think it is pertinent to my point) then stamps are not products of ‘ordinary people’ (again more comments on ordinary to follow) because they are products of government. I can see how they could be considered products of a more general idea of culture, but the popular, I’m not too sure (I look for someone to convince me otherwise).

As I said previously, Child mentions that stamps are a product produced by the government, therefore I view that more strongly as a means of a propaganda even through his own example. This also brings up what I wanted to talk in class about on Friday, but we didn’t have enough time (perhaps I will talk about it tomorrow) that I’m perplexed towards our working definition of popular culture and don’t find it necessarily useful or accurate. The first concern is that there is no boundary as to what popular culture is: are stamps considered popular culture or just a symptom of general culture? Through our definition, who gets excluded or accidentally included by the term ‘ordinary people’? My general argument to our working definition is that it excludes many of the peoples whom we owe to our popular culture: communities of colour and the queer community as examples (There would be no modern make-up culture without drag queens and no Eminem without black artists). Essentially, our working-definition doesn’t give credit to the communities who deserve the accreditation. So, our working-definition is over accepting of stamps into the discourse on popular culture because of the thin and almost non-existent borders that it currently has, which isn’t to say that it has no place, but rather that we need clearer lines as to if it is to be accepted into this discourse especially since it excludes many perspectives at the same time.

First Impressions of Black Orpheus

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My initial impressions of the first bit of the film strike me with two general themes: class and gender. The main character is running around the city and experiences several instances of a lack of female autonomy within the city, perhaps it better said that there is a lack of respect for female autonomy. For instance, when she gets stock in a group to dance she is trapped in between many men whom are blocking her exit, she is only able to exit the dance circle when she is freed by another woman. The presumed protagonist (I have no prior knowledge to Orpheus and this is strictly based off my viewing of the first few minutes) experiences a world where there are hundreds of factors that impact her life, which is shown by the chaos of the market and the city during Carnival, one of the recurring factors is the constantly uninvited touches and comments from men and how the men act around her.

The other theme is that of class. Though there seems to be some inter-mingling of the races within the first eleven minutes, I didn’t notice any white children, and when we see children in the film they are generally black and shown as poor. Perhaps the implications of this are to highlight the disparities that Brazil has regarding race, for positive or negative I’m not too sure yet. Often, I think that in the case of Latin America, race and class are often interchangeable because of the consequences of colonialism, though I think this is becoming slightly  less prevalent these days

I also think of the past scholars of racial democracy and that idea can potentially play a role on how this film is perceived by the outside world. I wonder if when I watch more of the film later if I will see those themes of racial democracy. Because I consider Brazil to be one of the homes of this ideology which is the stance I pull from Abdias do Nascimento’s “The Myth of Racial Democracy”. So, I’m curious as to which themes may pop out as I continue to watch the film.

Question: “What aspects of race, class, and gender can be pulled from the first eleven minutes of the film? Are these experiences strictly Brazilian or can they be applied to other Latin American experiences?”

Introduction Post

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Hi, my name is Dylan Morin. I am a third-year student at UBC who transferred from Douglas College last fall. I am doing a double major in Spanish and Latin American Studies. Not only that, but I hope to continue my studies by pursuing a Master of translation from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Once I finish my Bachelor’s I will be moving to Mexico City with my boyfriend so that I can begin working on it.

What I hope to gain from this course is a broader vision of Latin American culture because thus far my experience has been very centred in the Mexican one. So, I’m looking forward to filling those gaps in my knowledge.