tuum est

When were first told that we were to watch “Dirty Pretty Things” in class, I assumed that this was a movie rendition of the novel “What We All Long For”. I was definitely mistaken. At the same time, these two forms of media are highly similar in theme and message.

While I realize that we are only partially into “Dirty Pretty Things” I believe that I have a very good understanding of the film already. Director Stephen Frears masterfully presents key themes of the film very early on in the actual viewing.

I will discuss one of the key themes I have already seen in the film. Then I will discuss how this theme relates to the novel “What We All Long For”.

Perhaps the biggest theme I have thus far seen in the film is the idea of invisibility. This theme is most obvious while in the Baltic Hotel. Not once, so far, have we seen a customer or a hotel patron enter or leave the hotel. It is only the workers who seem to be actually in the hotel. This may be symbolizing that what is happening in the hotel, between the workers, is the only thing that matters in the plot of the film. More likely, however, is that this symbolizes how the workers themselves are actually the invisible ones. They are the ones always in the background, whom the hotel patrons don’t see. And yet, these invisible workers are the ones dealing with huge moral issues (like finding a human heart).

This parallels the same kind of them in “What We All Long For”. In highschool, the group of kids that the novel follows were always the outcast — maybe the invisible ones. This continued onto adulthood where they live in very sketchy building, and no one visits them except each other and maybe Tuyen’s brother (not happily though). When Carla is riding her bike for her job, she is also completely invisible to the world around her. She observes all the time, like when she goes to her mother’s old house, but it never mentions how someone ever observes that she is there.

Perhaps this idea of invisibility is a common theme in immigration. These people just want to fit in in their new society, and they deem the best way of doing that is to blend into the background. I find this ironic, however, especially in countries such as Canada and the United States. Living in both these places, I can easily say that as a society at large, both countries celebrate individualism. They celebrate making yourself known among a sea of people, being the most flamboyant flamingo in the flock. And yet, those people coming into these countries feel pressured to blend in, to become invisible.

I hope to see this theme of invisibility further developed within the film.

Reading What We All Long For really hit home for me as a daughter of immigrants, myself. Some of the feelings and things that happened to these characters within the novel, I can completely relate to. Others — not so much. Overall, Brand makes incredibly real characters. These characters are flawed, nuanced, vulgar, and a little predictable. In essence: THEY ARE HUMAN. Disliking a character in this novel is totally and completely okay. In fact, that’s exactly what Brand is going for. I absolutely hated how much Oku pined for Jackie. I wanted to tell him to suck it up, move on, and get his life together. I largely disliked  him for this, but, again, Brand is simply making this character a real person, one you can hate as much as you want but also believe.

As for making these characters angry, Brand was spot on for making these characters believable. To be quite honest, everyone is angry about something. We’ve all experienced injustice or something that truly disappointed us. Brand is expressing this through her characters perfectly. Thematically, she is showing to her readers the anger felt by her characters for the injustices they have experienced. What must be understood, however, is that this same anger is experienced between second-generation immigrants as well as well-established Canadians.

This same anger in her characters is expressed through the assumed embarrassment towards the immigrants parents that are secondary characters in the novel. This embarrassment, however, I think would be better described as perhaps pity, however. I myself have felt embarrassed about my parents not quite knowing about proper American social cues and disregarding American culture — something that is incredibly important to my self-confidence and social ego. Upon closer inspection, however, I realize that my true feelings are not embarrassment, but rather pity. I feel sorry for my parents that the do not understand the proper American ways. At the same time, though, why should I feel sorry? They accept and embrace their original and quite frankly do not feel the need to adopt another one. They are absolutely content with who and what they are. For that reason, I should feel neither pity nor embarrassment/shame. Tuyen and the other characters, I believe, are actually experiencing this same type of reaction to their parents. They simply feel sorry for them that they don’t quite fit in. This same pity may reflect upon themselves as they, then, also believe that they don’t fit in themselves.

In essence, what I took from What We All Long For is that we must accept who we are ancestrally, who are parents are culturally, and move on from it. We can embrace our new culture as much as we want, but we must never forget about the influence and power of our original one. We should not understand that everyone is flawed and has some anger towards life, but in the end all that we have is who we are in as an essence of a person. If someone chooses to define this essence through race/immigration, so be it. In the end, you decide who you are.

Before reading Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, I guess I didn’t really understand just how big of a contribution Aboriginal Peoples had in World War I. I assumed that some had enlisted/ been drafted into the war, but I didn’t know to what extent. For that reason, I wanted to research the role of Aboriginal Peoples in World War II had what they contributed to the Canadian military in this horrific war.

With my research, I found this incredibly information website: http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/pub/boo-bro/abo-aut/chapter-chapitre-05-eng.asp. In it, I learned that Aboriginal Peoples were “among the casualties at Hong Kong and Dieppe, they fought in Italy and Sicily, served on convoy escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic, and flew with bomber and fighter crews around the world. They landed with 3rd Canadian Infantry Division on D-Day, and fought through the campaigns in Normandy and Northwest Europe.” So, in essence, they largely contributed. Next, I wondered if they fought because they were drafted or because they felt the pull, the need to enlist, just as Elijah had felt (and then brought Xavier along).

For that, the same website clearly answered my questions. Many “joined out of patriotism and a desire to help stop the Germans: he wanted to ‘do his bit.’” Others joined because they wanted to prove to the Canadian that they were in fact loyal Canadians. They wanted to assimilate, and in so doing may have been losing their own identity as an Aboriginal person. They developed a sense of equality through their time in the war, and for many it was a right of passage into the Canadian culture.

One particular soldier by the name of  Private George McLean of Head of the Lake Aboriginal descent in the Okanagan was memorialized for his contributions in Vimy Ridge (a significant Canadian success in the War) for “‘captur[in]g 19 prisoners, and later, when attacked by five more prisoners who attempted to reach a machine-gun, he was able- although wounded-to dispose of them unaided, thus saving a large number of casualties.'” Through this, I think it is clear that Aboriginal Peoples held a huge role in the war, and today they are being recognized for it — unlike how much Elijah and Xavier were recognized for their efforts in WWI.

See more at: http://www.ammsa.com/publications/ravens-eye/okanagan-soldier-remembered-vimy-ridge#sthash.Nt0pIk9i.dpuf

Not everything was high and dandy in the military for Aboriginal Peoples though. Many First Nations Peoples were discriminated against in the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force because they were not “‘of pure European descent and of the white race’”. In many factions, Aboriginal peoples were not allowed to drink alcohol (as back home in Canada) and had to eat/mess at different times of the day than their European-descendant comrades.

Overall, it’s absolutely fascinating the role these people had in World War II. Ironically, they fought for oppressed people in Europe when they themselves had been oppressed by the Europeans back in their home land. Also in this same ironic sense, Aboriginal discrimination and prejudice became less prevalent in Canada as Japanese-Canadians were increasingly attacked (especially those on the West Coast). Both of these groups of people were social and political victims of Canadian politics and society. Both of these aspects highly connect to the novel Obasan by Joy Kogawa and Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Both novels discuss being “different” or of different heritage/cultural backgrounds than that of the European-Canadian, something that was highly rampant in World War II for the Aboriginal peoples of Canada who fought for Canada.

Despite hearing a lot about Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, I still didn’t really know what to expect when I began reading it. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed by the novel (especially with Joseph Boyden as this was his first novel — ever!). The novel gave me a different perspective on World War I. This was one of the first times I had ever heard of the war through eyes other than American. It was also the first time I’ve seen it through an “Indian” (as called in the novel). The book offered detailed description of the destruction and annihilation within World War I. For some reason, before I had read the novel, I never imagined World War I being an incredibly vicious war. After Xavier and Elijah’s account of their time in France, I realize now that it was incredibly brutal and bloody. Historically, I had never heard of the battle of Vimy Ridge. While reading Three Day Road, I Googled this battle and realized just how instrumental the Canadians were in achieving eventual victory in this battle and then the war. Also fascinating to me in the novel was the jump to what was happening back in Canada to Aunt Niska (in both the past and the present of World War I.) Her contributions to the novel made me realize just how real this war was — to absolutely everybody in the world. It affected not only Canadians, but also those who lived within the boundaries of Canada but considered themselves of another nationality (Cree for Aunt Niska).

Aunt Niska, as a character, offers several aspects to the novel. As I read Three Day Road I came to decide that maybe Aunt Niska is the character that offers most in terms of lessons or messages. Like I said, she proves to be representative of those that are left back home, those who never go off to war. She, like all the others, do their best to continue on with life without  family, friends, and normality. Aunt Niska is also, quite clearly, a character representing the changes and transitions that aboriginal people experienced in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. She is a character in between traditional aboriginal culture and that of an assimilated Canadian-Aboriginal culture. She proves to be the fighting force of this transition — trying her best to escape from something that makes itself out to be inevitable as she constantly has interactions with it despite her best trying to avoid it (i.e. her Frenchman-lover, the need for companionship in Xavier, the need for information about Elijah and Xavier in the war, etc. ) These two roles that Niska holds in the novel are crucial to the arguments made about the different definitions of morality between First Nations and European/ Canadian peoples, a key theme within the novel. Despite having her own issues and own decisions that are questionable, Niska proves to be an instrumental character in developing lasting messages in the novel. Niska’s main message that made me decide that she was one of the most important character? Believe in your ancestry, believe in the essence of yourself, and help others achieve this same type of enlightenment — something I hope to live by myself.

I find myself, over and over, assuming the worst about colonization, about Canada, about the United States, and, in particular, about the fate of the aboriginal peoples of whom I am learning about. Almost every type of literature, film, or radio broadcast I engage with to learn about aboriginal peoples, I am overwhelmed with feelings that make me think that there is no hope for these people. I think to myself that all that they have is their horrible pasts  and stories, all the things they fought for — and nothing to show for it.

After watching the Canadian Residential School Propaganda Advertisement from 1955 (just one year before my own parents were born which really disturbs me to think this was all happening within their own lifetimes), these feelings came rushing over me all over again. The advertisement itself is just full of fallacies and lies. It shows the principal “dispensing first aid duties” and over all providing for the children. It describes the children as “orphans”, “convalescents”, and students whose homes are “too far in the wilderness” to be able to attend school. The narrator plays it off, again, as the residential school providing for these children. The narrator describes what the children are learning as “ordinary Canadian” knowledge, something that as First Nations they wouldn’t understand, right? The music is like that of The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, and Gone with the Wind: orchestra heavy, full of wonder, and slightly epic. It compliments the propaganda within the clip perfectly, aiding the viewers into thinking that what the narrator is describing is really, actually true.

Of course, I don’t believe that. I’ve done too many readings, listened to too many interviews, and seen too many films to even slightly believe what the narrator is describing. What do I believe? That most students had only reached grade 5 by the time they were 18, 24% of Aboriginal children died in their residential school, and students were physically and mentally abused (to such extremes that if they were caught speaking their native language, then they would have a needle shoved into their tongues).

I know you may not want to, but please see here for more facts like these: http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-residential-school-system.html . (Understanding what happened in the past through facts will help understand what I am going to say next.)

Our discussion in ASTU has made me recently realize something else though. As awful as these histories are, the First Nations people within Canada are not hopeless, and I shouldn’t classify or subjugate them to that title. They are making strides for change, are making headlines of this change, and, ultimately, are making change. Just googling First Nations Canada pulls up this website: http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal. It chronicles all the recent news and shows just how aboriginal cultures are not dying, but rather rebuilding from what they were forced into and now thriving. I know now that these peoples have much to show for all that they went through and all they will continue to progress to. I look forward to learning even more about the aboriginal people within Canada as we continue in ASTU.

It seems to me that a world of fertility and “two-legged wombs” in The Handmaid’s Tale is not so obscure and unlikely as it may seem. Even as a piece of fiction, today’s legislation and current events on abortion and birthing rights takes an extreme approach and leads me to believe that women are essentially these vessels for birth to many conservative pro-life activists. Case in point, the situation with the Nebraska Supreme Court v. Anonymous 5. Anonymous 5 is in fact a real person, a teenage foster child in the midst of a pregnancy who had to go to court to appeal for an abortion — for which she was denied. The reasoning? Because Anon 5 was “not sufficiently mature” to handle an abortion. The judge even went so far as to say that Anon 5 did not provide “sufficient evidence” to prove that she was a victim of abuse.

I get it — maybe this girl should have been more careful in what she had been doing (of course this also includes her sexual partner). But is it really necessary to dictate what she can and can not do with her body? Perhaps she isn’t exactly in the financial position to care for a child, maybe she can’t even care for herself. Even more importantly, whose to decide on her maturity? Likewise, what makes her mature enough to actually have and raise the child.

Everything about this reminds me of The Handmaid’s Tale. This girl is not capable of making her own decisions, she is seen to be inept of taking control of her situation, and, essentially, becomes the two-legged womb (no quotations needed). The government intervenes, believing it knows best and is more qualified to make such a personal decision. It dictates what will happen and basically tells this young girl to be a vessel for the child. No free will, no decision-making, nothing.

Other birth-right events are at this same level of insane. Take for example the shooting of Dr. George Tiller in 2011. Tiller was a man trying to help woman, abiding by the law, and only doing exactly what his patients wanted — by providing abortions. His murder takes this messy state onto another level. Tiller makes me think of the doctors in The Handmaid’s Tale and the person who shot him exactly parallels the role of the Eyes. Tiller was only trying to help these women (just as many of the doctors did) and the murderer only saw these women as carriers of children. To the murderer, Tiller was only impeding such a process and so deserved death.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/george-tiller-killed-abor_n_209504.html

In essence, the violence by citizens and decision making by the government surrounding abortion rights is absurd to me. Everything is becoming more and more radical and very well could lead up to the kind of radicalism found in The Handmaid’s Tale. I understand that the government needs to regulate such procedures, but it has no right in the actual decision making of the procedure. Such invasive government laws parallel that of the government of Gilead. It scares me to think that perhaps Margaret Atwood’s novel was not completely fiction, but maybe of premonition.

After watching District 9, I decided to look into other politically charged films. I came across V for Vendetta, a film I had seen years ago and had never really quite understood. Reading reviews for it, I decided to give it another try. This time, however, I would look at it through my newfound ASTU lens and try and recognize the politics within the film and then relate it back to our class.

First, a very brief synopsis so you can understand the characters within the film: Britain has become a tyrannical dictatorship in which human rights and life have been oppression. Evey (Natalie Portman) has never been happy with the state of her nation and through a series of events (for which you have to watch the movie to understand) becomes involved with a character named V. V, a mysterious man with a dark and painful past, rebels against the government violently as a lone citizen, all while hidden by a Guy Fox mask. His motto is that of having an idea, and acting upon it in that “behind [his] mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath [his] mask there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof.” It’s these ideas that Evey realizes the power of the lone citizen and how change is needed.

It’s dense, I know. But let me tell you, V for Vendetta was absolutely fantastic. The politics in the film may have been even more profound than those found in District 9.  It asks its viewers to look deep down into their moral conscience. The viewer must decide if V is a terrorist or a fighter for freedom. Viewers must essentially decide if he is good or bad. It builds suspense and pressures the viewer to identify the oppression within his/her own life, and then take action upon it. To sum it up: “Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. Everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.” It also brings up a lot of questions on the state of governments in the modern day. This is especially relevant in the wake of the National Security Agency of the United States spying on its citizens as well as other countries.

In terms of ASTU, V for Vendetta draws on a lot of the topics and articles we have discussed. Firstly, the government within the film breaks just about every clause written in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The film delves deeply into bare life living, especially when the film reveals the history behind V and the experiments run at Larkhill. It questions what is living when you’re simply living to be experiment on. Similarly to District 9 it deals highly in biopolitics, in that there are deep suspicions that the government has released a virus upon its citizens in an effort to control them (again against everything The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has to stand for.)

In essence, V for Vendetta is a thoughtful and well-developed film. I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoyed District 9 or movies with intense political messages. This film will resonate in a person, something not every Hollywood Blockbuster is capable of doing.

I’ve seen District 9 seven times now. And yet, I’m not bored – and probably won’t ever be. The movie is beautiful in the most gritty, savage of ways. The brutality of the movie still makes me pensive. I catch something new every time. The emotions portrayed in the movie and the emotions elicited by the movie are genuine and inescapable. The movie is beautiful in the most gritty, savage of ways. It captures the essence of a compelling story of metamorphosis while being a social commentary on the evils of injustice all in the same. This is something not accomplished by many films today, much less science-fiction, blockbusters. District 9, however, does all this and more.

The development of the character of Christopher Johnson is, I think, one of the more interesting and symbolic methods that Neill Blomkamp took in sending a message in his film. Christopher Johnson, upon first glance, is repulsive. He’s a mix of a squid in the abyss of the ocean, the cockroaches crawling outside, and Ripley Scott’s Alien: truly terrifying. This impression is drawn and reiterated from the encounters with the other aliens. News clips and footage already viewed point to savage beasts who find “fun” in destroying normal human life (by derailing trains and flipping cars).  These first impressions last twenty minutes into the film – a long time for an introduction, but, again, it all leads to the message that Blomkamp is trying to send.

This first impression is wrong, as usual. The movie progresses and the character of Christopher Johnson does as well. We realize he is not repulsive, far from it. He is human at the deepest parts of his character, perhaps more-so than most of the actual humans in the film. These emotions and characteristics develop from the complementary character that is his son. Christopher works tirelessly for his son, so it seems. He understands fear in that he does not want his son to experience the new camp. He is intelligent, realizing that MNU cannot evict he and his son to the camps legally. He is gentle in that he teaches and cherishes his son’s life.

Other human emotions and characteristics are apparent in other situations of the film. Christopher proves he is brave in that he goes back for Wikus when Wikus is in peril, saying he “will not leave [Wikus].” He also promises Wikus that he’ll come back for him, three years, displaying his trust.

Essentially, Christopher Johnson is an ideal human, and yet he is not a human at all. This is a message I believe Neill Blomkamp was trying to send – people fail to understand the good in people because they only judge them based on their race, or in this case, species. I know, it’s a little cliché, but the notion is resounding. It still affects human society today, and probably will forever. Its unavoidable, almost, with all the evil in this world. The most some people can do is make others aware of it, exactly what Neill Blomkamp does with his audience.

After making all these realizations, I wonder if these ideal human characteristics also apply to the other “prawns” in the film. Does Neill Blomkamp want to develop the humanness in the other prawns by using Christopher as a model for his species? If so, Neill Blomkamp does this well, until one very significant scene. Up until Wikus and Koobus Venter (one of the main antagonists in the film) have their one-on-one encounter, I found myself thinking that every single prawn was like Christopher: misunderstood, abused, and morally conscious people that are not savage. Then, in the scene towards the end of the film, Koobus Venter is brutally ripped apart by the prawns. My assumptions were turned around, and all the strides that Blomkamp took towards proving the human-conscience within the prawns to his audience, I felt, were eradicated.

This scene is the only ambiguous scene in the film to me. Otherwise, all the scenes fall together seamlessly, creating a beautifully created and directed social commentary on the status of human rights and injustice in the world we live in. Well done, Neill Blomkamp. Well done.

The idea of redress is not unique to Joy Kagawa’s Obasan. Of course, her redress is incredibly effective. She writes the story of the lives of a Japanese-Canadian family broken by the Canadian government during World War II. Kagawa herself believes that she reflects more upon the character of Aunt Emily, a political hawk, searching for change and acknowledgement. Obasan became an immediate hit, making many changes in Canadian society. She yearned for the redress of her people, and so achieved it.

The notion of redress through the medium of a novel caught my attention. I searched the library of my mind for a book that I had once read that had desired for redress, for acknowledgement, for it all to be set right. After days of thinking about it, I finally had remembered what novel I was thinking of! I had Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay over the summer, a historical fiction book I picked up in a discount bookstore in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. I hadn’t expected much from it, just a quick read, but I was wildly surprised. It contained depth, historical accuracy, and (most importantly) and an apparent cry for redress.

Sarah’s Key is the intertwined stories of a young jewish girl in Paris during WWII and then of a journalist in the early 1990’s. It describes the hardship of the young girl, Sarah, (the loss of her family, her innocence) and then how the journalist searches for more clues on Sarah, including her whereabouts today.

Redress comes into the picture with the deportation of the Jewish families from Paris during the Vel’ d’Hive Roundup on July 16 and 17 of the year 1942. This roundup accounted for sending 6,300 men, women, and children to Auschwitz, out of the 42,000 sent all together. Out of that 42,000, only 811 French returned home from the war. Sarah’s Key addresses these facts, but calls for redress not just for the loss of lives and for the families of the victims, but also for redress on the facts — none are clear. For decades following the war, the French government  denied the claim that French police were involved in the Vel’ d’Hive. That’s right. The law enforcers of a country was sending his/her own people to their deaths.

The journalist within Sarah’s Key finds obtaining information on the Vel’ d’Hive very difficult, and makes it her mission to do more thorough investigation. Newspaper articles, letters, and textbooks regarding the incident don’t exist. Locals who live near the holding zone for the victims do not speak of it. The journalist’s own daughter, French-born and schooled, has never even of heard of it. The plot goes to prove the redress Tatiana de Rosnay is searching for.

Reading more into the Vel’ d’Hiv, I learn that the French government finally made an apology in 1995, specifically for the part that the French police played in the murder of thousands of innocent people.

Whether or not this apology was put forth because of Rosnay’s novel, Sarah’s Key is another great example of redress in the form of a novel, just like that of Obasan.

This week in class, we read both Literature, Imagination, and Human Rights by Willie van Peer and Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination by Martha Nussbaum. Just through the titles of both articles, it is clear that they are related. In fact, I found both of articles to be almost entirely alike.

Both Nussbaum’s and van Peer’s articles have similar abstractions. Nussbaum’s abstractions include the effect of imagination on literature and the effect of literature upon imagination. Another abstraction of Nussbaum would be the definition of citizenship.

Van Peer’s abstractions include (again) the impact of literature upon imagination and how imagination defines literature, human rights within literature, and progress through the medium of literature and imagination.

Clearly, these two articles deal with almost the exact same topics since the abstractions (the broad ideas within the article) are practically identical.

In terms of big ideas, the articles are also incredibly similar. In particular, the big idea of becoming a better citizen is heavily conversed upon within both Literature, Imagination, and Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination. Within the former article, the notion of being sympathetic, empathetic, and compassionate through the medium is highly discussed.  Nussbaum explains that by utilizing these components, one can become a better world citizen. In the latter  (Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination) the notion of the edifying effect of literature is discussed, highly similar to the discussion of sympathy, empathy, and compassion within literature in Literature, Imagination, and Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination.

Most interestingly, the exact same detail is used in both articles. This detail is in regards to the child’s lullaby, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. In Literature, Imagination, and Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination, this lullaby is in the context of a story used as an example within her article. The lullaby, however, is considered to be enhance imagination, which is considered a negative thing in context.

In Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination, the idea that the lullaby Twinkle Twinkle Little Star leads to a stronger imagination, as well. Comparatively, however, this idea is a positive one in the eyes of the author. She claims that learning this lullaby opens up the eyes of a child. Had they not learned this lullaby, Nussbaum believes that the child would be “… deprived of a certain way of viewing…”

Finding all these similarities within these two articles leaves me wondering. Did both authors just happen to find the same conclusion on such a broad topic? Or did one author almost copy the other author completely? I’m not accusing either author of plagiarism, I’m simply aware of the possibility since plagiarism is so heavily stressed at university. Maybe the idea of plagiarism, of not copying another’s work without citation, comes back to human rights. Does receiving credit for one’s work fall into a human right, given to all people in this world? Or is this too vain, to want credentials. Just a thought.