When we watched the film God Grew Tired of Us in class, we had a discussion board, and what started as a 200 word post, I felt as though I needed to elaborate and continue the discussion. Which is why I am incorporating my original post, and discussing it further…

“As we discuss the film God Grew Tired of Us, there has been many conflictual reactions between colleagues. I personally enjoyed the film very much, but I understand the concerns our classmates have because this film was portrayed through an overwhelming American lens. This portrayal of the documentary may have reduced the urgency of political action by only focusing on the Lost Boys in America and their pursuit of the “American Dream”. However, as devil’s advocate, I felt as though this film during that time could not have been portrayed any other way due to kairos, or culturally relevance of time. During the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) there was not enough global awareness and publicity on the matter therefore limited action was taken to help. For this reason, it allowed the conflict and the genocides to continue without international aid, so by having this film produced as blockbuster Hollywood documentary may have been the only way to bring this urgent matter into light.”

Making note of the actual timing of the film’s release in 2007, during the 2000’s was when a number of publications on the Lost Boys of Sudan was brought into the market (including What is the What 2006). This was nearing the end of the civil war when these publications, books, novels, documentaries and autobiographies were established. This timing for the release of these narratives of the Lost Boys and War in Sudan, was during a time where there was limited political aid and public awareness on the issues. Therefore, by having a documentary on the Lost Boys sub-produced by Brad Pitt and narrated by Nicole Kidman brought a lot of global attention whereas without the contributions of these starlets, it may not have gained the publicity if otherwise.

The prevalence of American movie stars in the political and humanitarian community generates a lot more public attention, especially for issues like the Sudanese civil war because these stars have no political affiliation with any of the involved nations, but they have the money and power to address these issues. Thus, the timing of this documentary to be released nearing the end of the civil war, and also the western cultural influence on this film had a great impact on the publicity of this film. Although the film was dominantly portrayed for western audiences with a strong overtone of American nationalism, given the time and place, this was probably the most viable option to spread awareness of the issues.

Looking at the War in Darfur Sudan, although the political unrest and genocide continues to happen, a great proportion of the media and attention it received was due in part of celebrity activism. Some celebrities hoping to stop the conflict in Darfur are George Clooney and Don Cheadle.

This is a compilation of videos of these Hollywood starts hoping to gain global awareness on the crises of Darfur and inspire a humanitarian movement…. 24Hours4Darfur

Although this post took a bit of a political science turn, I still believe that it is relevant to our literary studies of autobiographies and how they are being portrayed, more importantly how they are coming to life. It is undeniable that the Western presence and influence on the world plays a major role in bringing these issues to the global community. I am grateful for the celebrities who genuinely care and take proactive measures for humanitarian aid such as George Clooney and Angelina Jolie. However, it is much more disturbing that we rely on the movements of large figureheads to initiate a movement, or to expand on a smaller movement of cause. Again, we can accredit the West who brings public awareness to issues like the Lost Boys, and the War in Darfur (in this context).

In one of my classes, we had to study Facebook. Who would have thought that ‘Facebooking’ would be assigned as homework. Surprisingly enough, having to look at Facebook with an academic mindset let me to question the uses of this site. Firstly, let’s face it, Facebook is a part of our lives, and I admit that I am addicted. Although I am not one to constantly update my statuses or change my profile picture every hour, nevertheless, I will find my way to access the site on my phone, my laptop, or any electric device I can get my hands on. I often contemplate deleting my Facebook account to take a step back into reality, however I have a legitimate fear of letting it go.

This brings me to the point of our emotional attachment to Facebook is what feeds the company, our sharing of personal information and preferences provides them with key information for marketing purposes. Over the years, this social networking site has evolved itself into a worldwide phenomenon. Taking note of the changes of the Facebook layout and as it progresses it created ways of including very personal information into our profiles. When I first began using Facebook in 2007, all that was required to provide was my name, my birthday and had a choice of uploading a profile picture. Since the upgrade to Facebook Timeline, we can observe the how the layout’s composition is purposely designed to invite us to share our personal details as users. It wants to know our likes, our family tree, relationship status, education & work, our religious affiliations and some to the extent from having an option to “post” about a new eating habit to losing a loved one.

These are extremely specific details of one’s life, and I am uncomfortable with the progression of Facebook creating these profile options to encourage us as users to share this information about ourselves.

Furthermore, the methods they are using to entice us to update our timeline are through the subliminal pressuring tactics as seen in this photo:

My profile is only __% complete. The use of that tool can easily entice a user to want to achieve 100% completeness, but our profiles will never be complete because they continue to add more features and options to add more additional information about ourselves. It will never end because Facebook wants to know more about us, not as individuals but as consuming statistics. What is frightening is, although we are choosing to share our lives to our friends and family, all of our information is being accessed by Facebook as a company every day. Using our Facebook activity to supplement their business. Now we may be thinking, well why don’t you just delete your account, if you are uncomfortable with Facebook accessing your information?

This again ties back into the emotional attachment to Facebook that many of us have. From the beginning of using Facebook six years ago, I have accumulated so many pictures, stories, conversations with so many people. I use Facebook to look back at past memories and use it on a daily basis to post new memories. With the upgrade to Facebook Timeline, my profile is essentially my autobiography. This website is a record of everything that has happened within those six years, and to “delete” it would to erase all of those memories. Facebook has redesigned itself to have its users create their own autobiography. Of course when we are posting or uploading pictures we do not view it as added to our autobiography but rather it’s just a part of our culture. What is interesting with our current studies of autobiography, how this modern day social network has become a way to document our life history on this website, and therefore our ‘Timeline’ is one of the 1.1 billion autobiographies in the world of Facebook.

With this new found knowledge, I am unsure as to how I really feel about Facebook any more, all I can say is, I can’t live with it, and I can’t live without it (but more so the second part).

“In its simple style, Persepolis powerfully alludes to the ordinariness of trauma: one does not need, and in fact should reject, the virtuosic to tell this tale, it suggests.” (Chute, 105)

“Ordinariness of trauma”… wait, what? I came across this line while reading Hillary Chute’s The Texture of Retracing in Mariane Satrapi’s Persepolis and I thinking to myself what an interesting formation of words, two opposing words but when used together can hold a powerful meaning. Relating this thought into our research today on the genre of life narratives, so far we have encountered new forms of autobiographies; blogs and comics. Some case studies include the Salam Pax’s Where is Raed? along with Riverbend; both of which are blogs that chronicled the daily experiences of these individuals during the War in Iraq in 2003. In addition, we also have been analysing Mariane Satrapi’s Persepolis – a graphic narrative illustrating Satrapi’s personal experience growing up during the Iranian revolution. It was through Chute’s examination of Persepolis where I stumbled upon the phrase “ordinariness of trauma” but what does that really mean? Why was this significant to me?

I wanted to explore why this statement had such an impact. I began to dissect the meaning behind “ordinariness of trauma”. First, I defined the terms separately:

Ordinariness – or·di·nar·y  (ôr dn- r )

adj.

1. Commonly encountered; usual.

2.

a. Of no exceptional ability, degree, or quality; average.

And

Trau·ma  (trô m , trou -)

n. pl. trau·mas or trau·ma·ta (-m -t )

1. A serious injury or shock to the body, as from violence or an accident.

2. An emotional wound or shock that creates substantial, lasting damage to the psychological development of a person, often leading to neurosis.

3. An event or situation that causes great distress and disruption.

So, the gist: how extremely dire situations integrates itself into normalcy. This is exemplified in Salam Pax’s blog on his experience with the war in Iraq (2003), in Riverbend’s blog and her struggles with the war. This idea is also prevalent in Satrapi’s Persepolis, although I have mentioned the effects of war several times, please know that this new concept I am discovering is not limited to war, and this is why…

As I continue down the path of life narratives as a genre, I reflect back to one film I saw a few years ago. Desert Flower, a film based on the life story of Somalian model – Waris Dirie – who is a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) and this film portrayed her struggles of this traumatic experience and the impact it had. Without spoiling the film, just in brief; FGM is considered a social practice in many parts of the world, and it was not until Dirie’s exposure to western culture, where she was informed that these practices are not “normal” but is recognized as a violation of human rights. Therefore, Dirie produced her film Desert Flower as a way to educate the world on FGM. Just as Pax, Riverbend and Satrapi’s life narratives are used to inform a global audience of their social situations.

From here, I look more deeply into the “ordinariness”, how that is depicted when clearly these are not usual circumstances (at least not where I am from). Joining the two words together (ordinariness + trauma) are extremely difficult to comprehend, especially when I (along with many others) have never personally experienced conflict to the point where it is immersed as a part of daily life. When reading the blogs of Pax, Riverbend, and reading Persepolis and learning of the horror stories and the hardships that they face, but they complement these experiences with very relatable situations such as school, work, traffic etc. With referencing household routines it provides a sense of typical interaction, easing in the tragic stories of wounded or killed civilians, houses being raided by soldiers, or on a “normal day” Riverbend describes it as “[being] up at early morning, did the usual ‘around the house things’, you know- check if the water tank is full, try to determine when the electricity will be off, checked if there was enough cooking gas…”. Trying to understand the depth of three simple words can define how life narratives can humanize some of the most inhumane situations.