Author Archives: madeleine battisti

Week 3: The Pongo’s Dream

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Firstly starting off reading this story the pongo, who is a servant, interacts with the landlord who constantly humiliates him and belittles his appearance and skills. RIght off the bat I am feeling sorry for the pongo and wishing that the landlord would let up. Due to the pongo being to himself and even belittled by the other staff in the house it seems as though the landlord makes a point of being extra hard on him. Seeing some mob mentality here in terms of the treatment towards this particular servant.

It became particularly interesting when the pongo started to tell the Lord about the dream he had where they both died, and lay naked in front of St. Francis being judged. This reminded me of a saying the goes something along the lines of “stay humble all of our graves are the same size”. In terms of after we have left this Earth there is no worldly comfort or material objects that you may have in whatever awaits us. This scene illustrates this in terms of both the pongo and the lord laying side by side with each other.

There is a plot twist at the end as the lord war smeared in honey of sorts while the pongo was smeared unevenly in gasoline. Then St. Francis ordered the old angel that did this to the pongo to ensure that both of them spend the remaining time licking the others body with the respective substance on them. Therefore even though he was smeared in mud and gasoline and stank the lord was ordered to lick his body clean of this. This is where the story ends but I can only imagine what must have awaited the pongo in this story after he relayed his dream to the lord.

Throughout the story I was reminded of something that my religion teacher would tell us in high school, this being that Jesus hung out with the poor, prostitutes, and other people with disabilities. Therefore who is anyone to judge someone else’s faith, or more so value as a human being. This story brought a lot of these messages back for me in terms of the lord wanting to dominate and ridicule the pongo when at the end of the day he may have another thing coming when this man of “faith” leaves this Earth.

What is Popular Culture?

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Upon reading “The Politics and Semiotics of the Smallest Icons of Popular Culture: Latin American Postage Stamps”, by Jack Child I was intrigued. It was my first time reading a scholarly article evaluating different facets of what postage stamps mean to a particular community and the messages they hold otherwise. In this case focusing on semiotics. Child, discusses how stamps are a sign of nationalism that was influenced by Europeans and later the USA, however Latin American countries have such a diverse range of postage stamps that they tell a story about the particular area.  I found it interesting to read about the particulars that go into the design of a postage stamp. Something that I definitely have not given much thought to in the past, however will be more in tune with in the future, upon reading the article. As an aside I am surprised that stamps would be considered such an important part in terms of popular culture, however thinking about it more this makes a lot of sense. The stamp deals with a particular areas identity and something that a lot of people can appreciate and align with from that area in terms of being familiar with the designs on them. I liked that Child listed different categories that were considered to be part of popular culture while making an argument that stamps are in under this category. It made sense because as someone could see there are many different things that right off the bat one might not think of but upon looking into it realize that it is a big part of cultural identity for many. I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of what I thought popular culture to be before was music, performers, trends, and popular shops, without actually considering many other integral things that make a society into what it is. Charles Sanders Peirce was talked about in the article in terms of his contribution to the field of semiotics. Deriving meaning from not only written words as well as other things such a meanings and signs in movies as well as what we are looking into now being Latin American postage stamps. An index, sign and symbol are all important things that play into semiotics. Looking into this in regards to stamps one can see that the country of origins is usually stated on it, as well as different colours that hold significance to the country of origin, and different drawings or pictures of historical figures, artifacts, landmarks etc. Definitely going to be paying more attention while looking at postage stamps from now on.

Black Orpheus

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During the beginning of the movie Black Orpheus there’s a constant group of people and upbeat music. I liked how these big groups had people of all ages in terms of children up to seniors dancing and celebrating altogether. As in a celebration and there’s lots of dancing and something that stood out to me was the consistency of the drum beats throughout as Eurydice is walking back up the mountain countryside to her home. When she got there, two younger boys were playing with a kite before it transitioned to the next scene with her going into Rio. I think that the kite falling was foreshadowing that a big change was going to take place in her life, perhaps due to the little boy losing control of his kite not the best change.

Once in the city Sarafina is very out of place in terms of knowing where she is going and trying to find her way. I liked how the drum beats and music continued into this scene as they were in the opening scene near her home. As she is getting off the boat in Rio she bumps into a man who is blind and he offers her help for a little while. As she is trying to find her way there is a switch in terms of the people celebrating from the local market she’s wandering through to a main city street. In the local market you have a lot of people drumming still and dancing around with large groups of people from all different ages and then this transitions to the city where there is a more organized marching band celebrating the lead up to carnival. This is perhaps a way to show the different class systems that will be present throughout the movie.

As Sarafina is walking she is grabbed and put on a trolly that eventually she stays on the whole way to the end of the line. When she gets off she first meets Orpheus who directs her to the stations guard as she is trying to find her cousins house. This is the first time that Orpheus is flirting with her. When he goes to pick up his paycheck we get the sense that he is a bit of a playboy as his friends are laughing at him and asking if that might be another one of his conquests. While the guard is giving Sarafina directions, Mira (Orpheus fiance) is introduced to us. This is where things get complicated as they are on their way to pick up their marriage license however Orpheus is very obviously still flirting and “making eyes” at Sarafina. Mira is very hot blooded about this (and rightfully so). As Orpheus is her fiance and they are on their way to pick up their marriage license. As we can see this might be a sign of the times or different culture Orpheus shrugs it off as just being nice and friendly and they go on their way.

 

Introduction

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Hello class, my name is Madeleine Battisti and I am a fourth year psychology student. I am currently located in Vancouver and have been making the most out of the snow conditions to take every chance I can to go skiing! My major interests are in counselling psychology and I hope to work with children and families one day focusing on early intervention techniques. I am excited to be taking this course and look forward to having discussions with you all throughout the term.