Misconceptions

Misconceptions… Yet another thing American’s are superb at. Always creating ignorant labels, judging, and applying stereotypes but in actuality, it’s just building upon the growing misconceptions that travel throughout the country.

Although, everyone has misconceptions along with misguided perceptions and impressions.

Within Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun, the misconceptions just travel and follow one after another. The story follows Abdulrabman Zeitoun, a Muslim, Syrian-American and his wife Kathy, a recently converted islamic Louisiana native, as they ride out Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath of the storm, Zeitoun adopts a canoe and paddles around the city, rescuing fellow victims and being a good citizen. But while relaxing one afternoon, Zeitoun and three others get pinned for looting and instantly become the target of a classic American misconception.

While in prison, Zeitoun gets accused of being a member of Al Qaeda and the Taliban (212), yet why am I not surprised. America is notorious for misconceptions, especially when there’s a “terrorist” in question. It’s awful, it truly is, and it’s one of the worst things about the egocentric America. Trust me, as an American, I’m aware of how nationalistic America can be. Hopefully one day the government and Americans will have some sort of epiphany  and finally realize that ethnicity doesn’t have a link to terrorism.

Although, it is not necessarily American’s faults, it’s becomes rooted in our upbringing. Regardless of how accepting and opening any American can be, there will still be those ignorant, misguided thoughts and misconceptions. Kathy, who has been completely converted to Islam still “…later admitted, an antique idea of Syria. She’d pictured deserts, donkeys, and carts — not so many cosmopolitan cities…She’d assumed Syria was entirely Muslim, but she was wrong about this, and about so many things (192).” Her ignorance is only built upon the media’s representations of the Middle East, with America as a highly developed country and all other countries as less developed. And sadly but surely, the Middle East get’s it’s own special portrayal (from the United States) as completely undeveloped desert.

It really is ridiculous how ignorant American’s can be. Of course, not all are like this, not even close, but unfortunately,  there still is a large handful of those oblivious SOBs. But maybe one day we can have peace and acceptance across the lands. Maybe one day.

Representational Images?

As you know, our research paper and proposal are just lurking around the corner and last class we had the opportunity to learn some nice tricks to maneuvering the library website along with the chance to brainstorm and share research proposals. Unfortunately, due to a ridiculous illness that has just been weighing me down for months, I was unable to attend but fortunately, I have a (possible) proposal; exploring the relationship and representation behind the images in Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

I haven’t figured out all the aspects and ways I will go about writing and researching this but I have some sort of idea. Yesterday, along with this morning,  I tried for hours to find scholarly articles and journals so I could begin the research and build a solid foundation, but after endless broken links and misdirected pages, I gave up. My plan was to propose some of the ideas I tried to formulate on here and ask (anyone who takes the time to read this) for their opinion, thoughts, and criticism but since isn’t necessarily possible, I suppose I am here to ask you all this:

 

What do you think of the images in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?

Are the pictures random or were they selected carefully?

Do you find any representations (within the images) towards a larger picture?

 

Obviously, some of the images are purposeful in their placement in the novel like…

Above: Grandpa’s hands

Left: The Falling Man

 

But there are those (seemingly) random placed pictures so that’s where I want your opinion. What do you think about those “random” images? Do they have a role in the bigger picture?

Images like…

image (1) image image (2)

Top Left: Fingerprints

Top Right: Tennis Man

Bottom Left: Humping Turtles (sorry it’s upside-down)

 

 

 

 

Spahr/Schell

After all the talk and readings about 9/11, the thoughts sort of just become a blur, maybe a bubble, or maybe just a cloud of smoke, just like the one’s from the attack, but none-the-less, they’re dark and gloomy. Upon reading Juliana Spahr’s This Connection of Everyone with Lungs and more specifically, her entry from February 15th, 2003, her attitude of the event completely shifts from passion (derived from frustration and hope) to nonchalant, carelessness. Her entries change from “Beloveds, we do not know how to live our lives with any agency outside of our bed” (26) and “When I speak of feet I speak of attacks conceived in Afghanistan, planned in Germany, funded through Budai, executed in America, using Saudis” (27) to “Of course other things happened… but mainly people gathered” (55). It’s as if she just completely gave up and brought on a entirely new behavior.

Spahr writes “Here is today. Three million in Rome. Two million in Spain. One and a half million in London… The list goes on. Millions. And if not millions, then hundreds of thousands” (53) and then she continues to list at least 90 other cities and countries. She sort of took on an Oskar Schell type vibe with the extensive listings, numbers, and overall; information.

Spahr’s writing style relates to Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close with the endless repetition, listing, precision to facts and information seen on page 73, 49, or/and 51. Foer writes “… I found 472 people… there were 216 different addresses… I calculated that if I went to two every Sunday, which seemed possible, plus holidays, minus Hamlet rehearsals and other stuff… it would take me about three years to go through them all (51).” The confident yet uncaring tone of voice carried by both Spahr and Schell/Foer show the trauma and effects from the attacks on 9/11.

Owning Nothing but Everything of Oneself

Surely, being enrolled in Global Citizens, we actively bring up being a global citizen but never closely discuss it. Within the last week, we have been required to read Judith Butler’s Frames of War, relating it to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Loud by Jonathan Foer and the events that took place on 9/11. Although 9/11 was a worldwide event, it was largely only a national crisis in the U.S. (understandably) and it didn’t effect citizens globally, but nationally. It’s the boundaries that lie between global and national— although they do not have to be literal boundaries— that change our perspectives towards any given situation. Butler writes “The boundary of who I am is the boundary of the body, but the boundary of the body never fully belongs to me… But as much as the body, considers as social in both its surface and depth, is the condition of survival, it is also that which, under certain social conditions, imperils our lives and our survivability” (54). Survival doesn’t depend on the literal boundary of one’s self but it’s the social power of existence in the body, containing not only physical characteristics but also deep in the mind and the soul.

Unfortunately, according to Butler, “one’s body is never fully one’s own…” but if we make up a world of body-less bodies, then there would be a world-wide effort to find one’s self. The body and the self come from survival which derives from the social world, space, and time. The vulnerability and sacrifice of exposure to others outweigh the option to be self-less, creating a beneficial portrayal to life itself. Butler writes “Life s sustained not by a self-preserving drive, conceived as an internal impulse of the organism, but by a condition of dependency without which survival proves impossible” (46). It is the dependencies we put on each other and on ourselves to create life. If we cannot have complete control of ourselves, we then by default have some control over others, creating an inter-web of dependencies, nationally and globally.

Satrapi vs. Sacco

Although I’m an “art” student at UBC, my course drifted away from visual arts and more into sociology and politics, but visual art is where my passion lies. In ASTU, the two graphic narratives we were required to read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco both consist of comic strips, text, quotes, and art. The art in the two are similar but at the same time they are widely different. Satrapi uses more of an absence of art to get her traumatic and life changing experiences across while Sacco goes into depth in his art to show the true horrors of life.

Page 71 of Persepolis shows the absence of space and art, while page 128 of Safe Area Goražde shows Sacco’s methods. His precise detail of the buildings, the town, the abuse, and the gore make his readings slightly heavier but it’s not necessarily better.

110 and 114 from Safe Are Goražde show the horrors that the people of Goražde faced while 52 of Persepolis approach the horror in a completely new way. 

 

Upon some spontaneous research behind Sacco’s art and cartooning, his style remains similar throughout his graphic narratives and the detail, the violence, and the horror are all commonalities.

 

After publishing Footnotes in Gaza, an interview was conducted with Sacco behind his style and creativity. Sacco was asked “How do you decide how to visually interpret the memories being relayed and what, if any, filters to use?” and replied with “I try to draw in a pretty representational manner. I did have to decide how much violence I was going to show. And my idea was I would show it pretty straight, I wouldn’t try to make it look spectacular or anything like that. Of course I’m a filter on that; I’m drawing; and I think that’s clear, but a film director directs his character and that’s kind of what I’m doing too.” It is very clear that Sacco has a unique and distinct way he goes about his drawings, unlike anything of Satrapi but the violence and the detail show a more accurate representation of the lives that some are facing around the world.

The Art of Persepolis

Throughout the last week or so of ASTU, we have been discussing the content and analysis of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi along with other academic journals regarding the graphic narrative as well. Although the main focus is usually the content and message of the comic, the art that goes along with the story creates a new element to the literature. And I, being the art lover I am, wanted to dive more into the art and illustration behind Persepolis.

Hillary Chute, author of “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrai’s ‘Persepolis'” writes “I am interested in the notion of ethics as it applies to the autobiographical graphic narrative: what does it mean for an author to literally reappear– in the form of a legible, drawn body on the page– at the site of her inscriptional effacement? (93).” Throughout her academic journal, Chute explains the establishment and deestablishment of Marji in each of the frames, as well as an indication of how being able to visually see the story  creates a complex autographical fabric (Chute 2008, 96). The way which Satrapi illustrated her narrative creates a whole new element to the literature and “while many of the backgrounds of panels are square, a significant number of them are entirely black. The visual emptiness of the simple, ungraded blackness in the frames shows not the scarcity of memory, but rather its thickness, its depth; the “vacancy” represents the practice of memory, for the author and possibly the reader.

In Persepolis, page 70 is a complete turning point in the book. Marji’s life falls to pieces as she finds out her Uncle Anoosh has been executed and she looses her faith in God, after wanting to be a prophet for years.  Obviously, her whole idea of the future and what she believed in was shattered instantly and Satrapi couldn’t have depicted her thoughts in any better way than the single frame from page 71.

Here, along with many other cases were drawn with just a frame full of darkness but it’s the lack of imagery that shows so much more. The black frames and the emptiness show not only the scarcity of memory, but rather it’s depth (Chute 2008, 98) Not only does the dark and powerful frame affect the story but from page 71 to 72, Marji’s character changes completely which seemed to go unnoticed between many of my fellow classmates and that seemed like the most important visual of all, Marji growing up and taking a stand for herself.

 

The Struggle of Photography

In the big picture, I’m just another UBC student trying to get an education. Zoom up a little bit and I’m an aspired photographer who ended up in the Global Citizens stream in CAP (Coordinated Arts Program). Inside this stream, there are three classes, one of them being ASTU. The topic of this so-called ASTU class? Persepolis.

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution” stated on the inside flap of Persepolis. Now instead of exploring the tragedies and hardships of the war though her her perspective, I’m more interested in her father’s. There is not a lot of background on Marji’s father, Ebi but during the Iran revolution, he photographed the truth behind the revolution, even though it was strictly forbidden. It’s Marji’s father’s work that is my real interest. Upon doing some research, I found an interview conduced by Vice’s Christine Jun with Abdullah Mohtadi, the leader of Komala, the Kurdish branch of the Communist Party in Iran. During her interview, Mohtadi stated “Iranian media is strictly controlled by the government… we need a real change in the attitude of the Iranian media.”  He also said “There is no freedom of speech. There is no freedom of assembly or press…” Now as photographer, a lot of interest comes in when countries don’t allow any media coverage or exposure, so upon some research and Google-ing, I discovered some interesting and inspiring pictures, showing the truth behind the revolution.

 

Protests in Tehran in favour of a republic after the Shah's flight into exile

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7856172.stm

As wonderful as books are to capture stories, trageties, achievements, etc. pictures can just capture more emotion sometimes. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. These photographs (and the slideshow from the link above) really capture what was going on during The Iranian Revolution in 1979. They provide more of a sense of background of what Marji and her parents/family was living through in Satrapi’s novel, Persepolis. 

Denial through Memory

About 100 years ago in Vancouver BC, the     Komagata Maru arrived from India, carrying over 350 passengers, all eager to start a new life in Canada. Upon their arrival, they were denied access to land because of Canada’s Continuous Passage Regulation, stating that immigrants can only come into Canada if they had a direct journey from their departing country. Since there was no direct route from India to Canada, the passengers were rejected and couldn’t enter the country. The Komagata Maru started a stalemate with the Canadian government and the ship remained anchored for two months until they finally turned around and went back to India. Before the ship ever even got back, passengers became ill, and there was a lack of food and water. Once the ship arrived back in India, nineteen passengers were shot on the spot and many were imprisoned. 

The Komagata Maru was a tragic event that has altered the lives of many through the devastating memories it has created and produced. There are many different technologies of memory which allows the event to live on. Archives full of government documents and court proceedings contain the official story of what occurred but not what happened with the passengers and their lives; their experiences are told through a series of personal anecdotes, family albums, and stories, passed down though generations of families and friends. From “The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning”, Shahzad states “A human agent gives meanings to fact in the light of how these communities represent them, the words they use, the stories they tell, the images they produces, the emotions they associate with them, and they way they classify and conceptualize them.” Surely documentation and official paperwork can make it’s mark on people and in the world of memory, but nothing compares to face-to-face interactions and being able to hear and see stories and the pain they went through.

Being an American and growing up in Oregon, I was rarely taught about events that took place in another country, especially if America wasn’t involved. Coming from America to Canada isn’t a culture shock, but there are definitely things that are different and things I have to adapt to. But trying to come from India to Canada isn’t only a culture shock, it’s on the other side of the world; obviously it’s going to a completely new experience. I cannot imagine coming all the way across the world and then being denied access. It’s almost as if they were being denied access to become a global citizen. Surely everyone is a global citizen in this world but it’s a mutual connection we all have with each other and denying 300+ people access to another part of the world because of immigration the fact that the ship couldn’t take a direct route to get there seems absurd. The Komagata Maru was definitely a life-changing experience and the memories of its passengers are surely interesting but probably also horrific, and like any tragic event, the memories will last and be passed down forever.

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