Impressions on ”Is Paris Burning?” by Bell Hooks
I don’t know if Paris is burning, but Bell Hooks is sure on fire! In Is Paris Burning?, she adopts a recriminative tone that, I believe, does not help her to analyse things clearly.
Bell Hooks argues that gay men participating and attending the drag balls reproduce characteristics and actions of the repressing white class. Firstly, men personnify women. But they do not do those of their own race: the model they choose to follow is that of the white-repressing class (as evidenced by the magazine posters portraying white women). Before, though, she argues that drag is a way for the dominant gender to ridicule women. On one side, men personnify women to emphasize their power over them, but on the other side, they personnify white ones, from the class dispowering them: I find Hook’s arguments rather hard to follow and her reading of the movie made to fit her own pre-conveived beliefs. Also, some participants don’t personnify women, but military men. Hooks stops to the personification of women and does not offer an analysis of this phenomenon (although if she had, she would probably link it to a question of power of the white man…).
She argues that gay men participating and attending the balls reproduce sport events that are so familiar and important to white heterosexual males, the class repressing the gay black individual. By mimicking such rituals, it is like, according to Hooks, these men are validating the repression they receive. Would it possible that competition is simply a need that human beings have, whatever of their race or sexual orientation? And that, by participating in such balls, these men (maybe not interested in football or baseball) fulfill a human need rather than replicate some sort of class-repressing event? Bell Hooks analyses the movie by making reference to the white male. By doing so, she implicitely (and certainly unconsciously) takes it as the epicentre of social normality from which any other behaviour can only be a deviation from that norm. In some way, she contributes to reinforce the social ideology of a dominant class that she seems to want disappear.
While I understand some of the points Hooks wants to make, I believe her argumentation is dampened by her resentment of the documentary. It is almost like Hooks find it unacceptable that an outsider (here, of the Black community) creates a documentary about a subculture. Yes, an author will bring to what he creates his own perceptions, views, values, basically anything that made him who he is. But does it mean that one cannot write about what is exterior to his own culture? If it were the case, one could only write about himself because anyone else’s experience is unique and therefore different from his own. People have the right to write about what they want. It is the reader’s (or viewer’s) responsibility to establish the author’s credibility and to recognise the potentiel biases that may be brought by him.
Paris is Burning – Bell Hooks and Judith Butler
Hooks
My initial impressions after watching the film Paris is Burning was that it aimed to showcase the lives of black drag queens in the 1980’s in New York City. Considering that there was a lot of footage of black drag queens participating in balls, it seemed as if it was a film that celebrated this culture. Although many different drag queens were interviewed throughout the film, the focus seemed to always be on the actual balls and the black men performing their roles as drag queens. Therefore, I personally didn’t get the feel of a documentary since many times, the element of serious was missing. I believe this to be very important given that the film is not only about black drag queens but also about the hardships that many of them faced due to poverty and being excluded from their families. For this reason, I sympathize with Bell Hooks’ claim that the “televised images of black men in drag were never subversive; they helped sustain racism and sexism” (146).
Essentially, Hooks believed that the image of black men dressed up as drag queens were in fact disempowering, giving way to public misogyny and reinforcing everyone’s power over black women. Her key argument was that black men who participate in drag, whether they are gay or straight, did so in order to oppose a stereotypical representation of heterosexual black manhood. Nonetheless, she argues that such “subversive images” are altered because they actually express their fantasies of being upper class white women. In other words, the portrayal of oneself as a white woman becomes a “racialized fictional construction of the feminine” (147) that reaffirms patriarchal and colonialist views of black men as disempowered minorities. To be completely honest, I did not pick up on this the first time I watched the film. Although there were moments where I heard more closely about their hardships, these scenes would quickly fade out into images at the balls and clubs. So after watching particular scenes the second time around, it really became clear to me many of the problems that Hooks shared about the film. In fact, my initial impressions of the film clearly prove her point. If the film were intended to express the struggles of black drag queens at the time, the film should not have felt celebratory and glamorizing the first time around. One moment that caught my eye in Hooks’ text was when she mentioned how when watching the film, many people laughed even in the serious parts of the film, illustrating the inability of the film to connect with the audience on a deeper level.
The film is often described as being a powerful portrait of the lives of minority black drag queens, but when watching the film, there is nonetheless a distance vis-à-vis the actual struggles. Hooks cleverly points out that we do not know much about the families of the interviewed drag queens nor do we ever get a real sense of their hardships. It almost seems as if it is masked behind the fantasies of these black men who are always playing the role of the Other. Many of them often mention how they simply do not feel like they are men and that they feel more free when dressing up as drag queens. But Hooks makes a good point, what is the veritable image being projected of themselves when dressing up as drag queens? Is it a portrait of black gay pride or does it simply reflect the desire of being the Other, notably the glamorized white woman? This is not to say that drag does not succeed in disrupting gender norms and in freely creating one’s own identity (see Butler below), but it can also be seen as reinforcing divisions of race and class.
My personal impression is that the drag experience for these black men did not always appear liberating. Many times, it felt like a spectacle since many of their struggles were not addressed in the film. They were rather and literally masked by the glamorization of drag and of the ball world. But one could argue that Hooks’ point of view is just as misleading since she too is analyzing drag culture from the outside. Therefore, although it may appear that Livingston has portrayed drag culture in a certain way, this is not to say that this is what drag culture really means for these black men. What does being a drag queen truly mean for the identity of these men? Considering they have no real family, this experience may provide them with a sense of community. I guess what I am trying to say is that the film provides us with a viewpoint about drag culture seen from the eyes of Livingston, but this does not necessarily encompass everything. The camera is not always on and it is Livingston who chooses what to include and what not to include in her film. Due to the complexities surrounding drag culture and the many questions it raises, one cannot fully reduce the experiences of black drag queens to one film and by extension, to one unique reflection or critique.
Butler
Butler questions the interpellation or hailing of the subject put forth by Althusser in that she does not believe it to be capable in designating stable identities but rather reflects upon the possibility of the subject to refuse the law and the conformity that imposes itself on us. She explains that this can happen through “parodic inhabiting of conformity that subtly calls into question the legitimacy of the command, a repetition of the law into hyperbole, a rearticulation of the law against the authority of the one who delivers it” (122). Therefore, subjects occupy a certain ambivalence because the interpellator relies on the subject in order to maintain his role of power. In other words, there is a kind of reciprocity in that the interpellator cannot impose his power without the presence of the subject. There is thus a form of subversion that takes place since paradoxically, the subject gains a form of agency due to its symbiotic relationship with the interpellator.
Butler goes on to discuss ambivalent drag. She posits that Hooks’ claim that gay male drag is misogynistic assumes that drag is purely associated with male homosexuality and makes “male homosexuality about women” (127). According to this logic, “heterosexual desire is always true, and [homosexual] desire is always and only a mask and forever false” (127). In other words, Hooks failed to consider the possibility that gay male drag could just be a genuine form of pleasure and desire as opposed to a displacement and appropriation of women.
This seems to raise the question whether or not gender is simply a performance? Gay drag queens are projecting themselves as women but in male-bodies and thus are performing femininity despite being male. It seems for Butler that gender and by extension masculinity and femininity are social constructions based on culturally dominant norms. Therefore, viewed in this light, drag becomes very significant since it challenges such dominant norms and the notion that sex implies gender. Although conventional norms tell us how a male and how a female should behave, drag seems to illustrate that gender is not at all predetermined but instead a perpetual learning process, which ruptures the male/female binary. It can thus be seen that in the film Paris is Burning, contrary to Hooks’ assumptions, drag seems to subvert traditional gender roles by proving the possibility of movement from one role to another. Through drag, gender is performed and is no longer seen as misogynistic but rather revolutionary. This is precisely what creates the ambivalence since heterosexual norms are questioned through an imitation of heterosexual activity by gay male drag queens.
The problem
Although I can see how Butler’s point regarding the role of drag in subverting traditional gender norms makes sense, it is nonetheless contradictory in itself. It is true that gay male drag queens can redefine traditional gender roles by performing as women in male bodies and thus, give a new meaning to what gender means. In fact, we really begin to question that biology is the sole reason why we think of men as men and women as women. We are inclined to doing so precisely because in many societies, sex determines gender. Nonetheless, one cannot help but overlook the fact that in the process of achieving to subvert these gender roles, they paradoxically act within the norms of heterosexual society. Acting like a woman can be seen as a form of conformism since femininity as performed in drag is after all just another gender role determined by conventional/dominant norms. I guess this is slightly what Hooks is getting at when she claims that drag culture glamorizes the white heterosexual culture. How does one then categorize such a form of subversion? Is drag truly subversive or does it simply perpetuate the very stereotypes that it seeks to refute?
span 501 2012-10-24 12:30:09
When reading “Culture is Ordinary” what stood out to me was this notion that through education one can change the class which one is born with. Here we see a clear example of a person who comes from a working class and has become an academic, even though he is a living example that changing class is possible with education Williams main argument is that everyone is capable of becoming an academic if they want to thus university and grammar school should be more accessible to all. He critics people in the “ tea shop” where intellects come to converse, he believes that anyone can do this anyone can be a intellect, that his family and friends that come from the working class have the same capabilities as these intellects they just need the opportunity to learn. He talks about the idea of culture has two different meanings “to mean a whole way of life – the common meaning; to mean the arts and learning – the special process of discovery and creative effort” (4) he mentions that he believes “on the significance of their conjunction” (4) of having both meanings at the same time. He also constantly insist that “culture is ordinary” (4) This is important because the idea that there is a low culture an everyday mundane culture which is less important compared to the elite high class culture of art and learning. Yet he argues that they are equally important and I agree because it is this every day culture that really defines us as a society this is the culture that produces change that is why at the end of his paper he Williams mentions “Who then believes in democracy? The answer is quite simple: the millions in England who still haven’t got it, where they work and feel. There, as always, is the transforming energy” (18). In general I agree with his paper and his idea that everyone equally has the capability of becoming a intellect if the opportunity is given to them.
In the text “The Work of Art in the Age of Its technological Reproducible I found interesting the idea that original works of art have “aura” something that is lost when it’s reproduced. I believe this idea is true you feel a sort of respect for things that are original especially if they are older. I remember when I went to see a Da vinci exhibit of his sketches and writing, you feel a connection to the things because its original in a way you feel a connection to the person who made them. One aspect that I would have to contradict is that I don’t believe “aura” is the right word, a “aura” is something always present is part of the object and I really believe that this emotion or connection we feel with original works is an abstract concept made by us. Would we feel this way if we were shown an original but not know it, or shown a copy but telling us it’s an original. I think this “aura” is man-made so I believe the name is not appropriate, this is an aspect that as observers we bring to the art object, not something that the art object transmits to us.
span 501 2012-10-24 12:30:09
When reading “Culture is Ordinary” what stood out to me was this notion that through education one can change the class which one is born with. Here we see a clear example of a person who comes from a working class and has become an academic, even though he is a living example that changing class is possible with education Williams main argument is that everyone is capable of becoming an academic if they want to thus university and grammar school should be more accessible to all. He critics people in the “ tea shop” where intellects come to converse, he believes that anyone can do this anyone can be a intellect, that his family and friends that come from the working class have the same capabilities as these intellects they just need the opportunity to learn. He talks about the idea of culture has two different meanings “to mean a whole way of life – the common meaning; to mean the arts and learning – the special process of discovery and creative effort” (4) he mentions that he believes “on the significance of their conjunction” (4) of having both meanings at the same time. He also constantly insist that “culture is ordinary” (4) This is important because the idea that there is a low culture an everyday mundane culture which is less important compared to the elite high class culture of art and learning. Yet he argues that they are equally important and I agree because it is this every day culture that really defines us as a society this is the culture that produces change that is why at the end of his paper he Williams mentions “Who then believes in democracy? The answer is quite simple: the millions in England who still haven’t got it, where they work and feel. There, as always, is the transforming energy” (18). In general I agree with his paper and his idea that everyone equally has the capability of becoming a intellect if the opportunity is given to them.
In the text “The Work of Art in the Age of Its technological Reproducible I found interesting the idea that original works of art have “aura” something that is lost when it’s reproduced. I believe this idea is true you feel a sort of respect for things that are original especially if they are older. I remember when I went to see a Da vinci exhibit of his sketches and writing, you feel a connection to the things because its original in a way you feel a connection to the person who made them. One aspect that I would have to contradict is that I don’t believe “aura” is the right word, a “aura” is something always present is part of the object and I really believe that this emotion or connection we feel with original works is an abstract concept made by us. Would we feel this way if we were shown an original but not know it, or shown a copy but telling us it’s an original. I think this “aura” is man-made so I believe the name is not appropriate, this is an aspect that as observers we bring to the art object, not something that the art object transmits to us.
Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
When I hear the word apparatus in a text I suddenly get interested. “The apparatus!” It sounds imposing. It is actually. In the Kafka story we read a few weeks ago, that word is in the first line. And we saw what that apparatus ultimately was meant to do and actually made happen: it inscribes language deep into the tissue, but interesting, not into the tissue of who is being inscribed upon, rather than who is watching, or reading; it also represses, dominates, kills, the body. We also saw this word in Althuser. He called them the Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses. These, just like in Kafka, serve the function of a sort of molding, manipulating, and keeping in place, in running order. The ultimate function of these is restricting the body, limiting its possible bodily actions; it is a restriction and harboring of its natural destructive force. When the ideas (the ISA in Althuser), unnoticed mental rules, that are imposed (educate), that are meant to impose, do not actually have an effect on a given subject (body), then the repressive arm (the RSA) is sent in to physically handle the disorder. Walter Benjamin also uses this word in “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.” He uses the word in reference to the camera. The camera is that for witch the actor is performing. The camera is a technological artifact. It is one of the materials that will impulse and facilitate the technological reproducibility. It will reproduce artificiality; a manipulation of the performance as opposed to the stage actor in a play. It is interesting then, the sort of appropriation that technology can assume. That apparatus has consumed the human, the body. The human dances not to entertain other humans but the camera; the camera (and the microphone) is that which requires the human to move. The camera therefore alters him; makes him use his body and feel in ways he wouldn’t otherwise. But then there is other end of that apparatus. It also captures who is viewing. The television! That is the other apparatus. (In Benjamin’s days this was probably less so.) Or is it the same one? I think both devises are part of the same apparatus. It is as Benjamin suggests, it demands a payment in “human material”. The apparatus here, just as in Kafka or Althuser appear to demand this, payment in “human material.”
Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
When I hear the word apparatus in a text I suddenly get interested. “The apparatus!” It sounds imposing. It is actually. In the Kafka story we read a few weeks ago, that word is in the first line. And we saw what that apparatus ultimately was meant to do and actually made happen: it inscribes language deep into the tissue, but interesting, not into the tissue of who is being inscribed upon, rather than who is watching, or reading; it also represses, dominates, kills, the body. We also saw this word in Althuser. He called them the Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses. These, just like in Kafka, serve the function of a sort of molding, manipulating, and keeping in place, in running order. The ultimate function of these is restricting the body, limiting its possible bodily actions; it is a restriction and harboring of its natural destructive force. When the ideas (the ISA in Althuser), unnoticed mental rules, that are imposed (educate), that are meant to impose, do not actually have an effect on a given subject (body), then the repressive arm (the RSA) is sent in to physically handle the disorder. Walter Benjamin also uses this word in “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.” He uses the word in reference to the camera. The camera is that for witch the actor is performing. The camera is a technological artifact. It is one of the materials that will impulse and facilitate the technological reproducibility. It will reproduce artificiality; a manipulation of the performance as opposed to the stage actor in a play. It is interesting then, the sort of appropriation that technology can assume. That apparatus has consumed the human, the body. The human dances not to entertain other humans but the camera; the camera (and the microphone) is that which requires the human to move. The camera therefore alters him; makes him use his body and feel in ways he wouldn’t otherwise. But then there is other end of that apparatus. It also captures who is viewing. The television! That is the other apparatus. (In Benjamin’s days this was probably less so.) Or is it the same one? I think both devises are part of the same apparatus. It is as Benjamin suggests, it demands a payment in “human material”. The apparatus here, just as in Kafka or Althuser appear to demand this, payment in “human material.”
Williams and Benjamin
Williams
The text of Raymond Williams takes us to a very especial reflection: the problem of the concept of “culture” and the idea of “mass”. In this biographical writing, Williams argue that is important to brake the idea of culture as a property of the elite. Instead of that, the English thinker state that “Culture is ordinary”. This means that everybody takes part of “culture” and the idea that “culture” is everywhere. He disagree about people who think that “culture” is “going down”. Williams proposes that culture it is in a process of expansion in the world (middle 50s), but both “kinds” of culture, “good and bad” are getting more important and with a bigger presence in the society.
Williams links this idea with the concept of “mass”. He rejects the conception of mass that some people, especially Marxist, have about it. He thinks that many of these people see “the mass” as a group of ignorant people who must be leaded and taught about everything, because they are not able to do anything by themselves. He rejects this idea of the mass as a kid and says that the concept of mass was created after the Industrial Revolution in order to separate and discriminate people. The mass is “the other”, the one that it is not like “us”.
One of the idea that I found very interesting, was related to the vision that “the working class” have, in his opinion, of the Industrial Revolution. He grow up in an industrial city. His family were workers in different areas, but all of them were a product of the Industrial Revolution. It is very interesting that he goes against who think that the Industrial Revolution was a machine of oppression and life destroyer. For him, this process was a satisfactory one. Without that, they (his family and “the working class” in general) would never have the chances that they got and that they have now (when the text was written).
It is interesting too the way he critics the Marxism. Especially, when he disagrees about the idea of anticipating the future. One of the main proposal of Marxism is, precisely, to say that the socialist revolution was coming, and the, finally, the communism would be reached. When he rejects this idea is making and important shape in the Marxist tradition. Doing this, Williams is taking the Marxist thought to a new stage of seeing the world, a world that has changed a lot and that it is trying to go on after the IIWW.
Benjamin
The Work of art is probably of the most famous text of the XX century. Here, Benjamin discuss, among many things, the relation of art with the technical reproduction of it. According to the German philosopher, art has something called “aura” that only exists in the primary work. This aura is lost when the art is reproduced by any technique. “Aura” is the here and now of the art, is related to its existence in history.
The best example of the relation between art and technique is the photography and the cinema. The first one, started a “fight” against the paintings in the XIX century, especially when the painters where trying to get closer to “reality”. Bejamin talks about the relation of painting and photography and the way the second one changed the first one. Also, the cinema, that put the image in movement and later added sound to it, transformed the relation of art and the masses.
Since this transformation took place, the notion of art and its relation with the audience changed. The idea of reception of the works of art appeared. This is very clear in the case of photography and cinema. The main purpose of developing this art was to be exposed to the big audience (especially the cinema). From this transformation of the relation between art and the audience we can make the connection of art and politic. It has no sense to think the relation between those two elements before the age of technical reproduction.
Benjamin is looking for a kind of art that can not be used by the fascism. He is interested about the “politicization of art” that communism would do. This, in the opposition of the aestheticization of politics that according to the author it is the mechanism that fascism regimes use in order to control the population.
Even when the author starts and ends his text talking about the relation about art and politics, I think this one it is not clear at all at the text. I don’t see how he connects the “problem” of this new era in art, and the problem and the relation of art and politics.
Williams and Benjamin
Williams
The text of Raymond Williams takes us to a very especial reflection: the problem of the concept of “culture” and the idea of “mass”. In this biographical writing, Williams argue that is important to brake the idea of culture as a property of the elite. Instead of that, the English thinker state that “Culture is ordinary”. This means that everybody takes part of “culture” and the idea that “culture” is everywhere. He disagree about people who think that “culture” is “going down”. Williams proposes that culture it is in a process of expansion in the world (middle 50s), but both “kinds” of culture, “good and bad” are getting more important and with a bigger presence in the society.
Williams links this idea with the concept of “mass”. He rejects the conception of mass that some people, especially Marxist, have about it. He thinks that many of these people see “the mass” as a group of ignorant people who must be leaded and taught about everything, because they are not able to do anything by themselves. He rejects this idea of the mass as a kid and says that the concept of mass was created after the Industrial Revolution in order to separate and discriminate people. The mass is “the other”, the one that it is not like “us”.
One of the idea that I found very interesting, was related to the vision that “the working class” have, in his opinion, of the Industrial Revolution. He grow up in an industrial city. His family were workers in different areas, but all of them were a product of the Industrial Revolution. It is very interesting that he goes against who think that the Industrial Revolution was a machine of oppression and life destroyer. For him, this process was a satisfactory one. Without that, they (his family and “the working class” in general) would never have the chances that they got and that they have now (when the text was written).
It is interesting too the way he critics the Marxism. Especially, when he disagrees about the idea of anticipating the future. One of the main proposal of Marxism is, precisely, to say that the socialist revolution was coming, and the, finally, the communism would be reached. When he rejects this idea is making and important shape in the Marxist tradition. Doing this, Williams is taking the Marxist thought to a new stage of seeing the world, a world that has changed a lot and that it is trying to go on after the IIWW.
Benjamin
The Work of art is probably of the most famous text of the XX century. Here, Benjamin discuss, among many things, the relation of art with the technical reproduction of it. According to the German philosopher, art has something called “aura” that only exists in the primary work. This aura is lost when the art is reproduced by any technique. “Aura” is the here and now of the art, is related to its existence in history.
The best example of the relation between art and technique is the photography and the cinema. The first one, started a “fight” against the paintings in the XIX century, especially when the painters where trying to get closer to “reality”. Bejamin talks about the relation of painting and photography and the way the second one changed the first one. Also, the cinema, that put the image in movement and later added sound to it, transformed the relation of art and the masses.
Since this transformation took place, the notion of art and its relation with the audience changed. The idea of reception of the works of art appeared. This is very clear in the case of photography and cinema. The main purpose of developing this art was to be exposed to the big audience (especially the cinema). From this transformation of the relation between art and the audience we can make the connection of art and politic. It has no sense to think the relation between those two elements before the age of technical reproduction.
Benjamin is looking for a kind of art that can not be used by the fascism. He is interested about the “politicization of art” that communism would do. This, in the opposition of the aestheticization of politics that according to the author it is the mechanism that fascism regimes use in order to control the population.
Even when the author starts and ends his text talking about the relation about art and politics, I think this one it is not clear at all at the text. I don’t see how he connects the “problem” of this new era in art, and the problem and the relation of art and politics.
O is for Ordinary
Raymond Williams
“Clearly there is something in the psychology of print and image that none of us has yet quite grasped.” Raymond Williams says this after discussing his family’s ability to appreciate “culture”. Their finesse of feeling, quick discrimination, and clear grasp of ideas are evidence of what he calls the false equation of the “badness” of popular culture as a reflection of the mental development of its consumers. In other words, all human beings are able to appreciate art, which has the mysterious quality that engages perceivers regardless of their education, class, religion, time etc…And what remains constant before all these viewers throughout history? Form. But that is a topic for another day. Back to the text.
Williams’ argument that culture is always traditional and creative and made up of both ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings makes sense, especially when you apply this definition to literature. First, tradition is part of a text not in the form of a fixed past but one that is also continuously being rewritten to create new narratives in the present. Secondly, literature engages individuals as part of a common humanity that is in a continual process of development.
While Williams accepts the Marxist theory that there is a strong relationship between culture and production, and that education is restricted to a privileged few, he rejects the notion that there is an ignorant mass of working class people that are excluded from a dying English culture. The Marxists demand a different system of production that can save English culture. However, argues William, culture cannot be prescribed as it is made and remade (organically he might say today) by people who are living. Literature, as we have discussed in class, is always in a process creation.
Williams goes on to disprove several myths about the effects of the development of industrial society. First, he rejects the idea that the price we must pay for economic power and is a “cheapened” culture. Second, he does not agree that commercial culture is a product of popular education, i.e. now that “the masses are educated” culture is going out the window. There are no masses; it is only a word for othering people. In fact, there were just as many trashy newspapers before public education, and there is much more good literature in circulation today.
Finally, Williams calls for a common education that will foster a socialist democratic community whose cultural institutions enrich the lives of ordinary people.
I really enjoyed this reading. His understanding of culture as a continual process that gives agency to individuals and communities, a process that cannot be planned by ideology, describes the conversation that literature forces us to engage in without losing our subjectivity.
Auras from Forms
I am trying to understand what the aura of a work of art is. Benjamin explains that modernity has changed the way we perceive art. In particular, the mechanical reproduction of art has resulted in the loss of the aura. It seems that auras in art only occur when a work is authentic, original and not reproduced, and this is the reason films as reproductions of images do not have them. I have difficulty grasping this idea because I keep thinking of films that Benjamin would consider inauthentic works of art but that I feel that do not aestheticize politics to support a fascist cause.
Trinh Minh-ha’s film Reassemblage would be a good example of politicized art that is original while at the same time reproducible. Films that document daily life have a certain realist aesthetic that engages the audience’s intellect and sensory perceptions in the same way that they are employed in life. Trinh Minh-ha’s film appears to meet Benjamin’ definition of “auraless” art. In her film, Trinh focuses on the mundane and the natural rhythms of a Senegalese village without resorting to the gloss of a didactic ethnographic documentary of the National Geographic kind. There is no voice-over of the traditional ethnographer’s film that tells the audience what to think, and nothing is explained to provoke a particular response in the viewer. Images are woven into a collage of rhythms that we decipher with our senses, so that rather than simply watching the scenes we experience them. She doesn’t produce what Banjamin calls “reception in distraction” or entertainment founded on shock effects. The audience members are left to experience a Senegalese village as if they were there, and to make any conclusions on their own terms. The resulting effect negates the stereotype of the Western anthropologist who has unlocked the secrets of an Other primitive culture. We are presented with a world that exists independently of the West in a form of art that ‘reproduces’ life to show its lack of any one truth.
Trinh’s art entices the viewer into considering the existence of a multiplicity of possible realities in flux. Her editing skills create the form of her work, which is inseparable from the film’s content. As in any art form, the ORIGINAL shaping of the raw footage IS the content of the film.
So we are back to form. The more I read, the more I like the idea that art is form is art. Whatever art does, it all starts with how its form triggers the conversation among the perceiver(s).
O is for Ordinary
Raymond Williams
“Clearly there is something in the psychology of print and image that none of us has yet quite grasped.” Raymond Williams says this after discussing his family’s ability to appreciate “culture”. Their finesse of feeling, quick discrimination, and clear grasp of ideas are evidence of what he calls the false equation of the “badness” of popular culture as a reflection of the mental development of its consumers. In other words, all human beings are able to appreciate art, which has the mysterious quality that engages perceivers regardless of their education, class, religion, time etc…And what remains constant before all these viewers throughout history? Form. But that is a topic for another day. Back to the text.
Williams’ argument that culture is always traditional and creative and made up of both ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings makes sense, especially when you apply this definition to literature. First, tradition is part of a text not in the form of a fixed past but one that is also continuously being rewritten to create new narratives in the present. Secondly, literature engages individuals as part of a common humanity that is in a continual process of development.
While Williams accepts the Marxist theory that there is a strong relationship between culture and production, and that education is restricted to a privileged few, he rejects the notion that there is an ignorant mass of working class people that are excluded from a dying English culture. The Marxists demand a different system of production that can save English culture. However, argues William, culture cannot be prescribed as it is made and remade (organically he might say today) by people who are living. Literature, as we have discussed in class, is always in a process creation.
Williams goes on to disprove several myths about the effects of the development of industrial society. First, he rejects the idea that the price we must pay for economic power and is a “cheapened” culture. Second, he does not agree that commercial culture is a product of popular education, i.e. now that “the masses are educated” culture is going out the window. There are no masses; it is only a word for othering people. In fact, there were just as many trashy newspapers before public education, and there is much more good literature in circulation today.
Finally, Williams calls for a common education that will foster a socialist democratic community whose cultural institutions enrich the lives of ordinary people.
I really enjoyed this reading. His understanding of culture as a continual process that gives agency to individuals and communities, a process that cannot be planned by ideology, describes the conversation that literature forces us to engage in without losing our subjectivity.
Auras from Forms
I am trying to understand what the aura of a work of art is. Benjamin explains that modernity has changed the way we perceive art. In particular, the mechanical reproduction of art has resulted in the loss of the aura. It seems that auras in art only occur when a work is authentic, original and not reproduced, and this is the reason films as reproductions of images do not have them. I have difficulty grasping this idea because I keep thinking of films that Benjamin would consider inauthentic works of art but that I feel that do not aestheticize politics to support a fascist cause.
Trinh Minh-ha’s film Reassemblage would be a good example of politicized art that is original while at the same time reproducible. Films that document daily life have a certain realist aesthetic that engages the audience’s intellect and sensory perceptions in the same way that they are employed in life. Trinh Minh-ha’s film appears to meet Benjamin’ definition of “auraless” art. In her film, Trinh focuses on the mundane and the natural rhythms of a Senegalese village without resorting to the gloss of a didactic ethnographic documentary of the National Geographic kind. There is no voice-over of the traditional ethnographer’s film that tells the audience what to think, and nothing is explained to provoke a particular response in the viewer. Images are woven into a collage of rhythms that we decipher with our senses, so that rather than simply watching the scenes we experience them. She doesn’t produce what Banjamin calls “reception in distraction” or entertainment founded on shock effects. The audience members are left to experience a Senegalese village as if they were there, and to make any conclusions on their own terms. The resulting effect negates the stereotype of the Western anthropologist who has unlocked the secrets of an Other primitive culture. We are presented with a world that exists independently of the West in a form of art that ‘reproduces’ life to show its lack of any one truth.
Trinh’s art entices the viewer into considering the existence of a multiplicity of possible realities in flux. Her editing skills create the form of her work, which is inseparable from the film’s content. As in any art form, the ORIGINAL shaping of the raw footage IS the content of the film.
So we are back to form. The more I read, the more I like the idea that art is form is art. Whatever art does, it all starts with how its form triggers the conversation among the perceiver(s).
