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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #10

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

April 3, 2017

Patient 307

In the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling, different episodes highlight the various flaws, fears, and prejudice that are found deep within an individual and in Society. These flaws and fears that are portrayed in the show may also foreshadow and reflect on our own society’s corruption and downfall due to intolerance for a certain group of people and the inability to accept fate or the truth. Though some of the episodes are bizarre and haunting, the show both warns the viewers of the scary fate that individuals may face if they aren’t able to fix their ways and depicts moral messages for the viewers to learn from so that the problems that arise in certain episodes of the show won’t occur in near future, which is ironic because many of the topics and themes that Serling dealt with in the show may still be seen in today’s world. Rod Serling was able to shine a light on the negative qualities of the human race that most individuals tend to ignore or shy away from because they are afraid of accepting the truth and turn them into unique and striking stories that may leave a remarkable impression on one's mind so that he or she can to learn from and create new morals to follow in the future.

One episode, in particular, that represents the extreme social norms, flaws, and fears found within Society today is called “Eye of the Beholder”. The episode opens up with a shot of an individual lying down in a room inside of what seems to be a hospital. As she is surrounded by lowly, lit light with her whole head wrapped in gauze and her body in a hospital gown, the viewers are left to imagine the visage of Patient 307, otherwise known as Miss Janet Tyler, by listening to the sound of her voice. A nurse walks into the room and lets Miss Tyler know that she needs to take her temperature again. Miss Tyler asks what the time is, if the weather outside is nice, and when she will be allowed to remove the bandages off her face. The nurse states that Miss Tyler will be able to take them off soon and walks out of the room to go converse with another nurse about how horrible Tyler’s face had looked before the produce, even going as far to say that she would “bury [herself] in a grave somewhere” if she had looked like Tyler. The scene then changes to a shot of creator Rod Serling explaining the vague plot of this episode and that “we are not to be surprised by what we see”. Much like today, the characters in the show judge and show distaste for an individual just because she looks different from what is perceive as “beautiful” in Society. What is ironic about this episode is that due to the dimly lit shots, the audience is never really able to see the faces of any of the other characters, making their appearances anonymous as well. We are fooled into believing that they look like typical, standard humans.

Later, Miss Tyler is visited by Dr. Bernardi, and the audience learns that she has just undergone her eleventh medical procedure to make herself look more “normal”, hinting that Tyler looks sickly grotesque underneath all the bandages after her various surgeries. Dr. Bernardi explains that if her eleventh procedure was unsuccessful, then she’ll either be killed off, as ordered by the State, or sent away to live with other outcasts that suffer from the same anomaly as herself, which seemed very much like how Hitler unjustly sent away anybody who didn’t fit his standards of blonde hair and blue eyes to concentration camps. Tyler pleads with the doctor to fix her face and that she wants to be like everyone else and belong in this world, which is what most people today wish for. Every individual wants to be accepted by others for his or her differences, yet others in life, who are afraid of change and difference, continue to project hatred onto another because they fear something that is different from the typical norm, which often leads to the alteration and suppression of the original self. Tyler proceeds to state that she likes staying hidden underneath her bandages because it makes her feel safe and comfortable, like a protective barrier against the world and the audience. We aren’t able to judge her, and she isn’t able to see the judgement coming from others around her.

Throughout the episode, both Miss Tyler and Dr. Bernardi question the moral ethics of their society by asking: “Who makes all these rules?”, “What is the difference between beauty and something repellent?”, and “Why shouldn’t people be allowed to be different?”, which is often asked when individuals realize that the morality of their own world has been corrupted with negativity and intolerance. Towards the end of the episode, Dr. Bernardi finally unveils Miss Tyler’s bandages to reveal a gorgeous face that would be considered the ideal face of “beauty” for women in Society’s high, human standards today, while the nurses and doctors are revealed to all have identical, monstrous facial features. When the ruler of this dystopian world is shown on the screens throughout the hospital to give his speech, he has the same horrendous facial features as the rest, seems to be wearing a monochrome uniform, and stands in front of a flag and podium, which seems to be allude to fascism and dictatorship. The dictator then propagates his beliefs on conformity and yells that humans must be “A single entity of all peoples” and “conform to that norm” in order to thrive, which may also visualize Hitler’s constant demand for a “pure” race that consisted of only Germans and Aryans.

In this episode, like many others, Rod Serling was able to foreshadow the growing technology of the future, such as plastic surgery, and the pressures that everyone seems to face due to Society’s principles on both beauty and assimilation. I believe that Serling was also able to toy with the viewers’ morality because we were tricked into believing the vile words that the others used to describe Miss Tyler. We believed that she was the true monster of this episode until her bandages were removed to reveal that she was far from a “pitiful, twisted lump of flesh”. Serling warns that if we continue to both alter ourselves to gain approval from others and judge others for their certain qualities, such as for gender, religion, race, or sexuality, then we will reach a point in time where we all look exactly alike, and we won't be able to distinguish ourselves from others. He showed up both the flaws and fears of Miss Tyler and the nurses. Miss Tyler fearing rejection because she was told all her life that she was ugly, while the nurses feared difference because they were only used to a single norm. The dictator of this episode shouts that “Beauty is the deviation”, while Walter Smith, an equally beautiful man to Tyler who would also be considered beautiful by Society today and in the past, tells Tyler that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, meaning that she shouldn’t worry about how she will be perceived by others because not everyone views beauty in the same way. Miss Janet Tyler tried to alter her appearance eleven times, but ultimately ended up looking like her true self till the end. Serling teaches the audience that originality is beautiful, however, in a time in which our opinions, beliefs, and ideas are always getting influenced by others around us, are we truly capable of possessing and thinking on our own?

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #9

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

March 27, 2017

Thesis Statement + Intro Paragraph for Final Paper

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #8

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

March 13, 2017

Cyborg

In the 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, humanity is questioned throughout the whole movie. What exactly does it mean to be human though, and at what point do humans become like machines? The protagonist of the film, Rick Deckard, is reassigned as a Blade Runner and forced to track down four replicants, biorobotic androids that look identical to humans and possess superhuman strength, that are silently roaming around Earth because they are wreaking havoc and trying to find ways to live longer. However, Deckard and other Blader Runners must use a Voight-Kampff machine and ask questions relating to empathy in order to detect the replicants because it is fairly difficult to distinguish them from humans. The humans in the film believe that replicants may be revealed when they lack emotion, however, I believe that if one is able to freely make his own rational and irrational decisions in a certain situation based on his heart or mind then he may be classified as a human.

Throughout the film, the replicants, such as Pris, Zhora, Leon, Roy Batty, and Rachael, want nothing more than to live longer than the life span they were given because they are afraid of their inevitable demise. The replicants, just like most animals, constantly live their life trying to survive on Earth, which is the major difference between the machines and the humans. Their only purpose in life is to please the ones they were designed for and survive because they know that they can ultimately die at any moment. However, one replicant out of all of the humanoids may be seen as human or even more than human. Roy’s desire to live and his grief for Pris when she gets killed may visualize the humanity that the humans of the movie lack, such as Deckard.

Even though he is made of mechanics and false flesh, Roy struggles to cope with the idea of passing away and ultimately questions his own morality. When Deckard is about fall off a building at the end of the movie, it is Roy who decides to save him because the humanoid finally understood the value of life and what it meant to live. He also seemed to throw moral justice at Deckard and questioned how he could be a moral cop when he essentially murdered innocent replicants whose only crime was wanting to live. At this moment, I believed that Roy was more “human” than Deckard because he was able to consciously make his own decisions and decide the fate of the man who was trying to kill him. In the end, Roy accepts his own fate and dies naturally rather than getting killed off like the other replicants, just as how humans in the real world come to terms with their own fate. I also found it interesting that Roy was the only replicant that was given a last name, which is very “human” and may further visualize that he was more than just mechanics.

The humans seemed to be no better than the replicants in the movie. Though they were getting rid of “illegal” humanoids, they didn’t even think to consider the emotions that the replicants must have felt when trying to cope with death. Deckard seemed to be more replicant than Roy in terms of his emotions because he lacked empathy when it came to hunting down the robots, and he also seemed to have a strong attachment to old photographs, which is one of the qualities that replicants possessed because they felt nostalgic looking at a past that wasn’t actually their own. At the end of the movie, Deckard finds a miniature origami unicorn outside of his home, which may also symbolize that one of the characters, Gaff, knew about Deckard's dream of a unicorn just like how Deckard new about the false memories of the other replicants.

As the human race progresses, technology becomes smarter and faster as well. Smartphones, cars, speakers, and even toilets can communicate and understand individuals, and we are slowly becoming more in sync with our own electronic devices. Though these devices can not display any real emotion or make their own moral decisions like how Roy Batty was able to in Blade Runner, they are just as smart or maybe even more intelligent than the human mind. It is only a matter of time until these machines acquire a human visage and a conscience, and then it will be almost impossible to distinguish man from robot.

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #7

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

March 6, 2017

What is Reality?

Charlie Brooker’s sci-fi television series, Black Mirror, deals with the dark side effects that society may face from being introduced to new and ominous technology. In an episode entitled “Playtest”, the main character experiences severe shifts in his own reality up until the point in which he is unable to distinguish the real from the fake. The episode starts off with the protagonist, Cooper, packing for a trip as he silently sneaks out of his home. On his way to the airport, he receives an incoming call from his mother, but immediately declines the call, which may signify a rift or divide between the two. Once on the airplane, Cooper intently watches a movie and plays a video game on his phone, but is soon told to turn off his device by a flight attend so that the plane may avoid outside interferences from other electronic devices. Cooper slowly obeys her command, which foreshadows that he may have trouble following the rules in the future.

After making it to London and hooking up with a girl named Sonja through a dating app on his phone, Cooper is soon introduced to augmented reality when he decides to take up a job at Saito’s video-game company in order to earn money for a plane ticket back home. When Cooper enters the gaming company, he meets an employee named Katie, and she leads him upstairs to a testing room where she confiscates and turns off his phone before they both enter the room, probably to maintain secrecy. However, once inside, Cooper secretly manages to run to his phone, power it on, take a photo of the equipment in the room, and text it to Sonja, disobeying Katie’s rules, just like when a child ignores a flight attendant when told to shut off all electronic devices.

Cooper further enters a whole new world of reality when an electronic device gets implanted into the back of his neck. As Katie commences the activation of the device, Cooper’s phone suddenly goes off due to an incoming call from his mom. Katies quickly shuts off his phone, and Cooper gets to test out an augmented reality demo of Whack-a-Mole. After, Katie takes Cooper to a mansion to experience a horror game in which the device on his neck taps into Cooper’s mind in order to use his own fears against him. While in the mansion, Katies instructs Cooper that his illusions won't be able to harm him physically, and his fears appear as realistic holograms. Much like virtual reality today, individuals know that they are entering a made-up world but it seems and feels so real to them that their perception on life becomes faltered. Sonja somehow finds her way to the mansion and warns Cooper about the dangers of the gaming company. However, he faces hyperreality when he learns that Sonja is actually an illusion of the game as well and ends up having to kill her tangible hologram in self defense.

Towards the end of the episode, Katie alerts Cooper that the device is starting to steal his memories and blur his mind, which may allude to his own fear for his father’s struggle with Alzheimer's. This may also represent the attachment that humans have for their electronics and how our cellphones have so much of our information that it might as well be seen as another attachment of the human body. Cooper wakes up in shock in the chair from when Katie and Saito were installing the horror game into the device on his neck and learns that he was only inside of the game for a second. The company ends up sending Cooper back home because of how powerful the game was, and he finally reunites with his mom. However, she doesn't recognize him when he approaches, and she goes for her phone to call him, which may again parallel his father’s Alzheimer's. In shock, Cooper calls to her, but he ends up waking up in the white room with Katie, seizuring to death in his chair due to a malfunction caused by the cellphone interference from his mother’s phone call.

“Playtest” deals with the scary reality that a human's life may lie in the hands of a tiny electronic device, such as our cell phones. This episode is both freaky yet fascinating because Brooker warns the audience and makes it feel as if these scenarios may be possible in the near future since technology is constantly advancing. Cooper’s inability to differentiate reality from hyperreality may be universal to all because as the human race advances in both science and technology, whether it be by plastic surgery, robots, virtual reality, 3D simulations, etc., we may never know what is truly real in life.

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #6

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

February 27, 2016

To Walk and To Know

In the Wachowski brothers’ science fiction, dystopian movie The Matrix, the idea that one’s perception on what is “real” in life may differ from another individual is heavily pondered on. Thomas Anderson, the protagonist of the movie, is a computer programmer who goes by the alias “Neo” and learns that the life he is currently living is all but a simulation. Morpheus, the leader of rebels working to free enslaved humans, and Trinity, a hacker and crew member of Morpheus’ aircraft, recruit Neo into their band of rebels and show him that his “reality” or the Matrix, is actually a world of deception created by the intelligence of machines.

In hopes of learning more about the truth, Neo takes a red pill offered to him by Morpheus and ends up waking up inside of an alien-like pod, his body connected to wires and cables. He learns that the human race is being grown and confined inside of the pods and that the machines are using their bodies as an electrical source for power. Throughout the movie, Morpheus constantly tells Neo that he believes he is “the One” to save the human race from its imprisonment by the machines. Neo, however, belittles himself and denies his own fate because he is afraid that he won't be able to live up to the expectations of who he envisions the One as. When Neo meets up with the Oracle to discuss his fate, he gains comfort in hearing the Oracle agree with his statement about not being the chosen one, most likely because he doesn’t want to to let others down and isn’t confident with his own self yet.

However, after managing to rescue both Morpheus from the Agents and Trinity from crashing in a helicopter, Neo starts to gain confidence in himself, and begins to question if he truly is destined to be the One. Immediately after this realization, Neo questions why the Oracle hadn’t disagreed with him when he stated that he wasn’t the One, while Morpheus calmly tells Neo that the Oracle told him what he wanted to hear and that “There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path” (Wachowskis & Silver, 1999). I believe that Morpheus’ statement may have double meanings because in life, individuals may think that they know what their path is or what they would like their path to be but don’t actually attempt to walk the path because they are ambivalent of what the outcome may look like, however, individuals also aimlessly walk around without knowing what their purpose or destination may be. What Morpheus is trying to visualize is that every single individual has their own free will and has the power to create and follow their own unique destiny. Though an individual may be aware of what path he must take in order to achieve his goals, it does not mean that he will experience or learn from it the same way that an individual who is following or creating his own path will. By both knowing and walking the path, an individual may face harder obstacles on his way to achieving his goals, but in the end he will grow wiser and and more prosperous than others because he will be able to look to his past experiences, actions, or mistakes for guidance in the future. An individual who walks a certain path will eventually know and learn more about the path that he is on, and when he begins to know more about the path, he will eventually be able to walk the path with ease.

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #5

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

February 20, 2017

Monster Within

In society, a “monster” is usually classified by certain characteristics, qualities, differences, or actions that the individual may possess or display in the past. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, may be viewed as a monster by the readers after murdering both a pawnbroker and her sister. His inability to accept the wrongdoings of his own monstrous, actions causes him to question his morals, and he ultimately oscillates between whether or not he should confess to his crimes or keep them in secrecy. Raskolnikov's struggle to face his consequences may be universal to all because individuals are constantly faced with decisions that cause a rift between the heart and the mind, which may also parallel the suggestion made by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen in his article, Monster Culture (Seven Theses), that all humans contain a “monstrous” side within themselves.

Even though the main character is a poor student dressed in rags, Dostoevsky visualizes Raskolnikov as an attractive, exceptional man, most likely to contrast against his horrendous and ugly crimes. Although he does not have the physical appearance of a “monster”, his actions and beliefs prove to be quite wicked. Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov alienates himself away from the other, more “ordinary” characters around him and channels his own distaste and prejudice towards them because of the certain occupations and physical appearances they possess. Because of his bias for others, Cohen would most likely classify Raskolnikov as both a monster and a creator of other monsters. Raskolnikov's intolerance eventually leads him to create and follow a theory that individuals who are deemed as more remarkable than others have the right to bypass certain restrictions that are placed on ordinary individuals, which is why he constantly strives to become “an extraordinary man” (242) and uses this belief as justification for murdering the pawnbroker. Raskolnikov, like the monsters described in Cohen’s third thesis, tend to shy away from others in fear of getting compared to what is considered “normal” in society. However, in this case, Raskolnikov separates himself from others because he believes he is on a greater level than everyone else. He creates his own rules and believes that he does not have to follow the moral rules of society.

After murdering Alyona and her sister, his guilt begins to consume him, and he struggles to accept his moral obligations of confessing to his ruthless actions. Though he believes that staying quiet about the murders will alleviate his guilt, Raskolnikov realizes that “he will suffer for his mistake” (246) because his conscience struggles to cope with his inner guilt, and his physical health begins to worsen. In order to gain a sense of stability, he continually vacillates between whether or not he should reveal his crimes to the police or keep them concealed to others so that he doesn’t damage his pride. Cohen’s third thesis also mentions that the monster always manages to run away from the scene every single time, such as how Raskolnikov manages to escape the clutches of justice throughout the novel. He manages to go unnoticed after he kills Alyona and Lizaveta, and he continuously stops himself from confessing to his crimes to the police until the end of the novel. He reappears at the crime scene and tries to communicate with detectives and witnesses in order to blend in with the ordinary, and he stays hidden in plain sight.

In the novel, Raskolnikov’s foil, a character named Svidrigailov, states that "Reason is the slave of passion" (262) because he believes that most individuals’ motives are governed by what their heart wants rather than what the mind wants. Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov’s inability to grasp both of his compelling desires at the same time to represent the everyday struggle that all individuals face when a situation causes a conflict between one’s inner passion and reason. His selfish impulse to obscure his crimes for the benefit of his own safety and his uncertainty to confess to those crimes also visualize the “monstrous” or bad quality found within each and every individual.

In suit with Cohen’s sixth thesis, Raskolnikov and his sins seem to entice yet frighten characters such as Sonia, a young girl who works as a prostitute to earn money and provide for her poor family. When Sonia learns about Raskolnikov’s secret she is at first taken aback, but she soon accepts Raskolnikov with open arms and tells him that he can redeem himself once he admits to his crimes. Sonia, unlike Raskolnikov, seems to see the good in everyone and sacrifices herself for her family, which shows that she is not a monster in the novel.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment depicts the idea that one may struggle to find a balance between the heart and the mind when coping with the outcome of his or her own motives. Raskolnikov’s inability to choose between his two contrasting desires represents the inner struggle that all individuals face when they are tentative and scared to face the outcome of their motives. Dostoevsky was able to mislead the audience into connecting with and feeling sorry for Raskolnikov, regardless of the fact that he committed homicide. He can be compassionate and caring towards some of the other characters, such as Sonia and her family, but he also creates his own false and prejudice images of others throughout the novel, which is what makes him both a monster and the creator of other monsters.

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #4

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

February 6, 2017

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

In the article Monster Culture (Seven Theses) by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, the idea that a “monster” originates based on a difference in race, gender, sexuality, and religion amongst individuals of society is heavily argued and discussed through seven different theses. A monster, as explained by Cohen, may differ from culture to culture depending on the current time and social era. However, by the end of his article, it is apparent that Cohen is truly trying to express the truth that every individual has a little bit of monstrous characteristics within themselves.

In his first thesis, Cohen explains how a monster is created as a representation for a specific movement or prejudice occurring in a certain time period. Individuals channel their fear and anxiety towards another who appears different from themselves into a representation or a “projection” of a creature. Cohen then goes on to state in his second thesis that monsters take on various forms in different cultures because the views of the creators of one culture may differ from another, such as vampires. The original idea of a vampire has transformed greatly over the decades. In the past, vampires were depicted as pale, grotesque demons that possessed human characteristics and wore capes and dark, unusual clothing, such as Count Orlok from Nosferatu. Now, in pop culture, vampires are depicted as sensual and enticing bloodsuckers that never age and wear common, human clothing, such as how they are represented in Julie Plec’s The Vampire Diaries and Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series. Though a monster may perish in forgotten or finished tales from the past, the physical idea of that monster still continues to thrive and reinvent itself into something new because it constantly recurs in other culture’s fables.

Thesis III states that monsters tend to run away from the scene in fear of being compared to humans, which can be seen in situations today. When the bias opinions of Society begin to classify what is considered the norm, others who are deemed as “freaks”, “outsiders”, and “aliens” due to the certain qualities or characteristics they posses, tend to shy away from the public in fear of being picked on. This intolerance ties into Cohen’s fourth thesis in which people of color and different sexual orientations are feared by Society due to myths that arise about them. As stated by Cohen, Ethiopians were feared in the past due to a misconception that their dark skin tones somehow “associated with the fires of Hell” (10). Though dark skin is not associated with Hell anymore, I believe that racial injustice towards black people still occurs because there is a bias belief amongst some individuals that if one’s skin tone is extremely dark then he or she is somehow scarier and more menacing.

In his fifth and sixth theses, Cohen also warns that whenever a “monster” leaves his or her home area, he or she is at risk of getting attacked by others who are not used to seeing another that is different. A monster is feared, but it “also attracts” (16), which is why humans tend to alter their own appearances to resemble and steal the qualities of certain “monsters” and use it as their own, such as how some white people try to plump their lips, tan their skin, and curl their hair in order to make their features look more like black people, even though those same white people most likely made fun of black people in the past for their natural and beautiful features.

In his final thesis, it is evident that Cohen is trying to express that humans are the creators of monsters. We have the tendency to form grotesque ideas and myths about others and make them out to be abnormal due to our fear towards something that is different than what is deemed “normal” in our high, societal standards. I believe that “monsters” are one in the same with humans because we learn from each other and act based on what we are influenced or taught by. We fear one another based on differences we can't seem to accept. A line, which may be found in his fourth thesis, that struck me the most throughout the article was that “the East becomes feminized (Said) and the soul of Africa grows dark (Gates)” (11) because it visualizes that as time progresses, equality seems to slowly digress as well. Equality will never be reached for women, people of color, people of different religions, and people of different sexualities, and there will always be prejudice. Though it may not seem like it, all humans are “monsters”, and we will continue to judge and be judged for our actions and for being ourselves.

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Post #3

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

January 30, 2017

The Greatest

Though the song itself is not the greatest, Sia’s “The Greatest”, which was released in 2016 for the deluxe edition of her album This Is Acting, powerfully comes across as a tribute to the innocent lives that were taken in the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. In its close to six-minute postmodern video, Maddie Ziegler, who is best known for starring in the American reality television series Dance Moms and has appeared in numerous music videos of Sia’s in the past, is accompanied by a diverse cast of 48 young dancers to pose as the 49 victims that passed away in the Pulse Nightclub shooting. In addition, the video is choreographed by Ryan Heffington, who has previously won a VMA Award in 2014 for choreographing Sia’s “Chandelier” music video and is known for creating unique, contemporary dance routines.

As the haunting yet beautiful video begins, a black screen with white text reading “#WEAREYOURCHILDREN” flashes for about four seconds, then cuts to alternating clips of children wearing neutral, monochromatic clothing that resemble rags and poverty, identical grey face paint, and they are all posing lifelessly together. The identical paint on each of the 48 dancers’ faces represent that they are all one with another, regardless of their race and gender. The audio that plays at the beginning of the music video mimics the sound of a ringing bell, which slowly transforms into a continuous, pulsating noise, such as how one feels about the music in a nightclub. The text may represent the LGBTQ community and how any child may be accepted for who they are, regardless of their sexuality, race, and gender. The music video seems to take place solely inside of an old, abandoned, and hidden apartment building that is dimly lit, which visualizes isolation and darkness. The scenes then cut to Ziegler staring intensely at the camera and dragging her painted fingers down her face to create rainbow tears, which represents the colors of the gay pride flag.

After wiping the rainbow paint onto her face, the scene changes to Ziegler standing in a prison cell with motionless children lying down on the floor. She’s yelling and crying at the children in agony, most likely trying to wake them up from their lifeless slumber. The cell that the children are trapped inside of may represent how LGBTQ members feel when they are unable to come out to their loves ones in fear of being hated on and threatened. The camera does a close-up shot of the children laying on the ground behind bars. Once the beat of the song starts playing, all of the children wake up and start to shake their heads, nodding them in sync to the beat. Though Sia does not appear at all in her video, her voice begins to sings the lyrics “Uh-oh, running out of breath, but I / Oh, I, I got stamina” and “Uh-oh, running now, I close my eyes / Well, oh, I got stamina”, which may symbolize the victims running away from the shooter in the club and doing whatever they can to stay alive and see their loved ones again.

As the dancers escape the cell and start running up the stairs of the building, Ziegler takes charge as the leader and them all into a contemporary dance. The line “I need another lover, be mine” is sung as the children start dancing in a contemporary manner may also symbolize how many people go to clubs in order to find love, happiness, and acceptance. In the halls of the building, all of the dancers are each doing their own unique dance, which may represent the different emotions that every individual in the nightclub felt during the night of the tragic incident. Ziegler encourages others around her not to “give up” and that she herself won't “give up”, which may portray Sia’s encouragement for the LGBTQ community and that individuals who remain secretive about their own sexuality shouldn't be afraid to express themselves because of the hate crime that occurred in Orlando, Florida and that Sia herself will continue supporting people of the LGBTQ community.

Ziegler then runs into another room of the building and is surrounded by the other 48 dancers, and they begin to dance in sync together as one. The line “I'm free to be the greatest, I'm alive / I'm free to be the greatest here tonight, the greatest” represents that anyone is free to be and love whoever they want and that they should express themselves however they please regardless of what others might think of them. In regards to the victims of the Pulse Nightclub, the were all unique and loved for who they were, especially at a club in which there there were others who they could relate with and turn to for guidance, acceptance, and friendship.

Towards the end of the music video, Ziegler runs into a large room that resembles an underground and secretive dance party, with its disco balls and cyan and magenta colored lights. The dance party may be visualized in an exclusive and secretive manner to represent that most gay clubs are hidden to the public. Once again, Ziegler encourages all 48 of the dancers to dance in sync with one another, but they all slowly begin to express themselves individually through their own unique dance moves and they start to. After expressing themselves individually they all come together in the center of the dance floor and jump together as one, such as how the bodies in clubs move together as a single entity. The camera begins to slowly zoom out and all of the 49 dancers suddenly collapse onto the floor and lay motionless with their eyes closed. The background reveals little lights emerging into the “nightclub” through openings in the wall that appear to be bullet holes, which symbolize and represent the gunshots that occurred at Pulse in 2016. The camera pans back in on Ziegler’s face, and she begins to open her eyes again, which almost looks as if she was depicting how in some dangerous and extreme situations, the live must appear dead in order to protect themselves from being in danger.

At the end of the video, clips from the beginning of Sia’s video that show the 48 children lying are being played again, however in reverse, almost visualizing that the events have caused individuals to revert back to suppressing their own sexuality. The video ends with a powerful scene of Ziegler crying directly towards the camera, “rainbow tears” coming down her face, in order to express her sorrow for the lives that were lost during the Orlando shooting and for the family members grieving their lost, loved ones. Sia’s music video beautifully portrays that in order to find peace and love in the world, we must not give up on accepting and protecting those who are unique or different. We must become greater individuals that have open minds and open arms towards anyone in the world.

link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKSRyLdjsPA

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

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Blog Assignment #2

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

January 23, 2017

Intricate Rituals

Barbara Kruger’s untitled piece visualizes a group of men engaging in some sort of playful yet childish manner. To the right of photo, there is a phrase in bold letters that states “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men.” To the left of the photo, there are seven white men, all of whom are wearing suits. At first glance, the men in the photo appear to be violently grabbing at and taunting the man in the center of their group, however, if you look closely at all of their postures and expressions, you can see that they all have smiles on their faces and seem to be fooling around, which leads the audience to infer that all of the men in the photo are most likely a group of friends. I believe that both the text and the men of the photo should be treated and looked at equally to depict the hidden message behind the work because there is unity found within the monochrome tone of the whole.

From looking at this image, one may infer that Kruger’s piece has to do with the frailty of man’s masculinity. The phrase of the image ponders on the idea that men rarely show each other affection in public due to their insecurity in wanting to protect their own masculinity. The viewers may also infer that the men of the photo are at some type of social gathering due to their suits, which may be considered one of the many “intricate rituals” that men use as an excuse to subtly show their affection for one another. Most men behave this way because in Society, men are constantly trying to prove their manliness towards another. They believe that their masculinity somehow gets lowered if they decide to “touch the skin of other men” in a loving manner so they instead try to bash each other in a playful manner as a means of expressing their love and gratitude. The lack of color may also represent Kruger’s own negative views on the frailty of masculinity and how it has been a norm for almost all men throughout the decades to repress their true emotions. Even the photo does not capture the real emotions of the men because they aren’t expressing their compassion the same way they do for their women friends or loved ones in their life.

The audience may conclude that the piece is addressing almost all men of the human race. Kruger’s picture, with the its significant text and lack of color, portray that men have been and always will be afraid to show their fellow man emotion in fear of crippling their own manliness. I believe that the message behind the photo will continue to occur in the future because men tend to restrict their true emotions in fear of looking weak to others.

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patrickdkim · 8 years ago

Text

Blog Assignment #1

Patrick Kim

Professor Rosetta Brooks

Critical Practice

January 16, 2017

Hey, That Looks Kind of Familiar

In the article You Say You Want a Devolution? by Kurt Andersen, the idea that new generations recycle and reuse from previous decades to create a new era of the time is heavily visualized. The author argues that as a whole, humans advance through technology, but lack change when it comes to culture. I agree with Andersen’s beliefs because individuals tend to feed each other and learn from similar ideas and information, which is why we constantly see similar or borrowed aesthetics from the past. This notion that the past seems to reoccur within the present is shown through both technology and pop culture.

Due to the advancement of technology, humans have access to almost anything. Individuals are able to view images, videos, and music from any decade in a matter of seconds thanks to the invention of smartphones and computers. Andersen argues that this advancement in technology highly contrasts with the generation of today because as technology progresses, individuals seem to revert back to trends from previous decades. I agree with Andersen because humans are capable of great progression, however they always seem to find themselves leaning back towards the past in order to learn and feel safe and comfortable in the present.

Take a Jeep for example. As information on their website depicts, the Jeep was originally designed as a military car in the 1940’s. As time progressed, different models of the Jeep were created and released, and some styles of the car began to digress away from its original, military car aesthetic so that the company could give customers a variety of different models to choose from. The Jeep Wrangler, which was created in 2007, appears to be a more modern day version of the original 1940’s model and is one of the most popular cars amongst individuals today. Though humans advance through the creation of machines as well, they always seem to find some way to regress new technology back to primal or past creations because in reality, they are unable to make something “new” since almost everything originates from an idea of the past.

Fashion is also another key example of recycled trends because fashion trends and styles change rapidly amongst individuals due to social media and pop culture. If a celebrity or designer is seen wearing or creating pieces and accessories that look like clothing from a different decade, such as a choker, which originated in the 19th century and kept on returning throughout the decades in different designs, then individuals will most likely use some form of technology to search up and learn more about the style of that certain look and try to join in on the trend. Style is also heavily influenced by music. When Nirvana became popular in the late 1980’s, grunge was the new aesthetic for until the late 1990’s, however the term “grunge” actually first appeared in 1957 when it was used in a Johnny Burnette album (Gonzalez), which also adds to Andersen’s declaration that previous ideas and trends are continuously upcycled. In addition, many popular songs are heavily influenced by music from past artists, such as how Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” has similar chord progressions to Madonna’s “Express Yourself” (Kaufman) and how the Weeknd’s “I Feel It Coming” and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” sounds heavily influenced by Michael Jackson (Wood). Even some of the Disney princesses, such as Aurora from Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel from Tangled are based off of old fairy tales.

At the end of the article, Andersen states that humans have “trapped [themselves] in a vicious cycle” of borrowing old ideas to create the new. Looking at how many individuals favor objects and items that feel like slightly upgraded versions of old models made me contemplate whether or not humans prefer the old because they are wary of and not yet ready for the new. Ultimately, I believe that individuals linger on past moments, mistakes, and ideas in order to “turn the present into a” life of greater knowledge and experimentation. I find the last line of Andersen’s article to be very powerful because it makes me question how long the human race will continue to look to the past for answers if they ever want to create something truly innovative in the future.

Works Cited

Andersen, Kurt, and James Taylor. "Kurt Andersen: From Fashion to Housewares, Are We in a Decades-Long Design Rut?" Vanities. Vanity Fair, 29 Jan. 2015. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/01/prisoners-of-style-201201>.

Gonzalez, Gracie. "WRVU." WRVU Nashville. WRVU Nashville, 08 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://wrvu.org/whats-grunge/>.

Jeep. "A Heritage of Heroes." Jeep History - SUVs Through The Decades. Jeep, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://www.jeep.com/en/history/#/vehicle_history>.

Kaufman, Gil. "Lady Gaga to Zane Lowe on Madonna Similarities: 'I Wouldn't Make That Comparison at All'." Billboard. Billboard, 20 Oct. 2016. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7549797/lady-gaga-zane-lowe-madonna-comparison>.

Wood, Mikael. "Why the Weeknd and Bruno Mars Are Obsessed with the '80s." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 30 Nov. 2016. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-bruno-mars-weeknd-20161130-story.html>.

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