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thedigital-witnesses · 4 years ago

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Rethinking Reconciliation and the Desire to Heal: Decolonizing Indigenous Healing, Conciliation, and Aesthetic Action in Canada

By: Alyssa Logie, M.A.

In December 2015, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its final report including 94 “Calls to Action” urging all levels of Canadian government to contribute to the project of reconciliation. In 2015 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instructed the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs to officially implement these calls. As such, the Canadian government agreed to embark on the journey of reconciliation. According to the TRC, “reconciliation” is about “establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country” (A Knock on the Door 142). While this goal may seem advantageous and has had positive impacts as a response to the harms caused by Canada’s Indian Residential School System and the ongoing traumas of colonization, it is necessary to reflect upon the underlying sentiments that underpin the Canadian Government’s desire to participate in reconciliation. As this paper will highlight, many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people assert that the Government of Canada is pushing the discourse and project of reconciliation as an extension of the colonial project itself. In order to unpack how this may be, this paper pays particular attention to the Western implications of “healing” that underpin the TRC’s tenets of reconciliation. The push for “healing” as it is defined by the TRC and the Government of Canada ultimately places the responsibility of achieving reconciliation via a Western framework on the shoulders of those who already suffer at the hands of colonization and, as a result, silences Indigenous folk in order to further the Canadian government’s exploitation of Indigenous bodies and land.

This paper will first unpack how the TRC and the Government of Canada make particular use of the Western notion of healing as a necessity for reconciliation. Following this analysis of Western notions of healing within the TRC, I will unpack Indigenous notions of healing. This consideration of Indigenous notions of healing will further emphasize the colonial nature of the push for healing within the TRC’s hearings and final documents. After a consideration of Indigenous notions of healing, I will turn to Indigenous artists who are enacting “aesthetic action” in order to counter the Western notions of healing that permeate the reconciliation/colonization project in the hopes of rethinking what reconciliation really means in Canada.

The TRC’s Focus on “Healing” Indigenous Wounds and the Need for Conciliation

As stated by Métis scholar and artist David Garneau, “the sanctioned performance of Reconciliation [on behalf of the TRC and the Government of Canada] is foundationally distorted” (Garneau 23). Garneau reminds us that testimony produced for the TRC is “constrained by non-Indigenous narratives of healing and closure” (Garneau 23). In this way, the TRC hearings were part of a “theatre of national Reconciliation” (29). Although Garneau does acknowledge that survivors who shared their stories during the TRC hearings did so for a number of productive reasons (to bear witness, to speak the truth), he insists that we must also consider the peculiar “display mechanisms” these survivors and their testimonies became “caught up in” (30). Although the act of sharing testimony can and has had positive outcomes for survivors and their communities, and can and has contributed to the general understanding of Canada’s colonial past and present, we must remain critical of the underlying motivations for these testimonial acts to take place. Garneau looks at the TRC’s “Our Mandate” page to get a sense of what this motivation may be. The first line of the mandate reads: “There is an emerging and compelling desire to put the events of the past behind us so that we can work towards a stronger and healthier future” (TRC.ca). Whose desire is this? If it is the Government’s colonial desire, then the process of sharing testimonies at TRC hearings is nothing more than a “continuation of the settlement narrative” (Garneau 31). According to Garneau, “the present ‘colonial’ desire is to ‘put the events of the past behind us’ and reconcile Indigenous people with this narrative” (31). In this way, Reconciliation as it is conceived of and understood by the government is nothing more than a mutation of the colonial project. Following this logic, we can see how the TRC and ultimately the Government of Canada make use of Western understandings of healing instead of turning to Indigenous notions of healing. This is problematic, as it proposes a colonial answer to a supposedly de-colonial project.

Photo from: www.trc.ca

Garneau asserts that the notion of “reconciliation” as used by the TRC and the Government of Canada has its roots in Western, particularly Catholic, traditions. Garneau explains how the process of reconciliation assumes that communities and individuals can only be healed “by telling a secret to those in charge,” much like the Catholic practice of confession (33). This is problematic; as Catholic institutions are highly responsible for the traumas experienced at residential schools across Canada. To enforce a Catholic-inspired notion of reconciliation and salvation upon survivors of such traumas is entirely cruel and counter-productive. Additionally, the emphasis on the “spectacle of individual accounts (confessions) and healing narratives (forgiveness and penance)” is inherently colonial, as the ultimate goal is for survivors to heal, forget, and move on. According to Nehiyaw writer and community helper Suzanne Methot, the push on behalf of the TRC and the Canadian Government for Indigenous peoples to move on after sharing their stories of trauma is inherently motivated by the desire to mold Indigenous peoples into passive subjects, ultimately silencing the so-called “indigenous problem” of today (Methot). By rejecting Indigenous ways of knowing, “colonial systems and structures control the nature of the debate and contain it within settler-colonial parameters. This creates yet another opportunity for the colonizer to effect control upon Indigenous peoples” (Methot 205). Essentially, if Indigenous peoples “heal” according to Western notions of “healing”, they will stop complaining about the past and they—as well as their land—become easier to exploit in the interest of settler-colonial capitalist gain.

Suzanne Methot further explains how Western traditions of “talk therapy” have their limitations in serving Indigenous peoples. Methot describes these limitations:

The European focus on talking as a form of therapy has its roots in the writing of Rene Descartes and reflects his belief that “I think, therefore I am.” The resulting Cartesian dualism—wherein the mind is separated from the natural world—does not reflect Indigenous ideas on healing or wellness (Methot 233).

If reconciliation is predicated upon Western notions of healing that are incompatible with Indigenous knowledge systems, what other means can be used to genuinely take up the trauma of the IRS that do not fall into the historical pattern of colonialism? For Garneau, and other scholars such as David McDonald, the notion of “conciliation” can help to decolonize the process of truly healing and making reparations for Canada’s genocidal past, as conciliation is an “ongoing process, a seeking rather than the restoration of an imagined agreement” (Garneau 31)1. For Garneau, the reconciliation narrative should be “recast as a continued struggle for conciliation rather than the restoration of something lost (that never quite was)” (32). For conciliation to be possible, Indigenous sovereignties pre-contact must be acknowledged and upheld; Indigenous worldviews must be held up to the same degree as Western worldviews—this especially applies to Indigenous notions of healing that assume a continuous, never ending reflection on traumas of the past. Cree artist, poet and oral historian explains how the nêhiyawak (Cree) word used in reference to the residential school experience is ê-kiskakwêyehk, which means ‘we wear it’” (34). In this way, a wound is not something that goes away after a healing process—it is a scar that is never fully healed or forgotten, that influences the life of a people forever.

Indigenous Notions of Healing: A Pathway Towards Conciliation

After unpacking the Western-colonial desires that underpin the TRC’s and Government of Canada’s push for the healing of Indigenous peoples, it becomes necessary to turn to Indigenous notions of healing that can and must be used in the process of conciliation. In 1998, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) was established in Ottawa, Ontario as an Indigenous managed, non-profit corporation with a mandate to “support the development of sustainable healing processes related to the legacy of Canada’s residential school system” (Archibald 1). During its operation, AHF received $515 million in funding from the Government of Canada that was used to create and support hundreds of Indigenous healing programs, and centers across the country (AHF.ca). As such, the AHF became the spearhead in organizing and ensuring funding for Indigenous healing initiatives across Canada. Before funding for the Foundation was cut by Stephen Harper’s conservative government in 2010 leading to its closure in 2014, the AHF provided hundreds of community-based Indigenous-centered healing initiatives for Indigenous folks in Canada, and published numerous reports and resources on this history and legacy of colonization in Canada (Archibald 2006). The AHF’s Final Report indicates that out of fourteen different forms of healing activities offered by initiatives funded by the AHF, Western therapies were the least effective in treating trauma and intergenerational trauma (2006, 37). Across the board, Indigenous-centered initiatives proved to be the more effective, with elder interactions, ceremony, one-to-one counselling and healing talking circles, and traditional medicine being the most popular and effective of all (37).

In the third volume of the AHF’s Final Report the term “promising healing practices” is used to define “models, approaches, techniques and initiatives that are based on Aboriginal experiences; that feel right to Survivors and their families; and that result in positive changes in people’s lives” (Archibald 2006, 7). These Indigenous-centered practices address what the AHF refers to as the “three pillars of healing” Indigenous trauma: reclaiming history, cultural interventions, and therapeutic healing (18). As opposed to a Western-oriented notion of healing, this definition includes the necessity of not only individual therapeutic interventions, but also a more holistic process involving the re-establishment of “a spiritual connection with the land using traditional teachings, values and practices” enforcing the “regaining of cultural identity, personal enlightenment and wellness that prepares residents for better reintegration back into their communities” (25). Essentially, the individual can only be healed alongside the reclamation of collective history, land and culture—all essential components to Indigenous healing that Western individual-based approaches ignore. According to a report prepared by Linda Archibald for the AHF, “the central lesson learned about promising healing practices is the immense value and efficacy of incorporating history and culture into holistic programs based on Indigenous values and worldviews” (52).

Image from: https://www.fnha.ca/what-we-do/traditional-healing

It is also crucial to remember that not all Indigenous notions of healing are uniform, and not all Indigenous peoples respond to the same healing practices in the same way. According to a report prepared by James B. Waldram for the AHF:

What clearly emerges from our research is the importance of flexibility and eclecticism in the development of treatment models. There is no singular Aboriginal client, as there is no singular Aboriginal individual. Some clients are very firmly entrenched in Aboriginal cultural experiences; others, however, have had extensive experience with the broader, non-Aboriginal influences of mainstream Canada. One legacy of the residential school and substitute care systems for Aboriginal people has been the lack of Aboriginal cultural experiences for many. These individuals are not culture-less, as many popular accounts of Aboriginal experience might suggest; rather, they simply have had little or no experience in an Aboriginal cultural milieu, especially during initial developmental stages (Waldram 2008, 4).

In this way, Waldram reminds us to refrain from utilizing Pan-Indigenous language when referring to processes of healing and conciliation. Additionally, according to Linda Archibald:

While adaptations and sharing of Indigenous practices take place across cultures, an increased resistance to viewing Aboriginal people as having a homogeneous set of traditions and practices is evident. At a global level, efforts are required to maintain and support the cultural diversity that currently exists. At the community level, there is some evidence that culturally-appropriate healing interventions are most effective when rooted in local practices, languages and traditions (Archibald 2006, 50).

With Waldram and Archibald’s assertions in mind, what specific Indigenous healing practices have been successfully used in the past, and can be used moving forward, in the process of conciliation?

The process of reconnecting with community, culture and land are three fundamental tenets of Indigenous healing. According to Suzanne Methot, connecting to the natural world a “transformative force, one that is key to healing and change” across all Indigenous peoples (Methot 239). Additionally, Methot cites “recreating the structures of belonging” as another key aspect to Indigenous healing. By “structures of belonging,” Methot is referring to the return of Indigenous peoples to their own communities and cultures. To support Methot’s assertion, in 1997 the Assembly of First Nations “identified the following common strengths among the projects it reviewed in a paper on successful Indigenous health programs in Canada, the United States and Australia: projects tend to be tradition-based and values-based; interventions focus on the entire family; links are made between spirituality and therapy; there is an intimate knowledge of the tribal community and a drawing together of traditions; projects respond to the needs of the community; and the community supported healing and recovery” (Archibald 2006, 39). The number of healing practices formed upon the values and worldviews of Indigenous peoples is extensive and beyond the scope of this short paper. According to Archibald, some of these promising traditional healing practices include: healing circles, sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies, dream interpretation, fasting, herbal medicine, returning to a traditional diet, cleansing and prayer, ceremonies including singing and drumming, counselling by a healer or Elder—all of which can be used in tandem with one another (Archibald 2006, 54).

While Western traditions on their own cannot serve to provide healing for Indigenous peoples, Linda Archibald’s 2006 report for the AHF describes how many healing programs have successfully incorporated, adapted, and blended traditional and Western approaches (Archibald 2006, 50). According to Archibald’s report:

Traditional ceremonies, medicines and healing practices are being incorporated into the therapeutic process while Indigenous values and worldviews are providing the program framework. Some core values, such as holism, balance and connection to family and the environment, are common to Aboriginal worldviews across cultures; others are clearly rooted in local customs and traditions. The variety of therapeutic combinations in use suggests a powerful commitment to the values of adaptability, flexibility and innovation in the service of healing. This is consistent with the holistic approach to healing common to Indigenous value systems (50).

While Western approaches may be incorporated into Indigenous healing initiatives, it is essential that Indigenous values and world views remain the foundational framework for such efforts.

The Future of Indigenous Healing in Canada

The AHF’s Final Report suggests that “10 years is the average period required for initiating, establishing and evaluating therapeutic healing from residential school trauma in a community or community of interest” and that it “takes time for individuals and communities to reach the ‘readiness to heal’ stage” (Archibald 2006, 39). Because of this, continued stable government funding is required for communities to “engage in a continuum of healing” including processes of reaching out to survivors, dismantling denial, creating safety, and engaging participants in therapeutic healing (39). While the AHF had incredibly positive outcomes for Indigenous communities and individuals, according its Final Report, “20% of the communities are just beginning their healing activities, 65.9% of the communities accomplished a few goals, but much work remains and 14.1% of the communities accomplished many goals, but some work remains” (31). Unfortunately, the de-funding and dissolution of the AHF has left hundreds of community-based healing initiatives without necessary funding, and new initiatives struggle to acquire financial support. The Government of Canada’s cut to such funding is detrimental to the ongoing healing work that Indigenous communities require, and is antithetical to the promises of the TRC’s Calls to Action. How can the Government of Canada support the mandate of the TRC while actively denying funding for community-based, Indigenous-led healing initiatives? Without the actual funding, these Calls to Action are nothing more than empty promises and lip service.

In 2012, Linda Archibald prepared a report entitled Dancing, Singing, Painting, and Speaking the Healing Story: Healing through Creative Arts for the AHF. In this report, Archibald asserts that along with traditional Indigenous healing practices, the creative arts can and have had profound healing effects for Indigenous peoples. Archibald’s study ultimately asked: “what happens when art, music, dance, storytelling, and other creative arts become a part of community-based Aboriginal healing programs?” (Archibald 2006, 1). According to the results of the study:

The role of the arts is explained through three interconnected models of healing: the first focuses on the innate healing power of creativity (creative arts-as-healing); the second speaks to the use of the arts in the therapeutic process (creative arts-in-therapy); and the third encompasses a holistic approach to healing that includes creative arts, culture, and spirituality within its very definition (holistic healing includes creative arts). The first two models can be found in the existing art therapy literature. The third model, which grew out of the research, was necessary to complete the picture with respect to Aboriginal people because so many of the responses to the survey and interview questions transcended the two existing models. In these cases, creative arts were considered inseparable from culture, spirituality, and holistic healing. Traditional healing encompasses culture, language, history, spirituality, traditional knowledge, art, drumming, singing, dance, and storytelling as well as knowledge specific to the healer’s area of expertise and the type of healing being undertaken. It is a comprehensive, holistic approach aimed at restoring balance. (2-3).

This study shows how creative arts are not only productive in Indigenous healing practices, but are actually inseparable from Indigenous cultures and spiritualities. As such, it is necessary to look at when and how the creative arts have been utilized by Indigenous peoples to facilitate healing through the return to traditional communities, cultures and lands.

Indigenous Aesthetic Action: Combatting Colonial Notions of “Healing”

As previously described, the creative arts are an inseparable component of Indigenous cultures, spiritualties, and, consequently, healing. I will now turn to examples of Indigenous artists and/or projects that have made use of the creative arts to not only practice healing, but also to question and combat the Western colonial notions of healing that underpin the notion of reconciliation put forth by the TRC and the Government of Canada.

Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin utilize the term “aesthetic action” to describe creative endeavors that “unsettle us, provoke us, and make us reconsider our assumptions” (Robinson and Martin 3). Aesthetic action does not refer to aesthetics in the traditional sense of the word; it alternatively refers to the affective quality of the arts and how the arts can move us—most importantly to how they move us to action. In accordance with Garneau and McDonald’s assertions, Robinson and Martin assert that “the concept and practice of reconciliation must be continually interrogated and reimagined” (3). More specifically, Robinson and Martin believe that art—aesthetic action— “is the ideal mechanism through which this can occur” (3). In this way, we can view creative endeavours that function as healing practices and as critical interrogations of the colonial notion of reconciliation as works of aesthetic action. While there are numerous exceptional examples of Indigenous works of aesthetic action, due to the limited scope of this paper, I will focus on three such examples: Digital Natives, Walking with Our Sisters, and (official denial) trade value in progress.

Image from: https://twitter.com/livresCAbooks/status/822114905004253184

Digital Natives (2011)

Digital Natives (2011) is a collaborative project produced by Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, a non-profit collective of Vancouver-based individuals, and was curated by Lorna Brown and Clint Burnham (Image 1). During April 2011 (coinciding with the 125th Anniversary of the City of Vancouver) the project displayed ten-second text messages in English and Indigenous languages, interrupting the usual rotation of advertisements on the electronic billboard at the Burrard Street Bridge. Curators Brown and Burnham invited artists and writers from across North America to contribute messages (digitalnatives.othersights.ca). The messages “responded to the site’s charged history,” and the billboard itself “became an artistic and literary space for exchange between native and non-native communities exploring how language is used in advertising, its tactical role in colonization, and as a complex vehicle of communication” (digitalnatives.othersights.ca). More specifically, the project aimed to expose the “lack of public acknowledgement that Vancouver is built upon unceded Coast Salish territory” (Robinson and Zaiontz 43-44). Some of the messages included: “In 1913, all traces of the original village were burned to the ground…,” and “Your grandparents’ unacknowledged debts return to you as rage against the car in front.” Some of the messages were censored by the owner of the billboard, Astral Media, leading Brown and Burnham to add printed lawn signs upon a city-owned piece of land in front of the Burrand Street Bridge. One of the censored messages written by Edgar Heap of Birds pointed directly to the traumas of the residential schools, and the hypocrisy of Vancouver’s relationship with this history (specifically during the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver), stating: “IMPERIAL CANADA AWARDED SEX ABUSE TO NATIVE YOUTH BY THE BLACK ROBES NOW PROUDLY BESTOWS BRONZE SILVER GOLD MEDALS WITH INDIAN IMAGE” (uppercase in original).

Photo from: https://covapp.vancouver.ca/PublicArtRegistry/ArtworkDetail.aspx?ArtworkId=467

Digital Natives is an example of aesthetic action in that it provides a healing opportunity for Indigenous folks who are able to reflect upon and share their own personal traumas, while also challenging Vancouver’s hypocritical position on reconciliation. On June 17h 2014, the City of Vancouver tabled a motion to become “the world’s first city of reconciliation” (Robinson and Zaiontz 47). What does becoming a “city of reconciliation” really mean, when the city actively resides on unceded Coast Salish land? And, as asked by Robinson and Zaiontz, “what tangible benefits will First Nations secure from the subsequent development of protocols with the City of Vancouver?” (47). Robinson and Zaiontz claim that “to develop a civic infrastructure of redress means to develop a corresponding model for urban planning that acknowledges Vancouver’s location on unceded Coast Salish territory” (48). It is not enough for a city to simply proclaim that they are a “city of reconciliation”—this must be coupled with concrete action and redress. As a work of aesthetic action, Digital Natives commandeered the city’s infrastructure, reclaimed Indigenous space, and served as a direct intervention of the empty rhetorical promises of “reconciliation” espoused by the City of Vancouver.

Image from: https://othersights.ca/digital-natives/

Walking with Our Sisters

Walking with Our Sisters is a commemorative art installation for the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Canada and the United States curated by Christi Belcourt (Image 2). Walking with Our Sisters is “comprised of 1,763+ pairs of moccasin vamps (tops) plus 108 pairs of children’s vamps created and donated by hundreds of caring and concerned individuals to draw attention to this injustice” (walkingwithoursisters.ca). According to the installation’s website:

The work exists as a floor installation made up of beaded vamps arranged in a winding path formation on fabric and includes cedar boughs. Viewers remove their shoes to walk on a path of cloth alongside the vamps” (walkingwithoursisters.ca). Each pair of vamps represents one missing or murdered Indigenous woman. The unfinished moccasins represent the unfinished lives of the women whose lives were cut short. The children’s vamps are dedicated to children who never returned home from residential schools. Together the installation represents all these women; paying respect to their lives and existence on this earth. They are not forgotten. They are sisters, mothers, aunties, daughters, cousins, grandmothers, wives and partners. They have been cared for, they have been loved, they are missing and they are not forgotten (walkingwithoursisters.ca).

Image from: https://twitter.com/christibelcourt/status/1004250177379688448

According to curator Chirsti Belcourt, “what we are doing here is not an exhibit… it’s a memorial. It’s commemoration and it’s a ceremony” (walkingwithoursisters.ca). As such, the creation of the installation itself was a healing process for all of those involved. Additionally, those who come to view the installation become implicated in a healing practice as well. As the installation travels to various locations, more and more Indigenous and non-Indigenous folks can bear witness to the trauma of not only Canada’s colonial past, but the current epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The installation is never complete as people can add vamps to the installation at any time. Walking with Our Sisters is always actively growing and never complete, emulating the previously discussed nêhiyawak (Cree) notion of ê-kiskakwêyehk meaning “we wear it”—healing from trauma is a continual, active process that is ongoing, and, like Belcourt’s installation, never complete. Walking with Our Sisters resists the Western notion of healing as a destination to be reached, combatting the problematic rhetoric of reconciliation, and moving towards the necessary work of conciliation.

Photo from: https://www.easterndoor.com/2017/07/07/walking-with-our-sisters-steps-into-kahnawake/

(official denial) trade value in progress (2014)

(official denial) trade value in progress (2014) is another collaborative project curated by Leah Decter and Jaimie Isaac. The project “asks members of the public to contribute written and sewn responses to Harper’s G20 statement through a series of participatory events” (Decter and Isaac 97). Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors were asked to write down anything they desired in response to Harper’s statement inside a set of books. Next, other contributors were asked to select a statement from one of the books that resonated with them, and stitch it onto a set of reconfigured Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) blankets. The G20 statement is “machine sewn in formal font” at the centre of the blankets, around which an “ever-increasing corpus of responses” are hand-stitched (100). The project allows Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors to work together on a healing initiative that is never finished, and constantly being added to—much like how the Walking with Our Sisters installation encourages ongoing, active memory-work. In this way, (official denial) trade value in progress allows for a healing conciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous folk that does not place the sole responsibility of healing on the shoulders of the colonized. In this way, settlers “undertake the work of decolonizing themselves as a step in decolonizing the settler colonial regime that underpins the nation state of Canada” (Regan 2). Additionally, the project responds to official narratives of reconciliation in that it directly unpacks and criticizes Stephen Harper’s controversial “apology” that encouraged Indigenous people to “move on” from historical and ongoing trauma. To add another layer of aesthetic action, the fact that the contributor statements are sewn onto the iconic HBC blankets imbeds the project “into a larger context of colonial policies that intersect with economics, land, culture, and sovereignty (Decter and Isaac110). As a project of aesthetic action, (official denial) trade value in progress functions as a healing initiative implicating both Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in the process, and as a critical resistance to the Canadian government’s hypocritical promise of “reconciliation.”

Photo from: https://www.communitynewscommons.org/our-city/politics/official-denial-trade-value-in-progress-a-response-to-stephen-harper/

By unpacking three creative projects, Digital Natives, Walking with Our Sisters, and (official denial) trade value in progress, the role of aesthetic action in allowing Indigenous healing initiatives to take place alongside the critical resistance to official narratives of reconciliation becomes emphasized. For conciliation to be achieved in Canada, the Government of Canada can no longer rely on empty promises of healing through Western-oriented approaches. Indigenous values and worldviews must be embraced in order to continually educate the public and to continually address Indigenous wounds inflicted by the colonial state. While art cannot hold all of the answers for achieving conciliation, as this paper has demonstrated, aesthetic action through the creative arts proves to be an invaluable tool for decolonizing healing for Indigenous peoples and combatting official projects of “reconciliation” that insidiously benefit the colonial project in Canada. In the words of David Garneau “art is not healing in itself, but it can be in relation” (Garneau 39).

Photo from: https://www.communitynewscommons.org/our-city/politics/official-denial-trade-value-in-progress-a-response-to-stephen-harper/

End Notes

1 See MacDonald, David Bruce. The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian residential schools, and the challenge of conciliation. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Works Cited

Aboriginal Healing Foundation. A Healing Journey: Final Report Summary Points. 2006.

Archibald, Linda. Dancing, Singing, Painting, and Speaking the Healing Story: Healing through Creative Arts. Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2012.

Archibald, Linda. Decolonization and Healing: Indigenous Experiences in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Greenland. Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2006.

Archibald, Linda. Final Report of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation Volume III:

Promising Healing Practices in Aboriginal Communities. Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2006.

Decter, Leah and Jaimie Isaac. “Reflections on Unsettling Narratives of Denial.” Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, edited by Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016.

“Digital Natives.” digitalnatives.othersides.ca. Accessed September 2020.

Episkenew, Jo-Ann. Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing. University of Manitoba Press, 2009.

Fontaine, Phil and Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. A Knock on the Door: The Essential History of Residential Schools. University of Manitoba Press, 2016.

Garneau, David. “Imaginary Spaces of Conciliation and Reconciliation.” Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, edited by Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016.

Martin, Keavy, et al. Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin, Editors. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016.

McCall, Sophie, and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill. The Land We Are: Artists & Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation. ARP Books, 2015.

Methot, Suzanne. Legacy: Trauma, Story and Indigenous Healing. ECW Press, 2019.

Robinson, Dylan and Keavy Martin. “The Body is a Resonant Chamber.” Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, edited by Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016.

Regan, Paulette. Unsettling the Settler Within. UBC Press, 2010.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Canada's Residential Schools: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015.

Waldram, James B. Aboriginal Healing in Canada: Studies in Therapeutic Meaning and Practice. Prepared for the National Network for Aboriginal Mental Health Research in partnership with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2008.

“Walking with Our Sisters.” http://walkingwithoursisters.ca. Accessed September 2020.

Wesley-Esquimaux, Cynthia C., and Magdelena Smolewski. Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing. Prepared for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2004.

#orange shirt day #reconciliation #trc #canada #Canadian Politics #indigenous issues #truth and reconciliation #residential schools #walking with out sisters #digital natives #Indian Residential School System #cultural genocide #The Digital Witnesses #Communications Studies #Indigenous Studies #Alyssa Logie

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joshuasantospirito · 6 years ago

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Zine Fair Launch Party The night before the Small Press Zine Fair we’re throwing a party at Studio 65

Friday November 16 $5 entry, bar, 7pm til late Level 3, 65 Murray Street (go up the elevators to the left of Lush on Murray Street)

Facebook event

8pm Read To Me 7 audiovisual stories will be performed LIVE by local and interstate artists. Paul Peart-Smith (Cygnet/UK) Leigh Rigozzi (Koonya) Alyssa Bermudez (Hobart/USA) Logie award winner Tony Thorne (Hobart) Vivienne Cutbush (Hobart), Lucy Adelaide (Hobart) and SPECIAL GUEST from Sydney Meg O’Shea, Ignatz award nominee 2018.

Each of these artists creates personal, thoughtful, occasionally heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious works for adults, skillfully manipulating the comics medium to create powerful, moving content. Their work addresses political themes, issues of identity, memory, and place, and range in form from comic journalism, to philosophy, fiction and biography.

9pm DJ Philistine makes her triumphant comeback!

This event is supported by Island magazine, San Kessto Publications, Read To Me, and 3/65, The Small Press Zine Fair will be on the following day from 1-5pm at the Battery Point Community Hall.

Zine Fair Launch Party Zine Fair Launch Party The night before the Small Press Zine Fair we’re throwing a party at Studio 65…

#Alyssa Bermudez #Animation #Hobart #Joshua Santospirito #Leigh Rigozzi #Lucy Adelaide #Meg O&039;Shea #Paul Peart-Smith #Read To Me #Small Press Zine Fair #Stories #Tony Thorne #Vivienne Cutbush #zines

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dykeza · 6 years ago

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yeehaw fantrolls

Kruiss: 1. Thief of Heart 2. Wears fake gucci 3. Doesn’t understand how the hemospectrum works even tho he’s at the top of it??

Lousic: 1. It’S NOT A PHASE, LUSUS 2. Page of Blood 3. what the fuck are his horns he can’t even function correctly dskjhks

Ringgo: 1. Slept with your lusus 2. Body-builds with fake weights to impress them yellow bloods 3. goes to frats and doesn’t drink

Pennli: 1. Everyone pronounces her name ‘penis’ and shE IS SO FUCKING DON E 2. The HeathersTM 3. i x 4 = iiii am very fuckiiiing sad

Aldiis: 1. bE MO R E CHIIIIILLLLL 2. rogue of light 3. eat shIT LOGI C *she says as she eats 15 glowsticks*

Rianna: 1. Brings medicine 2. kids please i’m only one brown blood not 2 jades 3. likes your mom more than she likes you

Reclus: 1. Wears baseball shirts tucked into sweatpants tucked into socks 2. doesn’t wear face paint it’ll clog up my pours eW 3. sips the coldest of warm teas

Alyssa: 1. Her tea is boiling and her horns are freshly waxed fuck with her 2. cut off her hair and regretted it so she tied it around a ring and reconnected it 3. doesn’t wear makeup she just has really long eyelashes i mean goddamn

#this is so fucking terrible #duilfkhdsuhlsik #homestuck #fantrolls

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reallyimpossibledetective · 7 years ago

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Character Assassination, Reputation Destruction and Denial of Due Process: The Aim of Making Allegations via Media and Social Media

The latest allegations made via the media and social media against an entertainment industry male did not occur in isolation. They are entitled to be seen in a much wider context.

The Chronology

Relevantly the Australian federal government has 30-day invoice payment terms.

On 20 April 2016 Former bank teller, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was invoiced $20,460.76 for staff travel expenses. She took almost a year to pay it back – 355 days.

June 2016 2 Greens Senators failed to do due diligence in relation to their foreign citizenship prior to nominating for the federal election.

Friday 10 June 2016 “In a Friday core team meeting, [Ms Anonymous Victim] reported to the campaign manager and two other staff members that I was being sexually harassed by the man who ended up assaulting me.”

Saturday 2 July 2016 Ms Anonymous Victim claims “On the night of the federal election, driving away from the ACT Greens election party, I was sexually assaulted in the back of a car on Commonwealth Bridge, leaving Parliamentary Circle.”

Saturday 2 July 2016 15 minutes after the alleged assault “the ACT Greens election campaign manager was informed of the assault”

2017 Australian Federal Police are not notified until over a year later. “Police didn’t like my “odds”. There had been no documentation by the [Greens] party of the assault or the preceding harassment to verify my statement. Time had passed and there was no physical evidence.” “Time had passed and there was no physical evidence” That is a consequence of the voluntary decision Ms Anonymous Victim made to not report her alleged assault to the police, but rather to the Greens Party.

Late January 2017 The NSW Greens formulated a sexual harassment policy

Thursday 16 February 2017 The Greens NSW first received a formal complaint about the alleged incident involving journalist Lauren Ingram

Monday 20 February 2017 The member was formally and indefinitely suspended and all member rights were removed.

Apparently Ms Anonymous Victim, the ACT Greens volunteer, had not heard of this and it did not inspire her to go to the police

Sunday 18 June 2017 Journalist Lauren Ingram alleged via her Twitter account that she was sexually assaulted by a NSW Greens party member and former employee

On 11 July 2017 Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was invoiced for a $1234.90 car hire expense. She failed to reimburse taxpayers and pay the invoice for a period of at least 129 days.

Saturday 5 August 2017 ABC published an article contending the NSW Greens knew about Lauren Ingram rape allegations months before taking action. “The man in question has now responded, saying he denies all the allegations. ‘He wrote in an email that he believes that in Australia, justice is served through our established justice system and that it cannot be served through the “social media lynch mob”’

Saturday 5 August 2017 Detective Superintendent Linda Howlett, from the New South Wales sex crimes squad: "The other thing we certainly don't want is for that social media comment to be out before a judge and jury, because it could place doubt on the actual circumstance the investigation or anything the victim might say."

"Until a person is actually convicted, they're innocent in the eyes of the law of that particular offence."

Thursday 5 October 2017 The New York Times published sexual assault claims from actors Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan against Harvey Weinstein Mr Weinstein subsequently denied at least some of the allegations against him.

Sunday 15 October 2017 Actress Alyssa Milano encouraged women to share their tales of sexual harassment and assault on social media using the #MeToo hashtag.

Wednesday 18 October 2017 Journalist Tracey Spicer said on Twitter “Currently, I am investigating two long-term offenders in our media industry. Please, contact me privately to tell your stories.”

Friday 27 October 2017 The High Court found 2 Greens Senators were disqualified from being chosen or sitting in the Senate because they were foreign citizens at the time they nominated for election. Their failure to do due diligence in relation to that foreign citizenship in June 2016 was fatal to their respective cases.

Monday 27 November 2017 Allegations against Channel 9 television personality Don Burke were published. Mr Burke subsequently denied at least some of the allegations against him.

Thursday 30 November 2017 The Daily Telegraph ran a front page story on allegations against Geoffrey Rush. Mr Rush denied the allegations against him.

Saturday 2 December 2017 Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said on Twitter “First Don Burke then Geoffrey Rush. As more & more stories of men in the media and entertainment industry comes out it is up to the rest of us to listen and believe the women who dare to speak out. They are brave and deserve space to be heard”

Monday 4 December 2017 ABC: "the Tele could find itself on the wrong end of a very expensive defamation action."

Friday 8 December 2017 Geoffrey Rush files defamation claim against the Daily Telegraph over misconduct allegations

Friday 15 December 2017 A lawyer and qualified mediator in dispute resolution, Tessa Sullivan resigned from her position on the Melbourne City Council to which she was elected in November 2016. In doing so she made public allegations of sexual harassment, indecent assault and misconduct against Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle.

Sunday 17 December 2017 Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle stood aside for a month pending an independent inquiry into the allegations. He denied the allegations

Saturday 23 December 2017 The article about Ms Anonymous Victim appeared in the Saturday Paper

Wednesday 3 January 2018 Victorian Chief Magistrate Peter Lauritsen said every member of the community is entitled to the presumption of innocence

Sunday 7 January 2018 Allegations are made via the media and social media against an entertainment industry male. He denied the allegations.

Tuesday 9 January 2018 “Human Rights” activist Senator Sarah Hanson-Young gave her support and gratitude to the complainants, but not the rule of law and the presumption of innocence.

Thursday 1 February 2018 "Gold Logie winning actor Craig McLachlan filed defamation proceedings against Fairfax Media and the ABC after they reported on allegations he sexually harassed several former colleagues."

"One of McLachlan's accusers, former co-star Christie Whelan Browne, has also been named in the defamation suit."

Observations Allegations made via the media and social do not have the constraints of complying with due process. Evidence said to support the allegations is often not provided when the allegations are published. Reputation damage occurs to the accused as a result of public commentary, discussion and speculation on the published allegations. That is the aim of their publication. It occurs before any court case which might enable the accused to test, challenge and / or refute the subject allegations. Any statement the accused might make in respect of the allegations published in the media and social media might compromise the approach he or she would take at trial. Not every accused has the wherewithal to institute defamation proceedings against those who have published defamatory allegations and / or commentary. Those defamation proceedings risk repeating the defamatory allegations and / or commentary.

#dueprocess #crime #criminallaw #defamation

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thedigital-witnesses · 7 years ago

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Architecture, Cityscapes and Capitalism: A discussion on Fredric Jameson & Blade Runner

By: Alyssa Logie (MA in Media Studies Candidate, Western University)

In his piece “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, Jameson refers to how postmodern culture, and all analyses of it, are always attached to the nature of capitalism—more specifically, the present state of multinational capitalism (Jameson 558). Jameson urges us to see postmodernism not so much as a style, but as a cultural dominant of late capitalistic logic. He also asserts that the movement towards postmodernism and the subsequent modifications in aesthetic production are “most dramatically visible” in the realm of architecture (557). Jameson’s discussions of architecture intrigued me. He goes on to discuss architecture in more depth, stating:

“Of all the arts, architecture is the closest constitutively to the economic, with which, in the form of commissions and land values, it has a virtually unmediated relationship. It will therefore not be surprising to find the extraordinary flowering of the new postmodern architecture grounded in the patronage of multinational businesses, whose expansion and development is strictly contemporaneous with it” (560).

The “aesthetic new world” (567) of multinational capitalism is most visible in the art of architecture. If we are to view this particular use of aesthetics as related to the nature of capitalism, we must think about how the aestheticization of architecture is directly related to the goals, beliefs and motivations of multinational capitalistic logic. In other words, through architecture, we can most clearly see the hidden motivations and insidious nature of capitalism before us; the blatant expressions of “America military and economic domination” (560) stand before us in the towering and mystifying horizons of our cityscapes. Jameson’s discussions of how architecture reveals the militarized nature of capitalistic aesthetics reminds me greatly of Paul Virilio’s book, Pure War, in which Virilio discusses how everything and everyone in our world is mobilized towards the intentions of war. (A great read, check it out!!!). Virilio asserts that the city is “the result of war…of preparation for war”; the constitution of our cities is based in the perpetual preparation for war (Virilio 19). Virilio also echoes Jameson’s notions of capitalism’s militarization of architecture in his work, “Bunker Archaeology”—he believes that the architecture of war-time bunkers is actually present in our current cityscapes and architecture.

I began to think about Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049’s depictions of capitalistic cityscapes. A common motif of both films are the prolonged shots of sprawling, dark and insidious cityscapes all of which are entirely submersed in advertising culture. The prolonged shots serve to call attention to the economically-dominated spaces of the cities that are, not so deep beneath their shiny, hyperreal surfaces, highly militarized. The cityscapes of both films allude to “how urban squalor can be a delight to the eyes when expressed in commodification” (562)—it is the commodified nature of these spaces that is familiar to us, where we may find comfort in the dark, all-encompassing landscapes of Blade Runner that threaten to “crush human life altogether” (563). This calls to mind Jameson’s discussions of a technological sublime: an experience bordering on terror, the fitful glimpse, in astonishment, stupor and awe…” (563). I think these films are calling us to think about the dual nature of our cityscapes—they are both euphoric, and terrifying. Our cities are not that different than those depicted in Blade Runner (consider how Blade Runner depicts Los Angeles in 2019…). Our cities are exhilarating and anxiety-inducing all at once; the “alienation of daily life in the city can now be experienced in a strange new form of hallucinatory exhilaration” (562). In a sense, the advertisement and commodified nature of our cities seems to conceal the militarized nature of them.

I’d also like to point out how the landscapes in Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 are highly antianthropomorphic—they are not spaces for humans. Think of the sprawling digital advertising boards, the large holographic women and the never-ending display of artificial lights…The highly technical, digitized and mediatized spaces render humans as alien. There is a “derealization of the surrounding world” in which the world has lost its depth, and is reduced to nothing but a “glossy skin…a stereoscopic illusion, a rush of filmic images without density”: postmodern (562).

The current architecture of our international capitalistic societies, as well as the sprawling landscapes of the Blade Runner films reminds us how “throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and terror” (560).

Blade Runner (1982) Los Angeles Cityscape in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx02tM0os7k

#fredric jameson #blade runner #blade runner 2049 #media studies #cultural theory #capitalism #architecture #alyssa logie

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thedigital-witnesses · 7 years ago

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The Body is “Just Visiting”, But the Art Never Dies: David Bowie’s “Lazarus”

On January 10, 2016, the world was shocked and devastated to hear that David Bowie had passed away. Three days before his death, the concept music video for his song “Lazarus” from his final album Blackstar was released. The “Lazarus” music video is Bowie’s final construction of himself as an artist who values self-expression and the creation of art at all costs—even when he was faced with death. The video further perpetuates the image of Bowie as a musical innovator and unparalleled creative energy through the depiction of two images of Bowie: his sick and dying physical body, and his lively and creative energy. The juxtaposition of these two images constructs the idea that although Bowie’s physical self has died, his art and creative energy will live on forever. This is the final image of himself that Bowie had constructed and left behind for the world.

Bowie brilliantly juxtaposed two different images of himself in the “Lazarus” video as a way to construct the final understanding of himself as an artist before he died. He cleverly displayed how although his physical body was dying of cancer, his artistry and creative energy will never die. Viewers are first confronted with the image of Bowie sick and dying in bed. The camera slowly pans the entirety of his body; close-up shots emphasize his translucent and wrinkled skin. It is made clear that he is very ill and close to death. This image of Bowie represents his physical self, one that is rapidly decaying from cancer and facing death. The camera floats freely around Bowie as he lays convulsing in bed. The camera’s movements are highly disorienting and correspond to the lyrics, “I’m so high/ It makes my brain whirl”. These swirling motions mimic Bowie’s disoriented experience from the drugs he had consumed during his illness, highlighting how sick and fragile this version of Bowie was. A mysterious girl is underneath Bowie’s bed; she reaches for him from underneath, inches away from touching his body. She represents death that looms so closely to Bowie’s physical self. Bowie lifts himself from the mattress to resist the hands of death a little longer—he has something more to say to the world.

The second version of Bowie is standing upright; he is still able to dance and perform. This version represents the creative and artistic energies of Bowie that resided inside his physical self. Shots of this version of Bowie feverishly writing at a desk emphasize his need to express himself creatively before his physical body dies and he is no longer capable of doing so. He frantically writes and even scribbles right off the page, to show that he does not have enough time to express everything he needs to say before he dies. Bowie had a lot more creativity to share with the world, but he did not have enough time. The shots of him scrambling to get his ideas down on paper are juxtaposed with images of death (the woman) underneath Bowie’s bed, mimicking the ticking of a clock with her finger as if to say that his time is quickly running out. The editing becomes more and more rapid, and so does Bowie’s writing. The physical vessel from which his creativity was produced through is about to die. The sickly version of Bowie has a bandage around his head, with buttons covering his eyes. The image of buttons over his eyes calls to mind puppets or stuffed animals with button eyes, further contributing to the construction of this empty, physical body in which the creativity and artistry resided. This body was merely a vessel through which his creativity and art flowed. The bandages over Bowie’s eyes are also reminiscent of the 1962 science-fiction film La Jetée, “in which the protagonist is similarly bandaged as part of the technique used to send him on a journey through the fabric of time. A symbol of illness becomes a symbol of exploration” (Boyce 592). Death is but another transcendence or journey for Bowie’s artistry.

The lively version of Bowie is wearing a striped, black and white jumpsuit. This choice of costuming was a very meaningful and deliberate decision on Bowie’s part. This is the same costume Bowie wore in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)—a film that features Bowie as a humanoid alien who comes to Earth from a far-away planet, and then attempts to travel back home (Image 1). Bowie’s character in the film repeatedly remarks that his is “just visiting” Earth. Like Bowie’s character in The Man Who Fell to Earth, the lively version of Bowie in the “Lazarus” video is “just visiting” and returns to wherever he came from before Earth. At the end of the video, Bowie steps into the wardrobe that appears throughout the entirety of the video. This large wardrobe calls to mind associations with other literary works, such as C.S Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which the wardrobe is a portal capable of transporting characters to a different land. Could this symbolize Bowie’s creative spirit transporting to a different place, perhaps back to where it came from before Earth? The wardrobe is also a common place to house various articles of clothing. Bowie was known for his ever-changing personas and imagery. Stepping inside the wardrobe alludes to this collection of personas being stored and remaining present in the world even after Bowie died. This version of Bowie steps into the wardrobe, constructing the idea that his creative and artistic energies are not dying alongside his physical body—they will transcend time and space, living on forever. Both the images of the costume and the wardrobe evoke a sense of transcendence and transportation. This is essential to the image of himself Bowie is constructing in the video. Like his ever-changing personas and imagery in his creative works, he is stating that his creative spirit is simply moving on, or travelling—it is not coming to an end. Death is another transcendence for Bowie’s creative works. The theme of transportation is also evident in the artwork for Bowie’s album Station to Station. Bowie used images directly from the film The Man Who Fell to Earth. Also, the album title Station to Station evokes a sense of moving from place to place. Oddly enough, Bowie has stated that the title Station to Station refers to the stations of the cross—these stations depict Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus resisted death; as does Bowie’s creative and artistic works. This is not the only religious connection in Bowie’s video.

The story of Lazarus rising from the dead is found in the Gospel narrative of John (Encyclopædia Britannica). Jesus had told his followers that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death. This Gospel narrative is essential to the understanding of Bowie’s music video. Bowie portrays his creative artistry as able to resist and transcend death. Death will not stop the impact and perseverance of his creative works and art. Simply the fact that this essay is analyzing his music video post-mortem proves this point—Bowie’s works still, and will always have a lasting impact. Again, the concept of art transcending time is displayed in the video through the image of Bowie in the black and white jumpsuit. This is Bowie as Lazarus: the creative and artistic energies that will not die. They continue to live on post-death. Another religious reference in the video is alluded to through the lyrics. Standing in front of the wardrobe, Bowie sings, “By the time I got to New York/ I was living like a king/ Then I used up all my money”. Bowie then recedes backwards into the wardrobe, as if returning to where he came from. This can be interpreted as a reference to the parable of the prodigal son, who strays from his family to move to the city, loses all of his money, and then returns his father asking for forgiveness. Again, it is important to note the significance of Bowie’s costume here. The biblical allusions in the lyrics and video contribute to the idea that Bowie had come from somewhere else, created his art, and then was ready to return to wherever he came from. In this case, the man who fell to Earth is receding into the wardrobe. The creative energies are transcending time and space. They are being transported; they are not dying. As the image of Bowie in the black and white jumpsuit backs into the wardrobe, the bed-ridden Bowie lays down in bed, his arms open wide as if he is accepting the touch of death. His final message for the world has been constructed, and now his physical self is ready to succumb to the disease.

Bowie’s “Lazarus” video was his final gift and message for the world. As his last chance to construct himself as an artist through music video imagery, “Lazarus” allowed Bowie to remind his fans that although his physical self would not transcend time and escape the hands of death, his art and creative works will never die. His human body was mortal, while his creative works and the images he created as an artist are immortal. Of course Bowie knew exactly what he was doing when he created the “Lazarus” video: “Ain’t that just like me?”, Bowie sings. He is a man whose creative abilities transcend death. Bowie was a true artist to the very end—and beyond.

Works Cited

Bowie, David. “Lazarus.” Blackstar. Dir. Johan Renck. Columbia, 2016. Music Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8.

Boyce, Niall. “Strangers When We Meet: David Bowie, Mortality, and Metamorphosis.” The Lancet 387.10018 (2016): Web. 27 Sept. 2016.

"Lazarus." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 19 Sep. 2016. http://academic.eb.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/levels/collegiate/article/47447. Accessed 27 Sept. 2016.

#David Bowie #Lazarus #Blackstar #Music video #media studies #alyssa logie #digital witness #music video analysis

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thedigital-witnesses · 7 years ago

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Open Your Eyes: Surrealist Cinema and Sigmund Freud

An essay by: Alyssa Logie, MIT & Cinema Studies - Western University.

Jean Goudal has noted that the cinema can be acknowledged as a “conscious hallucination” in the sense that the cinematic experience mimics the habitat of the dreamer (Goudal 89). Cinema as a conscious hallucination is most prevalent in films of the Surrealist movement through their application of Freudian concepts, such as issues of the unconscious and the importance of dreams. The application of Freudian concepts in Surrealist cinema is exemplified in the film Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997) through the film’s emphasis on the unconscious, basic drives, and the blending of dreams and reality. The utilization of these Freudian concepts calls attention to the “union of dream and reality”, allowing for the creation of a superior state of consciousness—absolute reality, or surreality (Magrini 10).

It is first beneficial to provide a brief description of the origins of the Surrealist movement in order more clearly understand its cinematic implications. The Surrealist Movement began in the early 1920s and involved various areas of culture such as art, literature, philosophy and film (Elder 262). In 1924, four key founding events of the movement occurred: André Breton’s publication of the Manifesto du surréalisme (Manifesto of Surrealism); the founding of the Surrealist Research Bureau; the release of the first issue of La révolution surréaliste; and the first issue of Surréalisme (263). These founding events outlined the movement’s principle aim of the “transposition of reality to a superior (artistic) level” (Kovács 25). In his manifesto, Breton described how Surrealism was against traditional and rational logics of thinking. Instead, Surrealism strove to represent the world through the language of dreams, motivations of the unconscious, and the “disinterested play of thought” (Magrini 1). In this way, Surrealism sought to bring together the “modes of the dream (unconscious) and reality (consciousness)” into a superior state of consciousness that was seen as an absolute reality or, “surreality” (1). With Surrealism’s emphasis on dreams and the interplay of reality and unreality, one cannot ignore obvious connections to the works of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

The Persistence of Memory, oil on canvas, by notable surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí, (1931).

The Surrealist Movement in cinema and the works of Sigmund Freud converge in multiple ways. Firstly, Surrealists “embrace Sigmund Freud’s notion that base drives and urges unconsciously form the personality” (Magrini 1). Surrealists attempt to make use of these primal base drives in film due to their creative potential. Freud discusses how base drives from the Id are kept under rational control by the Ego—Surrealists eliminate the rational influence of the Ego and draw explicitly from the primal drives of the Id (2). It is a main goal of Surrealism to force audiences into new modes of perception that diverge drastically from traditional, logical modes. These rational modes of logic are predominant in the classical model of filmmaking; that which relies on the traditional narrative structure. Surrealists seek to “subvert” this commercialized and oppressive cinematic model, providing audiences with a rather different and, perhaps, uncomfortable viewing experience (3). The motif of the eye is quite common in Surrealism, alluding to the importance of questioning traditional modes of sight and perception. This concept is best exemplified in Luis Buñuel’s notorious Surrealist film, Un Chien Andalou (1929). The opening sequence of the film shows a man slicing open a woman’s eye with a razor. This scene is a brutal wakeup call to the audience: Buñuel is calling spectators to destroy their traditional (logical) modes of sight and perception in order to embrace the illogicality of Surrealist film. (Knollmueller 211). Surrealism strives for an illogical mode of perception that can lead to a state of surreality that is more real than reality.

Un Chien Andalou: Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí's Surreal Film (1929).

The Surrealists drew from Freud’s “confirmation of existence of a deep reservoir of unknown and scarcely tapped into energies within the psyche” (Mundy 12). These energies or desires come from what Freud referred to as the unconscious (27). André Breton saw desire as “the authentic voice of the inner self” and as “integral to life itself” (11). Consequently, unconscious desires became a major focus of Surrealist filmmakers who sought to portray a superior mode of consciousness and surreality. In the late 1920s to the 1930s, desire—especially erotic desire—became central to Surrealist works. Surrealists sought to explore “darker aspects” of sexuality and the “deeper workings” of the mind. As such, they turned to Freud’s writings about unconscious sexual desires as a major source of inspiration. (12). Surrealism often includes objects or images that stand in place of “veiled or sublimated impulses and desires” (28). Surrealist objects are extremely personal, and are “symptomatic of an individual’s preoccupations”—their unconscious desires (Frank 16). These objects display the desires of characters through symbolism. Surrealist objects are seen as a point of contact with the unconscious, and offer a more “visual and familiar” representation of unconscious desires (18). However, these objects still maintain a “mysterious and ethereal quality” that distances them from physical reality (19). This integration of the unconscious and physical reality is a major concern of Surrealism, as Surrealists sought to show how the unconscious was a part of waking life, and wanted to encourage people to “embrace unconscious interventions” (18) Not only did Surrealists seek to reconcile the mind’s conscious and unconscious, they also sought to reconcile the realm of dreams and the realm of waking reality (18).

Reply to Red, Yves Tanguy (1943).

Intellectual developments about the importance of dreams had taken place immediately prior to the development of Surrealism. Newly understood aspects about dreams that fascinated Surrealist artists had a lot in common with aspects of film. Most specifically, dreams related to the “savagery” of film; film is immediate, raw, and directly addresses the eye (Elder 265). Artists realized that the “flow of images that bypasses the interpretive faculties” seen in films were much like the flow of images seen in dreams (265). Cinema as a whole is like a representation of a dream, for it “uncannily approximates the associative processes of the mind” and “avoids rational structures of traditional linguistic symbolization” (Magrini 6). Surrealists were against the traditional narrative modes of cinema, as the “form of the dream is not like that of a conventional story” (Elder 282). Breton described how the imperatives of logic and description in narrative forms lead to “false devices like precise descriptions and completely fictional entities” (282). On the contrary, the world of dreams allows for appearance to change “from moment to moment, where space is pliable and time has no meaning… the practice of providing an exact concrete setting for every action seems simply risible” (283). Surrealism denied the logic of the narrative form, and “was a movement that had emerged from the hypnogogic borderland between sleep and waking, where reverie dismantled rational control of the stream of thought” (287). Cinema proved to be the most beneficial medium by which to portray these Surrealist concepts, for the rapid images arrested the logical structures of the mind and could mimic the form of a dream (Magrini 6).

Sigmund Freud.

The Surrealists were very familiar with Freud’s text The Interpretation of Dreams (Frank 14). Freud explained how objects in dreams appeared because they were connected to a number of the individual’s unconscious thoughts (14). For Freud, dreams are based on two key processes: condensation and displacement. Condensation refers to how the unconscious chooses objects to appear in dreams over other objects, while displacement refers to how objects in dreams take on the importance of the thought connected to it (14). Condensation and displacement make it difficult to interpret the meaning of dreams. The content that actually appears in the dream is referred to as the manifest content, while the original thoughts that facilitated the objects are referred to as the latent content (14). The manifest content of dreams can lead to important insights into the inner workings of the individual’s mind, as it is connected to their unconscious desires and thoughts. Freud’s writings on the importance of dreams are applicable to Surrealism because the “bizarre and sometimes inexplicably powerful effect of the surrealist object is comparable to the way in which unimportant objects in dreams seem inordinately important because they have taken on the significance of the thought that they represent” (15). Surrealist objects take on a deeper symbolic meaning of the unconscious workings of an individual’s mind. As such, a Surrealist object “could thus take on as much mystery as a dream object: its significance and the associations it provoked would always be to some degree mysterious because they were elaborated by the unconscious” (15). To better understand how Freudian concepts and Surrealist cinema converge, it is beneficial to take a closer look at a specific Surrealist film.

Open Your Eyes is a Spanish Surrealist film that applies many Freudian concepts in order to depict surreality. The film portrays a young, rich man named César who “spends most of his time playing racquetball, seducing women, sleeping and generally enjoying his double fortune of being both rich and good looking” (Knollmueller 206). César’s face is brutally disfigured in a car accident. Following the accident, César struggles with his new appearance. The film depicts many dream sequences and him relating “what we believe is the rest of his life story to a prison psychologist” (206). The spectator learns by the end of the film that César had actually signed a contract with a company called Life Extension that specializes in cryogenics, and had commit suicide. Much of the film had actually been portrayed César’s life after he had been reanimated in the future, and made to live out a virtual reality.

The most obvious application of a Freudian concept in Open Your Eyes is the film’s constant play between the realms of dream and reality. The viewer is never certain when César is dreaming, and when he is awake, until the truth is revealed at the end of the film. The film is shot in a “realistic mode” with no clear transitions between states of reality and unreality—this is quite characteristic of Surrealist cinema (Knollmueller 206). In his state of virtual reality, César begins to recall memories from his real life. He insists that these are memories of a dream, and stresses that he can “tell the difference between a dream and reality” (206). This statement functions to further disorient the viewer. The film also includes various scenes of César awakening from his slumber. This “oneiric layering” effect produces the illusion of a dream inside a dream, and further entangles the realm of reality with the realm of dreams (212). The film as a whole functions as a “cinematic dream”, as the viewer is forced (in Surrealist tradition) to “decipher the logic of the narrative” (213).

Throughout the film, César recounts what he believes to be dreams to his psychologist—viewers learn by the end of the film that his is actually César’s reality before he committed suicide. The many scenes of César talking to his psychologist exemplify Freud’s notion of “free association” whereby an analyst attempts to discover an unconscious message from the “chain of signifiers produced during an analytic session” (Elder 344-5). Surrealists followed in the tradition of free association by provoking dream-like states through cinematic representations—they felt this could draw them “nearer to the unconscious field of attraction” (345). Surrealists also sought to “intensify the poetic image” through automatist processes inspired by the free association technique of psychoanalysis (267). This is seen in Open Your Eyes through these scenes of free association and psychoanalysis. In one particular scene, César’s psychologist successfully induces him into a hypnotic state. César is then able to tap into his unconscious thoughts and remembers important details about his “dreams”. He recalls the moment when he overdoses on pills to kill himself. When César awakes from his hypnotic state, he believes he has just remembered a dream; however, it is soon revealed that these are actually memories of his real life. This scene alludes to Freud’s emphasis on the importance of dreams and how their manifest content comes from thoughts of the unconscious—the latent content. The psychologist helps César to figure out what is reality and what is virtual reality or a dream. He is like César’s subconscious and acts as a guide in César’s virtual reality. Open Your Eyes complicates Freud’s notion of the importance of dreams through ambiguous representations of dreams and reality. Amenábar uses “ambiguity, irrationality, uncertainty, wish-fulfilment and nightmarish hauntings that characterize our dream state and created a waking dream of ‘conscious hallucination’” (Knollmueller 213). The film ends the same way it begins: a black screen with a woman’s voice saying “Abre los ojos/open your eyes”. The viewer is further confused by this ambiguous ending. Had the entire film been a singular dream of César’s?

Open Your Eyes emphasizes the importance of tapping into unconscious desires as a means of understanding the self in a more complex manner. Surreality is all about “re-examining and re-awakening the neglected, forgotten aspects of existence” (Magrini 11). This is explicitly portrayed in the film while César is in prison. In a particular scene, César overhears the television that other inmates are watching. He recognizes the voice of the man on screen who is speaking about cryogenics. César immediately realizes that his memories of this man are extremely significant. He runs towards the television and demands that an inmate return to the channel with the program featuring cryogenics. In this moment, César realizes that L.E is not a person’s name; it is the name of a company. The image of the man on the television screen opened up “the suppressed unconscious drives and obsessions” that had been haunting César. He is finally able to uncover the meaning of his “dreams” that he has been relaying to his psychologist. The fact that César uncovers the significance of his dreams through a television screen speaks to the importance of the medium of film for helping to “inspire and resurrect a lost vision of the world” and its ability to awaken a “new consciousness” (11). The filmic images allowed César to resolve the worlds of dream and reality and to reveal the meaning of his unconscious obsessions. This scene highlights how “dreams, like film images, present themselves to us when we have immobilized ourselves and rendered ourselves passive. Thus, they can seem to speak to us, to address us immediately and forcefully, from another place” (Elder 265). For both Breton and Freud, it was important to consider “how our dreams are shaped by the remote past, but also how they might be realized concretely in the future” (Mundy 76). Once César understood the significance of his ‘dreams’, he was finally able to ‘wake up’ from his virtual reality, leaving his self-created prison behind.

Duality in Open Your Eyes...

Through an analysis of Amenábar’s Open Your Eyes, the connections between the Surrealist Movement in cinema and the works of Freud become apparent. James M. Magrini has noted that cinema is a “miraculous medium with the greatest potential to inspire and resurrect a lost (mythic) vision of the world” (Magrini 11). Surrealists turned to Freud for their “framework for understanding thinking”, allowing them to bring the states of dream and reality together in an absolute reality—surreality (Elder 348). Surrealism forces audiences to open their eyes to new ways of seeing the world beyond traditional logic. If the Surrealists believed that “the purpose of art was to capture the real essence of thinking”, then cinema is the best medium to perceive the world beyond social convention (Margini 11).

Works Cited

Breton, André. Les Manifestes du Surealisme. Paris: Sagittaire, 1946. Print.

Elder, Bruce. Dada, Surrealism, and the Cinematic Effect. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013. Print.

Frank, Alison. Reframing Reality: The Aesthetics of the Surrealist Object in French and Czech Cinema. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2013. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1961. Print.

Goudal, Jean. "Surrealism and Cinema." The Shadow and Its Shadow. Ed. Paul Hammond. London: British Film Institute, 1979. Print.

Knollmueller, Marit. "Death is a Dream: Placing Abre Los Ojos in a Spanish Tradition." Studies in European Cinema 6.2&3 (2009): 203-14. Print.

Kovács, Steven. From Enchantment to Rage: The Story of Surrealist Cinema. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson, 1980. Print.

Magrini, James M. "Surrealism and the Omnipotence of Cinema." Senses of Cinema: An Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious and Eclectic Discussion of Cinema 44 (2007): Web.

Mundy, Jennifer, et al. Surrealism: Desire Unbound. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print.

#Surrealism #Surrealist Cinema #Open your eyes #andre breton #Alejandro Amenábar #psychoanalysis #freud #sigmund freud #dreams #reality #cinema studies #film studies #alyssa logie #interpretation of dreams

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thedigital-witnesses · 8 years ago

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Lipstick as War Paint: The Bell Jar & the Containment of Women in Cold War America

By: Alyssa E. Logie

Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel, The Bell Jar provides a harsh critique of American Cold War culture. In particular, the novel’s protagonist Esther Greenwood mirrors the struggles faced by American women during the Cold War. Esther demonstrates the negative impacts of the containment of American women created by “Occupation Housewife”—a dominant ideology of Cold War America that contained women within the role of the housewife. Occupation Housewife requires women to uphold the appearance of a perfect wife and mother: a performance of femininity that functions to protect American capitalism from the threat of the Soviet and communist ‘other’. As such, this containment positions women on the front-line of national defence, rendering housewives as “soldiers” during the Cold War. The Bell Jar explores the damaging effects this containment ideology had, and continues to have on women today, through the mental deterioration of Esther Greenwood. Esther’s breakdown is caused by her internal dilemma: she can neither accept the role of the housewife, nor become an intellectual woman. Faced with the impossibility of this decision, Esther Greenwood decides she must kill herself.

After the Second World War and the fight against fascism, Soviet communism began to be seen as another “radical ideology which would ultimately become a similar threat” (Fejer and Talif 2). There was a strong push in America to differentiate the capitalist economic system from the communist system of the Soviet Union. There were efforts put in place to build a strong sense of national community, and the fear for the threat of communism was publicized; both of these tactics would help to distinguish communism as capitalism’s “other” (1). If capitalism was seen as the economic system of the ‘Land of the Free’, then communism was the economic system of an oppressive nation. Capitalism and consumerism were positioned as the source of freedom within the United States—a freedom that communism would surely eradicate if it expanded into American borders. Following this logic, capitalism was seen as something that needed to be protected and contained from the oppressive communism of the Soviet Union. These sentiments of the threat of communism and the importance of the containment of capitalism were evident in a letter written in 1946 by George Kennan, a known advocate of containment policy, in which he states:

The internal harmony of our society [will] be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure (1).

Similar sentiments can be found in a 1967 document entitled “A Statement on Communism”, written by the then director of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover:

We must recognize the communist effort for what it is – an effort to inject poison into the bloodstream of America, to confuse, obscure, and distort America’s vision of itself (Pollard 10).

Building a sense of national community in the U.S. was key in distinguishing Americans and capitalism from Soviets and communism. In order to help build a distinct national community in America, the relationship between people and their country had to be made “naturalized”, whereby citizens would feel required to “fulfil their responsibilities of civic membership and participation” in order to protect the freedom that capitalism provided (2). The nation was now referred to as a ‘home’ that citizens were responsible for protecting from the pending threat of communism. The infamous Nixon-Khrushchev ‘kitchen debate’ of 1959—which took place on the “recreation of an iconic American kitchen at the U.S. exhibition in Sokolini Park”—emphasized these notions of the nation as a home (Pollard 11). During the meeting, Nixon continually referenced the modern American kitchen as a “symbol of his country’s superiority” according to the argument that freedom in the marketplace and modern commodities under capitalism “enabled individuals to have better lives” (11). More importantly, capitalism provided a better life than whatever communism could provide. These beliefs were apparent in Nixon’s rhetorical statements, such as:

“You [Soviets] may be ahead of us in the thrust of your rockets... We [Americans] may be ahead of you... in colour television.” Later, pointing at a panel-controlled washing machine, he observed: “In America, these things are designed to make things easier for our women” (11).

Consequently, the suburban home and the commodities within it came to be represented as “part of the fight against the nightmare of communism” (10). The ideology of the “nation as home” influenced all members of society; however, women seemed to feel these pressures in far heavier ways (Fejer and Talif 2). Nixon’s continual slippage between the terms “women” and “housewife”, and his repeated emphasis on the importance of commodities that were to be used by women in the home, solidified the idea that American women—inside of their suburban homes—were now positioned on the front-line of national security, protecting the United States from the looming threat of Soviet communism. As stated by Paul Virilio, people—in this case, women—had become “civilian soldiers without even knowing it” (Virilio 34).

After World War II, there was a significant push to remove women from their new found positions within the workforce, returning them to their traditional roles as wives and mothers within the private realm of the household. Despite feminist movements of the 1950s, “political and social ideologies of the time were encouraging young women to seek a husband, take care of children, and maintain biological roles” (Fejer and Talif 2). Women were told that in order to “save themselves, their children, and indeed, the very fabric of America, [they] needed to return the workplace to its rightful inhabitants, men” (Straughen 31). This revival of domesticity had a “politically radicalizing effect”, as many women felt it was now their responsibility to defend America during the Cold War from inside the confines of their homes (Nickerson 17). Karen Anderson sums up the new found place for women within Cold War America quite eloquently:

Anti-Communism was a cultural package that was very appealing to many Americans… Advocates of conventional gender roles advanced the idea that women who were subordinated and domestic produced happy and patriotic husbands and sons who would have the masculine strength to fight against the enemies of capitalism at home and abroad… Women who worked for pay or who were sexually active outside of marriage threatened the domestic foundations of America’s international and economic strength (Anderson 31).

Women had become enlisted as anti-communist soldiers within the home, looking up to public figures such as J. Edgar Hoover, who “believed women could support FBI efforts to find communists in American society” and helped to fuel suburban women’s anti-communism “activism” (Nickerson 18). Women were now invited to become “political” in their own homes in order to protect the nation, as the “threat of ‘Godless’ communism gave women a mandate to become more assertive in their roles as the upholders of spiritual and civic virtues” (19). Amy Kaplan refers to this phenomenon as “manifest domesticity”, stating:

If domesticity plays a key role in imagining the nation as home, then women, positioned at the center of the home, play a major role in defining the contours of the nation and its shifting borders with the foreign (Baldwin 28).

Under this rationale, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the family became seen as legitimate actions women could take to protect their country from the threat of communism. Betty Friedan also describes this new duty of the American woman within the confines of her home in her book, The Feminine Mystique—she calls it “Occupation Housewife” (Friedan 19).

Occupation Housewife not only describes how women were to protect their country by returning to their ‘traditional’ positions as wives and mothers, but also how consumerism was intrinsically tied to the woman’s role within the home. Within the suburban home, women were “subject to the massive influence of the media that reinforced the interest of the market” (Fejer and Talif 2). Friedan describes how the housewife was the ideal embodiment of femininity, and apparently had “everything that women ever dreamed of”—she was surrounded by magnificent new commodities that eased their household work and motherly duties, she was “freed by science and labor-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth and the illnesses of her grandmother” (Friedan18). A woman’s identity became tied up with household objects and commodities of the beauty and fashion industries. However, Friedan exposes how these images of the perfect and happy housewife were entirely false, as “lot of women who had accepted their prescribed role, ironically, found themselves quite discontented, excessively tired, and with no enthusiasm” (Fejer and Talif 2). Women bound to the role of the housewife were typically “doomed to suffer ultimately that bored, diffuse feeling of purposelessness, nonexistence, non-involvement with the world that can be called anomie, or lack of identity” (Friedan 181). The household became a “comfortable concentration camp” for women (18). Such feelings of womanly despair and entrapment are articulated and explored within Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar.

Sylvia Plath explores this “uncanny sense of perpetual female entrapment” caused by Occupation Housewife within her novel The Bell Jar, which was first published under a pseudonym in 1963, two weeks before the author’s suicide (Baldwin 21). The novel follows Esther’s descent into madness instigated by the stifling culture and ideologies of Cold War America, as well as her so-called recovery. Esther’s journey mirrors the struggles of women during first wave feminism; “their entrapment between their own desires on one side and political and societal commitments on the other” (Fejer and Talif 4). Esther struggles between not wanting to abide by the dominant ideologies of femininity, such as becoming a picture perfect housewife, and wanting to become her own person. She wants to be a working woman, a writer and an individual, but she does not want to be ostracised from society in the way working women typically were. Ultimately, her problem is “how to combine between being a woman” according to societal guidelines, “and a writer at the same time” (4). Many women during this time tried to balance both fulfilling their female roles housewives, and having their own individuality and career aspirations. However, they typically “lost one for the sake of the other, and in both cases, women were miserable.” (3). The specific ways in which Esther Greenwood reflects the reality of women in Post War America will be analyzed in more detail.

To be a proper woman during this time was to “be an attractive object of the male gaze” (Ferretter 138). More specifically, a woman was to be the picture perfect image of femininity in order to make her husband happy. Popular magazines during the Cold War continually told women that if they were to get a husband or a job, they must be attractive to men. For example, an article in Woman’s Guide to Better Living said that “a wife who is habitually slovenly and dowdy is neither a happy thought for a husband nor a pleasant sight to meet. The desire to come home to it, the courage to face it, gradually and slowly weakens” (139). If a woman was not attractive, her family would suffer because of it. Ultimately, it was the upholding of the nuclear family that would protect Americans from the threat of the Soviet other. So, if a woman could not maintain the ideal image of femininity, she was not only letting her family down—she was threatening the security of the entire nation. Esther is fascinated by commodities of the beauty and fashion industries, as well as her own appearance and the appearance of other women. She continually describes the appearance of other women in great detail, alluding to how embedded she has become into the ideology of upholding the image of femininity. After her suicide attempt, Esther looks at herself in a mirror. Her nurse does not want Esther to look into the mirror because she does not “look very pretty” (Plath 183). However, Esther insists and sees her incredibly disfigured reflection. To not abide by the dominant ideologies of femininity is to become extremely unattractive in the eyes of society—to the point where Esther cannot “tell whether the person in the picture was a man or a woman” (183). It is notable that Esther refers to the image in the mirror as a picture, and not a reflection. She cannot accept that this ugly reflection is her own. Esther smashes the mirror, as she knows that if she wants to become integrated back into society again, she will have to abide by the expectations of beautiful feminine appearance.

One of the main reasons why Esther Greenwood is conflicted with society’s dominant ideology of women as housewives, is that she wants to be a working woman. Throughout the novel, Esther struggles with the idea of not being able to make something of herself other than a wife and mother. However, Esther also does not want to become ostracized by society, as she is obsessed with maintaining her appearance and cares greatly about the appearance of others. Esther’s desire to become a working woman, yet hesitance towards not appearing as feminine enough, is made evident when she is looking at the Russian interpreter. Esther describes the woman as a “stern muscular Russian girl with no make-up who was a simultaneous interpreter like Constantin” (Plath 79). She then goes on to say that she wishes with all her heart that she could “crawl into her” (79). In these statements, Esther points out how the Russian woman is able work just like a man. However, Esther’s statements also allude to how the working woman is perceived by American society. Esther describes the woman as masculine in appearance, specifically noting that she does not wear any make-up. As such, in the eyes of American society, working women are not feminine. If a woman works, she cannot fit into the role of the housewife, and she is not a protector of American “freedom”. It is no coincidence that the working woman is Russian: she is the communist ‘other’. To be a working woman in America is to be ‘othered’ as someone who does not stand for American freedom and capitalism; it is to become an enemy of the nation. This sequence points to how “U.S. Cold War femininity is caught up in the weird performance…of the Soviet other” (Baldwin 31).

Esther knows that she will be ostracized by society if she chooses a career in writing over becoming a housewife. She tries to think about how life would be if she could just become a mother and wife like other women. Esther continually fantasizes about becoming like Dado Conway, a mother of six children who lives on her street. However, these fantasies typically end in frustration, as Esther simply cannot envision herself “devoting [herself] to a baby after fat puling baby like Dado Conway” (Plath 212). However, Esther has difficulty envisioning herself as a professional writer and working woman too. This is evident when Esther is talking to the famous woman poet at her university. While the poet encourages Esther to consider other options besides becoming a mother, “but what about your career?” she asks, Esther continues to reject this possibility despite the famous woman poet standing right in front of her (232). As such, Esther cannot envision herself abiding by the dominant notions of femininity, but she can also not envision herself subverting these expectations. Esther’s inability to choose a future life for herself because of these conflicting possibilities is exemplified in her reverie about the fig tree:

One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and the other fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor . . . and beyond and above these figs were many figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet (Plath 81).

Because Esther is so conflicted about her life options, knowing that she must choose between what is expected of her or becoming non-feminine in the eyes of society, she instead becomes like one of the figs—she rots and decays.

Women during this time were considered successful if they could find a proper husband whom they could serve and make happy. Many magazines of the time frequented advice for young women on how to attract a man; one of the most popular pieces of advice was to “never appear more intelligent than [a man]” (Plath 141). To be a desirable woman is to be passive. Not only does Esther want to be a working woman, she wants to be a writer and poet—a profession which is almost always cast-off as irrelevant in society. A woman who wanted to be an intellectual and a writer would have an even harder time finding a husband. In her relationship with Buddy Willard, Esther’s intelligence is continually dismissed; her interests in creative writing and poetry are seen as inferior as compared to Buddy’s interests in medical science. This is evident in a conversation between Buddy and Esther, when Buddy refers to a poem as “a piece of dust” (59). Esther does not defend herself, but a year later realizes what she wished she could have said. She wishes she had told Buddy that his cadavers were dust too:

People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick or couldn't sleep” (59).

This quote emphasizes how Esther’s art could not be taken seriously by men during this time, as it did not contribute to her role as a housewife. Esther’s passions and desires are disregarded as frivolous and unimportant. Being an intellectual woman would alienate her from finding a husband, and consequently, from society as a whole. To be an intellectual woman, or to become “the arrow” instead of “the place an arrow shoots off from” is to “cease to exist as a woman in the way that the concept of woman is publically defined” (Plath 88, Ferretter 148). To be an intellectual woman is to become an enemy of the state; to become completely ostracized. Esther comes to realize that there is “no way in the American society of the 1950s, that a talented woman could successfully combine a career with homemaking” (Smith 2). Plath herself wrote of this conflict in one of her journals from 1951:

My greatest trouble, arising from my basic and egoistic self-love, is jealousy. I am jealous of men . . . it is an envy born of the desire to be active and doing, not passive and listening. I envy the man his physical freedom to lead a double life—his career, and his sexual and family life. I can pretend to forget my envy; no matter, it is there, insidious, malignant, latent (Fejer and Talif 5).

Esther and Plath are both conflicted due to being women in “a society whose guidelines for women she can neither accept nor reject” (5).

Plath’s novel provides a deep criticism of how the institution of psychiatry functioned to punish women for not abiding by the expectations of femininity, and how the institution rehabilitates women so they can re-enter society as “proper” women. Psychiatry was a highly patriarchal practice during this time and was an institution that “posits certain misogynist views of women and sex-role stereotypes as ‘scientific’ or ‘curative’” (133). In 1960, 85% of clinical psychiatrists were men (129). Esther is deemed mentally ill because she “was failing to conform to cultural norms of femininity” (Ferretter 133). She feels great anger towards her male doctor, Dr. Gordon—especially the picture of his nuclear family on his desk. Dr. Gordon holds the nuclear family with a perfect housewife as the solution to Esther’s problem; however, it is actually the cause of her mental deterioration.

The novel opens with Esther pondering the electrocution of the Rosenburgs, saying that “the idea of being electrocuted makes [her] sick” (Plath 1). Esther correlates the electrocution of the Rosenburgs with her electroshock therapy; she sees ECT as a patriarchal punishment for rejecting her feminine role in society. Before her first shock treatment, Esther wonders “what terrible thing… [she] had done”, emphasizing how she equates the therapy with punishment for a crime (Plath 138). Ethel Rosenberg’s “status as a bad mother—an image the press went to great pains to construct—stays with Esther as a reminder that she must conform to the era’s dictates and be a good mother” (Baldwin 25). In the words of Paul Virilio, “the anti-militarist is… someone who attacks man” (Virilio 33). To be a bad mother and to not uphold the ideal image of femininity is to become the Soviet ‘other’, and to become a threat to America’s security.

The end of Plath’s novel is quite ambiguous. However, a passage at the very beginning provides some important insights. Esther describes how she had hidden away the makeup products the magazine company had given her while she was sick. But later, when she was “all right again”, she brought them back out—she even uses the lipsticks every “now and then” (Plath 3). It is clear that Esther decides to conform to society’s ideal image of femininity to prevent from being ostracized and seen as an ‘other’ in her nation. Esther is still concerned with her appearance, and it is her performance of proper femininity that leads to her release from the asylum:

My stocking seams were straight, my black shoes were cracked, but polished, and my red wool suit as flamboyant as my plans. Something old, something new… (Plath 257).

Esther “could neither make change nor adjust the situation, so she finally reaches a dead-end” in which she must abide by the contained version of femininity in order to become reintegrated into society (Fejer and Talif 10). While Esther does wish to reject the domestic containment of the housewife role, she still must perform dominant notions of femininity in order to be accepted by society. As a woman, to not wake up every morning and put on your lipstick is to become an ‘other’—to become an enemy of the nation, and a threat to national security.

“Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky tacky,

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes all the same…

And they all play on the golf course

And drink their martinis dry,

And they all have pretty children

And the children go to school…

And then to the university,

Where they are put in boxes

And they come out all the same.”

—Malvina Reynolds, Little Boxes (1962)

Works Cited

Anderson, Karen. “Engendering Post-1945 U.S. History.” American Historical Association Perspectives, 1998. Print.

Baldwin, Kate A. “The Radical Imaginary of ‘The Bell Jar’.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 38, no. 1, 2004, pp. 21-40. Print.

Fejer, Azhar N., and Rosli Talif. “Individual Mobility and the Sense of “Deadlock.” SAGE Open, vol. 4, no. 3, 2014. Print.

Ferretter, Luke. Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2010. Print.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.

Nickerson, Michelle. “Women, Domesticity, and Postwar Conservatism.” OAH Magazine of History, vol. 17, no. 2, 2003, pp. 17–21. Print.

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1999. Print.

Pollard, Claire. “Her Kind: Anne Sexton, the Cold War and the Idea of the Housewife.” Critical Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1-24. Print.

Malvina Reynolds. Little Boxes. 1962. Audio.

Smith, Caroline J. “'The Feeding of Young Women': Sylvia Plath's the Bell Jar, Mademoiselle Magazine, and the Domestic Ideal.” College Literature (West Chester Univ., PA), vol. 37, no. 4, 2010, pp. 1. Print.

Virilio, Paul. Pure War. New York: Semiotexte, 1983. Print.

#Sylvia Plath #The Bell Jar #Feminism #Cold War #America #Housewife #Depression #Mental Health #Communism #Capitalism #Media Studies #The Feminine Mystique #Pure War #Femininity #Digital Witness #Alyssa Logie

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thedigital-witnesses · 8 years ago

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What Does Being a Canadian Aboriginal Mean to You?: The Importance of Indigenous Self-Identification in Canada

An Essay by: Alyssa Logie, Western University, (BA in MIT)

According to Andrew Woolford, the first step of controlling a group of people is to “define the population to be controlled” (Woolford 84). Therefore, it is highly problematic that the Canadian government gets to determine who is Aboriginal and who is not. In Canada, a person is only seen as legally native if they adhere to parameters laid out and decided upon by the Canadian government through the Indian Act. This paper will explore the impacts of not allowing people to self-identify as Aboriginal in Canada, as well as how the UNGC’s definition of genocide “fails to capture Canadian Aboriginal notions of being”, allowing the traumatic events of colonialism and residential schools to go unrecognized as a genocide in the eyes of both the government and the Canadian public (82).

The non-Aboriginal signification of who is considered Aboriginal in Canada was largely solidified by the 1876 Indian Act—a statute that is still followed today. The Indian Act is a “Canadian Act of Parliament” that organizes relations between the Canadian state and the 614 First Nation bands in Canada (Fullerton-Owl 1). The Indian Act has been altered many times due to great controversy and discontent by both native and non-native Canadians; the legislation has undergone over twenty-two “major changes” since its creation in 1867. However, the main purposes of the initial act remain intact: to “define how reserves and bands can operate” and to “define who is, and who is not recognized as an ‘Indian’ through ‘status’ or ‘registration’” (1). A Canadian woman identified as Aboriginal according to the Indian Act stated that “the government’s definition of who I am is different than who I say I am” (Council of Ontario Universities 38). Many Aboriginals share this feeling that the Indian Act does not define what it really means to identify as Aboriginal from an Aboriginal perspective. The Indian Act violently suppresses Aboriginal notions of identity, and “does not give pattern, reason or logic to the rhythm of First Nations ‘dialogue.’ Yet, it speaks directly to, it speaks directly for, and speaks directly against First Nations cultural integrity, political autonomy and human dignity” (Fullerton-Owl 1).

Ontario “Indian Status ID Card”.

New amendments to the Indian Act continually reduce the number of Canadians who can be officially regarded as “status Indian”. The fine-tuning of the legislation is particularly violent towards native women and their children, as more and more women who self-identify as native are no longer considered “status” in the eyes of the Canadian government. Canadian lawyer, Pam Palmater stated that “every time they just tinker with [the Indian Act] a little tiny bit, they create new forms of discrimination and leave out people and they have to tinker with it again to try and fix that” (Narine 7). For example, before amendment C-31, “status women who married non-status men, lost their status. Men, on the other hand, who married non-status women, not only retained their status, their non-status wives and their children could gain status” (7). Amendment C-31 attempted to deal with this obvious gender discrimination within the Indian Act; however, it caused further discrimination against some children by granting status to those “whose status grandparent was a man, but not to those whose status grandparent was a woman” (George and Fiske 10). The unclear definitions and gender-biased conditions surrounding the requirements for status leave many Canadians who self-identify as native disillusioned and disconnected from their communities. During an interview for this paper, Kaytee Dalton from the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations band said that “It’s frustrating to see so many native folks feeling displaced from communities and resources simply because the government gets to decide who is ‘status’ and who isn’t” (Dalton).

Kaytee Dalton, Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations.

“Blood quantum” is another official mechanism of controlling and limiting the number of Canadians who can be considered status Indian; however, the practice is not widely known or understood by the Canadian public. Blood quantum was “created by colonial governments and eventually adopted by large bands like Six Nations” (Dalton). The practice disallows people from living within their own communities or to be recognized if “their DNA isn’t ‘native-enough’” (Dalton). Sokolow provides a useful definition for the practice:

The term "blood quantum" is used to refer to the fraction of Indian blood present in an individual applying for membership in a federally recognized Indian tribe. To count toward membership in a federally recognized Indian tribe, Indian blood must be that of a recognized tribe. A person can have blood from more than one Indian tribe, but most tribal constitutions and existing federal law allows a person to claim membership in only one Indian tribe (Sokolow 12).

Dalton worries about how blood quantum may negatively impact the survival of indigenous bands across Canada, including her own:

If my band used blood quantum, nobody in my family would be status and our community would consist of maybe a hundred people—it’s been a tool of eradication, assimilation and erasure both here and in the States for so long. It ostracises people from their own community and culture. For small communities like New Credit, we would be virtually non-existent if we had adopted blood quantum practices. I believe the reason we didn’t was because New Credit converted to Christianity a few years before the residential system was put into place—we were already ‘assimilated’ (Dalton).

Even if blood quantum was eliminated within Aboriginal bands, The Indian Act would still alienate large members of the Canadian population from associating with their native communities and culture—so, “blood quantum or not, the status system is also a tool of erasure” (Dalton). As time goes on, fewer and fewer Canadians will be officially recognized as status Indian—to the point where some native bands may cease to exist altogether.

Woolford considers such statutes as “Eurocentric tools for reframing native lifeworlds” rather than “resources for native justice” (Woolford 89). It is crucial that European notions of group identity are not forced upon native populations who form entirely different notions for themselves. Aboriginal notions of identity differ quite significantly from Eurocentric notions of identity. For example, territory and culture are essential components of Aboriginal identity, and “First Nations’ dialogue, past, present and future, is grounded in the inherent right and inherent responsibility to protect and preserve our land, language, stories, traditions, customs and laws with cultural integrity and dignity”—all of which are overlooked and neglected by the Indian Act (Fullerton-Owl 1).

The inability for Canadian Aboriginals to self-identify not only impacts the daily lives of natives today, it also obscures events of the past. Aboriginal notions of identity are not included in the United Nations Global Compact’s definition of genocide. As such, perhaps the UNGC’s definition is not adequate to be applied to native groups, as it does not properly encapsulate how native groups define themselves. With the establishment of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the term ‘genocide’ “has come to occupy a prominent position within Canadian mainstream public dialogue”; however, it is usually used in conjunction with the pre-fix “cultural” (391). The trauma and devastation to native communities caused by settler-colonialism and the residential school system is often referred to as “cultural genocide” and not just genocide (Wildcat 391). However, it is important to remember that Aboriginal notions of identity include cultural elements such as land, language, stories, traditions, customs and laws. If these elements were destructed during colonialism and as a result of residential schools, would this not be seen as a genocide in the eyes of Canadian Aboriginals? Members of indigenous communities across Canada still face trauma associated with the aftermath of years of abuse and hardships stemming from Canada’s dark colonial past. As stated by Matthew Wildcat, “If an Indigenous person who continues to have constant experiences of trauma claims that what happened to Indigenous peoples in the Americas is genocide, what is accomplished by denying their claim?” (393). Wildfoot reminds Canadians that it is crucial to remain “sympathetic to the perspective that Indigenous peoples feel [their] communities are under attack”, and that “if processes of group destruction directed against Indigenous peoples continue in the present, is this not a worthy definition of genocide?” (393). When trying to define events of the past as genocide, perspectives of the victim should be placed at the forefront—not definitions created by Eurocentric institutions and governments who had a hand in settler-colonialism in the first place.

The distinction between cultural-genocide and genocide when dealing with indigenous communities is also problematic because under both definitions the end result remained the same: “the destruction of Indigenous collectivities” (Wildfoot 394). Also, “the imposition on a people of the procedures and techniques that are generally glossed as ‘cultural genocide’ is certainly going to have a direct impact on that people’s capacity to stay alive”, as the “acts of violence, coercion, hegemony and duress needed to ensure settler ascendency are inherently destructive to Indigenous collectivities” (394). Claudia Card describes how the “social death” caused by colonialism distinguishes the “true evil of genocides from other mass atrocities” (397). This is because social death destroys the “social vitality of a community that gives life meaning” (397). If life has no meaning, is it really even a life truly lived? Card’s notion of social death is a reminder of the importance of turning to subjective understandings of genocide—the lived experience and understandings of genocide from the perspectives of natives themselves should be the foundational definitions of genocide. As stated by Wildfoot:

We may uncover new and important ways of researching genocide if we start with Indigenous peoples’ self-understandings of how the Canadian state and society seek to enact the destruction of our communities. If we begin discussions from the self-understandings of Indigenous peoples, the tenor of the discussion has to shift from an exercise in how we assess the severity of violence, to one in which we discuss (and confront) why Indigenous peoples have insisted emphatically and forcefully over time that we are victims of genocide. (406).

There have been some efforts made in Canada in order to ‘allow’ Aboriginals to self-identify. Many universities have made strides to enable prospective and current students to self-identify as Aboriginal through the Aboriginal Self-Identification Project. This project is being implemented in schools across Canada in order to boost inclusion and diversity and to respect the autonomy of Aboriginal students, as well as to respect indigenous knowledge, language and cultures (Council of Ontario Universities 40). While the project still has a long way to go, it is certainty progressive to see government-funded institutions such as universities making steps to enable Canadian Aboriginals to self-identify. David Fullerton-Owl urges Canadians to take on a more ethical approach to identity, in which “the dialogic rhythms are sent and received in a respectful way, which appreciates different worldviews for coexisting equal nations. No one nation is speaking for the other” (Fullerton-Owl 1). The Indian Act and the definition of genocide under the UNGC certainty do not allow for this sort of “dialogic rhythm”—they inhibit Aboriginals from defining their own lives and death. From a cultural perspective, “self-identification includes self-knowledge, self-affirmation, and self-empowerment of ethnically and culturally different individuals and groups”, all of which are necessary elements for the ability of communities to succeed and continue to flourish over time (Young 51).

Kaytee Dalton sums up the primary goal of the Indian Act and other Eurocentric statutes quite eloquently: “Not allowing people to self-identify just furthers the government’s original agenda of forcing us out of our communities and detaching us from our culture, ultimately assimilating us into ‘Canadian Culture’—whatever that means” (Dalton). The only way to amend such Eurocentric failures of the UNGC and other government statutes is to actually “engage with Canadian Aboriginal experience and understandings of group identity”, as well as Aboriginal definitions of “destruction” and “intent” (Woolford 93). Who are non-indigenous people to decide who is native or not, and what constitutes a genocide of their peoples or not? Indigenous perspectives should be the primary source for defining their own identity, as well as their destruction.

Works Cited

Council of Ontario Universities. Aboriginal Self-Identification Project Final Report, Council of Ontario Universities, 2013. Print.

Dalton, Kaytee. Personal interview. 16 Mar. 2017.

Fullerton-Owl, David. Titanic Canada: The Indian Act, 1876. vol. 24, Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta (AMMSA), 2007. Print.

George, Evelyn, and Jo-Anne Fiske. Seeking Alternatives to Bill C-31: From Cultural Trauma to Cultural Revitalization through Customary Law. Status of Women Canada, 2006. Print.

Narine, Shari. Canada Continues to Fail Indigenous Women Under the Indian Act. vol. 34, Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta (AMMSA), 2016. Print.

Sokolow, G. A. Native Americans and the Law: A Dictionary. Abc-Clio Incorporated, 2000. Print.

Wall, Goldlin H. Native American Students: Blood Quantum, Identity, and Educational Success, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2015. Web.

Wildcat, Matthew. "Fearing Social and Cultural Death: Genocide and Elimination in Settler Colonial Canada—an Indigenous Perspective." Journal of Genocide Research 17.4 (2015): 391-409. Web.

Woolford, Andrew. "Ontological Destruction: Genocide and Canadian Aboriginal Peoples." Genocide Studies and Prevention, vol. 4 no. 1, 2009, pp. 81-97. Print.

Young, Bernard. "The Importance of Self-Identification in Art, Culture, and Ethnicity." Art Education, vol. 66, no. 4, 2013. Print.

#Canada 150 #Canadian Politics #indigenous issues #Indian Act #Genocide #aboriginal #Culture #Cultural Genocide #Residential Schools #Canadian History #Self-Identification #Blood Quantum

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thedigital-witnesses · 8 years ago

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The Carnivalesque and Redemption for Marginalized Members of Society

A Scene Analysis of I am Legend - Alyssa E. Logie

Francis Lawrence’s film I am Legend (2007) portrays Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque, as marginalized members of society are given temporary power and agency during the near-apocalypse caused by the Krippin Virus outbreak. This paper will closely analyze a sequence from the ending of the film that effectively encapsulates Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque, portraying the short-lived inversion of social hierarchy, the return to hegemonic normalcy, as well as hope for the “distant possibility” of permanent future change to the social hierarchy (Bruce 5).

Mikhail Bakhtin coined the term “carnivalesque” to describe social relations that occurred during “carnival celebrations in medieval Europe” (Bruce 5). The carnival is a “limited time period” in which the social hierarchy is “turned upside down”; people who are normally at the bottom of the social hierarchy have a brief period of time in which they can be granted power over people who are normally situated at the top of the social hierarchy (5). Such temporary inversions of the social hierarchy are “transgressive, but contained: the hegemony sanctioned these festivals, and their power was never truly disrupted or overturned” (5). While the carnivalesque does not lead to any “social reform”, it does suggest that “at some point in the future, things could change” (Bruce 5).

Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque can be applied to the film I am Legend. The protagonist, Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a black virologist who resides in the ruins of New York City, where most of the population has either been killed or turned into blood-hungry zombies by a cancer cure gone wrong—the Krippin Virus (KV). People of colour are usually placed at the bottom of the social hierarchy underneath white members of society, the police force and military power. Neville has temporary power and agency during this time of unusual circumstances because New York City has become a location free of police or military power, and KV has created a zombie ‘other’ that temporarily takes the place at the bottom of social hierarchy. These unusual circumstances allow other previously marginalized people, such as people of colour, women and children, to have “temporary power over people who are normally situated at the top of the social hierarchy (Bruce 5).

Figure 1: Destruction of normalcy

A sequence at the ending of the film portraying Neville’s final struggle to combat the zombies (1:24:25—1:31:55) articulates Bakhtin’s concept quite well. At the beginning of the sequence, a zombie is tearing away at the roof of Neville’s home (Figure 1). The home is typically seen as a symbol of stability within western culture. The zombie is symbolically destructing the state of normalcy and stability, rendering this situation as a carnivalesque period of time. After Neville kills the zombie and frees Anna (Alice Braga) and her son—who are typically marginalized members of society as a woman and child of colour— he peers through a slot in a window to see a large group of zombies heading towards the home. The slot frames Neville’s reaction to the horrific scene outside, emphasizing how this is an unordinary and carnivalesque situation for Neville to be witnessing (Figure 2). The zombies climb the walls of the home and then brutally enter the safe space, signifying a time of complete chaos and the inversion of normalcy. When the safety of the home has been destroyed, Neville, Anna and her son must flee to the basement lab where they become contained within a small glass room. Once inside the glass room, Anna notices that a serum Neville created is successfully returning a sedated zombie back to normal: the zombie’s skin is returning to a normal shade of white (Figure 3). Neville has found the cure for KV, but with this breakthrough he also is putting an end to his temporary positon of power; white privilege is symbolically being restored directly in front of him.

Figure 2: Witnessing the carnivalesque

Figure 3: Return to whiteness, beginning of the end of the carnivalesque

The zombies violently propel themselves against the glass doors and the glass slowly shatters, symbolizing the inevitable breakdown and fragility of Neville and Anna’s temporary position of power. Neville tries to stop the zombies, “You are sick and I can help you!” he pleads, but the zombies disregard his cries and continue to smash the glass. As a person of colour, Neville is not capable of stopping the zombies himself. Suddenly, Neville notices that the smashed glass resembles a butterfly and he is reminded of the words of his late daughter Marley, “Look, Daddy! A Butterfly”. These words of a black female child—the ultimate marginalized member of society—as well as the butterfly tattoo on Anna’s neck, remind Neville of his actual place at bottom of the social hierarchy, and that his time of power is limited. He can be the one to discover the cure, but he will not have the social power as a black man to implement it. Neville realizes the cure is in the zombie’s blood”—whiteness will return the social order back to normal, ending the carnivalesque state. Neville ushers Anna and her son into an even smaller contained space, symbolizing how their power is being reduced even more, and then blows himself up to kill the invading zombies. Neville’s temporary position of power has come to an end; he kills himself because he knows he cannot retain this power when normalcy is put back into place by the cure. The only thing he can do is sacrifice himself so that Anna can give the serum to a member of society with higher power than them so that it can be utilized.

Figure 4: Return to normalcy and the hegemonic social hierarchy

At the end of the sequence, Anna and her son arrive at the gates of a new community. Anna hands the vile of zombie blood over to a military officer, symbolizing how she can be the transmitter of the cure, but she does not have the power to implement it. Marginalized members of society must return to their place within the normal hegemonic social hierarchy (Figure 4). This scene highlights how the carnivalesque allows for a short-lived liberation for the “subject oppressed through ideological conventions” through which a “distant possibility of change” is presented, but “never close enough to become the object of a thoroughgoing examination” (Matthews 27-30). However, I am Legend does express the possibility of permanent alterations to the social hierarchy, as the film ends with Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”, the last song on Marley’s final album before he died. The song is the story of a black man who has been persecuted by society, but knows he will seek redemption one day through the collective action of fellow oppressed members of society. It is no coincidence that Neville’s daughter is named Marley: she represents a marginalized member of society who must rise up to invert the social hierarchy permanently. It is also important to note that the military officers who welcome Anna into the new community are men of colour (Figure 5). This detail suggests that although social reform has not happened yet, there is still hope for the future. The military is still positioned at the top of the social hierarchy, but at least people of colour can hold these positons of power. In this way, I am Legend provides a progressive image for marginalized members of society through the implication of a carnivalesque situation and the proposed potential for permanent social reform.

Figure 5: Hope for permanent social reform

Works Cited

Bruce, Barbara. “Shaun of the Dead.” Owl Lecture, 2012. Web.

I am Legend. Dir. Francis Lawrence, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. Film.

Matthews, Nicole. “Is Parody Political?” Comic Politics: Gender in Hollywood Comedy After the New Right. Manchester, UK: Manchester UP, 2000. 12-50. Print.

#I am Legend #Will Smith #Zombies #Zombie Film #Carnivalesque #Film Analysis #Film Studies #POC #Marginalized #Power of Cinema #Redemption #Bob Marley #Reform

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