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dweemeister · 3 years

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Best Live Action Short Film Nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards (2021, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

NOTE: For viewers in the United States (continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawai’i) who would like to watch the Oscar-nominated short film packages, click here. For virtual cinemas, you can purchase the packages individually or all three at once. You can find info about reopened theaters that are playing the packages in that link. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages. No pandemic was going to stop me this year, as I was able to view the short film packages virtually thanks to a local repertory, the Frida Cinema of Santa Ana, California. Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Live Action Short Film at this year’s Oscars. Films predominantly not in the English language are listed with their nation of origin.

The Present (2020, Palestine)

Since the 1990s, the Israeli military has set up hundreds of checkpoints within Palestine’s West Bank. These checkpoints have impeded Palestinian movement within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, supposedly to better protect the extraterritorial Israeli settlements there. Directed by Farah Nabulsi, The Present could have easily fell into an agitprop trap – leaning on political outrage rather than the individual emotions that power this film – but it deftly avoids doing so. On the day of his wedding anniversary with his wife, Yusef (Saleh Bakri) decides to go shopping with daughter Yasmine (Maryam Kanj). Yusef and Yasmine travel to and from Bethlehem (which is in Palestine, but is not easily accessible by Palestinians) to purchase a new refrigerator, groceries, and a few goodies for Yasmine. The process of traveling just a few miles from home proves onerous and humiliating.

Nabulsi’s film never feels like a lecture, instead preferring to juxtapose the cruel ironies that these Israeli checkpoints embody. The viewer intuits how militarized and confusing these checkpoints must be to the Palestinians. Israel’s apartheid mindset extends to the West Bank – the checkpoints have a single lane for Israeli drivers and a gated, narrow entryway specifically for the Palestinians. Past the checkpoint during their time shopping, life seems briefly normal. That Nabulsi can navigate the contrasting emotions between these scenes reflects the tautness of this film and its hints of Italian Neorealism. Bakri, as Yusef, is excellent during his tense conversations with the Israeli soldiers, even if some of these moments feel more stilted due to the actors playing the soldiers and the guerrilla filmmaking this piece employs. For Kanj, as Yasmine, one can see her anguish in seeing her father discriminated against on what should have been a special day. For Palestinian children, injustice is a rite of passage.

My rating: 8/10

Feeling Through (2019)

It is a chilly night in New York City at an hour where few are outside by choice. Teenager Tareek (Steven Prescod) is homeless. After saying good night to his friends, he happens upon Artie, a deafblind man (Robert Tarango, who is deafblind himself) holding up a sign requesting anyone to assist him. Curious and half-willing to help, Tareek taps Artie on the arm. Artie pulls out a tattered notepad and marker, asking for help to get to a bus stop. What follows is an uplifting connection between two cast-off souls, sharing each other’s good company and good humor if only for a brief time. Director Doug Roland based Feeling Through on an encounter he had with a deafblind man named Artemio. Roland’s film was accomplished in collaboration with the Hellen Keller Center.

Cynical viewers might view Feeling Through as syrupy, its swirling score too manipulative, the screenplay predictable, the filmmaking pedestrian. To different extents, each of those criticisms are true, but that does not undermine the raw inspiration responsible for this film’s pulse. It boasts solid performances from Prescod and Tarango – the latter a kitchen worker from Long Island and possibly the first deafblind actor in a lead role in film history. Roland’s screenplay beautifully strips away stereotypes of deafblind people. Tarango, as Artie, is neither overly dependent nor secluded from society. He knows that being deafblind sets him apart from those who can see and hear, and embraces the difference – lending a refreshing directness to how he communicates. Despite its lack of filmmaking or acting pedigree compared to its other nominees in this category, Feeling Through enters this Academy Awards season without a single loss in any of the film festivals that it screened in. No wonder: it is a crowd-pleaser in the best sense, without ever glossing over how difficult it is to be deafblind.

My rating: 9/10

Two Distant Strangers (2020)

Production on Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe’s Two Distant Strangers began in the shadow of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Its emotions are raw and there is no doubt behind the importance of the film’s messaging. Carter (rapper Joey Bada$$) has had some first date with Perri (Zaria Simone), and leaves in the morning to get home to his pet dog. Just outside the apartment building door, a police officer named Merk (Andrew Howard) stops Carter, profiles him, and ultimately kills Carter in cold blood. Once Carter dies, the film cuts to Carter and Perri in bed once again. Immediately, the viewer knows this film is a time loop a la Groundhog Day (1993), and, no matter what precautions he takes, Carter just cannot avoid execution from Merk’s hands. Through the film’s structure, Free and Roe capture the sinking, repetitive feeling that black Americans go through when hearing the news of yet another incident of police brutality.

Good intentions and urgency, however, do not necessarily make a worthy film. Some of the editing in Two Distant Strangers’ middle third shows too many images of Carter’s bullet-riddled body. After the first few instances of the time loop, the viewer does not need another glimpse of a lead-shredded corpse, blood splattering across pavement. The filmmaker’s fury towards Carter’s situation – that nothing will change – is already evident in the idea of such killings. Combined with the questionable dialogue in the final time loop and the mediocre acting, this all feels exploitative, an unwitting product of Hollywood’s history of fetishizing black trauma. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), historically, likes to reward films they perceive as demonstratively staged and thematically urgent. Two Distant Strangers meets both these criteria, but this material could have retained its rage without as much sensationalism.

My rating: 6/10

White Eye (2019, Israel)

Like Feeling Through, Tomer Shushan’s White Eye – the winner of the Narrative Short Film award at South by Southwest (SXSW) – was based on an actual encounter in its director’s life. Late at night in the streets of Tel Aviv, Omer (Daniel Gad) has spotted his stolen bicycle locked onto a rack. Omer lost his bike more than a month ago, has not filed a police report, and seeks to reclaim it as soon as possible. The police are of no help, and the people proximate to the intersection where these events take place are unwilling or hesitant to help. The now-owner of the bike is an Eritrean refugee named Yunes (Dawit Tekelaeb), and he insists to his manager (Reut Akkerman) and to Omer that he did not know that the bike was stolen property when he purchased it. And yet Omer’s tenacity and fit of passion spirals the situation beyond his or Yunes’ control.

White Eye is impressively staged, filmed in a single take – no cuts, no edits, all in real-time. To compare this film one last time to Feeling Through, White Eye accomplishes all it needs to say at a short film’s length. Some might claim Saar Mizrahi’s cinematography and 360º smooth-rotating is just another modern filmmaking gimmick; instead, it submerges the viewer into Omer’s mentality as he fights to retrieve his bike. The purposefully subjective framing questions the viewer on what our reactions might be in this situation, how deeply would we allow out outrage – and perhaps our ethnic/racial biases – to guide our actions. Shushan challenges the audience not to adopt Omer’s conclusions and emotions so readily, and he does a masterful job in appealing to and challenging one’s empathy as it becomes clear there will be no storybook ending.

My rating: 8/10

The Letter Room (2020)

By virtue of its central actor, The Letter Room is the most high-profile of this year’s nominees. Elvira Lind’s film is a dark comedy and its approach and tone are difficult to categorize. Richard (a mustached Oscar Isaac, who is Lind’s spouse) is a corrections officer who has requested a departmental transfer. With the transfer, he trades a more hands-on role for an office job. As the prison’s communications director, his responsibilities now entail filing through all of the prisoners’ incoming and outgoing mail – reading through all of the letters, reporting to his superiors for prison rules violations, censoring materials if necessary. At first, this role is as tedious as his previous position. But when Richard begins to read the histories of the prisoners and their loved ones, he becomes emotionally invested in a particular exchange between one death row inmate and his loved one (Alia Shawkat).

The Letter Room, despite a serviceable performance by Isaac as the unusual and stiff lead, has a milquetoast commentary about how the American criminal justice system imprisons more than just the inmates. These themes shambolically merge with Richard’s inherent loneliness, his inability to separate his own feelings from the voyeuristic work that his new position entails. This is a fellow looking for meaningful human connection, finding none, and attempting to understand something he has never found. The Letter Room curiously never questions the tricky ethics of Richard’s decision to intervene with the decisions made by Alia Shawkat’s character, and how the power disparities of his interactions color his life. The film’s conclusion is unearned, placing too neat a bow on a film that cannot balance its incongruous themes.

My rating: 6/10

^ All ratings based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), 91st (2019), and 92nd (2020).

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scripturehomosexuality · 6 years

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Update: Why This Blog Has Been Silent, And This Blog is Moving

If you’ve been a regular reader here, I’m sure you noticed that this blog has been silent for the past few months. The silence has been so extreme, I missed posting on its third anniversary. Believe me, this silence was not intended. Certain circumstances forced it to happen, though given current events, it might have been a blessing in disguise. I’ll go more into that later.

Though I write this blog, I’m still a regular person who must face the same troubles as everyone else. As such, around the time that I made the last post, my life became quite unstable through no fault of my own. After a certain point, that instability put my living situation into serious doubt. Thus, I was faced with a choice - deal with the situation and neglect the blog, or keep up the blog while the rest of my life fell apart. I chose the former. I wouldn’t be able to give any help if, among other things, didn’t have a place to live.

Plus, believe it or not, the loss of my smartphone had an effect. Through that phone, I was able to maintain constant supervision of the blog and the g0ys subreddit. It inexplicably broke down in June, and I’m currently stuck with a substandard model. Thus, maintaining control over both became much harder.

At this point, though it’s not in an ideal place, things are much more stable now. That instability has reduced, and I’m working to get a better phone during this month. Plus, I was still writing in fits and spurts. I currently have three finished articles waiting to be published. One of them is the post intended for the blog’s third anniversary. I have many more drafts meant for publication this year at various stages of progress. I logged in periodically to keep the blog active, and did so again on December 26th to start resuming normal activity.

That was the first time I logged in for all of December, and as I know now, I was in for a surprise.

Earlier in the month, and after a revision in September 2018, Tumblr changed their Community Guidelines again. Under the subtitle “Adult Content”, they read as follows:

“Don't upload images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples — this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though). Certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity are fine. Don’t upload any content, including images, videos, GIFs, or illustrations, that depicts sex acts. For more information about what this guideline prohibits and how to appeal decisions about adult content, check out our help desk.”

Like the September update, this change is very problematic. In short, anything showing sexuality or nudity (even toplessness) is now banned from Tumblr. At least, they say as much. They also say that they will make exceptions for “certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity”.

You might not realize it, but a huge problem lies within that phrasing. The policy doesn’t say that they will allow ANY nudity that is of artistic, educational or political value. They say that they will only allow “certain” types. Whatever counts as those approved “certain” types is totally up to Tumblr’s discretion, and is subject to their fleeting whims.

Nevertheless, you might think that such a policy would exempt this blog. After all, as you’ve seen, all nude photos featured here are shown mainly for their historical value. All of them were captured with the consent of those photographed. All of them are in black and white, which immediately shows that they have some age. While this blog has never felt squeamish about showing nudity, it has done so to teach history in the best way possible.

Well, you’re wrong. Within the past few days, four articles were flagged as being too adult for Tumblr, and were hidden from public view. They are

Capitalism’s Role in the Taboo Against Nude Swimming

The Innate Male Need For Communal Nudity (Under Appeal but Not Visible)

Happy Two Year Anniversary

What The Olympics Teach Us About Same-Sex Bonding (Since Restored)

So if you’re looking for them, please know that they still exist. I didn’t delete them, and I never would intentionally delete them. You just can’t see them. Furthermore, as you probably noticed, the first three are key posts of the “Everyday Nudity” series.

Personally, I’m not surprised that the series was among the first output affected. The “Innate Male Need” article was what nearly brought down the blog in March 2018. Some staff within Tumblr clearly opposed its publication, even though it violated none of their guidelines at the time. They were so opposed to it, they tried to hold the site hostage by shutting it down whenever I tried publishing it. Though I ultimately succeeded, it seems certain Tumblr staffers were looking for another opportunity to take it down again. They did, and this time, the guidelines are on their side.

Plus, I think I need to note the following: through their myriads of photographs, all three posts were a terrible indictment on U.S. society. They amply demonstrated

the failure of the U.S. education system to teach something that was ubiquitous just a generation ago

the utter and unprecedented prudishness of modern U.S. society

the cooperation of the U.S. capitalist system in sustaining this taboo on everyday nudity

the inconsistency of this reality in a nominally Christian country with supposedly “traditional” Christian teachings on homoeroticism

the role of “gay” and “straight” media in obscuring this story

These articles were some of the most read posts on the blog. And they had an effect. Information about the topics covered therein are becoming common knowledge, and I believe that’s due to articles like these.

Thus, I’m willing to make the following call on the Guidelines changes - they weren’t done just to purge itself of pornography. Furthermore, these changes have affected many Tumblr blogs, including some who didn’t publish NSFW content at all. To me, this was ultimately a political move. This was done to purge Tumblr of politically “inconvenient” content, and make it more palatable to corporations.

To prove my point, I will go back to my own content. All nude photos here were clearly attached for historical value. The posts that contained them were meant to educate and inform. To any reasonable mind, I’m sure that would count as “artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity”. Even after being appealed - which would require human intervention - the ban was removed only for the “Olympics” article. So to me, the only other reason why they would be flagged was because the message they were sending was objectionable. In other words, from what I can see, the suppression of these posts is plainly political censorship.

Furthermore, Safe Mode already hid “adult” posts from people who didn’t want to see it. For their part, all three posts contained warnings that nude photos were inside the posts. None of those photos were visible in the post previews. If Tumblr admins were solely concerned with creating “a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves”, that was a somewhat fair (if deeply flawed) solution. It left more sexual blogs to operate in relative peace, and allowed more prudish viewers to mostly avoid them.

Plus, if the Guideline revisions were just concerned with adult content, why flag the “Olympics” post? That post contained no nude photos at all. The only thing that would cause offense was that, through its frank commentary, it tore apart establishment sexual concepts that are corporate in origin.

Along with that, from what can be seen, the porn bots on Tumblr (which are usually corporate in origin) are working just fine. The ban seems to affect only output from individual blogs. Thus, I don’t think that NSFW content was offensive because of its content. Instead, that content was offensive because it didn’t come from corporate producers. It came from the people themselves, as authentic expressions of sexuality often unseen in more mainstream output. It is this which is being hurt by this ban, and I don’t think that’s an accident.

The fact that Tumblr is now hiding them means that Tumblr hasn’t been comfortable with them for some time. The mere presence of community-driven sexual content evidently gnawed at them. They wanted them gone, but it didn’t want to do it too fast, lest it alienate their core audience.

Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onofrio says that they will only hide posts that violate policy, and will not delete them. Frankly, I don’t believe him. Hiding them is a subtle way of abolishing them from public memory. Deleting them completely just finishes the job. Plus, this new change clearly signals that they are uncomfortable with having certain blogs on their platform. I can’t see why they wouldn’t take the next step and eradicate those posts, or completely delete the blogs that post them. Furthermore, as said before, abolition of sexual content is merely the pretext of the moment. Others will likely emerge to further apparent goals of purging Tumblr of its most unconventional users.

On top of that, I’m not the only one who thinks it’s political. In a recent commentary on the changes, Vox remarked that the change (and reaction to it) is reflective of larger trends. They explained that “on a deeper level, the giant outcry over this [policy change] reflects a larger anxiety from users — a fear that Tumblr is cracking down not just on porn but on the very essence of Tumblr culture: unruly, unsanctioned, and in many ways, united by the very spirit of deviance that Tumblr is trying to kill.” I truly believe that this is the case. Sex is just a pretext to remove the culture of free speech that has always characterized Tumblr.

Make no mistake - this move is totally in service to a growing American corporate state. It is a corporate state that is of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. Its sole motivation is creating a culture of sheer conformity and neat division, because that ensures capitalism’s everlasting growth. It dislikes anything that rocks the boat, except if that rocking will make more money.

After all, keep the following in mind. This ban was apparently spurred by the recent actions of Apple, who removed Tumblr from its online store. On the eve of the ban’s enforcement, it was promptly restored. This is despite the fact that NSFW content still exists on Tumblr. The difference is that such content is now mainly corporate in origin, instead of the more community-driven content. So what was the issue here? Was the content the problem? Or that it came from the wrong source, and as such, had an authenticity that corporate content couldn’t compete with?

All signs indicate that the censorship drive won’t stop here. Tumblr has already gone to excessive lengths to crack down on content that most users didn’t object to. Meanwhile, the porn bots and others who supposedly caused the censorship haven’t gone anywhere. Adult content isn’t the problem. Instead, it is that Tumblr contains a potent people power that corporate America simply can’t tolerate.

As a result, I must read the writing on the wall that becomes clearer every day. I predict that this blog will be deleted along with many others. I believe that by the end of 2019, “The Scriptures Don’t Condemn Homosexuality” will cease to exist on Tumblr. I personally think the end will come by June. But even if that doesn’t happen, I can’t see how it will survive past December 2019.

This blog has consistently railed against modern sexual philosophy, which preaches that same-sex desire and behavior is inherently abnormal. As this blog has shown, that philosophy owes its growth to runaway capitalism (aka neoliberalism). Neoliberalism sustains and protects that philosophy, and vice versa. That system of thinking simply cannot tolerate challenges to its logic. And while the blog is mostly intact, I’m sure more changes will be made to make blogs like this less likely to exist on Tumblr.

As such, barring any repeal of censorship, this will be the last new post on this Tumblr blog. No more content will be posted here. I don’t know if new posts will be used as pretext to shut the blog down. No messages sent to the inbox will receive a response here. However, I will not delete the Tumblr site, since this is the one that users know the most. This blog will remain in suspended animation until Tumblr inevitably shuts it down.

At this point, the Wordpress site will become the main site. The next few weeks and months will be spent transferring all articles to that website. I will try to recreate the Tumblr blog on Wordpress as faithfully as possible, including the extra links at the top of the page. I will also utilize Wordpress’ tools to make it even better. The Tumblr site will become an auxiliary site to direct traffic to Wordpress.

To be clear, I don’t see this as a final solution. This will be a real test of Wordpress’ tolerance of free speech. I have no idea how Wordpress will respond to what I will publish, but I hope for the best. Even as I’m heading to Wordpress, I’m also researching other platforms in case Wordpress doesn’t work out.

For the time being, my first priority will be helping reanimate the g0ys reddit chat. More than anything else, this blog aimed to make like-minded people connect with each other for personal fulfillment and social change. The Reddit chat seems best equipped to do that, and as such, I view it as the blog’s greatest legacy. Thus, I will be posting there more regularly in the days and weeks ahead. Furthermore, I also help see how to keep the chat active even when the moderators aren’t there.

I’m not going sugarcoat anything. This is a big step backward. Right now, I should just be concerned with getting new content out. I never thought that when the blog is so established, I’d have to move its content between platforms. This will be a time consuming process, because there’s over 100 posts to transfer. My finished manuscripts for this publishing year won’t be seen for months.

As such, the inactivity of this blog might have been a hidden blessing. If I continued publishing, it would have counted as more posts to move. Since output stopped in September 2018, it makes my job easier.

Furthermore, its readership has never been higher: for the first time, there were over 1000 trackable visitors in a single month, during November 2018. Its actual count was probably higher, so doing this move will be incredibly disruptive. During this transfer, I don’t know if all readers here will be able to make the switch.

However, in the end, this is what is needed. It helps accomplish goals that are bigger than Tumblr, this blog or myself. This Tumblr site merely wishes to further the work of the g0ys, the Man2Man Alliance, and other associated movements - to free humanity of sexual concepts meant to control, punish and enslave. Tumblr is just a means to an end. This work will go on with Tumblr or without them, because the stakes are too high to do otherwise.

Finally however, I want to thank David Karp and the version of Tumblr he oversaw. They created what is becoming an rarity - an internet platform where freedom of speech and thought truly ruled the day. This blog’s work simply would not have been possible without Tumblr, and was far better because of it. I’ve met and heard from many readers of like mind whose feedback aided me further. The photo content in the “Everyday Nudity” series came from other Tumblr blogs. I will always be grateful to them for allowing this blog to speak freely, and am sorry to have to leave.

However, times have changed and this blog must change with it. This work will go on. Concepts of sex have a tremendous effect on other parts of life. I will working to help make those concepts fit reality, so that all can be truly free.

- Herold Jennison

#update #Community Guidelines

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ethan1220world-blog · 5 years

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Audience Studies (3P18) Blog Post #1 - Ethan Limsana

During the introduction of our text, we learn many different ways to describe the concept of an audience and how a particular audience has and can function over time. A critical piece in learning about where we are now, is to examine how they began and evolved overtime based on popularity of politics and social needs. In order to relate to these teachings, I will apply them to my modern life with a form of entertainment that I access daily in many different ways and social settings depending on context: music. Whether it be walking through the supermarket with a pair of headphones on, or at a live concert surrounded by crowds of rowdy young adults, music demonstrates a multitude of ways an audience can be affected. I listen to music daily on my phone with the goal of finding melodies that are addicting, and artists that write lyrics that heighten my emotions either by making me feel excited when I’m energized, or depressed when I’m sad. Once I’ve found the right song, I can listen to it many times before I get bored, and look at other works the author has to offer through streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube to choose what else I do and don’t like. This work that I’m doing to curate my music tastes are demonstrating an information based audience by simply listening to the artist and what they have to say about a given topic. It also demonstrates a meaning based view because by choosing I like and don’t like, the artist will see those tracks and adapt future works based on the reviews. Although, these messages would be much different face-to-face by exact knowledge given to one another, I am a part of the mass audience and communicate through my views, likes, and shares. This is my role in obtaining music for low cost, often free, for the large profit organizations that provide me music. Like any other job, I perform these roles when I am the audience member, and when I stop listening, I am no longer an audience member. Although I enjoy listening to 1980s music, my music taste has changed due to shifts in society and me as a demographic. As streaming services kept offering me to listen to rap music for being a young adult male, I eventually tried it, giving into Drake, Young Thug, Tupac, and more. Here, my shift in music taste was a result of the audience-as-outcome model because the media altered my taste. As mentioned before, I filter into the grand scheme of advertising and ratings as an individual on my phone, without a public space to listen or review the music, where most others are listening too. Since this experience is primarily alone, and I have no connection with other listeners, I am part of the audience-as-mass model. Not to say I have no power in this situation, I demonstrate audience-as-agent too by telling social media, and the entertainment providers what I think and ultimately making the final decisions of my interests on my own; in this case I happened to not enjoy older rap music, but enjoy modern rap music because it heightened my excitement. I chose to keep what I enjoyed because it fits me and my lifestyle, as an act of my free will.

A small percentage of the time I spend with music is live because it costs more money, often requires travel, and isn’t nice for time management, but it's the most engaging and memorable musical experiences I’ve ever had because of the nature of crowds. As a practice dating back to ancient Greek and Roman audiences, concerts are the same in essence; hundreds or thousands of people leave their homes to gather in one specific location to listen to a select few. Here, it is entirely dependent on the people on stage to determine the energy of the crowd. At rap concerts, loud music is played, and messages of substance abuse, and violence are in the lyrics. The crowd responds to this content by showing up to the concert dressed in fashionable clothes, drinking, getting high, and most of all, being rowdy by pushing, shoving, crying, and sometimes even fighting. As feared by the end of the 19th century, live concerts often display the potentially destructive qualities of crowds. As an individual listening to music alone, the reality is relatively unchanged from regular society, but when a crowd gets together, it is a temporary change in that particular society as a collective because individual actions have less consequences associated with them and immediate emotions can freely be demonstrated by all. The positives of the crowd are also unchanged; they create a physical setting for me to go, and create a memorable experience for me to worship someone who was already in power, to reinstate my value in enjoying their music, and keep them in power.

This power opens up new opportunities for record labels and artists to scheme new ways to alter our decision making process to make choices that continue their revenue flow and keep them in power for as long as possible. For example, Drake and his label OVO, use advertising and multimedia to keep us thinking about his music and persona even when we’re not listening. The money made from live events and music sales, goes into buying and selling merchandise, buying restaurants, maintaining an entertaining Instagram page, and utilizing television and film for documentary and selling the idea of his rich lifestyle. Although it is our own agency and free will to choose what we enjoy, these power moves are made to trigger appeal and to trick us into a cycle of worship.

It is the complete truth that modern rap music is a gold mine for those in power: it is repetitive, subject matter is relatively the same throughout different artists, and it is insanely popular among young viewers who make up most of the internet’s usage in North America. It can be tough for myself to take a moment to realize all that I see online is not real, but I’m one of millions, with many that don’t have the education to consider that. The effects perspective is a lens I can use to think about how I am affected by these powers in media that influence me now, and over time. In order to be informed, and understand why I’ll be advertised certain types of content in the future, is to study why my demographic reacts so positively to rap music.

As part of mass society, I and others are listening to this music alone, with little to no exposure of the themes suggested aside from movies and tv shows. Mixed with being a young adult, male and naive, this ignorance to the rapper lifestyle is exactly what advertisers capitalize on to gain and keep my attention. We live in a progressive time where racial equality, specifically black, is at the forefront of all media concerns and therefore, our concerns. The issue is that I have no first hand idea what is different in their culture as opposed to mine. There are few popular media that demonstrates African American’s as regular people who do regular daily things; instead the popular discourse uses selective exposure to say they grew up on the street and have become rich and surpassed whites. When music videos and lyrics suggest their lifestyles include endless amounts of money, having sex with multiple women, and killing people they don’t like, there’s actually very little I can actually do to disprove that even though its highly unlikely. Early concerns with mass persuasion worry that even though I have the critical ability to deem what is true and what isn’t, my brain wants to imagine something before it experiences it. I’m only shown stereotypes, so that's all I have the capacity to imagine for the time being. The artists acts as a barrier between me and their affairs; they only let me imagine how rich their lifestyle is for their specific interest of me believing that listening to what they have to say will elevate my life in some way, or keep me racially diverse.

I keep listening to these fake notions of black culture because, well, it's addicting for me. The Payne studies showed some important facts: intense violence and action scenes were more memorable for boys, the more exposure of similar themes created pronounced beliefs within children, and the interest in sexual themes became more engaging in children as they grew older. The themes I’m exposed to represent delinquencies that parents and teachers have taught me to stay away from, so they are exciting for me to see and fantasize about. It is an over-saturated market also, so I have more pronounced internal feelings about the content. Also, it is at a point in my life that I am more gullible to what is shown to me online. If these reasons weren’t enough to argue why I don’t stop listening, the presence of opinion leaders and emotional contagion make it increasingly difficult to leave the genre. Opinion leaders rise within my friend group, and reviewers I find online. Being so close to Toronto, most of my friends fall into the same demographic trap and see Toronto rappers as something to take pride in and constantly keep up with celebrities’ internal drama. Online reviewers, although they have more credibility, often promote the popular opinion in order to keep fans happy, sharing, and make their program more popular, and they might even be incentivised by outside sources to create and artificial opinion. Seemingly everywhere wants me to keep listening to this music, and when it consistently keeps my friends and I in an energized mood through emotional contagion, it at least feels like it's doing more good than bad in the moment.

As an audience member, mass media has treated me like an object whose attention can be persuaded, changed, and sold, but it's too early for me to see long term detrimental effects. I spend about 6-8 hours looking at screens everyday with heights of around 12-14 hours. Some of this is because of work, but more than half is for consuming entertainment and social media. It often gives me a fictionalized perspective of different topics which is why I’ve worked hard in the last two years to improve my lifestyle and create more unique experiences. Most of this leisure time is worse spent than when the media originally pulled me into addiction at the beginning of high-school. I was recommended to watch things I’ve already seen, or are so similar, it offers no unique ideas, so constantly being offered what I already like has put me in a rut. Also, I am weary of gaining emotions because of my viewing habits. Since most of my interests in entertainment are associated with delinquent themes, I recognize that when I’m out, I am not outgoing with strangers because I don’t trust them. Commonly in mob related movies, they give the feeling that you can’t trust anyone, and those feelings lie somewhere within me.

Public opinion is the most powerful information a company use to always have the upper-hand over the consumer when it comes to buying and selling. The information can be private or public depending on if it is beneficial to the company. It can be used to gain honest opinions about what the population thinks about a product, or a survey can be made specifically to trick the public into conforming to a certain ideal by use of question-wording-effects. The information can be used to alienate consumers into bandwagoning onto a perceived public opinion. The potential to mix and match these uses seems like a modern day superpower to me. To examine the ways public opinion is measured and used by large corporations for profit, I’ll relate to myself working in sales at Best Buy and Virgin Mobile to compare and contrast by looking at what I do to earn an individuals’ opinion on a much smaller scale.

When working with a customer, I want to ensure my commission is made whether or not it is in the buyers’ best interests when they walk in. First, I want to find out why they’re in the store. I ask about what issues they have with a current device, and move further to find out important things about their lifestyle: if they have kids, are they in school, where they live, and what hobbies they have. At this stage, I am giving my customer a person-to-person interview where I establish rapport, and my most advantageous position as a salesperson to both learn about the client, and earn a degree of trust so I can be given true answers to my questions. Here, I avoid leading questions because the answers wouldn’t accurately depict the information I want to offer a product that is relevant. The tactics of my survey change depending on what part of the sale we’re at for my benefit. Once we find the right phone for the user, we talk about the price which is where response effects are wildly useful. If the first thing I say is the actual price per month, the customer would be unsatisfied with the number and feel entitled to bargain, or wait for another sale, or go to a different company entirely. Instead, I show the original price for the phone, and their mobile plan separately which is always high, then show them what I can save them by signing up with a new contract; the response is almost always positive. This is because the original price has nothing to contrast except for some kind of number they’ve had before, or seen in a flyer which isn’t obtainable for me. In the second example, I’ve given a realistic, yet unfavourable example for them to contrast instead to get rid of any pre-existing notions of price. Once the customer has decided to buy the service or product, they will be less likely to buy anything else because they either don’t have enough money, or are weary of me taking advantage of them. When defenses are high, question-wording-effects can be used to make the customer think they want more. The last thing I have to sell is extra insurance for your phone, which everyone is accustomed to say no to because of negative connotations of other insurances like car, or life. Once they tell me they don’t want insurance, I proceed with the process and move on to the next topic, but realistically, I’m using this time to include specific words and body language to make them feel unsafe about their new product. I will begin using words in our conversation that have to do with the length of their contract, the price of the phone, specific words like fragile, stuck, lost, regret. My body language also changes to be more loose and clumsy, and often I place my drink uncomfortably close to the new device. When I ask again later in the process, the customer feels they have made the decision for themselves, drop their defense and buy.

Sometimes, other means of gathering opinion are beneficial as well. Although a personal interview offers me the most advantages, a telephone interview is a cheaper and time efficient way of gathering information. There is a possibility I could employ the same tactics into this interview, but that poses a couple problems. I cannot establish rapport as well, so if I ask too many personal questions, the customer will feel uncomfortable and hang up. I generally need to avoid leading questions, and keep the call strictly about the sale. This is a good way to earn information to use in the future, not the present. I can filter their answers to find out what may be a successful offer for the future. For use of large companies, this type of information could be used to find out where and when to sell things, but not as precise to find out what type of product to make. The final type of survey I look for is an email survey. These help me to gain a higher personal rating to gain recognition within my company, but as the text suggests, these are borderline useless way of gathering and asking for information. Just about all ways of surveying have some kind of flaw which skews the data gathered with varied impact, but email has to be the most negative impact. It requires the customer to actively do it during their leisure time, and it holds no benefit to themselves. Out of every ten customers I offer the online survey to, one may actually do it. This means they would have an outstanding reason to do it; either they really liked, or really hated the service. The numbers of completions are low, and the sources are not credible.

After information is acquired, the Government and large corporations use qualitative and quantitative data to use audiences in ways that far exceed the possibilities of an individual. They use this information to operationalize their audience; keep their viewing habits the same, and constantly sell their time to advertisers without suspicion. In order to find examples of political economy today, I will examine myself as an audience member of advertisements specifically through my phone on social media platforms and entertainment streaming services. Now that I can identify how advertisers obtain my personal habits and information, I can assume who is buying it based on what advertisements, or entertainment I’m offered.

As a consumer, I actually pay for many of the streaming services I use which I know isn’t the norm for post-millenials. I pay monthly to access Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, which means I don’t receive advertisements through these entertainment services, which is great for some of my leisure time, but I do not escape advertisements altogether. In fact, each of these streaming services, including the phone I bought, have a mandatory a lengthy multi-page terms of service agreement which states that they are services which I use while I pay for them, and during this time, they can gather as much information about my viewing habits as they want to improve their services. In exchange for signing this contract, I am given thousands of choices of the most popular movies, TV shows, and music of today with a service that knows what I want to watch even before I know what its about. In the meantime, however, all information of my demographic including how much I am paying for streaming is being sold to google, to then sell to advertisers in similar markets. I’m still not rid of the blindspot that advertisers use to steal my leisure time. Often while watching a show, I browse on my phone, and during that time I get ads for tv shows and movies on subscription services I have yet to pay for. The luxury of using Netflix services is paid for by me enduring ads for other similar subscription-based websites, which I am then working for free to review by looking at them and seeing whether or not they are worthwhile, just for it to be advertised again when there's a new incentive for me to consider again. This same operation happens to everyone who uses streaming services, as the audience is a commodity to be bought and sold by advertisers.

I’m treated very well as a subscriber of these services; the servers send the program are reliable with few buffers, the websites don’t have malware or bugs that slow down the speed of my computer, and I even get special features such as the option for subtitles on any show, and even an automatic option to skip opening credits. The same can’t be said for those who can’t afford to pay monthly, or who are using ad blockers. For example, my girlfriend is the daughter of Asain immigrants and she watches Korean TV, but she doesn’t pay for streaming services, and there are no channels for her to watch them for free. She streams these shows from free servers she finds online. These are often filled with malware, regular ads, and pop-up ads that ruin the viewing experience as well as poor servers from outside of the country which buffer and crash often. I am labelled as a priority customer because my viewing consists of popular American TV and I pay for the service, meaning I will most likely respond well to the advertisements that are sent to me and have a higher chance of purchasing, so my leisure time is improved to keep me as a customer. My girlfriend is exactly what advertisers will ignore, she enjoys foreign shows and doesn’t pay for her streaming service, so her leisure time is not cared for or valued, so is less important. This is a slightly different take on what the text has to explains, but it is a similar issue. Racial formation is causing someone close to me to not enjoy their leisure time as much as me because of their background and taste.

Adding market value to certain demographics does show signs of massive potential in new technologies though. Our viewership is measured on any platform we visit through server logs, and cookies. Even now with Google assistant and Google Home and smart home devices and surveillance systems, our voices are being monitored too. I had a conversation with my mother about what Halloween costume I am going to wear this year, and Google offered me advertisements for Halloween costumes the next day. This is the evolution of peoplemeters that tracked TV viewing habits, but on a much smarter and efficient scale that people meters couldn't achieve. Because of psychographics, we are not purely treated as a mass audience in this situation. I am not being offered to listen to Drake because Drake is popular with men my age, I am being offered curated advertisements that are relevant to me based on my demographics, psychology, and my actual web searches and needs described through conversation. This conclusion is very controversial because devices that listen to your voice at all times is creepy, but it is the peak of what target marketing strives to be in its most efficient form. When this form of information gathering and target marketing is perfected, it is hard to say whether our thoughts are truly our own because of the power of suggestion.

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elenagalbusera · 6 years

Text

Project Evaluation - Wall, Page and Screen

Name: Elena Galbusera

Electronic Journal link/password: https://elenagalbusera.tumblr.com

Word Count: 1017

Project Evaluation

Use the headings below as a guide and feel free to add to this and include images if you wish.

Project Title How did this develop and what was involved in the decision making process?

I began to keep a record of the titles of the materials which related to my subject matter. I noted words which came to my mind while observing my photobook, once finished on InDesign. I intended to find the appropriate combination -a noun and adjective- that evoked the photobook’s content. Most terms were formal and vague, delineation, for example, implied the concept of outlines although did not necessarily recall the boldness of the design, aberration looked uncomfortable, and peculiarity banal. Omnipresent was somehow efficient as it could have suggested that Brutalism emerged worldwide but hinted an association with religion and God. The title of my photobook is archistructural brutalisation. While archistructural gives an insight of such Modern architectonical style, brutalisation refers to a process that inevitably happened within Brutalist Architecture, a relentless revolution that changed society since the 1950s. Concerning the design, this title fitted well the cover’s space and its geometrical letters enriched the aesthetics of the artwork.

Subject Reflect on the subject matter of your project.

My project developed throughout a process of intensive inquiry into the historical, political and economic circumstances within the emerging of Brutalism. Since the 1950s this post-war architectural movement marked the first time in history when architecture aimed at producing ethical structures rather than complying with the standard aesthetical canons. In contrary to the ideals of Renaissance or Classicism, the fascine of concrete buildings stays in their functionality, versatility, efficiency, cheap and rapid construction. Whereas the years of Brutalism coincides with a period of political corruption, and its utilitarian complexes are often associated with ugliness, there’s much to the core than it seems. Brutalism, in fact, is the result of a sophisticated engineering and theoretical maths, which established the foundations of our modernised society. In light of this, the public owes to this style further attentiveness, especially in the present-day, considering all actions aimed at demolishing such cultural heritage.

Visual Research Reflect on how key photographers / visual artists who are relevant to your project research have impacted upon the development of your project? Explain how they influenced your approach and what you learned from them.

Considering the roots Brutalism guided me to come across Le Corbusier[1]’s most loyal photographer, Hungarian born Lucien Hervé, whose chiaroscuro techniques inspired my practice. Relating to Hervé was crucial as his works present a geometry that influenced the imagery of my photobook. A variety of sources, including photobooks, images, illustrations and architectural sketches, enabled me to mature a sophisticated insight of the topic. The primary research at the RIBA[2] helped me to select Brutalist constructions and to discover materials which cannot be found online. The documentary Bunkers Brutalism and Bloody-mindedness[3]and the essay Ethics and Aesthetics: Photographic Approached to Brutalism [4] accompanied me in the contextual research, while the film Helvetica[5] nurtured my appeal for modernity and typography. By examining the typeface Helvetica, I developed my own aesthetic sensibility and distinctive style, characterised by strong cuts, shapes and significance of forms.

Aims, Objectives, Concept Discuss your aims and objectives and the main concept for your project and evaluate how successfully these have been resolved.

archistructural brutalisation, as discussed in its editor’s note, aims at raising awareness of Brutalism’s overall extraordinariness. Its objective is to expand and disrupt the most common attributes associated with the subject. These notions have been carried out in the photobook through the adoption of a design that differs from the usual graphic of volumes concerning the topic. To elaborate on this, instead of solely presenting black and white photos of the complexes my project combines architectural illustrations with photographic prints and tailored designs. By considering the phenomenon from a different angle, these techniques incite the viewers to rethink their feelings towards Brutalism, as much as Brutalism itself stimulated post-war architects to rethink utterly architecture. The ultimate objective of archistructural brutalisation is to project an individual ideology of Modern architecture, to push the audience to confront their beliefs with mine, thus developing further considerations, rather than to deliver a universal outlook.

Production Reflect on the specific production methods you have been exploring and how these approaches and visual strategies have affected your project development.

Scanning images from books allowed me to showcase exemplary instances of Brutalist architecture on an International scale. I downloaded vectors of abstract shapes which served as a foundation to create the design. By placing them on top of the InDesign document pages, I either reduced or increased them in size, flipped or rotated them, to follow a sequence of patterns while drawing forms with the pen tool. The use of white text onto yellow backgrounds helped me to paradoxically create a compelling aesthetics and transmit a disturbing sensation, as the juxtaposition of both colours triggers a ‘pleasant’ discomfort in the reading process. Such is similar to the feeling that generates in the encountering of Brutalist structures. Using Oswald as a typeface conveys modernity to the design. Employing the black and yellow incorporates a sense of danger and recalls the viewers’ attention in a similar way of caution signs.

Presentation How effectively have you communicated your ideas in relation to your identified audience and context?

Increasing the size of my photobook enabled me to reinforce my point, as a smaller artwork wouldn’t have valued the imposingness of Brutalist architecture. Shifting from the size of 160x220mm to 240x300mm helped me to highlight upon our unavoidable exposure to Modern Architecture. Inspired by the techniques of the exhibition Concrete Works[6], I opted for the thickest pages that perfect binding permits, so that I could evoke the heaviness of Brutalist structures. The imagery of the design encourages the public to individuate the force of Brutalist forms so that the rhythmic structuralisms of the style is seen from a captivating perspective. Besides, the editor’s note and foreword of archistructural brutalisation are tailored in their substance rather being excessively long.

Evaluation Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your project and what you might do to improve it in the future?

archistructural brutalisation challenges the traditional perspectives claimed with Modernist approaches via embracing photo manipulation for ‘ethical’ purposes. The unconventional crops of the photographs, their position in the different spaces of the pages and the dominant design follow a coherent. The excluding of pages’ numbers and excessive text brings the viewers to focus on Brutalism’s distinctive traits. Nonetheless, the artwork lacks some contextual and historical writing. For example, I could have given further information about some of the buildings, their construction’s procedures, techniques, methods and purposes. Additionally, to improve my project in the future, I would plan out time more cleverly, use better quality prints and choose the technique of Coptic binding. The use of a hard or cardboard cover would resemble the raw sensation of the concrete whilst weighting upon its texture. Also, the pages would be thicker than perfect binding allows, and this would help me evoking the heaviness of Brutalist structures.

Notes:

[1]The Swiss-French Architect, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

[2]Royal Institute of British Architects

[3]Meades, J. (2014). Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloody-mindedness: Concrete Poetry (BBC4).

[4]Jankov, S. (2018, forthcoming). Ethics and Aesthetics: Photographic Approaches to Brutalism, in Metlić, D., Photography as a Method for Visual Research.

[5]Hustwit, G. (2007). Helvetica.

[6]Concrete Works, Aedes am Pffefferberg, Berlin, Dec 2009 - Jan 2010

#Evaluation #5IMAG003W #Page

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