14 Comments

1. Marcilla Elizabeth Smith:

   “Target: Women” Clever and meta-subversively overt without being obvious about their agenda.

   6 May 2010, 1:22 pm

2. martin dufresne:

   Herself Productions are two very funny Parisian lesbians who lip-synch and mime their way through cultural stereotypes in song, pulp photo-romans, daily moments. Great stuff… my favourite quick pickerupper!
   Here is a rave review I found on genderqueer:
   “Yes, they are a super fantastic French comedic duo who truly enjoy playing with gender identity and stereotypes of all kinds. They are a master at silliness, spoof and twisted farce. They are based in Paris and do both live shows and their popular videos as well. They have been featured in many GLBT International film festivals throughout the world and have been recognized in many European queer and straight publications. They have been on television (Canal +) and have many fans from one end of the world to the next. Thanks to the Internet and their extreme sense of humor they have become the king and queen of DIY video production and are becoming quite the rising stars! They have been compared to French & Saunders and have been embraced by the queer culture because they love playing with gender and sexuality— not to mention just general “role playing.” They are in so many ways pioneers and are in fact fabulous!

   Just to let you know why I am acting like such the proud mom is because the blond happens to be my partner, Aurelie/Patricia. The brunette is Colette/Isabelle. They are both trained actresses and met at conservatory in Paris where they went to college. It wasn’t until a bizarre chain of events many years later that they ran into each other and started this side DIY video project: Patricia at Colette. However, I need to mention since they are both actresses in their own right, sweet Aurelie just finished an independent movie last month, and Isabelle continues to work as an actress as well. This theater training is the foundation for their friendship, passion and talent. Both continue to do acting on their own, yet it is Patricia et Colette, that provides them with a source for their own writing, acting and play backs.

   Besides being very proud, I am obviously anxious for people to get to know the work of these two women as they are exceptional examples for GLBT community and more. They push very real sexual, political, social, culture issues, and explore gender in a very astute but hysterical way. Empowerment. Just the name of their production company: Herself Productions shows you just how determined they are.

   Just a quick side note: Thank you to everyone who continues to support these women. They work very hard to get their message spread and every cent of Patricia et Colette is provided by the hard work of these two women alone. What you see is what you truly get! Even the video is done by remote. I can could go into more but will stop at this, embrace yourself and explore the possibilities, people!”

   YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PatriciaetColette
   MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/patriciaetcolette

   10 May 2010, 9:15 am

3. DeAnander:

   A nice review/unpacking of Avatar asking many of the same questions I was asking myself on leaving the theatre… how is it that even in these “enlightened” times we have to disguise our social criticism in fantastical narratives of imaginary places — much as J Swift had to do in his time? And how many readers/viewers ever really make the present-day real-world connections? I’ve heard several amateur reviewers in the States refer to Avatar as a metaphor for First Contact and the struggles of indigenous people with colonial settlers — thus moving the narrative far back in time. But to anyone with two neurons still on speaking terms it is so obviously about modern-day, mechanised/industrial warfare in the service of resource extraction — Bougainville has been mentioned, Iraq, Viet Nam, any place where huge machines owned by liquidationist industrial interests are pitted against indigenous people. Around the world I think the “bad guys” in Avatar are identified as Americans, and as present-day Americans; only in America I suspect are people able to dodge the obvious and try to relocate the metaphor a couple of centuries into the past.

   12 May 2010, 12:28 pm

4. eoinmonkey:

   “only in America I suspect are people able to dodge the obvious and try to relocate the metaphor a couple of centuries into the past”
   A small quibble about emphasis- people in America are not dodging the obvious- that implies that they know about it and are sidestepping recognising it. From my experiences talking to Americans, and teaching Americans, the majority (a huge majority) are utterly unaware of this aspect of the modern world- it is anything but obvious if you have never heard of it. The knowledge simply IS NOT THERE. To be honest, I found a large number of American people to be utterly unaware of the reality of the history of First Contact and Indigenous/White American relations (which almost certainly does feature in Avatar, as it does in every American cultural output on any related subject- the metaphor may be FROM the past, but it is not IN the past, as the cultural memory of Indian Wars is deeply ingrained in the US psyche- werent areas of Vietnam in which there was strong Vietnamese Communist activity called “Indian Country”? The British Army in Northern Ireland had the equivalent “Bandit Country” for South Antrim). It also reminds me of something a Native American professor once said in class- “The Indian Wars never ended, they just shifted slightly further south, thats all.”

   13 May 2010, 7:23 am

5. Stan:

   Availability.

   If the analysis is not available to the gen-pop, then it might as well not exist, at least in a practical sense. And given the barriers to understanding – ie, culture and “education” – that’s a pretty daunting task. Like explaining the workings of a wristwatch to a pig. Except a pig has some biological limitations. Ours are cultural, therefore surmountable on an individual basis. All the more reason that “conversations with pop culture” may be the most important form of political speech. It’s where we can join hands around the familiar, then lead people into the less familiar… the still unavailable.

   14 May 2010, 7:19 am

6. eoinmonkey:

   Information, and the varying interpretations of that information, being unavailable to people is, perhaps for the first time in human history, no longer, on its own, a viable excuse for ignorance- the internet makes (practically) any item of information available to anyone in the western world, if they so choose. Of course, they must know the information is there to look it up specifically, or run across it by mistake (or “stumble” across it by design), AND they must care enough to be bothered reading it/taking it in.
   In many ways this modern information explosion seems, despite being utterly unprecedented (the closest parallel in human history would be the invention of cheap printing, and the explosion of cheaply printed material- the penny dreadful, the broadside, the tabloid, the gallows confession) to be displaying similar results to a world where no, or severely limited, information is available to people. The truly mind-boggling amounts of “stuff to read/hear/watch/know” on the internet seems to scare people into retreat into an increasingly tiny and self-referential pop-culture world, and the new excuse for ignorance becomes “Where would I have heard about that?” or “No-one can know everything!”
   Be prepared, or nod knowingly at this, that when attempting to discuss popular culture and the myriad different ways to “read” it (awful theorists usage, but it works), that the first response will nearly always be “Its JUST a film/book/show/story/joke/other cultural product” and that any complex interpretation, especially one that asks the listener to engage with a new perspective or re-examine previously held beliefs about the nature of the world, or the world of entertainment, simply isnt valid, is “reading into”, is “missing the point”, is “thinking too much”. Entertainment is JUST Entertainment to most people, and the idea of entertainment as a cultural product that contains information about the culture that created it, whether it intends to or not, is the hardest sell.

   14 May 2010, 8:22 am

7. askod:

   HG Wells tried to write it clearly in The War in the Air and that book remains largely forgotten. But in The War of the Worlds the baddies were not us, they were aliens, and that book has gone on o become movie after movie.

   Maybe the message is only receivable if it is thinly veiled?

   14 May 2010, 9:14 am

8. Stan:

   Information is not the issue. What are non-available are interpretive frameworks now foreclosed by cultural hegemony. We have way too much information, which actually serves to reinforce that hegemony. It’s almost become a question of tempo.

   14 May 2010, 9:36 am

9. Marcilla Elizabeth Smith:

   Before we get all abstractical and whatnot on a thread about pop culture…

   So the information is there, but it is flooded out, I don’t know who would disagree with that. Policy-makers recognize information as one of seven chief instruments of US national power (like the military or intelligence), so it’s not entirely by accident things are the way they are (let’s not forget who built the intertubez in the first place).

   So what is the strategy for cutting through? I have these folks on my FB who post one horror story after another from every available source of media as if they are trying to shock people into the reality of the direction we are headed (I’m pretty sure that is their intent). But it seems to me that while there is a “movable middle” at any point, there are a larger number of us who “already get it”, and a far larger number who seem willing to write off anything that comes along. I’ve said it’s like mass hysteria meets codependency meets stockholm syndrome, etc.

   I have to think this same thing happened in Germany, Russia, elsewhere as some saw the horror approaching ever more quickly and tried to “sound the alarm.” How do we change things this time? Or is it even possible?

   I think one idea is more showing and less telling. People still have some very herd animal-like tendencies. Ten people could tell me to run to the end of the street, but why should I? Now if I suddenly see ten people run by with no apparent reason, I definitely ain’t gonna just turn around and go in the house!

   But media still has a place I think. Is there a formula out there that we’re missing? When Elaina was with UNITE HERE, I know their organizing mantra was “anger, hope, and a plan.” Is there some sort of similar “template” out there like Joseph Campbell discovered/created in the area of mythology? I’ve seen some movies like the Zeitgeist series that seem to really touch a nerve in people, even when they lack substance of other material I’ve seen. I believe presentation may have a lot to do with it.

   14 May 2010, 12:31 pm

10. eoinmonkey:

    For every “answer” there will be a disagreement. The sad reality of the world seems to be that people can only be led to knowledge if it is something they desire- education, the best answer to ignorance that there is in my view (and yes, I do recall how many people on this site feel about this subject- before anyone jumps down my throat about the evils of organised schooling, if you have a better way of improving the mental capacity/knowledge of the majority of the population, Id love to hear about it, and how it would be implemented/funded), can only go so far- and generally spends a lot of time propagating cultural hegemony anyway, as someone will no doubt point out below (educators are only human, and immersed in the same culture as everyone else, not to mention paid very little to fulfil some pretty high expectations).
    But dont think this is simply an American problem, or some kind of American government/military-industrial conspiracy (who invented the internet, anyway?). Do you think people in the UK want to hear about how 19th century colonialism shaped the world they currently take for granted? You think the French love to talk about their shocking human rights abuses in Algeria? Do you think the people of the former Soviet Union want to tell each other stories about the orgy of rape and murder their Glorious Victorious army indulged in after pushing the Nazis out of their homeland in 1943?
    Every culture has its myths- it is argued by some that these are “necessary” myths, without which the society in question could not continue to function as it does (fairly obviously, in my view). It may well be (read: is) the case that rampant consumerism and conservative politics, or what we call “American Culture”, does untold damage to many poor Americans, and to Americas natural environment, but at the same time, Im sure you wouldnt rather be living in any number of incomparably shittier places- places that are shitty because of the same socio-political reasons why America is wealthy. If anyone can come up with a way to get American people to volunteer to feel guiltier about what they have and who they are, and accept a lower standard of living to benefit some foreigner they have never met, then you may also be able to turn base metals into gold. No clever movie or exciting cultural product will ever change the majority of peoples minds about what we are referring to as Cultural Hegemony. The cultural products that DO kickstart successful social movements (and they are rare, but do exist) seem to have caught a wave, rather than created a movement- think “Uncle Toms Cabin”, or “A Century of Dishonour”. And how much actual impact did even these landmark publications actually have? Has any movie ever done the same? Certainly, for an E.G, the French film “Days of Honour” caused a re-evaluation of the pension status of North African WW2 veterans- but that is hardly a sweeping social revolution, as much a reminder of basic decency that had been overlooked.
    Basically, my point is this: If Avatar HAD been about Iraq (which, and I must disagree with the review here, I dont think it is, in anything but the most generalised “America make bad war for greed, sometimes” terms), no-one would have watched it, in the first place (unless it confirmed rather than attacked their cultural sacred cows), and anyone who DID bother to watch it would probably have done so because they already agreed with its premise. Does this mesh with other peoples experiences of popular culture and politics?
    For another point, Avatar, and the generalised sci-fi/horror/fantasy-as-metaphor film canon, are enjoyable for people precisely BECAUSE of the weakness of their connection to the real world. The real world is sordid, and complicated, and never black and white- the good guys sometimes do bad, and the bad guys sometimes do good. ‘We’ dont want this sort of confusion when ‘we’ see a film that exists, first and foremost, for its entertainment value. It is much easier to invent a race of giant blue aliens that live peacefully and sustainably and make it convincing, than it is to depict the world as it is and make put upon human characters (who in reality will often respond to oppression and brutality with oppression and brutality of their own) into clear-cut good guys. For a real world example, we can (and do) object to and criticise Americas neo-colonialist occupations of various countries around the world, and the US Militaries brutal oppression of resistence abroad, but that doesnt make their stated enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden, a shining hero on a white horse, fighting the good fight with honour and integrity and for the creation of a better world. In the real world, the bad guys fight with other bad guys very often. Yes- create them, help them, fight them, destroy them, create them anew. All boring and complicated and sordid and sad, not words many people would use to describe a fun thing to sit through on a saturday night at the cinema.

    17 May 2010, 6:32 am

11. Marcilla Elizabeth Smith:

    I hope I can be forgiven for cutting through to the parts where it seems there is some fruitful debate to be had, but it seems this thread has lost the interest of most =-(

    So, e, you talk about desire – a feeling – but then you go into education as knowledge/information, which I thought we were reaching some sort of consensus that lack of knowledge, CERTAINLY of information was not the issue.

    But getting back to education: one of the seminal works in the field of educational design is Bloom’s Taxonomy. Amongst Bloom’s model of educational experiences is the “affective.” It’s an old model, but one which still seems to be holding up (I am not from any formal field of educational scholarship, admittedly). Is this it? Does it work? Has it been improved upon? How does one craft *media* for best results, or do we recognize only a very limited function for media (particularly new media), and if so, what does that look like?

    17 May 2010, 10:32 pm

12. eoinmonkey:

    “it seems this thread has lost the interest of most =-(”
    – Well, never mind. If people want to post or not-post, thats their choice, it isnt a big deal either way, if we are honest with ourselves. Its fun, and interesting, and useful, to discuss things (at least, thats why I do it), but no amount of online idea-bashing is going to change the world.

    “So, e, you talk about desire – a feeling – but then you go into education as knowledge/information, which I thought we were reaching some sort of consensus that lack of knowledge, CERTAINLY of information was not the issue.”
    – First, education, even an education that emphasises the rational and sceptical, is not in opposition to “feelings” in any way. I know it is a common accusation that it is, but I always ‘feel’ that to be merely rhetoric employed by those of limited understanding. Adopting and practicing a calm, sensible, rational approach to problems and disagreements does not make one an unfeeling automaton. It also has the benefit of being the best way to convince someone who disagrees with you, or convince a third party listening to a discussion- A kind word turneth away wrath, and all that.
    This is also a key point, to my mind, of good education: it doesnt just (attempt to?) ram ones head full of “facts”, as if somehow it were possible to ‘know’ everything about everything, and thereafter close ones mind, but teaches the individual to examine and assess any and all information presented to them, and then make up their own mind on what seems the best interpretation of the information presented, unencumbered by distractions like knee-jerk emotional responses, cultural prejudices, and faulty reasoning. Can anyone become “perfect” at this? No. But trying is what counts, and always being ready to re-examine your own ideas, as well as those of others. It is like the aim of “objectivity” in journalism, or the writing of history; Pure, 100% objectivity is an impossibility, but that doesnt mean, therefore, that one should give up striving for it, or that any opinion is as valid as any other. That is just quasi-post-modernist rhetorical bullshit.
    Having this basis in properly assessing the bias of “facts” or source material, or arguments, as presented to the individual is what would make sense of the rush of information that comes with the modern world. I cant even begin to guess how much “information” is available on the web, or how much of that information is utter crap, but I think Im fairly safe in assuming it is somewhere in the region of “Quite a Lot”. Without a practical background in critical reading (both of the written word, and of other media, including the visual) it is very easy to get tired and ignore everything, as we discussed above, or to fall for the first convincing charlatan that comes along with a few slick sentences and an understanding of how to manipulate cultural meta-narratives and the like (terrible, terrible terminology, but I hope people will forgive me for using theoretical shorthand, again). This is how people buy into claptrap conspiracy theories, as much as any bullshit religious cult like scientology, or neo-conservatism.
    As for “crafting media for best results”, I seriously doubt that any textbook or educational theory can tell you a foolproof way of doing that. Better merely to try ones best, surely, and let the results speak (or not) for themselves- always bearing in mind that being entertaining is the first and most important rule! This is why, for all that philosophically radical people bemoan the political influence of massive, conservative, pro-war/military, heterosexist, patriarchal Hollywood Blockbusters, millions of people all over the world (even in countries that otherwise “hate” America) pay hard earned money to see Iron Man 2, or Transformers 3. Experience, and box office receipts, have shown, time and again, that people will happily swallow the (bitter?) pill of American hegemony if it is wrapped in enough explosions, car chases, babes in bikinis, and simple morality plays where clear-cut good triumphs over moustache-twiddling evil.

    18 May 2010, 5:41 am

13. Stan:

    Adopting and practicing a calm, sensible, rational approach to problems and disagreements does not make one an unfeeling automaton. It also has the benefit of being the best way to convince someone who disagrees with you, or convince a third party listening to a discussion- A kind word turneth away wrath, and all that.

    (:

    18 May 2010, 8:50 am

14. Marcilla Elizabeth Smith:

    FWIW, I’m never sure how to respond to eoinmonkey’s posts because I’m usually at least 95% unsure which parts are or are not directed at me, including the parts where I have been quoted :: sigh ::

    18 May 2010, 3:24 pm

Leave a comment