What would happen if The Thing (Ben Grimm) and The Thing got in a fight??...analyzing John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and Cixous/Kristeva

by Keith Garcia

The first scene in “The Thing” we see some men chasing after a dog, shooting at it for reasons we don’t know. The shooter keeps babbling about something and ends up shooting a member of MacReady’s (Kurt Russel) team and the guy get’s popped for bein’ crazy. Later, we find out that this dog is actual some sort of alien who has shape-shifting capabilities and takes on the appearance of the person it kills. MacReady and his team are then sent into turmoil by this “Thing” and live in fear and mistrust for their remaining days.

There are no women in this group of researches, only men…men who would do what any man would do in this position of fear for their life, try to take control. So how does this alien relate to the work of Julia Kristeva?

Her article is titled “From Filth to Defilement,” which is exactly how the the thing must feel as it try’s to assimilate w/ foreign hosts. It must feel filth by absorbing those it consumes and defiled as it releases its true form from the body its taken shape of. Kristeva speaks of menstrual blood and how it threatens the relations between the sexes…through internalization (71). She is talking about how menstrual blood from a woman stands for danger in the eyes of man. This is what the thing is to the group of men in the research team, danger. They fear it as they wait for it to show its face to them which puts them on edge.

Kristeva has a section titled “Between Two Powers,” which is interesting because there are two powers in the movie, the thing and the group of men. However Kristeva talks about the relationship of two powers between men and women. How can this relate to the struggle for power between the the thing and the men?

She talks about the separating of sexes giving men rights over women “the less felt to be wily powers” (70). The men want the right to live over the things struggle to live. So they battle and burn it trying to destroy it’s very presence. They do this because they want to protect themselves from death. Both man and monster are in a struggle for power just as Kristeva says about the sexes battling it out for power. “Two powers attempted to share out society. One of them, the masculine, apparently victorious, confesses through its very relentlessness against the other, the feminine, that it is threatened by an asymmetrical, irrational, wily uncontrollable power” (70). We see this in the movie as the men act in irrational ways to try to be leader and assume power in deciding who “the thing” is and who the men they started the expedition with are.

As I mentioned earlier, the alien is a shape shifter which takes different forms in the movie. What significance does shape shifting have to do with Helene Cixous’ “The Laugh of Medusa?”

She mentions that “woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display.” What she is talking about is how woman must “realize” who she is as a whole. The thing takes the shape of different people/animals and thus is a stranger to that shape. When it reverts to its natural form it sheds the unfamiliar host and is no longer a stranger to its shape and “realizes” what it is, much like what Cixous explains.

In the end, man wins against the alien from outer space. However MacReady lost a lot of friends through out the battle for survival. The men were scared, and acted irrational at times to figure out how they would live. MacReady killed a monster who took on the shape of friends throught this battle. “We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing (2045).

Gender and Ma Vie En Rose

by Keith Garcia

What is Gender? and what is Sex?...Gender are the behavioral and psychological traits related to a person and sex relates to male and female. The movie “Ma Vie En Rose” is a story about a boy named Ludavic (Ludo) who strongly believe that he was meant to be a girl. Although Ludo is a boy, he is taking on the gender role of a girl. It’s something that he just felt was right and went with it. So why make a film about gender role, what is its significance?

Michael R. Schiavi says in his article “A “Girlboys” Own Story: Non-Masculine Narrativity En Ma Vie en Rose” that Ludo emerges into the setting as a gender disaster. What he is referring to is the scene where Ludo shows up in his sister’s fairy princess dress. This is abnormal behavior for a boy because of how we think boys and girls should dress and act. Gender roles are usually picked up at a young age watching either dad or mom do certain things. Growing up children see how male and female act and then the child will try to mimic those actions. This is different for Ludo because he has feels that he was supposed to be a girl. Schiavi refers to this as “coming in” instead of “coming out” because of this sense of being born in the wrong body.

Schiavi says “the interiority and silence that generally contain youthful homosexual self-awareness, speech acts, and narrative possibility” is what makes Ludo’s pre-notion of being a girl to be known as “coming in.” This film portrays the struggle Ludo goes through dealing with being a transgender, as well as, shows how others react to Ludo’s self-awareness. We are self-aware of what gender we are and react accordingly. I grew up loving things such as Ninja Turtles and Transformers, not because it was forced upon, but because it was what appealed to me as a boy. The same thing goes for Ludo which was dresses and dolls. Society shuns upon gender actions that are outside the norm but who is an individual to say don’t act like that, it’s not right…only the person should be able to decide that for themselves.

Heaven Isn't Soooo Far Awaaaay....A discussion of Stacey/Fannon and Far From Heaven

by Keith Garcia

The movie “Far From Heaven” focuses on two main characters, Kathy who is the model white wife of the neighborhood and Raymond who is a successful black man in a time where race was an issue. Both of these characters break racial barriers by communicating with one another. They also overcome other obstacles through out the movie.

In Frantz Fanon’s article “The Fact of Blackness” he talks about what it’s like to be black in the white man’s world. He mention’s that in order for a black man to be black he must be black in relation to the white man. What he means by this is that the black man isn’t just considered a “man” without having black attached to it, compared to a white man who other wise would be known as “that man over there.”

What relation does Fanon’s article have with the film? The character Raymond in the movie is a well educated and very articulate black man living in the 1950’s. When he is first introduced in the film, Kathy sees him outside her window and is startled by the fact there is a man outside in her garden. Instead of seeing him as just a man looking around he was viewed as a threat to her home. Her reaction to his presence was of high alert. Fanon talks about how his skin color has put people on alert just how Raymond’s did with Kathy. As the movie progresses other white people view Raymond’s skin color as a spectacle and not just him as a person.

Even though Kathy is startled by him in the garden she learned to know him as a man instead of just a black man. A scene where Kathy and Raymond are discussing art in art gallery shows their interaction as just two people but the white’s in the gallery look at him as if he were some sort of animal, not sophisticated enough to be in their presence. Fanon speaks of a time when he was viewed in the same manner by a child saying “Look, a Negro!” “Mama, see the Negro! I’m Frightened!” He then goes on to say all he wanted was to be a man among other men just how Raymond in the movie wanted to be viewed.

Kathy’s interest in Raymond quickly turns into desire through the movie as she gets to know him on a personal level. Jackie Stacey talks about fascination and desire in the article “Desperately Seeking Difference.” Stacey also explains how women face the opposition of femininity and masculinity and how a woman is to take on both roles through desire and identification. So in what way do we see this in the film?
Kathy’s husband, ol’ washboard abs (Dennis Quaid), battles his sexuality and in the end leaves his family for a man. At this point Kathy fills in for his absence being both mother and father to the children. This also gave her time to understand what Raymond was about and she desired to learn more about him.

Ultimately her desire forced him to move from the city and give up the floral shop because the white people did not like their association with each other. Their friendship could not be sustained because of the color of his skin. “I progress by crawling. And already I am being dissected under white eyes, the only realy eyes. I am fixed….they objectively cut away slices of my reality” (420).

I thought Alien Nation was a T.V. show?....An overview of Marx and Dancer in the Dark

Keith Garcia

At the beginning of the reading Marx talks about how as workers the labor we put into an object is confined in that object. He goes on to explain that the worker puts his heart and soul into an object only for it to remain trapped in that object; (The greater this product, the less is he himself) Marx 297. Marx describes this as the alienation of labor in which this labor is external; that the work is not essential to that person. "His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor"(298).

The same can be said for the character Selma in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. She spent many hours at the factory making what looked like sinks or basins. At the factory she is no longer herself and thus becomes a product of labor. She works hard all day for a paycheck which she uses sparingly, only paying for necessities and putting the rest away for her son's eye operation. She fears he will suffer from blindness which she is also battling. Scolded for almost ruining the machine line and falling behind on products produced, she starts to feel as less of a person. This brings in a sense of alienation because she feels that she is not cut out for any other work because her current occupation is all she knows and without eyesight she can not learn anything new.

With all this talk of alienation what does it have to do with Selma? How does the director show this in his film? Marx says that alienation is labor of self-sacrifice and that's exactly what Selma has done. She has sacrificed herself to the work line so that her son would be able to have his vision the rest of his life. However, her labor was taken away by her eyesight as she broke one of the machines in the production line. This caused her to lose her work and source of income for Jean's operation. Marx also states that whatever the product of his labor is, he is not (297) and that is how Selma felt after losing her job. She felt like she wasn't capable of doing anything else and when put in a confrontation between her neighbor Bill and her stolen money, she had to make the ultimate sacrifice. He wasn't going to give her the money back unless she killed him, which she did and refused a 2nd trial and lawyer so that she could use the money for the operation. She lost all hope for herself and in return wanted Jean to pull forward. She did not want him to become a harsh object of labor.

Oh look at me, I look at people through windows....A discussion of Mulvey and Rear Window

Keith Garcia

In the first paragraph of Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" she talks about scopophilia and how people look at other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze. She relates this with Freuds view and how he said these people or "objects" resemble the activities of curious children who want to see the forbidden. Think of it as being a kid around the week of Christmas. You know you have presents under the tree, but you don't know what's inside. You also know that you are not allowed to open them until Christmas, but that curiousity is lingering. In this case the content inside the wrapping is forbidden and maybe leads to snagging a peep.

Readers may ask..."What does this present business have to do with this blog?" Well it's like I mentioned earlier, people are curious about what's going on and will try to snag a peep given the opportunity. This also relates to cinema because we are put in the situation wondering what is going to happen next. In Alfred Hitchcocks "Rear Window" the main character, L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries is confined to his apartment and passes time by watching the everday activities of his neighbors. These strangers then turn into objects who he watches on a day-to-day basis. This goes back to the talk about scopophilia and the voyeuristic pleasure which is inherent in the act of watching an unknowing subject.

So what does all this business have to do with cinema? When people watch movies they are drawn in, curious as to what will happen to the characters. The actors/actresses in the movie don't know we are watching them, just as the people across the window don't know Jeffries is spectating their actions. Mulvey talks about how Jeffries girlfriend is no longer a person when she snoops around the apartment across the way, but is then viewed as an intruder in a world through his binoculars. Jeffries girlfriend was a person he had somewhat to very little interest in, but once she was on the other side of his window she became an object of desire.

Why does this matter though, why did Hitchcock make the view outside Jeffries window the focal point? The guy has a broken leg so he takes up the simple pleasures in life and starts to people watch. Think of the view outside Jeffries window as a television screen. Every window could represent a different channel, if he doesn't like what he sees he can focus his view on the next window with his binoculars. Or he can look at multiple windows with his own eyes, which could be similar to a televisions picture in picture function. Ethics comes to mind when thinking about watching the actions of others. Personally one might know it's wrong to spy on their neighbors, but there's that lingering temptation. People might criticse these actions much like Jeffries maid Stella. She gives him a hard time about his actions but is later drawn in to the lives of the people in the window. Both characters become fixated on the strangers across the alley and produce obsessive voyeurs, turning them into "peeping toms" who obtain satisfaction from watching an objectified other.

Epileptic and Persepolis

Keith Garcia

Epileptic is a strange and interesting story by David B. The story focuses on Jean-Christophe's seizures, hence the title of the name, but main story is about Pierre-Francois who is the younger brother.

Persepolis is an autobiography by an Iranian woman, Marjane Satrapi, who tells the story of her life as a child in war torn Iran. This book does a great job of telling the story about the author's childhood and also incorporates historical elements.

One thing that I found interesting about both of these books are the illustrations that are used to describe moments in the story. Persepolis has more of a straight-forward approach to visuals and Epileptic has odd images to describe events. It is a common trait noticed in both works, which leaves one intrigued.

My question is, what is the significance of presenting self imagination in that manner? Both authors use these visuals to draw reader attention. In Persepolis there are images of Satrapi feeling lost in space because she shunned out God. The space and the planets around her gives off the sense that she is completely lost and also gives us, the reader, that same feeling. An example from Epileptic are panels of Jean-Christophe having an attack. In the panel there is a weird dragon biting his head and constricting around him. This does an awesome job of letting the reader imagine the battle Jean-Christophe is having from his attack. Anyone can illustrate these images and leave them blank but the authors take it a step further and use imagination to make the events more captive.

So if we can agree that they want us to visually imagine what the characters are feeling then why would they choose this form of expression? Well as said earlier in the semester White talks of the narrative and how it is a story told through someone's point of view. That is exactly what both authors are doing in these novels. The stories being told are through their point of view and how they perceive events and the world around them. This makes sense because we are not the ones who experienced the things they have so they are showing us through eccentric visuals to capture our attention. Marjane Satrapi's visuals help one to view her world as she saw it as a child and David B's depictions greatly express the struggle of dealing with illness, through the form of abstract creations that ensnare his brother's childhood. Both author's have created their narrative and thus help to greatly appreciate a tale from another person's point of view.

Sandman + McCloud

Keith Garcia

Sandman

I decided to focus on the picture above because it will help you get a better understanding of what I am going to talk about in this blog post. I will focus on what McCloud talks about in his reading and accompany it with the images and story from sandman. I will discuss what McCloud says about images and also what he says about frames.

In Sandman you see on page 21 that Sandman is being confined to the crystal ball . Well the point of view the reader is getting is from Sandman, which makes you feel like your in the crystal ball as well. On pages 24 and 31 you also experience his point of view as people are talking to him from the outside. My question is what is the purpose of this? Why would Neil Gaiman want you, the reader, to feel like you are also the one being captured? The reason could be because Gaiman wants the reader and the comic to be one. McCloud gives a good example of looking from this point of view on pages 34 and 35.

So what is the signifcance of having Sandman look at his captors from inside the crystal ball? What does this point of view do for the reader? Well, as you can see on page 21 of sandman he is being confined by those who want to capture death but instead ensnare her little brother. McCloud says that every act committed by the artist is aided and abetteed by a silent accomplic which is the reader. At the top of page 21 you see Sandman lying on the ground and he is not in the crystal ball yet. But the reader commited the crime of confining him to the ball. So according to McCloud everyone who read this book participated in Sandmans capture.

The way Gaiman brings the comic and the reader together helps draw the reader in. Like they too are part of this book which makes his way of storytelling very interesting.