Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Infinite City
Click on the title and it should bring you to the site where this was published. You can read for free.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Recycling PSA
The visuals used in this commercial are, with the exception of the Star Wars clips, all from comedies. It starts out with a brief scene from Futurama, an almost instantly recognizable show to many American viewers, in which the crew is on a giant pile of 20th century trash which was launched into space. Whether or not the viewer knows the original context of the clip, the basic concepts are all pretty much laid out: they're in space, on a pile of trash, and it's 20th century trash. Viewers who are familiar with Futurama might take away more meaning from this clip than nonviewers, though, because they would know that the show is set in the year 3000, and in that context, when Fry calls the trash a “glorious monument,” it's not much of a metaphor. They might immediately take away the implied meaning that our trash will be here long after we are gone, but for those who are not viewers of Futurama, many of the other visuals used also include this meaning in some sense.
As well as being mostly comedy, most of the video clips I used were also set in the future. The most obvious examples of this are the Futurama and Star Wars scenes, but the garbage avalanche scenes are from the movie Idiocracy, in which the solution to waste management continued to be dumping for another 500 years. Even the Simpsons clip at the end has a futuristic feel to it since the waste depicted is a bright green river of nuclear waste through which Radioactive Man floats in a Flash-looking costume. The only exception to this theme is the clip from 30 Rock, which is set in the present, although Tina Fey's cry of “Mortality!” as plastic bags are blown into a tree can be seen as a less explicit version of the idea expressed by the first clip's memorial comment: our trash will outlive us.
I chose to use mostly future oriented clips because recycling and waste management aren't really the kinds of issues that can be once-and-for-all resolved. Even if we managed to reduce our waste as much as possible, we would have to continue doing so in the future also, or the same problems will continue to arise. By using future oriented visuals of trash this idea that there is no quick fix is very subtlety implied, and the feeling of responsibility is also included through the idea of working towards a better future.
Besides being mostly future oriented comedy, most of the clips used in this commercial are also easily recognized. The original Star Wars Trilogy is of course, one of the most widely known series of movies ever created, and the white Storm Trooper armor seen in the clips used is immediately evocative of the trilogy even to those who wouldn’t recognize Luke, Hans, and Leia. Both the Futurama and Simpsons visuals are easily recognizable due to their well-known animation styles, the Simpsons especially since they’ve been a part of pop culture for almost a quarter of a century. By using iconic visuals viewers should be able to identify more easily with the scenes shown, even though they are fictional and set in the distant future.
Earlier I mentioned that the attempted tone of the commercial was one of “lighthearted responsibility,” which may sound like an oxymoron, but is certainly the easiest kind of responsibility to bear. The entire reason satire exists is to bring attention to important subject manner in a non-threatening way. As Freud so dryly puts it in his Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,
“If [any] speech is given such a marked appearance of logic which, on careful examination, is recognizable as being only an appearance, the truth behind it is that the joke declares the [speaker] to be in the right; the thought does not venture to do so seriously... It is only this employment of sophistry for the disguised representation of truth that gives it the character of a joke.” (128)
In other words, we recognize satire as humor because it appeals to our ideas of what is right by asserting the opposite. For already widely known subjects like recycling, comedy can be an especially useful tool in reinforcing basic ideas to which the viewer has already been repeatedly exposed.
While comedy can be helpful in making responsibility easier to bear, it can also have the drawback of being easily dismissible after the initial thought has passed. To make up for this, I reinforced the idea of responsibility through the Radiohead song, “Just.” This song's chorus repeats the phrase “you do it to yourself,” which may be a little harsh since many people are trying, but we could all be doing more and this song makes the commercial as a whole emphasize individual effort. When combined with the future oriented visuals, the overall effect should be to foster a feeling of worthwhile responsibility.
Of course, just about every individual piece used to create the commercial has to be taken out of its original context to be given the pro-recycling meaning. The exception to this might be the Futurama clips, since they were from an episode criticizing 20th century waste management procedures. The Star Wars movies were not about recycling, and a (entirely hypothetical) case could be made against recycling if one were to assume that the Death Star was only built with a trash compactor because of their own inefficient recycling program. The garbage avalanche clips from Idiocracy are only slightly out of context because the movie asserts the mountains of trash as more of a policy (or lack thereof) problem than one of individual effort. The episode of “30 Rock” from which the trash bag clip came isn't our trash outliving us, but about the futility of trying to remain in control of a world dominated by chaos. Of course the song used almost certainly wasn't about recycling, though it can be interpreted any number of ways. In each of these cases I have assigned new meaning to these pieces of the commercial by placing them in different contexts than they were created under.
Works Cited
“A Big Piece of Garbage.” Futurama. Twentieth Century Fox. 11 May, 1999. Television.
“Everything Sunny All the Time Always.” 30 Rock. NBC. 28 April, 2011. Television.
Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1960. Print.
Judge, Mike, dir. Idiocracy. Twentieth Century Fox, 2006. Film
Lucas, George, dir. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Twentieth Century Fox, 1977. Film.
“Radioactive Man.” The Simpsons. Twentieth Century Fox. 24 September, 1994. Television.
A Clean Well-Lighted Conflict
In accordance with Hemingway's style and conventions, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” is not really a story about a place, but rather about a particular set of mentalities which the place represents. The real story is told almost entirely through character dialogue which reveals what the existence of clean well-lighted places means to each. In this sense, the cafe in which most of the story takes place is as much a plot device to reveal character psychology and a deeper philosophy as it is a physical setting.
According to the William B. Bache criticism, Hemingway uses the characters of “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” to represent two conflicting ways of life: “The young waiter standing for a materialistic way of life: the older waiter and the old man standing for a nihilistic.” (1956) Bache later uses all three characters to create a sort of continuum of age-related conflict in which both spiritually devoid mentalities fall. At one end of the continuum the young waiter represents the materialistic viewpoint, though Bache also mentions that it has been suggested that the young waiter is already starting to become jaded with his materialistic notions and is on his way towards the nihilistic side of the continuum. Since Bache claims that “with the passage of time materialism often loses its meaning,” we can view the older waiter and the old man as representing two different stages of life which have progressed passed materialism and into nihilism. In this sense, the three characters can be seen not just as separate entities each representing the seemingly polar values of materialism and nihilism, but also as a threefold division of a greater philosophy which includes both of these mentalities.
There are several lines throughout the story which would seem to imply that the younger waiter's mentality is not purely materialistic, but is in fact already tarnished by the spots of nihilism which come with age. If we assume the lines “’Nothing’,” and “’He has plenty of money,’” are spoken by the young waiter, they become the first glimpses of his materialistic values that the reader is granted. According to the Joseph Gabriel criticism, if spoken by the young waiter “’Nothing,’” comes to mean “For no reason,” (1961) expressing the young waiter's materialistic notions that possession can bring happiness and therefore anyone with money has no reason to despair. He briefly breaks from this materialistic mentality, or at least seems to understand that it may not work for everyone, when he tells the old waiter “’A wife would be no good to him [the old man] now.’” In this sense the young waiter seems to recognize that the comfort he derives from knowing his wife is waiting for him at home cannot be the same for the old man who has lived long enough to see such things come and go. This is symbolic of the overall philosophy that materialism shifts towards nihilism with age, as the longer one lives the more things one sees fade away into nothingness. As Bache puts it, “From the older waiter to the old man lies a progression in despair, for the three characters are actually parts of an implied progression from youth through middle age to old age.” (1961)
The next glances the reader is given of the young waiter’s shifting mentality are in the exchanges between him and the old waiter after the old man is kicked out of the café. When the older waiter asks of the younger “’What is an hour?’” the response he is given is “’More to me [the young waiter] than to him [the old man].’” This clearly shows his materialistic tendencies, but can also be used to once again demonstrate that he can at least understand the nihilistic side. Perhaps the line which best reveals this shift comes shortly after this, and is one of the only places in the story where the young waiter’s dialogue is expanded upon with a brief glimpse of his thoughts.
“’No it is not’” are the most revealing words the young waiter says throughout the whole of “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” because they are the only words which explicitly express his understanding of ideas beyond his own materialistic notions. Every other place which would seem to indicate this same conclusion does so through implication, and each could very well be inferred as meaning something else entirely. What makes this line unique is narration which follows it: “He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry.” With these two short sentences, Hemingway tells the reader that the young waiter at least partially understands the meaning of the café, or clean well-lighted places in general. Had he been a pure representation of materialism, the young waiter almost certainly would not have agreed with the older one, or if he had it would have been only a method of ending a conversation which he cannot appreciate. The line “He did not wish to be unjust,” shows that the young waiter truly does believe what he says while “He was only in a hurry,” reinforces his materialistic side. With these brief, simple sentences, Hemingway shows us that the while the young waiter has mostly materialistic notions he is already beginning to adopt the nihilistic viewpoint of the older waiter.
Through these brief snippets of dialogue the reader can see the young waiter as “even now clutching at the straws of materialism.” (Barthes 1956) Since he would have killed himself if not for his niece's intervention, the old man clearly represents the extreme nihilistic end of the continuum. Barthes calls the older waiter the “truest symbol of modern man,” because, like most people, he is somewhere between the materialistic and nihilistic views. His utterance of the nihilistic Lord's Prayer shows that he is clearly leaning towards that end of the spectrum, yet his ability to understand both the young waiter's viewpoint and the stability of his job show that he is not so far gone as the old man.
Works Cited
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway". Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol. 40. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 153-269. UMass Dartmouth. Gale. Literature Criticism Online. 15 December 2011
According to the William B. Bache criticism, Hemingway uses the characters of “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” to represent two conflicting ways of life: “The young waiter standing for a materialistic way of life: the older waiter and the old man standing for a nihilistic.” (1956) Bache later uses all three characters to create a sort of continuum of age-related conflict in which both spiritually devoid mentalities fall. At one end of the continuum the young waiter represents the materialistic viewpoint, though Bache also mentions that it has been suggested that the young waiter is already starting to become jaded with his materialistic notions and is on his way towards the nihilistic side of the continuum. Since Bache claims that “with the passage of time materialism often loses its meaning,” we can view the older waiter and the old man as representing two different stages of life which have progressed passed materialism and into nihilism. In this sense, the three characters can be seen not just as separate entities each representing the seemingly polar values of materialism and nihilism, but also as a threefold division of a greater philosophy which includes both of these mentalities.
There are several lines throughout the story which would seem to imply that the younger waiter's mentality is not purely materialistic, but is in fact already tarnished by the spots of nihilism which come with age. If we assume the lines “’Nothing’,” and “’He has plenty of money,’” are spoken by the young waiter, they become the first glimpses of his materialistic values that the reader is granted. According to the Joseph Gabriel criticism, if spoken by the young waiter “’Nothing,’” comes to mean “For no reason,” (1961) expressing the young waiter's materialistic notions that possession can bring happiness and therefore anyone with money has no reason to despair. He briefly breaks from this materialistic mentality, or at least seems to understand that it may not work for everyone, when he tells the old waiter “’A wife would be no good to him [the old man] now.’” In this sense the young waiter seems to recognize that the comfort he derives from knowing his wife is waiting for him at home cannot be the same for the old man who has lived long enough to see such things come and go. This is symbolic of the overall philosophy that materialism shifts towards nihilism with age, as the longer one lives the more things one sees fade away into nothingness. As Bache puts it, “From the older waiter to the old man lies a progression in despair, for the three characters are actually parts of an implied progression from youth through middle age to old age.” (1961)
The next glances the reader is given of the young waiter’s shifting mentality are in the exchanges between him and the old waiter after the old man is kicked out of the café. When the older waiter asks of the younger “’What is an hour?’” the response he is given is “’More to me [the young waiter] than to him [the old man].’” This clearly shows his materialistic tendencies, but can also be used to once again demonstrate that he can at least understand the nihilistic side. Perhaps the line which best reveals this shift comes shortly after this, and is one of the only places in the story where the young waiter’s dialogue is expanded upon with a brief glimpse of his thoughts.
“’No it is not’” are the most revealing words the young waiter says throughout the whole of “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” because they are the only words which explicitly express his understanding of ideas beyond his own materialistic notions. Every other place which would seem to indicate this same conclusion does so through implication, and each could very well be inferred as meaning something else entirely. What makes this line unique is narration which follows it: “He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry.” With these two short sentences, Hemingway tells the reader that the young waiter at least partially understands the meaning of the café, or clean well-lighted places in general. Had he been a pure representation of materialism, the young waiter almost certainly would not have agreed with the older one, or if he had it would have been only a method of ending a conversation which he cannot appreciate. The line “He did not wish to be unjust,” shows that the young waiter truly does believe what he says while “He was only in a hurry,” reinforces his materialistic side. With these brief, simple sentences, Hemingway shows us that the while the young waiter has mostly materialistic notions he is already beginning to adopt the nihilistic viewpoint of the older waiter.
Through these brief snippets of dialogue the reader can see the young waiter as “even now clutching at the straws of materialism.” (Barthes 1956) Since he would have killed himself if not for his niece's intervention, the old man clearly represents the extreme nihilistic end of the continuum. Barthes calls the older waiter the “truest symbol of modern man,” because, like most people, he is somewhere between the materialistic and nihilistic views. His utterance of the nihilistic Lord's Prayer shows that he is clearly leaning towards that end of the spectrum, yet his ability to understand both the young waiter's viewpoint and the stability of his job show that he is not so far gone as the old man.
Works Cited
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway". Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol. 40. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 153-269. UMass Dartmouth. Gale. Literature Criticism Online. 15 December 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)