The Fox News Channel is an Extremely Right-Winged, Biased, Opinionated, Controlling Excuse for a ‘Fair and Balanced’ News Broadcast??

Looking at the production of reality in a news broadcast – Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.

Robert Greenwald has produced many films that document issues of political concern, such as Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and Uncovered: The Iraq War. His media company, Brave New Films, has produced films of a similar nature and has created the “Fox Attacks: The Environment” campaign. There’s no question that Greenwald is a political activist, as he is recognized both for his political documentaries and his activism.

Obviously, Greenwald puts a bias behind his work. And, of course, one expects this bias going in to the screening of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. The film reveals the danger of opinion-driven media, which may seem to be a contradiction considering Greenwald’s list of accomplishments and the obvious one-sidedness of Outfoxed. The film exposes Rupert Murdoch’s control over an entire news corporation, the aptly named News Corporation. NewsCorp owns Fox News Channel, which becomes the target of Outfoxed due to its extreme right-wing bias that seems to discredit the channel’s ‘Fair and Balanced’ motto. Fox portrays itself as the provider of objective news that informs its audience in a ‘fair and balanced’ way. This is the primary difference between Greenwald’s documentary style and Fox News’ reporting style: they both convey extreme political leanings and obvious intentions in their messages, but only one makes this evident to its audience. This is the danger of Fox News, NewsCorp, and Rupert Murdoch – one (right-winged) man manipulates an entire network in order to express his personal political viewpoint. The manipulation of news, even beyond Fox or NewsCorp, is worth fighting against, because, as Outfoxed reveals, “media is the nervous system of the democracy” (Jeff Cohen, FAIR).

There are numerous techniques revealed in the film that Fox News uses to promote their Republican stance and to, essentially, eliminate any objective, informed news broadcast from their network. Three such techniques are: 1. the emphasizing of opinion-based programs or news segments; 2. the lack of factual support with the use of the phrase “Some people say”; 3. the ‘confusing’ of issues in order to hinder the strength of the left-wing.

1. Outfoxed demonstrates how a great majority of Fox News isn’t even news at all because it is so drenched in commentary by the right-wing correspondents. Segments like Bill O’Reilly’s “Talking Points” are the perfect opportunity for Fox to transmit their biases to viewers as a form of opinion. Fox supports the use of opinion-based news because opinion can not be proven wrong. However, the news is supposed to provide facts, it’s supposed to relay information objectively to its viewers to keep them informed about the world around them. Fox News has essentially eliminated journalism. As Bob McChesney says, “it’s stripped out any notion of journalism as we’ve traditionally understood it … There is no journalism at the Fox News Channel” (Outfoxed). Especially considering Fox’s ‘Fair and Balanced’ slogan, the overuse of opinion-based news is an abuse of the media outlet.


2. A more specific technique that supports the lack of factual information at the Fox News Channel is the use of the three simple words “some people say”. Peter Hart, a media analyst from FAIR, explains in the film that this phrase is a clever way of inserting political opinion when you know it probably shouldn’t be there. This phrase allowed “Bill O’Reilly [to find] similarities between “radical” Nevada voters and Nazis” (Eric Alterman, The Real ‘Fake News’). By connecting this phrase to a statement, it relieves the correspondent of the need for providing any grounds or reference to its source. “Some people say” emphasizes the lack of journalism at the Fox News Channel. Another method that wasn’t mentioned in Outfoxed but that is very similar to the “some people say” technique is the question mark technique. The video clip shows Jon Stewart’s explanation of the question mark on The Daily Show. He explains how Fox News’ uses the question mark to basically allow anyone to make any claim they want, as long as it’s in the form of a question and not a statement. I don't know how to attach the clip, so follow the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpChNJbILZM


3. One method that Fox uses to damage the image of left-wing supporters or to undermine the merit of Democratic issues is to misconstrue the facts of an issue until they are too muddled together to figure out who the ‘winner’ is. This a method used often in situations where the left-wing is quite obviously the stronger candidate of the two. An example given in the film is when Richard Clarke, the National Coordinator on the United States National Security Council, apologizes for failing the country after the attack of 9/11. Fox News suggested on many different occasions that Clarke was a supporter of the Democratic Party and used this to complicate the situation, especially since it was around the time of the upcoming presidential election. James Wolcott explain that this technique is effective because it tricks the viewer into believing that there is no clear ‘winner’, which means that the Republicans, or the Fox News Channels’ correspondents, are not the ‘losers’. The news anchors and journalists working for Fox are almost all right-wing supporters, as are the majority of the guests. The left-wing correspondents or guests are either silenced by the pushy anchors or are “liberals who specialize in bashing liberals and liberalism” (Eric Alterman, The Real ‘Fake News’). Alterman goes on to argue that “liberals ought to refuse to participate at all because it is impossible to do so without playing by Fox’s fixed rules”.

The film outlines the many, many techniques implemented by the Fox News Channel that allows blatant political opinion to be broadcast as news. These three examples are techniques that stood out to me because they demonstrate how simple it can be to manipulate the truth in the eyes of the public. The use of a simple phrase or the slander of a political party is not the most sophisticated method for ‘tricking’ the public into believing your ideals or beliefs. It’s scary how easily the truth can be altered, which makes me think back to The Couple in the Cage. The deception of the two actors is obviously very different than the operation of Fox News, but they both reveal the ease of deception when there is status or preconceived notions involved. In the context of a museum or in the context of a news broadcast, the public will generally believe what they are told. This is a great danger that we must be aware of when looking at documentary media of any kind and the production of reality that ensues.

The Exploration, Exhibition and Exploitation of the Human: The Couple in the Cage

The Couple in the Cage, “a satirical commentary on Western concepts of the exotic, primitive Other” (2) performed by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gbmez-Pefia, is intriguing and discomforting for two main reasons. First, the fact that so many people were unable to identify the exhibit as fake is alarming and suggests that we haven’t moved too far past the days of Barnum’s Circus or the Hottentot Venus. Secondly, the fact that so few people found it disconcerting to see a culture or a people on display because of the context presented it as a form of scientific exploration.

I think the first point reveals a great deal about how Western culture believes they are more developed or civilized than the ‘primitive’ East, primarily because of our ideological views that tell us to believe consumption and development are better. The binary opposition of the West and the East is explained in Edward Said’s Orientalism. This work explains the contrived identity of the Orient created by the West and the white’s “long tradition of executive responsibility towards the colored races”.

The one moment of the film that really stood out to me was when a man in the crowd commented on how interested the male ‘native’ was with the television set. He said that it was interesting that the male was so fascinated even though he didn’t actually know what it was. This can be considered to be what Said refers to as “high cultural humanism”. It demonstrates how, in Western culture, white people are thought to have greater wisdom and are more developed intellectually, solely because they are more developed in terms of practices like capitalism or institutional progress. This intellectual superiority is explained in Said’s Orientalism, where he states that the native races in the world are left with “centuries of experience and no wisdom”. I think that this statement resonated throughout The Couple in a Cage because none of the observers (of the exhibit) seemed to consider the history of the ‘natives’, when they actually believed that they were ‘natives’. Those who fell for the stunt seemed to be more interested in the couple’s interaction with Western products than they were in learning more about the history of this newly discovered native tribe. Even when the male would perform his speech about the tribe in their ‘native tongue’, only one person seemed to care that he couldn’t actually understand what the man was saying. Everyone else was fascinated with the exoticism of this foreign language and didn’t feel compelled to learn anything deeper than what was presented at surface level. The gimmick of these foreign creatures, interacting with the magic of Western technology, was the primary attraction for the West, which makes it way too easy to link this example to the human exhibits of our past. Fusco provides a good summary of the human exhibition that has occurred in the past:
Since the early days of the Conquest, "aboriginal samples" of people fiom Ahca, Asia, and the Americas were brought to Europe for aesthetic contemplation, scientific analysis, and entertainment. Those people from other parts of the world were forced first to take the place that Europeans had already created for the savages of their own Medieval mythology; later with the emergence of scientific rationalism, the "aborigines" on display served as proof of the natural superiority of European civilization, of its ability to exert control over and extract knowledge from the "primitive" world, and ultimately of the genetic inferiority of non-European races. (5)

The second point is more disturbing in the way that it exposes the flaws of Western ideologies. The concept of observing a different culture so closely has been deeply rooted through Western history as normal practice. It’s not only natural for the West to explore the rest of the world and its cultures, but it is also expected and even respected with a “sense of intellectual dedication” (Said) to helping these lesser cultures. This builds on Said’s concept of high cultural humanism and the power structure it creates. There is an assumption that it is natural for the West to explore other parts of the world, as Said describes “the tradition of experience, learning, and education that kept the Oriental-colored to his position of object being studied by the Occidental-white, instead of vice versa”. It is ingrained into our ideological beings that the West is superior due to its development and its civilized nature, and therefore it’s assumed that we have the right and the responsibility to explore and help other inferior cultures.

Fusco explains this sort of white imperialism as it dates back to Columbus. She states: “Finding historical justification for Columbus's "discovery" became just another way of affirming Europeans' and Euro-Americans' "natural right" to be global cultural consumers” (3-4). She actually describes the true intention of cultural exploration, which is to expand consumer bases and to support globalization. This issue obviously has many levels and deeper facets to it, but The Couple in the Cage reveals one form of cultural exploitation that produces profits for the West. The exhibition of humans, as Fusco summarizes, has been an ongoing practice and, as we discussed in lecture, has occurred up to present time (in 2005, Germany constructed a native African ‘village’ for exhibition). The film displays the Western reaction to the display of other cultures and other human beings. Although there are many people opposed to this concept in the film, there are also many people who support it or assume it to be natural, which reveals a lot about the Western ethnocentric way of life.

I think this film and its implications about Western life can be greatly explained through a statement made by Nietzche. “Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are” (Said). The ideological belief that Western culture is dominant, that the East is inferior, and that the West may explore, exhibit, and exploit the East, either as a form of ‘aid’ or for their own intellectual growth, is a truth created in the past, dating back to the days of exploration and Columbus. This is a constructed truth that we have forgotten was in fact constructed, making it very difficult to alter in order to eliminate the human exhibition completely.

The "Secret" to Culture

The concept of the Western manufactured perception of the native Other reminded me of a specific ad campaign.

In Western culture, the individual is always seeking more, wanting more out of life, wanting answers to questions. This is something partially created by, and most definitely exploited by, advertising. Advertisements are used to suggest that a certain product can give the individual, or consumer, this ‘more’, this ‘answer’. One way of doing this is through the use of the exotic Other and the mystery that it involves. I’ve noticed this technique recently after flipping through some (teen) magazines and seeing a strange ad campaign for Secret Deodorant. This line of deodorant products, called Scent Expressions, offers a variety of exotic and international scents, like Jasmine Orient, Vanilla Chai, Kuku Coco Butter, Spanish Rose, Brazilian Cherry, Eastern Lily, French Lavender, Arctic Apple, English Bloom, and Afrikan Violet. Moreover, the descriptions of these scents include:

• English Bloom: “A scent as warm and inviting as an old fashioned high tea.”
• Kuku Coco Butter: “As addictive as Carribean folk music…”
• Afrikan Violet: “This intensely clean, cool, and spiritual fragrance is as big as the continent of Africa”
• Spanish Rose: “Sensual, passionate, and spicy, Spanish Rose evokes the sweet, scarlet, velvety feel of rose petals"
• Asian Pear: “…leaves your senses feeling sweet, yet strong”

An idealized image of different cultures or nations is exploited for these descriptions. Also, if you visit the Secret website, the consumer is able to explore these scents and discover their perfect scent by doing a quiz. They present this process of choosing your fated scent as a type of journey. This plays on the idea of the Western fascination with the Other, as we are intrigued by what is different. By wearing Asian Pear, I can be sweet and strong like a person from the East. If I use Spanish Rose, I will become passionate and spicy. The descriptive words don’t explain a fragrance, especially not a deodorant scent. Deodorant cannot be spiritual, but using Afrikan Violet allows a Western person to step into a foreign spirituality, without of course actually interacting or understanding the foreign culture in anyway. I’m quite fascinated by this deodorant ad campaign because it really emphasizes how much Western culture will manipulate the foreign Other to suit its personal needs. In this case, the exoticisms of other parts of the world are exploited to boost sales with a teen demographic. It’s also interesting to look at the English Bloom scent, which is described as warm and inviting. Basically, if I don't want to explore this exotic unknown in the world of deodorant, a familiar Western scent is available, waiting with warm, inviting arms.

The picture included is of the Arctic Apple scent, which isn't the best one for portraying the native image, but it does explain an obvious stereotype of an Icelandic or Scandinavian Beauty. I personally like the swan in the background, which has nothing to do with the Arctic, apples, or deodorant. The igloo is much more appropriate to hold up the stereotypes! I also enjoy the connection between Arctic and apple, but that's not really relevant to the documentation of the Other. I should note that this ad has a smaller segment on the next page that says "Introducing an exotic new collection of beautiful fragrances from around the world ... And now you can add a matching body mist for a globe-hopping journey as dazzling as you are. Where to next?" Apparently, you can become a cultured, world traveller by wearing this deodarant!

Please visit theworldisyours.com for more information on this exotic deodorant line.

The Construction of the Other in Cannibal Tours and National Geographic

The manipulation and objectification of the primitive Other is blatant in O’Rourke’s film Cannibal Tours and is also evident in the National Geographic with the explanation given in the article “A World Brightly Different: Photographic Conventions”. The Western viewpoint is used to manipulate the image of Other cultures in order to promote specific messages or, essentially, to present a specific image of Western culture. A great example of this is in the National Geographic article, where it explains that the aggressive resistance of natives to Western empire building “has usually been treated as a personality trait of natives rather than a situational response to the theft of land or other mode of attack” (World, 99). The National Geographic does not address the issue of war and especially does not represent the soldiers as the enemy of the country’s natives. Furthermore, it does not explain the viewpoint of the natives and it does not give an explanation of why the natives are resisting the Western domination. The magazine simply explains it as a personality trait of these foreign beings, so as not to provoke any questions and to require the supply of no further details. The magazine even goes so far as to portray positive interactions between the soldiers and the natives to make it appear as if they have a friendly relationship with no reason for conflict. An example of this is a photograph “cheerfully titled ‘U.S. Navy gives an ice cream party’” (World, 99). This brings absolutely no context to the political, social, or cultural issues at hand and presents an insincere relationship between the U.S. Navy and the country they are invading.

To relate this argument to Cannibal Tours, it’s imperative to consider what the Western person wants or expects out of the communication or interaction with this cultural Other. These expectations and desires are linked to how the image of the Other is conveyed and perceived in the West. The Other is often portrayed as being unreal and is dehumanized to create a divide between the Other and the Western Self. One method used in National Geographic that was evident in Cannibal Tours as well is the portrayal of foreign rituals to create the “effect of flattening the emotional life of the [natives]” (World, 91). An excellent example of this in National Geographic is how the “funeral becomes a moment of cultural display (of special paraphernalia or dress, as well as custom more generally) rather than a moment of grief” (91). The human element of the funeral is ignored and the exhibition of the funeral ceremony is the focus. This example supports the idea that the tourists on these cannibal tours really aren’t interested in learning about the culture or interacting with its people, but that they are primarily interested in being part of the consumption of this foreign spectacle. Within the film, the tourists pay to take photographs inside the spiritual houses of the natives. They pay for this photographic evidence not to further their knowledge of the natives’ practices, but so that they have memorabilia from their trip to flaunt when they get home. To think back to the concept of the photograph and its use as a measure of history, it becomes obvious that this type of photograph has no historical or personal significance. The photograph simply becomes a frivolous souvenir for the Western tourists.

Essentially, the entire practice of tourism or the portrayal of culture in the National Geographic is for Western people to gain a broader cultural knowledge, to become worldly so to speak. However, this desire to know the unknown is achieved through the Western opinion of how the Other should be known. We have certain preconceived notions or expectations of what this Other will look like, how they will act, etc. These notions are developed and strengthened by the windows into the exotic created by Western productions like the National Geographic and these cannibal tours. The article on the National Geographic outlines these images we have created through idealized thoughts of the rituals, the elaborate native dress, the diligent lifestyle, the connection to nature, the naked exotic (read: non-white) woman, and so on. The Western person already has an idea of how these foreign cultures should appear to them, and magazines like the National Geographic satisfy these thoughts by providing the standard images we expect to see. The concept of tourism, especially in Cannibal Tours, further supports the claim that Western peoples only want to learn about foreign cultures to the extent that they have already concocted in their minds. Even when there is actual interaction between the Westerners and this supposed Other, there is no true communication between the groups. The Western people do not want to gain an understanding for this exotic species, and so their encounters are “superficial, based primarily on bargaining for artifacts and taking pictures, so that there [is] no opportunity for any genuine communication to take place” (Interview, 427). The whole tourist experience is simply an extended version of flipping the pages of a National Geographic, where tourists could see (and now buy) tangible elements of these foreign cultures. The experience is not to gain a better understanding, but simply to add more dimension to the spectacle that is otherwise only captured through photographs in the magazine on their coffee tables.

The inarguable climax of the film is when the tourists are dancing on the boat, dressed up with ‘native’ face painting, “oblivious to their exotic surroundings” (428). At this point, the tourists mimic how they think the natives (should) act. One man who is having his photograph taken puts up his fists and snarls to look like a strong native man, even though at no point in the film or in any other imagery of native men have I seen this pose. The man actually applies a Western image of strength or masculinity to his representation of a strong native man. This proves that there is little to no understanding of the cultures that these tourists had encountered.

Overall, the Western view of foreign native cultures is distorted primarily because of the methods used for the viewing of these cultures. The understanding of different peoples is superficial and based around the Self, which creates a consciously and unconsciously misinformed image.

The Performance of Race: Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles

“We need an other-oriented acting approach of the kind that Anna Deavere Smith is attempting to develop, which can present race as simultaneously both anchored and mobile, both fact and act, both trap and trope.” (Thompson, 137)

This is a quote that summarizes Debby Thompson’s article “Is Race a Trope?”: Anna Deavere Smith and the Question of Racial Performativity and, I feel, summarizes the beauty behind Smith’s performance acting in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. Thompson analyzes Smith’s “post-structuralist acting practices” (127) that separate her from the typical Method Acting, based on liberal humanism or a Naturalistic approach, that dominates current Western acting practices. The idea behind this Naturalistic Acting Approach is that human nature is a universal entity that the actor must strive to reveal by bringing the “truth of the human soul to the stage” (128). This belief has many flaws, as it limits the portrayal of a character to what the actor has experienced, while, more importantly, it “naturalizes ideology” (128) by supporting an image of universality of emotions or identities. This form of acting would not accurately portray the racial differences and the problems stemming from them within Twilight: Los Angeles, a film that presents many individual perspectives on the Los Angeles riots that followed the Rodney King verdict.

This is where Anna Deavere Smith’s “other-oriented” approach to acting reveals its ability to connect to such a diverse character base and to, in turn, expose racial identities and conflicts. The “other-oriented” approach requires the actor to first look outside of themselves to “build the character from the outside in” (130). This allows for an “exploration of the gap between self and other, actor and character, … [and] the gaps within our seemingly linear ideological narratives” (130).

Smith’s unique performance acting has be likened to Brecht’s “Alienation Effect”, which suggests that “a representation that alienates is one which allows us to recognize its subject, but at the same time make it seem unfamiliar” (130). This effect is evident within Twilight: Los Angeles, as Smith creates a sort of clean slate for each individual by personally representing all of them. Initially, while watching the film, I felt that the differences between each character were painfully obvious. I first accredited this to overacting or over-performing the individuals’ unique personality traits or speech conventions. However, as I continued to watch the film, I realized that this overacting helped to portray the differences between characters due to social or racial constructs. In regards to the “Alienation Effect”, the portrayal of so many different people by just one actor allowed each identity, although extremely constructed through speech patterns, accents, slang, and body language, to become slightly ambiguous. What I mean by this is that such a range of characters all held a similar trait because they were performed by the same actor, and this drew a connection between each character to create that universality that comes from the Naturalistic form of acting. This was not the intended effect of Smith’s acting approach, and it is not my final interpretation by any means.

The universality that comes from her portrayal of these different individuals actually strengthens the differences and the racial or social divides that exist between each character. By putting each character on a clean slate (which is what I consider their portrayal by one person to be), the viewer may expect connections and similarities to form, but this is not the case. There are obvious differences between some characters, such as Mrs. Young Soon-Han with her thick Korean accent and obvious stance on the situation, and Twilight Bey, Katie Miller, Sergeant Charles Duke, or Elaine Young. There are less obvious differences with other characters and it’s even possible to mistake a character’s race due to Smith’s performance. This could be the case with Charles Lloyd, the African-American defense attorney, which was one mistaken identity that was discussed in class. When it was discovered that Lloyd was African-American and not white, the differences and the stereotypes that are created in our society were only emphasized and made even more obvious. This was a powerful element of the film and was a way that the viewer became an active participant in the conflict of race through the “Alienation Effect”. The viewer is able to recognize the subject that Smith is performing, yet there are elements that become unfamiliar in this new context, which ultimately help to strengthen our understanding of the social constructs created for race.

The Thompson article also touches on the work of Judith Butler, when Thompson states that “identities are radically theatrical and performative, constituted by repeated poses, postures, acts, and gestures” (132). This reveals the importance of performance and the appropriateness of Smith’s act of performing these individuals in her work. With Twilight: Los Angeles as an example, the individuals she portrays are strengthened by her performances of their gestures and unique traits. She actually makes the characters more real and more observable through this method of acting. This approach also brings about a more true portrayal of each individual because it includes the flaws that come through in the speech process. The viewer has to look past what’s simply being said to really understand the human behind the words, and so “all of the utterances, every “uh”, is a rhythmic beat which informs the development of character” (Introduction to Twilight: Los Angeles, 4). The actual language and the process of speaking for each character becomes part of their identity. This is revealed in the Thompson article, through various interviews and performances that Smith has done, an example being her interview with George C. Wolfe, the director of Smith’s work. He sways between saying that blackness does not resist or exist in relationship to whiteness. This becomes a very telling moment for the relationship between black and white identities and the resistance that occurs simultaneously with the existence of blackness and whiteness (Thompson, 135-136). Small flaws or slipups in speech expose a great deal of truth at both a personal and more universal level, which is a strong element to Smith’s performance acting.

To come back to the quote that I began this blog entry with, Smith’s form of other-oriented acting is successful in developing race as many different conceptions. It is a societal truth that cannot be ignored and must be accepted. Within Twilight: Los Angeles and regarding the issue of the Rodney King trial in general, the issue of race and the oppositions and divides that are created by race become dominant and powerful. Smith manages this issue within her documentary theater piece and, more specifically, with her approach to acting as a performance.

Nobody's Business: Revealing the Filmmaker through Domestic Ethnography

Alan Berliner’s film, Nobody’s Business, may have been my favourite film from this class to date. I’m very interested in the psychological influences and conclusions of a film and so I was compelled by the autobiographical practice used in this film.
Michael Renov explains the concept of domestic ethnography and its use as “a vehicle of self-examination, a means through which to construct self-knowledge through recourse to the familial other” (218) within his article “Domestic Ethnography and the Construction of the ‘Other’ Self”. This reading outlines the purpose of Berliner’s film very well, through the use of other documentary examples.
In general, the viewer may witness the autobiographical practice that results from Alan’s interview of his father, Oscar. The definition of Alan’s self is created through his opposition and similarities to his father. The greatest opposition was Oscar’s obstinate disinterest in his family’s history and Alan’s obvious fascination with this history. Nobody’s Business was preceded by Alan’s portrait of his grandfather in the film Intimate Stranger. His grandfather is focused on within this film as well; however Oscar shows no concern with the memory of his parents to the point that he didn’t even know their birthdays or wedding anniversary. Alan, on the other hand, is so greatly interested in his family history that he even travels to Poland to visit their places of birth and death. When he is unable to find any definite gravesite, he chooses to associate a specific grave stone with his grandparents as a symbol for his own comfort, a concept that his father laughs at and dismisses as ridiculous. The opposition peaks at the end of the film, with the credits rolling and the sound of dialogue. Oscar is telling Alan that he thinks he’s taken the wrong life path, that he’s wasting his time making films, and, basically, that his work and his life practice are useless because he essentially begs for money. This opposition and harsh disapproval creates obvious “boundaries between self and other” (217) and therefore creates an interesting perception of Alan’s self to the viewer.
The documented history provides a solid base for the documentary and helps to explain the context of the relationship. The interviews that Alan conducts with his sister and his mother further develop the familial dynamics and help to define Alan and his father. The “level of casual intimacy” (218) that Renov describes works to create Alan’s self-portrait. I think the strongest, and most dynamic, element of the film were the one-on-one interviews where Alan was able to break down Oscar’s barriers, if only for a minute. Especially in contrast to their opposing views on the film, their loving relationship is really strengthened by these interviews and the understanding of this relationship helps the viewer to understand the true persons involved. This idea is strengthened even more when Alan’s cousin comments on how the documentary process has been beneficial to Oscar because it keeps him going in a way. I think this is the point in the film where Oscar’s walls are really broken down and the viewer can see his full view.
The one-on-one interview segments also reveal that “blood ties effect linkages of shared memory, physical resemblance, temperament, and … family-forged behavioural or attitudinal dysfunction” (219). The portion of the interview when Alan and Oscar discuss their similarities, in terms of inheritance, helped to create an unarguable bond between the two men. In contrast, the blood linkages between Alan and his mother seemed to force a gap between the mother and son because their bond had not been strengthened throughout the rest of the film. This maternal gap or void also helps to build the image of Alan for the viewer.
Lastly, I think the actual interview and documentary process, Alan’s opportunity to finally sit down and have a heart-to-heart with his father is another dimension of the film that defines Alan. The actual interaction that the viewer is able to witness is a huge development in both of the men’s lives, as it is a point of growth between them and as individuals. The struggle between the two (represented by the boxing matches) work together with the quieter, agreeable moments to build a new connection between father and son.
Renov summarizes the concept of this type of film well and so I would just like to restate that:
“Afforded a depth of access to its subjects, domestic ethnography discloses secrets, performs masquerades of identity, and, temporarily at least, rearranges familial hierarchies. Its sleight of hand is the rendering public of private-sphere material, but not … as spectacle” (226)
Nobody’s Business is an excellent example of domestic ethnography in a documentary film. Alan Berliner discloses family secrets, exposes identities, and challenges his father’s dominance through conducting his interviews. The private familial life is made public and reveals interesting family dynamics and provides a portrayal of the filmmaker, which is no way a spectacle.

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Herzog's "Grizzly Man"

Grizzly Man was a very compelling film, not only in so far as the story of Timothy Treadwell and his life in the North, but on a deeper level as well. While watching the film, I was very intrigued by the development of Timothy’s personality and the depth that the viewer was able to read in through this account of his life with the bears. I found, while watching the film, that Grizzly Man would lend itself very easily to a psychoanalytic criticism through the analysis of Timothy Treadwell. This idea was strengthened by Paul Arthur’s article “Beyond the Limits”. Arthur in fact takes the idea of psychoanalysis one step further, to the point of analyzing Werner Herzog in relation to his documentary as well.
The character development of Treadwell reveals him to be many different entities within one person. He begins as a parallel of a host from a nature show you would find on Animal Planet or Discovery (45). Herzog then establishes him as “Timmy the ‘kind warrior’ who weeps at what he thinks is a dead bee” (46); as the failed actor who “fell into drugs and SoCal surf culture” and invented a new identity for himself (45); as the founder of the Grizzly People and an animal activist; and even arguably as the “alter ego” of Herzog himself, as a “glamorously wacky rebel” (47). The range of characters and personas that stem for Treadwell immediately drew me to a psychological interest in his being.
His troubled past becomes evident several times in the movie, most obviously when Treadwell is talking openly to a ‘fox friend’ about his about his battle with alcoholism. His hatred of mainstream society also becomes quite apparent, if not through his actions alone, then through his constant profession of this fact and his outright rage towards the human element of his otherwise wild and uncultivated environment. With these conclusions, Treadwell’s reasoning for escaping to the wilderness becomes comprehendible.
Society can be seen as Treadwell’s conscious or his ego, the logical, perceivable aspect of his mind. Nature then becomes his unconscious or his id, which is ruled by primitivism and repressed emotional experiences. Arthur reveals this idea when noting that “the terrain inhabited by [Herzog’s] subjects can express inner struggles” (43). Treadwell retreats to his unconscious and is controlled by his id when he is put into a trying situation with his ego, or in reality. The repressed pains of his past build up in his unconscious to a point where they take over and he then connects more easily with his id, which is why he drives himself into nature and away from society.
To delve further into the psychoanalysis of Grizzly Man, we could define Eros and Thanatos, the life and death instincts respectively, through Treadwell’s actions. Herzog first reveals what appears to be Treadwell’s death instinct, merely through the fact that he’s living in such close contact to animals that could kill him with ease. However, he soon develops Treadwell’s Eros, as the viewer begins to understand that his life in nature was actually his escape route from a path of life destruction that he had been on in California, with his alcoholism and depression. Therefore, Treadwell’s voyage into this foreign lifestyle was in fact portraying elements of Eros. However, the pull of Thanatos remains dominant, as Freud would argue, and ultimately controls Treadwell. The close relationship with the grizzly bears reveals the presence of Treadwell’s Thanatos element. He is actually obsessed with the concept of death and, although he attempts to fight the urges at some points in his life, he is eventually consumed by it, quite literally.
The psychoanalytic criticism can transcend the boundaries of the film in order to suggest that the film in fact portrays some unconscious element of Herzog’s mind. Arthur reveals that Herzog is a “self-professed intermediary between opposing worlds” (47), which could suggest that the frontier of reality and film is in fact the border between Herzog’s conscious and unconscious. However, Herzog works to detach himself from this “secret world of the bears” (47) by disagreeing with Treadwell’s view of nature, claiming that the “universe is chaos, hostility, and murder” (47). It would be interesting to look further into Herzog’s life and his body of work to draw more in-depth conclusions on his psychodynamic connection to Grizzly Man or other films.

The Family Photo

On the topic of the family album, I thought I would include the standard family photo on Christmas. I think this is (one of) the most posed pictures I've ever been a part of. The fire place, the Christmas tree, the three daughters surrounding the parental unit, the dog. I think we've fit most of the standards of the "Christmas family photo". Oh and this was probably sent with our Christmas card the following year.

The Issue of the Family Photo Album

After reading “History, Memory, and the Family Album” by Patricia Holland, I am undecided on my interpretation of a photograph and its role as a part of history, memory, and a person’s existence. Holland has built a strong argument to suggest that photographs are a superficial form of memory and are inaccurate or incomplete accounts of the past. I continually found myself agreeing with her statements, but there was always a thought in the back of my mind, asking what the purpose of a family photograph really is. She proves that the family album portrays a certain “deceptive innocence” (1) by using examples like the photograph of the smiling children at a birthday party (taken hours after the birthday girl’s temper tantrum) to claim that photographs simply “project the appropriate emotions” (2). I have to agree with Holland, as it’s easy to look at my own photographs and see (or not see) the true story behind a photograph. A simple example of this that I see everyday is a framed photo of me and one of my best friends. That night we ended up getting in a stupid fight, but I like the picture of the two of us so I have it framed. I don’t have the picture framed to remember that night, and I don’t think of that night when I look at the picture. I have that picture framed because it reminds me of the two of us, and other memories that I have with her. I’ve separated the photo from what it is technically documenting, which is in a way manipulating my memories. However, that’s a memory that I’ve chosen to forget, with or without the photograph. Every person chooses to remember some things and forget others. This is not to say that we are able to choose everything we forget because we aren’t able to retain all memories. In this respect, photographs are helpful for triggering memories that we want to remember.
I can see why it is ‘wrong’ to manipulate our memories by keeping photographs that do not properly represent a certain experience or relationship. However, I can also see the benefits of being able to forget certain things. Holland states that “family albums are about forgetting as well as remembering” (9), which I can see as being a positive characteristic. Humans will try to shut out bad memories or traumatic experiences from their subconscious, so why shouldn’t they be able to do this in a more deliberate fashion as well? I’m not at all suggesting that we should condone practices as drastic as the memory erasing ‘treatments’ of Lacuna Inc. in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, but I do feel that memory is a personal choice. Furthermore, it’s a choice that we will make subconsciously, so I don’t see the harm in using photographs to act as a tangible representation of a person’s memory (as long as the photo album remains a personal item).
The family photo album shapes your perception of family, which is supposed to be the centre of “romantic social fantasy” (5). This is an ideological belief that provides a sense of comfort to most people. From this respect, photographs that convey the happy memories and loving relationships should be considered to be morally ‘considerate’. A photograph is a documentation of the past, which makes it a form of remembrance for a person’s life. In this way, I think photographs are comparable to a eulogy. This may be simplifying the issue, but after a person’s death, we wish to remember the positive elements of that person and the positive experiences, or memories, that we have with that person. In the most primitive sense, humans don’t want to remember the bad events in their past, especially in the family setting because it is supposed to be a loving and comforting institution. I realize that this stance is very one-sided and I am basing my stance on the assumption that viewing photographs remains a personal experience, but this was the general argument that I kept getting drawn back to while reading the Holland article.
Holland summarizes the issue of the family photograph by contrasting the “difference between an antique shop past, with its smell of new wax polish accompanying fading prints in dark wooden frames, and one’s own past, with its ambivalent and uneasy memories” (13). This comparison suggests that photographs are able to portray the past how we want to see it, without all of the sad or embarrassing family stories or even without certain family members. There is a certain homogenization of the photographs that creates an image of the past that is similar to what is presented in an antique store, with all of the useless or unattractive objects from the past discarded.
As I have stated, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to shape your choice of memory through photographs, on a personal level. However, photographs transcend the private life into the public spectrum because of their medium. When photographs become a public entity, the misconstrued past becomes less acceptable and more detrimental. Holland explains this idea well when she considers the ‘folklorisation’ of different cultures and communities. She explains that certain stereotypes are created for cultures like the “Scottishness of Scotland” or the “ruggedness of the Cornish fishing villages” (13), which people will strive to capture in photographs on family trips. It is dangerous when a certain idea of reality is preconceived and then this incorrect perception is relayed in a photograph.
The issue of the power of a photograph is thoroughly analyzed in Barbara Rosenblum’s article “I have begun the process of dying”. This article explains when and why a photograph should convey more than just a group of smiling faces. As I mentioned before, a photograph lives on as a person’s legacy, as a form of representation when someone is no longer with us.
Rosenblum is dealing with the difficulty of exposing and expressing her life in her last months of living. This creates a new purpose of the photograph, which far surpasses my proposal for its purpose to be the representation of good (or wanted) personal memories. She is searching for a way to use a camera to “capture the feelings, the expressions, the emotions” (241) of her subjective and extremely personal experience. The complexity of this process is outlined well when Rosenblum says: “The camera, by its very nature, demands exposure, that I open to it. Subjectivity, by its nature, demands that I shut everything and everyone out, so I can hear myself” (242). This is why I feel that the personal subjectivity must stand separate from the photograph. The image that a photograph portrays will always remain subjective because it can never be fully explained.
This subjectivity is made particularly apparent when reading Rosenblum’s account of her supportive and devoted relationship with her lover, Sandy. I think most people have seen this form of support and devotion in their own life and can understand that it is something a photograph will never be able to adequately communicate. However, by looking at a photograph of the two people in this loving relationship, an outsider is able to recognize and appreciate the true relationship that the photo symbolizes. This relationship will be interpreted differently by all observers, even by the two people in the photograph.
Basically, to sum up my interpretation of the readings about the family photo album is to say that I am left unsure of my opinion of the family photograph. I don’t know how it’s possible to properly transmit a memory in a photograph. I don’t even know if it’s necessary to properly transmit a memory in a photograph. I feel that a photograph is not able to portray an entire history, which makes it an inadequate means of representation and should not be relied on as heavily as it is for the portrayal of any type of past.

Seeing Life and Death Through One's Own Eyes: My Analysis of Brakhage

As I expressed in lecture and in my previous post in response to Brakhage’s “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes”, I originally found the film to be very inappropriate and unnecessary. I responded to the film primitively, basing my response solely on my emotions without considering any elements of the film’s production or purpose. I was actually angry at Brakhage for creating such a disturbing film. However, after analyzing the film on a critical level, through the claims of the Bart Testa article, I was able to form an appreciation for the film and I was able to form my own interpretation of the film.
Testa explains the defining elements of a documentary, as well as the elements that the viewer expects from a documentary. The main defining feature that people recognize in a documentary film is the overriding argument or explanation, that one reason for exposing the visual elements as a form of supporting evidence. We (the general public) are expecting the visual images to be used as part of a greater argument that is supported by “the use of voice-overs, printed titles, and/or ‘quasi-verbal’ montage constructions” (Testa 270). The idea of the image being used as support for a greater argument or explanation can be referred to as the act of showing. Testa explains this concept well, stating that when an image is used “to illustrate a procedure that needs to be explained, for example, or to support a moral argument, [the film] provides a ready-made position from which to comprehend what is shown” (271).
In contrast to many documentary filmmakers, Brakhage strives to take the viewer out of their comfort zone. The first hint of this is the lack of sound in many of his films, including “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes”, which he utilizes to eliminate the context of the film's subject. Furthermore, he separates the visual elements from any sort of verbal or communicative explanation and in turn eliminates the act of showing from his films. Brakhage leaves the visual image unaided or prompted by features like voice-overs or dramatic music in order to force the viewer to see everything. Testa reminds us how easily the viewer would “slip behind verbal explanations of the pathologists’ procedures, analyses of the cause of death, or perhaps some moral argument that necessitates showing such images” (270) if we were given the option when faced with such graphic and shocking content. Brakhage forces us into the act of seeing, which the title of the film aptly alludes to. In retrospect, I can see that I fell into this act of seeing, because I couldn’t think about anything but the images that were flashing in front of me for the duration of the film. I was immersed in the act of seeing or observing these unreal, unfamiliar images on the screen.
This concept of the act of seeing is emphasized well within the Testa article, as the Brakhage film is contrasted with Peter Greenway’s “Death in the Seine”, which is a reflexive pseudo-documentary that uses actors to portray deaths from 1795 to 1801 in Paris and the resulting autopsies (271). The two films address the same topic but in completely opposite ways. “Death in the Seine” relies on the act of showing to reveal the overall message of film, which is quite obviously different from Brakhage’s work.
The decision to omit sound from the film was an issue of controversy after the film was released and was even a topic of discussion and debate within our own class. As I’ve stated, it was effective because it forced the viewer to watch and see the entire film. By seeing the film, there wasn’t an outside influence on the viewer’s interpretation of the film. We were forced to create our own voice-over or narrative in order to make our own interpretation. This then allows the viewer to search introspectively. The viewer must decide if their response to the images is appropriate or accepted, which draws in a personal and moral element to the process of watching the film.
The film is part of Brakhage’s Pittsburgh trilogy that documents three different city institutions (the police, a hospital, and a morgue) and reveals a form of “public seeing”. This is a concept that made me feel a little more comfortable with the subject of the film. The trilogy consisted of “Eyes”, “Deus Ex”, and “The Act of Seeing With One’s Eyes”. The Testa article outlines the idea of public seeing within the three movies:

“Eyes casts city police as the means we use to watch over our public lives; Dues Ex depicts the hospital as the house of the protective and curing medical gaze; and the coroner’s look, … is the last collective gaze we cast upon ourselves, our bodies in death.”

Testa reveals and extensively supports the importance of vision within this film. First off, Brakhage sees vision as a whole-body experience and the film clearly connects the concept of the body with the concept of seeing. The most evident connection between vision and the body is when Brakhage takes the viewer into the skull through the eye socket (the camera enters the skull cavity). The camera is documenting the anatomical machine of vision, and we are looking at this body part through our own vision. Brakhage is displaying the “literal confrontation between our act of seeing and the body’s means of seeing” (281). This confrontation leads to the more apparent confrontation between life and death. Many critics have suggested that it is difficult or impossible to “show death” and yet, Brakhage allows us to experience the difference between life and death through this confrontation.
The opposition of life and death, or seeing and not seeing, can be further explained through Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of differance and binary oppositions. To sum up his concepts roughly is to say that language is defined by what it is different from, not by what it is. However, the idea of binary oppositions suggests that there are similarities within such common oppositions (like man/woman, life/death) because there must be some connection between the two words or concepts. For example, “life” is connected to “death” because “death" is partially defined as something that is not "life". When this philosophy is applied to the film, the viewer is witnessing the difference and similarities of life and death.
As Brakhage takes us into the “means of seeing” in a dead body (the eye socket and skull cavity), we are able to recognize that this body is no longer able to see. This is something we are realizing as we are seeing, which separates us from this body. The viewer is able to comprehend the difference between life and death by witnessing their living abilities in comparison to the dead body’s inabilities.
After viewing the film, the most disturbing aspect for me was the dehumanizing element that Brakhage displayed. To quote my first blog entry, “I don’t want to be forced to think of a person as a dead body”, meaning that I found it difficult to observe something as sacred as a human life in such a degrading form. I felt that Brakhage had brought the human body down to its most demeaning level. I now realize that there are many more levels to this portrayal of the human body as a dead body. He uses the context of a morgue to show the power and importance of seeing. The film transforms the space from a mysterious, foreign zone into a space where the body transforms from its human form, and the film does this solely by allowing people to see this unknown space (Testa 283). Brakhage’s film is about this transformation, as it is self-contained within the morgue.
Brakhage has made several films that examine the rituals surrounding death and the body that remains after death, including “Sirius Remembered” and “The Dead”. Although they both cover very different events, there is a connection to “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes”. Brakhage reveals the concept of death through the act of seeing within this film. By forcing the viewer to see and to interpret the film independently, it brings about some moral issues and pushes our personal limits, but the film goes past that to display the binary opposition of life and death. Like any opposition, one element can only exist in relation to the other, which in fact makes the two concepts similar. My interpretation of “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes”, after reading the Testa article, is that Brakhage is putting the preconceived notions of life and death into question. By forcing the viewer to see the entire film and by organizing the film in a way that never allows the viewer to become desensitized, Brakhage makes the viewer acknowledge the unbreakable connection between life and death and forces us to accept this within in our lives.
Even through the name of the film, we can see the connection between life and death. When Brakhage takes the camera into the eye socket of the corpse, we are essentially seeing out of the eyes of the dead body. Consider this idea in relation to the title: "The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes". Brakhage creates a connection between our vision and the dead body's vision and uses the film's title as an ambiguous connection between the two. He very subtly hints that we are seeing out of our own eyes, which is not to say that we are this specific dead body, but that we will all be in the same position at some time. Brakhage forces the image of death into our field of vision quite obviously, but when looking on a more analytical level, we can see the binaries of life and death that he is portraying to the viewer.



http://youtube.com/watch?v=luO9uTzYi3s : Here's the link to Brakhage's film "Sirius Remembered" for anyone who didn't find "The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes" too disturbing.

my job history

I think I've had pretty typical jobs in the past, but I can definitely see how they affect my life outside of work. My first job was at a clothing store, where my main job was folding clothes and cleaning my designated area. I worked in the outside tent of Sporting Life, where customers seem to think there is a special exception for making a mess. So I did a lot of cleaning that summer, which made me very bitter everytime I went shopping. It got to the point where I didn't feel like I should attempt to fold clothes wherever I went shopping because no one did it at my store for me.
I worked at a golf course for a couple summers, partly driving around the beverage cart. I had to track the number of pepsis, gatorades, coors light, bud light, keiths, smirnoff, guiness, etc so everytime I put more drinks or refreshments on the cart I'd have to count them out. I find myself still counting everything I do. If I'm packing stuff to go away for a weekend or something like that, I sometimes find myself counting out the number of shirts, socks, etc. It's really strange because I don't even notice it sometimes but my old job gave me a mild case of OCD it seems! Another thing that I brought home from my job at the golf course was my fake conversation voice. I came up with a couple different phrases that I said all the time at work to the members because there were a lot of older couples that I had to talk to in a certain way. This also happened when I worked as a fundraiser for a couple different charities. I had to stand on the street and ask people if they "had a minute for (insert charity name here)". Again, I came up with a couple safe phrases or responses that I said once every couple minutes basically. I ended up saying these phrases and using my fake voice outside of work and it just became second nature. It seems impossible to separate yourself from work, and I'm not sure if you really should. As Terkel shows, your job is a big part of who you are. I think summer jobs are a little bit less true in this sense, but they are still a big part of your life and, obviously, have an affect on different elements of your life that you may not expect.

Brakhage: The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes

Going into the viewing of this film, I felt that I was prepared to be horrified by the content (that is if you can ‘prepare’ yourself for horror). I have seen a couple Brakhage films in the past and found the visual content a little hard to take, but I fully appreciated the film as an art form. I have a pretty weak stomache, so watching the birth of Brackage’s child in “Window Water Baby Moving” was a little difficult, but I did ultimately enjoy and appreciate the film. I thought that my overall impression of “The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes” would be similar to that of “Window Water Baby Moving”. However, my immediate response (up until last night in tutorial) was quite different. I was really disturbed by the content and very shook up, even angry.
I felt guilty that I had witnessed such a disgusting film (and I mean disgusting in the way that it was disgusting that anyone would make this film, not by the fact that this process actually happens).
I felt angry and disappointed in Brakhage that he would cheapen the human body in such a gruesome way that it almost came off as pornographic. I felt like the entire film was just shot after shot of the goriest images Brakhage could put together. I didn’t think there was any artistic merit to the actual filming and I felt like there could be no acceptable explanation for the purpose of this film. I really felt like there was no purpose at all and that Brakhage was perverse for creating something so wrong.
I have to admit that my response to this film might be a little more extreme than most people because I have recently lost a close family member and so this hit me on a very personal level. I think this is why I also found the most disturbing parts of the film to be the parts when they showed the entire body. I was able to look at the close-up shots of organs, etc because I viewed them in a more medical sense. When I saw an image of the body, it brought back the human element and made the fact that these body parts used to be human all the more real. I think that was the hardest part about this film: when I saw the body parts, I could detach myself from the idea that we were watching an autopsy, but when I saw the weathered body, it forced me to think about these body parts as an actual human. This made the film seem so inappropriate to me because I don’t want to be forced to think of a person as a dead body.
So I realize that this blog entry is a little disorganized, but that’s generally how my thoughts on “The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes” tend to be. I have to say that my thoughts on the film have changed since tutorial last night. My immediate response was extreme and I didn’t even think about the film as anything other than something that shouldn’t have been made. After listening to other people’s perspectives on the film, I realized that it really is an effective film. Brakhage is able to push the viewer to their limits, which forces us to look more deeply at our personal morals and values. I didn’t even realize that this film had affected me so strongly until I realized that I couldn’t even think of the film as anything but disgusting. I wasn’t able to look at the film in any other view and I couldn’t even appreciate any of the visual elements because I was in such a state of shock.
A lot of people mentioned that they became desensitized as the film continued. I feel like Brakhage was able to present the film in a way that made us think we were being desensitized to the images, which was almost as disturbing a concept as the actual film content. I know I was disturbed by the fact that I was becoming desensitized by what was on the screen and I think Brakhage intended to create that effect to push the viewer’s limit and to horrify the viewer even more. Taking a look at the film from a less emotional and immediate viewpoint, I think I have a better understanding of why Brakhage would make this film and I can appreciate it for its expression. Since I was so affected by it, I know I will never watch it again, but the experience wasn’t as terrible as I had first thought it was.