Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Friday, November 16
Meetings with Elizabeth, Sem II E2112
 
2:00 Emily B.
2:05 Liz
2:10 Melissa
2:15 Spencer
2:20 Sandra
2:25 Matt
2:30 Elise
2:35 Melanie
2:40 iea
2:45 Molly
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3:15 Kathleen
3:20 Celia
3:25 Gabriela
3:30 Sarah
3:35 Marie
3:40 Harrison
3:45 Jess
3:50 Katie Wulf
3:55 Theodora
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4:15-5:00 / open office hours
 
3 questions for everybody to consider:
- Will your primary product be completed by week 8?
- What aspect of your work do you think you might share with the program via the online conference?
- What elements of the complete proposal do you need to write or flesh out before turning in your next version?
 
Reminder: Next version due Week 9 in individual conferences.
Schedule to be posted; priority will be given to students continuing in the program.  

E-mail me to set up separate appointments (or come at 4:15): Morgan, Connor, Emily, Jenny, Katie, Courtney, Devin, Sonja
 

What kind of body society needs? What kind of body society needs. I feel like there's a difference, apropos of gender, between men & women's needs... Men need a body thta is strong and able. I think strength applies to both sexes. Except, especially today and among college-age youth, I feel like there's a shift in the ideal male body - men are tending to be more feminine; thinner, curvier bodies, longer hair, tighter clothing... that perhaps the shift is more towards... I think androgyny is becoming sort of an ideal - male bodies need to have the pleasing aesthetic of a slender female form but also need to be useful and energetic, smart, accomplished.

The feminine "mystique" is shifting from Marilyn Monroe curves to skinny Minnies - the waif is popular on both sides. Why? Maybe we're just tiring of broad shoulders, muscular arms, giant breasts?

Idealized bodies:

-DaVincian proportions

-a perfect blend of masculine cut and feminine curve

Reading Emily H.'s post on the 50 Cent/JT song "Aayo" and Spencer's comment reminded me that if we were teaching this program over a semester, instead of a measly old quarter, we'd have to move to pornography next. How could one teach a program with this title and not cover that material, once we all got comfortable enough with each other? It's amazingly hard to figure out how to teach porn studies well or without shocking or enraging various people on campus, but that's all the more reason it would need to be done. I've taught gay porn in the past, briefly, in a class on Queer Film/Video. The crossing over of the classroom space into porn viewing space is impossibly complicated but fruitful.

If you are interested in further reading, start with the brilliant Linda Williams' book, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible , the Porn Studies Reader, edited by Williams, and Laura Kipnis' Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America

-julia

 

I loved the doll show and tell!  It was great to see what types of dolls people brought in, and how they compare to the others.  Looking at those dolls brought me back to when me and my (then) husband had an extensive Star Wars collection.  It all started when were going to college in North Dakota, and it was at the same time when George Lucas re-released the original Star Wars movies in the theaters.  Living in the midwest, it was hard to find stuff to do, so we started going to the Wal-Mart in search of the Power of the Force action figures.  We were driven to find ALL of them!  When we moved back to Washington a couple years later, our collection didn't stop growing.  Now we were able to go to other chain stores to get the latest batch.  At that time, the new Star Wars movies were coming out, and we would camp overnight for tickets and seats to every one.  We went absolutely nuts over Star Wars!  When we got divorced last year, we had to decide who would get the collection.  Because of it's massiveness, we decided that he would get the Star Wars Collection and I would end up with the house.  I still think about that collection and miss all the memories , but I'm glad I gave it up to have a roof over my head.

I understood in the point of 'Vertical Role" and all..i do think it was a neat idea, and reminded me of the alienation effect. . .that didn't keep me from falling asleep though.  I usually enjoy grating, repetitive things, but this was ridiculous.  the violent noises and repetitive stream really did accentuate the objectification of her body and her 'play' within the moniter.  

 

I really enjoyed Martha Rosler's 'The East is Red, the West is Bending" was especially clever -  the  (purposefully) awkward attempt at teaching people how to make Asian food using an Americanized "non-primitive" method, the electric wok!  I liked the subtle satire, especially when it's aimed at American economics and consumption...she was so confident in her cooking abilities in her sunglasses..yet was reading from an instruction manual!  It was such a generic representation...I'm just not sure how that is necessarily feminist...is it just because she was a woman poineer in the film industry at the time? 

This is just a link to a picture of Judith Butler. The emphatic hand gesture reminds me of Joh Frederson from "Metropolis" and is also very Alison Bechdel-like. Most importantly, what great hair!


[click for a giant version of this]

Britney's Cyborg Songs

If there is a person I don't mention enough for class, it is definitely Britney. In Britney Spears' incredible new album BLACKOUT there are at least three songs that are cyborg related.

The song "Break the Ice" includes the line:
You got my heart beating like an 808

I think this is really interesting because it's not just a reference to music technology (that is, her pulse is like the beats produced from a drum machine), but could also be construed as a statement about celebrity. Britney's heart being like an 808 makes sense not just because she makes music, but also because of the cyborg otherness of her body as a celebrity. Her body, and you might say her suffering heart, is part of what makes the Britney Spears celebrity-machine keep rolling -- producing albums, wowing fans, employing various handlers, making appearances.

Another song from "Blackout" is "Ooh Ooh Baby" including lyrics like:

[Chorus]
Ooh ooh, baby
Touch me and I come alive
I can feel you on my lips
I can feel you deep inside
Ooh ooh, baby
In your arms I finally breathe
Wrap me up in all your love
That's the oxygen I need

You're fillin' me up [repeat a dozen times or so]
You're fillin' me up with your love

[Verse]
The more you move
The more I dance...

Like most pop songs, this seems to just be about sex, but it also introduces the idea of Britney's character (in the song) as being doll-like or an automaton. In this realm, Britney appears to need an outside force ("love?") to be animated, to become more human or real, and finally "breathe." She is a metaphorical marionette that needs to find a way to "come alive." In 2005, Britney had an album, that was never released, to be titled "Original Doll." I have always been under the impression that the title track for "Original Doll" was renamed and added to "Blackout" as "Ooh Ooh Baby." While I'm glad that the song made it onto the album, I wish that it hadn't lost its emphasis on dolls or the need to be animated.

Video 1-  the harsh sound felt like slaps for every time i thought about admiring the woman's body as a collection of things, of objects. She showed us only pieces of curves and lashes, tempting us to reduce her to the sum of her parts, like Hannah Hoch's Beautiful Girl. She distracts us with the shattering snap before we can romantasize her inches.  I think the army un-trains that way, tempt and slap, tempt and slap.  I wonder if Brecht would have admired this video- it seems that he was always looking to slap his audience before they could sit back and relax.
The stripteaser used this same effect of fractured images to define objectification. Without  acting, a striptease is just a series of still poses. Like a doll, we pose her in fractures to take off her clothes. 

In my relative hiatus from MTV pretty much since high school, I was browsing channels a few weeks ago and stumbled upon this video. I thought, hm, 50 Cent, haven't heard from him in a while, but I do know that Justin Timberlake is played almost constantly on the radio. Them together?? So I watched. The chorus is,

Baby it's a new age, you're like my new craze
Let's get together maybe we can start a new phase
The smokes got the club all hazy, spotlights don't do you justice baby
Why don't you come over here, you got me saying

Aayoo

I'm tired of using technology, why don't you sit down on top of me?
Aayoo
I'm tired of using technology, I need you right in front of me

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Na4x2Uwflmg

And it just fits so nicely for what we've been talking about the past two weeks. Besides the fact that I don't understand what 'technology' has to do with a pole dancer, the video does play with virtual reality coming in between bodies... could it be this song is a refusal to accept internet pornography as satisfactory? I'm half-joking, half-serious in that question. And thinking about song lyrics made into a visual narrative, the lyrics just seem made for a music video.

 

 

Lyrics are as follows:

 

Something special,
Unforgetable,
50 Cent (cent),
Justin (tin),
Timbaland (land), god damn (damn)

She she, she want it, I want to give it to her
She know that, it's right here for her
I want to, see her break it down
I'm ballin', throw'n money around

Verse 1 (50 Cent & Justin Timberlake):

She work it girl, she work the pole
She break it down, she take it low
She fine as hell, she about the dough
She doing her thing out on the floor
Her money money, she makin' makin'
Look at the way she shakin' shakin'
Make you want to touch it, make you want to taste it
Have you lustin' for her, go crazy face it
Now don't stop, get it, get it
The way she shakin' make you want to hit it
Think she double jointed from the way she splitted
Got you're head f**ked up from the way she did it
She's so much more than you're used to
She know's just how to move to seduce you
She gone do the right thing and touch the right spot
Dance in you're lap till you're ready to pop

She always ready, when you want it she want it
Like a nympho, the info, I show you where to meet her
On the late night, till daylight the club jumpin'
If you want a good time, she gone give you what you want


Chorus (Justin Timberlake):

Let me talk to ya

Baby it's a new age, you're like my new craze
Let's get together maybe we can start a new phase
The smokes got the club all hazy, spotlights don't do you justice baby
Why don't you come over here, you got me saying

Aayoo
I'm tired of using technology, why don't you sit down on top of me?

Aayoo
I'm tired of using technology, I need you right in front of me
Ooh, she wants it, uh uh, she wants it
Ooh, she wants it (soo), I got to give it to her
Ooh, she wants it, uh uh, she wants it


Ooh, she wants it (soo), I got to give it to her

(Timbaland)
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you

Verse 2 (50 Cent & Justin Timberlake):

Got a thing for that thing she got
The way she make it tick, the way she make it pop
Make it rain for us so she don't stop
I ain't got to move, I can sit and watch
In her fantasy, there's plain to see
Just how it be, on me, backstrokin', sweat soaking
All into my set sheets
When she ready to ride, I'm ready to roll
I'll be in this bitch till the club close
What should I do, one thing on all fours
Now that that shit should be against the law
From side to side, let the ride, break it down (down down)
You know I like, when you hike and you throw it all around
Different style, different move, damn I like the way you move
Girl you got me thinking about, all the things I do to you
Let's get it poppin' shorty we can switch positions
From the couch to the counters in my kitchen

Chorus (Justin Timberlake):

Let me talk to ya

Baby it's a new age, you're like my new craze
Let's get together maybe we can start a new phase
The smokes got the club all hazy, spotlights don't do you justice baby
Why don't you come over here, you got me saying

Aayoo
I'm tired of using technology, why don't you sit down on top of me?
Aayoo
I'm tired of using technology, I need you right in front of me

Ooh, she wants it, uh uh, she wants it
Ooh, she wants it (soo), I got to give it to her
Ooh, she wants it, uh uh, she wants it
Ooh, she wants it (soo), I got to give it to her

(Timbaland)
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you
Your hips, your thighs, they got me hypnotized, let me tell you

 The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart! If Grot is the hands, or the leader of the hands- (the head of the hands, maybe?), and Joh Freder is the head, and Freder is the heart, then  what, pray tell, is Maria?  Is Maria the nervous system, sending messages, and connecting the other limbs? Is she an angel, denied a human function? I wonder what the other limbs of society are- the genitals, breasts, and feet? What about the eyes and ears? Are the feet like the hands, Grot? Or are the feet the glowing charcoal expressways?  Is "technology" the eyes and ears, like Joh Freder's special camera into Grot , like Irma's special machine in The Balcony? Or are the eyes and ears the sleuth that J. Freder hired to look after his son? Maybe the breasts are the workers who support food productions, the farmers. And really, who else would be the genitals of society except... mothers, the reproductive potential?  I thought it was interesting that the robot was called, generically, the "Machine Man", but it was obviously fashioned in a woman's shape, with a raised pubis, rounded breasts and even the shadows of nipples.

This is the third or fourth time I've seen the film, and I've become fascinated with the image of this robot- the different identities it embodies before it is even given a face and a humanoid persona. It begins as Rotwang's idyllic image of a woman who was "conquered" by another man, and made functional by him. She bore a son and then becomes his lover Maria. Maria is put to use sexually by Rotwang and then Freder, and then Rotwang again.   She passes between states of  statuesque homage to whorish ardour and back again. She only returnes to sanctity once the whore is destroyed in flames.