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Music 107 Summer 2018
Film Analysis I
Music 107 Summer 2018
The performance artists Guillermo Gomez and Coco Fusco for two years have traveled through the world, performing the couple in the cage tour. They presented themselves as the unexposed Amerindians from an island in the Gulf of Mexico that had for five centuries been unnoticed by the rest of the world. The two voyaged through numerous western cities, calling their homeland Guatinau and themselves the Guatinauis. From watching the television to the sewing of the voodoo dolls, the couple performed traditional tasks while being displayed in the cage. They even made a spectacle out of it, placing a box outside the cage and offering to do various performances for little charge. The female Guatanaui would perform a “traditional” dance, and the male would tell conventional stories in a made up language. The two would also pose with visitors. Security guards stood next to the cage, and their primary job was to answer the questions asked by the visitors and as well as feeding the couple and taking them to the bathroom on leashes. Everything that the couple did was too palpably theatrical. The couple had their skulls measured, they were fed on bananas and were deemed as being a specimen. The reason behind is that all these were a characteristic specimen of the monkeys at a zoo being enclosed in a cage. The documentary served to scrutinize the audiences’ responses to the particular display that was exhibited by the couple. What was so surprising was that a considerable portion of the audience believed in the authenticity of the couple. The intent was to create a commentary to which exaggerates the western perceptions of a primitive and a primordial other for a satirical and comedic edge, but it led to the realization of how prominent racist beliefs are in our postcolonial society. The documentary serves as an indirect proof that the colonial ideas, that compromise the notions of the non-westerns, still have penetration to the world to which we lived today. It is in fact that the ideas tie back to those of N’gugi, of how orature is consistently underplayed today because its origin and development took place in the colonized, or more primitive lands.
Another intriguing aspect was the incorporation of the discussion of morality, and the human beings were quite merely treating the other human people as exotic curiosities. There seemed to be a complete disregard for the notion on that they too were human beings, being of the same species, a similar body as well as a similar brain. It quite plainly serves to illuminate the underlying arrogance to which seemed to paralyze the people’s ability to question, analyze and to evaluate.
The documentary also helps to challenge the conventional notions of performance to which revolves around line memorization as well as the rehearsed body movements and a stage in the auditorium. The kind of performance in the documentary was all the more potent for me as merely being in a particular location at a specific time, performing specific behaviors that were not rehearsed for a stage. It propelled the audience into a field similar to an auditorium or a theatre possibly even a more evocative one, while at the same time challenging them to rethink their roles in the society. Moreover, the audience hasn’t the slightest clue that what they are watching is indeed a performance, unlike in a theatre, making it all the more an intriguing experience to watch their responses as a third party.
The experiment resulted in a point that only a few individuals saw the display and the reason behind is that it was believable, the message that was supposed to be to be satirical in commentary did not translate well through the audience. It is true that when people are at the museum, they tend to think that whatever they are going to see is a fact and therefore turn off all the observational skepticism and automatically take whatever they see as being a fact. It did not result in massive fame for the couple nor did it become a staple in the modern American art. It was successful in being a satirical commentary and proved that people believe what they are told without the utilization of any rational thinking, especially when whatever is being said is confirmed by an expert.
In overall, the act did trigger a response, whether awe, sympathy or even outrage from the audience. It is however that the message to which the group was trying to convey, precisely the idea that it is a satirical message about conquering land and claiming it as your own, did not filter through the entire audience, to which resulted in some people believing to what they saw. The couple in the cage would undoubtedly satisfy the requirements of being considered art in the public interest piece because it took an issue affecting the society and manipulated it into an art form for the general public. However, there are two main reasons as to why the exhibition should be not be considered as an art. The first reason is that a majority of the people being the audience did not understand the message that was trying to be conveyed by the couple. Gomez-Pena and Fusco are preaching that conquering another area where there are already people is inhumane, drawing parallels between the discovery of America and being caged for display. There was no apparent connection to the audience took the exhibit at face value and didn’t understand the actual message. The second reason is that the premise is based on lies. There is no such island, and the couple dressed up to trick the audience. If the message were more explicit, then the people would not be fooled as easily, and therefore it could be considered as an art.
Reference
Fusco, C., & Heredia, P. (1993). The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey; a Video. Third World Newsreel.
Character Analysis of Willy Loman
Character Analysis of Willy Loman
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Introduction
The plot of the play “Death of a Salesman” centers around the last two days of the life of Willy Loman, an average man. Willy was losing his mind since the start of the play, but his suicide at the conclusion takes him by surprise. Within these two days, Miller allows his character’s failing memory to impact the tone of the play as he travels between remembrance and reality, allowing the audience to understand Willy’s viewpoints on his relationships.
Analysis
“Willy Loman is not your typical tragic hero; he is lower-middle-class and not particularly bright.” He lives in an amoral, capitalistic huge business environment, rather than one with strong moral values”. Because of the confusion generated by the disparity between Willy’s perception of the world and the actual world, he is unable to build any type of meaningful relationship with his family members, and they are unable to assist him during this time of difficulty. A close examination of Willy’s use of symbolism, sarcasm, and imagery reveals his very confused, desperate, and sensitive character.
As the play begins, Willy tells his wife that his mind can not seem to focus on what’s essential anymore, forcing him to rely more and more on the symbols he’s developed as indicators of success. Willy sees a solid bond between father and son as a sign of domestic success. However, because his perspective is almost exclusively focused on business operations, he appears to feel that this connection should evolve spontaneously as Biff acknowledges and respects Willy’s final sacrifice for him, rather than as a consequence of any effort Willy has put into it.
Business success is a significant indicator of Willy’s successful life, possibly even more vital than success as a father. Willy’s inability to provide his wife with a safe house, insurance, and to pay off the refrigerator creates a situation in which there is only one potential winning solution. Willy believes that the only way to ‘buy’ his boys’ affection and guarantee he has supplied for his wife is through money achievement. As previously stated, Willy considers these qualities of the family to be the genuine indicators of success and are entirely dependent on money. Willy can relax into his role as family patriarch only once he has gained the mother’s comfortable backing and the sons’ admiration. Anything less is unacceptably inadequate. Willy’s desperation is initially demonstrated by his poor income, which is revealed to be nearly nothing because he works on commission and has not sold anything in a long time. However, he gets sacked from his employment during the first business meeting of the play and subsequently declines a position offered to him by Charley. Charley illustrates at this moment that not all worth can be assessed in terms of financial well-being. Even though he may give Willy a job with the casual comment “You want a job?”, he can not figure out how Willy found a way to put up the roof in the living room. Willy’s ability to use tools is valued by Charley, and it is a talent that Willy appreciates as well since Willy is ready to dismiss Charley because he cannot. Willy, on the other hand, is ready to disregard this expertise in the face of monetary achievement, as illustrated by his brother Ben.
Willy finds himself groping for a foundation in his family based on facts but with no clue how to get there when he is eventually brought to the conclusion that his deteriorating memory means he can no longer work. Willy wants nothing more than to escape the imagined world he is constructed, and he rejects every attempt Biff makes to entice him out by pressing the reality (Yasinski, 2001). Willy’s frantic maneuvering of the before-stated conversation with Biff over Biff’s meeting with Oliver is one example of how he avoids the truth in the present. This type of incident occurs towards the end of the scene as well, with Biff refusing to back down to keep the family peace. He dismisses Happy’s assertions that he is ‘practically’ the assistant buyer at work, even though he is merely the second assistant to assistant to the buyer.
The majority of what the rest of the world knows about Willy is based on a picture he holds of himself. Willy continues to project an image to his family and business partners that are aimed to make him appear more important and respected, even though he knows better. As previously said, even though Willy is shown to have had a very strong connection with his boys, seeing them clean the vehicle, chatting about football, and being able to bring home a present for them that is totally in keeping with what they desire, he feels insecure in their appreciation of him. Willy embellishes his position at work to make himself appear more important than he is, rather than simply accepting that he is a traveling salesman and loving the various places he gets to explore. He gets carried away by his visions, like when he begins planting seeds in his yard after the play, even though the buildings now block off too much sunlight for anything to grow: “The grass does not grow anymore, you can not raise a carrot in the back yard” (Yasinski, 2001).
Conclusion
Willy had no choice but to do what he did within the constraints of his personality and understanding throughout the play. His unwavering confidence in the American ideal, in which a parent lived by particular ideals to provide for his family’s fundamental necessities, was intimately linked to his perceptions of his position within the family unit itself. An analysis of the collection of symbols by which Willy assesses his life reveals this point of view. According to this viewpoint, the only way to achieve familial prosperity was to first achieve corporate success. Willy was forced to admit he had not attained familial success after finding he had not earned commercial success.
The irony of his nature is that he could have achieved familial success if he would only give up his symbols and looked at the truth. The fact was that he was not a financial success, but that just added to his familial success since it did not matter to the people who loved him. Willy was finally able to see that his son loved him the entire time, regardless of whether he had attained some magical tangible quantity of dollars, by removing the obstacle of commercial success through his gift of insurance money. Willy can die in peace if he realizes this simple reality.
References
Yasinski, N. A. (2001). Arthur Miller’s Death of a salesman. Research & Education Association.
Chapters 9-15, and also 8 Nonverbal Communication
Review : Exam 2- Persuasion- Fall 2019- Remember, you must go through Respondus Lock-down browser to access the exam. Chapters 9-15, and also 8/ Nonverbal Communication
Know and understand motivational appeals and the type of appeals.
What are the type of Esoteric forms of persuasion and how do they work?
Visual Persuasion- How does this work in the American culture and other cultures?
Syllabus and bblearn information-
Connection between nonverbal communication and persuasion-
Types of nonverbal persuasion- tactics used for effectiveness-
Elaboration Likelihood Model-
Types of Intimates-
Language and Persuasion-
Credibility- males vs females-
Aristotle’s terminology-
One vs two sided arguments
Primacy / recency arguments
Powers- types used for persuasion
There are 35 questions- each question is worth 3 points, making the exam 105 total- However, the gradebook will reflect 100, given you all an automatic 5-point bonus.
Please be sure to have a secure internet connection- block out the appropriate time- and please do your own work. Cheating on this exam will only cheat yourself!
Good luck-