Visual Portfolios

 

 

Kia Presley: Visual Response to Class

 

Each of the three links to Visual Portfolios listed for this Unit requires permission from the creator, and Kia Presley graciously granted my access to her page. As I understand, each student was asked to find and comment upon three images that related to the presentations and discussions on Class for one of Dr. Jenkin's assignments. Ms. Presley chose four images, three cartoons and one black and white photograph. See for yourself:

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5282/5236684729_0e1f7538d2.jpg

https://coto2.wordpress.com/tag/income-gap/

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/22-0

http://edu.glogster.com/glog.php?glog_id=18158230&scale=54&isprofile=true

 

Ms. Presley's responses are primarily geared to class assignments and readings of which I am unfamiliar, but she speaks movingly to the chasm between what we're taught and the grim, opposing reality touched upon in the initial cartoon. Students in the United States, regardless of their socio-economic Class, are taught the education is the way to escape poverty and oppression. However, especially in today's economy, mounting student loan debt and the elevated unemployment statistics show us advancing education can become oppressive and perpetuate poverty. I am struck by the fact that three of these images are political cartoons, a genre that is becoming a major player in the protest arts thanks to the comic advancements: graphic novels, autographics, and social media.

 

Art Speigelman, author and illustrator of the MAUS books, and the post-9/11 book In the Shadow of No Towers, has been writing and lecturing on the power of comics for most of his career. When asked in an interview for The Comics Journal why he created a Graphic Memoir about the Holocaust and his family's history, Spiegelman explained that form is a teaching tool, and further replied:

 

SPIEGELMAN: It's true that the "drawing comics" part is just a given for me, even though people came up and said, "Why did you do it in a comic book?" "Well, how else?"

 

It's in my grammar; it's in my language. And yet, I think that [Maus's] subject matter overwhelms the formal aspects as it reasonably should or would, and therefore, it's a bunch of loose figures that somehow get this story told instead of setting it in type. [Comics] informs, for better or for worse, all of my work. Even this book — OK, it ain't comics, but it is words and pictures and graphic. When you say it's useful as a [teaching] tool about the Holocaust, it's probably also useful in how to deal with what's urgent in your own life by trying to assimilate it and make it into something. So, again, the Holocaust subject matter overwhelms everything, as it reasonably would.

http://www.tcj.com/an-art-spiegelman-interview/

 

So as we've discussed throughout this term, genre is a political choice to some extent, but each of our arts of protest have to stem naturally from our own hearts and souls.

 

(Elizabeth A.)

 

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

By Raul Manzano

 

World mega-concerts to aid Third World countries began in the late 70’s. I remember Unesco’s live concert back then in 1979 where music Diva Donna Summer and Rock start Rod Steward drove audiences mad. People were glued to their TVs, it all seen to be for such a good cause. I was a teenager back then.

 

Reading Reed’s chapter “We Are [Not] the World” in The Art of Protest reveals the other side of these musical global movements that appear to be for a good reason. He compares and highlights the political undertones most people are unaware in particularly the concert Bob Geldof organized for aid relief in Africa. While the concert raised money, it failed to address the cultures of Africa (from Senegal to Ehiopia) and focused on the “pop” British artists performing this fund raising, the white man helping the black man. Moreover, the theme song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” did not go well on a population that hardly has anything to eat nor they celebrate Christmas, a Western religion celebration. While the concert may have originally a noble cause, it also shows the disconnection and lack of sensibility to cultural differences and how to address then to help those in need.

Considering the Pop Protest Song (C. Smith)

"[…]making the same mistakes we swear we'll never make again/we're gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren […] the answer my friend/is pissin' in the wind/the answer is pissin' in the sink"

--Jerry Jeff Walker, "Pissin' In The Wind"

"How many roads must a man walk down before he admits he is lost?"

--David Lee Roth, from Strummin' With the Devil: the Southern Side of Van Halen

Two revisions of Bob Dylan's famous lyric provides context for this brief survey of social, political, and rhetorical statements, made within the genre of popular and commercial song: since Dylan's gravely-voiced premonitions and dreams gave flight to all manner of recorded psychedelic statements in the early 1960s, artists' abilities to foster social and political movements within music have come under scrutiny. How are songs of critique and protest received by the public, and to what extent do record labels—themselves commercial entities serving to preserve corporate interests—seek to control artists' lyrical and rhetorical messages?

Tupac-Ressurection.com leads to Paramount Pictures' main site, and the parent company—Viacom—promotes Jersey Shore, a remake of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Comedy Central's recent sweep of the Primetime Emmys, garnering awards for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Futurama. Through the Internet's Wayback Machine, one may access 'snapshots' of what the Web—including this site, promoting a 2003 MTV documentary about Shakur's life, the "only film made in collaboration with Shakur's mother, former Black Panther Afeni Shakur" ("TUPAC: Resurrection," 2003). The film's producer, Lauren Lazin, has continued work for MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, as well as on films including The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The transitory nature of fame, within genres of pop music, may create a difficult framework for artists' sustained work toward social justice: Lennon may have penned "Imagine" and other notoriously popular anthems of change, but the extent to which his political idealism has been embraced and lyrically ratified by the succession of songwriters in his wake may actually illuminate a grim situation of rhetorical representation on MTV, VH1, and other celebrity-obessed channels. These networks are corporate, seek profits, and are interested in selling entertainment, not inciting riots. Lady Gaga's meat dress may represent an individual's unique embrace of their fame, and will no doubt be discussed as part of her VH1 Behind the Music documentary, but to what end? As Blake Wilson pondered in the New York Times, reviewing Dorian Lynskey's 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, "can pop music change the world?" (Wilson, 2011).

In seeking to define this relationship, between a performer and their effect on the views and actions of a self-selected audience, one may consider the actions of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation (tasf.org), its arts education programs, and performing arts center, on the outskirts of Atlanta, founded by Tupac's mom: to what extent might popular musicians' actions of protest and justice promote a legacy of change, establishing new traditions of community and music? Does the strategic placement of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" in all-too-many filmic depictions of the Vietnam War and a domestic culture of protest elevate this pop-radio hit to a new level of success? The slew of comments on the brief New York Times review of Lynskey's compendium to pop protest music may sum to characterize the fragmentation of a previously-commoditized market: most of those choosing to comment on the review seem to do so, in order to promote their own favorite protest song, from artists we've never heard of, recordings that may or may not have been made widely available for public sale. Is it by accident that Country Joe and the Fish's studio recording of their popular Woodstock sing-along "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-to-Die-Rag" has fallen off our informal map of cultural and musical history, half a century after half a million people covered in mud all knew the words on a field in upstate New York?

There is an absurdity to protest in pop music: to what extent may one protest the system within which they work, or, as Sean Wilentz described in his review of Lynskey's book, where "simple outrage surpasses ideology" (Wilentz, 2011). While CSNY's song "Ohio" may represent one of the most expedient and effective embraces of the genre of popular recorded music, Neil Young's work as a lyricist and songwriter extends far beyond his reaction to the shootings of students at Kent State University in Ohio: promoting energy efficiency and sustainability through his tour to support his 2005 Greendale album, Neil Young continues to serve as an example of sustained inclusion of political and social lyrics within the genre of popular music.

Like the situation described in Neil's early 1980s lyrics, many celebrities within popular recorded music have found it "better to burn out/than it is to rust" (Young, 1983, "Hey Hey My My"): many rhetorical heroes  have expired all too soon, including Tupac, Lennon, Hendrix, Morrison, and others, from dangerous mixtures of idealism, substance use, and toxic interactions. The state of protest within popular recorded music is, for all purposes, too transitive to define: the end of commercialization, and the rise of downloadable product and musicians' self-representation, may continue to characterize songwriters' predicament. "Occupy This Album," a February 2012 compilation featuring tracks from over fifty artists, was produced by an organization (Music For Occupy) that stands "in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street" ("About," 2012), and while these efforts are noble in helping redefine the genre's rhetorical abilities, I wonder if any modern recording artist would dare to perform public relations antics like renting hotel suites in Montreal and Amsterdam, and surrounding themselves with comedians, musician friends and the press, and call the set of stunts a "Bed-In" for Peace?  John Lennon explained himself to the press in 1969 as such: "It's part of our policy not to be taken seriously. Our opposition, whoever they may be, in all manifest forms, don't know how to handle humour. And we are humorous" (Wiener, J., 1991, as cited by Wikipedia, 2012). Do we, consumers of recorded music, expect—or even want—such humor from our entertainers and American idols?

"Bed-In." (2012). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed-In#cite_note-4

Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation. (2012). "About TASF." Retrieved from http://www.tasf.org/the-foundation/about-tasf/

 

Wilentz, S. (29 April 2011). "A History of Protest Songs." New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/books/review/book-review-33-revolutions-per-minute-by-dorian-lynskey.html?pagewanted=2&_r=4&src=rechp

 

Wilson, B. (27 April 2011). "Is The Protest Song Dead?" New York Times. Retrieved from http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/is-the-protest-song-dead/?ref=review

 

 

What Happen After?

By Raul Manzano

 

Raya Dunayevskaya’s life experience from Russia’s revolution to the Jewish and Black ghettos in Chicago transformed her. From being an illiterate person to becoming and activist and intellectual and a fighter for women’s rights and liberation. She adopted Marx theories, defended them and was a spokesperson. According to Addrienne Rich “Dunayevskaya believes [Marx] is the only philosopher of ‘total revolution, the revolution that will touch and transform all human relationships, that is never-ending, revolution in permanence” (93). Unfortunately as she pointed out, post Marxist corrupted Marx ideas transforming them to their own benefit, as did Stalin and later Fidel Castro’s Communism.

 

Dunayevskaya’s question “what happen after?” is the core of her work when tyrannies and or capitalism fail, What kind of society are we to create? While The Soviet Union experienced the fall of Communism and embarking on new entrepreneurship under capitalism influence, it has yet to prove a more concrete outcome what type of society they are to establish. In the America’s hemisphere, Cuba’s Communism scratches everywhere it can to hold onto and preserve their oppressive government further exporting it to other third world countries in Central and South America where poverty and hunger are a seed for Communism. While the United States has failed to pay attention to Latin American problems, labor exploitation, discrimination, female abuses and freedom in this part of the continent would continue to rise. Raya Dunayevskaya’s vision of  “how it would feel” (97) to be and experience humanity is a dream many can only envision on book pages and the thoughts of the writers.

 

Rich, Adrienne. Arts of the Possible. London: Norton. 2001. Print.

The Scapegoat Genres

As I read Dr. Jenkins' "A Beautiful Mind" and worked my way through much of Tupac's incredible catalog on youtube, I remembered the catalytic events that inspired my own lifelong fandom of heavy metal and punk rock.

In the mid-eighties, The Parents Music Resource Center hearings broadcast through the small, square-screened Sony television in our family den. Despite the fact that I was still in elementary school, I watched the formal proceedings with rapt attention. Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snyder took turns intelligently tearing down the gross exaggerations and misinterpretations of the "Washington Wives" (namely Tipper Gore and Susan Baker) concerned more with their husbands' political careers, no doubt, than with the need to supposedly 'save' the nation's susceptible children through the censorship of violent and sexual and profane lyrical content. As I recall Oprah suggested when she hosted members of the PMRC alongside The Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, the censorship labels would likely draw more young fans to buying albums with explicit content. This was certainly true in my case; I used to hoard my small allowance, hop on the Free Pace Bus to Golf Mill Mall, and find older loitering teens to purchase my list of cassettes all marked with that enticing scarlet letter. Even though I was personally labeled as a headbanger, and later a punk, all of my misfit friends and I naturally welcomed gangsta rap and hip hop into our music libraries. The often controversial genres, the scapegoat genres (blamed for everything from inner-city violence to school shooting and teen suicide), reflect the underdogs in part (as JJ and Wilentz discussed), but more generally reveal the intellectual and perceptive powers of citizen-artists who are fully awake to the oppressive and suppressive systems at play in our shared society—and they're not willing to keep their mouths and eyes shut.

Here—join me in the journey through some of the PMRC-related web adventures this unit sent me on:

The PMRC Hearings: Dee Snyder

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8FbBpvoYKpc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Urban Dictionary definitions for the PMRC

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PMRC

Dead Kennedys: "California, Uber Alles"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8UlY8eXCk&feature=share&list=AL94UKMTqg-9CSd5U3bKUXquneynGiLDPe

Jello Biafra and Tipper Gore: The PMRC on Oprah

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/L_SiOnt_Oxo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Jello Biafra Interview: Soft Focus

http://www.vice.com/soft-focus/jello-biafra

(Elizabeth A)

post for the blog (D.M.)

Hi all

As an artist I was deeply inspired by the message and the persistence of Faith Ringgold.

I would like to share some U—tubes that may shade some more light on her thinking.

 

 

Tar Beach - Faith Ringgold

  

Nobody told me I am a good writer or painter I just had a story that I needed to tell and kept going… "I found my images, I found my colors…I did not find my market".

Keep working, you are the only one who knows what you  are doing…

http://youtu.be/ZdPxHvGB1Xo

and a pick into the book:

http://youtu.be/ZA2_2oB1C3w

and finally Faith Ringgold on political art

http://youtu.be/9JU9A5ZA1VI

and women artists

http://youtu.be/BQZUXcMVYYc   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walker and Toomer's Gardens

In Jean Toomer's Cane, women young and old, beautiful and broken, are the object of the author's gaze. With great care and poetry, he traces the shapes, movements, and despair of Ester, Fern, Carma, Becky, et al. But, as Alice Walker recognizes, "[t]o Toomer, they lay vacant and fallow as autumn fields with harvest time never in sight: and he saw them enter loveless marriages, without joy; and become prostitutes, without resistance; and become mothers of children, without fulfillment" ("In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens").  Becky, for instance, who refused to admit who gave her "one Negro son," was devoured by the judgment and ridicule from both the white and black folks in her town. Toomer writes, "[h]er eyes were sunken, her neck stringy, her breasts fallen […] [t]aking their words, they filled her, like a bubble rising—then she broke" (Cane 8). Esther, like Woolf's Marys, "seeks her own room, and locks the door" (45), but Esther's mind is not free in this room of her own, but "a pink mesh-bag filled with baby toes" (45).

Toomer's renderings of these women in the South are incomplete, Walker elucidates, because "these grandmothers and mothers of ours were not "Saints," but Artists; driven to a numb and bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release. They were Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality-which is the basis of Art-that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them insane" ("In Search").

Each of our readings for this feminism unit offer strategies and examples for staving off the insanity of oppression. Current Black Feminists call us to Love as the antidote for prejudice, against ourselves and others. The quilters, painters, musicians, and bloggers call us to join into conversation and creation in an effort to re-present , represent, and therefore  free ourselves. Through Love, and creativity, we own our own Beauty, as Walker recognized in her mother:  

"I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant, almost to the point of being invisible except as Creator: hand and eye. She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty."

This call to action, to creative expression and self-representation and Love, is not gendered nor entirely new. In fact, for a time, Toomer wanted to disown Cane because he didn't want to be pigeon-holed as a Negro writer of the Harlem Renaissance; after all, "[r]acially, [he seemed] to have seven blood mixtures: French, Dutch, Welsh, Negro, German, Jewish, and Indian" (Cane viii). However, his "growing need for artistic expression has pulled [him] deeper and deeper into the Negro group. And as [his] powers of receptivity increased, [he] found [himself] loving it in a way that [he] could never love the other. It has stimulated and fertilized whatever creative talent [he] may contain within [himself]" (ix).

So it should come as no surprise that Toomer dedicated Cane, just one of the "gardens" he tended, "To my grandmother…".

Toomer, Jean. Cane (1923). New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Print.

Walker, Alice. "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South (1974)" http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/walker.asp

(E. Aiossa)