Author Archives: Izzy

Mulan: Shakespeare’s Parody

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Never having been exposed to  Twelfth Night prior to Slope Day, seeing it for the first time that day was a truly eye-opening experience. The play deftly handled topics on gender identity and sexuality, and even though I’d never had a personal connection with these topics, I was able to quite easily have an emotional connection with the characters and their struggles.

According to Sara, the GRF sponsoring the event, older men at that time would be a sexual mentor, of sorts, to younger men, who would have these initial sexual encounters but would end up marrying women. Gay sex was usually emotionally detached, and in this way homosexuality was relatively de-stigmatized during Shakespeare’s time. In the Twelfth Night, I was shocked that homosexuality was discussed so openly and explicitly, especially for this time period. In an interesting parallel, a male (Cesario) and female (Malvolia) servant were both in love with their master (Orsino) and mistress (Olivia), respectively, although the attraction is only returned by the master.

Introduced at The Elephant, a drag queen made a quick appearance by way of a conversation with Sebastian. Drag queens have an interesting gender identity because they typically identify as men, but also have a persona who is female and referred to with female pronouns. This persona is almost seen as a separate human, a character they play, one that shares a body with the drag queen but is not the same person and at the end of the day they often still identify as male (although there are also plenty of drag queens who come out later as trans*). This is another parallel, albeit inverted, because Viola has a very similar experience in the play where she identifies as a woman but has a male persona (Cesario) who is a distinct character that she doesn’t wish to become.

I really enjoyed how this play handled sexuality and gender identity, because it was written and performed in such a way that these characteristics did not seem to affect a person’s intrinsic self. Someone can have any loyalties, interests, moral inclinations, etc. – the things that make up someone’s intrinsic self – and these aspects will be unaffected by their sexuality or gender identity.

I’ll leave you with one final, poignant question: WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHRISTMAS????

The reality of the disadvantaged

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Bread and Roses depicts two different reactions by illegal immigrants, when faced with similar situations.

On one hand, there is Maya, the sister who has little to lose and fewer people to harm than just herself. She does not have a family of her own depending on her and thus she makes very risky decisions. At the cost of losing her job, she stands up for herself when men at the bar that employed her made sexual advances towards her. She then continues to put the subsequent job, that her sister obtained for her, in jeopardy by organizing meetings between the janitorial staff and union organizers. Now, one can argue that these were ultimately causes for the greater good given the living situations of the workers depicted, but what I found most interesting was that Maya was willing to risk her job, the sole reason that was mentioned for her crossing the border, to help not only herself but others in need.

In contrast, Rosa, whose name translates to “Rose” in English, stood out to me as a symbol of someone who understood that she could not have her pie and eat it too. She was burdened with the responsibility of not only feeding her mother and sister back home in Mexico, but taking care of her two kids and ill husband. She basically worked at a brothel since she was a child in order to provide for her family and keep them from starving most of her life and was even willing to compromise her own moral standards to obtain a job for her sister. Out of fear of not being able to provide for her family, she refused to partake in any movement to unionize the janitorial staff in the building or call attention to herself in other ways. After all, she had everything she had migrated to the United States to get, a job and means of feeding her family. I don’t really think anyone would dispute her actions on account of her reasons. How many of us would give up the security of having a next meal for self respect?

The reality for most illegal immigrants is that they don’t really have any type of security in this country. They could lose their jobs for any reason at any time and there is no foundation for disputing mistreatment due to their undocumented status and the illegality of their employment to begin with. Yet that reality is something many people are willing to take in exchange for being able to provide food for their families. For illegal immigrants like Rosa, the “roses” she was fighting for were the mere means of supporting her loved ones. While Maya wanted to fight for more, none of it would have been possible without Rosa’s help in the first place.

The great American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, might say that due to her need for “bread” being taken care of by Rosa, Maya was able to be concerned about other needs and have the yearning for different “roses.”

Schizophrenia: a gift in a curse

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I don’t know a lot about Schizophrenia and what it can do to a person, or how realistically the representation of John Nash’s condition was portrayed in A Beautiful Mind. However, I have heard that estimates as high as twenty-percent of root causes for homelessness are being attributed to Schizophrenia. In light of this, it is truly admirable how Nash was able to control his hallucination and maintain such a functional social life, not to mention the achievements of his breakthroughs in academia. Because of this, I disagree with the introduction given about how Schizophrenia trapped Nash within his own mind. I think rather than trapping him, his condition allowed his imagination to run free to harmful depths, because I do believe there is an opposite extremity to oppression. By liberating his mind and appealing to his creativity for inspirational breakthroughs, Nash escaped the real of practical reality to that of his obsession with military operations in Russia.

It is amazing what a person can accomplish with enough mettle and motivation. John Nash should serve as an inspiration to any average joe facing a difficult time. However, it concerns me that this movie might inspire people with severe psychological disorder to refuse medical treatment, or that a loved one might influence someone in need towards such a decision. While John Nash’s accomplishments are notable, I don’t believe that every person facing this struggle has the necessary means to overcome this disorder without medical attention.

Whenever I think of an underlying theme to this movie, I keep coming back to perseverance through all challenges and the achievements that are attainable to any individual with enough effort and persistence. The movie really inspires me to devote myself to my passions the way that John Nash was able to devote himself to studies in mathematics.

What is Tai-Chi?

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What spoke to me most about the movie was the cultural influence that the Tai-chi master had on his students, which I don’t think is exclusive to learning Tai-chi. Towards the end of the documentary most of them had changed their interpretation of Tai-chi from a mere martial art to something relating to health or a new lifestyle. Their lives were changed, not because of learning a form of self defense but rather the new state of self-consciousness about their bodies that the master had encouraged. They stated in the video that when the master died, the students separated into groups, between those that wanted more emphasis on the physical aspects of Tai-chi and those who wanted to learn more about their own well-being.

I had a similar experience in when I practiced Tae-Kwon-Do. I was interested in learning it as a form of self-defense and found myself learning more about how to take care of my body and staying safe, using the energy and strength I already have in a strategic manner. Yet physical contact and fighting did not seem to me to be the primary focus of martial arts after that experience. It was a way of teaching preventive action and awareness of your surroundings more than it was about how to hit and block. However, I have come to believe that this emphasis on other aspects of life when learning a martial art comes from instructors with a deeper understanding about how martial arts tie in practically into our lives. My brothers had previous instructors who taught more on the basis of fighting strategy, but those tended to be larger classes.

I had never really discussed my own martial arts experiences with anyone. Watching this documentary helped me to interpret my own experiences in a new light. Ultimately, I think what made the experience of the people in the video so powerful was the wisdom and knowledge that the Tai-chi master was willing to share with those who had never experienced his culture or passion.

 

Nature vs. Nurture

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What struck me most about the movie “Gattaca” was the notion that society is leaning towards genetically defined discrimination, because I simply cannot imagine a world where we depend solely on what genetic code and machines, however mistaken they may be, tell us about a person. This idea alone undermines the impact that nurture has on people and what differentiates us from machines that can be programmed to do exactly what we want. As a species, we depend on motivation and emotion to drive us besides what we are physically capable of doing. The mere thought that hard work can get people further than natural talent seems to frequently escape the minds of many people. I would like to argue this movie from two perspectives: psychological abilities and physical abilities.

I read a book a few years back, titled “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell, that I relate to the topic of psychological ability. This book introduced me to the theory that genetics and IQ are merely benchmarks of people’s potential. As I recall, the book theorized that a higher IQ can make it easier for you to learn certain things, but after exceeding a certain threshold a higher IQ will provide no further benefit. This speaks for the effort that a person must exert to reach a certain potential. We are not born with innate ability to swim or read, we learn these traits the same way that we must learn other skills for what we wish to accomplish. While I personally believe that a large part of what we are capable of comes from emotional motivation and nurturing of interests as well as talents, I think there is validity to the argument that because genetically influenced traits may be mere thresholds, it is difficult to dictate what a person will be capable of accomplishing from a sequence of genes.

From a physical perspective, I think the movie overlooks the fact that a person born with the slightest chances of illness and disorder may fall into a pitfall of malnourishment or lack of self-care that will influence their capabilities. We don’t see olympic athletes that do not train hard every day or athletes that exclusively eat junk food and can keep up with physical demands. How we choose to take care of ourselves plays a significant role in what we can do. I believe that as long as there are educated people in the world that understand these complexities of the human mind and body, it is impossible to categorize people based on genetic code. Vincent beat the unlikeliest of odds by taking care of himself. He trained for his physical stamina. He studied to understand the logistics behind space travel. Nobody can predict with certainty what can or will happen under the correct conditions.

The World of Privilege

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“Does anyone know how to write?”

That simple line from the end of the movie, when “The Runts” took over the City of God, could pretty much summarize my perspective on most events. It is clear from the very beginning of the film, The City of God, that the only reason Rocket (AKA Wilson Rodriguez, photographer) was able to escape the pull of the gang wars was the constant pressure to stay on top of his school work and the fear of being killed from involvement. One could even argue that if it wasn’t for the ties to his deceased brother, he would have eventually wound up in a gang himself. However, he was pushed to devote himself to school and obtaining an education in order to obtain a better life — the better life everyone was striving for. In a place where access to education meant not having enough food to eat, because it took away time from making a living, and the lack of mobility in social class without education, you had to pick very early on what your future was to be. You could struggle to make a daily living or join a gang and be part of the action. The people portrayed living in these Brazilian slums were simply thrown away and forgotten along with all the problems they brought with them. If someone had taken notice of the safety issues and corruption within their small society earlier on, many of the violence issues could have been prevented. All anyone wanted was the hope of moving up in society, and without being educated, violence was the medium through which they all obtained power.

For those of us who do not have to make a choice between survival and education, the choice is a lot simpler.

Fantasy vs. Reality

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As someone who just watched this movie for the first time on Friday, I felt as though The Matrix posed more questions than it answered, in similar ways that Inception did. It all comes back to choosing what we believe is our reality, and what we have control over, versus what our dreams or fantasies are. Neo chose to believe that his reality should be the one where he had to fight in order to save the world, despite his doubts about why he was chosen and if he would be able to live up to the task. He chose to believe in something that was difficult for Cypher to cope with, which is why Cypher betrayed Morpheus and his crew. Cypher did not want to believe that there was little hope of survival and living under constant threats. In his confession scene with Mr. Smith, we learn that he would much rather have the “fantasy” word once again become his reality. He decided that ignorance is bliss and he could enjoy his life more freely without consciously knowing that other people were constantly influencing him in what he felt were acts of his own free-will. This seems a very relatable struggle for many of us on a day to day basis. What does our personal reality consist of? Do we choose to acknowledge the hardships we see others struggle or does the ability to compartmentalize allow us to keep our fantasy world existing despite the wrong doings we witness in the world?

On the other hand, an argument could be made that education and the pursuit of knowledge is the equivalent of our “red pill” in the real world. We try so hard to understand everything that happens around us, and keep going deeper into the rabbit hole, out of sheer curiosity to explore the world. We know that the steak we eat is not just delicious without reason, but the way our brain perceives olfactory chemicals being emitted by our food and taste chemicals binding to our taste buds. I think everything can keep its wonder, despite how harsh reality seems at times, if we allow ourselves to keep an open mind and be amazed by what we know rather than turning a blind eye and opting to feel disillusioned.

Shakespeare’s Juliet

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I have heard plenty of mysteries regarding the identity of the famous Shakespeare. Many people believe that Shakespeare was a lower-class fellow because writing was not a respected profession back in Elizabethan times. Others believe that the degree of education held by this master of playwrights could not be obtained by anyone other than nobility. That is to say, Shakespeare could have been a mere alias to a nobleman looking to save face. Yet I never considered the origin and inspiration of his stories to have relevance in identifying the man behind the works until I watched Shakespeare in Love at this week’s Rose Movie Night.

Whether he was a solitary genius or a man of social experience was not a question that had crossed my mind, but I believe that in order to get inspiration for masterful poetry and other forms of expression, a person must be emotionally driven or inspired by experience. While I realize that the movie was fictional, it brought to consideration a valid point. Shakespeare must have drawn inspiration for his numerous sonnets from something, even if it was mere observation of his surroundings and the interactions between others. He may even have been a confidant amidst the drama in the life of others. Yet, there is a very likely possibility that he drew from his out heart-wrenching, emotional experiences in order to concoct his masterpieces. Like the Shakespeare portrayed in the movie, Shakespeare in the real world could have used writing as an escape from his internally conflicting emotions about what was happening around him, without actually having lived through struggles similar to his characters’.

Whoever the real Shakespeare was, he could not have been a lonely man without friends or family to depend on. His life remains much of a mystery, but his poetry contains universal struggles and messages applicable to people of different time periods, heritages, and social classes, that would be overlooked by someone solitary and without personal experiences. Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t being threatened for stealing a forbidden heart, but I truly believe he must have had his own real-life Juliet.

Hidden Feelings Behind the Fight

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Fight Club struck me as the movie to incorporate many themes of every day life that we neglect to discuss without probing. One overarching theme evident in the movie deals with oppression and perpetuity, the primary reasons for the start-up of fight clubs. We can compare this club of fighters to children acting up in search of attention. Those to join the club sought to channel their anger and  discontentment, at having their day-to-day concerns overlooked, as well monotony in every day life, into actions that would attract public interest and attention. Fight club attracted these people because it provided variance from their every day life. They dealt with their problems in a “secret club” and left them there, with their suppressed feelings towards social structure.

Another interpretation for fight club could be that these men merely sought companionship and camaraderie. For instance, Bob appeared to me a symbol of loneliness because he is introduced as a man who has lost everything. His children didn’t care for him; his career was compromised after being diagnosed with testicular cancer; his wife divorced him; and the first person he sought out at the testicular cancer meetings was the protagonist, whose sole reason for attending the meetings was to have his feelings acknowledged. Yet after his death, fight clubs across the US acknowledged him and his name as someone who sacrificed his life for standing up for the lower-class and castaways of society. His death was the protagonists first attempt at acknowledging that the members in fight club were real people, with real stories, that they should all care about. He acknowledged that he had lost one of his true friends.

Yet the loneliness analogy can be translated into lack of love. While I agree that the movie was in ways misogynistic, the protagonist tells us from the very beginning of the movie that none of the chaos would have occurred if it wasn’t for Marla. We see her in many scenes primarily as a symbol of lust in sex scenes, yet she is also the reason that our protagonist comes to realize his psychosis and errors. Marla, as I see it, is the reason our protagonist realizes he wasn’t alone in feeling disregarded by his boss and the rest of the world. She, like him, would attend the illness-related group therapy meetings in anticipation of death and hope of compassion from others without actually being ill. I believe his courage for standing up to his alter-ego, Tyler, was a result of his realizing that Marla was back in town and would not be safe if he did not own up to his makes and acknowledge his problems. Marla, our only female character, was the catalyst for resolution in the story.

With respect to masculinity, it can be argued that it materializes differently with corresponding social status. I think it is safe to say that if masculinity is the male display of power, people of higher status exercise their power through bureaucratic means as opposed to the violent displays of the disregarded and oppressed.  When the protagonist’s boss attempts to fire him, he does not initiate any physical confrontation. Instead, he calls security guards to exercise that power. As for all the members of the club, they embrace their masculinity through acts of violence, such as destroying landmarks, blowing up condos, kidnapping, and fighting.

These are all issues that are relevant in today’s society, and will likely remain relevant for the rest of time. Oppression, loneliness, love, and power are universal topics that most of man-kind can relate to in one way or another. It is part of a journey of self-discovery, but how we choose to deal with these issues are what will set us apart from the events of the movie. After all, they aren’t entirely far-fetched.