I just read a lovely little NYTimes article, “Exploring Fact City,” about wikipedia. The article describes the working of wikipedia as akin to that of a growing city–“Since their creation, cities have had to be accepting of strangers — no judgments — and residents learn to be subtly accommodating, outward looking.” You might wonder what that has to do with gender, but I’m thinking of several connections. One is the dysfunctional city in Metropolis; the other is the history of urban gay enclaves-> the technological development of the city enabling the formation of social groups that had difficulty finding acceptance in rural areas.
And then, another: “The Civil Heretic,” about the currently-somewhat-wacky work of Freeman Dyson, “an undeterred octogenarian futurist”: “’I don’t think of myself predicting things…I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen….The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes’….Dyson was an optimistic American immigrant with tremendous faith in the creative imagination’s ability to invent technologies that would overcome any predicament….Dyson is himself the living embodiment of that kind of ingenuity.”
Well, the movie failed to release any form of emotion from me, since the world of Gilead was supposed to convey a sense of oppression and lost social, humane values within the viewer. The book was quite vivid and upfront with the thoughts Offred failed to share with anyone but herself, basically her thoughts were her entire being. Since handmaids are not supposed to carry themselves off as sexualized objects, what with the wings forbidding them to have peripheral visions, the poster this film even thought of exhibiting as their promotional logo is quite disappointing. The poster does absolutely no justice to the message Atwood’s novel is trying to instill into the minds of readers and viewers alike. The way Natasha Richardson clutches the bed sheet to her breasts, refusing to let it slip from her hands, while her shoulder blades remain exposed looks like something that came out of a cheap magazine, where one probably flips through the pages, giving it a momentary glance, maybe even evoking some traces of sexual desire within the reader. Basically, the exposure of skin on the poster as well as the content of the film is a big disparity between Offred’s distressing accounts of her life and the hype that the producers wanted to create for their audience, maybe due to budget cuts. Even Natasha Richardson herself realized this missing element since she did want a voice-over narration in the original screenplay which failed to be incorporated into the film. The movie was supposed to be Offred’s story, a story which was supposed to be seen through her eyes. It is a shame that the viewer failed to get his/her money’s worth while sitting through 109 minutes of this film.
So I have a very visual mind and needed to draw some stuff that I have been seeing in my head while reading a Handmaid’s Tale, so I thought I would scan it in so you all could see. This is barely scraching the surface of what is in my head visualy for this book, but it’s hard to render everything you want to. I don’t know why these were some of the things I remember most vidily from the book, but they are.
Live blogging about The Handmaid’s Tale (the movie)
Laura began with the story of her first experience watching the movie, and compared it with her re-watching now, having read the book: it’s missing most of the subtleties (especially of Offred’s resistance to her emotions: her trying to become mechanical).
Why was the movie made this way? The director said couldn’t imagine that the events speculated about in the novel could happen. Natasha Richardson, the star, was unhappy with the film, angry that it was “disloyal” to the book, that the voice-overs (for example) were omitted. There were also some financing problems (Hollywood not being interested in a feminist film….)
When this novel about surveillance was made into a film, the audience became participant in the surveillance–this is very uncomfortable making! The political commentary is stripped away, as is the conference framing.
Our conversation today: what do we think about these mutations and gaps…?
Thought that this might be a bit too long to be a comment, and I’m probably going to miss class because I’m barfy… er… hope that’s not TMI or oversharing…
Starting with this Alternate Cover for The Handmaid’s Tale and the Movie from 1990, one can see the focus on sex and “the forbidden”. Thus, any movie for the Handmaid’s Tale in the future would most likely also try for the sexual aspect of production. Simply being that sex sells. (As stated in class, red is the color of an apple, the original sin: temptation borne of eve. It is seductive, poisonous, dangerous, and hungry. It represents warmth and passion. It’s the perfect color for women who are supposed to be whorish, yet pure. It brings up the ultimate dichotomy regarding the view of women: The Madonna or Jezebel.)
The biggest problem (as stated by SarahLeia) seems to be the focus of the movie, and where to bring the most attention. I agree that by trying to “stick to the plot” of the original story as printed in a book makes the attention span blast outwards in a riotous confusion of paths to follow. I agree with previous statements that the 1990 version gets a little off the message of the book (as well as being a waste of time), as was evidenced by the Photo of the cover that Anne showed us in class on Monday (see the image in Class Notes from day 16).
It would probably fit today’s “feel” if the 2010 movie adaptation were “Indie”. The cast cannot be big name, the characters have to stand on their own merit, as ordinary people. Pffft, I’d like to see Angelina Jolie try to play Offred. ;P It’d probably be awesome to do something like… the movie Memento. Instead of a straight storyline that marches into plot, it’d be interesting to see it in the order of the book, or perhaps even more out of order; a “snapshot” type way of looking at the movie. I think modern music would also add a jarring sense of reality to it rather than an “old timey” score as was reaching a crescendo in the bg of the 1990 version. The costumes should be what comes from our modern-day styles, then insidiously change into something more constricting that loses the sleek shapes of fashion. (I’m imagining something that constricts like this: dress, or perhaps this Qipao without the leg slits in order to prevent freedom of movement.) Eventually the women add more and more layers till they become buried in hoops and crinoline! AHAHAHAHA! Perhaps slowly form tuxedos into uniforms for the guys (Cause it would be cool at first, like, “dude I gots a gun! And I’m like the James Bond of awesome” and then slowly be like, “why can’t I use this tie as a noose”)? Hmmm… this dressing up might be my favorite part actually (Shoutout to DC in the name of fashion!). I think it would be absolutely insidious to film in a suburb somewhere. Even better, start at a school (they’re already in uniform) and then indoctrinate ’em while they’re still young! (er… is this inching more towards a horror film?) Soon they’d be all “omg! join usssssssss“, and it’d be a creep factory of awesome!
After watching “The Handmaid’s Tale”, I couldn’t stop thinking about a review I read of the “Watchmen” movie. (Forgive me, I didn’t save the link, and I couldn’t find it through google!) Basically, the gist of the review was that there seems to be an assumption today that a film version of a novel is the ultimate form of storytelling; for stories to remain important (or in some cases to even become culturally relevant), they must be made into movies. One of the main attractions of the “Watchmen” movie was that it was based on a novel that had been tossed around for years between directors and studios. Much of the press leading up to the movie’s release emphasized how long fans have been waiting to see their story “come alive” on screen. And I understand why people feel excitement about this – for those who have spent a significant amount of time with a story, seeing someone else’s visual interpretation can be exciting. As much as I hate the “Harry Potter” movies, I still eagerly anticipate their release. I spent a good part of my childhood with those stories, and it’s fun for me to see what the film decides to keep in and leave out. But Harry Potter is a lot less complicated than Watchmen, and I am unsure that a movie should have been made of Watchmen at all. There is a difference between movies and novels in terms of how they tell their story, and I think this stems from the difference in how they are able to represent things to be able to tell their story.
read more…
I don’t know how much this has to do with gender, but it certainly has to do with technology as well as the idea promoted in this class of making your words public. So, I just spent some considerable time not doing my math test and instead having fun with image modification in the python programming language using the Image module (free and availabe for download at the Python Imaging Library (PIL)). So I have an image, all ready to put up in my profile showing my face in interesting colors: a fun mixture of technology and my (gendered) self (this kind of reminds me of Maddie’s discussion of the magazine pictures of women, read more…
I was talking to my psych professor in lab today about his extreme interest in Nascar, which led to a discussion about whether Nascar is an actual sport. It’s interesting that people argue that Nascar is not a sport because the race car itself is doing most of the action… however, is that different from a sport like lacrosse or field hockey, or any other sport that also utilizes a tool in its play? Both the lacrosse stick and the car are forms of technology… Personally, I am a bit skeptical about it being a sport, but I’m not sure exactly why I’m skeptical because I know driving still involves a lot of physicality. My professor then started to talk about how a long time ago, most of the drivers were bigger men who drank and smoked a lot, and now all the drivers are in really good shape and how it takes a lot of strength and energy to drive a race car. Does that contribute to the fact that almost all of the drivers are male? I know that women are stereotypically seen as worse drivers than men and men are stereotypically interested in “cars and women.” Does it also have to do with the physicality of driving? I’m not sure… and I don’t actually know a lot about Nascar. Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions?
In honor of Ada Lovelace Day I have chosen to write about one of my most favorite people to have ever existed: Virginia Woolf. My love affair with Virginia began when I was about 10 years old and I have never looked back. She is a wonderful model for women of any field, but in her life she especially dealt with the world of publishing and of course, the technology of language.
In 1917, Virginia and her husband Leonard founded the Hogarth Press and subsequently published Virginia’s works as well as works by T.S. Eliot and Laurence van der Post. It grew out of a hobby of Virginia’s (she hand-printed books) and became a real commercial printing business. The Hogarth Press was also at the forefront of printing books on psychoanalysis and translations of foreign works.
Images of us in action, giving evidence for our claims…
What is a utopia and a dystopia?
Three questions:
1. What genre is the novel?
2. What technologies of representation does this novel use?
3. How can we best represent the novel (its themes, etc.)?
Utopia: not place–no place; eutopia–ideal place
Dystopia: bad utopia
Anti-utopia: was supposed to be utopia but becomes dystopic
Genres:
Speculative fiction
-grounded in a world we recognize
-conceivable option for the future
-differentiated from sci fi mostly from absence of or lack of focus on technology
-inverted historical fiction–book could be our present
-incarcerated fiction as opposed to “escapist”
Social science fiction/political science fiction (related to speculative fiction)
-science fiction is about “what ifs”
-thinking about the practice of social scientists
-extrapolation of existing conditions
Critical satire/Satire
-not a direct link to society’s problems–i.e. infertility not connected directly to toxic waste
-parallel vision of a world that already exists, but absurd
-not a no-place
-used to point out our own faults
Speculative sociological dystopia
-examines what would happen if we “mechanized” humans
Memoir
-internal monologue
-more about Offred’s story and not about the surrounding society
-we have to take whatever she says for what it is
Science fiction/science of government
-broad definition
-concept of warped reality
-between fiction and nonfiction
-rooted in our own world
“gendering our book” or putting it into categories
language as passing
naming/categorizing dictates how you think about something–recognize that categories are flawed, see their limits
are we cogs in a giant machine?
witch hunt aspects of media–>vigilantism
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=073740ca-c837-4376-abfb-ad4b4844c2e5)
Well… I’m not sure what to say about this, maybe some other people know what to say? The video… words… fail… me…
Is this really how women are viewed? The only thing creepier is that world made out of chocolate… or no! How about: Women like their men Tall, Dark and Handsome
I’m a woman, and frankly I don’t feel the need to molest candy to get my kicks. Also, my world doesn’t revolve around men and being skinny. 😛 Does anyone else find these stereotypes amusing that people use them in commercials all the time? ‘Cause this is more than mildly offensive to me. (Also, dude, if I were that guy in the last commercial, I would NOT boil myself down so I could be eaten at parties. Just saying.) Is this kind of stereotyping similar to the traps that the Haindmaid’s Tale has for their gender roles?
Also in reference to the movie we watched in class, there was a reference (or perhaps shoutout) to METROPOLIS in this video: Many Moons. Cool, eh?
This morning on NPR’s BBC News Hour, they were discussing the drug violence in Mexico, which has recently spilled over the US/Mexico border. (You can find a similar report from the BBC here.) I only caught the tail end of it, when the reporter mentioned that the violence erupted over control of trade routes into the US to feed the US market for drugs. They also played the sound of heavy artillery fire occurring in Juarez, pointing out that it was much easier to obtain heavy weapons in the United States than Mexico, and that authorities thought the weapons were likely being smuggled into Mexico from the States.
We’ve all seen the bumper sticker, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” and “Guns don’t kill people. Bullets kill people.” But really, how much responsibility goes to the provider of technology which is what allows such violence to occur? We’ve talked before about how people can use technology, or people can be at the mercy of technology. Providing a gun is not the same as instructing someone to kill, but it also gives the capacity to kill en masse. I guess a similar question would be over how responsible the inventors of the atom bomb are for the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I’m not sure, but I was unnerved that technology from our country is part of why so many thousands have died in Juarez.
