A Sham, a Shame, a Best Picture: The Globalization of Appeal, Pop, & A Slumdog

A Sham, a Shame, a Best Picture:  The Globalization of Appeal, Pop, & A Slumdog

When the Danny Boyle directed film Slumdog Millionaire was released it became a feel good phenomenon.  The thing is the film reeks of ethnocentric, commodity fetishised, and made in Hollywood exploitation.  These issues are all disguised though by the appearances of brown faces.  Everything about this film is an example and a result of the global gentrification we are subject to thanks to our consumption of pop culture.  This film is not meant to be insulting and white privilege washed but everything from, director, concept, adapted screenplay, and the advertisement/publicity machine around Slumdog Millionaire says isn’t that good for the darkies.  With a little money, education, influence and bootstrap pulling up the Indian community could be as good as those who direct and saw this movie.  This is globalization the good, bad, and ugly of it all on the big screen making my mother-in-law cry and my mother happy she saw it and feeling even philanthropic than usual.  This not to say there is not some good and well intentions behind the film, but it does has the word “slumdog” in its title, and even at the pinnacle of triumph of the film there are numerous shots of the of the ghettos and trash ridden streets of city.  The main characters and subject matter can be universal, but the exploitative part of the tale is that it wouldn’t have the same appeal and epic cheer in a more developed city. 

     So globalization is usually recognized as being driven by a combination of economic, technological, socio-cultural, political, and biological factors.  The term can also refer to the transnational circulation of ideas, languages, or popular culture through acculturation. An aspect of the world, which has gone through the process, can be said to be globalised (Sorrells 321).  From the start the “Slumdog” was directed and produced all by a London based company.  This in essence remind me of the history between London and India. British traders to trade with India formed East India Company. They set up warehouses to store the goods they traded in. The protection of these warehouses served as a good excuse to build forts and maintain armies at such centers.

     During this time disorganized kingdoms were fighting amongst themselves. The British took the golden opportunity to benefit from these internal quarrels and helped one king against another. In this bargain the British gained more power and wealth. The British trained Indian soldiers and employed them in their army. This army was far better trained and disciplined than the armies with small Indian kings who were just struggling to survive. Gradually the British succeeded in capturing very large parts of India. They made treaties with kings who accepted the authority of the British. They were kings only in name. The British very cleverly managed to collect huge wealth from the people and the dignitaries (Wolpert).  This continued tradition of global exploitation brings forth the idea everything old is new again. 

From start to finish to there was only limited representation of the idea of what is meant to be Indian in India.  However there was lots of focus on being impoverished and the great rescuer was the game show “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” The focus of the Indian audience focused and obsessed on yet another global and distinctively non-Indian savior.  Well for starters the twenty million rupees is in actuality $405,720.00 in U.S. currency but the global idea is the attention grabber. The original program originated in the United Kingdom, where a British born Chris Tarrant hosted it, and it first aired in the UK on 4 September 1998.  In the 1990s, future Who Wants to be a Millionaire executive producer Michael Davies brought the show to the American Broadcasting Company and was hosted by Regis Philbin (Wostbrock & Ryan).  The show and the movie have no real ties to traditional Indian entertainment but you’d never know that from the global appearance and feel of the movie.  This film form start to finish was a global poster child to how India and Indians should be seen.

During the nineteenth century innovation that is so much a part of Indian life today became more apparent and waged a losing war against tradition. The impact of the West could be clearly seen in the beginnings of industrialization, adjustments of Hinduism to Christianity, and the organization of political nationalism.  With Slumdog Millionaire the “adjustments” from the past are called a move toward globalization in a cinematic form.

Works Cited

Ryan, Steve, and Fred Wostbrock. The Ultimate TV Game Show Book: with a Tribute to Bill Cullen. Los Angeles, CA: Volt, 2005. Print.

Sorrells, Kathryn.  “Globalization Intercultural Communication.”

Sage Publishing, 2010 

Wolpert, Stanley A. India. Berkeley: University of California, 2009. Print.

Feminine Divine & Friends A Lecture Retrospective THE VIDEO FINALLY!

SLIDE SHOW I MADE FOR MOBY DICK PRESENTATION

POSTMODERNISM A DEFINITION

MULTIMEDIA EDUCATION WORK WORK...IF ONLY WE COULD GET THE S**T TO WORK!

Ok I've had it....but just for the moment. I've had it with putting tons of work, effort, time, and creativity into a project and at the last minute it goes to hell.

Case in point I've had two presentations in this class. BOTH TIMES at the time for the big show BAM technical difficulties. I know I'm a Mac man & YEARS ago that would've reaked havoc on me doing a project for a PowerPoint presentation in many an arena. It's 2010 & guess what Houston we still have a problem. No music, no slideshow, no extravaganza and butt naked debauchery...ok nix the butt naked debauchery...for now. I'm just really over working really hard and having technical difficulties come in the way, & the fruits of my labor not squirting it juice in the faces of all my classmates. I degress.

Yes the ideas were there and the ideas were expressed, but not to complete fruition. The point of this blog is I don't ever to be the technical difficulty 2 my students & I want to be fully versed and prepared in all aspects that will benefit them for those moment when things don't go as planned.

I feel sorry for teachers and others when things fall apart. Sometimes greatness happens at the spur of the moment when your plan has a hitch. I just wish that I didn't have the late nights, bagged & ragged eyes, and not have the creative afterglow.

FOR THE TEACHER IN THE POST-MODERN AGE by Taylor Mali: What teachers make

A WITTY View on Postmodernism

POSTMODERNISM A DEFINITION

THIS WAS HELPFUL IN MY SEARCH FOR CLARITY IN POST MODERNISM.

That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.

The term “postmodernism” first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard. I therefore give Lyotard pride of place in the sections that follow. An economy of selection dictated the choice of other figures for this entry. I have selected only those most commonly cited in discussions of philosophical postmodernism, five French and two Italian, although individually they may resist common affiliation. Ordering them by nationality might duplicate a modernist schema they would question, but there are strong differences among them, and these tend to divide along linguistic and cultural lines. The French, for example, work with concepts developed during the structuralist revolution in Paris in the 1950s and early 1960s, including structuralist readings of Marx and Freud. For this reason they are often called “poststructuralists.” They also cite the events of May 1968 as a watershed moment for modern thought and its institutions, especially the universities. The Italians, by contrast, draw upon a tradition of aesthetics and rhetoric including figures such as Giambattista Vico and Benedetto Croce. Their emphasis is strongly historical, and they exhibit no fascination with a revolutionary moment. Instead, they emphasize continuity, narrative, and difference within continuity, rather than counter-strategies and discursive gaps. Neither side, however, suggests that postmodernism is an attack upon modernity or a complete departure from it. Rather, its differences lie within modernity itself, and postmodernism is a continuation of modern thinking in another mode.

Finally, I have included a summary of Habermas's critique of postmodernism, representing the main lines of discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. Habermas argues that postmodernism contradicts itself through self-reference, and notes that postmodernists presuppose concepts they otherwise seek to undermine, e.g., freedom, subjectivity, or creativity. He sees in this a rhetorical application of strategies employed by the artistic avant-garde of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an avant-garde that is possible only because modernity separates artistic values from science and politics in the first place. On his view, postmodernism is an illicit aestheticization of knowledge and public discourse. Against this, Habermas seeks to rehabilitate modern reason as a system of procedural rules for achieving consensus and agreement among communicating subjects. Insofar as postmodernism introduces aesthetic playfulness and subversion into science and politics, he resists it in the name of a modernity moving toward completion rather than self-transformation.

DENSE HUH?  HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feminine Divine & Friends A Lecture Retrospective

Chaka Khan I'm Every Woman Female Divine The Original

Female Divine EVOLUTION

FEMALE DIVINE: part 1 Reflection on me and the initial idea of the case for the goddess!

So with me being a minority within my group I really had better be prepared to get in touch with my feminine divine self.

You know truth be told I'm a complete product of the male chauvinistic and dominant beliefs of a "god" image. I wouldn't have believed this without the reading of chapter 3 and realizing my behaviors and reactions to the concept of goddesses.

The belief or idea of Zeus, Hades, or for that matter the Christian God have a more settled place in my mind and practice. I tend to find myself being respectful or politely reverent of the Goddess Imagery all in the vein of being a politcally correct or evolved. Though not entirely sincere this recognition of my behavior is a step in the right direction for really discovering intriguing information on goddesses.

With the feisty group of ladies I'm working with I'm going to need to be honest and in check before I get checked for being out of line and touch.

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Keyser Soze (The MYTH)

POEM 2: LOVE HAS MADE ME A KID @ HEART... & I LIKE IT

Poem 2:

LOVE HAS MADE ME A KID @ HEART… & I LIKE IT

When u placed ur bets on me
That was quite a gamble
The attraction was obvious
Me: chocolaty, cute, I’ve been called MAN-omi Campbell

2 u none of that really mattered
U saw beyond the posturing
Without dismissing my swagger

AND

U kiss me in the morning

Even though I look haggard

U dig the me that doesn’t have 2 make u laugh
And the fact that if we had an argument the last word I don’t have 2 have
U didn’t care about a car or how much financial cheddar in my account may be heaped
Instead u wonder if I slept soundly no disturbances felt not one peep

U don’t mind that u make me a bit juvenile
And all my poetry lines couplets
U just laugh cuz u don’t care
Then shrug ur shoulders 2 say whatever, fuck it

U wrap me more around ur finger
Everytime ur gaze lingers
Everytime u cry

Or decide 2 let sleeping dogs lie
Everytime u get choked up in ur esophageal
Or exhibit how u keep it real

And if I die b4 I wake God can take my soul
But my heart is urs 2 take.
The wise say love is friendship set on fire
then stand back y’all I’m a 5 alarm 4 u 2 admire.

I choose u because I’d rather be always happy than always be right

Because my minds’ intergalactic synapses finally firing right

I choose you because our family is where I want to be

I choose and so glad you claim me. 

Balled and chained but oh so free

No need 2 say the words

SO:  1 4 3

POEM 1: I REMEMBER BEING INNOCENT

I Remember Being Innocent

By: T.Duran-Olds

Rosy in cheek, and hair so fair

Enter a room, and let’s compare

Was I

Purity’s muse but pushing its boundaries?

Or more like

Cloroxed, Absolved, Bleached

More than chaste and cleaner than laundry

Now

You

Are

Gone

Away

Innocence corrupted

    Seeping

                                                                               out as I learned to play doctor that day

The story goes Eve ate from the tree of knowledge

Well call me Adam with Internet chat & the locker room college

No fig leaf can cover the nakedness of the exposed mind.

If corruption is the prison then I will do the time. 

I remember being innocent and as my tears attest sometimes quite well

As I’m removed from innocent’s comforting womb where now will I dwell?

My actions, so smug, and dangerously rebellious

I didn’t know what I was doing: young, supercilious, & careless

Innocence I meant you no harm

And it pains me to see you walk out the door

I have truly lost the battle and I’m to battered for the war

Explicate Part 1 I hope it posts!!!

Let Me Sing A Song For You…Hope You Like It

SONG

BY FRANK O’HARA

In my review and deep reading of Frank O’Hara’s poem SONG (stuck in traffic) I found myself reflecting on the man, his purpose for writing, and the critiques his poetry has received.  O’ Hara seemed somewhat dismissive his poetry. He often playfully referred to his work as something that just happened, and that his poetry and its construction were not very heavily detailed oriented (Hartman 41). Ironically but apropos his poetry tended to be drawn from moments in life (primarily his life and surrounding events) (Hartman 40).  This idea on his work sets forth the precursory ideas and thesis for the explication of this poem.  SONG with its combination of simple, dense, and foreign language, image creation, stanza composition, and disconnected flow is a metaphor for the irregularities, monotony, pitfalls and awes of life.  These extemporaneous tools of literary construction create a mood and setting that cast the feelings of the labored life, acceptance of the “real”, and promise of what could be.

 O’Hara’s usage of uncomplicated language and nonchalant renderings of matter-o-fact statements in this poem connote three main ideas:  1. He was keenly observant of all the things afoot in his life 2.  Awareness does not mean taking things so profoundly serious 3.  Understated language doesn’t mean frivolity and no worth of the subject matter (his life).  SONG illustrates that flowery language and complex text when mixed with the simple can deliver a profound message, and the on the fly poetry of SONG shows depth in the highest sense of staying in the moment.

SONG reflects a whimsical charm with deep revelation of affection via the usage of metaphor and straight talk to paint a picture of life, love, and the possibilities of both as they happen.  The tone is deliberate, bright, lively, but brief.  This tone in itself seems like a metaphor for O’hara’s life he died tragically at 40. O’Hara is purposeful of painting a picture to grab the audiences attention.   This is to take the reader on a ride composed of literary snap shots.  Each stanza creates a snapshot that feeds off the previous stanza.  There is a connotation of “this is a day in the life of ________” and the blank of whose life is left up to reader to fill in. 

The opening stanza is the set up of familiarity and accessibility to life’s general and daily grind:

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab,

which is typical

and not just of modern life.   

this movement into and recognition of the mundane is powerful as a  statement and in its simplicity    There is no sense of apology for blatantly pointing out the dreck of life, but there is a second stanza and metaphor usage that lets the readers know there is more to come from life and from the work. 

 In the second stanza, interesting metaphors are used and this application mirrors the happenings that can come about and provide surprises.  These uses of vivid metaphors in juxtaposition to the straight talk of the first stanza also create the second snapshot in the movement of poem and the movement in “the day of life” thematic play.  There is a heavier feeling in this stanza almost a mood change due to being stuck in traffic and being “stuck” in the routine (Perloff 787).  The stanza also introduces the foreshadowing of deeper revelation of affection  that will culminate in the last stanza.  There is also a sense that these loving feelings that are being provoked in the mundanity of the day, and the life leaves the subject of the poem to feel like a foreigner though this is their life. 

The mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves

 must lovers of Eros end up with Venus

 muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you  

“The mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves” the images of mud being caked on the nerves of a person pulls the readers’ attention away from the actual idea of real life traffic slowing one down and creates the heart’s traffic being slowed down.  Then there is the introduction of the images and questions of affection and gender attraction with “must lovers of Eros end up with Venus”.  These questions also can slow down the traffic of ones’ affections and life.  “Muss es sein? es muss nicht sein”  German to English translation of this line is “must it be? it not must be”  the use of a foreign language and the use of a question and then answer connotes movements and stops in the flow.

The third stanza simply begins with a disgruntled admission and moves forth, “how I hate disease, it's like worrying that comes true”.  In this admission there is a move to change the status quo of life, but one must admit that they are stuck in it all. “And it simply must not be able to happen”  is the final line of the stanza before the close of the poem.  There is a feeling of let’s not worry about the bog of all that slows us down.  This bog of mud and traffic slows down life and acceptance of this fact is key for further life exploration and to be prepared when things start moving again. 

The final stanza and snapshot of the poem goes, in a world where you are possible my love, nothing can go wrong for us, tell me”.  There is a push through the mundane, through the questions and fear that slows life down.  This stanza also closes with no punctuation for there to be more revealed.  This is the final example of the evolution and movement of the day and the life.  Though done on the fly life and poetry can create beautiful images if one chooses to look at them.  I believe this is the genius of SONG  and O’Hara even if he were alive today to say nope that’s not what it meant at all I could always simply say, “Well that’s what I got from it when I read it in the back of a taxicab.”

  

Works Cited

Anne, Hartmann. "Confessional Counterpublics in Frank O'Hara and Allen Ginsberg." JSTOR. JSTOR. Web. 18 Aug. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25167541>.

Gooch, Brad. City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. Print.

Perloff, Marjorie. "Frank O'Hara and the Aesthetics of Attention." Www.jstor.org. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/302703>.

Explicate This! Part 2

With The Poem Comes the song!!!!!

FUN FACT:

The barber here is actually on Larchmont in LA! He's Cut my hair before! LOL!

Explicate This!

Frank O'Hara's

SONG
          
          
   I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
   which is typical
   and not just of modern life
            
   mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
   must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
   muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you
  
   how I hate disease, it's like worrying
   that comes true
   and it simply must not be able to happen
  
   in a world where you are possible
   my love
   nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

Esthero-Gone Live

Hi My Name Is Terrance and I Love Poetry.

I think I had my first taste of the good stuff when I was about 5 years old, and I got my first hit from a fat sack of Roses Are Red.  By the time the poem the poem got to the third line, "I think you're cute"  I was hooked!  The last line was, "And I want to kiss you."  I was like WOW this girl is awesome, deep, and so talented (she also had good taste).  I knew I was a fan of poetry for life.

I know that not all poetry will be as simple or direct.  The first introduction I had to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land I knew I had a bad batch or at least and overdose but even in that there was so much to take from it and so much to love.  


Poetry takes the complex and makes it simple, or makes the simple, complex.  It liken it to drug and when used properly can provide quite a rush.  When discovering the "awe" and power of nature and questions of and who God is in Shelly's Mont Blanc I remember rush of blood to my face and my cheeks tingled (I wish I was making it up but it happened).  Most of my poetic addictions aren't so lofty or to out of reach for beginning poetry reader.  At the most base form of attraction for me poetry begets lyrics.  Lyrics are the poetry of our everyday lives that is being pumped throughout our i-pods, stereos, televisions, and etc these poetic lyrics are a quick way for a junkie to get high right in front of world and most don't even know it.  For a quick example I share Esthero and her singing GONE.  Notice how the crowd goes crazy and no even the inflection she's going to use on the words ABOUT to come out if her mouth.  This was a live performance and she changed it up a bit, but the crowed went on singing as the thought she would...ENJOY

Well It's Not Going Anywhere!

    My feelings about technology in the classroom are, at best, described as fluid.  These feelings flow from ecstatic to maudlin.  Ecstatic because as the world become more technologically advance the more exposure our students have to certain technologies and methods of learning the better.  This exposure and education through these technological advances will prepare them for a world outside of the classroom.  

     Maudlin because I think in technology there is an ease that makes retention and learning to easy thing to replicate by simply pressing a button.  So if so easy to replicate then why hold on to any knowledge, why read the book if one can google a summary?  No all students will be (for lack of a better word) lazy, and not all teachers will dial it in (another concern of mine).  However we as a society and as an ever expanding  and  advancing global community are not going backwards or slowing down.  So as educators we must utilize new tools for our advantage as well as showing our students the benefits of being well rounded in all aspects and modes of learning... So in the words or Jay-Z in the song Off That, "Welcome to the future!"  

Off That - Jay Z Feat. Drake (OFFICIAL Blueprint 3 Audio)

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