Sunday, May 17, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
After watching this movie I was very moved by the story of a boy going to a game show so that the girl of his dreams can find him. The movie kept me guessing the whole time. The format of playing the middle and end at the beginning always intrigues me because you never know where the movie is going to take you next. The depiction of the slums was very surreal and I could never truly imagine what it would be like, but I did enjoy how the two boys who grew up together in the same lifestyle turned out to be two completely different people. It has been a while since I tried to put myself in the movie to feel what was going on while it was happening. I am glad they didn't have the dance/music video throughout the movie, that dance video at the end was kind of ridiculous. All in all I give the movie an A+.
Ways of Seeing People
John Berger demonstrates through his writing in Ways of Reading how people are viewed through paintings and pictures. Berger shows how the painter can project a view of someone by the way the painter sees them. In Berger’s essay "Ways of Seeing" Ways of Reading, there is a point at which Berger writes of an artist who paints the Hals and Regents and explains how the Hals and Regents were upset with the painter, mostly because they were not depicted the way they see themselves. Instead the Hals and Regents looked weathered and old, even drunk in one painting. It seemed as though the Hals and Regents thought that they should be painted in a better light. However I feel that the painter saw these people they way they looked and portrayed them through a true artists view, the way he sees the Hals and Regents.
Berger also explains through Van Gogh’s final painting how a written word can drastically change the way people see that same image. While first observing Van Gogh’s final painting one might look at as dark and gloomy and somewhat unorganized and put no more serious thought into it. However, once one reads that this painting was Van Gogh’s last before he killed himself one may then compare now the dark and gloomy unorganized painting to depict his very feelings in life, leading to suicide. The influence that words can make of a painting or the carefully postured photograph of a nude body, Susan Bordo’s "Re-discovering the Male Body", is very apparent as Susan Bordo explains.
Similarly but just as different as John Berger’s "Ways of Seeing", Susan Bordo’s "Beauty Re-discovers the Male Body" is about how people view the images of the human nude body. Bordo writes of how the bulge in underwear invokes a inward response by both hetero and homosexual beings, however the very image itself has no barring itself, instead it is the intention of the image that invokes the response.
The intention is that of the photographer, placing these models in an exact position knowing which position will tease the viewer in such a way that these people will look closer into what is being presented. Therefore the viewer of these images are not looking at these photos with their own eyes but with the eyes of the photographer, the photographer is cleverly forcing the viewer, manipulating senses, creating responses.
So the ways of seeing people are not how one sees people, but how one is made to see people. What kind of underwear to buy, which type of cologne, hair products and even which vacation spot to resort to. We do not make informed decisions based on how we truly feel about that thing but the outside influences.
This could make one wonder if we have any control over what we like or dislike in life. Can one make one’s own decisions in life or are all things decided through manipulation of some sort. It seems that all people would need to spend a very long period of time in isolation in order to find one’s true self. However people go mad when isolated into oneself for a long period of time.
As shown by Michael Foucault "Panopticism" demonstrated how convicts must feel as though they are being watched at all times in order to behave properly. As a community of human beings we must all be watched or overlooked at all times in order to have order. The ways of seeing people or the act of seeing people runs much deeper than originally thought.
Cameras are a great way to watch people but to have hidden cameras is completely contradictory of itself. People who do not know if he or she is being watched will do that which they would not let others in on. It is the camera in plane site that will keep people in order because most people do not want to air his dirty laundry out to the world.
What we do with people once we have stereotyped them is another way of seeing. For example the deaf community was once persecuted for being deaf. Once labeled the deaf community was placed in a solitude of sorts as if the deaf were a plague on society. Rather than encompassing deaf people into society and creating a way of life suitable for all as one people we would be where we are today. Instead one must go through these torturous ways for a long period of time before one can create such a livable community for all to be apart of.
The lepers and those who contracted the plague were placed into solitude as well, forcing them out as if they were not apart of the human race either. Granted, a society must be protected but perhaps there should have been a better way to put these people into solitude. One thing can cause an entire group of individuals to be isolated and persecuted for something not of ones own will.
The ways of seeing people are quite broad as it is proven through the essays in Ways of Reading. It may be very well known that nobody really has control over how one sees the world they are in and each person sees the world in a completely different way than each other.
Berger also explains through Van Gogh’s final painting how a written word can drastically change the way people see that same image. While first observing Van Gogh’s final painting one might look at as dark and gloomy and somewhat unorganized and put no more serious thought into it. However, once one reads that this painting was Van Gogh’s last before he killed himself one may then compare now the dark and gloomy unorganized painting to depict his very feelings in life, leading to suicide. The influence that words can make of a painting or the carefully postured photograph of a nude body, Susan Bordo’s "Re-discovering the Male Body", is very apparent as Susan Bordo explains.
Similarly but just as different as John Berger’s "Ways of Seeing", Susan Bordo’s "Beauty Re-discovers the Male Body" is about how people view the images of the human nude body. Bordo writes of how the bulge in underwear invokes a inward response by both hetero and homosexual beings, however the very image itself has no barring itself, instead it is the intention of the image that invokes the response.
The intention is that of the photographer, placing these models in an exact position knowing which position will tease the viewer in such a way that these people will look closer into what is being presented. Therefore the viewer of these images are not looking at these photos with their own eyes but with the eyes of the photographer, the photographer is cleverly forcing the viewer, manipulating senses, creating responses.
So the ways of seeing people are not how one sees people, but how one is made to see people. What kind of underwear to buy, which type of cologne, hair products and even which vacation spot to resort to. We do not make informed decisions based on how we truly feel about that thing but the outside influences.
This could make one wonder if we have any control over what we like or dislike in life. Can one make one’s own decisions in life or are all things decided through manipulation of some sort. It seems that all people would need to spend a very long period of time in isolation in order to find one’s true self. However people go mad when isolated into oneself for a long period of time.
As shown by Michael Foucault "Panopticism" demonstrated how convicts must feel as though they are being watched at all times in order to behave properly. As a community of human beings we must all be watched or overlooked at all times in order to have order. The ways of seeing people or the act of seeing people runs much deeper than originally thought.
Cameras are a great way to watch people but to have hidden cameras is completely contradictory of itself. People who do not know if he or she is being watched will do that which they would not let others in on. It is the camera in plane site that will keep people in order because most people do not want to air his dirty laundry out to the world.
What we do with people once we have stereotyped them is another way of seeing. For example the deaf community was once persecuted for being deaf. Once labeled the deaf community was placed in a solitude of sorts as if the deaf were a plague on society. Rather than encompassing deaf people into society and creating a way of life suitable for all as one people we would be where we are today. Instead one must go through these torturous ways for a long period of time before one can create such a livable community for all to be apart of.
The lepers and those who contracted the plague were placed into solitude as well, forcing them out as if they were not apart of the human race either. Granted, a society must be protected but perhaps there should have been a better way to put these people into solitude. One thing can cause an entire group of individuals to be isolated and persecuted for something not of ones own will.
The ways of seeing people are quite broad as it is proven through the essays in Ways of Reading. It may be very well known that nobody really has control over how one sees the world they are in and each person sees the world in a completely different way than each other.
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