Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Our America Part I

The interview that really stands out and sets LeAlan and Lloyd apart from their peers is the interview with "shorty" the drug dealer. The two parties view on life is very obviously different. Shorty only expects to live for 10 years at most. He knows his life style will lead to death, yet he will continue to do what will lead him there. While the LeAlan and Lloyd are trying to make something of themselves. I just found the differences astonishing.


The last chapter of part I explains it best. Not to look at ghetto kids and see than as a difference being, we all are human. I think that they show that pretty well. They give reasoning to why things are the way they are, or at least they search out that reason. Thus sheading light onto the issue. They do this by showing thier conversations and allowing me to relate to them. They speak their mind and allow the reader to take what they will.

The community they live in is separated off from the rest of the city, if you are born there you die there. It's a trap that you can never get out of much like the example given. There aren't many differences, now it's not about race but wealth. Ghetto's are places where bad things happen to the people there, so it makes perfect sense that the word has a negative connotation. Also for white culture it represents things that they don't know and in turn gives them a fearful idea behind it.

Like any other neighborhood, people go through life, they live and love, laugh and cry. It just has a backdrop of a much more dangerous place. There is crime and violence right next to these other experiences. This makes having the good experiences harder to find because the negative ones are so much stronger at times.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

It's a Mask?

Sapatri, Orlan, Tenshigahara's characters and myself all deal with the issue of self identity. For Sapatri, during her childhood, she lived in a culture that was very restrictive towards women. She would go against the current whenever possible. She would wear American brand shoes, listen to punk rock and wear jeans. All to try and make herself stand out from the culture that she belonged to but didn't feel welcome in. That act is nothing new, trying to find yourself by distancing yourself from your culture is common. One can even say that you can't find yourself until your away from scociety.

Tenshigahara's characters were split over the issue of dress. The husband took a surprisingly Western stance with his mindset thinking that makeup was only for sexual appeal. The wife humbly disagreed and brought up the point of it being for humility and not vanity. This shows the natural sexual breakdown on dress that Orlan is avidly assaulting by her surgeries. Orlan is taking classical ideal beauty (created by men of the time) and actually bringing them into fruition. However, she's showing how unnatural they really are. She's trying to deconstruct the ideal women's physical appearance by saying it can't exist.

Myself, I live in a society that generally builds assumptions off of your looks. Though, I'm not attacking against a stereotype by my dress. I feel there is a time and place for every style of clothing. The clothes that someone wears in a certain situation can give you valid information about them. If someone went to a wedding in pajamas, you could get an impression of their personality. Though as with all things, you can't judge a book by it's covers. We can never truly understand someone only by their appearance. Humans are multilayered and it takes years to trully get to a persons core.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Possible Ideas for Project 1

The two main ideas I have in my head are as followed.

If I do a map of myself, I'd either try and make it into a video so as to be like a travel channel type showing of myself. On this corner if my love for soccer and over there is his love for video games etc. I think it would be funny to do but I don't know if I have the time to work on something and have it look polished. This would be a good way to show the many different parts of myself and make it into an enjoyable thing to watch.

The other idea is some sort of t-shirt with quotes I find relating to self identity. They could be mine or other famous people. I'd make each quote into a different looking font as to make them each unique. This one would be easier to make but I'd have to make sure it doesn't look bad. This would let me say what I think and find others that go with what I'm saying.

I just hope there is a easy way to save all of this into a final portfolio later. How does one save a t-shirt he might want to wear?

Friday, September 5, 2008

Questions Brought up by Persepolis

Persepolis reminded me a lot of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, as it's main character was a young Middle-Eastern girl. As I read the graphic novel, I was reminded of many questions that I asked myself when I read ATSS. Firstly, I always had wondered why would a family choose to live in such a dangerous place. Maybe I'm just not very sentimental over what I consider my home. I find it hard to understand the will of someone to knowingly stay in a dangerous location when they appear to have the money to leave. Is the pride in one's home that much more important than ones life?

Another question is there any stories from a none rich family? The Satrapi's were rich enough to be able to be rebellious and educated. What happend to those not that lucky?

I'll leave this post with one last question. Is the quote, "to die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society." still relivant to todays American society?