Intellectuals call it "The Unidentified Creature"

The Thing, starring Kurt Russell, was originally released in theaters in 1982. All the characters in the film are male and all are scientists at a base in Antarctica. Dialogue is at a minimum throughout the movie, and blood, guts, and explosions are at a maximum. As a class we have spent a number of days analyzing the film with three theories by French feminists, Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous. In order to do so we based these theories on the idea that the Thing, the creature, was representative of a female and more precisely, a vagina. This is simply an unconscious leap into the dark. There is so little evidence that the Thing could actually represent a vagina that all other theoretical talk on the subject is futile. The idea is that when the thing appears as the bloody monster it is for the first time it splits open into a vaginal shape. Accepting that this one scene in the movie does actually portray the thing for what it really is, a gigantic bloody vagina representative of WOMANKIND who all men must destroy, is ridiculous and speculative. This is a 1980s movie directed at masculinity which mainstream America felt was ‘under attack’ due to things like Solid Gold, KISS, new androgynous clothing styles, and bands like White Snake and Motley Crue. The Thing is a movie meant to counter that ‘attack on masculinity’ and to entertain the “mainstream” man who is enthralled by blood, guts, and explosions, less talk, more explosions, and Kurt Russell’s grizzly beard.

Ahhh Technicolor!

Far From Heaven offers a modern take on a traditionally based story of the upper-middle class problem of keeping up appearances. When placed side by side with the 1950s movie “All that Heaven Allows,” FFH does not just tackle the issue of class, but also the issue of race, homosexuality, homophobia, and divorce. Lampl-De Groot offers some insight into the roles of the characters within FFH and how they differ from the traditional mainstream movie. Groot presents the idea of an active male and passive female; however, FFH gives the viewer a backwards perspective where the active male role (the one the audience identifies with) is Kathy, the female. The passive female roles are portrayed by Frank and Raymond as characters that are objectified by the audience through Mulvey’s “scopophilic action.”

Fanon, on the other hand, feels that the way we see ourselves is entirely based on the viewpoint of the society around us. This is so completely evident in the way that Kathy and Frank are in a society built on keeping up an appearance to suit the people around them. “It is a third person consciousness.” What, then, is the significance of these theories when applied to race in the film? Race becomes a result of a proposed differentiation from the world around you. This is not to say that we do not see the difference before the proposal, but we do not think of it as a difference or a separation. Is this similarly experienced when applied to gender in life or in film? One’s full realization of things like race or gender is done so through one’s relationships. Through one’s experience of others, one realizes one’s self. In FFH, Frank realizes his own sexuality through relationships with other men. Kathy realizes her own brute whiteness through her relationship with Raymond.

Bjork, Karl Marx, and Dancing

Dancer in the Dark is a movie based on estrangement; estrangement of the main character, Selma, from the characters around her, Jean, Cathy, Bill, Linda, and Jeff; estrangement of Selma from the movie audience; and estrangement of the movie audience from the movie. Marx, too, talked of estrangement of the worker from the work and the “self” from the “other.”


I began to wonder about the true significance of the musical sequences. In all cases they tend to estrange Selma from the life around her, but in the factory scene it also tends to represent Marx ideas on the unification of the workers. What, then, is the affect of the estrangement of Selma to real life on the audience? Personally, I argue that these sequences alienate the audience from Selma and signify the alienation of the audience from the plight of the worker. However, Von Trier was likely trying to establish the medium for escape which gives Selma and the audience hope despite the tribulations of the world around them.

I was also curious as to the importance of Jeff to Selma and to the story as a whole. It seems that Jeff was Selma’s connection the possibility of class consciousness and worker revolution. Jeff’s role, though small, represents an estranged sense of sight for Selma. He gives vision the idea of class connection.

Dancer in the Dark was an interesting movie; however, I think that the estrangement Von Trier worked so hard to represent hurt the way his audience connected with the film and the character of Selma.

Who's Watching Who?

Rear Window seemed like just a normal film. Now, provided the information in Mulvey’s article, Rear Window seems like a movie about movies. However, it could also just be a normal film; it just depends on one’s perspective.

As I was watching the movie, for maybe the tenth time (positive statement!), I recognized the well-known fact that Hitchcock shot the entire film on one soundstage. It was clear to me each of the previous times that I had seen the movie, but now I began to wonder what the significance of that technique was. I think that Hitchcock was attempting to put the feeling of constraint on the view of the film just as L.B. was constrained to his wheelchair. This feeling of constraint is rather subtle until one of the final sequences when L.B. is being attacked by the suspect man. As he struggles to lock the door, grab his flash-bulbs, position himself, and defend against the attack, one can’t help but feel all the same frustration over one’s lack of mobility!

Mulvey also forced me to question what other significant role this single soundstage tactic played in my viewing and analysis of the movie. What is Hitchcock saying about the innate quality of the cinema to bring about voyeurism? The use of a single soundstage to promote limitation plays an important role in the perspective of the film. I venture to say that with some minor editing and my best Jimmy “Shtewarrt” impression this film could be changed to a first person narrative. This boosts the idea that the viewer of the movie is really in the driver’s seat with L.B., and doing all the same voyeuristic things that he is doing, but aren’t movie viewers free of the consequences resulting upon their protagonist? In typical movies the viewer is free of the consequences, which is what, I believe, Hitchcock is trying to say in this movie. We, as cinema supporters, attend movies and watch the lives of others with no chance of attending to the consequences that some of the movies’ protagonists’ subject themselves to.

However, in Rear Window the viewer is asked to take a look through the same camera lens and binoculars as L.B. The viewer is also made to feel that they are stuck in the same apartment with him and cannot escape. This leads to a fear of consequence not only in L.B. but in the viewer as well. Voyeurism may be inescapable at the movie theater, but Hitchcock wants us to know that he knows we’re watching, and one of these days we might get caught!

Growing up In Modern Strife: Marji and David B.

*Note* To avoid confusion I will refer to the protagonist of Epileptic simply as David.

Marjane Satrapi and David B. present beautiful portrayals of lives led under the constant watch of a tormentor. In one instance it is an unfair government and in the other it is an unfair physical illness. Both present these autobiographical tales with stark black and white illustrations and a retrospective narrative.

Persepolis shows the many stages that Marjane went through during her childhood, and though she was dealing with very mature events there are times that signs of her innocence come out. Marjane's interests were political from the time she was very little. I began to wonder what it was that she was trying to get across in her portrayal of Marji's relationship with God. It seemed to me that she was trying to show that through her developing relationship with God that ends in a split she loses faith, not just in God, but also in voices of authority in general. Voices like those of her teachers become opinions when her parents tell her that her teachers are not always right.  She lost her innocence to the knowledge of corruption. As Marjane grew she started to gain interests in the political demonstrations that her parents attended. These were often dangerous places for adults, let alone children. I was curious why it seemed Marji was being portrayed as such a little adult while being so very young. It seemed like there may have been some bias seeping in until I realized there were times of innocence throughout all of these early events. One event in particular was Marji's plan to attack a classmate, whose father had killed people, with nails between their fingers. This event shows that she still had the faults of a childish mind. I was very impressed by Satrapi's ability to portray herself in an open manner. She was willing to critique the actions she made and give the reasons she made those actions without sounding defensive or excusatory.

Epileptic by David B. is an even more beautifully illustrated novel. The novel does a great job of showing the affects of a mental/physical illness on it's victim and their family. I wondered why he portrayed the illness in the way that he did (as a dragon-snake monster). I think the best explanation is that David was trying to present the illustrations in a way that seemed relevant to the way he imagined it as a child. Only a child could think up the concept of a disease as being a dragon-snake. I began to wonder what else might he have done to portray the story as if it were being told by his younger-self. I think he maintained this theme by portraying the doctors and psychiatrists as evil masterminds of some sort. He also managed to take all of the things that opposed the health and happiness of his brother and exaggerate their flaws such as his mother's drinking habits being portrayed the way that it was portrayed and so on. That is not to say that her drinking habits were not a bad thing, however, the way it was depicted seemed to represent a further development of his child-like vision.
       David B. and Marjane Satrapi manage to both show an autobiographic tale in a way that seems well-rounded, fairly critical, and unbiased.

Sleepwalk, Corrigan, White, and More Happy Things

It's hard to get through either Sleepwalk or Jimmy Corrigan without noticing the overbearing tone of sadness. This sadness however is represented as reality and that seems fair. Throughout Corrigan I questioned why Jimmy was depicted as having such a child-like relationship with his mother? I think Chris Ware was simply trying to depict the true psychology of the modern family. The overbearing mother seems to be the result of a lacking father in Jimmy's life. Why then is Jimmy's father presented for only a short while before being taken out of the picture and replaced by the grandfather and his story? It seems that Ware was trying to show the progression of the patriarchal relationships throughout the Corrigan family history.

Sleepwalk presents individuals rather than families, but the depravity of everyday life remains. At first I wondered why Tomine would present each story as being so darkly unhappy. It seems that Tomine is challenging us to analyze what we would rather not in order to better understand the way we handle bad days. I couldn't help but feel that some of the characters in the story were abnormally strange, but given the abnormalities of everyday life it doesn't seem so strange. I also wondered what the significance of using Sleepwalk as the title story was. Out of the entire book Sleepwalk was the story that was most memorable and it seems that Tomine simply chose it as the title story as a way to set the tone.

Tone is one of the most important aspects of these stories. The illustrations in Sleepwalk set that tone with use of black and white drawings and downcast figures. The complexity of panel formations in Jimmy Corrigan is an interesting concept. Why would Ware use such complex formations and how does it effect the reading of the novel? Ware does what every writer attempts when creating a work. He forces the reader to read closely without losing interest. Corrigan, too, is a dreary story but is composed of such vibrant colors. Why would he choose such vibrant colors for such glum prospects? It seems that throughout the novel Ware is using irony to portray thejuxtaposition of day to day living in modern life with the absurdities of those same things.

McCloud and Sandman or Morpheus or Dreamlord or…

The illustrations in Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel Sandman use almost every trick in the Scott McCloud book! The most creative part is the use of the gutter throughout the book. Sometimes there is a lot left to the imagination between that panels, and sometimes there is so little left to the imagination that the characters and scenes are spilling out into the gutters! Still other gutters might not be gutters at all but parts of a much bigger picture set behind all of the panels.

The Sandman novel doesn’t stop there! Color is more vibrant in this novel than it was in any we have previously read! I have been considering what the significance of color is in this novel. It seems to have a number of different effects on a reader. It can set a mood, or a tone for certain scenes, and it can excite emotion within the reader during others. Color can signify good or evil and pain or happiness. In The Sandman’s case it can also signify the perspective of the picture such as page 25 part 1 of the novel when the blue tinted panels represent the view of the Sandman in his orb. Along with the color of perspective there seemed to be an interesting portrayal of certain characters throughout the story. Most prominently, I wondered why it was decided to represent Lucifer the way he was represented. In the first panel, on page 8 of the “Hope in Hell” chapter, that Lucifer is introduced he is presented typically as a dark shadow with wings and horns, but in the next panel he is blonde haired and dressed in white and a bit feminine looking. (A bit like early ‘80s David Bowie!).

I think Gaiman was trying to present a bit of an ironic image by presenting Lucifer in a white jumpsuit. I also think he was attempting to make a connection between Lucifer and Morpheus. This way it seems clear the the lords of the unworldly realms all seem human despite our common ‘misconceptions.’

When it comes to the illustrations in this novel McCloud's book is the perfect reference because Sandman contains all if not more of the stylistic choices explained by McCloud! Sandman is a novel that I think asks the questions abut our perceptions of reality. I wondered toward the end what my own perceptions of dreams were. Which answers perfectly the question of "What significance do the illustrative and textual qualities of this book play in the reading of it?" Well, they were good enough to get me to think twice about the way I perceive dreams!