Advent of spectatorship; A quick look on the introduction of photograph and motion pictures in the late nineteenth

The glory of late nineteenth century in introducing new media has been notably remarked. The
power of new electrical technologies to affect people’s private and public lives altered the
common ways of communication and social interactions. The causes and consequences of these
novel communicative technologies have been widely discussed by scholars. Marvin posits that
“central to all the good things that new technologies of communication would accomplish was
the building of better, usually construed to mean more open and democratically accessible,
communities”. (1988: 65) On the other hand, she points to consequences of these electrical
communications by which families, courtships, class identities, and other arenas of interaction
suddenly became strange, with consequences that were tirelessly spun out in electrical literature.
(ibid: 64) For me, among all late- nineteenth- century new forms of media, the introduction of
the recorded image (photography at first and then cinema in the form of moving images) with
plenty of novel promises had the greatest impacts on both private and public spheres at that
period.
Photograph – Beginning of spectatorship
Sontag believes that photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and
what we have a right to observe (1977:3). Her crucial view point over photography makes her
argue that photographs, instead of just recordings reality, have become the norm for the way
things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism. (ibid: 87) Gunning
also blames photography for its seeming uncanny resemblance to its subject and the apparently
automatic nature of its production. He argues that photograph allowed a re-animation of the
ontological instability of all mimetic representation. (2003:49) More strictly speaking, Sontag
concludes that one never can understand anything from a photograph, neither gain ethical nor
political knowledge. (1977:23-4)
All these argumentations and criticisms give rise to one question, what was the reason for all
these pessimistic viewpoints, or what kinds of opportunities and threats did the photography
bring to the actual societies? One possible answer might point to Sontag observation of
photograph as a useful tool of modern states in surveillance and control of their increasingly
mobile populations.” (1997: 5) She believes that photography has mainly become a social rite, a
defense against anxiety, and a tool of power. (ibid: 8) Marvin expresses a very similar
argumentation regarding electric communication which was presented as a herald of democracy
and as a superior means for controlling masses, criminals, primitives, servants, and whatever
other under classes might need restraint.(1988: 100) Gunning considers the photograph and
motion picture (and also phonograph) “as technical responses to the ultimate limit to human life,
morality.” (2003: 48) One can conclude that the essential concern, or even dread, regarding
photography was that this new medium may replace with the reality. Sontag, simply points out this threat: “reality has been interpreted through the reports given by images” (1977:153) But what actually happened was that this controversial medium got improved and introduced a new form of on-move media which brought new anxieties and hopes to people.
Cinema –New resumption of spectacle
Photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow (Marvin 1997:17). So one can claim that the early idea of cinema was aroused by a flow of photographs. Sontag also believes that the very form of film is a set of photographs which freezes moments in a life or a society- in a process or a flow (1977). Friedberg defines the moving image as expansion of the photography’s virtuality by adding mobility. (2003:343)
In questioning the actual nature of cinema, Gunning argues that the potential of this new art rather than imitating the movement of the nature was a “matter of making images seen”. In his article titled “the cinema of attractions” with offering the specific features which were dominant in early cinema productions and led to creating of this so called cinema of attraction, he defines cinema as a way of presenting a series of views to an audience with a strong illusory power. (1990:56-7) Gunning summarizes that the cinema of attractions “directly solicits spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity, and supplying pleasure through an exciting spectacle of a unique event”. (1990:57) He points out the main aspects of early cinema (such as exhibitionism and eroticism) as the way cinema manage to attract and establish contact with the audience. (Gunning 1990)
As it has been mentioned in the above historians’ works regarding the early technology of this medium, cinema gained a unique opportunity to attract the majority of people with enthusiasm and to fascinate them by amusing movements, narrations, spectacle and sensation. (Gunning 1990, Friedman 2003) Notable amount of criticisms target cinema, simply because of this feature and they were continued to the advent of television.
To summarize, the emergence of new media introduced relatively sudden and largely unanticipated possibilities of mixing heterogeneous social world, a useful opportunity for some, a dreadful intrusion for others. These new media took social risks by permitting outsiders to cross boundaries of race, gender, and class without penalty. (Marvin 1997:107-8) Photography with its uncanny (in Gunning terms) and its pseudo- real (in Sontag terms) features, and cinema as the continuation and improved version of photography in the form of so called “motion pictures” both challenged the very notion of reality, and in a greater respect, altered plenty of customary norms and formulated social interaction; or as Marvin puts it these new technologies repackaged human experience and multiplied it for many presentations labored to enhance the largest, most dramatically public of messages. (1997:152)
Reference
Gunning, Tom (1990) “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant Garde” in Elsaesser, Thomas (ed) Early Cinema: Space-Frame-Narrative, London: British Film Institute
Marvin, Carolyn. 1990, When Old Technologies Were New : Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century.Cary, NC, USA: Oxford University Press
Sontag, Susan, 1977, On photography, New York, Picador
Thorburn, David and Jenkins, Henry (2003) Rethinking Media Change, Cambridge, The MIT Press

a new perception

7th of December (16 Azar) is called national student day in Iran named for the day in 1953 when armed forces entered the main campus of Tehran University and killed three students protesting the government of Shah. This year a large mass of students protested and many got arrested. But among all of them, Majid Tavakoli caused a big movement in the whole society of Iranian all over the wordl. He is a student at Polytechnic (Amir Kabir) University in Tehran, who got arrested on his way out of Amir Kabir University after he gave a moving speech. the pro-regime pages published a photo of him dreesed up in a Chador veil and humiliated him for having a FEMALE outfit.
Shortly after, in a rapid response to this humiliation, in solidarity with Majid, and show that being a woman is not a shame, (and even furthur to show the hated notion of mandatory veil) hundreds of men around the world and in Iran have donned the hijab for his release.
I don't want to make a political point here, I am just super pleased with the rapid actions of all men who showed up in such a movement! I have to admit that after this event I feel differently for Iranian men. I feel so proud of them when seeing them in thousands of photos, appearing in the veil! After all these bloody and depressing news, this one was very promising to me!
A similar video is accessible here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNgN1rbXjLc
Facebook page is here:
http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=198929939029&ref=mf

”Intersectionality” , Media Studies and Feminism A short review on Crenshaw's , Hall's and Skeggs's works on Class, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality

As the matter of fact, there are several kinds of discriminations against minority groups in every society. In the eyes of social science scholars these groups are considered as ‘others’ due to their differences from the dominant group or the majority. Considering the main characteristics of these groups, one can claim that many master categories (Kleberg, 2007) conflate as the mater of intersectionality.

Crenshaw in her definition of intersectionality regarding shaping black and colored women claims that intersectionality refers to various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women's experiences,(although many of these experiences are not submitted within traditional boundaries of race and gender discrimination). In the other word intersectionality refers to "various ways in which race and gender intersect in shaping structural, political and representational aspects of violence against women of color." (Crenshaw, 1994:1244)

Then she goes through these three dimensions of violence in which different kinds of battering and oppression are happening. But she emphasizes that Women of color experience racism in ways not always the same as those experienced by men of color and sexism, in ways not always parallel to experiences of white women, antiracism and feminism are limited, even on their own terms.

*Structural intersectionality refers to violence in the shape of batter and rape with the notions of immigrated women of color (to US) and their social and cultural barriers.

*Political intersectionality makes women of color situated within at least two subordinated groups often with conflicting political agendas. ( the need to split one's political energies between two (sometimes opposing) groups è intersectional dispowerment)

• race and culture contribute to the suppression of domestic violence in many ways.
• battering is not exclusively a problem of the poor or minority communities it equally affects all races and classes.

Implementing into media studies

What is representational intersectionality?

Hall in the related chapter "the spectacle of the other" argues that representation is a complex business and especially when it comes to 'difference', it engages feelings, attitudes and emotions and it mobilizes fears and anxieties in the viewer. With many visual examples of racial representation, he concludes that the meaning is flowing among many possibilities. Most of the time his "preferred meaning" imply to an intersection between race, gender and sexuality.

Skeggs (2005) believes that the significance of all this media interest is that white working-class women in particular are being marked as the national constitutive limit to propriety. His definition of "other" is that Others do not have access to ‘choice’, all they can display is the lack of access to the techniques for telling themselves and lack of access to the right culture; they cannot perform the good self because they do not have the cultural resources to do so. We can apply Crenshaw's argument in his viewpoint as he has the same reception of otherness in the case of women in color as another minority group.

Finally: 'representational intersectionality' could be seen as the images which are produced through a conjunction of predominant narratives of race and gender and a recognition of how temporary critiques of racist and sexist representation marginalized women of color.

Reference:

-Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams (1991) “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity,Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” in Stanford Law Review,

-Hall, Stuart, ed, Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices, London 1997, chapter 4 “The Spectacle of the ‘Other’

-Skeggs, Beverly (2005) “The Making of Class and Gender through Visualizing Moral Subject Formation” in Sociology, SAGE Publications, vol 39(5): 965-982

- Kleberg,M (2007), Gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality in Feminist Media Studies. A history involving problems. class notes

Molossia

Hey! these days I am so busy with my presentation in a conference in Leiden University which will be held next Monday! I've started so late to prepare the text so I'm so stressed out! I'll write about my topic hopefully in the next post, but here is a funny information which I found right now about the world's smallest country called Republic of Molossia with 6 inhabitants!
Don't try to get there without applying for visa! :)
here is more information on Wikipedia..

Molossia traces its origins to a childhood micronation project — the Grand Republic of Vuldstein - which was created by Baugh and James Spielman on May 26, 1977. Vuldstein's leadership — and entire population — consisted of King James I (Spielman), and Prime Minister Baugh.

On September 3, 1999, Baugh created the Republic of Molossia as a latter day successor to Vuldstein, and declared himself to be its president.

Here is the country post office and currencies

Variation ènigmatiques

I read another short play by Emmanuel Schmitt, 'Variation ènigmatiques', or in English 'Enigma Variations' which is indeed the name of a famous orchestral piece by Edward Elgar!
The story is about a meeting between Eric Larsen the journalist and Rosvannoy, a strange, pessimistic author and Nobel prize winner who lives in a deserted island. At the beginning what we understand is that the journalist is happy to get the chance to talk to the famous novelist about his recent book and that how rudely the author- Rosvannoy humiliates him for his 'cheap and monotonic' way of life. Rosvannoy's attacks are so insulting for Eric that he decides to go. But Rosvannoy promises to be softer to him. the first big SHOCK is when the author reveals his reason for letting the journalist inside his horrific territory, he is in love with a woman who lives in the same region as Eric does! He asks Eric to deliver his letter to the woman because she is no longer eager to continue their daily correspondence.
It seems 15 years ago Rosvannoy falls in love with this women called Helen and lives with her for a couple of months but he thinks to preserve their love he has to leave her and keeps her company from afar! So his last book is actually based on his real life and mystical love for this woman. Eric seems to know a lot about the woman and yeah! He is actually the husband of Helen!
This is a big shock for Rosvannoy, especially when he hears that they have married 12 years ago, he goes through Helen's notes, one day after her marriage, she expresses her deep desires to be with Rosvannoy! He curses her, but Eric has more to say! Helen is dead! Another shock, but not the last.... after a few minutes Rosvannoy figures out that Helen died many years ago and that all the letters were written by Eric to him!!
And it is time for Eric to show his deep love and desire for Rosvannoy! The feelings that don't get rejected by Rosvannoy!

This was just a short, vague summery, the whole beauty of it is hidden in the witty, philosophical dialogues between two guys! the power relations between them and how it alters during the conversation!
It is worth reading... promise :)

Recently I've become interested in Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt writings, especially his short plays, and the reason is one of my friend who sent the books to me, today I read 'Partners in crime' and dare to call it a masterpiece. I think Schmitt critical view point and his background in philosophy is the most notable feature in his writings. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and the title of his dissertation in Englis is "Diderot and Metaphysics".

Intersectional representation within visual and verbal deconstructions of the Others

In the contemporary life, we face multiple identities. Dyer believes that the time for the old unified identities for those categories of gender, class, race, and sexuality is over (1997). So he, indirectly, is pointing to the matter of intersectionality in which a number of different identities negotiate. (Lutz 1993) By following binary oppositions the concept of 'Other' can be perceived as the across from 'we' or 'us'. This perception of the 'We' differs over diversity of meanings in every particular social category. The certain similarities, undoubtedly, are the mainsprings for the forming of the sense of us or a particular group. These social groups only exist if members identify themselves with the group. Identification, at its root according to Billig's interpretation of social identity theory, is a form of categorization. For groups to exist, individuals should have the certain 'self portrait'. (Kipnis 1993:207) and must categories themselves in group terms. (Billig 1997:66)

To discuss the further meaning of the represented Other, there is a need to go through the main specific categorizations, argued by scholars and intersectionality theorists. In this paper, this concept will be discussed in terms of nationality, race, class, gender and sexuality. Later on, I will explore through the process of normalization and modality of some privileged norms over intersectional approach. After all, westernization will be delineated with its different dimensions as the most problematic norm.

A: Deconstruction of Categorizations of Others in the media

Following the mentioned debate on constructing of group identities, national groups as the essential group identifications can be consider as a modern phenomena or 'imagined' community. (Billig 1997) Nationalism occurs 'there' on the periphery, not 'here' at the centre and largely, represented among group members; It implies that nationalism is constantly "flagged" in the media through routine symbols and habits of language. (Billig 1997)

Nationalism as an ideology is not confined to national borders, but its assumptions have been diffused internationally and today are so globally important and still being reproduced and can call for ultimate sacrifices. As we can see in Billig's notes, this strong conceptualization segregates 'us' from the Others who are not inclusive in our group. (1997)

The next categorization of the Other is the matter of race. So long as race is applied only to nonwhite peoples, white people are named norm or in the better word normal human being. These norm people in the position of power can speak for all human beings including all races as well as the ability of raced people to speak, only to their own race.

Representation of 'white' in the predominant position, functions as the norm, the ordinary and the standard. This representation of different kinds of media doesn't mean the racial representation for whites, but the people who are variously gendered, classed, sexualized, and abled. (Dyer 1997:6) and still dominantly, white men are at the centre of global representation. (1997:39)This consideration of human race could be, highly, problematic since it works invisibly and at the same time apparently.

Among different notions of with representation, skin color, utilizing aesthetic technologies of light, muscular white male bodies, capacities of the feminine bodies and deathliness of white body, Dyer also delineates a wider notion of embodiment of white body constructed by three elements (in the body not 'of' the body): Christianity, race and enterprise or imperialism (on a dynamic relation to the physical world).

In the third category, as Dyer pointed to that as the importance of mascular body, we have to discuss the concept of others in the context of gender and sexuality. For long time sexual representing as an illicit matter was so marginalized. Arthurs believes that the emergence of pornography as a genre category was a consequence of the development of mass media. (2004:39) By considering two points that the meaning and content of pornography has changed over time and between cultures, (McNair 1996:57) and also feminist approach was dominant over the time ignoring the importance of male sexuality representation. (Holmlund 1993, Dyer 1993

Holmlund by focusing on some particular movies, concludes that masculinity like femininity, is a multiple masquerade by which hegemonic power relations for both spectators and performers are reinforcing it as something 'real' or/and 'normal', with a fore ground matrices of sexuality, class and race in addition that male doubles are everywhere, distinguishing primarily by race and class. (Holmlund 1993) but we also should take into account that sexual images of men work differently from sexual images of women. (Kipnis 1993) O' Riordan believes modality of representations of female body through the webcams mad female bodies has become the object to the gaze in both public and private sphere. (O' Riordan 2002:47) women, also, pretend to be what they lack: they seem to embody the phallus. (Holmlund 1993)

So pre-unusual sexuality forms of yesterday –bio- and homosexuals, transvestites, etc- other than heterosexuality are not, anymore, abnormal or inclusive the Other who differs from 'us', or in Arthurs's terms the boundaries between 'us' and 'them' have been transgressed. (2004:46) Kipnis also claims that bisexuality tends to be sexual norm in sex magazines. (1993:205)

The next question to answer, after explicating the intersectional reconstruction of the Others, and before discuss about represented normalization, is to find the tracks of mediatizing all these conventional categories gathering in the context of a specific medium -if there is any.

Here, I want to name, precisely, cyber space as a unique opportunity in our contemporary lives, collecting different kinds of media from personal letters, books and magazines to multimedia, radio, television, film, CD-Rom and DVD; in addition of promising greater immediacy and a new transparency through the animation, video and audio. (Botler and Grusin 1999)

Norms and positions of normality

Following the discussion about the meaning of the represented Other in specific categories, one should clarify the essence of the norm through discussed social constructions and more importantly, the practices of representing these norms through mediated intersectionality.

It is presumed according to Billig that all societies have 'norms' and 'values'. These are all universal terms. His idea about the process of group normalization of individuals based on Hogg's and Abraham's three stages of the procedure of group identification, is constructed after the first stage (the stage in which individuals categorize themselves as part of in-group, distinguishing from the relevant groups) In which, so, they learn the stereotypic norms associated with such an identity and in the final stage, they assign these norms to themselves. It should take into account that individuals have multiple ways of describing and categorizing themselves.

National identity, although is no longer a major force as globalization, is produced by the age of modern nation-state by its symbols and assumptions that are flagged as the norms. (Billig 1997)

In the matter of race, the power of whiteness is the noticeable point here. Normality assumed equal as white whereas white people are in the position of power and own the media, politics and education. (Dyer 1997)

Some scholars like Arthurs agrees with the normalization of sex and homosexuality with this idea that sex is not anymore hidden in everyday life, in contrast to the pre-modern period, whereas sexual pleasure was prioritized in more marginal spaces late night or on cable. (2004:40-6) Displaying bodies is also, overwhelmingly centered on the genitals. (Dyer 1993:90)

B: The most problematic norm

We discussed the concept of other, separately in social categories, encompassed by intersectional attitude through different kinds of mediated representation. As it mentioned earlier, many norms exist in the context of different social structures; among all those, I regard the concept of being American or Western as the most controversial norm, mostly, erupted by dominancy of American and European discourse over global representation. (Billig 1995) The mediated representation, here, with ethnical or/and national approach, has segregated the world into Western and non-western parts. This every day normalization carry the message of superior, civilized, having high-culture and welfare, forceful, peace force, hero and etc from the western part of the glob to the of rest it; especially in recent media representation, mostly in the forms of visual displaying of the Others. This ethnical concept is the intersectional point with other social categorization. For instance, a hero in American movies is a person who is American, white, mostly middle class, Christian, English speaker and other norms which are utterly accepted in modern mediated representation of the world, constructed by one nationality/ ethnical group.

References:

• Arthurs, Jane (2004) Televison and Sexuality. Regulation and the Politics of Taste, Berkshire; Open University Press.

• Billig, Michael (1995), Banal Nationalism, London: Sage

• Botler, Jay David & Richard Grusin (1999) Remediation. Understanding New Media, Camebridge, Mass: MIT Press.

• Dyer, Richard (1997), White, London: Routledge

• Dyer, Richard (1993) Male sexuality in the media in The matter of images. Essays on representation, London:Routledge .

• Holmlund, Chris (1993), Masculinity as multiple masquerade. The ´mature´ Stallone and the Stallone clone, in Screening the Male Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema eds Steven Cohan & Ina Rae Hark NY: Routledge

• Kipnis, Laura (1993) She-Male Fantasies and the Aesthetics of Pornography, in Dirty Looks, Pamela C. Gibson & Roma Gibson (eds), London:bfi Publishing

• Lutz, Catherine A. & Jane L. Collins (1993), Reading National Geographic, London: University of Chicago Press,

• O´Riordan, Kate (2002), Windows on the Web: The Female Body and the Web Camera, Women & Everyday Uses of the Internet, Mia Consaluo & Susanna Paasonen (eds), NY:Peter

• McNair, Brian (1996) Mediated Sex. Pornography & Postmodern Culture, London:Arnold