Monthly Archives: July 2010

Music, Take 3: Then & Now

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Posted by maxporter on July 19, 2010 – 9:17 PM
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I recently came across an essay that I wrote a while ago. It was for a required freshman English composition class. I forget what the prompt was, but I thought it was interesting.
I’d like to note that I found this essay with the disclaimer, “I wrote this while watching Pieces of April,” so the prose isn’t super awesome.

Nov. 28th, 2006

I am deaf and I know American Sign Language, but I was mainstreamed and can interact freely within the hearing or deaf world. Nonetheless, my fundamental difference from hearing people allows me to observe their culture. Therefore, I have been acting as an anthropologist of the hearing culture almost from birth. In this paper, my central observation revolves around music.
When a hearing person asks me about my deafness, he or she invariably asks me, “Do you enjoy music at all?” I call this The Big Question. If I answered it truthfully, I would tell the hearing person that I do not listen to music because I never learned how to listen to music. An astute hearing friend of mine once compared music to a second language that hearing people learn automatically at an early age. It must be true because I am not “fluent” in the language of music. I like to watch music videos and listen to the music that they play in church, but I simply do not care about music in general because it does not make any sense to me. As an illustration of how foreign music is to me, my friend once played Madonna, then death metal – and I could not distinguish between the two.
Faced with The Big Question, however, I do not say any of this. I usually lie and simply say, “I can enjoy music sometimes.” When I was younger, I told the truth and said, “No, I don’t listen to music very much.” When I told the truth, hearing people became shocked. “Well, what do you do instead of listen to music?” Most hearing folks cannot imagine somebody exists out there who does not listen music. I have learned that music is akin to religion or politics in many respects. I have learned not to say that I do not like music because, when I say this to a hearing person, he usually reacts viciously, as if I were insulting his very existence. I honestly do not understand this explosion because music is just a bunch of sounds to me. However, if I say, “Music is just a bunch of sounds to me,” the hearing person becomes even angrier.
Another aspect of the hearing fixation on music is the fact that they think that I am somehow deprived since I cannot listen to music. Now, I can understand why Beethoven’s story is sad – he devoted his life to composing music, but he went deaf. I will never understand why music occupies such a central position in hearing people’s lives, but I can respect the importance that hearing people attach to music. Still, the fact remains: my life is not any less complete because I do not listen to music. To expect me to enjoy music is like expecting somebody who cannot see any colors at all to enjoy a Rothko painting. I often cannot distinguish the singing from the instrument, I did not know that music has “color” until eleventh grade, and it was only last week that I learned that many hearing people associate certain songs with specific events.
Honestly, there is so much more to life than music. Movies, people, books, paintings, writing, making books, falling in love, and so on and so on. Why does music occupy such a central position in hearing people’s lives? As far as I am concerned, hearing people’s attitudes towards music are as fascinating to me as the African Bushmen’s attitudes towards Hamlet are to American anthropologists. Despite my best efforts, I worry that I will never get a straight answer about music because hearing people seem to operate on a central assumption: everybody listens to music, and those who do not listen to music are either crazy or hopelessly deprived. I hope I can open a dialogue despite my unorthodox views on the one religion that all hearing people seem to believe in.

Reading this four years later, it’s interesting to see where I am now compared with where I was then. I’ll focus here on my changed attitudes towards music.

I forget who the “astute hearing friend” was, but I would have to agree that music is almost like a different language. Growing up, I didn’t learn it, but I’d say that I understand it a lot better now than I did in the past.

I’d like to pause here and point out that people did try to teach the “language” of music to me while I was growing up. I took lessons for a few different instruments and studied music theory/history. It simply never stuck. In college, others gently tried to nudge me into the world of music. I’d hear stuff that I liked sometimes, but it wasn’t really on top of my list of things to do: there were so many other things I could be doing instead of listening to music!

One major reason that I didn’t actively listen to music to was that I unconsciously did not trust my own taste in music. Somewhere along the way, I got this idea in my head that deaf people couldn’t be decent music critics. This meant that, when I was 12, it was totally logical that boy bands were the best thing ever to happen to music because all of my hearing friends liked them. Therefore, because I didn’t like *NSYNC or Backstreet Boys, that meant that I was missing something profound in the songs. Later on, when I went to college, I still believed this deep down inside. So I was wary of exploring music myself because… what if a hearing person somewhere informed me that I was listening to music that I’d thought was good but was actually totally shitty??? Totally irrational thinking, but it persisted despite the fact that people constantly assured me that everybody has a different taste in music.

Then I went through a phase: I didn’t wear my cochlear implant at all for an entire year. I didn’t wear it to work, I didn’t wear it to school, I didn’t wear it at home, I didn’t wear it to hang out with my friends. I even managed to avoid wearing it around my family. But you know what? As strange as it may seem, I actually gained a newfound appreciation for music during that time.
Part of the reason is because I began going to a local nightclub where the DJ played awesome thuddy industrial music. Since I dance poorly and I was under 21 at the time, I usually ended up sitting in the corner next to the speakers and ‘listening’ to the music by leaning against the wall. Since the wall was made of conductive material, I could feel the vibrations. Eventually, I realized that I also enjoyed ‘listening’ to music at home in the same manner by placing my hands on my laptop speakers while blasting music at full volume. (Looking back at my play history, it appears that I mostly listened to Lady Gaga, Less than Jake, and MGMT – in that order. Oh god, my neighbors must have really hated me. In my defense, I refrained from playing music past 7pm or before noon.)

At some point, I said to myself, “I think I’ll wear my cochlear implant again.” So I took it out of the shoebox in my closet and put it on. After I listened to music with my cochlear implant in, I realized that I like listening to music with my cochlear implant. I subsequently got “headphones” for my cochlear implant and now I listen to 99% of music that way, although I still do enjoy taking off my cochlear implant and ‘listening’ to thuddy music via the vibrations.

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Remember my first post about music? I said, “I think I will try to listen to EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD.” It’s led to interesting results: the more music I listen to, the more accepting I am of themes that I previously didn’t like. An example would be high-pitched sounds: I can enjoy chiptunes and harsh guitar riffs now. In fact, one of my new favorite genres is Scandinavian metal, especially the band Týr. Also, my constant quest for new material has helped to stem a problem that I’ve had in the past: sometimes songs or bands get stale after listening to them over and over again. If I have a million different types of music to listen to, this doesn’t happen as easily.

To sum up where I am now compared to where I was in 2006: I’ve finally taken it to heart that everybody has a different taste in music. My taste is no more or less valid than anybody else’s! Now I open up iTunes with the attitude that it’s okay if I like this song. Since I can now trust my own judgment in music, I’ve found that listening to music is actually not a bad way to spend my free time.

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Diversity Within Film Programs

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Posted by maxporter on July 14, 2010 – 10:59 PM
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In a post from April 30, I said:

Another sucky thing happened in film class today that re-emphasized the importance of diversity to me.

I’m gonna sit on this one for a while, though …

Well, it’s mid-July now. I think it’s long past time to talk about it.

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What happened was: We were discussing metanarrativity and the differences between film and video. To illustrate his point, the professor showed Bamboozled by Spike Lee.

Possible spoilers ahead. Possible triggers, too.

Billed as a satire, Bamboozled examines race, visual representation, and the film industry. The basic plot is this: An African-American man who writes scripts for a television station is told that his scripts are unacceptable. So, in a fit of cynicism, he decides to propose a new television show that is based upon actual minstrel performances. He then talks two African-American street performers into being the actors, complete with blackface. He thinks that this show will fail because it is so obviously racist, but his plan backfires because it ends up being a smashing success.
Scholars, journalists, etc, have hotly debated the issues presented within this film for years.

Before presenting the film, my professor mentioned none of this. He simply told us to focus in particular on the shift in quality of mini-DV versus 16mm and be prepared to discuss the aesthetic effect of the different film quality because, as imdb’s trivia page puts it, “most of this film was shot only on digital (Mini DV) camcorders, the kind you can buy at any electronics store. While this sacrificed quality, it allowed them to shoot with 15 cameras at a time, and it also allowed Spike Lee to get all the footage he needed shot within the film’s modest budget. The only scenes shot on film were the “Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show” sequences, which were shot on 16mm film.”

I had already begun to feel uneasy about how the subsequent discussion would go. To compound this already problematic situation, my professor chose to screen two highly charged scenes.

A) A scene in which a white studio executive yells at the main character, an African-American man who writes television scripts, for writing “boring” stuff about African-American middle-class families. The exec accuses the writer of being less “black” than him because he isn’t connected to the “reality” of the ghetto. Basically, the exec is being super-racist in assuming that African-American people can never live a “respectable” life in a middle-class home, but the main character is forced to sit there and not say a word for fear of losing his position. (Although he does fantasize about punching the exec.)

B) One of the last minstrel performances in the film. Before the performance, the actors are shown putting on blackface. One of them is crying while he puts it on. They then perform onstage. It is a minstrel, so, needless to say, it is chock-full of stereotypes. Throughout the performance, Lee cuts to shots of audience members laughing uproariously.

After the scenes were screened, my professor continued to neglect to discuss race or even provide context for the scenes within the film as a whole; he only wanted to talk about the aesthetic effects of the shots in mini-DV versus the shots in 16mm. Now, I do acknowledge that this could lead to an interesting discussion and that insights could have been gathered regarding metanarrativity or how art can be made more, not less, creative due to budget limitations. Nonetheless, I am upset that my professor did not say anything about race at all throughout the discussion.

I also felt that his approach disregarded the complexity of the issues presented and stifled a thorough analysis of the film. Maybe it is just me, but I need to know the context in order to discuss why a director chose to use a particular filmic device. This article from Reverse Shot by Michael Koresky illustrates how I would choose to approach the video vs film question in Bamboozled, particularly this passage:

The use of digital video for Bamboozled was almost epiphanic; Spike Lee was intuitively finding new ways to represent what film had failed at for so long. Bamboozled is barely a comedy, as “funny as a dead baby,” to quote the dimwitted Dunwitty, and it’s also barely a film. How can a medium as compromised as film possibly contain Spike Lee’s revisionist rage? Almost in response, he decided to shoot the centerpiece scenes of “Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show” on 16mm film, thus creating a defiant split (emotional as well as technical) between celluloid and video, then and now. The scenes shot on film are lush, seductive, eye-popping in primary colors—ostensibly viewed from the head-on point of view of the studio audience, another irony considering tape is used to record most live sitcoms. Just as suddenly vivid are the spirited hi-jinks of Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson as “Mantan” and “Sleep’n eat,” “two real coons,” outfitted in fire engine–colored lipstick, layers of dark burnt cork, and, respectively, a tattered old suit and a blazing red lawn-jockey coat.

Now, one may argue: “But that’s an awful lot to discuss in one class.” Well, if that is the case, why not choose a different film or spread out the discussion over several classes?

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I hate to say that this lack of sensitivity within film departments isn’t rare. As a film major who has a number of film studies courses under his belt already (from two different universities, no less) I could tell similar stories from my other classes. Some are also about race; some are about other minorities. I have also heard several similar stories from all over the country, so I don’t think this is a phenomenon unique to my area.

My current university in particular is pretty diverse. But if you look around in a film class, the student body is largely white and male. This is highly incongruent, to say the least. Clearly, there is something going on here.

There certainly are tangible barriers that stifle diversity: for example, one’s economic standing could prohibit access to expensive film equipment. However, I don’t think that this is the whole story.
Personally, I think that there is a more elusive barrier to minority students: the film world is presented as an elite domain that white, able-bodied, heterosexual men control. I have seen Hollywood, academia, and the New York experimental film scene all presented in this light. In the film classes that I’ve been in, this process goes like so:
Step 1: Overtly prejudiced films are portrayed as being emblematic of the art of cinema. The most notable example that I can think of is The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith, which is an early 20th century diatribe against racial equality that glorifies the Ku Klux Klan and employs racial stereotypes.
Step 2: Students are told that, to succeed, they should emulate these films because they ~obviously~ represent the highest pinnacle of art that cinema has ever achieved. Or, in the case of a film studies/history course, they are presented with theories and historical narratives that uncritically accept the importance of these films.
Step 3: Students are rewarded when they emulate the aesthetics and sensibilities of films like these.

I feel that this approach results in alienation. Minority students begin to wonder: “Where do I fit in here?” at best and “Is it safe to participate fully in this environment?” at worst.
I hate to say it, but I’ve personally asked myself questions like these. I feel somewhat okay talking about deafness, but I haven’t yet had the courage to make a film for class that revolves around queer themes. After all, in a classroom where one student made a [fictional] film in which he violently beat up a trans woman, I just don’t feel safe even thinking about the possibility of screening a film that would do something radical like, y’know, show that trans and/or queer people are actually human beings.
Still, despite the fact that I’m bothered by a lot of problems in the film department, there’s enough interesting stuff in film theory to keep me in the program. I also think that it helps that I am a transfer student. I really do wonder, though, how many students who belong to minorities have thought about switching majors or even have actually done so because of the department’s approach to film studies. In an atmosphere that doesn’t treat many of its students as if their concerns are important, it is all too easy to lose all motivation to continue the program.

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Now that I’ve explained why I think that the system within the film department is broken, you may be saying, “That’s really too bad, but how do we fix it?”

Well, if it were up to me, I personally would recommend multiple things.

1) Encourage greater critical thought when studying the media. I already touched upon this, but in my perspective, art does not exist in a cultural vacuum and it is important to understand how a work’s sensibilities arose from its cultural context. Whether a student wants to be a filmmaker or write about films, it’s important to understand how one’s personal viewpoint may feed his or her work: a filmmaker may unconsciously replicate cliches or negative social mores, whereas a scholar or critic’s perspective may be distorted by failing to question every aspect of the film.

2) Discuss minority filmmakers who have been influential throughout the history of cinema.
No, this is not tokenism because these people have been grossly underrepresented. There are actually a large number of directors who belong to minorities and have historically been extremely important in the development of cinema. To name a few people whose influence is immense and still felt today: Alice Guy-Blache, Oscar Micheaux, Maya Deren, Yoko Ono, Spike Lee. There are more, of course.

3) Include trigger warnings for certain films and offer alternate assignments. My personal perspective is that it’s okay to screen a film that’s very violent or otherwise triggering. Violence, repression, et al, is part of life, so of course it will show up in art. However, problems arise if the film is compulsory and is discussed without respect and sensitivity in class… like the time that a professor screened Boys Don’t Cry without trigger warnings despite the fact that it contains graphic violence and intense transphobia, then used the wrong pronouns to discuss Brandon.
Here’s an example of an approach that worked. I once took a course that heavily featured the Austrian director Michael Haneke. One of his films, The Piano Teacher, was suggested as a supplement but was not compulsory. I did end up watching it and analyzed it in an essay, but I definitely appreciated the fact that it wasn’t mandatory to view because it is one of his more disturbing films. (This is saying a lot, considering that Haneke’s films are notorious for their relentless, brutal criticism of bourgeois society.)

4) Set the tone when discussing a film and maintain it throughout the discussion. For instance, the aforementioned example in which a professor screened Boys Don’t Cry? She initially used male pronouns to talk about Brandon, a transsexual man, but when other students in the class began to use female pronouns, she switched to female pronouns instead of pressing the issue. If I had been leading the course, I would have used the proper pronouns to refer to Brandon throughout the entire discussion and corrected students if they used the wrong pronouns.

5) Encourage every single student to talk. Easier said than done, I know, but please at least make an effort. I’ve been in many “discussion” classes where it seems like the professor has given up on encouraging a balanced discussion. For example, I’ve had a few professors who seem to see mens’ hands more easily than womens’ hands, even if a woman raised her hand for a longer period of time than a man’s.

Of course, I’m not a teacher or curriculum designer. True, I have facilitated discussions about diversity in the past, but for the most part, I’m just speaking from my experience as a student who happens to belong to a few different minorities.

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Accessibility: A Broader Definition

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Posted by maxporter on July 9, 2010 – 6:16 PM
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Now you may be wondering: Why do you talk so much about subtitling films in movie theaters?
Well, part of it is because film is one of my areas of interest. I really do think that art, including film, is an important part of life. I strongly believe that everybody should have access to art.

I have found that one of the reasons that movie theaters justify barring deaf people from movie theaters is because they simply don’t think that we are important enough to participate in this aspect of public life. I have heard excuses ranging from “We can’t afford to caption every movie” to “Deaf people are too noisy, and they will distract the other patrons.” (Yes, I truly did hear that latter one – at the age of twelve, when I was trying to learn if there were subtitles for a retrospective screening of E.T., no less.)

Today, at many theaters, the attitude seems to be: “We just don’t care enough about those deaf people to bother with them.” Sometimes it is: “Deaf people, who aren’t really people, will ruin the experience of the people who really matter, i.e., hearing people.” The end result is the same, though: unaccessibility.

So I think that allowing everybody access to this art form would really be one of many possible gestures to show that everybody is valued equally in society. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that contemporary society values everybody equally, but I think that this should change.

However, I do not think that deaf activism will ever get anywhere if we do not fight for the right of all deaf individuals to gain access to art, not just the relatively privileged white middle- to upper- class deaf people who can afford to go to movies once they are subtitled. To ignore some oppressions in favor of talking about others is a very reductionist mentality that is actively harmful and cannot be justified in the name of “simplifying” the discussion. For example: to say that a the concerns of a middle-class deaf person is somehow more important than those of a working-class deaf person is accomplishing nothing in the fight against oppression. It’s simply oppressing somebody else.

With this in mind, how do we expand the discussion about allowing deaf people access to movie theatres?

The first step would be to recognize that there are often intersecting oppressions. Many deaf people also belong to another minority group with regards to class, race, sexual orientation, and so forth.

Class is a huge consideration, because art has traditionally been conceived as being part of the domain of the elite. Many people simply cannot afford to take the time or money to go to an expensive movie theater or to rent DVDs; furthermore, many people do not own the technology required to watch a movie at home.

An additional barrier to accessibility that I encountered while in high school in Utah revolved around sexual orientation. When Brokeback Mountain came out, Larry H. Miller, a prominent businessman in Salt Lake City who owned the Utah Jazz basketball team, several car dealerships, movie theaters, and so forth, refused to screen Brokeback Mountain at his movie theatre chain upon learning that the film was a romantic story about two men.

These are just some examples of how a deaf person who is a member of another minority may experience barriers, regardless of if a film is subtitled or not. There are many more stories out there. They are all unjustly discriminatory.

In order to ensure access to movie theaters for every single deaf person, subtitles are a great first step. I am angry that a large portion of filmed and televised material in the US remains un-subtitled twenty years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. I strongly believe that there is no reason for this barrier to remain, and that it should be eliminated.
But subtitles are not enough: other barriers must also be eliminated. There is no reason for any other barrier to equality to exist. And, after all, subtitles will not do us any good if deaf people are not able to watch a movie because of censorship or inability to access the film for some other reason.

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Video Games as Art: Part Two

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Posted by maxporter on July 8, 2010 – 12:48 AM
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Recently, Roger Ebert wrote a follow-up post, “Okay, kids, play on my lawn” to his prior blog post that argued that video games are not art. If I may say so, his entry is absurd: “Which do you value more: Huckleberry Finn or a great video game?” Umm… What the hell kind of question is that? I continue to be disappointed in Ebert’s lack of imagination.

One thing that I noticed, though, is that Ebert speaks of games as a time drain; he doesn’t want to spend twenty hours playing a video game. Well, most of the experimental games that pushed me to rethink the meaning of video games as “art” were actually very, very, short video games. I don’t think any of them took me longer than ten minutes to play.

So, without further ado, here is a list of some short games that caused me to re-evaluate the meaning of games. I have included links to download or, if applicable, to play the games online. There are definitely many more games that deeply impacted me, but this is just a starting point for my readers.

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9:05 by Adam Cadre: This game is interactive fiction.
The basic plot is: You wake up in a bed, and the phone rings. When you pick up the phone, a man demands to know where you are: you are late for work! You must leave as soon as possible! There is a counter on the upper righthand corner of the game, constantly reminding you that you are late. The parser is slightly dumb, but not frustratingly so. (Note: in interactive fiction, the parser is the “narrator” that interprets your commands.)
But then there is a twist.
It encourages the player to replay the game and take the less-obvious paths through the story, then sit back and admire how Cadre skillfully manipulates the player into taking certain actions during the first run-through. (I even think he made the parser slightly stubborn on purpose.)
After a bit of googling, I found that this game is available online thanks to some developers who are creating an online Z Machine interpreter using javascript. Give 9:05 a spin; it’s finely suited for beginners and experts alike.

Passage by Jason Rohrer: This game is a metaphor for life, and it’s intended to be a memento mori game. It’s difficult to explain it without ruining the experience, so just download it. The basic idea is that, as you move, you age. You can walk down to find treasures, or you can spend your life with your mate.
I’d encourage you to play the game for yourself and see if you can mine any meaning from it. Then read the supplementary material that Jason Rohrer has provided on his website.
Note: There is a lot of debate as to whether this could be defined as a “game.” I include this because I do think it’s a game: the player can alter the outcome of the storyline.

Brain Damage by Stephen Lavelle: I hesitate to post this game because, honestly, it is so freaking disturbing. If anybody doubts the ability of a game to affect one emotionally, this game certainly will prove him or her wrong – for days or weeks or months afterwards.
This game seems to be based upon Jeffery Dahmer, the famous serial killer. I’m going to hide the review under a cut because… well.
Trigger warning: contains descriptions of violence and murder. (Also contains spoilers)

Click to read more. Includes spoilers.

Well, I hope that this was a good starting point for all of you. Upon writing this entry, I realized that I haven’t been keeping up with the indie game scene nearly enough. If you will excuse me, I am going to play bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk by Stephen Lavelle and Terry Cavanagh now.

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Notes:

-I would recommend bookmarking Play This Thing! if you are interested in more indie/experimental games.

-Many pieces of interactive fiction, including 9:05, use a piece of software known as a Z Machine interpreter. This website has a list of Z Machine interpreters for every imaginable OS out there. If you are interested in interactive fiction, I’d recommend downloading a Z machine interpreter – interactive fiction provides hours and hours of free entertainment. If you enjoyed 9:05, I would recommend playing Photopia next – it is Adam Cadre’s best-known work, and it’s incredibly touching. It also is really interesting narratively because it’s a non-linear narrative.
I should stop here, or I will ramble about interactive fiction forever. There is a database of interactive fiction, and many games are available for download there.

-My previous post, Video Games as Art: Part One can be found here.

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