Shaun of the Dead

Well, here is a list of things that caught my attention:

Shaun keeps getting red on him, he has to be told (Mom, work, Liz, Pete)

People look like zombies before they become zombies

The Winchester is the place of refuge

The reporter keeps repeating ‘remove the head or destroy the brain’

Can’t believe anything you see on TV (Ed)

Shaun keeps defending the Winchester- the idea of it

Acting like Zombies to survive the path to the bar, to survive

Shot his mom in the face

Zombies at the bar- reminds me of some of the local under age bars

The hole in the floor

Army comes and saves the day by wiping everyone out

Z-day

Game shows

Since 1982 he hadn’t had sugar in his tea, but post zombie infestation life is sweeter

Being guilty of blood or wearing the stain of blood might be something to talk about. Shaun works at an electronics store. He sells cable. He is trying to get Diane free cable. Media makes people zombie like. When you watch tv you kind of feel like a zombie. Everything is Shaun’s fault. He is a contributor to everything that is mundane. He is unaware that he exacerbates society as a whole. How much of a choice does he have? He has to make a living. It doesn’t seem to bother him much that he’s at a job where he has very little power of his employees. So anyway- the red spot. You’ve got red on you. The solution is to wipe it off. You’ve done something bad. Wash your clothes and forget about it. Hopefully it will come out and no one will know the difference. If it stains get rid of it. This somewhat seems like the Apex band-aid, the ability to replace a shirt or get rid of a stain seems similar to covering up a hurt. One takes care of a hurt, the other takes care of a crime (looking for a better word here).

The Winchester reminds me of Winthrop (town), or maybe Freedom. Liz wants Shaun to progress. To progress means to deviate from the everyday business that bores her life. She wants to travel. They are supposed to go to some seafood place, but that doesn’t work out. The Winchester represents his history and his bond with Ed that is continually bringing his down. Goode is Shaun and Field is Ed. Pete could be Lucky. Ok falling off of this one here.

The hole in the floor reminds me of that movie about the vagina being the hole in the floor. In the bar they fled for safety to the hole in the floor behind the bar. Fleeing to the cave they are able to evade the zombies long enough for ultimate masculinity to show up and reset society (most of society). What was left has been fed back into the media and consumer culture (game shows).

Siesta por un momentito

The end of Apex

I am looking over my notes on the Hall presentation that Christine and Ashley gave us.  Near the end there was some discussion about the politics of identity- something about adapting vs progressing.  Hall says that identity changes and shifts as political change occurs reacting to adaptation.  I tried to copy that down verbatim, and I want to try to break it down to apply it to the novel.  The political change that occurred during the time of the settlement of the town was the breakdown of the alliance between Goode and Field.  This political change created a new identity for the town; Winthrop.  The deal made between Winthrop and the settlers to put the town on the map via his barbed wire industry came with the consequence of having to wear a brand.  The settlers felt the need to progress, but what they thought was progression was actually a mask of being made to adapt in order to survive.  Something like that I think.

 

Hall also makes note that identity is never complete.   The new name for the town ‘Struggle’ will not hold.  The town’s identity will shift.  Struggle doesn’t represent everyone in the town.  Rather, as Hall points out, exists a fragmentation of social identity under the names Winthrop, New Prospera, Struggle and Apex.  Naming is a form of self reflection and if we were to apply a modern lens to it we would see the elitist paintbrush.  

 

How is history influenced by the other?  The name Winthrop wouldn’t have existed without the other, nor Struggle, nor New Prospera.  The town wouldn’t have been nameless for a period of time without the other.  Our main character’s history of how he now chooses to create names wouldn’t have changed without himself existing as the other.  I think I may be just scraping the surface of this argument.   

 

To bring some kind of closure to this novel I think that I have to talk about what it may suggest rather than what it means.  The postmodern elements I see in the novel- fragmentation of identity and the construction of ‘history’.  I see historiographic metafiction in the creation of the happy history of Winthrop vs the author’s original unedited cut.  I see the recycling of symbols – the library once a symbol of knowledge- a sanctuary of knowledge- a place to feed on knowledge has become the Outfit Outlet.  Going to Outfit Outlet you know that you can get any outfit you need as opposed to going to the library you know you can get any piece of knowledge you need (this one’s a stretch).  I see capitalism and death- the death of a toe, or a race, or a history.  That might be it for now.  Yep. 

Apex 1

In my American Studies class we have been reading Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree. It has been controlling my current thought processes much the way that theory does. Basically the novel is about globalization, the Lexus representing those who choose upward mobility and the olive tree cultural ties. So, when I read the first part of Whitehead’s Apex there resonated the ideas of Friedman (from now on I will refer to Colson Whitehead as Colson because it’s easier on imagery). Friedman refers globalization to vanilla globalization. In Winthrop the town has seen a vanilla makeover since the arrival of the barbed wire factory. Weaker groups are left behind or are driven out for the economy to grow in such a rapid manner. Muttonchops is a resistor to globalization. He is the olive tree of his community. The Lexus has hired teenagers as low wage help. Muttonchops will not survive in New Prospera if he does not open up. He will be run over by the Formula One car that is globalization.

I find it interesting that the main character doesn’t have a name and that he’s in the nomenclature business. I can’t believe I missed it. It is completely obvious, and I’ll blame it on lack of sleep. As simple as his job may seem it does carry with it serious weight. The opening scene makes us question the strength of the attachment between a name and a human being. Where Colson says “He came up with the names and like any good parent he knocked them around to teach them life lessons” it feels as though he is substituting in children or people in general- the burden of making a name durable is a godly duty. There is a lot of confusion yet to sort and I am burnt out. Til tomorrow.

Research thus far

Project Masculinity from a white guy’s perspective:

Alright so here’s what I’m using so far…

Susan Faludi’s Stiffed

Michael Kimmel’s Manhood in America

Willard Gaylin’ The Male Ego

Matthew Jacobson’s Whiteness of a Different Color

Higginbotham and Andersen’s Race and Ethnicity in Society

Fred Pfeil’s White Guys

There seems to be an abundance of literature pertaining to my topic, so my excuse for creating a mediocre piece can’t come from lack of resource material. I haven’t quite decided what theorist(s) to use- most likely Fanon and Foucault and/or possibly Butler.

I just started reading the Faludi which led me to another route of interest. The end of the frontiersman signified by the end of the great world wars leaves only space as the final frontier. The average man cannot boldly go where no man has gone before- another unfulfilled destiny.

I like Pfeil’s White Guys. He does a lot of name dropping and seems a bit like Powers to me because you have to have a lot of preconceived knowledge to understand bits. It will be one of my main sources because it splices media to show the creation of the struggling male. Some of it reminds me of Horko and Adorno’s piece from 330; putting our own lives on the screen, watching some fulfillment of destiny and leaving the theatre disappointed.

In American Beauty Kevin Spacey’s character is being watched in several ways. His wife monitors their relationship to fulfill her need to project an image of success. His daughter watches him interact with her attractive friend and observes him not filling the correct fatherly role. The Nazi neighbor suspects him of being a homosexual. He observes his interactions with gay neighbors and his son. Ricky, the neighbor’s son, films everything. The list goes on and on. It is a great text to have to work with.

If anyone has any other insights into this text please point me towards them. Sometimes it’s difficult to see outside the box to observe it. That sounds quite postmodern to me; to be able to remove oneself from a cultural force in order to critique it; removing myself from masculinity to comment on masculinity….?

I have failed thus far to incorporate any whiteness into my study. This may or may not happen- there aren’t any other racial groups represented in the film. I know that that is an in, but it leads to a dead end (so far). To be continued….

End of Galatea and Lit

I left class yesterday a bit confused. We either believe that books mean something or they are tools to which we can see how we’ve tried to mean things? They don’t mean anything and for that matter we must look at them objectively. They exist for us to dissect them.

Galatea- if the novel were to mean something, an extended metaphor or however you want to classify what is taken from it- would it be that if we don’t become postmodernists then we become machines. We become technology. Literature or media in general can be seen as a derivative of technology. If there is no line kept between what and how we create then we become what we create. So, if we then decide to take the objective route we become scientists. We dissect what we consume to better understand its function. Does that take away from the human experience? Does that make us more like connectionists rather than humanists? Through being objective we decrease our ability to sense emotion.

What I have to believe is that that emotion is preprogrammed. The true function of being objective is not to take away our sense of humanity, but to give it back to us… Realizing that love or masculinity or coexistence cannot be simply written down allows us only to gesture towards its existence.

So if I believe that books mean something I think that that would mean I am more of a modernist. I think that I am more inclined to accept the latter argument- mostly because I don’t want to get burnt like he did by A. And I think I am leaning towards that type of objective acceptance. I have a problem with the Bible. I don’t think that there can be a blend in how one interprets literature in this argument. This is so heavy.

The fact that Helen can be so believable that one refutes all known logic to give her meaning is scary. To Powers Helen is almost like a religion; the Bible and Christianity. He is unwilling to accept that he knows she is made up of wires and information he has personally fed her. He has given life to something he knows to be something very unreal. Helen’s reality is impossible, but he has fooled himself. She has become an answer. The Bible is an answer for many people. Whether or not you believe if the Bible was handed down by God to man is another question. How good is man at inscribing the word of God?