It is a strange feeling a movie being an organism that becomes part of you when you watch it and it remains with you afterwards. You are familiar with it but there is an element of unexplainable and the issue is of something that is not emptied. It is not just series of breathtaking images put on screen to take the viewer to another place. There are movies to entertain and bring instant pleasure, this is something else which is extremely difficult to point out without sounding an ecstatic fool stating the obvious, the brilliance and beauty there is, divine and timeless, but still rooted in time and place, to us. It is not extraordinary to hear male voice of critics, those who watch and love movies and so often disregard the feminine side there is clear and strong but somehow invisible for the male. To me it is loud as is the dogs barking in the fog and the sound of heels in a church where woman of the film is slowly walking like moving in a mystery and learning to know it. It also is not unusual to hear male directors say they did not realise how powerful the female protagonist really is for the female viewers. What is this woman doing she who walks like a queen into something ancient like a tourist, in to the old refusing to kneel down and pray and refusing to want the same which she should be wanting naturally. A surprise for her is how she is not able to perform the same rituals as those to whom it comes naturally, how out of touch she is. In the face of what kind of movies get made nowadays it is ironical to state harsh critique for Nostalghia. In many cases of movie critique subjectivity is speaking. Art is sensitive to the word of experts who give their final say and I have found the official standings on films often biased and unfair. Being judgmental towards something so delicate and precious is almost blasphemy as it is easy not to look. Is there same disinterest as there is disinterest and underestimation towards the feminine altogether I wonder. The public believes the experts. Experts know best. They have authority. To have faith in experts is one kind of religion we should learn to be more critical about. Pay attention the woman is driving and stops because she chooses to have a walk.
My attempt is to be as analytical as possible. What it is I am watching. As much as there is room for objective analysis in art and for Tarkovsky, there is emotion and devotion to his art and much of art analysis and critique have personal liking and opinions weighing in on the whole of what is being said about a piece of art and the artist. Nostalghia (1983) and Sacrifice (1986) are often said of being less good and artistically not as high in artistic quality, innovation and expression as Stalker (1979), Mirror (1975) and Andrej Rublev (1966) which all bring in front intensity of faith and religion in Russian culture and thinking, which was at Tarkovsky’s time an atheist country. Russia being an intensely macho country where worshipping the Mother of God hasn’t faded. The nurturing mother has important task and nurture especially which is part of the sacred. Highlighting the female for Tarkovsky functions as Ellen Ripley in the Alien movies. Her power is under serious doubt and seen as fragile, but she has it anyway and she uses her power to save the world.
Nostalghia struck me as it highlights the feminine, how faith is part of our bodies and what we see, how we look, the divine is in the feminine and there is the unbreakable link to nature, women’s desire to be mothers and have faith to the unknown, or not. To my mind the film is an exemplary exploration to how much one is master of one’s destiny and how the modern brings in and strengthens the conflict between nature and man, conflict between the sexes is a constant battle. For women to have a mind of their own is the modern and natural, they do their thing, the question is what is the thing of women, with women, what is theirs to have, for them. With the modern something happens to the collective, ideals and to the common good towards which to be nostalgic about is fair. Something happens to the individual in this process, the estrangement, loss and loneliness, an inner and outer conflict, a disaster. Question is what do we become? To be an organic part of nature bearing children, being a child and finding harmony there in simple things may be too simple there where there now is very little space for the harmonious and simple things. Choosing to be a traditional mother, a figure part of the sacred or a modern independent woman who has a say over her body and what she does, whether she believes or not, is liberty woman is not willing to back away from.
How much my admiration does justice to his art or does it cloud my judgment is probably a footnote. What is there on film that one senses, sees, feels, smells, hears, thinks, imagines via Andrey Tarkovsky’s movies as they are so packed but delicate, light, fragile and alive. Maybe that is it the moving part, essential aspect in his films how alive they are, how much emotion there is without frivolous nonsense as people in his films are sick of nonsense, sick of grandiose and sentimentality. There is sincere interest in human existence and how we experience, why feel the way we do and be trapped by feelings, how these personal experiences can be shown and be understood by others as the same. That is the true strength there, will to understand and look what is so felt, what is subjective and universal, the universal emotional to be understood which today is one difficulty we face as we are like images not revealing multiple dimensions on screen. How and why we can try to understand the other and be compassionate. Interesting is what makes a movie scene and an image sincere is the flaw, mess, ruin of ours. So much so that we believe in it and identify with it, absorb the view as if it was something to breath.
Fragility in a scene where a man holding a short white candle protecting its flame begins a task that seems irrelevant and pointless but is far-reaching. He has stepped inside an empty pool and begins to walk with a candle from one side to the other. Bottom of the pool is rocky, he takes careful steps. He touches the edge of the pool with his hand like it was a game as he begins and walks to the other edge trying to keep the flame burning. He fails a couple of times as the candle goes out, his frustration shows, he is seemingly tired and exhausted but he must hold on because he is determined and must keep the candle burning as he walks to the other side of the pool. He finally manages at his task gently holding the candle as it was his child, protecting it with his hand and coat as if he grew old while completing his task and died after having placed the candle on the edge of the pool and left it burning. It is an emotional scene, exhaustively beautiful, slow, painful for the viewer, grounded, vividly depicting a state of mind, an any man’s effort which is so packed and painful viewer feels the torture of failing and trying again and relief of succeeding finally as if it was a physical sports exercise. Close-up to the hands and the candle, heavy breathing.
I experienced Nostalghia as something which very few have been able to achieve on film for me. A personal astounding voyage into details which speak via femininity and a child, there is no one like Tarkovsky and his vision and it makes me wonder why so. Is it the extreme conditions of banning and spying on citizens, a doctrine of political that has no place for mystery and belief to the invisible, something hovering in the air is an escape from Social Realism and banning God. Tarkovsky’s movies speak the spiritual, spirit rains down and over endlessly or burns violently which happening is viewed on film by actors and me outside, what is there to see is a miracle of nature, to get soaked in rain is a spiritual happening like being baptised again and again and denying the divine is the ultimate crime against people and the spirit. The power of his films and this particular film is something of rare kind but still very everyday and everywhere, suffering and beauty of suffering, what becomes of suffering, what is to suffer, how to overcome this conflict and what does it make of us. Nostalgia is what all feel when looking back, the subjective view and what we remember is only for us. To share that personal view can be impossible, the subjective experience in time. Viewing breathtaking images of landscapes and historical buildings longing for release from the modern machine and finding momentary joy has such heaviness and weight it is unbearable as is the beauty in Tarkovsky’s movies. All is beautiful because all comes from God, all is light as all is heavy. How can we show our respect towards what we have and what is?
You can watch the film without knowing what the story is. That it was made over 20 years ago is almost irrelevant, but telling. There is something to the point that the woman is an interpreter and the male protagonist is a writer doing research. We are drowning and burning in the very same way as tragically, suddenly and sadly, watching people go by, who are they the couple asks. To be in search of and inquisitive has a purpose. Things happening around must have a reason. Times are in contrast to the slowness and pace, massiveness and weight of nature feels like a landslide taking us by our feet and pulling us down with the freezing stream. We are still protesting as we were then and remain completely dissatisfied with the ways we are managed, screwed and administrated, expected to accomplish, make, go by the book and be going somewhere as the taxi is waiting, luggage is packed and we are moving ahead somewhere forward not back in time but into the future. Not staying put, refusing to rot but still rotting as the houses and ruins in the film do. Rain comes through the roof, puddles become ponds on the floor and man wades and paddles in clear water inside ruins where there are landscapes, rivers and hills, bottles collecting the rainwater and a dog looking at the camera. Sounds and images are of beauty that is constantly being made by nature, humans wetting their shoes and clothes as they do not have any choice but go in and get wet. In Nostalgia there is fog and rain throughout all of the movie, sudden blink of sunlight lasts only a few seconds and it rains again. People don’t complain about the weather but they are in pain and in inescapable situation brought by their bodies, nature and other people, unbearable. Some go crazy which seems to be the sanest and most obvious thing to do. Don’t go with the flow, follow your own nature, if it is yours, if you understand what it is, if you know how to look and what really is beautiful, what is beauty of yours.
To be surrounded by water, be in water, face the inescapable flooding, wetness of clothes and hair. Woman sitting on a bed drying out her hair with blow dryer at a comfortable hotel among other guests who wander around bumping into each other at the corridor just as you, but not as poor as you, not as lost as you, not as wet as you, not as tired, not as out of their minds. There is no union, no true meeting, no coming together, people go their separate ways asking what is happening, not knowing is one cause of suffering. To dry out and never get dry is what tires people out to the limit of setting oneself on fire standing on a statue. Warmth comes from a bottle. Hotel guests are free to take refreshing and rejuvenating baths while a crazy homeless man goes around the pool in wet shoes. He is a poet, listen to what the poet says. Water is safety and saviour. It is about birth, divinity, life on earth, a cold shiver, death, drowning, drinking, listen to it. This is not a desert as it is not dry, maybe dry of joy. Life lies in the water with divinity which becomes at birth in opening the dress of the sacred mother from which birds fly out after a prayer is spoken to become a mother, please bless me. Candles are still the warmest of all to be protected at the altar melting bringing in light lighting up the place and prayers of women who wish to become mothers and those who are graciously blessed are with those who await. We are in water also at birth, our reflection is in the water, our becoming happens because of water.
To embody beauty and the divine, the sacred and the spiritual is what Tarkovsky’s movie Nostalghia does. It is the main theme for him which enlarges itself as his movies are few and monumental pieces of art finding out spirituality and the killing of it. Significance to a movie fan is as massive as historical paintings and buildings have, what are we without knowledge of history. Hair on a woman is the same as vegetation moving along with the stream of water in which there is a fallen statue of an angel. It makes one think every breath taken and held, hold breath and breath out, think about breathing, how the water feels on one’s skin and how that statue does not feel a thing, it does not know where it is. Russia is always there even though the movie happens in Italy. Italy seems the same as Russia, people are the same, beauty, meaning and purpose of religion, ruins, history, sentiments, sentimentality, there is something so similar that it is all one. Fight is the same, poverty is the same, suffering and relationships, problems do not differ. What is the desert here and why? The crazy man in the movie shuts off himself with his family in their home for seven years in isolation. They were rescued as if they had wrecked a boat at sea and been saved in the last minute, a mega spectacle of saving a family. With such small size Tarkovsky paints a profound image where Beethoven is only too pompous and royal, imperial and full of himself, played when something important happens and must be paraded. Beethoven and the equestrian statue on which to climb and set oneself on fire alone with a canister of gasoline while other protesters watch, the burning man falls to the ground. He was the crazy man and now he is dead. Statue remains.
“Andrei meets and befriends a strange man named Domenico (Erland Josephson), who is famous in the village for trying to cross through the waters of a mineral pool with a lit candle. He claims that when finally achieving it, he will save the world. They both share a feeling of alienation from their surroundings. Andrei later learns that Domenico used to live in a lunatic asylum until the post-fascistic state closed them and now lives in the street. He also learns that Domenico had a family and was obsessed in keeping them inside his house in order to save them from the end of the world, until they were freed by the local police after seven years. Before leaving, Domenico gives Andrei his candle and asks him if he will cross the waters for him with the flame.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalghia
On hyvä, että tällainen seksipeto pidetään kollektiivisesti kurissa ja hänen luonnollinen palonsa aktiin nähdään ei-hyväksyttävänä ja halveksittavana, koska hän on naissukupuolinen. Miehen halukkuus ja seksismi on luonnollista ja siksi sille on annettava purkautumisväylä, ihan normisti julkinen jokapaikka. Kun nainen tai tyttö on jotenkin jonkun mielestä liiallisesti seksikäs, hänet on nöyryytettävä ja alistettava aivan kuin hän olisi jokaisen haluttavissa, annettava ymmärtää ettei tämä seksuaalisuus ja sukupuoli ole hänen voimansa, hänen kokonaisvaltaisesti käytössään, vaan hän on se jota käytetään. Häntä arvostellaan niin että hän pelkää seurauksia, koska naisen seksikkyys, ulkonäkö ja seksuaalisuus on halveksittavaa toisin kuin miehen. Tätä tehtävää joka molemmilla sukupuolilla on kuin siveyspoliisin tehtävä, voi kutsua henkiseksi turpaanvedoksi, koska olemme jo niin sivistyneitä, ettei fyysinen kurinpito ole sallittua. Siinä naisen tai tytön kävelytyyli, ulkonäkö, pukeutuminen, puhuminen, liikkuminen arvioidaan ja näistä huomautellaan ja ihan kuka vaan voi tehdä sen. Nainen seksipetona on lehtien fantasiakuvastoa, jonka avulla runkataan ja myydään tavaroita, mutta nainen ei voi olla oikeassa elämässä sellainen muuten kuin piilossa ja maksullinen, tosin maksullisuuteen viitataan huuteluissa netissä esimerkiksi ja terassilta, ryhmäkeskusteluissa joissa ollaan kaveriporukalla tosiasialla ja panomiehiä.
Fyysisestä turpaanvedosta saa maineen että on paha ihminen eikä hillitse itseään, kun taas henkinen mukilointi on varsin sallittua ja yleistä, siihen ei kukaan puutu ja vahingot eivät näy päällepäin, joten-siitä-vaan on mentaliteetti, koska jos puuttuu asiaan joutuu ehkä itse asialistalle ja on helpompi olla puuttumatta, sillä mitäpä se sinun elämääsi vaikuttaa. On jokaisen oma asia puolustaa itseään, kummallista on että sitä joutuu tekemään koko ajan. Sehän on vaan yksi tyttö tai nainen, eikö niin, ja yhdellähän ei ole merkitystä varsinkin kun on huono omena ja pukeutuukin kuin lutka, vaikka itse napitin paitapuseron ylänapin aina kiinni, joka myös oli omituista ja huvittavaa. Olin itseasiassa niin kauhuissani että olin kykenemätön kanssakäymiseen vastakkaisen sukupuolen kanssa ennen kahtakymmentä ikävuotta tai oikeastaan naistenkin kanssa on ollut haasteellista. Eikö olekin huvittavaa. Minullakin on ollut naurussa pitelemistä. Sydämellisiä ja hauskoja tyyppejä, mukavaa että joukkoon mahtuu ja että ollaan mukavia, nussitaanko joo nussitaan, eletään vähän. Näytä paljasta pintaa, ole rohkea, ole hauska, jutellaan, teillä on niin kiinnostavat jutut. Joo mä tiedän, minussa on jotain vikaa..henkilökohtaisuus on jotenkin henkilökohtaista. Jos sun elämästä ja persoonasta puuttuu jotakin niin oletko aivan varma että tiedät, mikä on se todellinen poissaoleva asia ja että alistaminen on se jolla sen voi kompensoida?
Tytön huonous tulee jo syntymässä, vai tuleeko se jo kohdussa vai missä vitussa? Hän on puutteellinen vaikka hän kuinka todistaisi päinvastaista. Hän on puutteellinen eikä yllä samalle tasolle vastakkaisen sukupuolen kanssa. Ainoa johtolanka tässä on miehen ylivoiman säilyttäminen joka vahvuus ei perustu faktoihin. Aivan samoin kuin fasismissa faktoilla ei ole merkitystä vaan ne halutaan piilottaa ja väittää valheellisiksi. Faktoja ei voi tunnustaa, koska silloin tunnustaisi oman heikkoutensa ja jonkun toisen voiman. Se miten vahvuus mitataan on fyysinen voima ja joukkovoima. Tokihan heikko on vahva kun heitä on monta.
Vaikuttaa siltä että ajatellaan että nainen haluaa niin kovasti, niin siksi mies tarjoaa penistään netissä. Että se on naisen halu. Eikö logiikka ole sama kun kävelee kadulla ja saa kuulla seksististä kommenttia ja siksi kävelee kadulla, niin koska minulla ei ole kaapua päällä, haluan juuri tätä ja ansaitsen juuri tätä, tätä varten olen olemassa. Tämä on se juttu ja kuinka ottaa vastaan väkivalta ja nöyryytys, se mikä on seksismin merkitys, alistaminen ja muuttumattomuus. Koska sukupuoleni on heikko, olen lähempänä lutkaa ja eläintä, niin penis on se jonka haluan, koska en voi muuta, en osaa muuta, en ajattele muuta, en muuksi muutu, ei ole elämää ilman seksiä, nainen on seksiä varten, nuori tyttö on runkkausta varten? Tai siis että ansaitsen ennemminkin tulla kohdelluksi halpana, etten ajattelisi itsestäni liikoja, koska jos ajattelen osaavani ja olevani muuta kuin nussimista ja synnyttämistä varten olen ylimielinen haihattelija jonka elämän arvot ovat vääristyneet. Mutta enkö halua olla haluttu, on kysymys? Haluttavuus: sellainen että haluaa tulla halutuksi kehona ei saa aikaan minussa positiivisia asioita. Se on pääasiassa sitä että tulee pannuksi sen johdosta miltä näyttää eikä tällainen ole minun käsitykseni hyvästä ihmissuhteesta. Tämä on haastava aihe ihan selkeästi, koska asiaan ei ole minun elinaikanani tullut muutosta.
Kokemus on se että ulkonäkö määrittelee kaiken, onko pantava vai ei. Se millainen ihminen olen, mitä teen ja ajattelen ei kiinnosta, ainoastaan se miltä näytän ja se määrittää kaiken. Tokihan olen huono ihminen ja selän takana puhujat ovat hyviä ihmisiä, ihan selkeästi.
Mitä eliitti tarkoittaa? Se on valintakysymys, kuka mielestäsi on eliittiä, koska nykyään voimme valita. Se on yhteiskunnallisen arvojärjestyksen ja ominaisuuden ääneen lausuminen ja totena pitäminen, eliittiys on laadullinen termi. Se on hierarkkisen arvon tietämistä, oman arvon ja jonkun toisen arvon, on kuitenkin kyse arvo-oletuksesta johon liittyy absoluuttisuus johon uskotaan, jonka mukaan käyttäydytään, arvo joka on nähty, havaittu ja todistettu jollakin tavalla, joillekin, asiantuntijoiden kautta ja jota pidetään totena, arvo jota voidaan pitää yleisesti pätevänä ja ylevänä, tavoiteltavana ja hyvänä on oltava jotenkin tietoon liittyvä, annettujen ja saavutettujen ominaisuuksien summa jolle sana eliitti on yleinen tunnustus, arvonimi, kehu ja titteli tälle hyvälle ja parhaalle jota halutaan, ylläpidetään, kehitetään, jos se ei ole pysyvä tila, ja johon asioita verrataan. Eliitti on kuitenkin pääasiassa yhteiskunnallinen asema ja ei kerro laadullisesti välttämättä yhtään mitään, toteaa vain pallin koon, kyse on vahvuudesta ja miten vahvuus näyttäytyy, mitä vahvuudella tehdään. Eliitti voi myös degeneroitua ja silti pysyä eliittinä, kunnes tulee toinen eliitti joka kyseenalaistaa entisen eliitin ja sen arvovallan ja merkityksen tulevaisuudessa. Eliittiyyteen liittyy ansa ja valinta, kokemus valinnasta, vallasta, vapauksista, liikkuvuudesta ja ajatus ehdottomuudesta, oikeassa olemisesta, jonkunlaisesta kiistattomuudesta.
Eliitillä on auktoriteettiasema, sananvalta ja kyky käyttää asemaansa etenkin omaksi hyväksi. Minulle ei ole eliittiä, joten sana tarkoittaa minulle mielistelytilannetta, jossa kenties eliitti kutsuu eliitiksi jotakin kehuakseen, arvostaa eliittiä joka on olemassa eron luomiseksi ja itseään varten, vallan jaon ja erityisyyden, tärkeyden osoittamiseksi. Sanaa käytetään kun halutaan arvottaa joku ryhmä hyväksi, poikkeavasti korkeatasoiseksi ja edistyneeksi, yhteiskuntaa ja toisia ihmisiä sisällöllään rikastuttaen tai näin ainakin toivon eli siinä on harvinaislaatuisuuden ja lahjakkuuden leima. Se on myös tapa alleviivata, alistaa, tehdä arvottomaksi tai arvokkaaksi joku ihminen ja ryhmä sen johdosta mitä he edustavat, ajattelevat ja tekevät. Riippuu mistä ihminen on lähtöisin mitä hän ajattelee eliitistä, kuka on eliittiä, mitä eliitillä tarkoitetaan ja mikä eliittileiman merkitys on. Elitismi on poissulkeva ja negatiivinen. Mitä elitismi sulkee pois on kysymisen arvoinen asia ja miten eliitti kokee itseään koskevan kritiikin, ottaako se sen henkilökohtaisesti vai rakentavasti. Tämä myös määrittelee eliittiä, mitä siitä voidaan sanoa ja mitä eliitti ajattelee itsestään. Elitismiä puolustavat perustavat kantansa elitismin säilövään ja kasvattavaan tapaan pitää arvossa ja tuoda esiin kauneus, älyllisyys, edistyksellisyys, tieto hyvästä ja huonosta, elitismiin liittyy ajatus moraalin, paremmuuden ja sivistyksen vaalimisesta.
Ihmisellä voi olla itsellään kokemus, että on eliittiä sukupuolensa, lahjakkuutensa, ihon värinsä, ulkonäkönsä, syntyperänsä, asuinpaikkansa, omaisuutensa, yhteiskunnallisen asemansa ja koulutuksensa vuoksi. Kyseessä on laadullinen arviointi joka yleensä saa osakseen hyväksyntää kun ihminen itse uskoo täysin oman erinomaisuuteensa. Ajatuksemme hyvästä, siitä mikä on saavutus, menestys ja arvostettavaa pysyvät jokseenkin samoina varsin kauan aikaa, joita arvoja ei kyseenalaisteta tai niitä on vaikea kyseenalaistaa ilman negatiivista vastakaikua. Kyseessä on kohteliaisuus ja tapa, elitismi on omaisuus jota ei hyvällä jaeta tai anneta pois. On olemassa eliitti ja se muu osa kansasta. Eliitti on kuin seinä joka on vaikea murskata ja siksi se on lähes aina vanhoillinen. Mitä tämä eliitti tekee joka on niin hyvää ja johon tällä muulla osalla ei ole helposti mahdollisuuksia, saada aikaan sama tai jotakin parempaa on siis uskonasia, todisteet on voitava kriittisesti tarkastella. Kehittyä samaksi kuin se toinen joka on eliittiä on elitismiä eikä välttämättä kehitystä, omistaa samaa, olla samaa, puhua samalla tavalla on tulla hyväksytyksi, hakea hyväksyntää. Puhumme eliitistä kuin se olisi jotakin tavoittelemisen arvoista ja ehdotonta hyvää. Eliitti sanaan liittyy materiaalinen hyvinvointi ja ylemmyys, ylenkatse edelleen eli sana on arrogantti ja kenties nykyään jo merkityksetön korusana. Tarkoitus on erotella hyvä huonosta etuliitteellä eliitti-, jotta tiedämme mikä on se mihin osaamme pyrkiä ja tähdätä. Medianäkyvyys voi johtaa eliittiyteen, se on poseeraamista ja esiintymistä pahimmillaan, johtamista, asioiden purkamista ja uudelleen kokoamista parhaimmillaan. Kuinka hyvin eliitti kykenee näkemään itsensä ja pystyy itsereflektioon ja tätä kautta henkiseen kasvuun kertoo myös eliittiyden tasosta.
Eliitti sanaan liittyy älyllisyys, puhetapa, käytös, koulutus, tulotaso, pukeutuminen, tason tietäminen, kalleus, mikä on se taso jossa ollaan eliittiä ja pysytään siellä. Se on voittamista, suuruutta ja ymmärtämistä erinomaisuudesta ja sen laadusta. Eliittiys on vahva tietoisuus erinomaisuudesta verrattuna muihin, verrannollinen palkkaan, saavutettuihin etuihin ja verkostoihin. Liittyykö siihen osaaminen ja tuntemus todellisuudesta vai kuvitelma näistä? Puheen tasolla voidaan luoda kuvitelma osaamisesta ja tietämisestä. Jos eliittiys onkin harha ja kuvitelma omasta erinomaisuudesta, että oma asia, se mitä tarjoaa, on parempaa kuin moni muu ja puhuu niinkuin tämä paremmuus olisi totta eli puhuu mainospuhetta vailla totuuspohjaa, eliittiys saa jännittävän tyhjyyden löyhähdyksen.
Suuri kaupunki antaa hyvin luultavasti tällaisen kokemuksen, on olemassa itsestäänselvyys ja kiistämätön fakta. Kun sinne menee aistii mitä kaupunki ajattelee itsestään, miten kaupunki ja kaupunkilaiset ovat, mitä kaupungista puhutaan, miten kaupunkilaiset itse näkevät kaupunkinsa, mikä on kaupungin itsetunto ja henkinen pääoma. Siihen täytyy jotenkin varautua, koska kaupungeittain asenteet vaihtelevat suuresti. Eliittiys joka tulee koulutuksen ja taustan kautta on opittu ja haluttu asia. On haastava ja koominen tilanne kohdata tyhjyyden leyhähdys ja nähdä uskon vahvuus johonkin hauraaseen jota pidetään vahvana ja vankkumattomana. He jotka ovat omasta mielestään eliittiä, mahdollisesti seisovat suossa. Mikään ei horjuta tätä eliittiyden uskoa ja loukkaantuminen tapahtuu välittömästi. Horjuminen ja todellisuuden näkeminen tapahtuvat ainoastaan katastrofin kautta, että menettää sen, jonka kautta on ajatellut olevansa eliittiä, kermojen kermaa. Hämmentävää on kuinka ulkoinen asia saa aikaan eliittiyden, että on vaikka New Yorkista. Siinä on heti sellainen eliittiaura, mutta mikä sen tekee? Onko se amerikkalainen ekseptionalismi? Se että taide on eliitin, taide on eliitille tapa erottautua, on kokonaisuuden kannalta erittäin huono asia, enkä itse työssäni koe minkäänlaisia eliittituntemuksia, muutoin kun jos tapaan ihmisiä jotka saavat elantonsa taiteesta tai kuten yleensä tapaan ihmisiä joilla ei ole mitään todellista tietoa taiteesta vaan ajatellaan että taide on jotakin korkeaa, koska niin ajatellaan ja se on vaikeaa. Raha, eristäytyminen, asenteet ja perinne tekevät taiteesta elitistisen.
Elitismi liittyy rahaan ja rahan määrään, mutta ei hyvätuloinen popstara ole elitistinen, koska hän tekee kevyttä musiikkia. Elitismi liittyy siis sisällön tasoon ja valintaan, erikoisuuteen, harvinaislaatuisuuteen, arvokkuuteen, perintöön, moninaisuuteenkin voisi kuvitella. Jos on elitismi joka on jo kuihtumassa, se on menettämässä arvonsa, painonsa, merkittävyytensä ja sisältönsä senhetkisessä maailmassa, ja tätä saatetaan pitää tekohengityksen avulla ja konemaisesti hengissä, koska eliittiasialla on tehtävä ja niitä jotka uskovat asian merkityksellisyyteen ja painoon kokonaisuuden kannalta.
Ajattelu että eliitti on paras mahdollinen ihmisryhmä on kammottava, koska siitä puuttuu nöyryys. Nöyryys ei tarkoita nöyristelyä ja nuolentaa, vaan aitoa kiinnostusta erilaisuutta ja uusia mahdollisuuksia kohtaan. Kun eliitti on se johon itseään tulee verrata ja tuntea nahoissaaan elitismi, on se vastoin sitä mikä on hyvää. Eliittiä vastaan kyllä hyökätään etenkin kun koetaan halveksuntaa ja väkivaltaa eliitin puolelta, mutta onko sillä mitään merkitystä nykyään voi kysyä. Jostakin syystä moni on omasta mielestään parempi kuin tuo toinen ja haluaa sen mahdollisimman suoraan osoittaa, mikä on varsin suuri perusongelma ihmisten kesken. Elitismi on vallankäyttöä ja varsin brutaalia. Se on tavallaan helppo ja suoraviivainen tapa, mutta kompleksinen ja itseään syövä, koska ajatus itsestä ylempänä on tehty lähes mahdottomaksi muuttaa. Suomen kauneus on minulle ollut ettei kotitausta vaikuta suoraan siihen, miten ihminen elämässään pärjää. Ajatus, että eliitin joukosta tulevat eliittilapset on edelleen voimissaan, he ovat niitä jotka tietävät olevansa eliittiä verrattuna muihin. Tämä tieto ja luottamus omaan erinomaisuuteen on ensiarvoisen tärkeää menestyksen kannalta. Ajatus eliitistä on varsin normaali ja vanha ja sellainen halutaan pitää elossa koska tarvitsemme vertailu- ja juhlimisen kohteita. Onko eliittiyden kokemuksella ja varjolla kyykytettävä muita, on peruskysymys yhteiskunnallisesti ja mitä kyykyttäminen tarkoittaa ja miten siihen voi vastata, onko olemassa puolustuskeinoja on tasa-arvon kannalta oleellista. Se mihin ihminen syntyy, hänen sukupuolensa, ihon ja hiusten värinsä ja vaatteensa eivät kerro ihmisen lahjakkuuksista ja miten hän voi pärjätä, miten hänen elämässä tulisi pärjätä ja mitä tehdä. Itseluottamuksen syntyminen vaatii uskoa omiin mahdollisuuksiinsa ja luottamusta rakenteiden sallivuuteen ja vastaanottavaisuuteen. Se mitä eliittiys tarkoittaa on hyvä muistuttaa, että se ei ole pysyvä tila, josta ei voi pudota tai saavuttamaton torni jota on palvottava.
1.Heart of a superstar. A dream, an obsession, what is the impact, what is the thing wanted. Introduction to sex-filled culture that is not able to shake sexism off. 2.How can a woman be powerful: Her figure, waves of her. 3.Marketing her forcefully, emancipation to have it all. Personal problematic of womanhood, race, size, voice, body parts, attitudes towards feminine and intellect. Diversity there, what kind of voices do we hear and what is silenced?
1.Heart of a superstar. A dream, what is the impact. Introduction to sex-filled culture that is not able to shake sexism off.
A popular more than agreeable person called a star when she is in the spotlight is something to idolize, envy, look up to and imitate. To be looked at is a curious place. What are we looking at? What is in the person we see first? How our conceptions and biases work and get formed via celebrity culture which highlights talent which sometimes seems a bit thin. Is it a persona or an image what is wanted a person to be and what is the self we like to emphasize but to my understanding do not fully accept or comprehend? What is the mystery here or is the issue that there is no mystery? A place of high expectations and to die for. Womanhood is like a corridor where goals are set according to how much adoring and sex appeal one is able to achieve. This feminine mind is a tunnel where prize is the perfect life defined by images, so tunnel vision is not only a male characteristic. To want that image given on you, to be you as it is something professional and authentic-like, seems to be within reach when your body is shaped into ideal form with all means possible, making a woman a package who still pleases those who watch her, pleases herself because she is liked after what she has done to herself and that there are people watching her as nothing is wrong which is pleasing to her, everything is right. No mystery here, how do we prove the pointlessness of all this torture and culture of pleasing the eye which is sanitizing the female? Only thing mysterious is how addictive and thorough sold ‘perfection’ is as it is seen as an individual choice, which it of course is, creating persona that is interesting and truly amiable but dislikes herself. Sanitizing women is about getting rid off ugliness on women’s bodies which is hair, fat, colour, asymmetry to find harmonious body. The whole process is anything but harmonious, it is a battlefield which does not lead to harmony or symmetry it just looks that way. For human mind to find harmony in variety and the thought that flaws we see are part of harmony is difficult to accept. We want to demolish visible flaws which we think are ugly. The very idea of how aesthetics of the contemporary people gets made is disturbing or when do we begin to control ourselves and look for fitting in and why we think we should?
It is voluntarily to want the place of an object as it is lucrative to be one, to be a desirable product but human, vendible living machine, cash apparatus whose income is one cause and effect, money followed, listened to and listed. One after another constantly appearing to keep the entertainment industry happy, happiness being the ultimate goal which both happiness and unhappiness and how did it get that way is the interest of the media. For instance how unhappiness/life comes across successful people and how we like to know all about it. Does our curiosity reach further than voyeurism and poking, does this result self-reflection or just posing a mouth to feed as we are curious for a reason and this is entertainment. My interest lies in the desire, what brings us joy in the visual and what kind of visual are we creating which is the joyful or otherwise something we like so much? Also, it is interesting how we judge people according to their gender and what gets revealed of them who judge and of those who are judged, it is the thought that someone under evaluation and judging is weak, vulnerable yes, but weak very possibly not. It takes a lot of strength to want to be judged, or even unwillingly endure judging from day-to-day.
How men are manly and women are feminine in this picture, how they make theatre of their gender and media presence or desiring that spotlight. What makes a stupid cunt is only to follow instructions. A victorious businessman or woman who can be accomplishing and making a fortune, being a mastermind of his, her plan, has also been following instructions to culture and has exploited them to his or her benefit, this is what is admirable in celebrity culture for many. How does this exploiting happen? Celebrity still has something of his or her own left which is their power. The stereotypes are there to abuse as media is more conservative than it should be, change there is also quite deliberately slow. Do gender roles and stereotypes wear off as women have to behave like men to achieve the gold medal pedestal? Can we rise above of what we see gender is and think it through to be more flexible and imaginative? To want to see the same over and over again is something happening, change is there in a way and something we might eventually get rid of is the narrowing of human tightly and neatly. Or is this the very issue the simplifying of us which we like, a hero but still an everyday person, unproblematic with opportunities? Women who do not play according to the script and assumptions in real life or within celebrity culture are categorized crazy, unmarketable, the word mental is often in use, stupid, weird, difficult bitches who deserve their ill-treatment. But to see difference an opportunity is the it thing.
Of course, ill-treatment comes for all, it is seen a possibility to abuse someone who is stepping outside the box doing out of the norm thing, a weakness or illness to exclude. Being gay or being caught with a prostitute are delicious topics as they still pose something to hide, be ashamed of and be secretive about. What is prostitution in comparison to entertainment industry as it is one wonders. It is very much about sex and selling it.
To understand the scope and meaning of sex in our culture is to live as a woman. It knocks out the easily thought suggestions of rapid change. The thinking or not thinking, calculating and manipulating behind there is felt and what is not lived because of unwritten rules women must follow in fear of punishment. Change is not celebrated or variety, open-mindedness can be found less and less and art for example scandalizes sex although naked body is its number one topic and sexism is very much alive, denying it does not remove the problem. How important sex is to us and what it stands for reveals itself in how obsessed and flammable the topic is and how hypocritical and blinded our thinking can be. For example, YouTube has a ban policy against nudity and sexual content but obviously this does not apply to music videos. A force in our culture which we must face and feel is the denial of pleasure and on the other hand indulgence as much as is possible and afforded. How do we do the facing of our urges, acts, pleasure-seeking, right and wrong and what do our desires mean for us and make us do create a whole cultural backbone or book of codes to know. What is the moral guide and authority there, what is our own knowing of sex and sexuality, our attitudes towards this undeniable thing in us, what about it must be respected, restricted, understood and what do we fear about it. Fear is to be exposed and violated, humiliated and abandoned, left without, ignored, hurt. Into what do we grow knowingly and unknowingly as it seems there are patterns that repeat as one is born female one is born into assumptions which are extremely difficult to alter and fight against. Having tried answers found do make one go bonkers as assumptions are as stupid as they can get. To go with the flow is a safe bet, maybe, but is it the right one, definitely not. To go far gets interesting meanings for women, how far can women go and what are the goals for women, why are women any different from men in regard to capabilities and interests?
Woman or girl walks down the street, she is looked at in a certain way. Why can’t you be happy about how you are wanted, is the question asked. I bury my face in to my hands and I can’t believe this is happening. Woman and her role is vitally important in understanding humans, the violence she faces because of her gender, because of this violence and constant knowing of that she is a target woman should be happy. My definition of happiness is different. Everything on her is a message, she is a moving message. How these messages are read and what does a miniskirt mean makes living as a woman complicated. It can mean that man can put his hand in between your legs and think you must like it because he likes it. Having your hair open can mean you are in a good mood and enjoying your blessed freedom. Sex is violence and aggression, it is to take over and own, define to death. To be vulnerable is to get hurt and grow sick of all this. System justifies men to be the wanting part by which women are seen as servants. Sexism in Finnish culture has been hard to tackle because coherence within the male group is not against it. In a group, males cherish sexism of theirs, it makes them manly. It is their right, tradition, fun and nature. Female point of view is laughed at as it is weakness. Calling women and girls whores is normal. It comes effortlessly without shame for the male, shame is always on the female part. Woman is invalid and handicap who is not defended especially when alone. A woman invading spaces for men is a mistake of hers. This attitude is clearly taking place at workplaces where women go and do men’s jobs, they steal jobs from men. Naturalness is emphasized, natural power and physicality of men, the unnatural gay culture is openly hated. Feminine male is weak and not a true man. True man is nevertheless a myth and cover-up, fragility is too much to bear and be shown, but it is there, of course we are not machines, yet. To make it simple cover-up is a lie, a pretense to keep alive the myth. It represents the things that can’t be seen in daylight and admit to.
What do women contribute to changing this? It does not happen by taking sides of men as women can use sexism for their ends. To take on beauty ideals that please male gaze is part of this sexist culture, that is weakness when it is the only way to find confidence. Lack of support is telling misogyny is rampant and female body is factory goods. What women could be giving to each other than the hate? When culture is more into hating femininity finding your way gets lonely. How do we own femininity if it is for pleasing purposes? Banning openly sexual feminine might be working against women. How could female sex be celebrated in any other way than sexual and open? Hating and loathing the feminine women because they stick out and are unashamed. Damage is to celebrate and make more damage as damage is what is the threat here, to be damaged goods. For many being born female is the ultimate damage and disappointment as we have our individual preferences and rules for feminine. How is this hate possible today and continues to live? I have been wondering as male dominance is enforced and chances for women’s voices reduced which voices are to make a difference favourable to women and children.
When woman is not having sex, she is a nun or there is something wrong with her, she is repulsive, frigid, cold or pathetic. Sex defines her, how she rejects or welcomes and what there is to reject and welcome. Something negative is there and must be found. Woman who is not utilizing her asset her femininity in the normal discreet way is weird and can be openly shamed a whore. Woman still must want a man but not too much, you’ll be seen a nymphomaniac, again via illness. She is the weak one who wants to be penetrated and must like it and this is like a joke. This is what you want, isn’t it, is the question, when man sends a picture of his penis to a woman online. Obviously, many think they know what woman wants and that is the obvious flaw in their thinking. The total misunderstanding, underestimating and misjudging of the female sex is in reducing her quality only sexual. If she is not wanting this she is ignoring the best thing life has to offer her and denying male pleasure makes men angry. The fucking is very much that is male but it can be imposed on females as something women desperately want and can be left without and there, women are weak again hanging on to men for rescue. Her place is the place of being desired by man, wanted, look at, evaluated and rejected. Ignoring or opposing this mind fuck is nearly impossible, aggressiveness and sadism is thorough and justified. Her fuckableness being the currency she uses, she is evaluated by women and men equally and that evaluation she must also do herself on herself. She must know what is expected of her. Do the right thing but nothing is right.
To find perfection there must be something done wrong, as Žižek puts it: you might think to lose couple of Kilos you would be perfect, but what then what is the perfection. If woman does not look like every-woman, a role is invented for her by which she is ailed, it is almost impossible to accept her as she is. She must be moulded. Nevertheless, the wrong is in her with her it is not in the culture, how woman is treated and viewed, how she treats and views herself. She makes us look at her and it is her fault, she looks at her and what happens when she looks at herself? To think what is love and where sex fits in, the beginning or end, does love justify sex and why harassment is an operation which is also justified and questioning is seen hateful. Why make women feel threatened, just because they are women and not men? That is what is done to women, made them feel scared, timid and unmovable. Paradoxes and contradictions there get lost for many, as well as for me. Repetitious mind games that genders must play strike as really odd, cruel abuse of power and vulnerability.
2.How can a woman be powerful: Her figure, waves of her.
Faces are changing but something more important is not that much. Standards for beauty, what is success or good entertainment or what it is to be good, how far can we go in being spectators of public figures and how we perceive our position as spectators as it is justified as a right to have. A trend to keep up with, speed and a sparkling idea, embodiment of a kind of perfection which must be matched or if not it will be noticed and talked about, flaw is horror. Neuroticism is part of this system and it shows which rises questions. The same questions are asked over and over again which concern eating, dating, weight loss and marriage. Exceptional people whose blooming sexuality and eroticism are at the core of this event even though there might be art there these famous people do for work. It is their sexual preferences, sex appeal and lives which are seen as more important to headline. A tale of her that needs to be told is how she maintains that image of hers and what goes on behind. That is one kind of shuttle into vast space of a market where all the stars may shine for us and share their blessings like refreshments we cannot live without.
Legends to look up to, astronomical positions of stars making fashion, future of what moves us or does not. What the mass of people like to see and hear, will see, hear and like, remember if making memories and moments worthwhile is the business. Stars lead the way as entrepreneurs, talents found, visionaries, makers, wisdom there is popular culture banalities, truth tellers, maybe, storytellers, wise men and women who taste the sweetest fruits of mankind and capitalism and get our constant attention provided by media, kindly. Fame and fortune, full house and flush, flash of spotlight, hurry for a new trend to make a difference, business and action in the middle of it all, moving forward. In the middle of it all are Swarovski crystals on stockings, strings and on toned bodies moving as moments of pleasure happen for the audience, creating the moment of now, witnessing and being part of nowness, a kind of freedom experience where everything is possible, which reflects this day, fantasy and values of ours, rush of ours to get instant gratification, importance and joy. Fun of having a tiny grip of life’s nonsense, lightness and puffing breath of meaninglessness, heaviness in a way and away with it. Circus of big money performers pays off bringing moods and something to dream about. Celebrity culture is all about recycling clichés, idols, idiosyncrasies, stereotypes of gender roles and body language, dance moves, sticking to straight sex and relationships, secrets, weddings, surviving break-ups. Picturing a fantasy of a perfect life in music videos taking a stand, interviews and paparazzi shots and portraying happiness and what is success: it is to be seen and being paid for it. Things people wish to hear about and dream of on a very infantile instant gratification kind of way, a primal level of penetration of what?
Who is the most outrageous, who reveals most, in a way groundbreaking but not innovative, revealing the most, sexiest and fuckable babe who can sing, oh. That is something spectacular. Nothing too difficult, stay simple. Who is the most wanted piece of ass is easy to understand, it is the very basic urge. It is a modern world sickness and therapy in one package, without healing. At best art of entertainment offers contemporary society a possibility of studying mind itself if we were willing to take a better look at ourselves. Limits of what is tolerated, how women are treated, how they want to be treated and seen, pinpointing the achy spots there on display if you know how to look. Taboos and prohibitions there are concerning womanhood and sexuality and are inescapable, practically force-fed. Sexism, rape, violence, diminishing, teenage pregnancy, abortion, racism, inequality and in Beyoncé’s case modern-day feminism to tackle hard issues sure, and to make love for all. She loves her husband,(which is good to know, note since feminists are known of hating men). Strength of women is in their sexuality and how they are in control of their bodies and how body is presented is the message. Human rights of women, which are the same as everybody elses’, are important. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are almost there behind the corner. How critical big money entertainment allows its stars to be depends on how successful they are. How critical big money artists actually dare to be – not very or not at all. To be critical towards the business world and society does not prevent from being successful, or does it? Feminism surely is the strong hate word, banned ideology. Controversy and heavy critique can make tsunami-like response in sales. Who would want to change a world that moves with such easy recipes. Place for criticism is easily found. It is there by feminists, anti-capitalists, socialists and anarchists and is targeted against the full-blown pornographic imagery of entertainment, which also represents all of the business world, all of economy. One can see erotic self-expression as freedom or exploitation, admiration for notorious crime-filled underworld, prostitution, drugs, guns and fast cars and hot babes in furs in tiny swimsuits sucking their fingers. Power of female entertainers is much boosted with explicit contents, leather, pvc-outfits, clear references to prostitution and other dangerous living. Not much is left for imagination. In a way music videos work as short movies and they should be viewed as such. The art of video is art of advertising. All of the movie is an ad. Direct tutorials of how to live, narratives for youth of today. We are what we consume. Maybe power of this kind which reaches tens and hundreds of millions of people can be questioned rightfully as it should. Are we worried who is under influence and how do those affected take the impact, message and cultural load given? It seems so very light. Or should it be called cultural task of figuring out moral codes and what to do.
Luring pictures of a way of life with riches and enjoyments make an odd parallel universe and it leaves the millions of individuals wondering how to get there and should we. Main subject to argue being the objectification of women and that telling that they are in charge, misogyny and discrimination of women is a hard one to solve. Conversations can and must be taken over, over and over again what is done to women and femininity if anything, what happens to it? What is control in this picture? What can and must be expressed in terms of sex and gender? What remains unsaid, what is too touchy a topic? Why there still is such naivety about expressing sexuality as music video prove, which stereotypes reveal and why am I bothered by this as change there is more happening in body shape than anything else? Naivety that brings out immature brutality is the issue. Why those who put sex in front rely on naive lust and fantasy and call it liberation? Woman crawling on a beach like a horny animal means she is free (Beyoncé on her video Drunk in love)? What is she portraying is a famed woman on her way to her husband saying she has been drinking and thinking. Some kind of everyday imagery which I can like or dislike? If anything, the ordinary is there.
To create monetary value of this magnitude we have to define perfection, frame it, follow the idea of simplicity stereotyping characters. Perfecting money-making machinery is to take and make explicit content for all viewers. What do we want and how do we want it is what we need to know how to get it? Define sexy, sexy defining, everything as wealth and possession is what we want. That is what we need to be, in charge and owning. We have to define the body and get it, measures to get it for ourselves have a cost.
Stardom is all about the journey and how it is made and told, a trick of posing, trick of luring and possessing. Beating and eating one’s opponents and to become imitated and imitate is to admire. Is there place for truth in this competition and know what is good? How about virtue? Not to worry, virtues are well represented in the tough field of music industry, women there are Madonnas and Holy Marys. The thing is how to define them, their ecstasy. That is the way to look good in the public eye, have respectability of not revealing it all. How to monetize everything and that is the biggest virtue of all, other is secondary, unless it serves becoming rich and famous. There is truth to human nature here which puts self-interest at first. It is truth of theirs who make the contents. Truth of one’s own is a kind of secret issue, which no other completely knows about but is guessing. It is everybody’s own truth which people live by? That is the ideal, to live a lie but be confessional. There is some truth to that people can identify as confessional TV is the reality. We get our morals and ideals as we are educated by this the society and this strange family we belong to. Virtues get redefined as much as do lives we want to live. Fairytales and dreams do come true reflecting reality which is harsh. This is all old news and repetitious patterns of what is human desire, folklore to continue, cruelty we possess and the infinite mess of human psyche of wanting to be adored, successful and listened to and is a never-changing tune. It is to avoid boredom by having lots and things to do. Celebrity and pop culture change all the time, but what is the change other than new faces, gimmicks and beats. People, who want to move away from silence and loneliness, away from being forgotten, seem compulsive escapists who are dictated by fear of FOMO.
Do celebrities now have other things to say than the stars before them in history? There definitely are more of them, of stars. Exposure is extreme as is the need to be there. That life is more than just work seems impossible because we are brands. It is an ideology moulding our existence effectively but to dare break that mould is a must. That we are allowed to enjoy ourselves in this way as we are is ludicrous, embrace ourselves and do whatever we want is of course a seductive motto to live by: we can do what we want and know what is enjoyment. Are celebrities looked up to because of their message and the fact that dreams do come true, because they bring real amusement, are truly approachable, intellectually interesting, calculating and aware as we should be, produced objects as we should be, themselves and natural, or is there just a palette of plenty which is overflowing of whatever might sell and whatever urge qualifies? A give and take, a shot in the dark as we are desperate. Fair bargain is not the deal and amusement for one’s soul can get boring, to have fun, to dance and sing along, enjoy for a while.
A successful pop diva is in control without anybody’s permission doing her thing. She likes what she does and is good at it, what is the good? Is she in search of something new, original expression, invention of hers? To invent again something that works so beautifully in repeat, to invent beauty and energy. Feminine seduction via curves, clothes, videos and flying hair, fierceness and walk infant of everybody. Is she looking for a perfect match which is her husband, ecstasy between her and the audience, expressing herself through erotic (exotic) dancing, tiny wardrobe and emotional lyrics. Is her desire to be penetrated in public by her husband? Is she being raped by looks revealing more than gossip pages do? She penetrated, the one who works a penis as she appears to be and is in charge. That is a domino act. She has multiple roles to choose from and she does work both ways, being pleased and being a pleaser. She is a receiver and provider of pleasure so honey and bee is accurate metaphor. A bitch and public whore speaking her mind, saint mother, a wife and a business woman who roles all professional pop stars must master and state on stage and in real life. It is mastery of womanhood and presentation. Mastering and toying with ideas and ideals. You cannot do music with your clothes on. All that she can be is what she is, what you can see. It is expected of her to have layers to peel, veils and canvases to fly with her hair with the help of a wind machine. Multifaceted public image to talk about make an interesting personality, who is she we wonder and want to know. Someone, who is not emptied at one stroke, with one look, pages of magazines. There is desire to fill up the world and airwaves.
3.Marketing her forcefully, emancipation to have it all. Personal problematic of womanhood, race, size, having a voice, how body parts are us, attitudes towards feminine, talent and intellect. Diversity there, what kind of voices do we hear and what is silenced? Why do you dye your hair blond?
What is talent? What kind of talent has value, whose talent is noticed? I ask because talent for artist, to become an artist, talent is something person has to know having and it must be something which definitely evolves all the time. Knowing what to do with what one has no matter what anybody says and everybody will have an opinion, I guarantee you. Also, society places talents into categories important and less important meaning money-worthy and not, primary being the tech and mathematical skills, those are to make a career that produces trustworthy employees in the eye of society, respectable, money-making career-focused citizens that benefit the economy. Artist is on very shaky ground as it is the irrational, emotional, even sick and an untrustworthy character who is expected to fail, and money comes or usually doesn’t. What kind of package is needed to be in the talented category? Does an artist need to have a statement of her own to be sold or is it rather no statement at all, at least a political one? What kind of message is the sellable one? A PR strategy which leads to success is a curious one and it varies within arts. Provide stories and solutions, behaviour, coverage and narratives of lives lived preferably by divas, destinies and making the world a better place.
Times of moral crisis: Explicit contents, sexuality for sale and how it adds up with feminism and art. What does feminism represent for a pop star and for the music industry? How can feminism be implemented in any other way than refusing to work as a sex goddess or is the role of sex goddesses included in feminist frame as choice? It is good to question patriarchy from that widely seen and admired position, it is not useless. Question still is what changes in that process and using words that scare people such as feminism. When an idol who is also a sexy product and begins her feminist practice in her work it raises attention and questions, or has it been feminist all along without possibility to declare it?
To begin a dive into the world of Beyoncé is to begin with what it is that she represents and what is the place she is at. Her skin is the first issue, her voluptuous body supports her music as she is very much visual as vocal. To analyze Beyoncé is to analyze the whole of pop celebrity culture from a female and a black singer point of view, from race, origin, scenic point of view, art and sex combined. She is part of something and has brought a lot of new with her such as her extravaganza and not giving a toss will the political effect, her sales. She brings in the political side without it being strange but organic although it is flammable, explosive and pushes to look at her making others to do the same as it now is safe to do so, at least safer than before. She is with the whole of black community, she is not alone in this. Safe is what pop stars are usually all about, a comforting voice and sight, message and vision to dance to. To engage in feminism which threatens all of the values entertainment stands on and men especially, causes all kinds of reactions as is expected. As pop wants only the adoring wave of consumer love feminism is not the place to cash in. Popular culture which today strongly parades out from the United States is political. Music business is still sensitive to women being political demanding their rights. It is the one industry that thrives despite financial lows but how much experimenting is allowed for artists must be asked. Glitter and gossip stick like glue and scandals sell and are for many the blissful ignorance people like to grant themselves taking peeks in to grand lives with voyeurs’ victory and thrill. To give a remark or thought on anybody is a right to have to feel better than, critique is different from ranting. Culture of ours, nature of ours is to be interested in other people’s affairs and have an opinion. Entertainment making people famous, celebrities and brands are money-making culture which many want to be part of. Fame is obsessive, addictive and tempting, it is a perfect stage to be outrageously political and critical. Culture of prestige and opulence is so attached to our daily routines as spectators on the side of all that is everyday, our commercial capitalism being vividly flat, that it could be strange not to have the phenomenon of far away beautiful people and their luxury to watch. Stardom obsessed with the surface, the spectacular shining thing making money and preserving eternal youthfulness, it would be foolish not to use the opportunity and have an agenda of political.
The US and GB probably have the most followed musical scenes world-wide with massive PR and machinery that produces selection of stars made possible by endless media coverage, competitions, gossip and chit-chat and social structure that makes people pursue grand dreams which do not take note to class issues, to be grander than themselves. Interviews, documentaries, photographs, imitators, fans, fan art, gossip, stories, dreams, shows and how to become a star tutorials: how to be like a famous person with healthy appetite and an attitude. Stardom cult is defining the whole of America and Europe and has a significant meaning economically, psychologically and culturally. Religion with gods and goddesses is a significant phenomenon for the whole world in good and bad. The essence and idea are our need to be adored as spectacular and unique and the ability to fall in love with an image, persona, character, actress and to know that image, relate and feel free. To make the image your own, know it by heart, own it. Our need to worship images tells how much our thinking is guided by what we see. Today we are shown a lot of visuals and it is a fanfare. We are quite fragile in the sense what comes to being manipulated. We are put in a fragile situation, inescapable, unavoidable. Easy to manipulate is what we are desired to be (lack of confidence is an easy target) and wanted to stay that way. That is what Hollywood and music business is about, manipulation of souls and minds. Where does the industry want to lead us or push us? Is it the logic of business and politics today, take the public by leash as people need to be led? We are told to be nice and you’ll get candy.
Entertainment disguises itself as rescuer of hearts and souls with message girl-you-are-sexy when you do this and you can do whatever you want when you are like this girl in this picture. One has to want the right thing, be the right kind. There are particular right things that we pay attention to, sex, money and fame, popularity, positivity and love with tiny inch of philosophy of how to be a good person. We like to want what we see that glorious person has and be like her for a moment. To get her like me, to get to be like her. How much people control their desire to identify as a pop star and what does it tell of a mass of people who want to identify with a singer and image of her. Is it a secret desire, a fantasy, sexual or ideological, or is altogether naive to think people are that dissatisfied with themselves that they want to replace their identity with someone’s on a magazine and on a stage? Someone heroic, who teaches a mass of people to be heroic and stand up for themselves, be creative. Maybe, but when one takes a look at what kind of influence celebrities have on what people wear, eat, drink, how people like to live and do for living, how much gossip sells and is followed, the image of what is going on in people’s minds is crooked and infantile. Question is how creative can one be in frame of such order of strict perfection? What does it do and why does it do what it does. How has it become the way it is? What kind of women succeed in that particular business and what could be called success? Success cannot be minor. It has to be grand. Music industry is one of the most lucrative businesses if one manages to hit the jackpot as Beyoncé has done. Should we start with her passion for her art and what she has to say. She has a very similar kind of message as many other female superstars in music: female strength, expression of her sexuality and why is it important one may ask. To pose and act female strength in a manner it does not fall flat, but has a figure, a form in a thin world, not a pancake. Body that wobbles in right places as it is shaken in a dance. Furious, decisive, girly with attitude to illegal scale. Spread your legs, show your legs, shake that tush, reveal your skin. We imagine your bush. It is now internet’s basic method, a celebrity procedure, image galleries all over show this so what is new? A production line of lookability, likeability, profile managing, success managing, a celebrity survival game, which is also our survival game and we appropriate the methods of the most successful.
Who will make it to be seen. Essence of celebrity culture is to be seen and desire that, to stand as an ad post. To stand in front of all on a wall covered with company names, in between of photographers and a fence who snap pictures of these ladies and gents on red carpet. How and why someone is powerful, more powerful than most is a tricky issue but this is power. To come up with conclusion and decision on influence that a person has. How that influence is measured is an interesting case of visibility and earnings, which are public information largely on display stating the fame. Is it due to what that powerful person has to say, possibly some. What do celebrities who now get the most coverage in media have to say. What is their message? What is the message of celebrity culture as a whole? Its influence is massive. Financial winnings made within the culture of entertainment for the artists and their creators can be whopping. Industries flourishing out from movies, sports and music such as fashion, magazines and other merchandise do well with right face. What is the real power here is an interesting thing to go through. Could the answer be as simple as who does best financially and what kind of message does that person have. What kind of story and continuity person’s career has had and will have. Future prospects and who is listening. The list of the most powerful celebrities by Forbes from year 2014 introduces Beyoncé the most powerful celebrity. Grounds for her number one spot lie on her 95 concerts, the released new album called Beyoncé, her fragrances Heat, Pulse and Rise, clothing collection, which all contributions have been financially very successful. Estimated 115 million in earnings during one year is according to Forbes is an extremely powerful thing. Since 2014 her earnings have kept growing. She is made of gold, is golden and a high school dropout who has had since early age support for her talent and dream, so I don’t know what the self-made means at this point. No celebrity is self-made. https://www.forbes.com/profile/beyonce-knowles/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2017/06/12/why-diddy-is-no-1-on-the-2017-celebrity-100-list/
Forbes is a magazine focusing on finance which is very male centered field, focusing on businesslife providing entrepreneur insight such as quotes of the day. Its specialty are lists of successful people, information for the world’s business leaders how success is made and what it is. Figures are mentioned daily million and billions. Beyoncé defines herself as a businesswoman and through that image and role a strong independent woman whose strength is large part of her agenda. “It’s a good year to be famous. Over the past 12 months,the world’s 100 highest-paid celebritiespulled in $5.15 billion–more than the combined GDP of Belize, Liberia and Gambia–led by Diddy,who clocked a career-best $130 million. Beyoncé and J.K. Rowling round out the top three with $105 million and $95 million, respectively.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2017/06/12/full-list-the-worlds-highest-paid-celebrities-2017/
Gender, sexual orientation nor racial issues do not show to be such a large stepping stone. At least what comes to making entertainment for the masses. It has become an advantage to be part of a group that once or still is seen weak. There has been empowerment and strength. Idols do empower and encourage, so maybe they are worth all the money they make. That could be one point Forbes is making by its list and yet again only point is to be as rich as is possible. This is how one succeeds nowadays. How does glamour, luxury and beauty businesses benefit from all the bling accessory advertising and music videos represent is one thing. It is a lifestyle presenting moves and rhythm. It is clear since the beginning of her career independence and strength of the feminine have been core issues in her music but that is the case for many successful female artists to focus on showing their capability as women. What comes to celebrities Beyoncé is the one of the few who publicly state and promote feminism and calls herself a feminist. In her videos and music she is openly sexual, feminine and posing her assets to the world as any pop star. This way looking she is very similar to Rihanna, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj who all are artists and personalities creating in a business where women to have a voice of their own is new. Feminism in this landscape is a curse word banned and feared until now. Beyoncé has made it sink into the world of plastic and money in a new way. Even though it is clear feminism has never been absent as women have had to struggle their way up to the top. Women breath feminism whether they like it to admit it or not. We are bound to reasons behind feminism and what it has accomplished in over a hundred years and continues to accomplish.
The United States offers a peculiar scene to dream for many and reach out the impossible, but very few do make it big of course. Yearly listings of financially the most successful people in entertainment are part of making that dream a sensational happening and news worthy. To be part of something admirable and huge, that happiness, feel the hard work, luck, visibility and talent. How does power manifest itself by women, via women, via visibility and what is the stage women can be powerful on? What is female power and do women have it in the end? Do women make decisions and decide for their work when to catch the eye is one aim? Who is the weak in this image of making it? Who is stepped over in this business driven world as it is a struggle for survival? Women have battled with those who have power over them, who have justified their power with God’s word and justice from above. That woman is not capable of taking care of herself, making decisions not even over her own life is deeply build-in. The repetitious mantra of having control and power over one’s body, life, work and art is rightful, but it is still a mantra, if women do not know what it is to have control and know for yourself. The opposition is bigoted patriarchy and religious tradition, God’s word. How are we affected? Part of entertainer’s job is to entertain. The more it gets noticed the more political it is. The more people listen the more there is reason to put out a message to be heard. To share is political act, to act for all the oppressed couldn’t be more needed. The more people do not pay attention the more they have to be shaken and woken up. How does entertainment shake the world other than making sexual advancements, opening a blouse, taking it off and showing genitalia. Nothing out of the ordinary. We have seen it. The most ordinary landscape on the scene. Do they who create this visual spectacle for us speak for free sex, for prostitution and sex trade, sexual expression and what it is to be a woman? Is that freedom to be able to show skin, sexual freedom to be taken over and had?
Beyoncé showing her buttocks in her show becomes a hit in YouTube. It does not make the society more approving. Our obsession over sex could still not be more obvious. A matter talked over in talk shows and by journalists it is the very scandalous topic and interest for all. Scenery on many music videos of female pop singers is exactly from a red light-district, a stereotyped sex worker image who is a fantasy for an everyday woman and man, as dancers wear the same all showing outfits, posterior-revealing lingerie. It is the latest superstar fashion on stage, wearing very little. Position as standing back against the audience, bending one’s back and looking the crowd, gazing behind one’s shoulders and singing holding the microphone almost licking the microphone, it is naughty. This said sounds if I disapprove. I disapprove the cliché, the repetition. I dislike the ongoing similarity and unwillingness to move ahead, unwillingness to push any envelop despite saying so. That envelope has been opened and seen, stamped and sent. Lack of any kind of self-criticism nor effort to do differently. Is that power, to be a repetitious? Is that showing the world how to be wanted in a right way? To portray women singing about relationships, having sex, breaking up and being still strong independent women is almost all there is to this empowerment. Sexual expression, what is it exactly? And why is it empowerment and not sexism? Empowerment through sexism taken over is a strange thought, but there is no other way as sexism is power. Sexism which is a force used against women to have them, to possess them as silent bodies. Sexual expression is in a way an idea of getting by pleasing in the right way and doing wrong, being a bad girl. To express this is to state that one is a sexually free, an open-minded being with desires and willingness to use these desires for one’s benefit still willing to please the other, be at service of the audience.
It is a one thing that women are noticed exclusively because of their sex, having a closer look into their wardrobes looked at as deep as it goes. Watched over, guarded but not kept safe, gazed curiously, jokingly, teasingly. Entertainment is the ultimate pleaser of the senses and flattening of them. To please is to get the wanted thing and impact is to make one’s way. Pop singers and performers like to state that they are in control of what they do. What does it mean exactly to be in control of one’s work as a performer is to have an idea of why one does what one does and how to get attention. Is it possible to know the amount of control one has? Isn’t it an illusion of having power when it is actually other people who make you by choosing to look at you, think about you, idolize and evaluate what you do, liking or not liking it, judging, remembering or forgetting. So to talk about control is a modern capitalist dream and necessity to live by as one wishes but control is not having freedom. It is interesting to explore the idea of control which especially several celebrities comment and state having. Rules they think they make, that they see are set for them and they are changing those given rules of the business. Much of what we can take and understand must be lined inside ideals. Outside are left the things unwanted.
1. Desires of the power elite: Us under the phallocentric order
2. Dominance and seduction, five looks, one accessory
3. What makes a classic, what makes a movie?
Introduction: Nevertheless the impossible mission one must make an effort and tackle the copy-paste culture where there seems to be unbreakable circle of tradition in how gender, talent, abilities and possibilities are seen and dealt with. To see opposing, questioning and anger justified not apologised for, one’s own art and body of work worthwhile, necessary and valuable and because someone has to lead the way and do it what few dare to do. This is an article trying to understand what is the feminine in movies for especially in Hollywood. Role of women in movies, in art and place of ours is to go against, not play along but question. I know you will be called difficult. Be difficult in demolishing and constructive way. To be difficult and demanding is to build something new. Becoming movie critics, producers and directors, active makers in the business ruled by white men is of vital importance. Importance is also there who evaluate the films made and how, what issues are emphasised when talked about making movies and distributing them to the audiences. What is the sellable item? How pushing the envelope even though it is difficult makes a difference no matter how small and powerless you feel. This means women should write and put in action new rules how we are to be viewed, displayed, portrait and talked about. Our roles are to be active not playing according to the old comfortable ones. One problem being lack of finance, demand and support is one women face which is telling women should support each other.
1.Desires of the power elite: Us under the phallocentric order
Movie is a continuation to something experienced in real life. It is an interpretation of how we can experience and see, but it is up to the viewer to grasp what to make of the seen movie. How movie can explain an experience and tell what to look at or for, what there is to see and experience further. Truth of a movie is truth of the movie maker, an illusion, make-believe, coloured tale or fact-based illustration, a portrait and depiction. Whatever movie is to fulfil it is also image of the makers. We like to think reality is fixed, there is normal and the weird, to go weird doesn’t take that much of effort. To break this illusion of normalcy movies function beautifully partly it is why movies get made, to imagine again for us in a new way. Some movies are made to strengthen our fixations and feel powerful via them which patriotic movies tend to accomplish forcefully, they often don’t offer any kind of new perspectives but repeat the same story with some extra boosting and hyper-hyper. The experience needed to break down the normal wire and comprehension of what is and what movies can be marginal plays an important role. Mainstream moviemakers are given the glorified position of telling large-scale fables and larger than life stories. How these stamped ideas can be altered is a matter of art and courage. How much about the reality movie tells is up to the makers and what we think is reality, story worth telling. What have been the stories told for those who make films and what remains untold. What have been discovered before and during the making of a film, and after movie was released, to make a movie is to unearth and research. Interesting is towards what kind of issues moviemakers have their curiosity focused. What can be told via the medium, there probably isn’t much which cannot be depicted via film. Moving pictures are hypnotizing, whether holding a camera or sitting in front of a screen.
What lies hidden but is told via clues, what is not shown but is still there in the expression and how that invisible can be the most interesting part of films, the most realistic and humane part and forces us to imagine beyond the seen. What is the perspective there, decisions made how to tell, whose points of view are we looking at, whose truth or lie, what a movie is telling us, is it about the viewer as we choose what we watch, do we have to know about the makers as in excess we are curious about the stars as they are the heroes, they are those with means and visions, capabilities to make their ideas happen there where it is almost impossible to get. Movie continues in mind as it is at best a full body experience depending where and how movies are watched, how personal the story is, how relatable and what is universal in human experience. What kind of interests the viewers have in seeing films. Why do we watch movies is the easiness of just watching, the forgetting and sinking in to a world, and some of us watch very many movies of all kinds. This easiness is thought often not having much value, just sitting and watching. Movies feed the mind but in what way is the question we should be asking. Is it just less thinking needed, is there blame and guilt be felt for this indulgence.
Interesting is how we experience a movie, even a movie poster is an experience. What is the liking, time span, being influenced by and thinking about a movie, its messages, images, stories, artistic decisions and perspectives. Images and scenes of a movie stay there in our heads. The more curious the more puzzling. Too weird, surrealistic does not make a blockbuster but it can make a classic. We need familiarity which also can be totally unrealistic and adventurous. Films making euphoric and thrilling or otherwise felt sensations, cultural, artistic and political statements need a fruitful and fertile ground to live in. There is candy for thought and candy for the aesthetics which must be taken and somehow had, felt. At best movie has a mystery in realistic way which leaves space for thinking and puzzlement of not knowing. Feeling of learning about important events watched from a safe place as a spectator may be enough for some. Do we know more via films, definitely. Is movie experience comparable to life experiences? What raises our curiosity, is it the personal and something new? What makes a movie brilliant? How to define a movie, how is it defined? Technically it is how many pictures per second flashes before one’s eyes and make a moving scene, the running horse, a dancing woman, bullet from a gun. Films have different durations, different qualities, scales of evaluation, films have position in society which today play a big part. Movies are places of extravaganza and a huge part of entertainment industry, a way of life such as TV, it is everywhere. Definitions and genres for films are maybe already irrelevant. Films that are and have been made are endless in the amount and technic. Tiny piece of what is being made make it to the consciousness of the average consumer or anybody via controlled system. Internet makes watching and making demographic. When life feels like a film we think we have captured something historic and worth filming and sharing.
Film has a position in advertising and often nowadays mainstream films look like ads, function like ads and ads in turn are like movies. Movies are the most powerful tool to impress, catch the eye and attention, make an impact on large amounts of people, to influence and manipulate as something sweet and meaningful, breath of fresh air in a dull moment. Cultural and personal importance of movies is what counts. We like the fun part of films. Moving image is like a car, an object to move with and in which as an object is male dominated vehicle but treated like a lady or named a woman. It has a status to impress, possess, take us from one place to another, seduce. Cinema is above us, a fantasy, untouchable, holding power in size, containing vast amounts of capacity to influence our thinking, vision and appreciations therefore to talk and write about what is shown for us is at critical importance. To write only on surface about the surface is not doing us much good or for film as art.
Films make stars, films are the stars, writing gives at best more depth to what was seen and another perspective than our own. Moving feature is what has a hold on us, energy and lightness of it is felt. Could a movie have any other definitions other than something moving forward and towards us? Is it always the personal taste telling what plays importance in a film or something else, a shock, a strong emotion, a surprise? Society rules much via what is shown, where and how we watch. General opinion, or probably is better to talk about what we are used to seeing, what is convenient, pleasant and interesting to us, is still a guide to what we are having. We reflect our desires in an interesting way through movie culture and the culture is us? Many are attracted to speed and not being bored, to be entertained and to have a feeling of something fantastic being witnessed is to feel alive as we watch living pictures that are more alive than us, size and amount count. To avoid being left out is in focus and one main interest is to give birth to desires and needs. How much of this is not make us think for ourselves, distract us from looking what is behind the glittering luring images and why we must want what is given to us, sold to us? What creates brilliance or circumstances for sensitiveness, a thrive to create beauty and meaning, how this creating is restricted or guided, banned or manipulated? Is it related to what is sexy and desirable in a straightforward manner, where we come from, what we are afraid of, what we know about the world, what we have read and seen already? How does gender dictate what we see as beautiful? I’m interested in which are the ways people get their work on the spotlight, what kind of work is put in the centre of attention, given media focus which focus forcefully is narrow and gendered. What kind of publicity movies and moviemakers get, are there girl movies and boy movies? What kind of voice do moviemakers have, are given, how are they heard, what is asked of them and from what kind of world do they make? What kind of things journalists focus on in interviews and stories about movie scenes? What creates interest in a certain movie nowadays? How brave can and should moviemakers be? Is it still restricted what can be issued and manifested in movies nowadays? Is it limited what kind of people make movies, what kind of people are shown in the movies, act in movies, talk about movies? Is there something to be afraid of other than lack of variety and making an echo chamber for ideological purposes? Are there certain kind of people who seek attention through the movie scene, attention seekers? How all this structure of creating moving pictures dictates and who dictates the structure? Is it basically corporation-based solutions that work in this business? Which are the interests of those corporations, interests of the investors other than winnings and cinematic fame? What kind of role do film festivals play in all this? Or press and media as a whole? I’m asking because they are all linked under a dome and mostly what get mentioned are the galas, trophies, celebrities, faces, bodies, lives of the famed and clothes they carry. Any irregularity is reported and scandalised. Everything moves along the direction of relations, scare of losing and where the money is, how the money is and should it be followed. What does it mean to be an independent movie maker in this picture? Does it mean marginal or original, having voice of one’s own? What is originality in movies, in this context of making, who has a voice? Is there any place or demand for independence, independent thinking and breaking the habit?
It is a question of demand, what is in demand, who has control. What kind of people consume mainstream movies and what revolves around this mainstream ideology of spending and living a habit. It would be interesting to see how strictly audiences are analyzed. Anything that isn’t produced in Hollywood is basically marginal in the west. Hollywood movies or movies imitating Hollywood style get the most public space, attention and funding. Should we be concerned? Yes and concerned of what exactly? Some kind of monotonous Americanized view of the world perhaps, lack of complex views of the world and how things happen, lack of perspectives to difference, lack of imagination, having one-eyed view and one political perspective on good and bad. Consuming being the main focus of films is alarming, consuming being the good, the more as well. The way movies manipulate people to think and act, or not to act and think as the easiness is nice and a relief in complex everyday.
One answer to a couple of my questions come from an internet magazine The Gateway sponsored by Morgan Stanley article written by Matthew Reeves: ”The producer is the money person who buys the scripts, hires the director, actors and crew and organises the making and selling of the film. The producer is usually employed by a production company. Production companies are often referred to as “independent”, but all this really means is that they don’t have a distribution deal with a major studio, that is, Sony, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Warner and Universal. While studios can buy scripts the usual way, they also have the power and money to decide they need, “a kids’ fantasy movie, with an A-list actor, for release in the summer holidays in 2011”, get a writer to craft it, attach a producer, put up the funds themselves, make the movie (in their own studios), and distribute it themselves.”
”But what if no distributor is interested in your film, which may have been made with nobodies, on a nothing budget and with no room left for marketing. How can you get the word out? The answer is film festivals. Cannes, Venice and Sundance are free marketing Meccas. You can enter Cannes, the most influential film festival in the world, for €50. There’s no guarantee your film will get chosen to feature, but it will get watched. If it does get chosen, thousands will see it, newspapers will review it and many distributors will be circling, looking for a bargain. Paranormal Activity was shown at Slamdance Film Festival, http://www.slamdance.com and a year and a half later it was released across the USA. It’s arguably the best $70 the producer has ever spent.” http://thegatewayonline.com/articles/content/how-does-the-film-industry-work
Continuing with more answers: Structures of Discourse and Structures of Power TEUN A. VAN DIJK University of Amsterdam ”In the news media, this strategic control of knowledge is exercised through restricted topic selection, and more generally by specific reconstructions of social and political realities (Hall et al., 1980; Tuchman, 1978; van Dijk, 1987b, 1987c). This process is itself governed by a system of news values and professional ideologies about news and newsworthiness, which happen to favor attention for and the interests of various elite actors, persons, groups, classes, institutions, nations, or world regions (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). Preferential access and coverage (whether positive or negative) of news actors is one factor in the mass medíated reproduction of social power (Brown, Bybee, Wearden, & Murdock, 1982). The same ís true in education, where the curriculum, textbooks, educational materials, and lessons are also governed by educational objectives, subjects, topics, and learning strategies that mostly happen to be consistent with the values or interests of the various power elite groups (Apple, 1979; Lorimer, 1984; Young, 1971). Therefore, we see that the symbolic elites that control the style and content of media and educational discourse are also those who have partial control of the mode of influence, and hence of ideological reproduction in society. The symbolic elites, we suggested, are not independent of other” https://archive.org/stream/IdeologicalDiscourseAnalysis/Ideological%20discourse%20analysis_djvu.txt
2.Dominance and seduction: five looks, one accessory.
The patriarchal society makes it easier for men to take the lead which is for them compulsory and what manly men are supposed to do: direct, command, lead, have the answers, know. It is compulsive and violent for both sexes, toxic masculinity. It is given and forced on us as natural. Women have to fight for being heard, be taken seriously and a powerful skilled woman is easily a bitch, witch, weirdo, difficult and an outcast. It is a male feature to dominate with physical force and scare, to direct others with threat and it has been easier for men to imagine being a director and to become one, the role falls on them more easily, naturally. To my knowledge women like to dominate and do it maybe in more complex and subtle ways or imitating men, but nonetheless feminine domina play is normal everyday act in patriarchal society, meaning women use their power to destroy as well and to direct, question is why they cannot do it in business and in art. What happens more subtle doesn’t make it less hurtful or less powerful.
A lot did change what comes to equality during 20th century in the Western world but what is the change other than technical and in terms of production? What will the ultimate change and progress within movie industry be in the 21st century? Hopefully more about morals, art and justice of the business than technicalities. It still does not mean things are happening for women to the extent of men or that things change fast. Speed is in the renewing the machinery not human condition or doing away the patriarch. That is why it is very important to show movies from all kinds of makers, sexes, backgrounds etc. in schools, in movie theaters and TV. What comes to equality internet is showing the way, moving images are at the core of our internet experience. At the moment women directors are treated like marginal makers as emphasis is on the gender and it is said out loud male or female. Scripts written by women usually are different from men. Directors are treated like it still is a wonder a woman is a director or a producer, although there are many women in the business and have been for a long time. It is much easier to watch females pose on a red carpet wearing a designer gown asked how they feel expectation being the viewer wants to hear it and see this. Emphasis is on the assumptions what does a photogenic person look like and who can be filmed, who attracts the eye and why.
Movie people seem to live a fabulous life, images give us impressions. Narcissism is questioned in any media strongly but celebrated at the same time. Narcissists are interesting people as they entertain and know what they want, get what they want and make scenes. To want such spotlight life is praised and encouraged, idolised. Photographs of someone entering a gala of something are shown in every magazine that have a gossip column or want to comment the movie world or talk about movies in any manner. Movies nowadays is a very stereotyped world. Everything goes around the money-making machinery and what brings in the dollars. Biggest moneymakers are talked about and again idolised. Imaginary is highly glittered, narrow and thin. Shallowness can be turned interesting when reasons for it are investigated and studied. Such industry is massive and the biggest categorizor of people world-wide, advertising and movies are part of our visuals which we eat and consume. Most people watch movies, see the ads which are creating the world we live in and look at, and films get inspiration from the world we live in. To go outside that box can turn out to be more than just an image.
To make movies requires ability to tell stories, will to succeed in a very male-dominated world and money-oriented atmosphere. Stubborn belief in one’s ideas and abilities is needed and room to make ideas happen, also to make others believe in ideas of yours, to get attention is what we seek, all of us nowadays. What else is there to have? Luck? Moviemakers must be completely passionate about their craft just as any artist, making movies and seeing movies, making that particular film and story which totally extraordinary sounds like a dream. As a woman does one have to be a man to make it in this frame is an interesting question, to make a feature film as a woman but act like a man? Such a woman is easily considered a difficult person. It is much easier to be filmed and look beautiful, do as you are told but be unique. Womanhood posing as a fragile flower, young, polished in ads, in flashlights, photographers calling your name. And why is it important to talk and bring this issue in front, is there a problem?
Needless to say, but I’m saying it, women make different kinds of films than men, they have different points of views and interests. When women play roles that have been played by men there is totally new level to it, something lived by men is lived by women too, story gets vastly layered context and understanding of gendered experience, it is power which resonates within the powerless. Women see the world differently than men, experience it differently, do differently, walk and talk differently, are treated differently. Women should be given equal chance to bring their knowledge on to the screen, be active and create as they create, thinking instead of being looked at and they should understand it themselves too. Do men get their clothes examined on the red carpet? Aki Kaurismäki was drunk and danced at Cannes 2002 which was making appalled headlines in Finland. Men can and must disturb the scene in a moving way as well as business requires certain behaviour. Scene is asking to be cut open and questioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcs3sottHm4
This is of course my observation and a bothering issue, horrifying actually when you look at the picture at hand. What a world. What are male points of views then? Is it so that men do different kind of movies than women as I claim. I already dislike the topic at hand, I dislike that I even have to mention it, sex and gender and what they mean. What does gender got to do with anything what and how people make professionally? In making movies or making art? Unfortunately quite much. Everything revolves around it. Comes back to our bodies. Why is it so? What is sexy here? What is sex other than a toy? Why is it sold? Because it is the easy way and an obvious want, obvious defined and dominator. An act, the difference, organs, emotions, chemistry, molecules, desires, reproduction, repetition, perspective of the wanted and the ones who want. It is the power-issue ruling our behaviour which is in the visuals. It is regulated by religion, politics, traditions, rules made to give us frame to act upon and know where the limits go. Major topics in film, in anything and the leading couple kiss is the anti-climax in an action film but it has to be there. Image of movie industry, of its people, how it works and what for, it all goes back to sex, human sexuality and how to profit from it, use it, it using us.
Feminist film theory has opened up reasons behind film industry, given a voice and chance for women to analyze film as an art, our point of view and why it should be there on film. How women are on film, used, abused, cut open. ”Feminism is a social movement which has had an enormous impact on film theory and criticism. Cinema is taken by feminists to be a cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity, as well as about men and masculinity. Issues of representation and spectatorship are central to feminist film theory and criticism. Early feminist criticism was directed at stereotypes of women, mostly in Hollywood films (Haskell 1973/1987, Rosen 1973). Such fixed and endlessly repeated images of women were and are considered objectionable distortions which have a negative impact on the female spectator as well as on males.” Claire Johnston (1940-1987) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Johnston was among the first feminist critics to offer a sustained critique of stereotypes from a semiotic point of view (1973/1991). She puts forward how classical cinema constructs the ideological image of woman. Drawing on Roland Barthes’ notion of ‘myth’, Johnston investigated the myth of ‘Woman’ in classical cinema. The sign ‘woman’ can be analyzed as a structure, a code and convention. It represents the ideological meaning that ‘woman’ has for men. In relation to herself she means no-thing (1991: 25): women are negatively represented as ‘not-man’. The ‘woman-as woman’ is absent from the text of the film (26).”
http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol8-2004/n17sloan Is it problematic for cinema as a whole to talk about women’s cinema? “This concept of minor cinema is quite fruitful for the purpose of concluding the debate on the strong political ground that most interests Butler. Since a ‘minor’ cinema is one that politicizes everything, women’s cinema well qualifies, generally finding struggle in all aspects of life, and value in confronting it. Further, a minor literature is written by marginalized authors, and so focuses on the challenges of belonging to an out-group.”
The important theoretical shift happening was and is that women started taking up as voices and act out from places of power, from an understanding of cinema reflecting realities of variety of women, realities of many instead of one. Having a view to cinema as a constructing method, ideological and politically engaging on individual level. Classical cinema was not to show its means of production, or was it? It should be defined what we mean by classical cinema and why classical cinema is what we think it is. Characterised by veiling over its ideological construction and under restrictions rather than free expression? Thus, classical film as we think the classical presents the constructed images of ‘woman’ as naturally desirables, unrealistic and attractive for the male. This is the illusionism of classical cinema. www.feministezine.com
It feels like a concrete wall, the notion that a woman in film is not the man, not as able as the man and is always in need of assistance. She lacks something. She is there to be looked at, in relation to herself to her being no-thing. To continue the misogynist tale Budd Boetticher (Hollywood film director during 1942-85) has put it: “What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.”
3.Desire of the power elite; Us under the phallocentric order.
Do women objectify themselves by putting their bodies into a certain light where their body and sexuality is openly under gaze and played with, in a certain repetitious positions to gain profit and be seen as that is the way still to get seen? Of course, and I would say, it is not passive. It is a very active role to play and toy with, the game where women win in one way only and are therefore used for a certain time, as long as their looks grant it. Women are slaves as much as they must put themselves in that position to be looked at, in a way it is slavery, yes. There must be something more to it as it is voluntarily done. Victim is a spectator of her fate. She still must imagine what happens to her when she chooses to act in a certain way and like it. Film industry is an abusive machine which abandons those who are no longer useful which is seen tragic. This must be seen beforehand, calculated and be known, understood and accepted. Industry obeys only capital and how to get it. It gives models of how to be, become, what to be, where to be, what to wear, what is talked about and how etc. Seduction is deliberate, unforgiving and cruel, to seduce the audience, a mass has its psychology and logic. Movie industry is a brainwash operator where meat is power and murder. Movies are made to seduce the consumer. Movies to give goals in life. Movies to give dreams. How audience is seduced? Or are we really that stupid? What is seduction? From Wikipedia: ”In colloquial language and fictional literature, seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person, to lead astray, as from duty, rectitude, or the like; to corrupt, to persuade or induce to engage in sexual behaviour.” The Internet has lately given rise to more open discussion on seduction and how to master it: The Rules for women and The Game for men.
MUCH ABOUT JENNIFER LOPEZ:
”Actress, entertainer, music artist, film & TV producer, fashion designer, entrepreneur and humanitarian Jennifer Lopez has been called one of the most powerful and celebrated celebrities in entertainment. Forbes Magazine named her the #1 Most Powerful Celebrity in the World of 2012. Known for her beauty and fashion sense Lopez has been the face of many advertising campaigns— L’Oreal, Louis Vuitton, Ford, Fiat, Subaru, Lux, Brahma Beer, Gillette, Kohl’s and Pepsi just to name a few. In 2012, Forbes ranked Lopez number one on their list of “100 Most Powerful and Influential Celebrities in the World” “and she has appeared many times on The Hollywood Report’s list of best paid actresses. Also known as a fashion icon, her appearance at the red carpet events always garners considerable media attention.” www.jenniferlopez.com
”While Hitchcock goes into the investigative side of voyeurism, Sternberg produces the ultimate fetish, taking it to the point where the powerful look of the male protagonist (characteristic of traditional narrative film) is broken in favour of the image in direct erotic rapport with the spectator. The beauty of the woman as object and the screen space coalesce; she is no longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylised and fragmented by close-ups, is the content of the film and the direct recipient of the spectator’s look.” www.feministezine.com
Watching her going in to an exiting event wearing Versace smiling and looking happy. The most beautiful woman on Earth, hugely wealthy and desired, influencer on the beauty market. She has her hands leaning her waist. She is a business woman, it is said she is in control of her image, meaning what exactly? She is strong and independent, her own boss and ruler of her art. Poses telling so and the interviews strengthening our perception. But she isn’t saying much concerning entertainment business or how it could be something other than it is and should it be different as it has served her so well? What other could it be and what else is there. Industry serves her as she serves it. I wonder the machinery behind creating the phenomenon like JLo. Is it pure and simple as I think in businesslike? This is awesome. I love you and your arse, your body is part of your art. The publicity is moving around the globe. Beautiful women sell enormously well, so conducting from that there is incredible power in women which remains on image level as it is not completely let go, released. Wildness is ok up to a point. Too much rock and roll is too much the devil.
How it functions building an image for one person around her or his sex symbolism, luxurious life, incredible life story of being discovered and how the story continues, relationships, children, houses, clothes, movies, making music and money, going around the world dancing, having pictures taken, videos being made being followed. The amount and quality of imagery is about style + beauty, body+mind says also her website, a place for worship and to know her a bit better: Lopez’s dedication to assisting children in need and to the empowerment of others is far-reaching. The Girls & Boys Club of America has named her their national spokeswoman. Gucci is featuring Lopez in a national advertising campaign along with her twins Emme and Max launching its children collection. The campaign will benefit UNICEF. Lopez set the branding standard for celebrity fragrance, apparel and accessories. Her latest fragrance, Love and Glamour, marked 17 successful launches, taking in over $2 billion combined. A new fragrance, Glowing, was launch in 2012. In 2006, Lopez was awarded with the prestigious ACE Fashion Icon of the Year for her contribution to accessories and the fashion industry. www.jenniferlopez.com
It’s good publicity to be a humanitarian. Cynically put, but mentioning one’s humanitarian work after all business and entertainment deals and PR is as cynical as business can get and only in couple of sentences her humanism is clear, she is clean and good. I would like to know more about the results of her humanitarianism. What is being made exactly? What is done? What comes to being powerful and influential? She is hypnotizing and playing on many arenas, sure. She attracts men and women that is called power, she makes people wild and dancing, that could be called freeing. The queen bee, a person as a classic beauty to imitate, movie personality with looks to kill, movie star who gathers people to watch her perform, a role model. There are many out there who play this particular part and use their gained position to make a difference as well. She has acted in several Hollywood movies which gives her a platform where she is listened to. Still such story is not the most important issue in a Hollywood feature film, in Hollywood, to be humanitarian it is a side trail, something rich people feel compelled of doing. What kind of sexual vibes arise from the making it. It is a Hollywood cult of icons, stories behind and what actually makes difference in the world. The industry is like a religion with angels and demons, money as the only God. Is philanthropy a distraction, a cleanse? What are movies then? Tools to become rich and famous?
” The paradox of phallocentrism in aIl its manifestations is that it depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world. An idea of woman stands as lynch pin to the system: it is her lack that produces the phallus as symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies.” Laura Mulvey Visual Pleasure NarrativeCinema http://imlportfolio.usc.edu/ctcs505/mulveyVisualPleasureNarrativeCinema.pdf
Hollywood film is a monolith, what I have seen, watched and as I see, it is leaving much out and sticking to the very narrow tones of humanity and sexuality, posing sexual stereotypes, showing a look-a-like magic tricks with a lot of bling and bang. The thing I don’t understand is why is it doing so when it could be doing so much more? With a lot of noise to get so little is strange. Hollywood as a factory would have an enormous potential to do better quality, interesting, experimental, progressive cinema offering the masses variety and actual change. To me their way is more and more commercial humbug offering ecstatic experiences which other art forms also try to achieve, mass appeal and instant ecstasy. Musical sounds are the same, people look the same, has every fucking thing become a clone, an ass and pair of tits? And the world has become an image of the movies. We are coping what is being copied, becoming copies of each other. Copy that.
Series of photos taken on film in June 2001 on a conference trip to the US, so couple of months before 9/11. Maybe proper name is 2001, Age of innocence, joy of travelling and photographing the journey. Element of Americana is in the photos of course, artist as a tourist, intimate portraits of performance artists. They resonate today in an interesting way.
What kind of pictures do we take nowadays in comparison to the time before the digital cameras and camera phones? I got my first digital camera 2008 but digital started to boom after 2001. How has our focus changed as a photo is instantly seen and quickly manufactured, spread and shared. What makes a good photograph and a good photographer as we all practice photographing and have cameras in our pockets? Have we managed to achieve skill and eye for perfect photos and how we perceive perfection in a photo and what we choose to publish? Is it the lighting, complicated technicalities, background and flawlessness that is almost artificial which is paid attention to? Maybe issue is the sense of authenticity in a photo, finding something rare, what is a valuable moment and target to film and be made into an object to look at, does it not require skill to manufacture meaning, feeling, ideas of one’s own via photography and what is the one’s own made visible with a method which is mass production. Photography is a method for all to use, it is exploration in a same way as travelling, to know about and master but what does image tell us and what kind of images do we pay attention to, what is the interest today, of today? What are the clichés in picturing and do we recognise clichés we fall for? What are the most photographed places and people? Are they things we like, are amazed by and which qualities have a mass appeal, cuteness, sexiness and size? Repetition is telling. Interest in and imitation of something which doesn’t lose its fun, value or something we want to be, be part of and what we look for in life? Interests of modern people remain curiously unchanged. Important question is how cameras and social media have changed the way we travel and take pictures? How much do we do the going away from everyday and the immortalising of extraordinary or ordinary out of impulses we get via social media, what is the seen there that raises interest and what is value there? How tourists look the same with their luggage, sunglasses, shorts, cameras, they sound the same, do the same very predictable things; tastes and desires don’t obviously vary that much and secure choices have a lure of easiness in them.
Publishing of travel photographs is banal, an everyday thing but it does not lose its charm as doesn’t shopping or partying. Here I am, look where I am and have been to. The further the trip goes the better, but how far are we willing step, what is the ultimate purpose of tourism is the obvious fulfilment and pleasure, intimacy and revealing of self. Is there something extraordinary in this ordinary practice other than the thought of it being special, being free to go, the opportunity and chance. The trip that was one of a kind exploration whatever the destination, relaxed or stressed out, found out something new or something that was expected. Travel photo is an interesting category where beauty of the seen view is emphasised, the experienced weather, location and what we were supposed to experience, surprises, disappointments, troubles or effortlessness of making the trip. Witnessing distant far away beauty and locations is the expectation, people, sights, wonders and happenings. Being part of something distant, new, maybe untouchable and rare but nonetheless not quite unknown. Are the stereotypes of travelling the same as stereotypes of living as we know what we want and want to show the best in us, be the best kind, be in control, having the best light, the fun moments to remember, displaying our interests which are normal and proper, but still we go search something else? To beautify for a photo is something we like doing, tidy up and look your best, pose with others or alone, in front of something. Controlling our image is important, what we show of ourselves. The unescapable banality of posing, looking, looking like the modern lifestyle we own. Travelling today is a sport, a cliché as a whole, how we do it, why we do it, what we make of travelling. As an industry and as leisure activity it amplifies and enhances our personas and lives bringing quality and debt via what it is worth and what can be learned via travelling. It is extraordinary and ordinary at the same time, grand and small, luxurious on one hand, poverty in action and thought: how could something so rich and giving be so poor and lacking?
The things we want of a photo and of a trip is interesting. There is something similar to them which is about fantasy and realising dreams, becoming and reaching out. The word cliché can mean the whole of human existence which we want to picture as it repeats the similar desires over and over again and we like to do it in a mass movement. What does this cliché of ours make of us as we repeat it, hold on to it, like it, share it, think it as something worth while, that something unchanged is safe and good. How does originality come to show in contrast to mass tourism and mass of photos?
How do we measure growth and what is the goal? To grow for us or in the eyes of others? Growth is measured via having gained more, growing bigger, understanding, learning, having, owning, expanding. We like to think there is no end to our growth, there is no end to our needs either. Travelling is a big part of modern life, it signifies the good life, enjoying ourselves, expanding horizons and paradoxically personal growth. To having been there where it is different than where we usually live, having found something exotic and new, something to tell about and compare. What are the things to expand from and how big is enough when nothing is enough? Personal growth we perceive and examine via where we come from and what is the essence of us that is to be cultivated. Travelling is a place of change but what changes? What is the starting point and what are the possibilities, individual potential and interests, how we perceive our own individual growth as human beings, how necessary it is, what is it and how we appreciate it. What is the needed change there? What is personal growth worth to us and which qualities we like to see grow in us and us growing towards the world?
What happens when we move and take up going? A relief, a release, sense of self letting go, achieving and going through a process. It is a process to which we usually must prepare for, a state of mind which is chosen. We think about going, we get ready mentally and take care of official matters that must be in order for travelling to be possible and we will not be turned away, be without money, accommodation and information about our destination. Plans must be there ready so we know where we are going and what to do when we get there. We don’t want anything drastic to happen but we are prepared, aren’t we. To get lost in a strange place is scary. Interesting is how we either can just go but rather choose not to, fear is keeping experimentation at its minimum. Preparation for safety is a ritual where one takes care of oneself before, during and after the trip. Also place where one is based must be in good order to come back to. We don’t want to go back to problems, mess and stress, unpaid bills, uncleaned home, messy relationships. That is an ideal place to get going.
