Media Content

After reading The Medium is the Massage, I created a piece of work based on my own observations of McLuhan's observations about media. He pointed that new media technologies are engraved in our culture and experiences. Our worlds are now based on what we put up and consume in the media. We need to be more wary of the content we consume and what content we put up about ourselves on the internet. Technologies have not only shaped our lives, but have also taken over many. Just think, how many times have you suffered from phantom notifications?

Beautifully Repulsive

Lolita is a very poetic book, with passages on the beauty of love. But is it love? No, it's a repulsive messed up love story from the mind of a pedophile who seduces a little girl named Delores, taking her on an adventure which ruins her innocence. The feelings which Humbert describe sound legit, and as readers, we have to keep reminding ourselves that Delores is too young to have properly loved Humbert to the extent that he loved her. The age difference between the two is uncanny, she being fourteen and he an adult grown man.

He might think he's in "love", but his view of love is warped by his obsession with his past childhood lover. He is stuck in the past, searching for a replacement. He lusts for little innocent girls who he calls "nymphets". The idea of love is all in his head, a sensational relationship with no morality. Delores becomes his victim, his Lolita. She is robbed from her home, family, friends, and childhood. I believe that Lolita becomes sexually confused within the situation. She doesn't know any better because she's at a young point in her life where she should have a father figure guiding her, someone who knows what is right, but instead Humbert is confusing her by giving her a lover's attention and adventure of a young couple. Humbert isn't much of a parent, and Charlotte's behavior toward Lolita was that of indifference.

But perhaps little Lolita was too scared to not going along with loving Humbert. We don't know because the entire story is warped by the perspective of Humbert himself. He's really flowery with his descriptions and it's all obsessive and in his head. The entire story is suspicious because he can skew anything. Lolita could of ran away as a victim, too scared to leave any time beforehand. The entire love story is most likely obsessively one-sided. How can we trust a story told by an insane narrator? Humbert's narration must be unreliable. We will never get a clear point of view from Lolita. We will never really know why she runs away to Quilty. We can go along with Humbert's story and assume that it's because Lolita loved someone else, or that Quincy took Lolita from Humbert. However, it's more likely that she ran away because she wasn't in love with anyone - she was simply scared and wanted to get away.

The entire story is a confession. The author, Nabokov, writes suspiciously as a PhD using the excuse of writing the work as an "interesting case study", fascinating scientifically. As readers, we know it's a form of pornography, and he's obviously keeping an arms length away from the situation by dancing around the subject completely. He points that the reader must be a pedophile if they enjoy any bit of the story, an uncomfortable mind game because the entire story is told like a classic love story minus the age factor. We question our morals and Humbert's story as a confession of his crimes with Lolita. It's a misreading if a reader thinks that Humbert thinks of himself as a monster, even if he bluntly stated that he's a monster. He does that to cover himself in self-defense to the jury. Humbert never says that what he did was okay. He has no regrets when recounting his past with Lolita. He thinks that the morals of the world don't apply to him, that his actions are justified, better than the society norm. This questions readers even more as a moral/psychological/philosophical experiment. Morality is different to different audiences. 

I questioned the way I thought about morality. Sometimes I felt sorry for Humbert because he would show himself as a victim. But it is all distorted. His motives are selfish and lack morality. Any grown man who claims innocence to touching a young girl inappropriately isn't moral. They're simply pedophiles with excuses to justify their inappropriate actions. The victim doesn't seduce them. Humbert didn't bring Lolita on a trip through the states for the pure hell of it. It was an escape from the rest society to satisfy his sexual appetite. Humbert is no doubt a sexual predator. Humbert says that Lolita initiated sexual interaction, that it was consensual and she had even "done it before". Even if she was experimental, it is normal for her age to do so. The consensus that she is too young to be with Humbert, that society does not accept lovers of great age difference. It is socially more disgusting to the reader when reaching the turning point to where we know that she's just a thirteen year old child when she first sleeps with him. The idealist view of love is a consensual love. But this story questions if love is consensual at all. The reality of love is a possessive game of seduction with a seducer and a seduced. The seducer is obsessive and carried away, and the seduced is usually the stupid or damsel. Lolita is written like a classic love novel, where there are romantic expectations from society. Lolita is set in the 1950s, a time especially against the age difference of Humbert and Lolita as lovers. There is a lot of conflict in this beautified version of morally wrong love. It is too well crafted, too unsettling, pushing the boundaries of morality, and questioning what readers think is moral.

Production Notes Ghost World

I picked a screenplay at random from the professor's list. Screenplay is called Ghost World (2001) by Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff.

The story is set in an average neighborhood, at an average high school, with average situations and average high school seniors who end up graduating as the story unfolds. The main characters are initially two outcast girls. As the story progresses one of the girls[Rebecca] moves aside in importance when another character[Seymour] enters the picture, spending more time with the main girl, Enid.

Enid is the failed art student. She is the main character that never leaves the picture in importance. It is strange that this is so, considering she is characterized as the overlooked in society. She is the more aggressive, and verbally abusive of the two girls. She is extremely judgmental and has no future goals. Her way of seeking attention is to verbally put down others, aggressively putting herself up on a pedestal. She shows little remorse for her actions even to her loyal friend who practically follows her.

Rebecca is this follower friend. She's sarcastic and tends to only add similar commentary to Enid's verbal abuse and judgments. Rebecca stays at Enid's side no matter what the abuse and tags along in Enid's abusive games towards others such as Josh.

The other characters have other stereotypical character traits. Melorra is the hated ambitious and positive student. Todd is the friendly average awkward guy. Dennis is the dubbed nerd and loser. John is the obnoxious, big ego, asshole. And Josh is the common sensed and honest hard worker who Enid verbally abuses and takes advantage of.

The primary theme of the screenplay is self-exploration and discovery. Enid goes through the entire story by judging each and every character. It is her exportation of people that makes her more confused about her own self. She seems to be a child, afraid, and lacking courage. In her art class, we see glimpses of self-discovery from the other students, however, Enid seems to always fall short. She meets Seymour, an older man who is similar to Enid's childish manner. She sees in him herself, a lost existence, lacking courage.

She becomes very involved in Seymour's life, leaving her friend Rebecca forgotten. Enid feels like she has to help Seymour gain a life, her view being very shallow and undeveloped. She pushes Seymour to see women and makes him feel uncomfortable situations. Enid easily makes people uncomfortable wether she means it or not.

In the end, Enid learns a lot about herself(we can only hope so), and she leaves Seymour to get back to his lonely lifeless life. Enid gained self-discovery and realization that she actually doesn't want to be like Seymour at all, even though at the end she was practically alone just like Seymour. She doesn't want to be alone, yet she is because of her verbal abuse, her negligence towards her friendship with Rebecca, and her lies with Josh.

The two girls could either continue to be friends or just be acquaintances. I believe in the latter because Rebecca seems to have moved on. Rebecca got the guy[Josh], Enid lost him, she moved on from Seymour, and now she is alone. Stereotypically I would believe that Enid would have some sort of underlying jealousy towards the happy couple, and use her aggressive nature against them. I doubt their friendship would last much longer. Their friendship would either slowly dissipate into an acquaintanceship or be completely severed from something Enid would say. Nevertheless, Enid will be alone. She will have to start over in relations with people. And if she hasn't learned from her self-exploration and discovery, she will continue to be the stereotypical verbally abusive alone girl that she is.

Magic Marble

Heart of Darkness Has Little Impact on Current Generations

Heart of Darkness was an absolutely horrible read. It was difficult to follow and it was a chore for me to get through. It didn't engage me emotionally and I come away from it with only the gist of colonial times and imperialism. The entire story was rather a dry sum of Marlow's travel to meet with Kurtz and his experience of the uncivilized and civilized world. This book probably impacted many people's thoughts back when it was written, but today there is absolutely no connection and enjoyment. Sorry Joseph Conrad. I'm sure your works were highly recognized. 

Sorry Dorothy, You're Unrealistic

The Wizard of Oz

I don't particularly like The Wizard of Oz. Sorry Dorothy. I watched the movie when I was younger, and it put me off from reading the series. I was afraid of the wizard at the end, even if he was the good wizard. The image of a big head speaking over me and the sinister laughs of Miss Gulch and the witch, continue to haunt my dreams. I didn't fear the twister as much, I actually thought that was the best part of the entire film since I always wanted to know what it was like to be in a twister. But of course the entire story is dramatized and completely unreal. I'm sure this didn't amuse me as a child, I preferred to imagine things on my own accord. Over-dramatization such as that in theater was never an interest of mine. Even after reading The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, I didn't like the story. It's over hyped.

So there's a lot of symbolism like the magic ruby slippers, following the yellow brick road, going somewhere over the rainbow, and great life lessons such as never forgetting where you came from. 'There's no place like home', well, as long as you know where home is. It's inevitable to know some facts from The Wizard of Oz if you've grown up in the U.S. It's so engraved into our culture. I remember my mother being thrilled to watch the film any time it aired since it was popular in her lifetime. I recall her telling me how it was in black and white when she first saw it. Not that it makes much of a difference in my mind. Kansas seems just as desolate wether or not it's in black and white. Yeah, I know I'm stubborn. Who wouldn't want to leave and go over the rainbow?