The Future

I honestly don't know where the future will take me. I am about to graduate and have completely lost hope in my major, film, and I don't know wither or not if I wasted four years of my life. I might either be depressed, or maybe even going through a story that I might tell one day through another character. Life sucks, but it gives us something to write about. 

Satire and Sci-Fi

This week I watched The Truman show for the first time. Good movie, but to be honest, I would have been so pissed if I was Truman Burbank. As an audience member, I felt catfished along with the main character. My subconscious concentrated on the obvious, and without realising, I'd missed a lot of the main points that would have helped my understanding of the film further. After studying it carefully I started to notice the smaller details and codes that had been added to film, that before I would never have even considered looking for. What was striking about the opening sequence of the film was, there were credits for the film itself, followed by another set of credits for the show Christof directed. It was a very confusing start to the film because naturally after the first set of credits an audience would expect the film to begin. The conventions used in this section of the film were; Invisible filming, when Truman was looking in the mirror there was a camera directly behind. It's a documentary and soap. The aptly-named Christof is a mysterious character with a God complex who uses his omnipresence to control Truman - both physically and mentally for the sake of ratings. Weir and Niccol bring viewers' attention to how far the media is willing to go to gain an audience. Weir has said that he was editing The Truman Show during Princess Diana's death, and while he certainly blames the paparazzi who drove her off the road, he asserts that the audience who consumed her public identity was just as complicit. Similarly, Truman's audiences are complicit in his entrapment, as Christof would be powerless without their attention.

Literary Speculation

This week I read He, She and It by Marge Piercy. This novel sort of reminded me of
Frankenstein in a way.  The concept of this story is based around science converting to
rebirth of life. The central theme of Piercy's novel is that science, though necessary and
intellectually stimulating, is not the savior of humanity. The status of the world in 2059 is
clearly due, in large part, to the scientific advances of humanity. The scientifically provoked
"cyber-riots" occurred throughout the world as a response of fear that technology would replace
humans. The sweeping environmental disasters could not be averted by scientifically informed
"eco-police." Not only could science not avert the Two Week War, but it actually had enabled
the terrorist act which started this "conflagration of biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons that had set the oil fields aflame and destroyed the entire region". A secondary,
and yet equally important theme of this novel is that the distinction of human personhood
is sufficiently plastic that it may soon disappear. Not only does the sixteenth century Maharal
struggle with this idea, but today the increasing blend of mechanical and biological
components in medicine threatens to demolish any distinctions based solely on physical metrics.
Not only does humanity no longer inhabit an exalted place in the Piercy's universe, but it
is finally defined out of existence.

Diverse Position Science Fiction

This week I read Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood. This novel’s main story element was
based around freedom. This theme is first seen when the book opens and the only perspective
given to the reader is that of Lilith, who is being held captive. She has moments when she
appears to almost, or perhaps does, loose her sanity because of the cage she has been put in.
She has very little freedom while in the cage. The rest of Lilith's story focuses on the freedoms
that the people do not have now that they are being controlled by the Oankali. Lilith, and the
other Humans, do feel a great deal of pleasure when they are with the aliens but this pleasure
seemingly makes the Humans lose control and they do not like that feeling either. The Humans
feel that they are given no choice in the matter.

I found the alien concept interesting. The main character, Lilith Iyapo, awakens to find that
most of the Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war, and the surviving humans have been kept
in suspended animation by an alien race called the Oankali. The Oankali are driven to travel the
universe in search of other intelligent species to breed with in order to share their genetic code,
altering both species. This story also touches with real life situations such as Lilith dealing
with cancer after losing her family to the same situation.

Cyberpunk and Steampunk

This week I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Snow Crash contained many of the upper class American values such as religion, rules and order, and visions of America. Neal Stephenson shows us a version of America where issues that are currently corrupted and how it has impacted our society. There are sections that shows how Immigration goes rabid on the Raft and how racism becomes institutionalized in skin-color segregated Burbclaves. Sacrifice Zones are cordoned off as parts of the land that are too contaminated to ever be reclaimed for use. Not all of the characters in Snow Crash are religious as others, and the non-believer characters get to have a say in how to interpret and implement religious ideas, too. We see a range of religious believers and the underlying message is that religion is complex. Just like humanity. In the Snow Crash, having money or the right connections will get you pretty far, which is how our society works as well. Snow Crash digs deep into its impact, exploring notions of linguistic infrastructure, glossolalia (speaking in tongues), and neurolinguistic programming. The main point is that language is a tool: In the hands of the right people, it's constructive and lets folks communicate, while in the hands of the wrong people, it can be destructive beyond measure.

Blood Child

1. What was your reaction to what you just read?

I found Bloodchild interesting. I am obsessed with aliens and their infereiations with male pregnancies in different stories. In fact, my senior thesis is about a stoner who gets abducted and pregnant by aliens which is how I connected to this story. There is a strong connection between Gan and his mother's situation. In the story, the mother cannot bear children, but her son is carrying a child.

2. What connections did I get from the story?

Other than my thesis film Probaphobe, which relates to this story, I really connected with how weird the story was. I love reading unusual stories with weird concepts.

3. What changes would I make to this story? What media would you choose?

If I were to change this story, I would adapt it into am action comic book series. This is an interesting story with a strong concept. I feel like it would play well in comic books due to more illustration freeform creativity. It would be cool to see the different concept art for the aliens.

The Fiction of Ideas

This week, I read the female man which hit a lot of controversial points and
carried strong subtexts such as masculinity, gender/sexual orientation, and sexual identity.
This novel came out in the mid 70’s just right before we hit the big gay area where more people
were coming out of the closet.

The Female Man talks a lot about what proper girls and women are supposed to feel and
do. Topping the list are activities like being attractive, being pleasant, and being attentive.
Things that don't make the cut include being ambitious, wanting fulfillment outside of marriage
and motherhood, and being intellectually and/or sexually attracted to other women. Femininity
in this novel is a web of social expectations that make women easy prey for power-hungry men.
Only in Whileaway, where men no longer exist, can women experiment and explore without being
told that their actions aren't properly "womanly."

Masculinity in The Female Man goes hand-in-hand with patriarchal power. The most
conventionally masculine men in this novel are also the most dangerous, and the book suggests
that that's not a coincidence. As you encounter one no-good, dirty, rotten scoundrel after another,
it may seem as though The Female Man is all about hating on the mens. While Joanna Russ is certainly
free with her anger, sarcasm, and satire, it could be said that the real antagonists of the novel aren't men
themselves, but the social conventions that teach young males to be aggressive, domineering, and
violent toward women.

It can be difficult to separate questions concerning sexuality and sexuality identity from the act of sex itself in The Female Man, because so often the characters' sexual encounters are staged to tell us something about their societies more generally. For instance, Joanna and Laura have to overcome powerful anxieties before they accept that they want to be with women, and the novel suggests that those anxieties are products of the patriarchal world they're stuck in. Janet, who comes from a world where patriarchy no longer exists, has none of the same concerns. On Whileaway, no one thinks of herself as "lesbian"—women's sexual relationships with other women are so natural, there's no need to have a specific word for them.

Space Opera

After reading The Martian by Andy Weir, I was fascinated by the elements Weir
portrayed in the novel such as isolation, sacrifice, and man vs the world. The main character,
Mark Watney, gets stuck on Mars for almost two years. Two years. Over the course of that time,
Mark becomes acquainted with the red planet on a level that no one ever has before.

In The Martian, Mark is stranded on Mars, separated from everyone and everything he holds dear.
It's a life filled with danger, disaster, and panic, yet the thing that stings the most are his feelings of
loneliness. Sometimes they make him feel a little crazy. Sometimes they just make him feel hopeless.
As we see him adapt and fight back against these dark feelings, however, we learn a lot about the
powerful effects isolation can have on even the strongest minds.

The novel is filled with instances of people sacrificing something important to them for the sake of others, whether we're talking about NASA's massive budgetary sacrifices or the very personal ones of the Hermes crew. There might be some parallel universe out there where Mark gets stuck on Mars and everyone is too occupied to notice, but we can guarantee that's not happening here. If anything, the novel shows us that the desire to give up our well-being for the sake of others is hard-wired into our DNA.

Mythic Fiction and Contemporary Urban Fantasy

Charles de Lint  Memory and Dream Uses the colorful, mythical North American
city of Newford as an artistic background. de Lint illustrates rich tapestry of myth and
magic by using painting on a deeper level, creation-as a metaphor throughout the book. Following
the life of artist Isabelle Copley, de Lint confronts head on the harsh realities of denial, abusive
relationships, suicide and ultimately, responsibility for one's own actions.

    This novel reminded me of the film Night at the Museum, where the arework came to life.
The mythical structure of alive artwork brings a strong concept by portraying the artist as a form of
God, or mother by creating a form of life that will have impact on society.  de Lint’s  multi-voiced,
time-shifting narrative, which story spans 20 years, beautifully evokes a sense of creative community,
making it almost possible to believe that the rarified aesthetic atmosphere might well be capable of
conjuring up a spirit or two. The theme goes even deeper, as we can consider the strange connections
between reality and fantasy, and the importance of the stories we tell. The idea of the relationship
between Izzy and her numena can be understood in many ways. One of the most basic is as a
commentary about family, and the way that parents create children, and the accompanying
obligations. Another version of this theme is de Lint himself as creator; de Lint has become
more concerned with social justice over the years, as we read about the underdog, the importance
of community, and how the marginalized voices are generally given preference in Newford. Most
of these concerns grow organically from a well-told and interesting narrative.

The Novel of Spiritual Education

In Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus Moregenstern's  creates a fantasy world
into a novel with romance woven throughout it. It is a nonlinear narrative with
a story that jumps back and forth between time periods, characters, and places.
One character lives in Massachusetts, which is where Morgenstern grew up and
still lives. Some would infer that these characters and the novel itself is about
experiences from his life.

The story comes with many literary themes such as magic, love and rivalry.
The theme of magic occupies a leading position in the story. Although the biggest
part of

it is dedicated to a competition between Celia and Marco, it also depicts people’s

attitude to magic and mysteries. The most interesting thing is that almost all
human beings are equally fascinated by it and scared of it. Rather than believe
in magic is the element of “ people see what they wish to see ”. Mostly people
are so terrified of a mere idea that there is something in the world that could never
be explained logically that they see “ what they are told they see ”. It is no wonder
that people behave like that; all in all, mankind has always had a difficult relationship
with magic and witchcraft. At the same time, a life without magic is too predictable
and the majority of people don’t mind to enjoy it from time to time. That is the reason
why people still buy tickets to a circus and use cards to read the future. Whereas ones

argue over love’s role, both Marco and Celia knows that it is the most valuable
thing in their lives. It doesn’t only help them to feel alive but helps them to solve a
problem which used to be insoluble. The story depicts different kinds of love which
are for friends, for work, and for competitions.

The Heroic Journey

For this week I read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I didn’t know that this book even existed until now. The novel is narrated by King Arthur's half sister, Morgan Le Fay, who is one of the witches of Avalon. She tells all of the other witches side of the story and explains the reasoning and decisions that Arthur made in the women’s perspective. The novel is told by the four women instrumental to the story who are Gwenhwyfar, his wife; Igraine, his mother; Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, High Priestess of Avalon; and his sister and lover, Morgaine tells her side of the story as the narrator. The stories are told by what they saw and how the situations happened. The struggle between Christianity and the religion of Avalon is a central part of the story, and Arthur’s loyalty to and betrayal of Avalon another part. I found it fascinating of how the main King Arthur novels show the women as either submissive or evil, but this novel portrays the women as powerful and shows how they rebelled against King Arthur if they were portrayed as evil in the previous novels.

The novel told Most Medieval Romance differently from those of the realistic novel. The plots,
like those of the romance, divide into sharply separate episodes that often do not seem joined in
in any obvious order and generally take the form of tests that they must pass to attain some
goal. Frequently, the generally male protagonist fails tests, which often involve acts of moral and
spiritual perception, until such point that he finally follows advice.

Witches and Women in Genre

This week I read the novel Aunt Maria. Even Though the beginning and pace of the novel came
off a little slow, I appreciated the premise of overcoming life obstacles and taking on
hard situations. Aunt Maria’s archetype not only signified as a hero, but also as a caregiver.
Her character treats difficult relationships and abuses of power. The main character, Mig,

and her older brother Chris face a parental breakup, then their mother's total subjection to their

great-aunt. The stresses of life given with Aunt Maria are developed in a suspenseful story which

includes a ghostly apparition and other paranormal phenomena. Although the happenings are

often improbable, Mig and Chris are believable characters who face real life situations that most

people can relate to such as heartbreak, abandonment, or living through a divorce.

Aunt Maria is characterized as the "Great Dictator," the "Queen of Cranbury," and the
"Female Pope." Even though she gives the impression of being lonely, helpless, and
kind, she rules with an iron hand through provocation of guilt, disapproving suggestion,
and her magical powers. The most unique part of the story was that If Anyone does not
obey her every command, they may be transformed into an animal or even an object. This
concept shows power in women, and control over society. A reference to Aunt Maria would be the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella story, where she is the magical force that pushes the main

character to move forward and guide them away from life obstacles.  

Old Weird and New Weird

From reading the novel Swan Song, the reader could infer that the concept of this story is only weird in a artistic
way. The story has strong value of fear being populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth’s last
survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity. I was basically
getting end of the world vibes in a unusual way to wear the monsters are the good guys, and the beautiful creatures are
the bad guys, which is why many would find the novel weird or unusual. As an horror story, this element is completely
normal, due to the origin of grotesque characters in storytelling throughout centuries.

The main element that intrigued me the most would be the theory of Beauty on the Inside Versus Beauty
on the Outside. The main character Swan does not understand why beautiful people would be mean and vice
versa, and Leona says that God had not figured out how to show people's souls on the outside. This element is
symbolic to the society that we live in today. Believe it or not, there are people out there who thinks that a
pretty face and body comes with a beautiful personality, and from experience most of the worst people
I have met were attractive or well put together, but their personality did not make up for it. In contrast, some
of the most attractive broken people i’ve met has had the most sincere, loving, and caring hearts on this earth.

Japanese horror

A Wild Sheep Chase explores themes of separation and isolation, anti-authoritarianism, and
animist spirituality through the surreal tale of a man trying to track a mysterious sheep. This
novel ties in with the nature of good and evil in how we as humans transforms, or the
stimulation of rebirth that develops the transition from good to evil or vise versa. There is also
that there of What is good? What is evil? The main character goes through situations where he has
to beat all odds against himself and that drives the story. As the novel goes on, the viewpoint
of the main character changes, and the first person point of view allows the reader to see
such changes clearly.The novel gives subtext of a man and the lack of societal values and
links between the man and his own world.

Wild sheep chase reflects more in the originated gothic theme, more than horror. When reading this, I did not feel a sense of fear of alertness, but more of the sense of grieving. Isolation, which is a gothic element, ties to this novel. Throughout the novel, isolation and self alienation are primary themes. The main character has, throughout his entire life, chosen a path of self isolation to avoid true emotional connections to the outside world. His existence has been completely self centered. Because of his obsession with the sheep, the Sheep Professor also chose isolation as opposed to existing within the world. The Rat chose isolation from others due to a desire for others not to see him give in to weakness. The Boss chose isolation because of a need to run his empire in the shadows. The Anui guide became isolated after giving up on humanity and their warlike nature. The sheep caretaker isolated himself, to a point, because he preferred the simplicity of sheep over the complexity of social interactions. It is clear from these characters that isolation of self is used in the novel as a means.

Week 2: Vampires

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Throughout the course of time, vampire stories have changed to symbolize the context between the supernatural grotesque characters to real life human nature. There’s more to vampirism than sucking blood, sleeping in coffins, or fleeing away in bat form. We have to think of how vampirism connects itself with the day-to-day life of a normal human. Even Though early novels show vampirism in a way that is more complex in theory, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight brings vampirism in the norm, which humanizes vampires in a different way that has been done in the past.

In Twilight, the vampires are hidden internally, instead of externally. For example, all of the normal characters can see them, they know who they are as people, and they develop acquaintance with them without being the prey. These are not the type of vampires to hide during the day, then hunt through the night. Instead, the vampires withhold the secrets of their mortality from others around them. This context humanizes the vampire to the readers instead of us believing that they are monsters. The book also gives the vampire's a more sex appeal imagery, instead of the disturbing monster look.

Romanticism also carries a different value when it comes to Twilight. Bella and Edward’s encounter relates to audiences who have lust over mysterious attractive strangers especially in their teenage years. The reader would encounter this theory when Bella starts to think about Edward more after; he rudely avoids her during their first encounter. Later on in the story, we see Edward as the hero when he saves her from being raped. We are introduced to Edward’s fountain of truth when he walks into the sun and sparkles to show that he is a vampire. This context symbolizes how we as humans open up to our significant others honesty and to prevail our hidden truths.

The main course of love subtext that one could see in this novel is that Edward refuses to imprint Bella, even though she accepts him and wants to join him in the essence of immortality. We see how Edward is miserable with being immortal, and does not wants to Bella to be in internal pain with him, but we also see that Bella wants to be with him forever.

Week One: Beginning with Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein carried strong sub textual elements of gothic nature that relates to grotesque figures, religion, and death. The theme of the novel is that the pursuit of knowledge is at the heart of Frankenstein as the protagonist, Victor, attempts to push beyond accepted human limits to and access the secret of life. Along with the horror tone that goes along with the story, it does carry some characteristics of beauty in nature and rebirth.

     Victor’s character is set around gothic aesthetics due to his curiosity on creating life around death. He forms this human-like monster by taking dead body parts from corpse and putting them together to form a new source of life that is not formed of nature. This illusion is dark based on the gothic interpretation on death, but beautiful in a way due to a form of resurrection. Victor’s recreation on life also symbolizes gothic subcultures such as rebirth and suggests immortality or eternal life.

     Religion is also tied to gothic culture, so there are also an element that portrays God and human mortality. Gothic culture also embeds the cross as a symbol. Victor is looks beyond the mortality of nature by creating life to obey him, just like in Christianity, God created life for a reason and purpose. The most effective context of religion was the symbolism of light and fire. The light symbolizes knowledge, discovery, and enlightenment in which, natural world is a place of dark secrets, hidden passages, and unknown mechanisms; the goal of the scientist is then to reach light. The dangerous and more powerful cousin of light is fire. The monster’s first experience with a still-smoldering flame reveals the dual nature of fire. He discovers that it creates light in the darkness of the night, but also that it harms him when he touches it.